The day before Halloween I saw Christmas decorations being hung on trees in Pescatore. It's not very classy of me to start a gossip column with a rant about how we're putting up Christmas decorations earlier and earlier every year, but I'm not known for being classy, so I don't care.
It’s still more classy than Xavier Bettel spending his vacay in Is(not)rael every other week (or at least three times in the last 12 months).
Despite what it may sound like, I'm a big Christmas lover and we all know that December (or even November?) is all about Christmas. The little sparkling lights (powered by Russian gas) bring me joy and seeing them shine as I miss my bus in the pouring rain and drink a beer at Interview while waiting for the next one really does something to me. Maybe it’s not as care-free as summer sunlight but it’s cosy, it’s nice, and of all the ways to use energy in this country, I’m pleased by it. I’m a sinner.
The Christmas market is opening so it’s time to get drunk on that gluh gluh in the middle of the week with your co-workers and vibe out who’s a zionist. Not like you can do something about it since you’re probably gonna get fired for being pro-Palestinian - sorry, no, anti-Semitic. For this, I’m afraid, the Christmas lights won’t work, but it’s better to know who to avoid at the coffee machine hangout or whatever you corporate people do during your breaks. And make sure not to mention that the very Jesus they’re celebrating was Palestinian, heaven forbid they might feel a tad of guilt as they’re getting drunk and unpacking their Amazon packages from Black Friday.
But maybe I’ll get a gift from Santa this year. As I read the news on the Luxembourgish media outlets I get more and more certain I’ll get something nice - at least I don’t spread normalised propaganda, that has to count for something? I wonder if the entire RTL team will get a piece of coal for each time they wrote about “Israel-Hamas war”. There was a ticker for COVID when we were all losing our minds whether we’re gonna die from the pandemic, then there was a ticker for “the conflict in Ukraine” until everyone stopped giving a shit. If the genocide in Palestine is not an urgent matter to them, I wonder what the next ticker will be about? With the US vetoing the permanent ceasefire in Palestine on the pretext of increased violence by ‘Hamas’ and Israel's representative at the UN thanking the US for not reporting this ‘injustice’, perhaps the 44,575 Palestinians who have died is not reason enough for our national media to report it? The worst thing is that even this high figure is not at all representative of reality, since experts estimate the number of victims at between 100,000 and 300,000. By way of comparison, it's as if we'd gone from 12% of the total population of Luxembourg to over 50%. But then, that's not enough to call for a permanent ceasefire, is it? I wonder how many people will die before our humanitarian EU does something about it.
Things are looking grim this winter, but perhaps the spirit of Christmas could change things for us this month. At the last political meeting I attended, people talked about ‘radical hopefulness’. As opposed to naivety, radical hopefulness means not losing faith and the drive to change what is violent, unjust and criminal. Not falling into the cracks of society and continuing to move forward. This reminded me of Houria Bouteldja and her concept of the ‘politics of revolutionary love’ as a tool in the fight against racism, injustice and genocidal politics.
And so I hope that this month and the Christmas celebrations to come will only open up more hearts and minds. I hope each of us is reminded of what matters most, and that we put aside our differences to come together and stand firm for what we believe in. I wish for all of us to find our power within our people and to work for the change that is so necessary at this time, to work for peace. That's what I wish Santa brings to all of us for the coming year and for all the years to come.
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