Religious Peacebuilding in Rwanda

Hello and welcome to my blog on religious peacebuilding. The purpose of this blog is twofold. The first purpose for which this blog was created, and perhaps its most immediate concern, is to keep my friends and family informed about my forthcoming work in Rwanda where I will be working with the Lutheran Church of Rwanda to study the work of Protestant churches in Rwanda who are engaged in reconciliation projects after the 1994 civil war and genocide. (More on this project later.) The second purpose for this blog, as well as the more forward looking agenda, is to create a forum for students, academics, and professionals in the field of religious peacebuilding to have a place to share their thoughts, experiences, insights, and best practices. I hope that the initial nine weeks of this blog while I am studying in Rwanda, and the presentation of my masters thesis work on this space after I return from Rwanda and conclude my masters thesis will cause others to think about religious peacebuilding and spawn a conversation about the merits of religious actors in conflict resolution, peacebuilding, reconciliation, and social justice.

To begin, a little about myself. I am a second year Masters of Arts candidate in conflict resolution at Georgetown University. To complete my requirements for this degree I have elected, in my final semester, to study in Rwanda, to both complete field research for my masters thesis, and to work with the Lutheran Church of Rwanda on the reconciliation projects. My personal, academic, and professional belief is that religious organizations have a crucial role in conflict resolution, reconciliation, and sustainable peacebuilding. While religious actors, or religious peacebuilding, will never supplant political or social conflict resolution or peacebuilding projects, nor should it, religious peacebuilding can play a crucial complimentary role in promoting conflict resolution and reconciliation on both the grassroots as well as national and international levels. I will elaborate on this point more in the future, or it can be a point of conversation for future posts, but I wanted to briefly explain my reasoning for pursuing the study of religious peacebuilding.

The purpose of my thesis work, therefore, will be to explore the work of religious actors in peacebuilding the reconciliation in Rwanda, a country rebounding from civil war and genocide just 15 years ago. The reasons for choosing Rwanda are many, but what makes it of particular interest, besides my own previous travels to the country and my familiarity with the country, is the fact that the Rwandan population has a history of active participation in religious communities.

The working thesis question going into this project is as follows: Rwanda fails to exhibit positive peace today. A necessary condition for positive peace is reconciliation. There are a number of bodies working to create positive peace through promoting reconciliation in Rwanda today, but this thesis will focus exclusively on Christian churches for two reasons: (a) Christian churches represent the largest social organization in the country, and (b) Christianity has historically been a fundamental component of Rwandan society. If reconciliation is considered to be restoring trusting relationships and developing mutual trust, my question is how do the churches in Rwanda attempt to build trust at the interpersonal and intergroup level and to what extent have they succeeded?

The focus of this project will not be to quantify the level of trust found in Rwandan communities where churches are engaging in religious-based reconciliation projects, which is beyond the realm and ability of my limited time in Rwanda, but to identify the best practices being used in Rwanda and challenges and obstacles presented to reconciliation projects in Rwanda. The field research for this project will begin on February 2, 2009 and conclude on April 4, 2009. During and after this time I invite your input on both my work in Rwanda as well as any personal messages or encouragement as I pursue this project.