(Note: Bishop Rucyahana will be at Charlotte Latin on Tuesday, March 4, as a part of The Echo Foundation's From Rwanda to Darfur: A Week of Hope and Reconciliation.)
Published March 2, 2008
The Charlotte Observer
Q&A with Bishop John Rucyahana
John Rucyahana is an Anglican bishop in Rwanda who has taken a leading role in his country's reconciliation efforts following the 1994 genocide. He founded the Sonrise School to help some of Rwanda's 400,000 orphans. His diocese is the country's largest. His new book: "The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones."
Q. What message will you bring to Charlotte?
That reconciliation is the key to building communities and restoring the social fabric. And not just in Rwanda, where we had the genocide and the killings. Even in societies that are supposedly doing well, there are ill feelings between people, between institutions, that hinder progress. All these things need to be put right through reconciliation, through looking at things realistically and engaging.
Q. Your niece was gang raped and hacked to death. How can one forgive that and not let revenge take over?
Revenge doesn't solve the problem. You can become a victim of your bitterness. It tears you to pieces. You can't think right. Forgiveness does not help the criminal only; it also helps the person who desires revenge.
Q. You've tried to get killers to meet the families of their victims.
It's going well, but it's not a bed of roses. It's very hard. They cry. But it is the purpose of the meeting that they can cry. And for those (killers) who have become Christian, it's a chance to repent and seek forgiveness. Through the tears and the remorse, the guilt becomes real.
Q. The reconciliation efforts in Rwanda are several years old. How is it going?
Reconciliation is something that is taught in the community. It's exercised in churches and schools and everywhere people meet. Many of those caught on the battlefield or otherwise arrested have been rehabilitated and sent back into society.
Q. Are the people who committed murder being punished?
There are those who were given life sentences because they were designers of the genocide. There are others who killed because they were forced to kill. So there are different categories. But, for those who deserve redemption, what the Rwandan government and people seek is to return as many as possible back into society.
Q. In Rwanda, is it important to stress that "we are all Rwandans now"? Or are people allowed to keep their identity as a Tutsi or a Hutu?
What the policy has abolished is identifying people as Hutu or Tutsi on their diplomas, their driver's licenses, their passports. Everybody in Rwanda now has the same rights. That does not mean that a Hutu is not a Hutu. But neither he nor a Tutsi has any right now to insult a person from another ethnic group.
Q. You are a Tutsi?
I'm Rwandan (chuckles).
Q. Were the years of colonialism -- and how the Belgians pit the Tutsis and Hutus against each other -- part of the problem leading up to the genocide?
It was the main cause for the crippling of Africa, especially in Rwanda. They were responsible for dividing people and making them into different societies. The Belgians and the French are responsible for a lot of the misery. But the Rwanda people are also responsible. Rwandans cannot get off the hook.
Q. There are an estimated 400,000 orphans in Rwanda. You have started an Anglican school -- the Sonrise School -- to try to help those children. How is it going?
It is the mandate of a religious leader to love our neighbor as ourselves and to be concerned about the suffering. It was a challenge to see these children who were the victims of bad politics, whose parents were hacked to death. The children were left to languish in the streets. They needed someone to love them, to care for them, to hear their trauma, to give them an excellent education and fill them with hope for the future. The school is doing very well. It's among the five best schools in the country. The children are restored, they have hope and they are engaging.
Q. What is the lesson of Rwanda for the rest of the world?
Any people or any nation can learn from us. I didn't think Kenya
would be doing what it's doing or Darfur would be going through what it's going through after having had the U.N. and other people say "Never again" after 100 days of genocide (in Rwanda). So, we need to learn from the bad that happened to Rwanda. We also need to learn from our efforts to reconcile ourselves and to make a nation from the pieces left by the genocide. Other nations should not keep quiet or cover up what has happened to them, even 100 or 200 years ago. They need to talk about it and seek to engage.
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