“Muslims hate Christmas” – more moronic propaganda from society’s lunatic fringe

by Steve Cook

I keep seeing articles on Facebook that written by morons and shared by people with no common sense alleging “Muslims” are “demanding” we abolish Christmas, Christmas decorations and so forth as they are “offensive”.

Yet every article I have seen turns out to be a false report, spin, an alteration of what actually took place or an opinion masquerading as fact, full of generalities, lacking in specifics and so on. Or simple a lurid headline unsupported or unsubstantiated by the article that follows it.

Now I am not a Muslim and my wife is not a Muslim but we have Muslim friends and my wife grew up in a community in France with a large Muslim population and neither of us were aware that Muslims had any problem with Christmas and certainly the so-called articles alleging “Musllims” (They never say WHO exactly) have a beef with Christmans do not even come close to substantiating that idea.

But just to be sure I messaged a Muslim friend of mine and asked him straight about it. Here is our converstation.

Question: “People keep posting stories about Muslims “demanding” towns take down their Christmas decorations because they find Christmas “offensive”. What is the Muslim community’s feeling about it.? I thought it might be good to get your view on it as a Muslim and someone who knows the community.
Answer: Oh dear, I thought Christmas was supposed to be a time of goodwill and happiness. I can understand your frustration, Muslims are taught at a very early age to respect the religion and customs of others. Our children look forward to the festive season. The fundamental core of tolerance and understanding is that one has an understanding of the history relating to the subject matter.
Question: Thanks. Is there any feeling in the Muslim community that Christmas decorations are offensive and should not be put up?
Answer: Not at all, its just decorations.
What is happening here is that SOMEONE is churning out false reports,designed to cause upset, The intent is to undermine and sever the natural affinity of man with man. and set communities in conflict.
Now it is possible that somewhere there is a fanatic with a bee in his bonnet about Christmas but none of the “articles” I have seen have identified such a specific person or group of persons and if such a loon exists, there is no evidence his views are shared by the broad Muslim community, far from it.
This is divide-and-rule, the effort to set communities of human beings against one another. It forwards the goals of the defamers and oppressors of Man It is dishonest and vicious in intent and undermines the survival potential of all of us.
It is unacceptable to pander to this effort or to aid and abet it by forwarding the false reports that are the hate-monger’s stock in trade.
It is also the oldest propaganda trick in the book: the propagandist not have to PROVE anything, He merely has to ACCUSE and just keep on churning out his accusations, confident that are people dim enough to buy it.
Man in affinity with Man survives.
Here is a fine article that says what I just tried to say a bit more clearly. It is from the website That’s Nonsense.
Steve Cook runs the satirical blog The Daily Scare

Christmas is banned. It offends minorities. DEBUNKED.

As the run-up to the festive period is more or less upon us there is one persistent rumour that has once again reared its ugly head, and we’ll discuss it here.

When it comes to Islamophobic propaganda, there are few examples that work as successfully as the formula of taking some quintessential piece of culture and falsely asserting Muslims are offended by it and want it removed or banned

It works so successfully because it specifically aims to threaten what many people of Western countries hold dear – their cultural values, ideologies and traditions, and threatens to replace them with values of what many perceive to be a foreign culture.

It essentially capitalises on the popular myth spread by extreme right-wing organisations that claims countries like the US, Britain and Australia are increasingly adopting Islamic values, and that this will inevitably result in the end of what is considered Western culture.

However, claims that Muslims have been offended and want to ban or remove something are nearly always false, or at the very least isolated incidents that in no way represent the beliefs of the Muslim population in general, but because they make ideal extremist propaganda, they continue to circulate.

The banning of Christmas, or Christmas related decorations, meanings and traditions is a common example. Christmas is an important part of the Christian calendar, and is the most popular holiday in most Western cultures, and therefore it is commonly exploited by this type of propaganda.

In 2013 this rumour spread through social media thanks to an old 2005 UK Daily Express article getting re-circulated with the headline “Christmas is Banned: It Offend Muslims”. However the Daily Express isn’t known for its accurate reports and the entire incident wasn’t about any Muslims wanting Christmas banned, and it was the result of confusion at a local council in South London who briefly referred to their Christmas light as winter lights. A very similar rumour about a town in Australia also spread in 2013 as well.

The headline by The Daily Express should offend any reader.

This is isn’t the first time spurious tabloid reporting has caused these sorts of rumours. In 2002 another UK tabloid The Daily Mail ran with the headline “The Red Cross bans Christmas”, a completely bogus story that The Red Cross have had to debunk almost every year since it first spread (and continued to spread again every year.)

Another persistent spin-off from the Christmas-is-banned theme is the myth that the “correct” way to wish people a merry Christmas is to use the religion-generic “Seasons Greetings”. However again this is simply untrue.

It is true that, for example, many card companies do use the term “Seasons Greetings” to increase the size of their customer base and widen their demographic. But this isn’t because Muslims are offended by the term, nor should it imply that saying “Merry Christmas” is socially or morally wrong.

Christmas is not the only tradition to be exploited by this type of propaganda. Poppy selling, wearing England football shirts, alcohol, the use of the national flag and anthem, or even the use of sniffer dogs at security checkpoints have all fallen foul of this type of rumour in the past.

To summarise, there is no evidence to support the notion that Muslims living in Western cultures are – in general – offended by Christmas, and rumours spread that claim the contrary, as we’ve shown on this page, are often false, or misleading.

Whilst there may be a rise in the number of examples of religious neutrality as the holidays approach, this is an inevitable consequence of an ethnically and religiously diverse population. To say that this means Christmas is being banned, or that if offends Muslims, is simply bigoted propaganda.

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About Steve Cook 2164 Articles
Director, UK Reloaded
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