BU-MAKAYA, E: Religion and Human Security in Wartime

Can religion help promote human security in war-torn country (like the Democratic Republic of the Congo)? Religion, I suggest, as a set of symbolic forms, can empower a people‘s action by giving them the tools to overcome oppression. I attempt to demonstrate it at three different levels. First, I analyze the current situation of the Congolese People entangled in the web of foreign domination, regional invasion and local oppression. Second, through an interpretative reflection on resistance, I show how religion can be a process of conversion from impoverishment to freedom and self- reliance. And third, at the anthropological level, I argue that the imbedded poor sense of the self and the social imagination of the Congolese can be renewed and reformed by an updated reflection on religion. It is my hope that this reflection can contribute to rejuvenate the transformative hope of a people for whom I have so much love.