Comment Archive:
Saturday 1st December 2007
Christmas To Be Downgraded?
Here’s a recent quote from the UK Government’s Institute of Public Policy Research:
"Christmas should be downgraded unless other religious festivals are marked on an even footing, a Government think-tank has said. The Institute of Public Policy Research has suggested various ideas to make the UK more multicultural. It also wants national culture barriers to be torn down to help immigrants settle into the UK."
"In a report due to be published in coming weeks, the organisation said: "If we are going to continue to mark Christmas - and it would be very hard to expunge it from our national life even if we wanted to - then public organisations should mark other major religious festivals too. Even-handedness dictates that we provide public recognition to minority cultures and traditions."
"It emerged in 2006 that three out of four employers were not putting up Christmas decorations in the workplace for fear of offending staff of other cultures."
Hmm. It raises some interesting issues, doesn’t it? Not least why these Public Policy Researchers are being paid vast sums of money to waste everybody’s time with such inconsequential twaddle.
On the face of it celebrating other festivals sounds a great idea. Hell, anything for a good party, right? And if it gets us extra time off work and a few more Bank Holidays even better. I don’t think there’s a single person in this country who’d truly object to having a good time...
But even I can see that such an idea - though no doubt ultra worthy and coming from the right place - is absolute lunacy. Where do we draw the line? Most school and towns these days make an effort to acknowledge Diwali. But what about celebrating the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi? Or the Jewish festival of Hanukkah? Or the Muslim festival of Ramadan? Or the Shinto festival Seijin Shiki? Hell, why not throw in some Zoroastrian festivals for good measure - the Six Gahanbars should beef up our multi cultural celebrations no end. And that’s even before we start on Taoism, Jainism and Rastafarianism.
If these festivals are to be marked on an even footing then surely we should all be entitled to a great many more paid days off work in order to celebrate them properly? What a huge boost this will be to the Great British economy!
But what about those of us that don’t want to embrace the Shinto creed 3 or 4 times a year? Are we to be branded party poopers – or worse still: racists? But on the other hand, have I personally the right to celebrate the Six Gahanbars when for the rest of the year I don’t give Zoroaster a first thought let alone a second one?
And how would we celebrate these festivals anyway? We obviously need to be educated about them... but isn’t there also usually a dress code for some of these festivals? Special clothes to be worn. Special rites to be observed? Or do we completely Westernise the whole lot and have Hallmark inundate our card shops with a load of cheesy "Happy Ramadan" cards?
Wonderful! Yet another financial burden for the average family to collapse under – as if keeping up with the existing commercial traps of Christmas, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Easter et al wasn’t bad enough...
What annoys me most about the Institute of Public Policy Research’s recent spouting is their namby-pamby chocolate box wish of seeing national culture barriers "torn down". How lovely. Yes, we ALL want that, I believe. But I don’t think expecting everyone to adopt a different religion for a day just to join in with whatever religious festival is current at the time is really going to achieve it. If anything it’s more likely to make things worse. After all, if you were a devout Muslim how would you feel about a load of non-Muslims suddenly gate-crashing proceedings and "playing" at Ramadan for a month (yes folks, Ramadan lasts for a whole month and ideally you are meant to fast during daylight hours for the entire period)? I don’t think you’d particularly feel that your beliefs were being sincerely honoured...
The real source of all this nonsensical debate however is, I believe, to be found in the last paragraph. "Three out of four employers [are] not putting up Christmas decorations in the workplace for fear of offending staff of other cultures..."
What complete and utter tripe. For fear of offending staff of other cultures – not because there’d actually been any offence. How very telling. I’ve never met anyone of a non-Christian faith living in this country who has been offended by the UK’s Christmas celebrations. I don’t think it would even occur to anyone with a modicum of sanity to even be offended by it. This is another example of political correctness disappearing so far up its own backside that it becomes political ineptness. I suspect the "3 out of 4" statistic is completely made up... what rot.
Christians celebrate Christmas. Muslims celebrate Ramadan. Sikh’s celebrate Vaisakhi. And so on and so forth. As long as we are all granted the same freedom to celebrate our own religious festivals and our own cultures in a way that seems most fitting to us I think you’ll find that national cultural barriers will come down by themselves a lot quicker and a lot more easily than by some clumsy, desk-bodged white paper that comes out of the mouth of some well-meaning but completely detached from reality Westminster career pilot... People, just go out and celebrate whatever festival you want, whenever you want.
And on that note - and I trust offending nobody at all - I’d like to wish you all a very happy, very Merry Christmas.
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