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Reflections on Christmas
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per Astrid Essed |
28 des 2005
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In my christmas-message to the readers I reflect on the great contradiction between the real meaning of Christmas, being the appeal to human rights and respect and the hypocrisy, used by the ''christian'' polticians |
Dear Readers,
Readers, Merry Christmas!!!
Christmas, however, is not just a merry feast
Christmas is that specific remembrance of rejection, occupation, fear for the ones at power and the necessity to seek asylum
But moreover it is the feast of hope, love and the respect of all people, regarding race, descent or social position
Regardless being a criminal or not
The whole event started with the travel of a poor Jewish couple, that had to be registrated on the order of the Roman occupator in their birthplace
No consideration at all for the condition of a high pregnant woman, that had to make the journey on a donkey
How painful and incomforbable must that have been
Comparable with the journey nowadays of a Palestinian couple through their own country, which is also occupied.
A Palestinian couple, that has to go to the hospital, because the woman has to deliver a baby
Just like there was no place for that Jewish baby, Jesus, in the inn, so that His mother had to deliver her baby in an cold cave, without any medical assistance, so the Palestinian mother is often not allowed to pass an Israeli checkpoint and has to deliver her baby on a cold street, with all medical consequences of delivering a dead child
Jesus stayed alive, but the Familiy had to flee, because the King Herod, assuming that the baby would grow up into a ''potential revolutionary'' , attempted to kill him
The Family fleed to Egypt, to stay there untill Herodes had died
Refugees and asylum-seekers, because the life of the baby was threatened with death
Many so-called ''christian'' politicians in Western-Europe, who have introduced strict asylum-laws, by which people are going to be sent back to unsafe and war-countries and are being threatened with their life because of their religious and political beliefs or simply being of a different sexual origin, like gays, forget, that also the baby Jesus and his mother and Joseph were asylum-seekers and refugees
What would have been their fate, when they had fled to for example the Netherlands?
Sent back to King Herod?
Christmas offers us an opportunity to break through manmade inhumanity and evil
The Child is a Friend of every people, regardless descent or way of living
He eats in the house of Zacheus, tax-collector of the Roman occupator, so making Zacheus a traitor in the eyes of many people
He is forgiving the murderer, hanging on the cross, inviting him to paradise
He is curing the blind man on Sabbath day, learning man, that helping people is more important than a religious dogma
He learns mankind, that showing respect for the universal rights for all people, is the heart of religion
We are living in a time of growing international conflicts and experience, that governments, especially under pretext of ''war on terrorism'' are violating the fundamental human rights
The real Christmas-message shows us a way out, by appealing to the human rights and the right on a fair rial of any man, whether a common criminal, a terror suspect, Saddam Hoessein, an American war-criminal or any other suspect or convict
But it is of no importance whatsoever, whether people believe in the Christmas-story and Jesus or not
The message of Christmas of Love, and Forgiveness is applying to every religious of atheist conviction, being the universal message of humanitarian solidarity
Readers, again, I wish you a very good and haronious Christmas
And for 2006 much health, warmth, friendschip, peace, harmony, wealth and all othergood things of life May the struggle against injustice continue
With many regards of solidarity
Astrid Essed
Amsterdam
The Netherlands |
This work is in the public domain |
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