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]
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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]
[edit] The Rwandan Genocide
A Human Rights Watch report notes that the leaders of the 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 nuns sentenced for helping to kill hundreds of Tutsi during Rwandan genocide. Also involved were Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and Athanase Seromba. 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.[3]. Through the recently published book "Left to Tell" Pastor Murinzi describes hiding eight Tutsi women in his bathroom 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.[4]
[edit] Post-genocide conversions from Christianity
One report indicates the percentage of Muslims in Rwanda has gone from being around 7 percent to about 14 percent.[5]. Other reports indicate the numbers have not changed substantially. [6][7][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
- ^ 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 18 (2). Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group.
- ^ Emily Wax. "Islam Attracting Many Survivors of Rwanda Genocide", Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post, 2002-11-23, p. A10. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ CIA - The World Factbook
- ^ Rwanda - International Religious Freedom Report 2003
- ^ Religion by Location
[edit] External links
- "Never Again? : The church & genocide in Rwanda - Excerpt" by Andre Sibomana, Commonweal, November 5, 1999
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