Merry Christmas

This Christmas was subdued for fears of yet another conflagration in the Middle East. In the Bible, Jesus cries over Jerusalem’s impending destruction: “The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

(St. Luke; 19:43-44).

The US decision to arbitrarily announce Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has encouraged possibilities of more violence and destruction – a process that has not ceased since the occupation of Palestine. The decision of the US president seems to be a calculated move to pander to Christian extremists who support the Jewish state to catalyse the second coming of Jesus.

It was the active support of the evangelicals that prompted Donald Trump to the US presidency. While he demonstrated his Biblical illiteracy and even inconsideration towards some supposedly Christian values, his open and consistent hatred for Muslims and Islamophobia endeared him to a growing constituency within the Bible Belt. Endorsing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital appeals to his core constituency that not only believes but actively supports the destruction of Jerusalem’s Muslim heritage. Christian Zionists, part of the world’s 700 million-strong Evangelical community, view themselves as partners in supporting God’s plan to welcome Jesus back.

Back home in England, this Christmas was a tough reminder of how things have shaped up under the pernicious Conservative government. Life conditions have exacerbated for the majority of Britons as homelessness ballooned into a major crisis around the festive season. Crisis, a charity that grew around Christmas homelessness, has been catering to a growing number of rough sleepers. A report earlier this week revealed that homelessness has increased 134 percent since 2011 as people sleep in cars, trains, buses and tents. In the run up to Christmas, several people had died of cold in the streets due to plummeting temperatures.

Celebrating Christmas in India is becoming increasingly dangerous as the majoritarian Hindutva extremism consolidates its grip. The government arrested carol singers, while Hindu extremists threatened and attacked worshipers, picketed against the schools planning Christmas celebrations and torched vehicles of priests and devotees attending services. The Andhra Pradesh government imposed a ban on New Year festivities, decrying the festival was “not [an] Indian Vedic tradition”.

The growing persecution forced the top Catholic body in India, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, to issue a public rebuke to Prime Minister Modi, claiming that the community is losing confidence in his government. This comes at a time when the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has reissued a book from 1946 that claimed that Jesus was a Tamil Hindu who worshipped Lord Shiva. ‘Christ Parichay’ written by Ganesh Savarkar, brother of RSS founder Veer Savarkar, also claims Jesus was a Brahmin by birth and that Christianity is just a sect of Hinduism.

In Pakistan, Christmas is becoming more inclusive and publicly acceptable, a trend that is worth appreciation as it affords space and recognition to minorities otherwise relegated to margins. Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa’s attendance at a Christmas mass in Rawalpindi was a welcome gesture as was the current government’s efforts to offer space and recognition to minorities. But there is some resistance from the old school which sees such gestures as ultra vires to Islam. One widely-read Pakistani columnist took umbrage to the army chief’s action, lamenting he was “following in the footsteps of political leaders”.

On my Facebook, I shared a small ‘Merry Christmas’ message while highlighting the issue of growing homelessness in the UK. One of my acquaintances from my hometown in Kashmir politely nudged me: “Saying Marry [sic] is a big sin. You are otherwise admitting that Jesus (pbuh) is a begotten son of Almighty Allah. Astagfirullah, it is shirk.” Someone sent a private message quoting famous Muslim televangelist and medical doctor, Zakir Naik. While Naik’s Islamic scholarship is questionable, Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, a well-respected scholar tweeted a similar message, forbidding saying of ‘Marry [sic] Christmas’. This is regrettable as it shows how ignorance about religio-cultural practices can provoke a syllogism that can badly impact social cohesion and mutual respect.

Christmas and reindeers have become inseparable thanks to the modern Euro-American legend about Santa Claus, and its mass popularisation by the advertising and marketing industry. This year brought bad news for Santa as well. In late November, more than 100 reindeers were killed by freight trains in northern Norway during the annual migration of the herds.

The Norwegian media characterised it as a ‘bloodbath’. Henrik Kappfjell, who lost 65 reindeers, described the incident “a senseless animal tragedy” and a “psychological nightmare”. In early December, in perhaps a more senseless act of injustice, the Norwegian Supreme Court ordered a local herder Jovsset Ante Sara to cull half of his reindeers from 150 to 75. The judges ruled it was necessary to prevent overgrazing and “for preserving Norway’s fragile landscape”.

As the world slows down after the New Year celebrations, the Copts are gearing up for Christmas. In 1582, when the Catholic world under Pope Gregory XII changed over to the Gregorian calendar, the Copts retained the Julian Calendar preserving Jesus’ birthday on January 7. The sight of Christmas in Ethiopia, one of the oldest Christian civilisations, has always amazed me and I have developed a fascination for the Coptic religion. On the day, everyone is wrapped in shamma, a thin white cotton wrap, as men and women throng churches while priests dress in turbans and red and white robes.

Aba Burhan, one of the priests at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Addis Ababa, once invited me inside the cathedral near the grave of Emperor Haile Selassie and prayed for a greater understanding between “real Islam and real Christianity”. “Jesus, the messiah, could bring that unity”, he said. I nodded in agreement.

Twitter: @murtaza_shibli