ABSTRACT
In Burundi, the weakness of the initial German Protestant presence meant that denominational competition was a less prominent theme. From the perspective of denominational competition, however, the protected status of Catholic missionaries in Portuguese Africa was decisive. Protestantism, Classe wrote to Léon Livinhac in 1911, “is the religion of the government, it has won favour and will keep it”. The Colonial Ministry in Brussels responded by seeking to keep denominational competition in-house. Belgium’s attempt to manage denominational competition in Rwanda was not a success. In Burundi, the unfolding of denominational competition was slower as the rival orders took longer to arrive. Print media developed in Rwanda as a result of denominational competition. Denominational competition had the effect of accentuating Rwanda’s political divisions of the 1950s between a literate Hutu counter-elite, with which many Hutus did not identify, and a Tutsi court, which feared the tools of media at missionary and Hutu disposal.
