And Merry Xmas To You All (Mark Steyn: Christmas And The Tyranny Of Multicultural Mush Alert)

Chicago Sun Times ^ | 12/15/2006 | Mark Steyn

[goldstategop]

I passed through Shannon Airport in Ireland the other day. They've got a "holiday" display in the terminal, but guess what? It says "Merry Christmas." The Emerald Isle has a few Jews, and these days rather a lot of Muslims, and presumably even a militant atheist or two, but they don't seem inclined to sue the bejasus out of every event in the Yuletide season. By contrast, the Associated Press reports the following from Riverside, Calif.:

"A high school choir was asked to stop singing Christmas carols during an ice skating show featuring Olympic medalist Sasha Cohen out of concern the skater would be offended . . . "

I hasten to add this Sasha Cohen is not the Sacha Baron Cohen of the hit movie ''Borat.'' The Olympic S. Cohen is a young lady; the Borat S. Cohen is a man, though his singlet would not be out of place in a louche Slav entry to the ice-dancing pairs. Likewise, the skater-puts-carols-on-ice incident seems as sharply satirical of contemporary America as anything in ''Borat,'' at least in its distillation of the coerciveness of "tolerance":

"A city staff member, accompanied by a police officer, approached the Rubidoux High School Madrigals at the Riverside Outdoor Ice Skating Rink just as they launched into 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' and requested that the troupe stop singing . . . "

The cop and the staffer -- "special-events employee Michelle Baldwin" -- were not acting on a complaint from the celebrity skater. They were just taking offense on her behalf, no doubt deriving a kinky vicarious thrill at preventing a hypothetical "hate crime." The young miss is Jewish, and so they assumed that the strains of "Merry Gentlemen" wafting across the air must be an abomination to her. In fact, if you go to sashacohen.com, you'll see the headline: "Join Sasha On Her Christmas Tree Lighting Tour." That's right, she's going round the country skating at Christmas tree lighting ceremonies. Christmas tree lighting ceremonies accompanied by singers singing Christmas music that uses the C word itself -- just like Sasha does on her Web site.

Nonetheless, the Special Events Commissar and her Carol Cop swung into action and decided to act in loco Cohenis and go loco. Many of my fellow pundits find themselves fighting vainly the old ennui when it comes to the whole John Gibson "War On Christmas" shtick, but I think they're missing something: The idea of calling a cop to break up the singing of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" would strike most of the planet as insane. The Rubidoux High School Madrigals should have riposted by serenading the officer with the beloved Neal Sedaka classic, "Oh, Fool, I Am But A Carol" (I quote from memory).

Now it's true there are Jews who don't dig Christmas. There was some story out of Seattle the other day about a rabbi who objected to the "holiday trees" at the airport and threatened a lawsuit unless they also put up an eight-foot menorah. So the airport goes, "Oh, dear, you're threatening a lawsuit? OK, we'll take down the trees." And in an instant the trees were history. Not "history" in the sense of a time-honored tradition legitimized by its very antiquity. But "history" in the sense of the contemporary American formulation of something you toss in the landfill in the interests of "diversity."

So then the rabbi and his lawyer are reeling under a barrage of negative publicity and suddenly it's their chestnuts being roasted on the open fire. "Whoa," they say. "Why are we the bad guys? We love Christmas trees. What made you think we had anything against Christmas trees? Just cuz we threatened to launch a gazillion-dollar lawsuit? What could be more American than that?" In Newsweek, Rabbi Marc Gellman managed to miss the point and deplored the "cowardly response" of the airport. But what "cowardly response"? Instead of going to court and almost certainly losing, they raised the stakes, put the plaintiffs on the defensive and forced them to call off the dogs. The "holiday trees" are now back.

Everyone who knows Rabbi Bogomilsky says he's an affable fellow, he doesn't want to Scrooge up anybody's Christmas, he's an all-around swell guy. No doubt. But in the week when the president of Iran hosts an international (and well-attended) Holocaust Denial Convention (which simultaneously denies the last Holocaust while gleefully anticipating the next one), this rabbi thinks it's in the interests of the Jewish people to take legal action against "holiday" decorations at Seattle Airport? Sorry, it's not the airport but the plaintiff who's out of his tree. An ability to prioritize is an indispensable quality of adulthood, and a sense of proportion is a crucial ingredient of a mature society.

This isn't about religion. Jesus is doing just fine in the United States. Forty years of ACLU efforts to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicized American Christianity unique in the Western world. What the rabbi in Seattle and the cops in Riverside are doing is colluding in an assault on something more basic: They're denying the possibility of any common culture. America is not a stamp collection with one of each. It's an overwhelmingly Christian country with freedom of religion for those who aren't. But it's quite an expansion of "freedom of religion" to argue that "those who aren't" are entitled to forbid any public expression of America's Christian inheritance except as part of an all-U-can-eat interfaith salad bar. In their initial reaction, Seattle Airport got it right: To be forced to have one of everything is, ultimately, the same as having nothing. So you might as well cut to the chase.

What, after all, is the rabbi objecting to? There were no bauble-dripping conifers in the stable in Bethlehem. They didn't sing "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," either. That's, in effect, an ancient pop song that alludes to the birth of the Savior as a call to communal merry-making: No wonder it falls afoul of an overpoliced overlitigated "diversity" regime. Speaking of communal songs, they didn't sing "White Christmas" round the manger. A Jew wrote that. It's part of the vast Jewish contribution to America's common culture.

Seattle Airport could certainly put up a menorah. And maybe a commemoration of Eid, and Kwanzaa, and something for solstice worshippers, and perhaps something for litigious atheists. But to do that is to turn society into a kind of greater airport departure lounge -- to say it's no more than an assemblage of whoever happens to be in it at any particular time. Successful societies (unlike plastic trees) have deep roots: Nobody should be obliged to believe Jesus is the son of God, but likewise nobody should take such umbrage at trees and tinsel and instrumental versions of "Silent Night" that he would deny the reality of the land he lives in to the vast majority of his fellow citizens. Because the logic of that leads not to a diverse secular society but to an atomized ersatz non-society. And, as those other touchy types the Islamists well understand, once you put reality up for grabs, all kinds of pathologies suddenly become viable.

[goldstategop]

Well the carol Michelle Baldwin, the Special Events Commissar and the Riverside Cop demanded be silenced took the form of these lyrics:

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

God rest ye merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember, Christ, our Saviour
Was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

In Bethlehem, in Israel,
This blessed Babe was born
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn
The which His Mother Mary
Did nothing take in scorn
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

From God our Heavenly Father
A blessed Angel came;
And unto certain Shepherds
Brought tidings of the same:
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by Name.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

"Fear not then," said the Angel,
"Let nothing you affright,
This day is born a Saviour
Of a pure Virgin bright,
To free all those who trust in Him
From Satan's power and might."
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind:
And went to Bethlehem straightway
The Son of God to find.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

And when they came to Bethlehem
Where our dear Saviour lay,
They found Him in a manger,
Where oxen feed on hay;
His Mother Mary kneeling down,
Unto the Lord did pray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth deface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

Would a Jew have been offended by a carol that celebrated true love and brotherhood? Such is the mindset of those who silenced the choir that they did not even see fit to ask Miss Cohen if she agreed to give a Christmas performance on the ice. As is part and parcel of the tyranny of our secular age, they made that decision for her and ruined a beautiful evening for every one. That is what multicultural "sensitivity" leads to.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[goldstategop]

I'm not a Christian but I do not care for this excising of spiritual themes meant to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child. In a very real sense, those hostile to Christmas miss what the holiday is all about for Christians.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[familyop]

"The point is putting up a menorah alongside the trees is creating an interfaith salad bar. It denies the unique connotation that each faith has for its believers. Multiculturalism denies the meaning of genuine spirituality. In that sense, it deadens both Hanukkah and Christmas when they are turned into primarily commercial festivities."

Alright. I understand your point, and it's a good one. Why display a menorah in a setting similar to a Greek exhibit? But then why display a good light in any neighborhood full of things perceived as idols? ...to draw attention away from them and toward the light, perhaps? Being not even Jewish, I can't say. IMO, Mark should have researched his story more thoroughly, though. It would be dangerous for our government to establish any one religion over others.

[goldstategop]

Speaking of Sasha, she really is a beautiful girl. Dressed very classy here:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[goldstategop]

She did agree to perform Christmas on the ice as seen in this commercial poster for "Silent Night" on CSI: New York here:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[Clemenza]

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" was recorded in 1967 by those nice Christian boys ;-), Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle.

[goldstategop]

I do agree government has no business dictating religious faith. In America we do not want a state church. At the same time, we reject the premise of the Left that religious vitality and a free society cannot go together. A well-behaved society is also a free society.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[yoe]

Steyn nails it!

[derllak]

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is such a lovely song. How could anyone of any faith be offended by it? Only people without a soul, I would suppose.

[goldstategop]

Yet another of the inestimable Jewish contributions to the larger American culture. But that was in 1967 when no one took offense at Christmas. :)

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[James Ewell Brown Stuart]

I have read many of the threads about the Seatac decision to take down their trees. They have been passionate to say the least. But Steyn is right when he says: An ability to prioritize is an indispensable quality of adulthood, and a sense of proportion is a crucial ingredient of a mature society.

Not every little slight can be a call to arms. You have to pick and choose where you fight. If you choose to fight every time your nose (rhetorical your) is out of joint or you (rhetorical you) feel the least bit slighted, then what happens when the big fight comes?

[goldstategop]

Exactly. American Jews who take offense at the Christian presence in America would do well to remember the insecurity Jews have in other parts of the world where Islamists have made deep inroads. In France, Jews have been assaulted, tortured and murdered just for being Jews. Here is where they should keep things in proportion. I am one of those who is convinced preserving a Christian America is vital for continued Jewish survival.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[familyop]

...Freepmail for you that might more fully explain my reaction.

[BarbaricGrandeur]

Because the logic of that leads not to a diverse secular society but to an atomized ersatz non-society. And, as those other touchy types the Islamists well understand, once you put reality up for grabs, all kinds of pathologies suddenly become viable.

Unfortunately most of modern civilization is so artificial, any attempt to argue, as Steyn does, for the "deep roots" has an up-hill battle I don't think he can win. "Traditionalism" will never be as politically powerful as the forces of progress and homogenization, which are ,ironically, seen as virtues in other contexts by those same individuals who might argue for it here.

[familyop]

"I do agree government has no business dictating religious faith. In America we do not want a state church. At the same time, we reject the premise of the Left that religious vitality and a free society cannot go together. A well-behaved society is also a free society."

That was well written, IMO. It would be nice to see more menorahs, though.

[Diva]

Speaking of communal songs, they didn't sing "White Christmas" round the manger. A Jew wrote that. It's part of the vast Jewish contribution to America's common culture.

I really appreciate Mark Steyn and one of my two all time favorites is White Christmas, I had forgotten it was written by a Jew. My other other favorite carol is Silent Night written by a German or was he Austrian? Anyway, Steyn is correct. I am a singer and perform a lot in the public this time of year. There have been times in this area, Detroit, when those who hired us (usually shopping malls) bent over backwards to keep us from using Jesus' name in a Carol or "please keep religion out" but we found ways around these silly requests.

People would gather in the areas we found to sing (some really good acoustics can be found in shopping malls), to rest and listen. After a while they would start to request carols, "can you sing Silent Night, or "my favorite carol is White Christmas, would you sing that one? (we have a dandy arrangement); and so we would go ahead and take those requests. At times folks would go complain because the shopping mall took Christ out of Christmas and in the end the malls just opted out of the personalization and now pipe in music that no one listens to anyway. Sad really as caroling in public brought people together, it was sweet.

Nowadays we carol for private parties in large office bldgs and at certain specialized venues like Greenfield Village in Dearborn, but in the 20 years I have done this I have never once witnessed anyone complain about the singing of Christmas Carols, not one.

[goldstategop]

I accept progress in certain respects as a good thing. I've always had a high admiration for technical and scientific discoveries. They make our life rewarding, easier and safer. At the same time I reject cultural and artistic progress. Not all the ideas that come with them preserve traditional values. So what I look for is progress in the service of conservative ends.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[goldstategop]

I would think most people would not object to the celebration of a common culture. At a dangerous time in America's history, our country needs to draw on the well springs of its faith as there will be battles ahead to be fought. That is inevitable.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[alwaysconservative]

This was the golden lesson of the excellent article:

An ability to prioritize is an indispensable quality of adulthood, and a sense of proportion is a crucial ingredient of a mature society.

The left is infantilizing us, to make us helpless and dependent on a few chosen politicos or dictators who will decide things for "our own good". It has been most nakedly revealed by the junior Senator from NY ("she-who-must-not-be-elected") when she wanted to take things away from us (rights) for the "common good", and incoming Speaker Pelosi, who wants to put the Speaker's gavel "in the hands of children". (That was a "tell", wasn't it? LOL!)

[teeman8r]

perhaps the choir would've been better off singing the grinch song...

teeman

or that cop-killer classic rap tune... then their first amendment rights would've been protected...

merry christmas and a blessed new year...