Ghosts of Rwanda in The Public Sphere

The court of public opinion does not require one to solemnly swear to tell the truth nor to follow any rules of law. Nevertheless that does not stop the public sphere to condemn criminals that were found innocent by the judiciary system nor to justify an ethnic genocide on a deranged ideology. From the O.J. Simpson trial to the Rwandan mass killing, the public has taken justice into their own hands throughout history, at times with devastating consequences. Ever since democracy took hold in modern times, strengthening the public sphere, people have become acting and non-acting vigilantes, believing they have the ultimate power to change the status quo, to make the major decisions. The irony lays on the fact that capitalism usually rules over democracy. The public sphere may believe it has the dominance over what happens in a democratic state, but the private sphere, meaning corporations are usually behind the world's major accords. "The idea of the public sphere, preserved in the
social welfare state mass democracy, an idea which calls for a rationalization of power through the medium of public discussion among private individuals, threatens to disintegrate with the structural transformation of the public sphere itself." (Habermas)

Our views and opinions are controlled by individual industries, like the media. The ideas of a few ends up spreading through newspapers, radio, television and the Internet. That has happened so many times before, it still does and probably will time and time again in the future, the media was a key tool in the Rwandan genocide. The PBS documentary Ghosts of Rwanda is a haunting account of the 1994 mass killing of thousands of Tutsis and also Hutus, under the premise of a justified ethnic cleansing; but it does more than merely document the horrors of that ordeal, it shows how capitalistic interests trumps humanitarian efforts. Rwanda is not a country that can offer great material value, it does not have oil, not vast quantities of valuable minerals or precious stones. Therefore, developed countries did not see an urgent need to intervene in the genocide that brutally killed, raped and tortured thousands of innocent civilians. The media downplayed the events, so the global public opinion would not be swayed to act in order to stop the mass murders. This bleak reality conveys our capitalistic ideology, which is more powerful that any humane decision, that blur the lines between right and wrong. "The US does not have friends, it has interests"