The Christian Temple as a Place of Genocide: The Case of Rwanda

Abstract

The article discusses why Christian temples became the main places of the slaughter of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The research is based on the analysis of three groups of primary sources: the testimonies of the genocidaires - those who committed genocide; the documents of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and the materials of the extremist mass media (Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines and the Kangura newspaper). The analysis is carried out at two levels - local (perception of events by genocidaires) and national (interpretation of events by political leaders and nationalist propagandists). The attitudes of genocidaires towards the Christian temple are considered in the context of their religious views, primarily those on the role of God in the events. The analysis shows that, at the local level, there was a polytheization of genocidaires’ religious beliefs, an idea of the “God of Hutus” opposing the “God of the Tutsis”. The author comes to the conclusion that the Christian temple in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide retained its status as a sacred place, but this status ceased to be invariant and began to depend on whose hands it was in - either “true Christians”, “the God of Rwanda”, “the God of Hutus”, or inhumans, demons, Satan, “the God of Tutsis”: when the Tutsis (as “anti-Hutus”) desecrated the sacred place by their presence, it turned into an “anti-church” and therefore had to be cleansed of filth or even completely destroyed. This transformation of the perception of the Christian temple by genocidaires was the result of the victimization of Tutsis, which was constantly fueled by the authorities and extremist media.