Religion in Rwanda
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The Rwandan government reported on November 1, 2006, that 56.5% of the Rwanda's population is Roman Catholic, 26% is Protestant, 11.1% is Seventh-day Adventist, 4.6% is Muslim, 1.7% claims no religious affiliation, and 0.1% practices traditional indigenous beliefs.[1] This study indicates a 6.9 percent increase in the number of Catholics and a 17.9 percent decline in the number of Protestants (which can in large part be explained by breaking out the growing Seventh-day Adventist church separately) from the 2001 survey figures.[1] The figures for Protestants include the growing number of members of Jehovah's Witnesses (about 14,000) and evangelical Protestant groups.[1] There is also a small population of Baha'is. There has been a proliferation of small, usually Christian-linked schismatic religious groups since the 1994 genocide,[1] as well as substantial conversion to Islam.
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[edit] Current context
Foreign missionaries and church-linked nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of various religious groups operated in the country.[1] Foreign missionaries openly promoted their religious beliefs, and the Government welcomed their development assistance.[1]
The Constitution of Rwanda provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respected this right in practice.[1] Local government officials sometimes detain Jehovah's Witnesses for refusing to participate in security patrols.[1] In 2007, the US government received no reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious belief or practice.[1]
[edit] History
[edit] Colonial period
Although the ethnic divisions and tensions between Hutu and Tutsi predate the colonial era, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) report on the genocide states,
In the colonial era, under German and then Belgian rule, Roman Catholic missionaries, inspired by the overtly racist theories of 19th century Europe, concocted a destructive ideology of ethnic cleavage and racial ranking that attributed superior qualities to the country's Tutsi minority, since the missionaries ran the colonial-era schools, these pernicious values were systematically transmitted to several generations of Rwandans…[2]
When the Roman Catholic Missionary "White Fathers" came to Rwanda in the late 1880's they developed the "Hamitic" theory of race origins which taught that the Tutsi were a superior race. The Church itself has been considered to have played a significant role in fomenting racial divisions between Hutu and Tutsi.[3]
[edit] 1994 Genocide
A Human Rights Watch report notes that the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church refrained from condemning the 1994 genocide. Four days after the genocide began, the Catholic church issued a statement asking its followers to support the new government. Similarly, Archbishop Augustin Nshamihigo and Bishop Jonathan Ruhumuliza of the Church of the Province of Rwanda acted as spokespersons for the government in a news conference, blaming the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front for the genocide. The lack of a clear stance from the leadership resulted in many clergy members continuing to attend local security committee meetings, in their roles as prominent members of the community, despite the work of those committees in organizing the mass killings. It further allowed politicians and propagandists to claim divine inspiration for the genocide; interim president Théodore Sindikubwabo assured listeners in a speech that God would help them against the "enemy".
Many clergy did not protect civilians who sought their help, either out of fear for personal repercussions or out of desire to see them killed. A smaller number actively incited the genocide. These include most prominently Seventh-day Adventist Church pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the case of Theophister Mukakibibi and Maria Kisito, Rwandan Roman Catholic nuns sentenced for helping to kill hundreds of Tutsi during Rwandan genocide. Also involved were Roman Catholic priests Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, Athanase Seromba, and Emmanuel Rukundo, all of whom have been convicted of genocide.
At the same time, some individual members of the religious community attempted to protect civilians, sometimes at great risk to themselves. For example, Mgr. Thaddée Ntihinyurwa of Cyangugu preached against the genocide from the pulpit and tried unsuccessfully to rescue three Tutsi religious brothers from an attack, while Sr. Felicitas Niyitegeka of the Auxiliaires de l’Apostolat in Gisenyi smuggled Tutsis across the border into Zaire until she was executed by a militant militia in retaliation.[4]. Through the recently published book "Left to Tell" Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Tutsi woman, describes hiding with seven other Tutsi women in a bathroom in the house of Pastor Murinzi for the majority of the genocide. At the St Paul Pastoral Centre in Kigali, about 2,000 people found refuge and most of them survived due to the efforts of Fr Celestin Hakizimana. This priest 'intervened at every attempt by the militia to abduct or murder' the refugees in his centre and even in the face of powerful opposition he tried to hold off the killers with persuasion or bribes.[5]
[edit] Post-genocide conversions
Reports indicate the percentage of Muslims in Rwanda has doubled[6] or tripled[7] since the genocide, due to Muslim protection of Tutsis and to Hutus wanting to distance themselves from those who committed genocide. Although the growth of Islam stabilized after a few years, it is still attracting small numbers of converts. Conversion to Evangelical Christianity also spiked after the genocide, while Catholic attendance is down, due at least partially to the participation of some Catholic priests in the genocide.[8]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Rwanda. United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (September 14, 2007). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide", Organization of African Unity, 7 July 2000
- ^ "Dictionary of Genocide", Samuel Totten, Paul Robert Bartrop, Steven L. Jacobs, p. 380, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008, ISBN 0313346445
- ^ The Organization (HRW Report - Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, March 1999)
- ^ Kubai, Anne (April 2007). "Walking a Tightrope: Christians and Muslims in Post-Genocide Rwanda". Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group) 18 (2).
- ^ Emily Wax (2002-11-23). "Islam Attracting Many Survivors of Rwanda Genocide". Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post. p. A10. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53018-2002Sep22.html. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ Rwanda - International Religious Freedom Report 2003
- ^ Robert Walke (2004-4-01). "Rwanda's religious reflections". BBC: The Washington Post. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3561365.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-23.
[edit] External links
- "Never Again? : The church & genocide in Rwanda - Excerpt" by Andre Sibomana, Commonweal, November 5, 1999
- "Rwanda's resurrection of faith" by Mary Wiltenburg, The Christian Science Monitor, April 12, 2004
