SAT-7 satellite TV beaming
the Christian message of hope to a troubled region
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| Displaced children watch SAT-7 satellite TV in a tent in a refugee camp |
A Christian Satellite TV network bringing hope, education
and entertainment to millions of Arabic-speakers in 21 countries across the
Middle East and North Africa, takes up the challenge of doing more for the
suffering Christians in Iraq and in Syria.
By Linda Bordoni
Information, education, entertainment, spirituality and the
Christian message of hope, inclusion and love are all part of SAT-7 Satellite
TV’s programmes that are beamed to millions of people across the Middle East
and North Africa.
As Kurt Johansen, SAT-7’s Executive Director for Europe,
Asia and the Pacific explained to me, at least 400 million Arabic-speakers in
the Middle East and North Africa have access to satellite TV.
Thanks to the wide range of programmes broadcast by SAT-7
and to the commitment and vitality of those who work for the network, some 95%
percent of the region’s population can turn on their television and find the
very thing most needed in their troubled region: hope.
Kurt was in the Vatican “to liaise and align” with some of
the Vatican Councils and Dicasteries in a two-way relationship that aims to have
a positive influence on Middle Eastern society, address social issues from a
Christian perspective, and make the Gospel message available to as many people
as possible, including Christian communities who are dying out in countries
like Iraq and Syria.
I have spoken to Kurt Johansen on a number of occasions in
the past years as he always makes a point of contacting us here at Vatican
Radio when he visits Vatican officials in Rome.
Last time he came with Rita El-Mounayer, a SAT-7 staff
member, who at the time was a talented and energetic producer and presenter,
and who has since been appointed Chief Executive Officer of SAT-7 satellite TV.
This appointment, Kurt said with satisfaction, makes her the
network’s first woman director, a professional “from the younger generation,”
who is overseeing SAT-7 together with a board made up mostly of bishops from a
number of Middle East churches.
Kurt reminded me that the satellite TV network has studios
in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as an international office in Cyprus,
“the stepping stone to the Middle East.”
Noting that there are 400 million people in the Middle East
who have a satellite dish, he said that “the internet is coming, but is still
not as widespread as elsewhere because the prices are too high, many people are
illiterate and it is also censored in some countries.”
Satellite TV, Kurt said, is still the only uncensored medium
and it’s very cheap: “a satellite dish will cost you 20 euros, and once you
have it, you have unlimited access to a lot of different channels.”
Refugees
The network provides an especially valuable service to
millions of people who have been displaced because of war or persecution.
Kurt said so many of them “are living in horrible,
unimaginable conditions: they have nothing to do, they cannot get a job, there
is nothing to do outside their shanty or their tent, there is no law and order.
It’s dangerous to go out… they sit in their shanties or their tents and watch
television, that’s almost the only thing they can do.”
He recalls a visit a couple of years ago to the Bekah Valley
in Lebanon where he visited many refugee families and described their reality
as bleak. But, he said, “I could not fine one tent without a satellite TV and a
dish hooked up to a generator.”
“It is their way of getting information from their home
country; it is also their way of ‘dreaming away’ their situation,” he said.
So, Kurt told me, SAT-7 has a special service for refugees:
“We are teaching refugee children, who have been out of school for 6 or 7
years, how to read and write, mathematics, science, English, how to be a good
citizen”.
“We are also teaching their mothers how to cook with hardly
any food, and how to exercise where there are no fitness centers,” he added.
Not to forget programmes that deal with trauma counselling
and other social issues. Because refugees, Kurt continued “are one of our most
important viewers now.”
Relations with Vatican Dicasteries and Councils
Kurt was in the Vatican to meet with officials from the
Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, from Propaganda Fide and from the
Congregation of Social Communications in order, he explained, “to create
awareness and align with what is done in the Vatican.”
“We have a lot of things in common. I want the Vatican to
know what we are doing and I also want to be inspired by what is going on in
the Vatican offices,” he said.
While the network does its best in taking the Christian
message to the Middle East, it is important, he explained, to keep informed
with what the Vatican thinks, for example, about migration, refugees and so on,
in order to be able to work together, in unity.
SAT-7: a common voice for different churches
Kurt told me that Christian Unity, for example, has much to
do with the work of SAT-7 that is present in countries where there are “all
Christian churches of the Middle East in all of their diversity,” and it is
doing its best to show unity in diversity.
“In a region where there is a lot of division, to show the
unity is a very, very important witness to the world,” he said.
Christians, Kurt said, are divided for historical and other
reasons, “but they can still be together and they can still have one TV station
called SAT-7 as a common voice for many different churches.”
Interreligious dialogue and good neighbourship
Of course, he pointed out, ecumenism is not the only dynamic
that comes into play in the Middle East: “Most of our viewers are not
Christians and we do a lot to build bridges to the Muslim society. We are
citizens in the same country with the same problems: lack of work, lack of
democracy, lack of freedoms, lack of justice.”
“So let’s build a better society together: that is our
voice,” he said.
‘Edutainment’
Kurt told me that one very popular programme currently being
broadcast is a drama in episodes that narrates the interaction between two
families - one Christian and the other Muslim - living together in the same
building.
Obviously, he said, they have a lot of misunderstandings about
each other and the drama tells of how they solve these issues.
He described it as poignant yet humoristic: “you have
to entertain on TV –we call it edutainment – when you educate and you entertain
at the same time!”
Christians of Iraq and Syria
One new challenge Kurt said he will be bringing back to Head
Office with him, is the need to do more for the Christians of Iraq and Syria.
During this visit he said that what he learned from Vatican
officials “is that we need to do more for those Christians – to bring the hope
to those who have lost everything, who hardly have any hope for a better
situation, for a better future in countries where their families have lived for
almost 2000 years as Christians.”
Christianity, he said, is about to die out in some of these
countries like Iraq, and “we must support those who are still there in their
witness to Jesus Christ, for them to be able to stay there and be light and
salt and have a prophetic voice in their societies.”
SAT-7 and Pope Francis
The day I met Kurt was the day Pope Francis set off for his
Apostolic Visit to Thailand and Japan. I asked him whether news of an apostolic
journey would be featured on SAT-7. “Sure” he said, “we must acknowledge that
most of our viewers are not travelling, they are not watching international
television, so we do a lot to show Christianity around the world, so an event
like this is very important for us to show.”
In particular, regarding this trip for example, Kurt pointed
out that also in Thailand Christians are a minority but, he said, they do well,
“so we want to talk to middle easterners about other minorities in the
world”.
Social media and hope for the future
Finally, with a view to the future, Kurt said the network
has decided to increase its investment in social media: “as we sit here there
will be 4000 people watching a YouTube video of SAT-7, we have millions of face
book friends, so this is probably the future.”
Notwithstanding so many critical situations in the Middle
East, Kurt said he remains hopeful: “I believe there has never been a better
time to invest in God’s Kingdom in the Middle East. People’s hearts are open,
they need the message of love and forgiveness, of grace, of mercy, of a loving
God. I believe there is a future for the Christians of the Middle East and for
the Churches of the Middle East.”
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