RESILIENCE IN SURVIVORS OF MASS VIOLENCE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO RECONCILIATION IN POST-CONFLICT RWANDA

Abstract: This paper explores the concept of resilience in survivors of mass violence as a critical factor in promoting reconciliation in post-conflict Rwanda. It examines how people who have experienced untold atrocities in conflict continue to bounce back, live on, exude hope, and be productive in society. This is particularly intriguing when, as is the case in different programmes concerned with organizing and coordinating psychological interventions for the survivors, the attention is given to finding marks of trauma and dysfunction in the survivors. The paper disputes the assumption that reactions to experiences of violence are entirely negative, and that they have to be dealt with in the conventional ways, usually Western-based, for healing and reconciliation to be realised. It cautions against applying Western standards to different ethnocultural contexts of recovery, and promotes the design of interventions that are supportive of the natural capacity for resilience in the survivors