Risk, sensibility, ethics and justice in the later Levinas
pp. 47-72
in: Sean Watson, Anthony Moran (eds), Trust, risk and uncertainty, Berlin, Springer, 2005Abstract
During the Rwandan massacres of 1997, Paul Rusesabagina, manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, repeatedly used a fax line which the Hutu leaders had forgotten to cut, vainly attempting to alert the White House, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in France and others to the horrors of the genocide there, knowing that if caught, he faced instant death. "He would stay up until four in the morning — sending faxes, calling, ringing the whole world." The church of Sainte Famille was just down the hill from the hotel. Later, Paul exclaimed, "But you know, Sainte Famille also had a working phone line, and that priest Father Wenceslas, never used it. My goodness!" Asked why, he answered, "That"s a mystery … Everyone could have done it." Challenged during the period as to the incongruity of carrying a gun, Father Wenceslas replied, "They"ve already killed fifty-nine priests; I don"t want to be the sixtieth" (Gourevitch, 1998: 132–6).
