WE have three days to go before Christmas and to many of us, it simply does not feel like it. It is elections like these that make us have an appreciation of what Christmas was like on the battlefield during the two world wars of the last century.

The distraction must have been tremendous. But this is not a new experience to Jamaica. This is the sixth general election to be held in December and the second occasion where the campaign was before, during, and after Christmas. Nomination Day for the January 12, 1955 election was December 20, 1954. So the campaign went straight through Christmas 1954, as it will for the general election a week from today.

On paper, a majority of Jamaican Christians are Seventh-Day Adventists who do not celebrate Christmas, so in theory, Jamaicans are not as “Christmassy” as before. In practice, however, Adventists are as caught up in the Christmas culture as other Jamaicans who celebrate the event. Indeed, my experience is that some Adventists and some Jehovah’s Witnesses bake better Christmas puddings and mix better sorrel drinks than other Christians.

If the prime minister calculated his timing of the election to December by the numbers of Adventists in Jamaica, he might have made a mistake. A few years ago on Christmas Day, I had occasion to be at Andrews Memorial Hospital, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. I asked an employee there if he was an Adventist. He told me he was not and that the Adventists take the Christmas holiday while the non-Adventists have to work on the day. I found this very strange, especially as Adventists officially do not celebrate Christmas.

What is true is that we are losing the true meaning of Christmas, election or no election, and respect for churches has been dwindling. In the last three weeks, three Roman Catholic churches were broken into and the communion utensils stolen.

At Sacred Heart Church, Old Harbour, the tabernacle was stolen with the Holy Communion, believed by us Roman Catholics to be the Body of Jesus Christ. Last week, Holy Trinity Cathedral on North Street in Kingston was broken into and chalices stolen, one of which goes back to the 19th century. And the Chapel at Alpha was also broken into. Has this anything to do with the scrap metal trade?

I imagine that both Andrew Holness and Portia Simpson Miller will give very good Christmas messages. It is not for me to judge the sincerity of such messages with an election a few days away, but politicians will always be politicians. However, the see-saw political campaigns over the years where either political side says the same thing about the other, depending on the circumstances, is common in politics anywhere in the world, regardless of when the elections are called.

For example, during the world oil crisis in the 1970s the opposition Jamaica Labour Party was carrying on about how much the cost of living had risen. Michael Manley asked them what they would have done were they in his shoes. One such occasion was the PNP conference on September 19, 1976 (in the National Stadium, not the Arena) when Michael Manley made his famous “we know where we are going” speech.

But it is a JLP Government that asks today (some 35 years after that speech by Michael Manley), what the PNP would have done had they been in their shoes with the world recession. Both sides attempt to explain world economic crises only when they are in government. And neither side lets up when they are in opposition and the government finds itself in an embarrassing situation.

Andrew Holness has said that we are to expect hardships in the coming year. But Michael Manley said the same thing in the 1970s and when the hardships came, who remembered Michael Manley’s warning? The Scriptures do not tell us that Moses forewarned the Jews of hardships, but he might have. When the pangs of hunger were felt in the desert, they said they were better off as slaves in Egypt. Andrew Holness should take note of this aspect of history.

Another example is that in the 1990s, PJ Patterson proudly stated that he did not represent a garrison constituency and his proof was his personal defeat in 1980 to Mrs Euphemia Williams. He proudly compared himself with Edward Seaga who represented Western Kingston, dubbed in later years as the mother of all garrisons.

At the time, labourites scoffed at Patterson’s statement. Today, the same labourites proudly state that Andrew Holness represents a marginal seat (actually with two mini garrisons on either side) while Portia Simpson Miller represents a garrison.

Please recall the third verse of O Holy Night; “Truly He taught us to love one another/His law is love and His gospel in peace/Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother/And in His name all oppression shall cease”. Jesus Christ is the real liberator, not the politicians who seek office.

Please have a Merry Christmas despite the distractions.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com