Distrust and Victimhood in Post-Conflict Rwanda in Paul Rusesabagina’s an Ordinary Man

This article interrogates discourses of distrust and victimhood in An Ordinary Man (2007), the autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina, hero of the award-winning feature film Hotel Rwanda. The aim of the article is to highlight the ways in which such discourses have been engendered by historical inequities between Hutus and Tutsis as well as by institutional practices that serve the self-preserving interests of the country's ruling elites. The article also explores the demonstrable implications of these discourses on Hutu-Tutsi relations in particular, and the country's on-going social and political reconstruction in general, as these are reflected in Rusesabagina's narrative. The discussion is set within the context of a representative depiction of recent and not-too-recent developments with particular regard to the state and national politics in Rwanda.