Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld
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Book Reviews of Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak
Book Review: The Words of Killers
Summary: 4 Stars
Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld is not a book burdened by brilliant rhetorical flourishes or mind blowing metaphors that the literary crowd will blister about for hours on end, but it then again, it wasn't supposed to be. The book is written in fairly simple though articulate prose and that's were it derives it's beauty from. This simple prose adds to the frightening quality this book has to it. Hatzfeld travels to a Rwandan prison to interview several perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide about the reasons why they so willingly slaughtered 800,000-1 million people during the 1994 genocide. Their explanations delivered without complex rhetorical devises are enough to make the sane and logical person's skin crawl. These men are largely unrepentant for their actions and always have something else to blame from the leadership within the community, dynamics of groupthink, absence of a god, and most pronounced the ability to stop seeing your Tutsi neighbor as a human being, but rather a common cockroach or snake that needs to be stepped on... i.e. killed. For a frightening and often maddening look into the minds of genocidal killers, pick up Machete Season ASAP.
Book Review: The Murderers Speak
Summary: 4 Stars
The author interviewed in prison a group of friends,a seemingly ordinary crosssection of Rawandan Hutu farmers, who willingly and enthusiastically participated in the brutal extermination of their Tutsi neighbors. The book draws parallels with previous genocides such as perpetuated by the Nazi's and others thruout history. The killers seemed to look upon the massacres as pretty much of a job. With an added benefit often of rape and plunder. An incredibly disturbing, but true story. An interesting sidenote was the significant role played by radio broadcasts in inciting the mobs. Also, how The Church and U.N. and the rest of the world pretty much left the victims to their fates. Amazing as it may seem there were virtually no instances in which Hutus tried to save Tutsis who had been former friends. This whole dark blot on history must not be forgotten.Book Review: Matter of horrible fact.
Summary: 4 Stars
An excellent exposure of some of the killers and motivations behind the day to day genocide in Rwanda.
It gave me even more insight into the horrors of the time. I have not read the account of the survivors by the same author, but this is a good place to start. Regular citizens from the Collines tell us what we don't want to hear, confirming the complicity of the holy and the high and the fleeting satisfaction of covetousness and acquisition- All accompanied by the regular, relentless and heartless swinging of the machetes.
You feel helpless, like those unfortunates hiding in the marshes.
Book Review: Machete Season
Summary: 4 Stars
Hatzfeld's book is a welcome addition to the published works on the subject of the Rwandan genocide. It would have benefitted by Hatzfeld making use of his access to the prisoners by actually asking probing questions, but such was not his method. A brief histoty of European influence on Rwanda and it's native peoples would also have been welcome, although from my reading neither this information nor any other lends a believable explanation for the Rwandan genocidal chaos of 1994.Book Review: 500,000 not 50,000
Summary: 4 Stars
There's a blazing typo in the editorial Booklist review. Approximately 500,000 to over 1,000,000 human beings, not the stated 50,000, were murdered in the Rwandan massacre.