Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.93 You Save: $8.07 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.48 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak
Book Review: Not the book to begun with, but a book for deeper digging
Summary: 5 Stars
I would recommend that anyone just starting to study the genocide in Rwanda start with Tomorrow We wish to inform you...
If you want to continue to get insights into this horrible time, Jean Hatzfield's two books should be read. His reflections mirrored my own questions, and even the guarded stories of the killers show their hearts. One killer says, "Someone had failed to finish the job, so I followed the target and finished it." as a reference to killing a neighbor. The killers' complete belief that they only had to ask for forgiveness and it would be granted and they could live together as one happy neighborhood is a sign of their lack of understanding of the horror that was done.
I was especially horrified that Hatfield could find few people who aided a former friend or neighbor, and that the killers had so little remorse that no one committed suicide. They expected no consequences, and in the end, they got a fairly short jail term. They were right, no one really cared.
I was searching for signs that could bring early intervention, but there really didn't seem to be something that was big or significant. Only greed, obedience when it suits, mob thinking and abdication by good people.
Although not as graphic as some books I have read on Rwanda, there are sentences that will haunt you forever, and images you wish were not in your mind. But they happened and we owe it to the survivors to listen.
Book Review: A Harrowing Read
Summary: 5 Stars
This book remains the most difficult read I have ever endured. It is harrowing in the scope of it's horror and deceiving in the simplicity of how it depicts how such an atrocity could be enacted. The voices speak for themselves, and one must be careful after awhile to recognize they are speaking of going off to work each day to slaughter other human beings not to plow the fields. I actually had to put this one down for stretches of time on a couple of occasions.
Judgements on the format aside, this is indeed one that should be required reading. Yes, the culprits are reluctant to admit their guilt, but one must bring something to this tome. It is in their denial that you can recognize how such a tragedy could transpire. Faced with difficult choices, most human beings will do what they must to survive. That instinct can conceal a plethora of evil deeds. These are flawed people that commited monsterous deeds when confronted with these choices. They succumbed and learned to minimize their role in this tragedy rather than face being ostracized or much worse by their friends and neighbors. A powerful, powerful book.
Book Review: An enormously important book
Summary: 5 Stars
Machete Season recounts the story of 10 men that were responsible for horrific murders and atrocities in Rwanda. Acts that are difficult to fathom for most of us. Mr. Hatzfeld's writing is wonderful and his interviews with the killers help shed light into the horrific mindset of these men. This is a very important book to read since it makes clear the peril of group thinking and how easily the corruption of the human being can descend lower than that of the worst beasts. To dismiss these actions as pure evil is both simplistic and terribly dangerous. There are great lessons to be learned by the atrocities that were committed in Rwanda. We ought to feel a certain amount of shame for not getting involved, as a country, sooner, and we should seriously consider the utter ineffectiveness of the United Nations in conflict resolution.Book Review: Stunning
Summary: 5 Stars
As a psychologist my goal is to read as many books as I can on stories like this. I really was looking to get into the minds of those who were willing to kill for no other reason than they wanted to. It really makes me think of "group think."
I was intrigued and saddened by the unnecessary killings- and after all was done and said how the "killers" felt afterward and how their lives were now.
A must read book- you will understand more about human beings than you ever thought you would.
Book Review: The Veil of Humanity is Thin
Summary: 4 Stars
Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld is a book that tells the story of ten killers who willingly participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Hatzfeld interviews these ten killers at their prison and covers different topics such as their first victim, punishment, looting, rape, remorse and regrets, etc. The information is self reported so don't expect the complete truth; only the version of the truth that the killers want you to know. Hatzfeld provides plenty examples of unforgiving brutality. When the topic of regret is discussed the killers talk only about their personal losses and hardships, not those of their victims.
Fulgence, one of the killers, in referring to the first time he killed states: "First I cracked an old mama's skull with a club. But she was already lying almost dead on the ground, so I did not feel death at the end of my arm. I went home that evening without even thinking about it."
Pio, one of the killers states: "Many Tutsis showed a dreadful fear of being killed, even before we started to hit them...So this terror helped us to strike them."
Fulgence, one of the killers states: "We became more and more cruel, more and more calm, more and more bloody...The more we cut, the more cutting became child's play to us. For a few, it tuned into a treat, if I may say so."
Leopord, one of the killers states: "I want to make clear that from the first gentleman I killed to the last, I was not sorry about a single one."
Jean-Baptiste, one of the killers states: "At first killing was obligatory; afterward we got used to it. We became naturally cruel."
Alphonse, one of the killers states: "saving the babies, that was not practical. They were whacked against walls and trees or they were cut right away."
One story was told as follows: "They surrounded the maternity hospital. They ripped down the gates, they simply shot up the locks...They killed the women with machetes and clubs. Whenever one of the more agile girls managed to escape in the commotion and get out a window, she was caught in the gardens. When a mama had hidden a child underneath her, they picked her up first, then cut the child, then cut its mother...they slammed them against the walls to save time, or hurled them alive on the heaps of corpses."
If you are looking for rational or logical answers as to "why" these killers behaved they way they did you won't find them in this book. Oftentimes the killers use rationalizations and minimizations when referring to the butchering that they repeatedly participated in day after day resulting in the slaughter of innocent men, women, children and babies. No Tutsi was spared death. Remorse and regret are slim and mostly self serving and fail to come across as authentic. Whatever apologies they offer are hollow and empty. We live in a world where evil is alive and strong. It doesn't have to look like Hitler, Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Ted Bundy. As Machete Season has proved it could be your neighbor, soccer teammate or drinking partner. Most of these killers are no longer in prison having served very short prison sentences. Only one was given the death penalty but it is more likely that he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Justice has not been served for the victims of this genocide.
Machete Season shows that the veil of humanity is thin and once pierced society breaks down and brutality ensues.