After resent media reports of Santa Claus being ‘banned’ from childcare centres in Australia, I am left wondering what is going on in people heads. Why is it that when a place of learning and caring such as a childcare centre, in a supposedly secular state, bans the presence of a man in a coca-cola red and white suit with a plastic beard the Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and the commercial papers join with church groups and go on the offensive? Does Peter Beattie actually believe Santa will be squeezing down his chimney this Christmas? The evidence is there, in the ‘The Sunday Mail’ on the 8th of December Peter was quoted as saying, “I’ll be leaving a coldie and a bit of cake out for him on Christmas night and hope he leaves me something nice”. Perhaps lying is just second nature to someone who is allowed into his position of power and therefore responsibility? It is no secret Peter would has us believe a whole host of things not least of which would be everything that comes out of his mouth, but he is liar and has proven it through his own speech and action.
Peter Beattie actually stated it would be “cruel” for children not to be exposed to this debased and commercialised aspect of Christianity, he actually maintains that Santa is not strictly christen, if this were true, why does Santa Claus not do his breaking and entering on Islamic or Hindu holidays? Could it be that Santa is a cute way of selling Christ? Of course it is, but it is also much more then that. Santa represents the lies and indoctrination and the social conditioning we are all exposed to in order to encourage us to lie to ourselves, because Santa is a myth but fun to believe in, we grow up believing something we know is crap because it makes us feel good. Thus Santa plays a necessary role in the process of turning children into the hypocritical voluntarily ignorant adults of tomorrow and at the same time making them grateful for it. But Santa himself is not behind his promotion, it is religious institutions, members of government and of course the media that push Santa and benefit indirectly by doing so.
The Sunday Mail, in several ill-conceived articles, boasts that Santa, and Christmas itself presumably, are Australian traditions. This is complete and utter trash, a prime example of sanitised history. For tens of thousands of years Australians lived blissfully without interference or indoctrination by any religious institution until Europeans invaded Australia just over 200 years ago. While ‘Dream Time’ is a genuine Australian tradition stretching back before recorded history, while Christmas is a foreign tradition imported here and violently imposed on what we didn’t murder of the Australian native population. The racist and hegemonic religious institutions who pushed Santa on aboriginal children are still pushing Santa on children today, in the third world people are starving and the Christians, instead of opposing the system that insures war and poverty for the majority (neo-liberal capitalist pseudo-democracy) they push their religious agenda and a dependency on charity to ineffectually counter the repugnant economic class divide that exists within each country and between all countries as a result of undemocratic economic or corporate globalisation. Santa and western notions of ‘freedom’ are also pushed, not through real democracy, participatory democracy, but through neo-liberal consumer capitalism. Christian values are dominant here and now, however this is the primarily the result of the British imperialist tradition, not a religious one, although religion has played a major role. The imperialist state that occupied Australia by force was the secular British state, although the secularism of the British state did nothing at the time to prevent the persecution of any who openly practised a religion other then Christianity, or indeed spoke a language other then God’s. This practise is well illustrated in the excellent movie “Rabbit Proof Fence”, where young aboriginal girls are stolen from their families and subjected to an orphanage where they are disallowed even to speak their first language.
Few Australian could go through life without accidentally learning the gist of a Christian story or two. Having picked up some of the Holy Bible’s teachings myself, quite involuntarily I assure you, I am sure many Christians who are serious about the teachings of Christ would find Santa Claus as offensive as I do. Consider the common theme in the teachings of Christ to do with ‘earthly’ belongings. Christmas may once have been about giving what you had to others, but it has now undeniably become the acquisition of more in order to give. Instead of the poor parent being creative and making do, he or she saves for six months to buy that near worthless piece of pink plastic with ‘Barbie’ printed on the side because the daughter’s sentiments are so strongly contioned by the minority controlled media we have in this country, and indeed the whole of the West. So while once the idea of Christmas meant the wealthy parasites of society could have an excuse to give a little back as in the tale of Scrooge, today’s Christmas is an orgy of buying that makes the capitalist parasites and their ‘hangers on’ even fatter, and drives people much further away from the teachings of Christ.
The responses throughout the commercial papers in Queensland have handled this issue with all the tact and intelligence one comes to expect from commercial media sources in this country. The 8th of December edition of ‘The Sunday Mail’ that has inspired this article, contained three items which deal directly with Santa and his being ‘banned’ from childcare centres. The most remarkable of which was written buy Frances Whiting. Her piece was particularly annoying for many reasons, firstly because she states she can only conceive of one possibly legitimate reason for not wanting Santa Claus in childcare centres and that was that children might be scared of the guy, no mention of the example set by lying to your kids. Whether this ludicrous statement is the result of blatant voluntary ignorance or pure stupidity I don’t know, Frances is in a better position then I to answer such a question. Perhaps she was simply lying so as to escape flying in the face of her commercial and pro-capitalist paper’s thinly veiled political agenda? Secondly Frances equates the rejection of Santa Claus with the disgusting and unforgivable racist outbursts of the unashamedly stupid Fred Nile. Making out that opposing the commercial and pseudo-Christian Icon that is Santa Claus, is akin to being a racist bigot, like Fred Nile. Thirdly Frances feels the need to refute the well-known capitalist consumer nature of Santa Claus in Capitalist society, she is utterly incorrect in her analysis of both Santa as a consumer icon and of broader capitalist pseudo-democracy.
I could not have hoped to cover all the ethical and social implications of Santa Claus and Christmas in any detail here, as both cannot be in the least part understood without a broad and accurate analysis of the society in which we and the ‘child friendly’ lie of Santa Claus exist. I do see the Church as a business for profit, Martin Luther saw this in his day, and it has only gotten worse. When I am driving around Brisbane it strikes me that there is a church on every second street corner, I would bet there are as many, if not more then there are McDonalds restaurants. I see obvious and not unrelated similarities between Ronald McDonald the clown and Santa Claus. Both are designed to please children and at the same time promote a view, an understanding of the world that is a departure from reality. Both actively promote consumerism, capitalism, aggressive individualism (as we don’t share presents or happy meals), loyalty to certain ideological paradigms (Bible on one hand, capitalism on the other), and of course the most vital of functions in regards to maintaining the status-quo, the active promotion of accepting lies as truth, voluntary or wilful ignorance.
Halo13, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
References
Kristy Sexton, (2002). The Sunday Mail, State puts welcome mat out for Santa, p.7
Frances Whiting, (2002). The Sunday Mail, Santa Claus is still coming to town, p.16
