January 06, 2008

WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS 2007 COMPETITION
[blog] [ I ] [ II ] [ III ] [ IV ] [ V ] See also: War Against Christmas 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999

War Against Christmas 2007 Competition [VI]: The Winner! (Also 2006’s!!)

Email War Against Christmas competition entries to us at christmas@vdare.com.

By Peter Brimelow

VDARE.COM has been running its War Against Christmas Competition—an award for reporting the most egregious attempt to abolish Christmas— since we began posting on Christmas Eve 1999. But its antecedents lie in the distant past: I first persuaded John O’Sullivan to run a War Against Christmas Competition in National Review in the mid-1990s. No doubt this contributed to his firing as Editor, announced exactly ten years ago—after which the contest was promptly dropped, along (not coincidentally) with the cause of patriotic immigration reform, for several years.

There is an exact analogy between the War Against Christmas and the American nation’s war against extinction through immigration.

In both cases, grassroots resistance by ordinary Americans has stopped the aggressors in their tracks—in the case of immigration, through the extraordinary defeat this summer of the Kennedy-Bush Amnesty/ Immigration Surge proposal.

In both cases, the patriotic cause has acquired prominent champions-come-lately, whose conversion (and effectiveness) we must be grateful for…if they persist.  

In both cases, the response of the Treason Lobby has been to lie about what it has been doing—in the case of immigration, to claim that what it was pushing was not  “amnesty” and even to make an Orwellian attempt to steal the honorable term “immigration reform”; in the case against the War Against Christmas, to engage (this year pre-emptively) in what can only be called War On Christmas Denial.

And, it is important to note, in both cases, the aggressors, although chastened, remain substantially in possession of the field. America’s immigration disaster, both legal and illegal, continues. Similarly, virtually all mention of “Christmas” has vanished from the public square, to be replaced by “Holiday”.

Thus Sea-Tac Airport Christophobes, forced to reinstate Christmas trees in one of 2006’s more publicized skirmishes, stuck first in 2007 by announcing a “winter scene”. They appear to have gotten away with it, although VDARE.COM’s Linda Thom reported that the Korean Air counter (!) still displayed “a glittery Merry Christmas”.

And on Ash Wednesday 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court ducked reviewing Skoros vs. City of New York, leaving in place New York City’s incredible policy of allowing the display of menorahs and crescent moons, but not crèches, in public schools. It is simply impossible to view this as anything other than second-class status for Christianity—a standard that can now be imposed, because of the Supreme Court’s cowardice, across the country.

No doubt Rev. Huckabee will be taking up this atrocity as an issue in his presidential campaign issue.

For the deliberate displacement of Christianity is obviously where America is headed, if its elites have anything to do with it. A harbinger: the year’s crop of War Against Christmas news items included this remarkable report in The Harvard Crimson by Christopher B. Lacaria ’09  (December 17, 2007)

“Chanukah, a holy day observed by a sizable portion of Harvard students, enjoys the public recognition on campus that it deserves. During the eight-day-long holiday, a giant menorah graced the Yard right in front of Widener Library. Such campus celebrities as former University President Lawrence H. Summers, ‘Justice’ professor Michael Sandel, and current University President Drew Gilpin Faust herself even participated in public menorah-lightings, garnering significant Crimson coverage.

“But not one public Christmas display—no Nativity crèche, no Advent wreath lightings—received any such attention, in the campus daily or on email lists. Surely there are still Christians on campus who cling tightly to their Christmastime traditions, but theirs do not figure meaningfully in the multicultural mélange that dominates Harvard this time of year.”

And it’s not just the effete (or post-national) East Coast Establishment. A friend of VDARE.COM who attended a Southern (!) Catholic (!!) School writes:

“It appears that the War Against Christmas is also being fought by Christian institutions. I received a ‘Season's Greetings’ card from my alma mater, Christian Brothers University, a Catholic school. The message inside reads: ‘Wishing you a joyous holiday season and a new year of peace and happiness.’ A manually written comment reads: ‘Happy holidays!’

“A single mention of Christmas by a university with ‘Christian’ in its name would offend exactly whom?”

Good question. Ask CBU President Brother Vincent Malham.

It’s very significant that it’s only in the West a.k.a. Christendom that this nonsense is going on. A VDARE.COM friend in the Persian Gulf writes:

“Ho Ho Ho! It is the night before Christmas here in the Middle East and for weeks the government buildings and shopping Malls have been beautifully decorated with Christmas trees. My email and telephone has been bombarded by messages from all over the Middle East with messages from my Islamic customers. They are not wishing me ‘Happy Holidays’ – they are calling me to wish my family ‘A MERRY CHRISTMAS.’ The same is happening when I walk around the office or into the coffee shop…so please do not be offended if I wish you all A Very Merry Christmas.”

This is good news: diversity does not necessarily mean more War Against Christmas. But it’s also bad news: therefore the existence of the Khristmaskampf (another of our terms for the War Against Christmas, after the Kulturkampf, Bismarck’s drive to reduce Catholic power in Germany) must mean that something really nasty is going on in the culture of the West.

Last year, reporting on some local hacks’ Khristmaskampf Denial (for example, see here), VDARE.COM friend Ryan Kennedy commented:

“It's amazing how the national debate is so uniform.  Even up here in Anchorage, AK we have liberal pundits uniformly insisting there is no war against X-mas.  There must be some secret meeting they all attend.”

Well, paranoids do have enemies. The Anti-Defamation League has posted on its website a response to the 2006 Sea-Tac controversy—which was triggered by a rabbi’s attempt to insert a menorah—pointedly headed “Christmas Tree Episode in Seattle Unleashes Anti-Semitism ”. There can be no doubt that editors across America have received deputations making this same point with earnest eloquence. That’s probably why Fox’s Bill O’Reilly declared victory this year in the War Against Christmas and sharply toned down his rhetoric.

For one reason or another, newsroom culture in America turned hostile to War Against Christmas stories—and also the Christophobes have been arguably less aggressive.

Plus the War Against Christmas has been recognized (finally!) by Christian-oriented organizations. This means the Main Stream Media won’t report it, but it will continue to develop under the radar. Among these groups (more power to them): the Catholic League; the Thomas More Law Center; Joe Farah’s worldnetdaily.

Winner of the VDARE.COM War Against Christmas Competition 2006 (sorry it’s a bit late, I was getting married): a soldier who calls himself “Spirit of the Fighting 69^th” (“it was my grandfather’s regiment, a bit of a tribute to himself”), for this inside look at our military bureaucracy:

“The War Against Christmas continued in the Pentagon where there were ‘holiday parties’, but no Christmas parties. People even corrected themselves lest they offend the mystical ‘they’. I recall that in Baghdad a Sufi imam wished me Merry Christmas; he wasn't offended.

“But the building also wars against American history.  On Dec. 7 there were no displays, memorials, moments of silence for Peal Harbor Day, nor were there any for V-E or V-J, or any other momentous event in US military history; plenty of mention though for Hispanic Week, Women's History, Black History. Our leaders embrace cultural suicide and deny our fighting men their own history and lobotomize any memory of past greatness.”

Winner of the VDARE.COM War Against Christmas Competition 2007: a reader in Manitoba, Canada, who submitted this classic case of War Against Christmas Denial:

Season's tolerance: Canada's Christian majority has no reason to feel threatened by the nation's changing ethnic makeup , by Bartley Kives [email him], Winnipeg Free Press, December 22, 2007.

It’s all there, War Against Christmas Denial and the simultaneous assertion that the abolition of Christmas is inevitable, the explicit connection with Canada’s (lunatic) immigration policy, the grandfather from Russia, the bland announcement that Canada’s historical character may be a “historical blip”.

“But as the Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist population of this city and this country continue to grow, there will soon come a time when Christmas becomes just one of several important holidays on the calendar, as opposed to the only day when the entire country shuts down, aside from movie theatres and the odd Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant.

“This inevitability is a simple consequence of demographic change. As a nation desperate for immigrants -- in Manitoba, new Canadians and aboriginals account for almost all of our growth -- we continue to open our doors to people from places where Santa Claus and decorated trees simply do not exist.

“There are severely conservative elements who insist these symbols must remain part of the Canadian identity, no matter what. They see Canada's increasing ethnocultural diversity as a threat, and write ignorant essays and paranoid letters about mythical ‘attacks on Christmas,’ as if people who do not celebrate the holiday somehow seek to prevent Christians -- both secular and religious -- from pouring eggnog and singing carols…

“Canada has been dominated by people from Christian lands for only several hundred years. If current immigration patterns continue, the Christian character of this country may prove to be a historical blip.”

On the bright side, here’s a report from Prague, where Christmas has risen again after fifty years of Communist extirpation: Christmas in Prague, by Richard Slusser, Washington Times, December 22, 2007.

It can happen here.

Happy New Year!