Farrukh Dhondy | As world rejoices at Christmas time, Xmas tree burnt in protest in Syria
“Chappatis are what you knead, my friend
‘Cos there’s not enough naan to go around.
The sun rises every day, it seems without end
What astronomers tell us is profound
Time is an illusion and dimensions make space
Hold close your cards, don’t yet play your ace!”
From The Book of Buck Vase, by Bachchoo
This year I’ve received numerous Christmas greetings, cards through the post, texts on my phone and emails on the computer. I won’t say how many as a large number would seem like boasting and a meagre one will seem pathetic in comparison to the numbers my gentle readers may have received.
The point is not to raise relative measures of popularity as with contemporary boasts of the numbers of “followers” one has on Twitter or the existence of hordes of Facebook or Linked-in “friends”.
It’s to note the religious diversity of the greetings I’ve received: from Christians of course, but then in great numbers from Zoroastrians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, atheists and the undeclared.
Why do all these send out best wishes for the festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ? It’s certainly not because they have all been recently baptised.
It’s almost certainly because of European colonialism which took Christmas -- trees, stockings, lights, reindeer and all to very many parts of the globe.
Which observation poses the question. Is there any part of our world which completely ignores Christmas? Is it forbidden to celebrate it in any jurisdiction, say that of the strict Ayatollah or Islamicist? Or is there a region of the world, some remote island in a forgotten ocean, where news of the Virgin Birth, 2024 years ago, hasn’t reached?
Two incidents in this Christmas advent week drew my attention as at least one of them is connected to such antagonism. In Syria, a group of masked men set fire to a Christmas tree which had been installed in the public square by the majority Christian population of that town. There followed mass demonstrations all over Syria by Christians and their supporters protesting against the purportedly blasphemous, but certainly aggressive and offensive, arson.
The “government” of Syria which, after the recent expulsion of President Bashar al-Assad, seems to be in the hands of the dominant insurgent group which brought about his expulsion, has pronounced the presumably-Islamicist arsonists as criminals. There’s hope there as it indicates that this “government” takes seriously its pronouncement that all religions and sects in multi-faith Syria will be equally respected. Acts of aggression by one sect against another will not be tolerated. True secularism? A lesson and model for the Middle East? Hope springs eternal?
Then there was the very strange video, circulated universally, of a Muslim cleric in full Arab garb standing on Tower Bridge in London, facing the Thames and loudly pronouncing verses from the Quran. He was filmed by the media and protected as he prayed by the Metropolitan Police. Again, an act of secular tolerance. Shame on the Brit and right-Tory antagonism towards the minorities. God save our gracious Tolerance… etc.
Fire has been the weapon of lethal and sometimes symbolic antagonism throughout history. It’s not certain whether Nero didn’t like Rome, but it’s true that the SOB Alexander-the-damned set fire to the Persian capital Persepolis through a demented, inebriate desire to leave no stone of Persian imperial greatness unburnt.
Then there were the poor women burnt at the stake for being accused of witchcraft.
Even so, this was in my short and happy life the first time I’ve heard of setting a Christmas tree on fire to demonstrate a disapproval of Christmas. Yes, books have been burnt through the ages by people who disagreed with their content.
In our times the outstanding case was that of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses being ritualistically burnt by Islamist activists all over the world. They weren’t arrested, though the burning of books accompanied by incendiary speeches appeals to me as a “hate crime” and even a provocation to worse.
I am, gentle reader, in every way against such book burning. Except of course if say 20,000 or a million people object to something in one of my books and each buys a copy to burn. It would of course increase carbon pollution, but it would also probably help to propel my book into the best-seller list.
No such luck, even though my first published book, way back in 1976, faced some opposition and even public demonstrations.
It was (is?) called East End at Your Feet -- a collection of short stories published by Macmillan. One of the stories called “Pushy’s Pimples” is about the contemplation of sex by a young teenage British-Indian girl. Another story contains a quoted line from a very popular and widely circulated Rolling Stones’ song with the word “Starf---r” repeated a few times.
A few days after its publication the Macmillan editor rang me to say that there was a demonstration outside a South London school demanding that the book be withdrawn from the curriculum. The next day the Daily Telegraph published an editorial denouncing my book. I got an invitation from ITV, the national commercial station, to debate the Torygraph’s editor. I went and pointed out to him that the demonstration at the school gates was led by the National Front, Britain’s avowedly fascist party.
So did the demo, editorial and TV debate help sell copies?
Are lions non-vegetarian?
