The West looks with great concern towards North Africa, with the changes in the countries marked by the so-called “Arab Spring”. This has led to the downfall of totalitarian regimes which once seemed untouchable! All this is about very complex movements, not only in the societies where it happens, but also involves struggles regarding international interests. Will the populations be able to “control the situation” and direct the changes to their common good? The situation is very complex. These very young democracies have entrusted the power to parties of Islamic matrix, and have come out with new realities causing alarm, especially among the youth, and in the Christians locally. One only needs to look at the results of the last elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco (a country not rocked by the Arab Spring but advancing seriously on the paths of reform through the will of King Mohammed VI).
These scenarios lead us to look at Islam and its spread in North Africa, taking into account the fact that the Christian presence goes back to six centuries before the birth of Islam, and that the Christian communities (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) are part and parcel of the local social fabric, a significant part of the cultural richness of the Countries and of the Region, and cannot be considered as a “foreign” body, or a “presence” affiliated to “something” western, as often seen by fundamentalist Islamic movements, motivated by ignorance or political interests!
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(Vatican Radio) Islam in North Africa
The West looks with great concern towards North Africa, with the changes in the countries marked by the so-called “Arab Spring”. This has led to the downfall of totalitarian regimes which once seemed untouchable! All this is about very complex movements, not only in the societies where it happens, but also involves struggles regarding international interests. Will the populations be able to “control the situation” and direct the changes to their common good? The situation is very complex. These very young democracies have entrusted the power to parties of Islamic matrix, and have come out with new realities causing alarm, especially among the youth, and in the Christians locally. One only needs to look at the results of the last elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco (a country not rocked by the Arab Spring but advancing seriously on the paths of reform through the will of King Mohammed VI).
These scenarios lead us to look at Islam and its spread in North Africa, taking into account the fact that the Christian presence goes back to six centuries before the birth of Islam, and that the Christian communities (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) are part and parcel of the local social fabric, a significant part of the cultural richness of the Countries and of the Region, and cannot be considered as a “foreign” body, or a “presence” affiliated to “something” western, as often seen by fundamentalist Islamic movements, motivated by ignorance or political interests!
Read it all.