Holidays should be a time for action and change
By PAUL GRAHAM
The "Holiday Season" is a time full of joy in which we are thankful for family and friends. We show this love by visiting our favorite shopping centers, whether it is the local mall or the local bookstore, and buying gifts for our loved ones. We start off this season by giving thanks for everything and everybody.
Thanksgiving is a day dedicated to giving thanks for all that we have — it is a reflection on our lives. This past Thanksgiving, I gave thanks for my parents and friends, for my brother and sister and for my safe journeys. I also gave thanks that I have a house, that I have food, that I have a job and that I have an education.
Many people are thankful for similar reasons and for similar possessions, but this does not give us permission to be apathetic about what others are unable to have. By being thankful, we are admitting to ourselves that we have what others do not.
As we proclaim our thanks, we must realize that our gratitude comes from our recognition that others are not so lucky. This is recognition that others are victims of oppression and violence, attend poor schools, live paycheck to paycheck and are struggling just to make it.
This Christmas season, in the memory of Jesus Christ, many of us will come together with our families to feast and give presents. Jesus taught us how to live. He acted as an example of how to live the good life. He ate with sinners, healed the poor and criticized the wealthy and powerful for their habits and lifestyles. In memory of His life and of what He did for us, we take time off school and work to celebrate Him.
We celebrate by going to the mall to buy presents representing our love for our family and friends. We buy Abercrombie and Fitch, Aéropostale, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike and the likes. We buy expensive chocolates, plan large feasts with fat birds as the center piece, decorate a tree with ornaments and write cards to loved ones.
Many of us will go on consuming as if there are no problems in the world; to some, there are no major or unsolvable problems in the world. But in the other "world," the world where a majority of people throughout our country live, the world of poverty and struggle, Christmas will come with layoffs, lost homes, lower wages and bombings in Iraq.
How is it possible to celebrate Christmas in the traditional American way: full of consumption and at the same time joyfully? This Christmas will still be Jesus' birthday, the celebration most likely will still continue, but the authentic joy is gone.
Instead, sorrow will permeate the lives of those affected by greedy economic and foreign policy. Many of us will try to forget and go on shopping and buying and consuming like the good capitalist Americans we are, the way our President so confidently commanded us to do. But how can there be Christmas when so many are unemployed, in poverty, going hungry and left homeless? This is injustice.
How can we, as students at Notre Dame, celebrate the Christmas season when many workers on this campus are afraid to speak up about their conditions, when they have no real voice or bargaining ability with the administration and when they are often overworked?
I am not requesting that we remember and pray for others who have less or pray for workers' rights here or elsewhere. We have all heard this request, and many of us have followed through. I am asking more of each of us. I am asking that we dedicate ourselves — starting now, starting this Christmas season — to working for change. I am asking that we not only remember others when we open our presents, but also that we work for a more just world. This is our gift to those we will never meet in life.
We have an obligation to do more and to work for more. We have an obligation to fight for the poor of our country and of the world. We have an obligation to make sacrifices, to give up some of our possessions — to opt for the poor by doing everything we can. We have to change how we live. We cannot let Wal-mart tell us how to love each other, nor should we allow McDonald's tell us how to eat. We must start working for peace and justice.
Christmas is meant to be a time of joy, but how can we ignore what is happening in the world right now? This is what Jesus asked us to do, and this is what we must do. We should not brush off the widespread poverty and suffering of this country. We have an obligation to do more.
Paul Graham is a senior sociology major and a Catholic social tradition minor. Contact him at pgraham@nd.edu. His column normally appears every other Wednesday. The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, December 5, 2002
