Shake Hands with the Devil by LGen. Roméo Dallaire

This book is a day-by-day account of the Rwandan genocide as told through the eyes of the Canadian general who was leading the UN peacekeeping mission. We all know about Rwanda and I really have nothing to say in the face of a firsthand account, so instead I'm going to write about my reaction to the book.

It's been ten years since the Rwandan genocide, and in that time I've read a lot of news articles and firsthand accounts, and even handled on one or two Rwandan refugee statements in my professional capacity, so I came into this book with a good idea of what to expect in the way of atrocities. It turns out the book didn't present any new atrocities that I wasn't already aware of, so I found myself having the strange and inappropriate reaction of "This isn't as bad as I expected!" It is bad, of course, and should be seriously upsetting to any sane person who did not know what to expect, but because I had learned about all this before - and done my crying, mourning, freaking out and having nightmares when I first learned about it - I found myself in the shameful position of sitting on the subway reading descriptions of atrocities with complete sangfroid. I'm not sure yet how I feel about that.

The second strange reaction I had to this book was I found myself comparing General Dallaire's authorial voice to that of Roger Caron, which is a completely inapt comparison. I think it's because both men were so heavily influenced by their institutional surroundings. In some parts of the book, the fact that Dallaire is so imbued in military culture comes through very clearly For example, he refers to "deploying" a map, in a completely non-military concept, to describe the act of opening it up on a table. In another part, he realizes that some soldiers are more interested in preserving their own lives than carrying out the mission, and he seems to react with complete incomprehension - like he cannot understand why on earth someone would want to preserve their own life when there's a mission to be accomplished. (Yes, I can see how that attitude would make his job more difficult, but I would think the human condition would at least explain the self-preservation instinct).

Overall, it is not an enjoyable book - not because it's a bad book, but because it's difficult and, well, about genocide - but it is an important one. If you choose to read it, the best thing you could do in respect of the book and it's author is make sure you're wearing your critical thinking hat throughout the whole thing.