So the prime minister intends to modify the tax measures he announced in the wake of at least one protest and the stated intention of others. Normally, governments choose to announce such measures after Christmas. Why the government decided to make such announcements some 10 days before Christmas is anyone’s guess. Kingston’s Mayor Desmond McKenzie has appealed to people not to destroy Christmas by protesting. I agree, but such an appeal would not have been necessary had the government timed the announcement with more discretion.

But as I have been saying and writing for more than a decade, Christmas for Christians cannot be “salt”. Christmas is a time of joy as we celebrate the anniversary of Jesus’ birth. It was Francis of Assisi who first popularised the manger scene to remind us of “the reason for the season” some 800 years ago. In the second verse of O Holy Night we sing, “Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother and in His name all oppression shall cease.” Every Christmas I write that in my opinion this is the most important verse of that song.

Christmas is a time for families to come together in the example of the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And speaking of families, Parliament has not, as I had hoped from last year, changed the Boxing Day holiday to “National Family Day”. By not changing the name of the holiday we have maintained the old mentality where leftovers are boxed and thrown to the servants, the postman, and to the delivery persons.

Putting the burden of taxation on the poor is reminiscent of the circumstances into which Jesus Christ was born. The first Christmas was a time of rejoicing for the angels who sang Glory to God in the highest and the wise men who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. But it was terror and turmoil for the families whose first baby boy was killed because King Herod feared that he was about to be dethroned.

I think it is disingenuous of the JLP government to keep blaming the previous government as they have been doing ever since they took office in 2007. How long do they plan to keep that up? Most of the 1980s the then JLP government blamed the PNP government of the 1970s but in 1989 the PNP won by a landslide. Yes, the previous PNP government, as with all PNP governments, spent a lot of money. But we are supposed to be in developmental mode. What good is the money if it simply stays in the bank being saved for the sake of saving, but never doing anything with it?

I am not advocating that we renege on any debt obligations that Jamaica might have because it might destroy credit ratings. And the argument on the streets that I have heard since my childhood of how are we going to pay back our loans are in a sense ill-placed. Whatever the money has been used for, especially when it comes to infrastructure, cannot be taken back. Still, like the late Pope John Paul II and Michael Manley, I believe in debt forgiveness.

My own view is that if there will not be debt forgiveness, then our former colonisers should pay the debt as reparation for slavery. But that is not likely to happen now and we have got to be real. At the same time there have been benefits from borrowing. Jamaica’s infrastructure such as running water, electricity, telephones, roads and so on are vastly improved to what obtained at political independence in 1962.

Christmas is a time to be thankful for everything despite economic hardships, or even sickness. Saint Nicholas, who was a bishop in Asia Minor in the fourth century (from where we get the Santa Claus legend) made his name because he helped the sick and poor children at Christmas. He was also the patron saint of fishermen. No, the original Saint Nicholas was not white. Nor was he always jolly. The Nicene Creed came about as an expansion of the Apostles Creed after a priest named Arius preached a false doctrine denying the divinity of Jesus Christ. Nicholas was suspended for assault as he punched Arius down at the Council of Nicea.

And speaking of the skin complexion of Saint Nicholas, it appears that even Europeans believed that Jesus Christ who was born a Jew had distinct North African features. The original first verse of Silent Night as written in 1816 by the then 24-year-old Austrian priest, Father Joseph Mohr, was ” Silent night, holy night, all’s asleep, one sole light, just the faithful and holy pair, lovely boychild with curly hair, sleep in heavenly peace”.

In our present plight, we should simply plant up the place with ground provisions. The problem with working out borrowing agreements with either the IMF or with any other international financial institution is that the present government does not seem to have many good negotiators on its side, unlike the previous government which had many such persons. Have a holy and happy Christmas!

ekrubm765@yahoo.com