Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide

If the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide interviewed by political science professor Straus are to be believed, virtually none of them acted voluntarily; it was only because their own lives were threatened that they shot, stabbed and bludgeoned to death thousands of Tutsis. The plausibility of their stories is left up to the reader. "The book's purpose," writes Straus, "is not to interpret or analyze... but to present largely unmediated narratives and images." Fair enough. If intended purely as a primary source on the genocide, Straus's text may indeed be useful. It is the book's second section, comprising unremarkable portraits of Rwandans by Lyons, which is more problematic. "I felt that condemning those responsible for the genocide too easily makes them into the 'other,' " writes Lyons, who therefore alternates images of perpetrators with victims to emphasize their similarities. Would such sensitivity to criminals be contemplated if they were not African? Would Lyons present side-by-side photos of Holocaust victims and Nazis? Lynching victims and KKK members? Lyons, in making the point that we are all capable of cruelty, conflates a generalized potential for evil with actual acts of genocide. In the process, he takes moral relativism to a mushy-headed extreme. (Apr.)