Reconciliation in the Heart of Africa

This was a busy week that will hopefully prove to have been a productive one. I had two good meetings early in the week to set up more in-depth meetings this coming week, and a long, but productive trip to southwest Rwanda. I met early this week with Catholic Relief Services, who agreed that we would arrange something for next week with their experts in the field of reconciliation, and those who are working in the field and with the churches. Unfortunately, while we discussed such arrangements on Tuesday, I have not heard back from them yet. I did, however, meet briefly with the Grand Mufti, the leader of the Rwandan Islamic community. He was a very gentle man and intelligent man, who offered me several hours of his time this coming week. I am looking forward to this meeting not only because I enjoyed his company and look forward to getting to know him better, but also because he is the leader of the largest interfaith community in Rwanda, and I believe he has important insights to share about both reconciliation in Rwanda, and the overall religious landscape of the community. Either way, I have never sat down for a long talk with a Muslim religious leader before, and I am simply excited for all the new things I should expect to learn from this man.

My trip to the southwest was truly remarkable. First of all, this was one of the most beautiful parts of the world I have seen. To get to this part of the country – on the southwest corner of Rwanda on Lake Kivu – you have to travel through one of Rwanda’s national parks. While the road through the park was a little frightening, driving along steep cliffs in a crowded and old bus, the scenery was breathtaking. I had the good fortunate to travel through this area both during sunny weather with blue skies, and during cloud cover. Both climates provided for different, but beautiful, backdrops to the scenery. The park was surround on both its entrance and exit by tea plantations, and seeing the tea plants, with mountain peaks and misty clouds, was a beautiful and peaceful sight to behold. The town we were in was also beautiful. On the shores of southern Lake Kivu, overlooking neighboring Congo, it was a lovely, peaceful town. From what I was told, this town was one of the last places to be affected by the war and genocide in 1994, and is working hard to recover from the tragedies that ensued. It would have been nice to delve into this a little deeper, but my time was in short supply, so I was limited to merely learning about the current landscape of reconciliation and the role of the churches in reconciling the community.

Fortunately we had a local contact in the religious community who arranged a series of engaging meetings for us. We first went and spoke with a local community leader who was able to describe the roles of both the government and the religious community in the reconciliation process. Obviously, because this person was a community and not a religious leader, who argued that while the religious community is an integral part of the process, the government is taking the lead in national and community reconciliation. While it may seems obvious that someone with no direct connection to the religious community, but involved in local government would cite the government as the leader of this effort, this merely confirms what I am seeing myself and what I am hearing from local and international NGOs operating in urban and rural parts of Rwanda. As one person put it, churches are not taking initiative in this process. I have definitely seen this throughout my time here, and I think you can attribute this to several things.

First, the government is taking a leading role in the reconciliation process because it has better leadership than the churches. While the Kagame regime has certainly received its share of criticism, and certainly some for good reason, there is no doubt that he offers the steadiest leadership and clearest vision for the country. Even those who do not share his vision, or disagree with how he is implementing that vision, there is no dispute that he is the strongest leader in the country. The Kagame regime sets the agenda with which all other parties must follow, and has the resources to back up his policies. The administration also has the strongest infrastructure to implement its policies, with both a full-time office dedicated to reconciliation – the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission – and the mandate that all local government offices must be focused on creating a sense of national unity. No other organization, including the churches, can rival such an expansive infrastructure.

Secondly, as I think I have mentioned before, the churches, overall, suffer from a lack of leadership. I believe that many of the church leaders, both local and national, have great spiritual wisdom and can probably lead their respective flocks in spiritual matters, but few have the education or experience in peacebuilding to fully implement reconciliation processes, most – besides the Catholic Church, and perhaps the Anglicans – do not have the infrastructure to implement such widespread programs as the government, and lastly, no one leader has national prominence to take a lead in organizing and engaging the religious community. I also perceive a deference to the government in terms of peacebuilding and reconciliation activities within church leaders. Whether this is from the timidity of the leaders, or an understanding of their limitations compared to the government, churches and church leaders seem to have taken a complimentary role to the government, not a leading role with the government. At this point I am not sure what the churches’ plans or ambitions are in regard to their reconciliation ministries. Some have argued that while the government can create the structures of national unity – community service projects, reintegration programs, community and economic development, justice – it is up to the churches to deal with personal healing and trauma counseling, issues of the heart that the government cannot touch. If this were the plan, and this was articulated extensively by the churches, I could understand the deference to the government taking the lead in larger projects, but at the moment I do not think the churches have a concrete idea of what their place is in the process and their mission in that process.

Lastly, for now, I also perceive a struggle for identity within the churches, and between the churches and the community and government as well. The churches, while largely under completely new leadership since 1994, honestly have an image problem. The complicity of the churches in 1994 cannot be dismissed and they are having a difficult time overcoming the image of that complicity. Certainly, some new churches have moved in since the genocide and can claim to be clean churches, particularly the Pentecostals, but overall, Christianity has been tarnished from its legacy of complicity in the genocide and in the previous regime. Many churches are struggling to recreate legitimacy and show themselves as agents of tolerance and love, not division and hate. The process of reconciling the churches with the people is also a long journey, and in part is responsible for the limited role of the churches in international, intergroup, and community reconciliation than the government. Unfortunately, the churches are still plagued by internal and interdenominational conflict, which continues to tarnish the image of the churches. While many have said that such conflicts have decreased since 1994, there is no denying that churches are still immersed in both internal and external conflict. As one person I spoke with put it, how can churches teach reconciliation when they are fighting amongst themselves. Churches are supposed to be role models, another person said, and they cannot play that role unless churches reconcile with each other and with their communities.

Returning to my trip to the southwest, I also had the opportunity to meet with several individuals who had confessed to the involvement in the genocide and who were now working within the prisons as part of a reconciliation committee to help others in the prison accept their involvement, repent, and seek forgiveness. It was an eye opening experience both to meet with those who had played a role in the genocide, and also to see what they are doing now to heal the community. I think the work in the prisons, perhaps more than anything else, is contributing to social and interpersonal reconciliation in Rwanda. Although the prisons, gacaca, and overall system of justice in Rwanda has been criticized, and perhaps rightly so in some instances, there is no denying that the within the prisons the process of reconciliation is unfolding. From those I met with I was told that the churches had a large role to play in the prisons, and that the churches were widely credited with helping many people come to accept responsibility for their actions and repent and seek forgiveness. One person cited the statistic that 98% of the confessions were a direct result of the presence of the churches, and while this statistic is most certainly exaggerated, it shows the importance to which many people ascribe to the churches presence in the prison. Those I spoke with told me that the church leaders in the prison help the prisoners come to terms with their involvement in a safe – relatively speaking I suppose – environment, where prisoner can work individually with pastors and priests during their own personal process and reconciliation, and can receiving the counseling they need to present themselves to their victims and their communities ready to seek forgiveness and mend relationships. While the gacaca process has gone on too long, and while too many people have been jailed too long without trial, the silver lining to this cloud is that it has given the churches leaders an opportunity to continue to work with prisoners and prepare them to reintegrate into their communities.

I with I could investigate the prisons in more detail, and to really study the work of the churches therein, but I think that may have to wait for another time or person. For now I am grateful to have had that opportunity to see the work of the churches in southwestern Rwanda. I think this will add an interesting dimension to my work, and help share another dimension of the work of religious peacebuilders in Rwanda.

Comparative Study

Over the last two weeks my most successful sessions have been a part of my attempt to conduct a comparative study of the role of religious actors in the reconciliation process in Rwanda. I began my research working strictly within the churches – both because that was the most appropriate place to begin, and because we needed government approval to move beyond that point – but have recently been meeting with NGOs and other leaders who are involved in the reconciliation process, and may be religious leaders themselves, but are not responsible to any particular church body. I learned much great information from within the churches, but I am gaining a much clearer picture when I combine a view from within and from without. Largely, many of these meetings have served to confirm the assumptions I was making after working within the churches. However, more often than not these interviews enabled me to delve deeper into the underlying causes for the assumptions I was making. These have been very helpful in not only created a clearer image of the religious landscape of reconciliation in Rwanda, but I think it will also help the churches to see their own shortcomings and correct them, if they want to.

From here I would like to outline the strengths and weaknesses of the churches, as I see it, taken from conversations within and without the church. This is not to criticize the churches in any way, but any reasonable research project, and one with any integrity, must address what is going well, and what is not. In a sensitive process such as reconciliation in Rwanda, people cannot so sensitive as to not learn and grow as the move along the process.

Strengths of the churches:
As one person told me, the churches are everywhere. This pastor made the astute point of showing me that in most rural towns and villages, you will probably not see a clinic, a police station, or a government office, but what you will find is a church, or even many churches. The churches in Rwanda form a web that constitutes a vast network that can identify and address social needs and provide social services in a way that no other organization in Rwanda can. Even when there is no clinic or doctor or nurse available, the churches can mobilize in their small communities to find people who can care for the sick, the hungry, the injured or the lonely.

The churches teach and preach a compelling message. Unlike NGOs, community groups, or the government, the Churches provide a gospel of live and forgiveness. The churches also teach a message of inclusion. Certainly the churches were used in the past to divide the people and to insert within the Christian message and divisive and contentious view of society, something not at all uncommon in world history, and while this still exists today in Rwanda, the churches seem to be moving toward a message centered on love, forgiveness, and Christian reconciliation. No other group can provide such a strong message.

People attend church. While many people may not watch or read the news, attend community meetings, or participate in community groups, most Rwandese to attend church. In fact, if you try to find a cab on a Sunday morning, it is almost impossible because the drivers are either in church themselves, or other people are all using them to get to church. This provides the churches with a unique opportunity because the have a captive and attentive audience. I think the attention span of a Rwandan Christian might be greater than that of an American Christian considering that the services I have attended in Rwanda last between 90 and 150 minutes, whereas in the US, I have rarely attend a service that exceeded 75 minutes. This may only be a coincidence, or a consequence of style, but I think it might also show that people are more open and receptive to being in the church and to listening to the message of the church. As so many people attend the churches in Rwanda, there is a vast audience that can be fed the message of reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a process. The church leaders I have spoken with all understand that reconciliation is a process. Even though it has been 15 years since the genocide, there is a common understanding that the process of reconciliation is not over, in fact, I think many would say that it is just beginning. The churches contribute to this process by helping individuals to process their trauma – both victims and perpetrators – as well as help to bring people together in the process of social reconciliation.

Weaknesses of the churches:
Leadership: The Rwandan churches all have good leaders. I say this not only because I live and work with many of them, but from my conversations with them I can see that they are caring, compassionate, and educated men (there are women leaders too, but I have not met any to date) who care about the process of reconciliation. However, either through the multiple demands on the church leaders, or an unwillingness to fully commit to the process, there are no strong, vocal, and courageous leaders willing to take charge of a religious-based reconciliation program. It is true that religious leaders do work together on this process, but as a whole there are few, if any, who are taking ownership over the process and staking their careers and identities on this process. There are no Desmond Tutus or Martin Luther King Juniors, or Ghandis. I am not sure if the reconciliation process in Rwanda demands such a leader, but it does require more robust leadership to point the churches in the right direction and make them accountable.

Vision: I think this my go with leadership, but I have not yet seen a coherent vision of how the churches envision their role beyond the immediate projects they run and capacity to bring their communities together. Perhaps this is enough. As one NGO worker told me, as long as the churches preach the message of reconciliation, that is enough. However, while the government of Rwanda has am impressive vision for the country (Vision 2020), I do not see the same vision stemming from the churches. I would say that they view a role for themselves where they continue to bring people together and create and inclusive society, but I would not say that this vision has been articulated and the mechanisms being put in place to ensure this future.

Capacity: Needless to say, Rwanda is a poor country, and Rwandan churches are also poor. They lack the resources to fully fund, or even develop some projects. Many churches are not even able to staff ordained pastors in even a fraction of their congregations. Many congregations are ably staffed by trained evangelists, but this is different than a seminary trained and ordained pastor.

Competition: Churches in Rwanda, like elsewhere in the world, are competing with each other both for members and for resources. In fact, some churches are even competing for members with resources, meaning they try to appeal to the wealthier segment of the population to secure their tithes. Such a competition for members and resources can distract the churches and move their message away from reconciliation toward a more appealing, friendly, and comfortable message that does not force their members into addressing the uncomfortable subjects of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

These are just a sampling of both categories, but I hope they provide thumbnail sketch of the situation in Rwanda. I hope to be able to more fully develop these ideas in the thesis as a whole, and more generally as I continue my research. Overall, the religious community has incredible potential to do good in Rwanda, and many are trying, but there remains a lack of a concerted effort across the board that will inhibit the effectiveness of church-based reconciliation in the years to come.

A Busy Week

Administrative update: We have achieved success!! After almost five weeks of trying to secure government approval to conduct research outside the search, we were informed today that we should be receiving our letter granting us full approval to proceed. Better late than never I suppose. For those of you who may be interested in doing research in Rwanda in the future, or who are simply curious about the process, you must first seek the approval the of main office of ministry who oversees the subject you wish to research and then take their approval to the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. So, in my case, we went to the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and then took their approval to the aforementioned ministry. We did not understand this before we began, so the person who informed our process simply told us to go to the same ministry who granted them permission without informing us of the entire process.

The research front has led to some interesting development this week, and looks positive for the next two weeks as well. On Sunday, March 1, I traveled outside of Kigali to a small village where victims and perpetrators who have confessed and sought forgiveness now live together. In this village there is a remarkable pastor that has been instrumental, yet relatively unheralded, in the reconciliation process. He was a victim who lost most of his family in 1994, but returned to Rwanda after fleeing to Burundi to help in the reconciliation process. I met and interviewed this man on Sunday, and he was truly remarkable. He does not come with a story about how God just called on him to forgive, and he cheerfully returned. He told a story of personal conflict about how to forgive, or even if he should forgive. He told me about how anger and bitterness had consumed his heart, and that the personal process of reconciliation for him was a long and difficult journey. He grew up in a Rwanda that sought Hutu and Tutsi living side by side, but in which there was an ideology of hate that set these two groups apart. He said from an early age he was pained from this division and the hatred he saw around him, but eventually he came to Christianity and started using Christianity to unite his community. For this he was arrested for a time before 1994.

After returning to Rwanda after the genocide, he came back to the community where his family had lived. He was conflicted about how reconcile, or even if he wanted to forgive and be reconciled. During one painful night of self-reflection he decided God was calling him to begin the process of reconciliation. He began to work in local prisons, ministering to the perpetrators and preparing them to seek and receive forgiveness and then to continue the process of reconciliation that proceeds after forgiveness. Reconciliation is not simply forgiving and forgetting; it is a long process of restoring relationships and building trust. During his time working in the prisons he encountered one of the men responsible for the deaths of his family members. The man was initially afraid of him, fearing he may be a government spy, but eventually he saw the sincerity of this pastor and began to attend church services with an open heart. Eventually these two encountered each other, prayed with each other, and seek, offer, and receive forgiveness. Today these two men live in the same village and their children play together. They also travel around Rwanda speaking to different groups about the process of reconciliation. This brief moment with this man illustrated to me the true process of reconciliation. It is not simply saying forgiveness and then moving on, and it is not something that Christians, or religious people, are drawn to easily. It can be a painful process of self-reflection and inner-conflict.

Tuesday was another moving day, but for different reasons. I returned to visit the group REACH I have written about in previous entries. They had arranged to meet several of the groups that they sponsor. REACH conducts seminars for different social groups – such as community leaders, women, youth, etc. – and after they give them a one to two week seminar on reconciliation and peacebuilding, the members of these groups are encouraged to develop ideas about how to continuing the process of reconciliation through different interdependent projects that focus on reconciliation. We met four such groups in and around the town of Kayonza: a group of women trying to start a basket weaving company, a reconciliation choir, a football group, and a reconciliation dance troupe. It was amazing to see what these different groups were doing to promote reconciliation. The basket weavers had talent beyond what I could do, but they were seeking to further develop their skills so at least the most talented could sell their products to western and Japanese markets – such as Macy’s who currently has an agreement to sell Rwandan baskets. What was really interesting to me, and to REACH as well I think when they made this same conclusion some time ago, is the important role women play in the reconciliation process. They focused on women because immediately after the genocide they were the group most in need. Many of their husbands, fathers, and sons had either been killed or imprisoned, and women constituted the largest part of the civil society at that time. This was a logical place for them to start the work of reconciliation, trying to reconcile those who were victims with those whose families were perpetrators. After working with the women to begin this process, REACH, and others, discovered, that once women were able begin to work together, they were able to contribute to the reconciliation and reintegration of prisoners once they returned to their communities.

I could go into more detail about the contributions of the choir and the dancers to the process of reconciliation, but I think I have illustrated the point about how bringing these different groups together can foster a sense of reconciliation of relationship building. None of these efforts are possible without the full involvement of the community, and the future of these groups depends on their ability to become self-sustaining. REACH will assist them to a point, but then it is up to the group to sustain themselves. What I do want to illustrate briefly about the choir and the dancers was just the shear beauty that they shared with us. The choir was composed of victims and perpetrators – or maybe more specifically the children of victims and perpetrators – and consisted of all denominations, including Muslims. They sang for us a sample of their songs in a beautiful little church made of mud bricks and wood beams. It was truly amazing and their voices were outstanding. The dancers displayed a series of traditional Rwandan dance routines complete with costume and drums. They performed to the backdrop of the rolling Rwandan hills and the setting sun. It was one of the most beautiful scenes of my life. The scenery in Rwanda, if you get out of Kigali, is stunning, and with the dance and the music, it was a truly peaceful setting.

This coming week constitutes continued research around the country, heading back to Nyamata, Kayonza, and Rukira to meet with community and religious leadership engaged in reconciliation programs. It is within these settings that you can really see reconciliation programs in their fullest. I am continually impressed by what I am seeing, but unfortunately it is not all positive images emerge from these scenes. I have been straining to find object critiques of church-led reconciliation programs, and have finally begun to find some sources willing to speak on the subject. I spoke with one large, international organization this week that provided just that critical insight I needed. They said that the churches have an important role to play, and are playing it, but that they are slow to act, and often crippled by corruption. They feared that the church leaders were often seeking their positions not out of a sense of religious obligation or duty to God, but because church leadership provided a good, and possibly lucrative, career option, and that some church leaders are corrupt. Such leaders, they cautioned, can distract the work of the church and the people they are suppose to serve away from the process of reconciliation. I have seen this myself, but from this meeting I found that this was not just my own skepticism, but a feeling shared by other more informed than myself. The good thing was that they felt that while the churches do suffer from weaknesses such as these, they do have a strong role to play in the process.

The Need to Organize

This was another week of low productivity, but it included positive steps upon which to build for the remainder of my research in Rwanda. It is hard to believe at this point, but this week will conclude my fourth week in the country, with only five more to go to complete my research. I have decided that my research essentially falls into two phases, the building stage and the implementing stage. I feel this week essentially concludes the building phase of my research. I have been conducting interviews, making appointments, doing limited archival research, and networking over the past four weeks, but this feels like it was mostly laying the ground work for the second phase of the research. Through my initial research and interviews I have been able to gather resources and narrow my methodology to the point where I think that while the quantity of research I will be conducting will be limited, the quality will be better. I am moving away from solely doing individual interviews with religious actors, to focusing more on larger groups of people who are working together on reconciliation projects. This includes religious organizations like the Interfaith Commission of Rwanda, the African Evangelist Enterprise, and the Council of Protestant Churches, but this is also including local groups operating out of churches or small, local organizations. While the individual interviews were positive, and will continue, they failed to fully illuminate the breadth and depth of the work I wished to see. By doing some group meetings, with groups who are prepared to talk about their work which was a problem I incurred earlier in this process, I can witness the work they are conducting in the environment in which they are operating. I think this will add richness to the research that was lacking before. After a very productive meeting with a representative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), I have also decided to pursue interviews with larger international religious organizations operating in Rwanda, such as World Vision and Catholic Relief Services. I was originally anticipating avoiding such large, international, organizations, but I now feel they will provide an interesting outsider’s perspective on what is happening locally.

There are few new revelations this week, due in part to the dearth of research I was able to conduct. One interesting point that was strengthened in my mind this week was the need for a better strategic vision and implementation strategy for reconciliation projects, especially within the smaller churches which lack resources. Within the Lutheran Church of Rwanda, where I am operating, I have met several people doing good and interesting work on reconciliation. It appeared to me that largely these different efforts were being done independent of each other with little interaction, oversight, and resource sharing. There has been a routine deferral to actors on the local level, which I agree with, and some saying that they do not feel it is a good policy to have people in the capital dictating to people in the rural areas what best practices are, which also has merit, but I feel there needs to be a much greater sense of organization, planning, visioning, and sharing. I agree that reconciliation needs to happen on the local level, and therefore should be driven by local actors, but I feel that if everything happens in isolation there will be a disjointed process toward reconciliation. Even if Kigali should not represent a behemoth dictating plans to rural areas, it should represent a place where all people from around the country can come to share knowledge, receive assistance, and plan new strategies and programs.

One of the things I hear routinely from churches and organizations alike is the need for resources and donors to complete their work. Some organizations, like the Kigali Parish of the Lutheran Church of Rwanda, as talked about receiving assistance to create an infrastructure that will allow for them to be self-sustained, which I find very admirable. However, I think that for these organizations and churches to receive the assistance they are requesting, a better administrative framework needs to be in place to show donors their plans, activities, dreams, ambitions, resources, and so forth. Referring to last week’s post, the organization known as REACH (Reconciliation, Evangelism and Christian Healing) has an office, a vision, a mission statement, a coherent website, and if you visit their location you can see their dream becoming a reality. Obviously they have received international assistance along the way, but what truly stands out about this organization is the administrative framework in place and the level of organization in REACH. Honestly, I think it is the organizational skills of the leadership that makes REACH as successful as it has been. This sort of leadership does not require money or resources; it just needs the dedication of those involved in the project and a commitment to operate within the system they find themselves.

Unfortunately this is one of the problems I am learning about in church-based reconciliation: the church has other priorities beyond reconciliation. Certainly, one of the central themes of all the churches I have encountered is reconciliation, but their priorities are also shared with operating a parish, preparing pastors to minister, attending to the spiritual demands of their congregants, and all the other requirements that come within church administration. This is one reason why the churches I feel require organization that attends to reconciliation programs and makes it easier for all parishes and congregations to contribute to the reconciliation process. If it is left to individual actors or congregations it can be overlooked in the demands of being a church leader, and if a pastor devotes himself entirely to this process he may not be attending to all the spiritual needs of his flock. While this first effort does not take much money, it requires a great deal of dedication.

Leaving Kigali

Do not let the title of this pot confuse you, I am still in Kigali, but this week was the first chance that I had to leave the capital and see a few projects operating in a town called Kayonza, in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. We visited the parish pastor for the region and also saw the church building and met the youth from the Lutheran congregation in Kayonza. Although Kigali is a good city, with a lot to explore for this project, it was refreshing to get outside Kigali, both for the change of scenery, and to see the work of reconciliation in the field. Because Kigali is both the political and economic epicenter of the country, the work of reconciliation can sometimes be overshadowed by the booming development being seen in the city today. I was here one year ago, and while the city was clean, developed, and safe by all accounts, in a little over one year the city has gotten even larger, more developed, and more cosmopolitan. It is not uncommon to sit down in a café of bar and see Europeans, Americans, Africans, and Asians all sitting together.

This week has been a challenge for the research, but has provided some good offerings. We failed to reach the critical mass of interviews required for this week to be considered successful, but I am beginning to think that does not matter. I think a change in the focus and process of this research will be required, but I think it will be for the better. At the moment I am pondering writing on the three approaches to reconciliation I see happening within the Protestant church community: an individual denomination approach, an interfaith approach, and an independent religious actor approach. In stead of fully embracing myself in one of these approaches, specifically the individual denomination approach, I think it will be good to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of all these approaches, and evaluate their overall effectiveness. This is influenced largely from the fact that I will not meet the required number of interviews, but I also feel there is much to learn from studying these approaches, even if I can only offer a cursory overview. If nothing else hopefully it will contribute to the conversation about religious peacebuilding, at least in the Rwandan context. In other news, I have not yet confirmed the assertion in last week’s post about the Catholic Church being absent from interfaith. My feeling is that is not correct, but I hope to confirm that this week.

Although this week lacked for quantity of research, the quality was vey high. One interesting insight this week came from several discussions concerning the role that projects with tangible results play in the reconciliation process. This may go without saying, but the purpose of the projects – such as building houses, building community center, making baskets, etc. – is not simply the tangible result, but rather the sense of community that arises from these interactions. For example, one organization doing some extraordinary work in Rwanda is called REACH, Reconciliation, Evangelism, and Christian Healing. REACH works with the government to reintegrate prisoners convicted through the gacaca courts back into their communities. The government forces these people to contribute a certain number of hours of community service as part of the reintegration process. What REACH does, with government approval, is to take some of these prisoners into the communities where they committed crimes, and help them build homes for the victims of their crimes.

Now, before going forward with this point I should say that it is my understanding that in order to be released from prison on this sort of work-release program, you must admit your crimes, ask for forgiveness, and sincerely feel remorse for their crimes. Many, though by no means all, of these people, the perpetrators, after reflecting on their actions, feel a great since of guilt and remorse, and desire to seek forgiveness. REACH helps the victims and the perpetrators down this journey of reconciliation and forgiveness by not only providing training and counseling to both groups, but by putting them in a position to build relationships. They do this through a work program where the perpetrators rebuild homes for victims whose properties were destroyed in 1994. The perpetrators are responsible for the manual labor, but the victims are also asked to help by providing water for drinking and bathing and preparing some meals. This interaction allows the victim some tangible reparation for their loss, and allows the perpetrator the opportunity to give back to those whom they harmed.

Now this is not a perfect system, by any means, but REACH has determined that this program is successful in building relationships between victims and perpetrators, and allows the process of healing, reconciling, and forgiving. The primary goal of REACH, in this instance, is not so much the construction of the house, but this process of building relationships.

The other part of my research that was inspiring to me, and which I think I have written on in previous posts, is the detailed understanding of process used by both the Lutheran Church of Rwanda, but especially by REACH. (This post is not meant to be an advertisement for REACH, but I am impressed with their methodology.) It is now some 15 years since the genocide occurred, and some people might think that sufficient time has passed and that Rwanda is now stable, growing, and no longer a concern. But for those working in the field of reconciliation, they know this to be a much longer process. As it was explained to mean, the process of reconciliation is two fold, first personal, then interpersonal and intergroup. By this I mean that for individuals to be open to reconciliation, they must first take the time to process their own actions, traumas, and experiences. This happens for both the victim and the perpetrators. Reconciliation is a two way street, and it requires both parties to approach each other. Depending on the individual and the crime either committed or endured, this personal process can take years to a lifetime. Most of the organizations and people I am meeting here understand and respect this, and develop their programs accordingly. This is impressive in an age of high-speed, tangible results, that these grassroots organizations remain focused on such a well understand process of long-term, sustainable reconciliation.

Next week should offer more opportunities to explore both the role of the Lutheran Church, and independent religious actors such as REACH. I am hoping to continue venturing out from Kigali and exploring the work being down in the provinces. Soon, we will receive government permission to move beyond the boundaries of the church, and we will begin to start our comparative work, evaluating the political and community leaders responses to these religious efforts at reconciliation.

Research Begins

Research Update – This week represented my first efforts at actual research. Thus far I have conducted five interviews, and I have a group session and another interview planned for Saturday, February 14. All together my second week in the field should yield six interviews and one group session. The reason that I am using a group session in stead of individual interviews is because I will be speaking with a group of young adults in the church who works closely together on reconciliation projects, and in made more sense to me to interview them collectively in stead of individually. Next week will be my first voyages outside of the confines of Kigali. I will remain in Kigali, but will have at least one day of interviews in a neighboring province not far from the city. I will also be meeting with the leaders of an interfaith group that works both in Kigali and in the provinces as well. I will speak to this more later. Lastly, the process of receiving government approval is moving along. We have finally submitted all my paperwork to the appropriate offices, and now we are just waiting for them to process the paperwork. Hopefully we will be cleared for everything by the end of next week. For now, the resources within the Lutheran Church of Rwanda will keep me occupied for the next several weeks.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have discovered to a great extent that the church led process of reconciliation is largely an interfaith endeavor. My first formal interviews this week continue to confirm that approach. I believe that the changing face of Christianity in Rwanda necessitates such and approach, and I am encouraged from what I have heard thus far. From what I have been told, and what I will confirm later, is that the Roman Catholic Church, once tallying membership around 80-90% of the Rwandese population, was down to 49% in the 2005 census. While the Catholic Church remains by far the largest religious body in Rwanda, the Protestant community appears to represent almost equal numbers. However, while the Catholic is one organized and hierarchical body, as well all know the Protestant community is not. From what I am hearing thus far, the Protestant community has acknowledged this shortcoming and is trying to overcome that obstacle through collaborative approaches to reconciliation. What I find fascinating thus far, and what I will hopefully confirm in the next few weeks, is that while the Muslim community in Rwanda is an active participant in the work of interfaith reconciliation, the Catholic Church is absent form such organizations. Theories given to me thus have been that the Catholic Church is large enough to work on its own and already has the structure in place to work on its projects. I will hopefully be speaking with someone from the Catholic Church in the next few weeks to investigate this more closely and to see if it is true that they are not engaging the interfaith organizations in Rwanda. If possible I would like to conduct a comparative study of similar such grassroots, interfaith collaboration in post-conflict peacebuilding, but unfortunately I will not be able to make that a part of this study. Perhaps that is a study better suited to Jason Klocek.

Two themes that struck me in interview thus far are development and process. So far, not one single interview has talked about reconciliation in Rwanda without talking about development. This is true of both clergy and lay leaders alike. In fact, as a part of the church led efforts at reconciliation, economic development and poverty reduction has been at the forefront of their thinking. I was not planning to consider economic development as a part of my work here, but it appears I may have no choice. The Lutheran Church of Rwanda, and its interfaith partners, admits that they cannot see reconciliation without development. They are intertwined projects that must be done simultaneously. Without development, and with relative deprivation, reconciliation is potentially doomed to fail because it will appear that different people are benefiting at different levels from the process. As far as process is concerned, there are several different theories on what the process should look like, but universally there is a sense that reconciliation is a journey, and not simply a goal to be attained. This was inspiring to see, because writers like Lederach and de Gruchy both describe the role of second and third tier actors being focused on reconciliation from the intermediate to long-term, meaning viewing it as a process that from years to decades. Even without a formal framework to guide their work, the interfaith community in Rwanda is adopting a timeline that represents the work of modern scholars on reconciliation.

I know that this post might seem a bit repetitive compared to last week’s, but note that last week represented more musings that resources, and this week’s work is beginning to confirm what I was hearing in causal conversations last week. In the weeks to come I should be able to delve more deeply into the interfaith working being conducted in Rwanda and be able to provide more concrete examples. I am also deeply hoping that I will be able to meet with represents of the Muslim and Catholic communities to study their role in this process.