Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey

The Rwandan massacres seemed to barely make the news cycle in the United States, and while our government shamefully refused to take any action to prevent the massacres, many international news organizations placed reporters in jeopardy to uncover the events of that harrowing month. Feargal Keane's book is a very personal and immediate account of what happened in his time reporting on the attempted genocide. While I do agree with other reviewers that his account does not attempt to place the regional tensions into a broader context (like Gourevitch's excellent "We regret to inform you..."), it does more to involve the reader in the stinging reality of what was happening at the very moment of the crisis. His fear is palpable, and as he drives up to each roadblock, his writing conveys the uncertainly of that situation, of the drunk soldiers, of those in the bush trying to avoid them, etc. It is this immediacy that makes the book so valuable in my mind, that it puts you so close to the nightmare as it was happening makes this an unforgettable and immensely distressing read. It is these kinds of images, written or drawn, that might move our leaders to act.

Rwananda is so far away from New York. I never paid any attention while the violence was taking place. I should have. We all should have. I have never read such a powerful book before. In just a few short pages the horror of what happened is described in ways you will never forget. The scene at the church was one of the saddest things i have ever read. This book is a must read on what is happening in Africa. The book shows how the European Scramble for Africa of the 19th century and the meaningless borders the imperialists created still effect the continent today.

After watching "Swimming to Cambodia" Spalding Gray said one line that I'll paraphrase, "Maybe there's this great cloud of evil that floats over the planet and randomly lands somewhere every so often." Well, from Cambodia to Rwanda, that about sums it up because there is really no other explanation for the horrors of the genocide that occurred there. Feargal Keane has written a superb account of his journey into Rwanda shortly after the 1994 genocide. It's a well-balanced look at both sides with Keane able to access both Hutu and Tutsi areas (albeit sometimes with great difficulty and not a little danger). The human face of the "war" so often missed by Western journalists is really brought to the fore by Keane's insightful and extremely compassionate account.

At about 200 pages, I was able to read this book in one week-end. This very moving personal account of the author's experince's in Rwanda during the final phase of the 1994 genocide left me with a deep sense of the horror that overcame the people of Rwanda. I highly reccommend this book that gives one a glimpse of the fear and vicousness of Rwanda's torment.

I find it difficult to describe what I think of this book. The idea is very clear in my mind, but once I try to put it down on paper, words cannot describe how I feel. We have all grown up in a society that is used to hear about, to see violence, even sometimes to use it. When we see images on T.V. showing killings happening everyday around the world, we are so familiarized with it, that we are de-humanized, and many times this images do not touch our hearts. As I was reading this book I was shocked by the level of brutality a human being, if deserved to be called so, can reach. Ignorant masses, shamefully, are easily controlled and manipulated by elites, reaching levels of violence, that maybe not even them could imagine. Fergal Keane has a special talent to describe in a peace of paper things going on around him. He describes things in such a way that he opens our eyes and touches our hearts. I cannot deny that a couple of times as I read this book, tears rolled down my cheeks and a feeling of impotence grew inside of me while I turned the pages and kept on reading. It is amazing how the International Institutions and some Western countries, sat down with their arms crossed and watched the genocide go on. I can not understand how they could argue about economic issues, while they were facing such an incident. The book is excellent, very easy and fast to read, and is written in a very wise way. While he centers in telling about his journey in Rwanda, the conflict is perfectly understood by the time the book is read.