In some places in Australia, they no longer display religious themes or symbols in their Christmas decorations. Ironically, it is Muslim leaders – probably fearing they’ll get the blame for the political correctness of local councils – who often publicly defend innocuous displays of the Nativity scene. It seems Jesus Christ on his birthday is incongruous in a country that grew on the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

How Father Christmas or the Obese-One-in-the-red-suit has usurped the role of the Saviour of all mankind on his birthday is mysterious. Even in Malaysia it is a peculiar sight to see women fronting reception desks capped with the globally recognizable red pyjama Santa cap.

And in Indonesia, a shopping centre has the most ebullient displays of the Christmas theme even with fake snow falling down and girls in mini-skirted Santa Claus outfits bobbing to R&B music as thousands of Indonesians visit the place as they would Disneyland because “Christmas is for children,??? their tudung-clad parents say.

But in the world’s most populous Muslim country which not long ago saw violent attacks on their churches, the sober true believers prefer to celebrate Christmas without fanfare. Still there is nothing wrong with commercialism if we remember that all that glitters is not gold and the true gold is in the religious significance of God taking the form of a human to help His wayward creatures.

I recall how as a young boy I loved Christmas time. There was something magical not in a Harry Potter way but in a Walt Disney sort of way as we sat down and watched Hollywood films on Christmas.

Even the story of a misogynist Scrooge seemed surreal on black-and-white television as my family were the first to raise our television antenna in the street and my grandfather was extremely proud of the huge American Zenith television set he got for us. It was a time when watching tall television antennae in the neighbourhood was a thrill, and I used to charge the neighbourhood kids ten cents just to sit and stare at the white dots on a blank TV screen.

The Rediffusion set in our house, that brown box with piped music supplied by the company of the same name for seven ringgit a month, filled our homes with the happiest Christmas carols and it seemed odd for us to be crooning about a ‘White Christmas’ with Bing Crosby when none of us had ever touched snow. And when I did walk on snow on the pavements on my way to work on a cold morning in London, it seemed like an occupational hazard.

Buddhist family celebrates Christmas

I was raised a Buddhist. My paternal grand-uncle, a migrant Chinese artisan from Fujian province made the huge idols at the Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang, my grandparents were committee members of the Penang Buddhist Association, and being the filial grandson of a Nyonya grandmother whose father was a wealthy merchant, I had grown up reciting the Pali scriptures since knee high but there was something special about Christmas that we all embraced in an innocuous way.

I felt a certain calmness and sense of reassurance which was inexplicable even at a young age and my mother too seemed happier during Christmas. Despite our Buddhist background, she would let us hang up socks on Christmas Eve, though we inevitably fell asleep before he came.

Christmas was a strangely joyous time then and did make me ponder why the Christians celebrated family life so strongly, yet in Buddhism its founder had to leave his family and loved ones, and detachment was a cardinal teaching of the religion.

In fact I almost nearly decided to become a Buddhist monk while at university abroad, depressed by a seemingly isolating and indifferent world, and the only ones who seemed to care for one another then were the hippies of the counter-culture, though I did learn quickly that all that hugging and free love were symptoms of a deeper craving beyond the emotional and physical levels, that communes of strangers even riff-raff did not fully satisfy, and many were not really seeking the meaning to life or a viable alternative lifestyle but just easy sex.

It was to be later that I understood the meaning of the words of a playboy-turned Christian monk Augustine who said that in every human heart resides a God-shaped vacuum. Buddhism taught me that there is no God, no Creator, it is all ‘do-it-yourself’, and that was the worrying bit knowing how much the human spirit was willing and the flesh even more willing to capitulate to worldly temptations.

After all only a handful of people, all Indians, had purportedly achieved Nirvana and it would take countless lives for ordinary mortals like me (who liked to fall in love and be attached to people) to achieve that nihilistic ethereal goal, if ever!

But Christmas songs used to cheer me up, especially the more sacred ones like Joy to the World and Silent Night, Holy Night, and the origin of the later song being a magical story itself. Today I find Jingle Bells and Here Comes Santa Claus distasteful because they seem irreverent and so flippant but as a kid I loved to sing along, and waited with bated breath to sight the bus of carol singers that would visit the few Christian homes during Christmas.

Our friends with different religious beliefs, all inherited from their parents who inherited them from their parents without question, celebrated Christmas without bother about its religious significance. It was a time of innocence and camaraderie. I guess in our youth we were not yet tainted by prejudice and bigotry that many simply grew into in later life.

Free to sing and believe

After reading about the banning of Christmas carols with reference to Jesus in the country some years ago, I am glad that there is still evident religious freedom in the shopping malls and Silent Night Holy Night remains the favourite of many Malaysians, Christians and non-Christians alike. And that is the way it should be. Why religion should be a sensitive issue in a country that grew up on religious diversity is a mystery.

As far as I know, none of my Malay friends who loved belting out the more popular Christmas carols on their electric guitars have become Christians or forsaken their religion, save for one who has adopted some strange sect that has nothing to do with Christianity. Nor have I seen non-Muslims converted to Islam because of the barrage of Islamic television programmes and the constant calls to prayer they hear every morning.

Yet superstition and paranoia hounds those who are fundamentally ignorant.

When the authorities become paranoid and try to control people’s minds and curtail their freedom, it results in unhappiness and dissension. But let the people decide and peace and goodwill often result if we respect people’s right to believe what they choose. Sadly the freedom of conscience is not alive and well in a country that provides that constitutional freedom because of the narrow-mindedness of the religious right.

Those who change religion in later life have every right to do so and even the communists have realized you can’t alter human nature by controlling what people think because the human spirit cannot be harnessed and forced to submit to something they don’t accept. We can avoid the conflicts and hardships if everyone believes in a ‘live and let live’ approach.

But why is there so much of the opposite of all the religious teachings of tolerance and love? The answer must be obvious. People simply do not practice what they preach.

Call it hypocrisy or weakness or failure, it requires deep soul-searching, and Christmas with its many days off work so close to the New Year often is the time to ponder where we have gone wrong. If there were fewer charlatans and counterfeit religionists, religion – and this includes all religions, will not get the blame, as we see its positive benefits, even if we disagree on the way of salvation.

Meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice

A few weeks ago, two persons whose stories I got to hear bear testimony to the power of faith. Both had one thing in common – a calm acceptance of their imminent deaths and indeed despite the ferocity of their cancer they died very peacefully. They faced their mortality with forbearance while undergoing difficult medical procedures and never once did I see these two utter a word of complaint against God or anyone. They understood the meaning of the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus.

Indeed this is the message of Christmas.

God shares the gift of forgiveness with every single human and gives the hopeless hope. And who among us is without sin not to receive the divine gift with gratitude. That is why Christmas despite all its commercialism still teaches people to think of others and to give. In fact sharing is the hope of our global civilization which teeters at the brink of collapse unless the new world economic order is about sharing.

All the economic theories have failed. They brought us the depressions and the global financial and economic crises. Why? Because the law of supply and demand, and capitalism and all the doctrines of self-interest that underpin our economies depends on the law of the jungle. Someone somewhere, usually poorer and weaker, pays for our lifestyles. And when countries go to war and kill and destroy in the name of national interest, I rest my case.

Companies worship the almighty bottomline and destroy lives by a corporate decision which they deliver matter-of-factly to employees without a further second thought about how workers will cope with retrenchment. It is like the General who sends soldiers out into the battlefield to die without ever seeing their sorrow and suffering. It is all business-like and it is in this approach that we lose more of our humanity.

Christmas also reminds us that being human is what life is about. Whatever our faith we can’t ignore that Jesus Christ remains the most influential historic figure throughout human history and it is in our misunderstanding of him that we are confused.

But those who understand him, his divinity and humanity, and emulate his life of love and sacrifice for all mankind, will find solace in times of trouble and peace despite life’s friability and uncertainty. No wonder the angels could declare “Peace and goodwill to all men,??? because Christmas really is about the one who came to show us that love never fails.

If govts loved rather than stole

Ironically love is what we all want and need, and yet it is not factored in our economic policies and administration. If governments knew what love is and focused on providing for their people instead of peculating from them, if capitalists learned how to be more benevolent and workers especially in wealthy countries less demanding, there may yet be a new world order to replace whatever is in place and can’t be tenable in the long run.

I dare not envisage what the future will be like if greed is the driving force of all human economic activity instead of love and benevolence.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates is living proof that when the race is run, and the competition won, and the money is in the bank, the decent thing to do is to share. Sharing is the hope of the new order and also the answer to depletion of natural resources.

The best economic policy any government can make is to take care of the welfare of its people and to make Christmas every day for everyone.

The world needs to awaken to this notion because it will be the inevitable outcome of globalization and a dwindling planet with increasing population. The evidence that the world has gone awry is when so many people struggle to find enough to eat while so many others struggle to fight obesity. Our best business schools can only teach us to make more money so that we promote lifestyles that destroy ourselves and others.

Christmas is a perfect analogy of our condition. We give yet self-indulge. It is the global paradox.

It simply makes no sense because the world ignores the wisdom of the teaching that “man does not live by bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of God.??? It simply means we need to connect with our Creator, recognize the uniqueness of our humanity and learn to conduct business and government in a more humane manner. And this requires us all to learn to share.

What sickens me is when countries fail to practise what they claim. In fact none of the religious states ever practice what they preach.

Christmas is for everyone and so should the new economic order.

Steve Oh is the author of ‘Tiger King of the Golden Jungle’ (Tkotgj.com).