Abstract
The churches in Rwanda have exercised considerable political influence during both the colonial and post-colonial periods. Although formally autonomous institutions subordinate to the state, in actuality they have cultivated political influence through their religious teachings and secular role as the loci of material and social resources. However, there is at least one key factor, which has contributed to their fluctuating political influence within Rwanda. During the colonial period, the dominant Catholic Church functioned within a colonial regime of indirect rule, predicated on sustaining the political authority of a Tutsi-dominated Central Court presiding over the territories roughly contiguous with the present-day republic. This threefold division of power and authority acted as a brake upon the hegemonic ambitions of the Church, the royal house and the colonial administrators. Following the abolition of the monarchy in 1961, the structure of political power and authority of the state was fundamentally transformed, clearing the way for the emergence of a 'state church' whose political role in the two Hutu dominated post-colonial republics would have significant historical implications. In this essay, I argue that it was this structural transformation of the Rwandan polity - marking the shift from a trilateral to a dual relationship between state and Church -, which contributes to our understanding of how the Church became embroiled in the mass violence and genocide in the twentieth century Rwandan polity.
Highlights
The churches first gained a foothold in the Central Kingdom of Rwanda shortly after the advent of German indirect rule in 1898 when in February 1900 Catholic missionaries of the Society of Missionaries of our Lady of Africa, or ‘White Fathers’, arrived in the royal capital Nyanza seeking permission from the mwami or king to begin their work (Carney 2012a:82; Longman 2010:38-39)
During the pre-colonial period, political power in the Rwandan Central Kingdom was exercised by what Linden describes as ‘a military aristocracy’ which presided over a ‘chain of clientship relations checked on the one side by the monarchy, the king’s men, and on the other by lineages and clans’ effecting ‘an internal tendency towards an equilibrium’ (Linden 1977:ix)
Des Forges points to the existence of a complex web of clan and lineage ties and associations, which gradually coalesced around ‘outstanding’ leaders who were instrumental in the formation of the Rwandan state (Des Forges 1999: 31)
Summary
The churches first gained a foothold in the Central Kingdom of Rwanda shortly after the advent of German indirect rule in 1898 when in February 1900 Catholic missionaries of the Society of Missionaries of our Lady of Africa, or ‘White Fathers’, arrived in the royal capital Nyanza seeking permission from the mwami or king to begin their work (Carney 2012a:82; Longman 2010:38-39). Des Forges points to the existence of a complex web of clan and lineage ties and associations, which gradually coalesced around ‘outstanding’ leaders who were instrumental in the formation of the Rwandan state (Des Forges 1999: 31). Both Des Forges and David Newbury challenge the notion that the social and political institutions of Rwanda’s precolonial state were characterized by a tendency towards stability. The consolidation of a clearly delineated territorial domain controlled by a central authority only began to emerge during the early years of German colonial overrule, a process, as we shall see, which coincided with the racialization of ethnic identities on the one hand, and the emergence of what I term a ‘tripartite’ relationship of contestation of power between the royal court, the German authorities and the churches, on the other hand
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