Seara (magazine)

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The Seara ( German  Kornfeld ) is a magazine of the Archdiocese of Dili ( East Timor ). Initially intended as the voice of the diocese and the Catholic Church, the publication became a platform for the Timorese independence movement in the 1970s. In addition, the paper brought the reader closer to the Timorese culture and was thus identity-creating for the Timorese population. The Seara was intended to be a means of proselytizing the Timorese and is today considered to be their most important document for the last decades of colonial times.

history

Despite 400 years of Portuguese presence in Timor , at the end of the colonial period just 30% of the population of Portuguese Timor was Catholic.

During the Portuguese dictatorship , the Seara was exempt from general censorship rules as a church journal. There were courses in Tetum , but it was also a forum for the exchange of ideas, for example on the morality of violence, traditional Timorese marriage law or the inefficiency of the local economy.

On July 28, 1958, the first issue of Seara was published. New ones came every month or two. The first director was Father Ezekiel Enes Pascoal, followed by Leoneto Vieira do Rego. In addition to Christian content, such as Bible verses and communications from the Church, Bishop or Pope, the history of East Timor was also part of the content. Under Father Jorge Barros Duarte, the contents of the Seara became more cultural from September 30, 1959, but this led to more work. So there was a new edition only every two to four months. Duarte worked on the magazine until mid-1964. Then the magazine fell asleep. Here it became clear that the missionaries no longer tried to destroy the old Timorese culture, but to use it as a medium for the Christian message (see also: Lulik and the Christian faith ).

In 1966 it was revitalized with Father Jacinto António Campos as director. Father José Carlos Vieira Simplicio became editor-in-chief. Now there was a weekly issue on culture and religion. In January 1969 Father Manuel Pinheiro Andre took over the office of director. He turned the magazine into a news paper , like the already existing A Voz de Timor , the colony's first daily newspaper.

In August 1972, Father Martinho da Costa Lopes took over the editorial office of Seara. Under him, the paper became a mouthpiece for the political interests of the Timorese. Articles by Marí Alkatiri , José Ramos-Horta , Nicolau Lobato , Abílio Araújo and Francisco Xavier do Amaral , among others, were published here , which would later have important roles in East Timor’s politics . Some of them had had contact with independence activists from the African colonies and now made themselves advocates of Timorese independence. Especially the articles by Amaral and Ramos-Horta's essay “ Mauchte Meu Irmão” ( German  Maupe my brother ) were viewed as rebellious in some cases and aroused the government's attention. Under their pressure, the Seara was closed on March 24, 1973 without further explanation.

From 1983 there were plans to revive the Seara. In 1991, Father Áureo Gusmão was appointed director of Seara. In the same year an edition of the Seara was published with greetings from the bishop and the pope. From 1993 to 1995, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo himself took on the post of director of the editorial team. Since then there has been an editorial team with several members. The magazine has been published regularly since January 1994.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Alexandre Fernandes: O periódico Seara no Timor Português (1949-1973): práticas de mediação e integração institucional pela imprensa católica , Universidade de Brasília.
  2. ↑ Australian Department of Defense, Patricia Dexter: Historical Analysis of Population Reactions to Stimuli - A case of East Timor ( Memento of September 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.1 MB)
  3. ^ A b Constâncio Pinto , Matthew Jardine: Inside the East Timor Resistance , p. 11, 1997 ISBN 1550285882 , 978-1-5502-8588-8.
  4. ↑ a b c d Diocese of Dili: Seara .
  5. ↑ a b "Part 3: The History of the Conflict" (PDF; 1.4 MB) from the "Chega!" Report of the CAVR (English)