ALTHOUGH it is the most exhausting month of the year, I find December strangely reassuring. You know what you are going to get; Christmas trees, carols, angels, shopping fatigue, overspend on your credit card and now it seems, stories that “Christmas is cancelled”.
The Nativity play falls foul of the latest over-zealous health and safety law and some well-meaning council re-titles the season “Winterville”.
Or there is the change to the substance of the celebration to one that includes all faiths and none; with readings from the Bhagavad-Gita alongside “The God Delusion”.
But, now some left-wing think tank has suggested we down-grade Christmas for fear of offending religious minorities. Well, as a Muslim, I am only offended that a secular think tank should presume to know what offends me. So it was time to speak out.
But the equally predictable reaction to these stories, of denial or hysteria, obscures what is an interesting question: why should we keep Christmas? In a multicultural and religiously pluralistic society, why should we all “down tools” to celebrate, or at least recognise, a mono-confessional festival? Also obscured is the negative and rarely asked question: why shouldn’t we keep Christmas?
You have to wonder about the vitality of British Christianity when it’s left to British Muslims to defend Christmas against the unrelenting assault of the secular Left.
“But we all live in a country that has a Christian heritage and it is these values that have informed the development of British culture, its laws and its institutions.
Christmas is a time to recognise the contribution that Christianity has made (and continues to make) to the nation, and reiterating the beliefs that informed the development of the nation is an important
point of connection for all British people – even if one does not share the religion.”
She’s absolutely right, and, if one merely substitutes the word “American” for “British,” her thoughts are exactly applicable on this side of the Atlantic.
“Baroness” Warsi is a young(-ish) Muslim lawyer and the daughter of immigrants to the UK who was given her title (and seat in the House of Lords) as a reward for supporting the British Conservative Party after failing to get elected to Parliament. She was involved in bringing home the English teacher from Sudan after the dreaded Teddy Bear Muhammad affair. I wonder if she’ll turn her attention now to the many ex-Muslims in the UK who are facing persecution for changing their faith and speak up on this scandal that is too hot for the governing party – that relies on Muslim votes in many places – to address.