HUC Principal Tells Rwandan Bishops Conference that the Significance of the Complexity
of Identities Demand Purification
The year 2024 marks the 30 th Anniversary of the Genocide Against the Tutsis in Rwanda, and the Principal of Hekima College, Rev. Dr. Marcel Uwineza, SJ, in a recent address to the Rwandan Catholic Bishops Conference, shared that for Rwanda to have an authentic future, the significance of the complexity of identities demands purification. Dr. Uwineza, a Rwandan national and a genocide survivor, was among the key speakers at the conference held from 26 th to 28 th August at Hotel Sainte Famille in Kigali under the theme: Purification of Memory in the Process of Reconciliation in Rwanda. The Rwandan Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace organized the conference.
According to Dr. Uwineza, it is crucial to clarify misconceptions about identities because, to use Pope Francis words in his Encyclical Fratelli Tutti on “Human Fraternity,” misconceived identities and ideologies lead to fatalism, apathy, injustice, or even intolerance or violence. In his address, he explained that the remote causes of Rwanda’s ethnic antagonisms are rooted in the racialization of Rwanda’s identity indicators. He elaborated that the ideological fear of the other and reactive social fracture are the fundamental root causes of the killings and the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.
Thirty years later, the Hekima Principal observed that the genocide and its consequences are still hard to bear because the genocide was made possible through a process of dehumanizing a perceived enemy, mostly the Tutsi. The victims were all innocent people, adults and children who were stalked like ‘hunted meat,’ yet they had neither the power nor the intention to harm their
aggressors. Moreover, the killings took place in religious and public spaces, such as churches, schools, and administrative buildings. Places of solace and prayer became slaughterhouses. As hard and painful as these memories are, Dr. Uwineza shared that they must be confronted truthfully for Rwandans to be free.
“We must take this history seriously because it informs who we are and our memories. Memory remains the womb of history, and rethinking what it means to be Church in a violent world must start from places of wounds,” Dr. Uwineza explained, adding that this is important for healing of wounds, the purification of memories, and the re-visioning of the relationship of humanity and the
Church to God in the context of Rwanda and not only of wounds but also of people and a Church struggling with unreconciled memories. Dr. Uwineza listed instances where the phrase unreconciled memories refers to. These included the memories of people who survived the genocide against the Tutsis, like himself, and who must live with this ongoing difficult journey as the only ones left to tell the story amid denials of genocide and assassins of memory; the memories of children born of mixed parentage (Tutsi father and Hutu mother, or vice versa). These children must navigate strained relationships with their maternal and paternal relatives, who may ignore or dismiss them because of animosity or hatred toward a different ethnic identity or who must admit accountability for participation in the genocide; the memories of the Tutsis or Hutus who returned to Rwanda after many years of exile only to find that the genocide regime killed their entire families.
Unreconciled memories are also held by some genocide perpetrators and those who have been released from jail and must find ways to coexist with the survivors of the genocide while grappling with the mental burden of knowing that had they not participated in the killing, the magnitude of the 1994 genocide would not be so great. Also, the memories held by those who lost relatives during the
war between the Rwandan Government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) are part of the unreconciled memories as these women and men need psychological and spiritual accompaniment to remember lost loved ones. In addition, many Rwandans are yet to come to terms with the Rwandan Catholic Church and the social sin of its institutional responsibility in Rwanda’s tragic
history, and this is part of the unreconciled memories. Last but not least, Rwanda’s unreconciled memories concern the place of God in the sea of suffering generated by genocide and war. So, what does it mean to purify memories? Dr. Uwineza explained that purifying memories is a ritual act that proclaims the survivor's freedom and gifts the wrongdoer with the possibility of a new and
different future. It is a duty toward the dead, the wounded, survivors, perpetrators, etc. It is a solidarity duty informed by our ancestors memories. “Purifying memories also means that we must identify and assess the factors that made the genocide
possible. We have to explore how the problematic history of Rwanda, with its multilayered factors, laid down the roots that led to the genocide against the Tutsi with moderate Hutu who opposed the genocidal regime. We must study those factors and how they convinced many citizens that they were beyond any moral obligation to be each other’s keepers.” Dr. Uwineza further explained that the purification of memory could restore sacramental imagination in a country like Rwanda and others where both human beings and sacred places were vandalized. Scriptural and sacramental understanding of the Eucharist is crucial in remaking humanity. For this to happen, the reconciliation process in Rwanda ought to investigate the ambiguous involvement and impact of some Catholic Church leaders, particularly their use of a discourse of ethnicity during the Rwandan colonial era. He added that the post-genocide Rwanda
needs a self-critical Church that takes its sin and memory seriously by speaking about God credibly and reimagining humanity authentically, “the Church must recognize, acknowledge, and confess its sin and purify its memory.”
Finally, he pointed out that the idea of a dominant group’s entitlement played an outsized role in Rwanda’s tragedy and structural sin; for many decades, some lives were more equal than others. “Some policies in education, employment, and welfare in general favored one group over the others.
To reconcile such memories, Rwandans must accept responsibility for the past actions of their community. They must seek and grant inter-ethnic group forgiveness and appropriate and appreciate the history of the other community to learn from its experiences.” To do so, he proposed the following: taking History seriously, forgiveness, resilience, consulting the victims of history, intellectual combat against genocide ideology or fight against negationists and spiritual dimension.
By Pamela Adinda, HUC Communications Coordinator