An important presence which is nevertheless
sometimes represented in a stereotypical way: this is the image of the
Church and Christians given by Arab newspapers, according to an analysis
by Samar Messayeh in her PhD thesis in institutional Communication at
the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
The study analyses 1371 articles published between
November 2007 and April 2008, in 18 Arabic language newspapers of 18
Arab League countries, from Morocco to Syria, from Egypt to Saudi
Arabia.
What emerges is a clearer and in some ways surprising picture of
the Church’s public importance in a part of the world where Christians
often make headlines because of incidents of violence and persecution
against them.
The study reveals, once again, the Christian
minority’s central role in Arab culture – a role which dates back a long
time ago: the first printing works were introduced by the Christians in
1610 and the first Arab top found an Arabic newspaper was a Christian.
Given the lack of means and freedom of journalism
in the region, “the Church - Messayeh summarised - and the Pope’s
gestures are often followed closely. Naturally, Christians are given
more attention in countries where they are a strong minority, while
emphasis is given to Muslim-Christian dialogue - perhaps in a slightly
“hypocritical and sterile” manner, the researcher remarks – in countries
such as the Gulf States, where there are no “visible” Christian
communities.
Naturally, descriptions of Christians are not free
from stereotypes: some are historical – these see the Church in light
of the crusades, the inquisition and the power of time – and others
which are more typically “Arab” and tend to identify Christians with the
West.
Messayeh is an Iraqi Christian who is not afraid
to criticise her “martyred land”.
Unfortunately her study was carried
out before all the Arab Spring upheavals in many Middle Eastern an North
African countries.
As such, the institutional interest shown in the
Church, can be considered at least partly a consequence of the
policy-making of dictatorial regimes who take care to censor any
potential source of tension; at the same time, “the Church’s role in
defending human values and peace” does receive recognition and in some
cases the comparison with the Church helps Islam and the Arab states be
self critical.
One case where this happened was the publication in January 2008 of an article in Ittihad,
a United Arab Emirates daily, entitled “The Islamic reawakening”.
The
author analysed the role of political Islam , presumably in light of
the inactivity which Arab societies seemed stuck in at the time, and
predicted the danger of it “happening in Islam as well as in
Christianity” in the future, with the Church called to pay even for
“crimes it did not commit.”
“The general feeling reflected in newspapers is of
a need for political change, which is more of a lay than a religious
character,” Messayeh writes. The reference is often to the process of
separation between State and Church in the West, both as a model that
should be “imitated” and as an occasion to observe the “diversity of
Arab-Muslim society.”
What happened in the years after the publication of the study, show
just how strong these two different trends are and how they now openly
contrast each other, despite the fake harmony imposed by the regimes.
“Once current changes have been set in stone - Messayeh rightly
concludes - it would be interesting to see whether anything has changed
in the way the media speaks about the Church.”