Christmas could be cancelled ?

It has been reported that a Saudi Arabian ‘think tank’ has advised King Abdullah that celebrating the festival of Ede might offend some people of other faiths living in that country, and therefore he should provide public recognition to minority religions and traditions: and so for the first time a Christmas tree will be erected in Riyadh’s ‘chop-chop’ square during the month of December and carol singers will be on the streets of Mecca on Christmas Eve.

Yes, of course it’s all bloody nonsense which I just made up, just as the latest idea from the government’s favourite ‘think tank’ (The Institute for Public Policy Research) is a load of bollocks, when it suggests that Christmas should only be celebrated in Britain if other religious festivals are marked as well … 

… “If we are going to continue to mark Christmas - and it would be very hard to expunge it from our national life even if we wanted to - then public organisations should mark other major religious festivals too” …

Now I’m sure that Jews, Hindus, Muslims and bloody Druids are all very happy celebrating their festivals in their own ways, as they have always done, so why all this crap about … ”Even-handedness dictates that we provide public recognition to minority cultures and traditions.”

Once again it seems that these politically correct zealots assume that people of other faiths and cultures are in some way offended by Christian and British traditions, when to the best of my knowledge, most of them are not; as in the case of Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative spokesman on community cohesion, who said … ”Their comments betray a breathtaking misunderstanding of what it is to be British. These proposals could actually damage cohesion …  You don’t build community cohesion by throwing out our history and denying the fundamental contribution Christianity has played and does play to our nation … As a British Muslim I can see that - so why others can’t just staggers me.”

The report does say … “We can no longer define ourselves as a Christian nation, nor an especially religious one in any sense” …  which may be true, for Christmas in this country is now certainly a retail festival rather than a religious one, with few people giving any thought to the birth of Christ as they stuff themselves stupid in front of their 42″ plasma TV as they watch the ‘Ferrero Rocher’ and ‘Argos’ commercials for the umpteenth bleedin’ time.

I think that it’s a bit late to suggest that the religious celebration of Christmas… “should be downgraded to help race relations” … 

For regrettably in the opinion of this old atheist …  

…   It was downgraded many years ago.