Ever since I arrived in the United States some weeks ago, only one story dominated TV and the print media. The sad story of Terri Schiavo, the brain dead woman whose parents and husband fought a legal battle for many years over having her feeding tubes removed so that she could die in a dignified way. The legal battle became a political one when the US senate convened an emergency meeting over the Easter weekend and asked the courts to reconsider the case. Their pleas were refused. Terri Schiavo died at 41. She had been in a hospice for 15 long years.The legal debates over euthanasia and the unprecedented politicisation of the issue kept me interested in the case. The argument about ‘‘siding on the side of life’’ by a government that does not seem so pro-life when it comes to bombing entire civilisations amused me. But soon the obsessive way in which every news channel blocked out all other news except details of this case for two weeks began to wear me out. As Terri Schiavo’s parents lost the legal battle to keep their daughter alive, the media changed the tone of their commentaries from the legal to matters of a humanist Christian faith.Every news channel was the upholder of the faith. Religion was closest to their heart and they were the self styled spokesmen of the entire nation. And the nation was clearly a religious project in which Christian values were the most important. Almost every news anchor termed the death of Schiavo as ‘‘murder’’. The legal sanctity that the highest courts had given to Schiavo’s death was openly criticised. The rule of law was ignored and the nation was assumed to have been structured on a conservative version of Christianity. There was a complete black out of the viewpoint that opposed the faith argument. The pro-life lobby that had ideological underpinnings other than faith was never projected as distinct from Christian conservative opinion. For more than two weeks what we saw on TV was a parade of a Christian nation which was appalled that it was governed by laws that were not entrenched in its beliefs. The stepping in of the government in the debate on the side of the faith lobby only made the mapping of nation on religion complete.Most talk shows clubbed their excessive broadcast of the case with a segment called ‘‘Hollywood and Religion’’. In a week long serialised coverage that went alongside the Schiavo story, one was told that the box office success of films like Gibson’s Passion of Christ indicated the importance of the Christian faith in the life of the nation. The success of Gibson’s film was contrasted to the not so successful films in the past on religious themes. This, commentators said, only proved that the waking up to religion in America was a recent phenomenon. And maybe the media is right. How else would one explain the re-election of George Bush?The writer is a visiting fellow, University of Harvard, USA
