Unpublished letter submitted to the Toronto Star
LRe: The real war on Christmas, Editorial, December 23, 2018.
The Star’s editorial would portray the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities as a war on the fundamental freedoms of capitalist democracy. It implies that the celebration of Christmas with its nauseatingly excessive commercialization and excess is just all part of expressing religious traditions. If only it were that simple.
It would be good to remind them that religious persecution is the basis of most geopolitical hostility in the world today and has been ongoing since the beginning of time with periods of slaughter by Christians, Muslims and non-believers like the Chinese government that pale in comparison to what is occurring now. Their holier-than-thou editorial posture glosses over the previous history of egregious murder, rape, disease, sexual impropriety and brutality including slavery carried out by Christianity. Has the Star forgotten the vicious massive tragedies of the indigenous peoples of North and South America – all in the service of a Catholic god. The barbarity carried out by religion goes on today across the globe by all religions. Saudi Arabia beheads people in the streets for religious offences.
The imperialist Judeo-Christian message that faith is harmless and people just want to practice their religion in peace as an act of religious devotion is nothing more than simplistic piety.
Religion has always been heavily tied up with adversarial politics, economics and exclusion with each of the major religions claiming their faith as the one true belief and rejecting anyone who is a non-believer. Most countries orient their policies based on religion, including the west despite assertions to the contrary. Religion is a co-conspirator of capitalism and patriarchy and has taken a leading role throughout history in asserting that males are
superior and the wealthy are god’s children because they are smart enough to be rich. If only religion was non-political it would be bearable but it is the constant tunnel-vision moralizing of people of faith that is so intolerable. This is not religion, it is latent vigilantism.
Its not about eliminating one religion – its about eliminating all religion. Belief has been intentionally manipulated by men to do their bidding since time immemorial justifying their patriarchal universe. It has validated the subordination and degradation of women of all faiths. The wearing of the niqab is is a religious symbol of subordination to Mohammed and through him to all men. What we really need is for all religions to be replaced by a single humanitarian global belief that focuses on the quality of life of people around the world rather than mystical figures. That’s a religion that everyone can support without fear of persecution.