Silent Night All Is Calm But A Genocide Is Taking Place Now

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When I was mulling over what to write this time, La Salle Bro Anthony Rogers texted to suggest I write about “Genocide at Christmas: Walking with the Palestinian Jesus into the 21st Century in the context of Jesus’ prayer for ‘Your Kingdom Come'”.

Really, how do we celebrate the birth of Jesus with joy and good tidings when a genocide is taking place in the Holy Land? Many of the Christmas celebrations in church and outside are taking place without even a mention of the massacres not far from Bethlehem.

This hamlet, in occupied Palestinian territory today, where Jesus was believed to have been born, is overshadowed by an illegal “security wall” built by the Zionist regime.

If Jesus was born today, the wise men from afar would have had to cross security checkpoints to reach Bethlehem.

Just over 70km southwest of Bethlehem, bombs are raining down on a population of two million in Gaza. Tens of thousands have been killed, many others displaced. There is no inn, no safe haven for them to take refuge on Christmas Eve.

No one knows for sure how many victims lie buried under the rubble of flattened buildings. The actual death toll could perhaps be closer to 200,000, many of them women and children.

This is a modern-day Massacre of the Innocents. It is reminiscent of the Gospel account of King Herod’s killing of the firstborn when he heard about the prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.

It is difficult to find historical evidence of that massacre. But we do know that Herod ordered the execution of potential rivals, including his own son. Suffering from paranoid personality disorder, his remorse over the killing of his wife Mariamme could have triggered his own psychotic illness, on top of other illnesses like Fournier’s gangrene.

This is the same Herod that, around 20BC, decided to expand the Temple of Jerusalem, covering an area double its original size. This architectural marvel was built on the back of heavy taxes and hard labour at a time when Mary, the mother of Jesus, was growing up. Would God really have been pleased with Herod for building this magnificent edifice?

Today, God’s Word is being used by Zionists (whether Christians or otherwise) to justify the killing of ordinary people. In reality, the Zionists in the early 20th Century were mainly secular. Many orthodox Jews opposed Zionists’ manipulation of Jewish theology to justify their worldly goals.

There is nothing new about this. The history of “Christian civilisation” is littered with wars and savagery in the name of religion.

A dear Pakistani Muslim friend, a former hostel mate of mine during my student days, sent me a video clip which suggested that the “Christian civilisation” is responsible for most of the deaths from genocides and wars fought over the last two millenniums.

He said he genuinely wanted to know what I thought and was “not trying to insult any religion”.

I texted him back: Actually, those who engage in war and violence are motivated more by greed and power than by love of God (no matter what religion). People who love God will not harm or kill anyone.
This was something my Muslim friend agreed to wholeheartedly.

In fact, leaders of “Christian civilisation” often made use of the trappings of Christianity to engage in wars and genocide with “the Bible in one hand and a conqueror’s sword in the other”.

Exactly 110 years ago, a Christmas Miracle took place in the week leading up to Christmas, 1914. German, British and French soldiers ceased hostilities and crossed their trenches and exchanged souvenirs, gifts and Christmas wishes. Some even took part in a football game.

This reminds me of a quote by US President Herbert Hoover who said in 1944: “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.”

Author Brandt Legg put it more eloquently: ““War is a place where young people who don’t know each other, and don’t hate each other, kill each other, by the decision of older rulers who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other…”

But then again, what is happening in the Holy Land today is not a ‘war’ in the conventional sense. It is a genocide between one side armed to the teeth with the latest weapons and a largely defenceless population – the result of a settler colonialism project that began in 1948 and even earlier.

Unlike the tranquil Silent Night setting of the Nativity, Jesus was familiar with the massacres and savagery inflicted on the ordinary people of His homeland.

After Herod died in 4 BC, a rebellion broke out in the Sepphoris, a wealthy city close to Nazareth, in Galilee. The Roman legate in Syria, Quintilius Varus, sent in his legions, supported by allies, to crush the rebels in Galilee. They captured and burned Sepphoris. Many were killed or sold to slavery.

Mary, in nearby Nazareth, would have been familiar with savage suppression. Growing up, Jesus would also no doubt have heard about this brutal suppression.

“The most disturbing cries of humanity are also the tears of our God of Mercy!” Bro Anthony added in his text. “If we still have a semblance of love in our hearts, we too will want to wipe those tears from their eyes and restore joy to their hearts.

“Joy to the world that began at Christmas in the Holy land has been smothered by violence in the name of our common Abrahamic God.

“My personal sadness for the past 30 years has given me faith to live with hope in my daily life. My friends in Palestine have helped me to understand the reason for my faith.”

The above urgings of my spirit cannot be accompanied by silence, he added.

So, this Christmas, we have much to reflect on about the meaning of the birth of the Prince of Peace. What can we do to stop violence and bloodshed in our times, whether it is Gaza, Ukraine, Syria or Lebanon?

How can we stop arms manufacturers and contractors from profiting from war, death and destruction?

Jesus has no hand in the world, apart from our own. How can we hasten the day when “they will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles”?

May we be instruments in ushering in the era when “nation will not lift sword against nation, no longer will they learn how to make war” (Isaiah 2:4).
This piece was first published in the Malaysian Catholic Herald.

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