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.