December, Sunday 22nd., 2019 Heavily-armed soldiers, violence, sky-high prices, a Santa Claus gender war & no mention of the Nativity… Merry Christmas, Europe!
December, Sunday 22nd., 2019
In the past, hypocrisy, bigotry, fake goodly dreams, insidious humanity's handling, manipulation, but some heart-warming crumbs of soul virtues and idyllic tenderness were allowed to be fed to the people...
Now, manipulated misery, MK-ultra malevolently hand-made heinous crime, abominable New World Order deep international state factors discharging death, hatred, lies, plagued mockery and deleterious political correctness, right in our face, life and future.
We do not need them...!
Maria L. Pelekanaki
Heavily-armed soldiers, violence, sky-high prices, a Santa Claus
gender war & no mention of the Nativity… Merry Christmas, Europe!
By Damian Wilson, UK journalist & political communications specialist
As the UK warns of a “very likely” terrorist attack at German
markets, seasonal celebrations across Europe face further threat from
bland identikit stalls, rip-off prices & a struggle to address the
Christian roots of Christmas.
Ah, Christmas in Europe!
Rosy-cheeked children waiting for Santa Claus and his team of reindeer
to overwhelm them with gifts. A feast of mince pies, turkey and mulled
wine.
Today the only place to really experience this idyll is in
your dreams. Because Christmas celebrations in Europe have become a
violent, bleak, homogenized, commercial disappointment.
There are
plenty of reasons for this, involving all the big issues of our times:
terrorism, economics, cultural shifts, diversity and even climate
change. Also on rt.comAge-old Christmas traditions replaced by modern agenda – as Santa gets a makeover! For instance, in France, a terrorist attack on Strasboug’s
450-year-old Christmas market left five people dead and 11 injured in
2018. Two years before that, a terrorist drove a lorry into the
Christmas market in Berlin killing 12 people and injuring another 56.
Because the Christian festival offers a clear target to Islamist terrorists, many people are simply staying away, in fear.
The UK government’s latest advice warns that terrorists are “very likely”
to carry out attacks in Germany over the festive period in what is a
massive blow to the markets of Berlin, Cologne and elsewhere.
As the visitor numbers
are starting to taper off, the pull of their spending power has
dissipated for stallholders. Travel costs, cheaper items en masse from
China and elsewhere, competition with local stores, Black Friday sales
and a general decline in understanding what the Advent season is even
about, have all contributed to the Christmas run-up being knocked off
its perch as the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Of
course, you cannot have any discussion today without gender rearing its
head and so the online debate thrashes back and forth over whether “Father Christmas”
is an appropriate moniker for a fat, bearded gentleman dressed in
fur-trimmed red coat and black boots when maybe it should be insisted we
use “Santa Claus” because it is considered more gender-neutral. Er, no.
Even
more bizarre are the allegations that Christmas is not inclusive enough
and makes Muslims and those of other faiths feel isolated, with some
suggesting that Christmas is killing off cultural diversity.
Oh, the irony! Imagine just for a minute that we accused Muslims and
Ramadan of making Christians feel uncomfortable. The howls of anguish
from the liberals would be deafening. Instead, they order us to tip-toe
around the festive season, to temper the intensity of our celebrations
and spare a thought for those who don’t eat turkey by ensuring vegan
options on the dinner table.
Another slice of tofurkey, grandma?
Not
everything has to be a Euro-wide homogenous mish-mash of cultures and
beliefs, despite what 40 years of the European Union has insisted. The
differences between us all are what make us interesting. They are what
make us human.
But the problems facing Christmas in Europe go further.
At
the biggest seasonal event in London, the extortionately expensive
Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, thugs brawled in a queue for the beer
hall at the weekend as children screamed and cried and two bouncers were
filmed kicking a defenceless teenager in the head as he lay on the
ground. They were promptly sacked.
Mince pie anyone?
As
well as the spectacle of brawling at this rampantly commercial annual
event, there is the Winter Wonderland comedy club. It’s completely
unnecessary, however, because if you want a laugh just look at the cost
of hiring a private hütte at the Bar Hütte Karaoke where you can fork
out £200 for less than two hours of sitting in a shed with your friends
in a depressingly lame attempt at creating an apres-ski vibe. Everyone
knows there is never any snow in London at Christmas and when the time
is up in the little wooden shack, customers simply trudge out into the
mud, feeling slightly drunk, a little dispirited and shy of more than a
few pounds they’ve blown on Jagerbombs.
In
the new Trafalgar Square market, the buskers who regularly perform
there have complained that the new Christmas market will force them to
perform elsewhere while arts chiefs have decried the festive stalls as a “hurdy-gurdy of kitsch.”
The
arts chiefs have a point, but the buskers don’t. Most Londoners will be
delighted to have a break from their public displays of mediocre talent
twinned with begging.
Meanwhile, over in Brussels this week, I
mixed with squads of machine-gun toting soldiers as I strolled through
the clearly secular Winter Wonder event where the melting pot of Belgium
attempts to be all things to all people. Pizza from Sicily, soap from
Provence, paté from Ardennes, faux-Scandi salmon, reindeer hides at 200
euros a pop, musical instruments from Latin America, waffles, waffles
and more waffles.
A huge, transportable ferris wheel dubbed the
Brussels Eye turned slowly above Place Sainte-Catherine, not that there
is much to see in the cold, dark, rain-soaked evening when the market
opens. What has any of this to do with Christmas?
Then there’s
Italy, where, on a weekend visit to the picturesque alpine towns of
Piemonte in northern Italy, I found Christmas market stalls selling
knitted hoodies, cardigans and sweaters with winter motifs, proudly
declaring they are made out of 100 per cent yak wool in Nepal. The irony
of selling these clothes in the very region of Italy once
world-renowned for the number of jobs and quality of its cashmere from
the many now-dormant woollen mills was, seemingly, missed.
The
traditional lifesize replica of the nativity (at least it was an
attempt) was missing one thing: the infant Jesus with the Virgin Mary
looking lovingly at an empty crib.
No explanation was given for the missing child. Just cold? Abduction? Also on rt.com‘Many unanswered questions’: Swedish church removes LGBT-themed altarpiece… but NOT for the reason you may thinkIf there is one thing that these continental markets do share, is
the nasty, identikit wooden chalets which form the centrepiece of these
winter events. Each one adorned with a sad little string of lights and
some white felt for the roof to represent snow. The most disturbing
chalet I saw had the added decoration of a real boar’s head which had
lost half of it’s snout, to either a predator or the cold. It was
disgusting.
The owner was trying to sell sausages but maybe needed a rethink on his front-of-house offering first.
And then, from Germany, the nation that is responsible for bringing these Bavarian chalets to a wider audience, a survey revealed
that 57 percent of Germans are looking to scale down or even do
without Christmas lights because of fears about climate change.
So
there you have it: the very real threat of terrorist attack; drunken,
brawling thugs spoiling any sense of childlike excitement; liberals
decrying the death of diversity and sparking a trans rowt; identikit,
overpriced markets selling irrelevant tat; fear of upsetting ethnic
minorities; naked commercial opportunism, references to a Christian
festival ignored and a sense of bewilderment about how any of this has a
place in the traditional feast of Noël.
Sadly, this is now the Merry European Christmas. Like this story? Share it with a friend!
The
statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
