At the moment, I am the only member of the Georgetown Jesuit community serving full time at the Qatar campus of the School of Foreign Service.
I am the only Jesuit here in Qatar, but not the first. Years ago, when SFS-Q was just getting started, Fr. Ryan Maher, S.J., was here, and more recently Fr. Jim Walsh, S.J., taught theology. But for the past year and a half, I have served as the only Jesuit in Doha.
Before I arrived here, I wasn’t sure how I would be received in this small country on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. I knew that Qatar is an almost 100 percent Muslim country, and that encouraged me; having studied in Lebanon and Egypt and having taught in Indonesia, Turkey and the Philippines, I’ve lived among Muslims for a long time and found them to be both welcoming hosts and challenging partners in the dialogue of life.
I can honestly say that in the almost 50 years since I went to Indonesia in the 1960s to teach English, I’ve never encountered any serious prejudice or rejection when people learn that I am a Catholic priest and a Jesuit. In fact, the opposite is true; I find the people I’ve known to be easy to love and easy to live with.
One thing I wasn’t prepared for was the family-like atmosphere. Visitors from Washington always note what a close living-learning community SFS-Q is. By the second semester, we basically all know each other; we eat lunch together, rub shoulders in the library and see one another at the student clubs, Lunch & Learns, basketball games, lectures, movie nights and debate competitions.
There is a strong student organization aimed at raising consciousness about the problems faced by disabled persons; there’s a video dialogue with students in Gaza and there are projects designed to promote an understanding of the situations of life and work of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Qatar. There is plenty to do together, all of which helps us get to know one another better. SFS-Q has little of the anonymity and loneliness about which students sometimes complain in huge American universities.
What about the sensitive subject of religion? Can we talk about that? Is it divisive, a cause of tension? I’ve had an interesting experience in this area.On main campus, I taught a course in “Muslim-Christian Relations Since Vatican II.” There, all the students were Christian, except for two Muslims. In Qatar, I teach the same course, same material, except here all the students but two are Muslim.
We take up the same material we studied in Washington, some of it positive, some negative, which we discuss and debate animatedly, and in both places I sense an underlying current that this generation really does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. They live in a global culture where national, racial and religious prejudices are simply not acceptable.
Last week, we had midterms, so this week I am correcting and grading. In one midterm question I asked: “What are the first steps to be taken to improve relations between Muslims and Christians?” As I read the papers, I found that I had tears in my eyes at the depth of insight and commitment expressed in those exam papers. I wanted to collect and publish those papers so others could read them.What teacher would not find teaching in this situation to be a personally fulfilling, rewarding experience?
It’s not all sweetness and light here. A month ago, a very popular and in many ways remarkable Qatari student died in a motorbike accident. He lived in the dorm and had many friends who were devastated by his sudden death. For many students, it was the first time in their lives they had lost someone who was a close friend, someone their own age, with whom they had lived and eaten and spent time. They faced these feelings of loss in memorial services where they shared memories of their friend and reflected on the significance of his life.
Shortly after that, the newborn child of a young American couple, who only shortly before had arrived at SFS-Q, died tragically at birth. As is the custom in the Catholic Church on such occasions, we held a Mass of the Angels to commend the child to God and pray for the parents in their time of loss. I was gratified to see not only the Christian staff and faculty turn out for the Mass, but most of the Muslims as well.
These tragedies give unspoken but nevertheless tangible evidence that we form one united family engaged in a common effort of education, working together for God’s greater glory.
Fr. Thomas Michel, S.J., is a visiting professor at the School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He is a guest author of As This Jesuit Sees It … which appears every other Friday.