Humanity

Just Faces

As the year draws to a close and we begin to sit ourselves down for the ritual devouring of turkey and festive goodies by the plateful, I can't help but wonder how easily some events fade from our memory. Of late, the papers have been silent about the fate of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang (although National Geographic did a good article on the Uyghurs) nor has there been any news about Dafur, Somalia or the displaced from Afghanistan. Even the plight of the Palestinians in the refugee camps seems to have evaporated from the headlines. How about our Millennium goal to end poverty, 10 years in the making? Sure, there is plenty of talk about bringing the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq and the Copenhagen summit but these are largely vis-a-vis first world countries.

I am sure that your past couple of days have not been very different from mine, where the main agenda is to get the best Christmas presents to evidence our commitment and love for our nearest and dearest. But is there more to Christmas than this? Are we able to expand our vision of humanity beyond our horizons, beyond our family and friends? As Christians, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ every Christmas and by being born He becomes man, a member of humanity. But taxonomy seems to have eroded this concept of humanity (even amongst us Christians), splitting us into, haves and have-nots, first world and developing, religious and secular, Protestant and Catholic, gay and straight, Jew and Muslim, Tan family and Lim family etc etc. and to what end? It seems that we have become a world that relishes our differences instead of celebrating our humanity. I highly doubt that this is the true Christmas message. So as we sit down to enjoy the festive season with our family and friends, we should remember that there are fellow humans beyond our horizons who have not had a warm meal or who cannot enjoy the liberty of gathering in groups. People often ask me what is the point of remembering? What good is it to just remember and not do anything about it? In fact, I often ask myself these questions too. Well, at this point, all I can say is that it is better than forgetting.

Merry Christmas everyone!