Sunday Express - December 24, 2000
By Raffique Shah
CHRISTMAS, I have long held, is a joyous occasion for children. Its commercialisation over the years, though, has made it all- encompassing, a consumer-driven festival that reduces adults to child-like behaviour, sending them into mad spending orgies.
Indeed, children have become peripheral to Christmas, so bent are some parents on ensuring that there is more than adequate liquor in the house than there are fruits and toys and goodies to make the day a happy one for kids. While I have nothing against adults enjoying themselves during the season, I often wonder how people who indulge excessively can be said to be having a fun time.
This year, the Muslim festival of Eid ul Fitr also falls within the Christmas season, which means that the people of two major religions will be marking important days on their respective calendars at the same time. Except for the non-consumption of alcohol during the month of Ramadan and on Eid day, the celebrations are alike—feasting, visiting friends and relatives, sharing gifts and food and giving charity to the poor.
I believe it’s more than coincidence that in this election year, the two festivals have become almost one, entwined much the way the city of Jerusalem is for both religions, while at the same time mimicking the great divide that the Holy City has been reduced to.
Although I do not subscribe to celebration the way most people do, I believe I am entitled to a wish list. So here goes: I wish that the God (or Allah) that people of all faiths believe in would remove the scales from their eyes so that they can distinguish right from wrong, just from unjust, that they will see the light, quite literally, and not as gullible and hypocritical as they tend to be. For example, when I saw a man I had always held in esteem, Pastor Clive Dottin of the Seventh Day Adventist church, mount a UNC political platform on the eve of the election, I wondered then if he knew what he was calling on people to support.
The good pastor was, of course, entitled to express his personal views and had his right to vote whatever party he felt was working in consonance with the will of God. But when, sitting behind him were the agents of Mammon and his appeal was for members of his church and people in general to vote for corruption, for abuse of human rights, for arrogance at all levels of the party, for a rejection of moral values in favour of material gain for the few and the closing of tribal ranks among the many, I sat listening with mouth agape.
How could this man of God reduce himself to promoting sin, nay, Satan (Shaitan for Muslims: doesn’t that name have a familiar ring?)?
Pastor Cuffie, on the other hand, ran true to form. His was always a church in which God’s name was invoked from the pulpit for the material gains of the anointed. One has merely to look at his lifestyle and those of his fellow pastors in stark contrast to the lot of members of their flocks to see that his God is discriminatory in the extreme.
So it was not surprising that on the eve of the election, for a gift of a few acres of land, he was willing to preach the gospel of the UNC. Materialism and spirituality blend beautifully in the house of Pastor Cuffie.
I found it even more interesting that Sat Maharaj and the Maha Sabha, who, in the past, were lightning quick to respond to any incursion on their turf by Cuffie and his associates, were silent on the largesse bestowed on this Hindu-converter. Where, pray, was Devant Maharaj, a Pentecostal-basher of Maha Sabha standing? All the Hindu writers whose acid pens—er, computers, spewed venom against these Raiders of the Lost Tribe, pretended not to notice that piece of politiking. Muslims, too, who were dead-set against the Pentecostal Cuffies for their sins of conversion, swallowed their Qu’ranic pride and welcomed the dandiest “preacherman” this side of heaven to their political fold.
Oh how I wish it was true that our religious leaders would see the universality of God (by whatever name He is called) and they would bury their differences, move from pulpit to temple to mosque with the same spirit of tolerance that prevailed before the election. God, Allah, Ram, Jehovah, grant them all the vision to allow this politically inspired truce to become permanent. And elevate the old Bas to sainthood or Guru or Mullah, whichever is more expedient at this time.
I wish that Kamaluddin Mohammed, my old PNM friend who is now preaching the gospel (sorry, Charch, that should read the Hadith) of the UNC, would make peace with Allah. Kamal boasts that he “controls the Muslim vote”, which is quite a thing, given that the Qu’ran speaks of no Muslim arrogating unto himself the role of icon.
But then, Kamal has always had a direct line to Allah, whose name he invoked during the most corrupt days of the PNM when he was a key player in that party.
Now, having switched allegiance, he has taken Allah and all local Muslims with him to the UNC. For these feats, he deserves no less a title than Ayatollah (Mullah is much too minor), the Thirteenth Imam-or whatever number Islam has reached. Grant him this title for Eid, Oh Allah.
Above all, I wish the politicians who trudged through the most depressed districts during the election campaign, will return to them on Christmas or Eid morning to see how these people fare in this season of goodwill and plenty.
I wish they would, by the magical intervention of Pastors Cuffie and Dottin, not to add the divine presence of the blessed Imam Kamal, fill the empty stomachs (well, the destitute can’t afford stockings) of children and elders of the society whose only hope lies not in welfare or pension cheques, but in the charity of their communities. I expect, for example, to see Carlos John spend Christmas Day in Bangladesh, the squatters’ village, that is, not in Moka.
Maybe he’ll even take the bedraggled kids for “ah spin” in his new, million-dollar jeep that is more than a toy. Right Carlos?
A peaceful Christmas and Eid to all my fans and foes.
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Copyright © Raffique Shah
