It struck me to read that an Iraqi Muslim from Baghdad celebrated his first Christmas in 2004. Sarmad Ali, an Iraqi reporter for the Wall Street Journal, wrote a blog entry describing how he “had no idea that Christmas was on the 25th of December.” If this statement was announced by someone from the remote villages in Iraq, I wouldn’t be surprised since people there are mostly Muslims. But in Baghdad the situation was different: Christians and Muslims celebrated their feasts peacefully and happily for a long time.
In Baghdad, every December 25th, the three State Television networks under Saddam covered the Christmas Mass live on TV and celebrated the holidays with the followers of Jesus Christ willingly every year. Greetings of the holidays marked the bottom of the TV screen which showed joyful songs dedicated by Christians to their fellow Christians on the occasion. People would call the songs TV show and dedicate these songs in a live broadcast.
With all this publicity, Saramd did not know when Christmas was held. “…when we watched New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world on TV, we thought that was Christmas,” the Wall Street Journal claimed.
It is surprising how Sarmad did not notice that not only Christians celebrated Christmas, yet their Muslim friends did too. Christmas trees- the real and fake ones- along with Santa Claus’ posters and outfits were always visible to the eyes of Baghdadis. It was never kept a secret among Christians as Sarmad claims by saying his Christian colleagues in college didn’t say much about it. I remember my Christian friends in college even inviting me to their Masses and parties. When the holidays were over, they would tell us all about how they celebrated it with their friends and family.
Christmas was a holiday shared by most people, Muslims and Christians. Followers of both religions would buy Christmas trees and celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve with Christians. Before Christmas day, many shop owners in Baghdad would hang the decorations on their shops' windows. Santa whom we call Baba Noel is very famous. Christian and Muslim children adore him. Like many others they think he is real because he comes at night and brings presents.
Even though this war has left some scratches in the relations among people in Baghdad, Muslims this time did not forget to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve with optimism. Many people took to the streets and bought the holiday decorations. My sister and brother-in-law bought a beautiful Christmas tree and decorated it with Baba Noel (Santa Claus.) Presents from my parents, my sister’s in-laws, aunt, and grandmother were piled under and around the tree. They all gathered, sang, celebrated and ate sweets hoping the New Year would bring happy and sweet days.
It seems that Sarmad was not interested himself in at least asking why there were Mass on TV on December 25, or why there were Baba Noel’s posters and decorations in Baghdad. He made it seem like all Iraqi Muslims were like him, unaware of when Christmas is celebrated and that only here, Muslims would realize that Christmas Eve is not New Year’s Eve! It makes me feel sad that what he said came from an Iraqi, an educated one working for a major business newspaper. Yet, when I think back of who bought the paper recently, I realize why he said what he said in this general way of speaking.
