Josie Nasmyth-Miller
With recent tragic events, such as the Bondi Beach Massacre, which targeted a Hanukkah celebration and the shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island, it would be easy to add Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, more commonly known as Tommy Robinson, and his ‘Unite for Christ this Christmas’ campaign to the stack of deeply depressing news headlines which have plagued the last several years. However, this is not the first time that Christmas has been co-opted by an ultra-nationalist and populist regime.
This seems to be Robinson’s latest grab at relevance since serving a fifth sentence, this time for contempt of court after repeated false allegations against a Syrian child refugee, landing him 18 months in prison. Robinson has been rightly met with significant resistance from within the Church of England, which has objected to ‘the capture of Christian language and symbols by populist forces’. The church has created a campaign of posters to be used on bus stops and displays stating ‘Outsiders welcome’ and ‘Christ has always been in Christmas’.
The myth of Christmas being a bastardisation of an ancient pagan mid-winter festival was a Victorian invention
You might be familiar with the popular myth that Christmas is no more than a rebrand of a distinctly European pagan midwinter festival called ‘Yule’ or ‘Yuletide’. Mid-winter festivals prior to European Christianisation included Saturnalia, the celebration of the deity Saturn on 17th December, as well as Sol Invictus or ‘the Cult of the Unconquered Sun’, which celebrated its holiday on 25th December. However, these celebrations did not include Christmas trees, holly wreaths, yule logs, or stockings, nor do they have any other connection to the Christmas that we know, outside of being in December. The first use of the term ‘Yule’ can be credited to a calendar of Christian saints from 500 AD, and was adopted by several Scandinavian countries to refer to Christmas.
The myth of Christmas being a bastardisation of an ancient pagan mid-winter festival was a Victorian invention, which was crafted and refined by German cultural nationalists, Romantics and later the Nazi Regime. This myth was popularised by members of the Völkisch movement, a pan-German ethno-nationalist movement centred on giving Germany a culturally distinct and mythical identity. They often referenced works of the Brothers Grimm, who were German nationalists, but it is unclear if they explicitly used the myth of a pagan Christmas in their own work. However, it reinforced the existing societal demand for an identity that was organic, unique and pure.
The Christmas tree became a central propaganda tool by the regime, with trees decorated with runes including the swastika
This rhetoric of a mythical pagan festival, which was separate from Christian customs and supported ideas of a superior Germanic race, would later be adopted by the Nazis. Attempts were made by the Nazis to encourage supposed folk practices celebrated by pre-Christian Germanic tribes and the protection of Germanic blood, and its inherent connection to the soil. The Christmas tree became a central propaganda tool by the regime, with trees decorated with runes including the swastika, which they argued was German. There are even photos of SS officer Karl Höcker lighting candles on a Christmas tree at Auschwitz in 1944. Christmas trees were viewed by the regime as ‘a primordial Germanic symbol of the tree of life’ which had been corrupted by the Jewish people.
When all of this is considered, the co-opting of Christmas by ethno-nationalist populists is more historically relevant than previously imagined. However, if you consider the Nativity story, it is in fact an inversion of the exclusionary ‘traditional Christmas’ that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and Nigel Farage are advocating for.
Jesus was a Palestinian Jewish refugee, the child of a poor single mother and his adoptive father
When Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem in 1st century Palestine, it was under a brutal occupation by the Roman Empire. Not long after he was born, he and his family would have to flee to Egypt as refugees due to orders by Herod the Great, which would later become known as the ‘Massacre of the Innocents’. In an ironic twist of fate, Jesus, even as an infant, embodied the archetype of the opposition to Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Nigel Farage and the far right. He was a Palestinian Jewish refugee, the child of a poor single mother and his adoptive father. He would go on to become what we would consider an impeccable example of many of the values now attributed to ‘woke liberals’.
He actively encouraged interfaith communication between Jewish and Samaritan communities, who considered one another heretical. This is seen not only in the Parable of the Good Samaritan but also in John 8: 31-48 where he is accused of being a Samaritan and possessed by a demon by members of his community. He also made a point of objecting to systemic forms of oppression by actively engaging with vulnerable or ostracised members of his community. These included women, children, religious separatists, slaves, lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes and political radicals. His radical acceptance of anyone in need of assistance highlights that Christmas should be open to anyone who wishes to celebrate it.
Christmas is more about intentionally assisting others than defending an arbitrary notion of Englishness
In modern Britain, Christmas has become associated with the glitzy, commercialised holiday and poorly written festive films. However, the true meaning of Christmas is based on community spirit, overcoming hardship and compassion, with a few gold coins thrown in for good measure. Even Father Christmas, dressed in red with white fur trim and a sleigh pulled by reindeer, was born out of a story of assisting those in need.
St Nicholas and the Three Daughters tells the story of a Turkish Saint in the town of Myra. He secretly placed gold coins in the shoes of the daughters of a poor nobleman to avoid the women having to turn to prostitution or be sold into sexual slavery because they could not pay a dowry. Though not exactly a child-friendly story, it is the basis of Santa Claus and highlights that Christmas is more about intentionally assisting others than defending an arbitrary notion of Englishness.
Christmas is a time of giving, community, and finding the good in the darkness, regardless of the strife and fear ahead. It is about celebrating the birth of a man who strove for unified and diverse communities, interfaith connection and uplifting the oppressed and marginalised.
Josie Nasmyth-Miller
Featured image courtesy of Mike Cox via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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