Editor,

RE: "Can religious organisations be trusted?” (The New Times, August 21).

Mr. Rukariza’s argument displays simplistic, biased thinking reminiscent of an amateur in scholarly analysis. In no way can poverty in Africa or Rwanda for that matter be attributed to foreign evangelical entities.

To begin with, Africa was not better before the evangelical entities came and his argument does not show how their arrival made the situation any worse.

Secondly, Africa has political leadership whose sole mandate is to better the wellbeing of their citizenry and it does not help to play scapegoat or blame our failures on others.

Evangelical entities, as he calls them, are voluntarily joined and there is no empirical evidence that those who don’t join them are necessarily economically better.

In all honesty, The New Times readership and Rwandans in general deserve better. Contributors need to do some bit of work and spare their readers from mire emotional biases.

Joel Sengoga

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Mr. Sengoga, nowhere did I suggest that poverty can be attributed to foreign religions. I specifically said they cannot be entrusted with its eradication. You seem to have little knowledge of our pre-colonial history and even almost belittled your ancestral traditions by insinuating we were/are better off with the white man’s imposed religion.

To suggest that we actually chose Christianity is an utter insult to Africa. I am afraid to say so, but you’re a disgrace to the motherland.

Ali Rukariza