Why the willpower to keep away from a Christmas lockdown once we did nothing to ‘save’ Eid and Diwali?

The UK authorities is outwardly contemplating easing lockdown for 5 days at Christmas, regardless of clamping down on different celebrations earlier this 12 months. Why the exception for this annual pageant of gross consumerism and extra?

Because the UK authorities proposes loosening lockdown restrictions as a way to “save Christmas,” because it’s being described within the media, many are left questioning why such freedoms weren’t prolonged for different spiritual festivals this 12 months, regardless of the chance to nationwide an infection being negligible by comparability.

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak made a giant present of lighting Diwali lamps outdoors 11 Downing Avenue final week, giving an interview later during which he exhorted fellow Hindus and Sikhs to chorus from breaking the lockdown guidelines and to rejoice solely with their quick households, saying his night can be spent catching up together with his household over Zoom.

Earlier this 12 months, British Muslims have been prevented from celebrating Eid as restrictions have been tightened within the north of England, significantly in areas with massive Islamic communities. One Tory MP, Craig Whittaker, even insensitively claimed they weren’t “taking the pandemic severely,” regardless of the disproportionate influence Covid-19 was having on black and South Asian folks.

In April, the Day by day Mail columnist, Andrew Pierce, tweeted his fears about Muslims convening to watch Ramadan, now he berates the federal government for ruining Christmas – summing up the appropriate’s hypocrisy over the matter.

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Whereas minority faiths diligently obeyed the legislation and celebrated their sacred events with applicable restraint, the noisy public calls for to mark Jesus’s birthday in full have prompted the federal government to contemplate a five-day break during which households might combine freely – though the ensuing spike in infections might require a month-long lockdown afterwards to comprise.

Given the shortage of curiosity most British folks have in Christianity – church buildings, particularly Anglican ones, have been near-empty for many years now – the passionate calls to “save Christmas” are merely a determined plea to permit the general public to indulge within the standard repulsive bingeing on trashy consumerism, low-cost booze, junk meals and diseased fornication that the festive season now entails.

Christmas in up to date Britain is wholly unrelated to Christianity, with nearly no Christian content material on TV or within the public tradition – even the Queen, head of the state church, barely mentions Jesus in her tackle to the nation. Certainly, the chaotic saturnalia that the interval consists of has much more in widespread with the fertility cults that existed previous to Christianity’s arrival, with the solstice marked with shamanic intoxication, wild dancing, widespread pagan violence and indiscriminate sexual exercise.

And, after all, there may be the horrendous consumerism: billions spent on obesity-inducing fatty meals, gaudy mass-produced ‘decorations’ and numerous presents, starting from toys to furnishings suites and industrial-sized vibrators – each crass and sordid style effectively catered for.

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If the federal government had any respect for spiritual beliefs, restrictions round Diwali and Eid would have been lifted, and comparatively small and innocent sections of the inhabitants allowed to rejoice what, for them, is a genuinely non secular time, involving prayer and historical rituals, visits to mosques and temples, whereas additionally tending to the wellbeing of their households – with completely no alcohol or shabby sexual conduct concerned.

However whereas honest spiritual practitioners have been prevented from observing their sacred festivals, the godless anarchy that’s Christmas in in the present day’s Britain will likely be given its standard licence.

Christmas within the UK now entails an annual spike in alcohol-related hospitalisations, divorce proceedings and home violence, in addition to melancholy, public brawling and venereal an infection. One in ten folks have admitted to contracting an STD from a colleague after a Christmas celebration – particularly a newly mutated, treatment-resistant super-gonorrhea – whereas drunkards are six-times extra prone to abuse their companions presently of 12 months. Within the wake of Christmas, January at all times brings an inevitable surge within the suicide price. No such statistics accompany both Eid or Diwali.

However this 12 months, the deadly Christmas cocktail can have Covid-19 thrown into the combo too. If the federal government was in any respect involved for the general public’s welfare, Christmas would have been locked down years in the past, not to mention within the midst of a pandemic. However it is going to go forward, primarily to offer the economic system the annual adrenaline-shot of debt-fuelled turbo-consumption it must preserve it going for the remainder of the 12 months. In 2019, seasonal spending amounted to £76.6 billion, and with out such expenditure this 12 months, 2021 might see the most important financial downturn within the UK for the reason that 1970s.

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That financial crucial is the explanation why Christmas will likely be saved, in addition to the necessity to permit the restive public to feed its mid-winter lusts. It actually isn’t out of respect for Christianity or household life. Solely a 3rd of Britons describe themselves as Christian now, and with a dramatically rising divorce price and most kids now born to single moms, the household unit is more and more uncommon. The appalling dying price in care properties, with 30,000 outdated folks estimated to have died in them in the course of the first Covid-19 wave alone, underlines the heartless abandonment the aged face in a society that doesn’t need to take care of its grandparents.

It’s insulting to the believers of different faiths to have their devotedly noticed festivals curtailed by this pandemic, whereas Christmas, essentially the most ungodly and debauched interval within the British calendar, is protected – regardless of well being specialists saying that the brand new Covid infections will result in a public well being “catastrophe” given the dying price is once more over 500 a day.

It’s apparent festive lockdown is within the nationwide curiosity, however given the general public’s urge for food and a weak authorities that adjustments its thoughts daily, it is clear that Christmas will likely be saved – even when it results in a Covid nuclear winter.

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