Christmas Cheer

Dec 25, 2011 Editorial

If it is one thing that we can boast about in our small and often politically troubled country it is the surfeit of religious openness and acceptance that we have in our country. It might not be a commodity that we may be able to trade but it is no less valuable for that. Our religious diversity and our celebration of it, if examined, will reveal that it is what will make us survive whatever may be the odds.
At no time is this innate strength of our society exhibited and exemplified better than at Christmas time. Almost every Guyanese will celebrate Christmas. And it is not only the crass commercial Christmas that has unfortunately taken over the world – although there is some of that. Beneath that veneer there lies the sentiment that undergirds the whole notion of Christmas.
For a God that so loves the world that He would go to any length to ensure that mankind has something to live for and be saved by. Christmas is all about how mankind lives together in peace and harmony. God is perfect and our actions and inactions cannot trouble that perfection. Christmas is about the spirit in which we must live our lives. Peace and love.
And history has proven that human lives are ultimately meaningless and end up in nihilism unless mankind lives by rules that are grounded transcendentally. In Guyana, there are not many that would deny that truth.
Of recent, there has been a slew of atheists that have taken to denigrating religion and its centrality to the good life for mankind. Christopher Hitchens, one of the most vocal ones passed away recently after a year’s battle with oesophageal cancer. Some of them, as with Sam Harris, have proposed that morality can be founded on scientific principles. But it all rings hollow. And already, in universities of what used to be bastions of heresy, there are academics have returned to the fold so to speak.
But all that storm and thunder are far removed in Guyana, where we can find Hindus, Moslems and others sharing the festival of Christmas with their Christian sisters and brothers in the spirit of love and togetherness. So many homes are bedecked with fairy lights in the traditional colours that invariably we strain our electricity supply beyond its carrying capacity.
Our celebration takes the form of families gathering together and sharing the best meal that we can muster – all done with good cheer and laughter.
Ginger beer, garlic pork, black cake, curried chicken and dhal puri, pepper-pot and souse are only a few of the delectables that suggest the span of our origins and the coming together of our peoples at this time. We must confess that we do tend to imbibe some spirits at this time to raise our spirits. But he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.
There was a time when Christmas cards were exchanged between all friends and even acquaintances. These cards would be displayed proudly, not on mantelpieces but on tables in our living rooms. “Christmas Trees” would also be improvised from our local bushes and decorated with all sorts of bric-a-brac but nowadays, the ubiquitous artificial tree seems to have replaced them all. and with that some of our creativity and ingenuity.
But we Guyanese can create new traditions that can serve to continue to bind us together. This Christmas, we the Guyanese people have been handed a gift that could only come from a higher power. Our politics had been stunted for so long that many must have prayed for divine intervention. So we have a, election result that demands the cooperation and sharing we practise in our everyday social lives – but especially at Christmas time –be transferred into the political realm.
It is our hope and wishes and prayers at the Kaieteur News that, today, Christmas 2011, we may all reflect on the possibilities that our nation is pregnant with and resolve to allow it to give birth and transfer them into reality in 2012. Merry Christmas.

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Christmas Cheer

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