John RapleySOME CHRISTMAS. On the same day last week, the US was bombing Afghanistan, Israel was bombing Palestine in response to a devastating terrorist attack the day before, a suicide attack on the Indian Parliament took a dozen lives, and the US withdrew from the ABM treaty, possibly heralding a new arms race. So much for peace on earth.
Osama bin Laden has laughed at the deaths in America and his followers promise more to come. Meanwhile, the Americans are grinding one of the world's poorest lands into rubble, with the civilian death toll closing in on that of New York. In a cold and war-torn land, millions now face starvation. Yet the war, Mr. bin Laden informs us, is holy. So, it would seem, says Mr. Bush, who assures us that God takes sides.
Meanwhile, in the land where Jesus was born some 2,000 years ago, the battle has resumed between rival claimants to God's gift of land. As the first Christmas of the millennium approaches, it would appear that God is held hostage in a conflict among his most enthusiastic followers. Of course, this is hardly the first time this has happened. But the modernists among us somehow believed that we would not repeat the errors of the past. The world was getting better, was it not? Humans had learned from their past errors. Or had they?
Christmas is dismissed by some Christians as a pagan invention. It began as an ancient celebration of the solstice. The story tells us that when the early Christian missionaries to Europe found it impossible to banish the practice, they decided instead to co-opt it.
Uncertain of when their Messiah had been born, they decided nonetheless to mark his birth on this occasion, thereby Christianising the occasion.
To bring the people to God, they decided they had to bring God to the people. The symbolism seemed appropriate, after all. The solstice marked the turn of shortest day of the year. The sun, upon which all life depended, was about to begin its return. Spring would approach, and rebirth would take place. For a people who had no assurance the sun would not one day decide not to come back, its return was itself a gift.
The early Christians called that light the light of Christ. His birth was the light in their darkness, the promise of new life, of new birth. Perhaps their adoption of the solstice celebration as a Christian occasion was a cynical ploy to bring people to their god through the back door. But perhaps it spoke to a deep-seated human desire to continue to look for light in the darkest of nights. Maybe that is a fitting memory to keep in mind as we approach 2002.
Christmas may have been converted into a crass and materialistic celebration. And in Kingston, no doubt, gunmen will sit in the front rows of churches and some gifts will be bought with stolen, embezzled or drug money. But if the proverbial merchants and money-lenders have always had a knack of converting the religious celebrations to their ends, perhaps there is nothing wrong with the purveyors of hope beating them at their own game.
Let them take these secular or pagan occasions, and use them to win converts to their message. And if their message is one of hope and a promise of a better tomorrow, it is one I am still willing to listen to. This Christmas will pass in the midst of a lot of darkness.
A new world war
The world economy is in recession, crime and violence are on the upswing across much of the planet, a new world war has begun, and the prophets of doom are back in business.
Perhaps, though, that is the point. The Christmas story tells us that the Messiah was born in something akin to what would today be a refugee camp or ghetto. Precisely because the night is so long, we look forward to the sun. For whatever it is worth, the story is one worth re-telling at such a time. Even if it is just a tale which speaks to our innermost desires, those desires, those hopes, are worth clinging to. To all of you, a merry and blessed Christmas.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
