Pod Academy

July marks 20 years since the end of the Rwandan genocide.  In the summer of 1994 the death of the country’s president, Juvenal Habyarimana, sparked brutal violence between the country’s two major ethnic groups. The genocide took place over a hundred days, but left an estimated one million people dead. This is the first of a series of three podcasts in which, Rwandan academic and genocide survivor Dr Richard Benda, talks to Alex Burd about the process of reconciliation and the country’s charismatic leader, President Paul Kagame,  as well as his own memories of the genocide. Richard Benda's research at Manchester University addresses key questions in relation to religious authority and the role of faith in response to the complexity of African identity-based conflicts, of which the Rwandan genocide is an extreme case.  In this podcast he explores the role of religion, and the role of the state, in Rwanda’s healing process. Richard Benda: After the genocide, there were debates as to which faith community han