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.