Shops piled high with festive gifts. Streets festooned with Santas, reindeer, angels and tinsel. Children eagerly waiting for their new toys. Yes it’s beginning to look like Christmas...and it certainly is for the rich who rule the Western world celebrating the birth of the founder of Christianity. For the rich this largely consists of rocking around the Christmas tree snorting coke and drinking themselves silly for days on end. For working people it’s a welcome break from the drudgery of life under capitalism – a brief moment when those who produce all the wealth of this country can stop and enjoy the life the billionaires take for granted every day of their own worthless lives. For others, the homeless, unemployed and destitute victims of the capitalist crisis, it’s just another day of despair. The festive clichés of the politicians and the princes of the church are meaningless to them.
It’s not surprising that Jesus seldom gets mentioned, even by those who claim to worship him. The spirit of Christmas has long been reduced to exchanging gifts and cards, gluttony and drinking. Our rulers now leave Jesus of Nazareth to the tame clergy who reserve their most pious platitudes for the supposed birthday of the ‘Prince of Peace’ in December.
Starmer may be an atheist but many of his cohorts say they are Christians. Back in November 2022, the now deputy premier, David Lammy, stood at the pulpit in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London to tell us that Jesus Christ was the inspiration for his politics as well as his lifelong faith. The then Shadow Foreign Secretary was delivering Christian Aid’s annual lecture on the need for a new, multilateral, and moral approach to international development. But then, and even now, he seems to have forgotten that the Nazarene drove the money-changers out of the Temple and said “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”.
On Christmas the King, the Prime Minister and the Pharisees of the Established Church will lead the chorus in meaningless calls for peace on earth and good will toward to all men. This shouldn’t surprise us. Donald Trump now likes to be thought of as the “President of Peace” – even though he’s done nothing to deserve that acclaim or the Nobel Peace Prize he so fervently desires.
But we are not like them. We stand for genuine peace and real socialism. Peace because only the oppressors and exploiters want war. Socialism because it is essential to eliminate exploitation, unemployment, poverty, economic crisis and war. That’s our Christmas message!
It’s not surprising that Jesus seldom gets mentioned, even by those who claim to worship him. The spirit of Christmas has long been reduced to exchanging gifts and cards, gluttony and drinking. Our rulers now leave Jesus of Nazareth to the tame clergy who reserve their most pious platitudes for the supposed birthday of the ‘Prince of Peace’ in December.
Starmer may be an atheist but many of his cohorts say they are Christians. Back in November 2022, the now deputy premier, David Lammy, stood at the pulpit in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London to tell us that Jesus Christ was the inspiration for his politics as well as his lifelong faith. The then Shadow Foreign Secretary was delivering Christian Aid’s annual lecture on the need for a new, multilateral, and moral approach to international development. But then, and even now, he seems to have forgotten that the Nazarene drove the money-changers out of the Temple and said “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”.
On Christmas the King, the Prime Minister and the Pharisees of the Established Church will lead the chorus in meaningless calls for peace on earth and good will toward to all men. This shouldn’t surprise us. Donald Trump now likes to be thought of as the “President of Peace” – even though he’s done nothing to deserve that acclaim or the Nobel Peace Prize he so fervently desires.
But we are not like them. We stand for genuine peace and real socialism. Peace because only the oppressors and exploiters want war. Socialism because it is essential to eliminate exploitation, unemployment, poverty, economic crisis and war. That’s our Christmas message!
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