Romeo Dallaire: Are We All Human?

Published April 15, 2008
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By Alexander Hemmer

Waiting in line for Romeo Dallaire’s lecture in Ira Allen last Thursday, I wasn’t expecting anything extraordinary. I had seen the documentary about his time in Rwanda, Shake Hands With the Devil, and I expected the lecture to retell his story. As the field commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, Dallaire was forced to witness the slaughter of 800,000 men, women and children. The tiny number of troops he led was hardly enough to protect the UN compound, let alone stem the violence that was raging throughout the country. The rest of the world chose not to send more peacekeepers into the area, thus leaving the people of Rwanda helpless in their terrible plight.

I figured Dallaire would rail against the U.S. and Europe for their inaction, and explain how governments in the future should react to similar atrocities. But his testimony dug far deeper into my psyche than I was prepared for. He laid the blame not on the politicians and bureaucrats, but on you and me, the ordinary people of the developed world.

He laid it out so simply that I had no other option but to confront the awful reality. Genocides and abuses of humanity, like Rwanda and Darfur, are permitted to continue because people like us just don’t care enough. Sure, we say we hate the way things are done around the world, but will we actually do anything about it? For most of us, the answer is no. Chances are I’ll spend more time worrying about how and where I’ll be getting drunk this weekend than about how I could help end the suffering of these people.

More than anything, I realized just how selfish we are. What gives us the right to sit back in our lush, safe homes (or dorm rooms) and tell ourselves it’s okay that half the world’s population won’t get enough to eat today, or that children are growing up with AK-47’s instead of schoolbooks in their hands? We may not often realize it, but we live a life of privilege that most of the people on this earth could never even imagine.

We did not earn this prosperity, and nor did our parents. The reason I’m going to school at UVM and not starving to death in a refugee camp in Darfur is nothing but pure luck. My life has been pretty much handed to me, yet I can’t spare the time to even think about the billions of people who fight for survival on a daily basis. There is absolutely no justification for why we allow certain people to enjoy the extravagances in life while denying others the bare minimum. In the end, Dallaire said, we are all human, and no more than anyone else.

As Dallaire finished his speech and left the stage, the audience responded with a rousing, standing ovation. My own applause, however, sounded strangely hollow as I realized that this meaningless gesture might be the extent of my contribution to
making a change in how human rights are viewed and treated. But I am determined not to let Dallaire’s words go unheeded. This article is just the first step.

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