Does genocide mean less when it happens in Africa than when it happens in Europe?  Did the West fail to act when hundreds of thousands were brutally murdered in Rwanda (and let’s not forget the Congo or Darfur) because the lives of black people just aren’t worth the cost in white lives?

Those questions sound awful.  They are hard to ask ourselves because it could well be that there is some truth in the accusation.  Certainly racism isn’t the only reason this atrocity got out of hand, but it is likely that it is one reason among many.  Beyond the Gates makes this accusation in a variety of ways.



The story is based the experience of producer and co-writer David Belton, who covered the genocide for the BBC.  Most of the Europeans had been evacuated by the time he had arrived.  France and Italy sent in troops to lead white people to safety, leaving the Africans to be slaughtered.  UN forces including soldiers from Canada and Belgium were instructed to observe only.  The use of force was limited to self defense; they were not authorized to do anything to stop the fighting.

Throughout the film, we see that race had a great deal to play in the response made by Western nations.  After people start flooding into the school, including many Europeans who were in Kigali, the Belgian army captain holds a briefing—but it is only for the Europeans; all the Africans are excluded.  When French soldiers show up with trucks for evacuations, only whites are allowed.

But the film shows its greatest disappointment with the BBC crew that is present.  (Perhaps this is part of Belton’s way of doing penance for what he went through.)  When Joe, the young teacher from the school, makes a risky trip to get his friend Rachel, a BBC reporter, to come and film what is happening at the school, she doesn’t want to because it will never be shown.  There’s just no point in reporting on so many dead blacks.  It is only after Joe tells her that there are Europeans at the school that she agrees to come.  That will be news.

Later, Rachel reflects about this violence as opposed to what she had seen in Bosnia.  When she covered the Bosnian ethnic cleansing, she was moved to tears by the bodies they would come across.  But here it was different.  It was not that she had become inured to what was happening.  She said that when she saw a woman’s body in Bosnia, she considered that that could be her grandmother.  In Rwanda she just didn’t identify with the people in the same intimate way.

That comparison to Bosnia is important for us to keep in mind as we consider the charge that racism was involved in the non-action in Rwanda by Western powers.  Both were genocides.  In Bosnia, troops sent by other countries went there to put an end to the violence.  But in Rwanda, the foreign troops under UN authority had no such mandate, and following their orders, did very little to preserve life.  Belton comments in the film’s press notes: “At the time that the UN was bolstering its forces in Bosnia, it was running away from Africa.  It was clear that there were two rules for international intervention: if you were white or had something the West wanted, you’d get the interest of the Security Council.   But if you were black or poor—forget it.  You were on your own.”

We have to ask why the two situations were treated so differently.  Race is not the only issue involved, and it would be simplistic to assert that; but it is hard to consider an answer to that question that does not include race.