Sometime in November of last year the Department of Peace and Security of the East African Community invited to Bujumbura various actors to deliberate on the threats to peace and security in the region. To ensure a representation of ‘diverse voices’ those invited included politicians, civil society and religious organisations, academicians, the media, youth, and women, and so on.

And so, the deliberations began in earnest with delegate after another pointing out what they considered the most pressing challenges to peace and security. However, something else had happened that organisers of the conference could not have anticipated and planned for.

Two months earlier, a group of terror terrorists had infiltrated an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi in an attack that left scored dead. Indeed, the Bujumbura meeting had started with a moment of silence to pay homage to the departed.

Moreover, a couple of years earlier terrorists had blown a bomb in a crowd watching a World Cup match in Kampala. Even more attacks had been taking place along the coastal areas in Kenya. To cut the story short, terrorism was the elephant in the room.

For the conference to remain relevant it had to acknowledge the changing dynamics of violence in the region and that they required new approaches for effective response.

With the circumstances pointing to terrorism as the most pressing challenge, its relationship with religion made it a hot potato. And so, participants decided to punt. Instead, they acknowledge that religious intolerance was growing in the region; divisions along religions were becoming sharper, more polarised.

Moreover, they observed, religion was increasingly used to justify violence. All this, despite the potential of its leaders to mobilise for the promotion of peace by facilitating dialogue, mediating in conflicts, and enhancing understanding.

This past week here in Kigali, the EAC decided to bring together religious leaders from all five member states of the EAC –and South Sudan in its present status as observers – to ‘touch the elephant.’

The conference implied two things. First, that effective response to respond to threats to peace and security in general and terrorism in particular required the collaboration between religions and governments. Second, religious leaders have the mandate to mobilise for good and to use their ‘prophetic voice’ to marshal the requisite moral authority in society by calling to order governments on matters of justice and equity, seen as perquisites for peace and security.

One may question some of these assumptions. Indeed, some delegates did so. They noted that some of their colleagues were corrupt, tribal, selfish, and subject to state manipulation, rendering them incapable of speaking "truth to power” and therefore lacking the values for demanding for justice and equality. In this spirit, one speaker pointed out "we preach too much religion and not enough on human values.’

It became apparent that some of these contradictions came to the fore after the delegates visited the Genocide Memorial at Gisozi, many returning with sombre reflection having perhaps come to direct confrontation with the reality that here in Rwanda active participation the men and women of God in killing innocent people revealed them to be as fallible as the rest of us.

For Rwandans, the active participation of the men and women of God in committing genocide revealed to us that they fallible tribal and political animals just like the rest of us. At this point, one conceded that at Gisozi he had seen the "worst descent for human beings.”

Meanwhile, the conference had pointed to some positions worth noting. One, that both governments and religions share the same mandate for protecting the welfare of citizens. Second, that the return to the guidance of the scriptures would place religious leaders on the path of appropriately utilising their ‘prophetic voice.’ Third, governments should not wait till things go asunder to "come to us to pray for the country.”

At the end of the five day conference, the religious leaders established an Inter-Religious Council (IRC) for the East African Community, which is expected to institutionalise some of the values needed to enhance peace and security in the region: justice, equity, integrity, inclusiveness, equality, among others.

While religious diplomacy ensured that some sensitive areas of mutual prejudice were avoided, this should note take away from the conference. Focusing on that would be the equivalent of tossing out the baby with the bath water.

A question remains, however. Will the IRC close the religious divide and polarisation through its prophetic voice? Let’s wait and see.

lonzen.rugira@gmail.com