I imagine that December 25th is just another day in nations where the Christian population is persecuted (like, say, China or North Korea), or legal but very very small (like, say, Japan).
But in nations where there is a somewhat sizable Christian minority, are Christians given some degree of freedom to take the day off if December 25th is a workday? For example, Lebanon, where the Christian population is around 20%(?). Can a Lebanese Christian ask for, and get, December 25th off? How about Israel (10% Christian or thereabouts(?))?
Obviously, the answer is going to be “It varies.” But I’d be interested in hearing specific anecdotal information. Like, do Israel’s employment laws guarantee the right of Christian workers to take off on Christian holy days?
In Singapore, Christmas is a public holiday. Most people are not Christian, but the city puts up spectacular Christmas decorations and has Christmas sales.
Christmas is also a holiday in Malaysia and Indonesia.
It’s interesting that the OP mentions Lebanon. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the only middle eastern country in which Christmas in an official holiday. I found the quoted material below at this site:
Actually, in Japan, Christmas does get wide-spred unofficial celebration for the secular aspects, despite only 1% or so of the population being Christian. You will hear Christmas music playing in malls, starting in December, see decorations being put up, and people buy each other gifts. They even have a traditon of buying these Christmas cakes things, though most of the Japanese people I have talked with had a hard time believing that they are the only ones who have that sort of traditional Christmas cake.
I think that your assumptions are wrong here. There aren’t very many countries where Christians are a “very very small” proportion of the population. A third of the world are Christians, and they are actually spread out more evenly than you might think. Only 45% of Christians are of European ancestry. Even in Japan, your example, the proportion is at least 1% (and that’s not what I call very, very small) and Christmas is celebrated. I suspect that Christmas is celebrated as a holiday in most of the world, even though in many countries the religious aspect is only celebrated by a minority of citizens and it’s just a gift-giving day for others.
I don’t know that not giving people off Christmas is necessarily proof of oppression. My Jewish friends need to take a personal day for Yom Kippur here in the states for example, and they’re 3% of the population. Some estimates have the Muslim population larger than that, and we don’t give public holidays for the Eids.
Also recall that Christmas doesn’t fall on the 25th for Orthodox Christians, and we don’t give them a day off either.
Finally, actually celebrating Christmas is fairly recent looking at the time dimension in Christianity; the pilgrims even suppressed such celebration by law.
I’m not suggesting that having to work on Dec. 25th = persecution. I’m just asking if a Christian in a country where he’s in the minority, but where his religion is legal (like, say, Israel or Lebanon) and not persecuted, can as for a day off.
In many (most?) (all?) workplaces in the US you can take off for a religious holiday, regardless of your religion. You may have to take it out of your benefit time, or even take it furlough, but IIRC you cannot be fired for taking the day off for a religious holiday. I’m just wondering if Christians in non-Christian nations are given that benefit.
This would be at those workplaces where they allow you to take days off at all. There are many that don’t. And there are many that pretend that you get days off, but don’t really let you take them.
Some companies give it off, some don’t. It’s very widely celebrated here. Sizeable population.
Some companies have an “optional off”, which means you can choose to take Christmas off, instead of some other religious holiday in the year.
This year it falls on Saturday, so it’s moot for me atleast, since Saturday’s are off at my co.
Also, a lot of employees schedule their yearly vacations around this time, especially those servicing US clients, since it’s a bit lax in the US around Christmas.
I wonder what percentage of people in the US, as a whole, think “Jesus” upon hearing “Christmas”? It’s impossible to know, but I’d bet it would be a minority. Just look at all the symbols.
So I guess you wouild have to define “christian” to answer the OP.
Saudi Arabia? Not that you’d be prosecuted for simply being a Christian, but displaying religious paraphernalia, not to mention holding a Christian service, could get you into trouble.
As has been already pointed out, in many “non-Christian” countries, Christmas is a already holiday anyway so there’s no need for most workers to ask for the day off.
My experience in the Gulf has been that church services themselves are legal, but that prosletyzing or importing Christian literature for distribution is illegal. The economies of the region are dependent upon foreign guest workers in the petroleum industry spending a few years at a time in-country and it appears that as long as you don’t take up a crusade in someone else’s country, they largely leave you alone (with the exception of SA this also extends to alcohol, tube tops and other trademark signs of our infidelity).
Doing a little internet research, it appears that Christianity (along with any other number of human rights) has been taking it on the chin in Turkmenistan. This, however, is coming mostly from western prosletyzing organizations who seem to specialize in sending missionaries to places where they know they’re illegal & not welcome and then scream bloody murder when the inevitable clampdown comes. This makes me a bit skeptical of some of the claims of some Christian rights organizations, who conflate the actual oppression of foreign minority populations with the willful lawbreaking of their missionary members.
It occurs to me that if you’re an Orthodox Christian, given America’s dead last ranking of guaranteed vacation and personal time among industrialized nations, that as a practical if not legal matter it’s harder for some American Christians to get off for their Christmas observation than for most foreign minority Christians to do the same.
I’d imagine the fact that you asked to take the day off,thereby proving you are a Christian,could present some problems.
I am reliably informed by someone who lived there for 12 years that Sri Lanka has a Christian minority and they celebrate all different religion’s festivals including Christianity(take note Mr.Blair)
China celebrates Christmas with gusto although with all the religious overtones carefully stripped out. As far as the chinese are concerned, Christmas is all about random english songs piped over department store radios and a jolly fat man who encourages consumerism.
Not really so. Christmas was supressed in England and New England after Cromwell and the Puritans came to power in the mid-17th century (although Boston’s oft-mentioned legal ban on Christmas lasted only from 1659 to 1681), and public celebrations really did not return until the mid-19th century, when authors Washington Irving and Charles Dickens sparked a revival of old traditions.
However, in most of the rest of Christian Europe and Christian America, the tradition of Christmas celebrations continued unbroken from the Middle Ages onward, often in the form of Twelfth Night celebrations. Anglicans dominated the Southern colonies and you will find Christmas celebrations there throughout the colonial period.
as an r. o. i def. take off jan. 7th. until my company changed hands my boss gave a half or whole day off on dec. 24th and dec. 31, so i would work those days at an off site office and get the 6th off as a holiday and 7th because my boss was very, very, nice. now i have to hold 2 vacation days over for the holidays.
i often wondered how it was handled in alaska, where there is a higher percentage of r. o. than anywhere else outside of russia. i always took jan. 7th off of school and work. also how do they handle it in slavic countries (were it is jan. 7th), now that one can go to church openly?
I don’t understand your claim. Isn’t law the tool used to justify all oppression? If a regime is lawless, how does one discern oppression from racketeering?
There’s a big difference between an indigenous minority religion being illegal and foreign missionary activity being illegal. In a lot of the world that activity is seen as disrespectful to local traditions and conflict-inducing, especially as we’re usually talking about westerners with comaparatively deep pockets entering poor nations that may well have relatively recently shaken colonialism.