The New Tune: Merry Diversitus?
“Merry Christmas,” I said to a woman at the Veterans’ Home holiday party. She smiled and said “We do Chanukah.” So I smiled back and said “Great, then Happy Chanukah.” After that little adjustment we both seemed to feel fine about it. Americans have been used to that friendly Judeo-Christian holiday greeting “adjustment” over many decades.
But the adjustment issue is growing huge in our diversity-swollen country, isn’t it? We can’t tell from looking at someone what it is they “do” at this time of year, if anything. Spurred by the “Peace on Earth” message, Christians feel especially compelled to well-wish everybody they see in December, to share the warmth. But other than “Good morning” what do you say in the brief encounter with that pleasant woman wearing the sari? Do we know if this time of year means anything to her?
Like it or not, Christmas already is on its way out as a national religious event. The overwhelming force of economic globalism and the neutralistic credo of the mainstream news media, combined with the American penchant for politeness (who wants to mistakenly wish Merry Christmas to a Buddhist?), will overcome the recent campaign by commentator Bill O’Reilly and others to restore Christmas Past.
Diversity means that we all retreat to our own little pockets of religion and culture and do whatever it is we do without imposing it on others. While we still are subjected to drippy newspaper feature articles about the quaint observances of minority beliefs, we all know the national holiday of Christmas is evolving into a commercial bonanza characterized as a “time for family and friends.” Maybe we'll see a push for a new name , like that incredibly funny made-up holiday in a classic Seinfeld episode – Festivus.
So, what difference does it make as long as we are all good people who believe in God (or trees or something) and get along splendidly? Can’t American life be as cool as that bar scene in the first Star Wars, where aliens with all manner of weird shapes and features had a great time together?
Well, maybe we can party together, but the question is, can Americans of varying cultures and beliefs LIVE together?
You know how the media likes to focus on the supposed apparitions dealing with major figures in the Catholic faith, like the statue of the Blessed Mother who weeps red tears in Sacramento? (See that here http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2005-11-27-marystatue_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA )
Were you aware that such oddities can be found also in the Muslim community? Things such as “Allah Written by the Bees, Allah Written in the Clouds and Allah Written in Human Ear.” (See that here http://anwary-islam.com/godgreat.htm )
Reasonable people can live with such reports from both Catholics and Muslims.
But the real challenge ahead involves deeper differences. The nasty division created within the Christian community by the abortion issue is well known because the views of both sides are well known.
But do most Americans understand, for example, the attitude of Muslims toward women and marriage?
The Muslim web site explains it this way:
“For a wife the first prerequisite is the obedience of husband. Pleasure and satisfaction of husband should be the summum bonum of her life. She has to live for his husband and die for him. This is the command of Allah. And this pleasure and satisfaction should come to the husband with a willing heart of the wife without any pressure, coercion and compulsion, otherwise tension will keep building on resulting in collision and breakage.” (See full text here
http://anwary-islam.com/life/married-life.htm )
Is that a correct portrayal of the Muslim belief? If so, how does that jibe with the “liberated” view of many American women, especially in the news media?
Is the above topic a tangent that doesn’t belong in a discussion of Christmas? Not really. Because the Christmas controversy isn’t so much about Christmas as it is about cultures in seeming conflict.
Something to think about as we wrap gifts and sing our songs.
Until Festivus or Diversitus or whatever takes over, Merry Christmas if you do that.
Can we agree on Happy New Year?
posted by Lou Antosh @ 10:40 AM
1 Comments:
Hmm, Well, I like your blog, very pro sounding. I think western goverments should push for the renewal of traditional Christian Christmas, a time of giving, receiveing, Love and Community. Fuck the Chanukah, the Ramadam and screw all Muslims, f**king filthy scum, like most asians - sadly.
Racial equality ... is a farse. Religious and ethnic minorities are acancer on all western communities. Perhaps you would think that by allowing them to live and have communities in our countries they would appreciate the chance to be welcomed to make a great life in the highly first world counties ... and yet all they want to do is bring their old ways to a new country, like an infestation of rats, like a plague. Sadly goverments bow to the pressures of equality and allow with leanience these minorities to make a new life for them selves ... and as I already mentioned it is sad that they only continue they old pooor filthy and disrespectful ways.
Surely if you want tp live in the UK, then you should strive to fit in, to respect the national way of life ... not try to make it like you own ... you verminous vial scum ... if you could read english and wernt too busy praying in a mosk then you'd be reading this .. and then you would know who you are, I hope after all there is a God, and I hope you all go to Hell.
Besides, I'm an Atheist ... religion is evil, and it breeds evil and scum. Cunts.
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