Arrival in Kigali

I arrived in Kigali on Monday afternoon after a furious 48 hours of flying and one night in Addis Ababa. My arrival in Kigali was pleasant and I was greeted by the son of the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of Rwanda. After spending Monday and Tuesday trying to acclimate to the time change and get adjusted to my new environment I am beginning the process for which I came. On Wednesday and Thursday I spent all my time with my mentor trying to receive government permission to conduct my research. I knew this going into the process, but what we all learned was that we need to receive permission from each government office that oversees the different arenas in which we want to conduct research. For example, I want to interview religious leaders about reconciliation, which means I need to receive permission from the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. I will also be looking for permission for research from TIG, which oversees reintegration programs for those convicted in the gacaca process and will be considering seeking permission from the leaders of gacaca to view a proceeding and to interview pastors on the gacaca court panels. For those of you who do not know, the Gacaca courts are a modern interpretation of an old tradition in Rwandan justice. Theoretically, Rwandans traditionally meted out justice by assembling the aggrieved and accused parties and discussing the matter with the elders of the community. This process has been formalized today, where each community elects its own gacaca panels based on their standing in the community and their perceived integrity.

As they say, all the best battle plans go out the window as soon as the first shots are fired. This has been the case for my research here as well. While I thought the Lutheran Church of Rwanda was currently engaged in reconciliation programs outside their religious teachings and preaching in the pulpit, I found this was not the case. What was indicated on their website was in fact their aspirations and not their reality. For research purposes this will force me to change my methods and the focus of my research slightly, but for my consultancy, this will provide me with an interesting opportunity to work with the church leadership to formally plan and structure what a reconciliation and peacebuilding would look like within the higher administration of the LCR.

As I am awaiting government approval to begin the bulk of my research, I have been involved in many interesting preliminary conversations with my mentor and the Bishop of the church. One of the most interesting developments I have discovered is the changing face of Christianity in Rwanda. Before the genocide in 1994, the country was overwhelmingly Catholic, roughly 90%. After the genocide, there was a backlash against the Catholic Church specifically and Christianity generally. In the 15 years since the genocide Rwanda is again amongst the most religious, and specifically Christian, nations in Africa. However, the Christian face of Rwanda has changed in that time. The Catholic Church still dominates the religious landscape, but Pentecostal and traditional Protestant churches are increasing their numbers regularly. Pentecostal churches were the first to gain prominence in Rwanda after 1994 and continue to be the second most visible church body in the country. Members of Pentecostal churches are largely young people who have been disenchanted with the Catholic Church, or who are drawn to the sense of community found in Pentecostal churches. The worship style offered by these churches is attractive to young people, akin to the growing numbers of young people in America attending community churches that offer entertaining worship styles, contemporary songs, and dancing. From the conversations I am having with my mentor at the Lutheran Church of Rwanda, after young people in the Pentecostal church begin to want to settle down, get married, and raise a family, they begin to gravitate toward more traditional Protestant churches, including the Lutheran church. Membership in the Lutheran church is growing throughout the country, in part due to this phenomenon. It is an interesting cycle where church memberships keep changing throughout the country.

I am interested to explore the implications of these changing demographics on social reconciliation. It is clear that Catholic, Pentecostal, and traditional Protestant churches are all competing with each other for members, but they are engaging in reconciliation projects that cross denominational and religious boundaries. The feeling, I gather, is that when it comes to membership, each church wants to promote its own interests, but when it comes to reconciliation, individual interests in each church fade away and the overarching national interest of reconciliation predominates. Different denominations tend to approach reconciliation through different means, but they try to work together or compliment each other when they can. I will be pursuing this issue in more depth going forward.

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.