Currently in the USA, according to a report, some religious sects feel offended when Christians and non-christians say “Merry Christmas” in advance’ as a form of pleasantries, particularly as the world moves towards yuletide season.
According to them, such pleasantries seem like an imposition on their own religion/space/personal beliefs hence insisting ‘Merry Christmas” should be replaced with “Happy Holidays” so as not to look like an attack on their sensibilities.
What a petty way to kick start another unwarranted conflict, where there is none!
Obviously, this issue of ethno-religion is not only synonymous with Africa alone, it happens everywhere.
Come to think of it, simple and harmless ‘Merry Christmas’ greetings have been around for ages so why would anyone have an issue with it?
It doesn’t even have an aota of imposition in it, in every sense of it.
Could this be a calculated attempt to disorganize Donald Trump’s agenda of restoring the Christian values which the United States’ founding fathers built the country upon, according to him during his campaigns?
Personally, I saw this coming, from the moment Trump began emphasising the Christian values and mentioning Jesus Christ during his campaign. I knew many atheists and non-christians might feel offended.
There were also a lot of media frenzy when Trump was captured in several reports attending a church, less than 24 hours after he was declared President of the United States.
Truth be told, agitating for “Merry Christmas” to be changed to “Happy Holidays” after several centuries of adoption can never work, as it reeks of religion bias.
Such an agenda should be considered dead on arrival, regardless of those who are pushing for it.
And peradventure, if it does succeed in the USA, I don’t think it would in Europe and other continents like Africa and Oceania where we still have high demography of Christian fatefuls.
Such an agenda would never make any logical sense. It is like telling another religious body to stop observing their doctrines because it doesn’t make sense to some group of persons, who doesn’t believe in the religion.
Nonetheless, the world needs to be healed of animosity and religious bigotry. We have had enough wars and conflicts triggered by religious intolerance in the past.
I think now it’s the time we forged a formidable force in peace building and foster unity amongst diverse religious practices globally, rather than finding unnecessary faults in one another.
And I believe Trump is equal to this task. It is something he can achieve if he really wants to, particularly in his country.
As written by Olumuyiwa