Religious Communities in the Media

By Mojca Leban, ©Media Online 2001

Religion, as one of the essential facets of a society, represents a kind of a challenge to most of the countries in transition. After their more or less subdued activity over the past half a century, the religious communities began to emerge in the public in the last decade, requesting their own space in a society. Thus, the media have discovered the religious communities as yet another attractive area on the one hand, while on the other, the religious communities have seen the media as a stage at which their aspirations could be materialised toward their increased engagement in the social fibre and where their objectives and activities could be revealed. That process is particularly interesting in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for it is the country characterised by a complexity at all levels of public life.

It is precisely that complexity of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian public space that has encouraged me to embark on an analysis of how much the religious communities are present indeed in the media. For that purpose I have analysed the weeklies issued across Bosnia and Herzegovina (“Danas”, “Dani”, “Ljiljan”, “Reporter” and “Slobodna Bosna”) during the first six months in 2001. Although my analysis has not encompassed the mass media, I have learnt the leading trends in the development of the relations between these two factors of the social reality. Bosnia and Herzegovina of today is the area of a direct mixture and identification of religion and ethnicity, “a huge political instrumentalisation of religion and religious communities for political purposes on the one hand, and identification of religion and ethnicity, on the other"[1][1]. This tendency is readily observable in the media: we can characterise it as a politicisation of religion and theologisation of politics. The religious communities appear in the weeklies I have analysed primarily within the context of political events. The views and positions on the status of religious communities in daily political developments depend largely on a political faction advocated or at least favoured by the media. This has resulted in a wide spectrum of relations between the media and various religious communities, ranging from the attempts to establish a critical attitude towards a political engagement of religious communities in the daily life of Bosnia and Herzegovina to an openly negative attitude or a non-critical support and encouragement.

A general impression is that most writings about religious communities often contain a political undertone and quite often the elements of sensationalism, as a result of almost desperate commercialisation of the press. The magazines which are trying to establish a critical attitude toward religious communities and their identification with political events maintain a predominantly unilateral view, which means that they never or hardly ever make a direct contact with religious communities; this, in turn, results in the lack of exchange of information and views.

The best example of such magazines is “Dani”: namely, the pages of this weekly provide the biggest number of articles about the religious communities within Bosnia and Herzegovina since January 2001. But it should be stressed that all articles, interviews and commentaries are either a reaction to the appearance of religious communities in the public political life of the state, or a criticism of their statements and actions. An easily observable characteristic of “Dani” is a political encouragement of religious communities in the society. Its treatment of religious communities arises precisely from that interest. This weekly treats religious communities in BiH in a critical manner, trying to represent them more or less objectively and give them an appropriate place in the society. “Dani” is the weekly which gives an equal treatment to all four major religions in BiH, but – of course – always within a political context.

“Dani” has taken more than a critical attitude towards a political promotion of religious communities and enters an open conflict in the majority of articles with what they see as an excessively politically active religious community. In its section known as “Bosnian Barometer” it gives in almost each issue a comment on primarily the Islamic Community in BiH and often an evaluation of actions taken by Reisu-l-ulema Mustafa ef. Ceric, whether it be his own statements about political developments (for example, the visit by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to BiH) or his statements concerning religious holidays. Cardinal Puljic appeared in the Bosnian Barometer only once, in relation to the Croat issue in BiH, on 4 May 2001. Such comments in the Barometer are satiric without exception and contain a very serious critical evaluation of the current situation and trends.

Ivan Lovrenovic devotes his column mainly to the political activities of the Roman Catholic Church and political engagement of its shepherds. His comments and conclusions lead us to conclude that he is an extremely well-informed author in terms of the religious and political situation in BiH and also an academic with a distinctly clear vision of what the role of the Roman Catholic Church should be within the state. Still, his articles have reduced the vision of the role of religion down to its political element.

The Serb Orthodox Church is covered by “Dani” – and by most of other weeklies – from the aspect of politics only. The Orthodox Church appears only in the context dominated by such words as “nationalism”, “Serb national feeling”, “fascism” and the like. This aspect was particularly maintained in the articles describing violent protests in Banja Luka and Trebinje during the ceremonies of laying the corner stones for the construction of the local mosques destroyed during the war. The major objection to the coverage of those events by “Dani” and “Slobodna Bosna” concerns a striking lack of distinction between the notion of ethnicity and that of religion, in this case, Orthodox religion, and their tendency to generalise the matters in a superficial manner. On the other hand, Banja Luka “Reporter” tried to draw readers’ attention to the political manipulations behind the construction of Ferhad Pasha’s Mosque as well as to the problems facing the Islamic Community in Banja Luka, within the sole aim of criticising the ruling party in the RS.

The Jewish Community was mentioned in “Dani” on one occasion only, in an interview with Judith Varnai Shorer, Israeli Ambassador to BiH, published on 30 March 2001. As far as other weeklies are concerned, “Danas”, one of the most radical weeklies I have read in Bosnia and Herzegovina, published in its issue of 13 April 2001 an interview with the President of the Jewish Community in Mostar about the life of that community, plainly intending to politicise religion and believers. Politics and political issues concerning the divided city of Mostar, Croat interests and international community’s activities ran through all issues concerning life and problems facing the Jewish Community in Mostar. Even the issues concerning the life of the Jewish Community were conceived so as to suggest that the Jews enjoy more rights on the west side of the River Neretva (conditionally said “Croat” side) than on the eastern side of the River. This is no surprise, knowing that “Danas” provides the best example of the magazine which supports openly the political activities of the Roman Catholic Church, covering each statement or event which promotes a political activity of the favoured religious community without exception.

It is only on rare occasions that the media offer the social promotion of religious communities in other spheres of social life and activity, such as social work, assistance to socially vulnerable categories or the cultural activity, which also constitutes, or should be a part of the promotion of religious communities in our society. And if there is such an article, it is often published in the media which support openly a certain religious community. Thus, we can read in both “Danas” and “Ljiljan” the feature stories, articles and pieces of information on cultural and social activities of the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic Community respectively. On the other hand, Orthodox Church and the Jewish Community are almost entirely neglected, while there is not a trace of other religious movements or sects.

Even the topical issue of ‘religion’, as a new subject in school, is treated as a problem of daily politics, rather than that of the society, to the extent at which even the religious communities are reacting from a purely political view of identifying religion with ethnicity. The materials about some theological issues or problems from a dogmatic, philosophical or theological level can hardly be found. The impression is that everything is taking place around or at the political scene only, and that the religious communities have no other roles in the society. This is the principle of using the information, primarily political, which has already been utilised.

It can be easily observed that the media are focused on religious leaderships. As a consequence, we can hardly find any information about, for example, the life of a religious community, its needs and problems. There is no topicalisation of the problems concerning co-existence and religious tolerance, which, in my opinion, is extremely important in terms of future social, cultural and religious development in this country.

All this is partly a consequence of insufficient education of journalists in the field of religion and faith, which, in turn, is one of the reasons why there is almost no investigative journalism in the field of faith and religion. This can be easily seen in the article published in “Reporter”, titled “Fight of Serb Brethren”, after the crosses were placed in the vicinity of SFOR bases; it provided no explanation of the reasons and the background was missing because of insufficient knowledge and information.

No matter how much this points to a certain imperfection of the media or the predominance of commercial interests in the sphere of the media, one should ask how much religious communities themselves contribute to the shaping of a manner in which the media will represent them and how much they are capable of engaging themselves in that effort. That the leaders of religious communities lack ambition to take an active part and establish a relationship with the media which would not be always a confrontation of opponents, but rather an expression of political views and positions or a monotonous conversation between the like-minded collocutors, is a defeating fact. Namely, the representatives of religious communities, and especially their leaders, often make their official statements and give interviews only to those magazines which approve and support their social, primarily political, activities. Thus, “Ljiljan” publishes on a regular basis official statements made by Reusu-l-ulema, and of other religious representatives of the Islamic Community. The magazines such as “Ljiljan”and “Danas” often quote the statements of religious leaders of the Islamic Community and Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of criticising the current political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is becoming clear that the religious communities have not developed a defined strategic attitude towards the media and that they simply lack knowledge of the ways in which they could take the advantage of the media space. Their attitude towards the freedom of the media and their (lack of) understanding of that freedom are the problem as well. As a consequence, the religious communities often take up a defensive posture, defending their views from the media criticism, sometimes with an increased aggressiveness, because of which the confrontation of the views of the media and religious communities often grows into an open conflict. The most striking example of such a conflict was the signing of a petition against “Dani” magazine, which had been initiated by the Active Islamic Youth organisation.

A general conclusion of this analysis could be that neither the religious communities not the media have a distinct vision of a specific role of religious communities in a society. The media are still in the process of getting used to the religious communities across Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the religious communities are still trying to win their desired, or at least adequate, status in the public. The fact is that for the time being such relationship between the media and the religious communities can not be described as the relationship between equal partners who exploring all the possibilities of their mutual co-operation and communication in a rational manner.

Mojca Leban graduated from the Theological Faculty of the University in Ljubljana. She is an activist in the field of inter-religious dialogue in BiH and is involved in a research of the relationship between the media and religion in this country. Translation by: S.P. ©Media Online 2001. All rights reserved.

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