I’VE ALWAYS liked Christmas; I like comfort and joy, basically, so it appealed to me equally when I was without faith as it does now that I have some. Goodwill to all men is my outlook during December — that is, to all except the stinking miseries who complain about it.
The point about Christmas in the free world is that people are just that — free to celebrate it exactly how they like. If they want to ignore it, steer completely clear of tinsel, have a cheese sandwich for lunch and watch Sopranos videos all day, they can do that. If they want to feed the homeless, they can do that. If they want to spend the day quietly with those they love — or even with their families! — they may do so. And if they want to spend it at the mosque or at church, they can do that too. And no one will stop them from doing any of these. What a truly amazing thing to be able to say.
When I hear people complaining about Christmas becoming too selfish, hedonistic and commercialised, I never fail to marvel at their self-righteousness, uptightness and lack of ability to see beyond the superficial. And the whiners are as bad as the complainers — those people for whom the problem pages telling one How To Deal With Christmas Stress exist, and who never fail to remind us that 67 per cent of families row at Christmas. Then there are the warners, who are only too happy to bear the glad tidings that 80,000 people will end up in casualty this Christmas as the result of accidents in the home; apparently, vicious Christmas trees are responsible for 950 of these.
As we whine about the great burden of celebrating Christmas in freedom, maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to remember what Christians in other countries have lived through in recent years. This may remind us that, in the greater scheme of things, a few pine needles in the shag-pile aren’t a tragedy.
What I would ask you to do is contact the Government of Pakistan, be it by e-mail or letter, and protest to it about the appalling lack of human rights in that country. Our images of Pakistan this year have been those of the blameless victims of the earthquake. But under the current regime there are victims whose plight the Government is not so happy to make public.
Christians in Pakistan have always suffered in this militantly Islamic nation but since the introduction of the 1986 blasphemy laws they have lived in terror.
The first two sections of the blasphemy law, regarding defiling sacred objects or outraging the religious feelings of others, apply to all religions equally. The later two protect only Islam. Damaging a copy of the Koran will get you life imprisonment, while defiling the name of Muhammad is punishable by death. This last one, Section 295C, is easily abused as the offence can be one of speech alone, even without intent. There is no penalty for false accusation, making this law a blank cheque for the malicious — and as police and courts give far greater credibility to the testimony of Muslim witnesses, Christians come off far worse when it is the word of one person against another. Even when acquitted, Christians have been murdered by zealots, as have judges who have acquitted Christians.
All around the world the story is the same — the massacre, enslavement and forced conversion to Islam of more than a million Sudanese Christians; thousands of Christians murdered or driven from their homes over the past decade by Islamist mobs in Indonesia; rape, kidnapping and forced conversion of Christians in Egypt; the list goes on and on.
Whatever, it is obviously too much to expect the Queen, or any of our neutered church Establishment, to speak up for their persecuted brothers and sisters abroad — but you could do it. Why not use a spare half an hour to write a letter or send an e-mail that in some small way may go towards helping the Christians of Pakistan enjoy even a tiny part of the freedom that we of all faiths — and none — in this country take so much for granted?
