Listen to thisThe airspace over Gaza surely is one of the most watched airspaces in the history of airspace surveillance. Anything that moves within that space has the potential to bring death and destruction; in fact, anything that has moved within that airspace has in fact brought exactly that to people either in Gaza or in Israel. As a result, one might seriously be concerned about that flock of reindeer that is made to ride across airspaces around the world each and every year around this time. Chances are they are going to get pulverized this time around, with chunks of Rudolph raining down on children to add to the already horrifying reality of what happens there. And yet, Santa’s mission cannot simply be rerouted, leaving out children who probably need a miracle more so than most others.
Of course, we all understand that not everyone in the world celebrates Christmas. In fact, this year in particular, it is hard to imagine finding within ourselves a celebratory mood of any kind. The peacefulness, the family gatherings, the opulent food, and the carefully selected gifts for those we care about are far too obviously irrelevant in parts of the world where survival is the name of the game. But still, Christmas is known to just about everyone around the world, much like other Western brands such as Coca-Cola, Google, and Nike. And everyone knows that Christmas is supposed to warm the heart, sooth the soul, and allow us moments of joy and happiness with family and other loved ones. This has never been reflective of everyone’s reality. Homelessness, addictions, family violence, poverty, racism, police brutality, and many other ills don’t take a break over the holidays. In the downtown neighbourhoods of Toronto, New York, and London, the destitute dislike Christmas because at the height of this holiday, the streets are empty and there is no one to ask for pennies, food, or cigarettes. The destitute want things to get back to normal as quickly as possible, even if normal means they live on the margins of society, with limited prospects for personal fulfillment. Even at those margins, however, life is still better than it is during the times when there just isn’t anyone around. As long as there are people, traffic, open stores, and communities teaming with life, the destitute can connect, demand, request, swindle, or provide service to someone and receive something in return. Even in troubled spaces and troubled times, people can find ways to build on their strengths, their resiliency, and their capacity to persuade a passerby to reach into their pockets and share some of their wealth.
As we enter this last month of the year, we will, inevitably as we always do, cast aside the absurdities and hypocrisies of unequal life chances; we’ll conveniently overlook the coincidence of where and what sorts of circumstances we are born into and what life we therefore have access to; and we will utilize our resources to ensure that these last few weeks and days of the year are warm, joyful, and peaceful. It won’t matter that war is raging elsewhere and that many people, amongst them large numbers of children, will experience neither warmth nor comfort. This is not the first time we have had to manage this kind of absurdity. I remember experiencing this absurdity from the other side in 1978, when the revolution in Iran had its most violent phase and December offered none of the usual charm - just fear, uncertainty, and scarcity. Ten years later, the people and the children of Romania may recall similar experiences, as their country made a violent transition away from its longstanding dictator to a somewhat more democratic form of government, with Christmas Day serving as the day of the dictator’s execution. And here we are in the 21st century, knowing that there are brutal wars in several places around the world as we rejoice for Hannukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa over the next few weeks.
Notwithstanding the tragedy all this poses to our humanity, December still is a month during which we tell our children of miracles, none more enticing than that old man from the North Pole riding his sled pulled by reindeer around the world and delivering joy and gifts. This story is of great importance to children in the global north, particularly those living in relative comfort. Santa is, after all, committed to all children anywhere in the world, and what is received by those with comfort and means is no different than what is received by those living in more dire circumstances. There is a certain legitimation of inequality that unfolds in this story, in part because what is being rewarded by Santa is good behaviour rather than social status (ironically, in some war zones, where it is especially cold in winter, the consequence for bad behaviour – charcoal – would make for a better, or at least more useful, reward than the gift of a toy).
Most of the time, we can maintain the integrity of this absurdity by imagining that sled making the rounds on Christmas Eve and reaching children even in the direst of circumstances. Joy will be spread to all. This year, however, we have a particular problem to contend with that more than usual, renders questionable the science of the story and its probability of unfolding. We encounter the problem of children living in a closed war zone to which there is no entry and from which there is no escape. How will Santa reach the children of Gaza? With no land crossings, sensors deployed to monitor underground activity at all times, and an airspace in which anything that moves is shot at, the chances of Santa reaching the children of Gaza are slim. A sled pulled by reindeer, with an unfortunate red nosed reindeer likely facilitating detection by radar even more, is not a safe way of getting there. And if Santa just can’t get there, our precarious balancing act of comfort at home in full sight of misery elsewhere falls apart. Christmas is at risk this year in ways that other calamities have not threatened it before. Santa must get there somehow to save our enjoyment of mashed potatoes and stuffed turkeys.
I suppose there is only one option, which escalates the absurdity of the world’s conflicts to new heights. If we are serious about avoiding a reindeer BBQ for Christmas dinner, Santa will have to ditch the sled and ride a rocket, which seems to be the only thing that gets through the dense surveillance of that airspace. The sad part is that we will almost certainly prefer this option to another one, which seems to offer much more sustainable benefits to everyone involved. The idea that trapping people in small, cramped, confined territories with no way in and no way out ought to perhaps be questioned and rejected, requires far too great a miracle bordering on the fantastical. We are more likely to put the old man on a rocket to dish out joy and death all at once, which is good for reindeer and good for our hard-earned entitlement to moments of warmth and comfort far away from conflict and war.
2024 is coming. Let us hope it will be a year during which we all remember the things worth fighting for. Children’s rights seem like a good start. The right to be a child, to expect miracles, and to be protected from the naked ambitions of maniacal narcissists require us to speak loudly and clearly with and on behalf of young people around the world. The need for a North Pole-Military Industrial Complex partnership to keep the Christmas miracle going ought to remind us that we cannot afford to escalate the absurdities we have come to accept. We want children to look expectantly at the night sky for reindeer, not for rockets.
