Religion, politics and conflict resolution in the Democratic Republic of Congo: An ethnographic study of the role of Christian clergy in the ethnic identity conflicts in Eastern Congo 1990 - 2023

This study explores the role of local Christian clergy in resolving or exacerbating violence related to indigeneity and ethnic identity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It focuses on understanding the interactions of religious elites with politics, power and ethnicity and analyses their actions, personal rationales, practices, behaviours, and responses. The thesis draws on over six months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between October 2020 and February 2022, mainly in the DRC, Belgium and Rwanda. It adopts a qualitative and interpretive methodology involving fieldwork, semi structured interviews, focus groups, observations, and archival research. The study draws from a five-dimensional model of religion in peace and conflict by Fraser and Owen. It also makes use of original metaphors based on Congolese house and village plans, to elucidate the hidden meanings and multifaceted modes of Congolese thought. The insider position of the researcher is used to explain the relevance of the religious in peacebuilding within an existing secular approach. The use of specifically Congolese metaphors also contributes to an understanding of the DRC society, the mindsets of peacemakers and their interactions with an environment of ethnic conflict. The research findings demonstrate, firstly, that the symbiotic relationship between politics and religion presents a fundamental obstacle to peacebuilding. The thesis also demonstrates that ethnicity and tribal loyalties frequently take precedence over fundamental religious tenets and the claimed religious values of peace. It observes that

Finally, the thesis strongly suggest that Christian clergy have been ambiguous, silent, complicit, or complacent concerning violence against Tutsi communities, particularly throughout the ethnic identity crises of the 1990s and in more recent violence in North and South Kivu. The findings contribute to existing literature by arguing that the role of religious leaders in peace and conflict is essential but also multifaceted and contradictory. This finding suggests clergy's pluralistic positions in conflict, which extend from existing scholarship that highlights the ambivalent roles of religious leaders in peace making. The thesis claims that clergy could play a pivotal, constructive role in creating an environment that enables peaceful coexistence if they were able to act independently of allegiance to ethnicity, politics, and power.