Feast of plenty

The way we in the West have come to celebrate Christmas has turned it into a feast of plenty.

Plenty of things to buy.

Plenty of food to ingest.

Plenty of liquor to drink.

Plenty of entertainment for all.

Plenty of opportunities to spend money. It has truly become ‘La Grande Bouffe’, the great engorging. So much so that when it is over we need days of relaxation (and hopefully open air) to enable our digestions to return to normal.

It is symptomatic that the most popular prime minister in recent times yesterday chose to highlight the 92% of people who feel their financial situation is good.

What the other 8% feel did not seem part of the equation.

This is a Malta of bigger, grander, taller, and all the other hyperboles one can think of. What has happened to the smaller, the shorter, the less grand is hardly of importance.

One may say: but we have L-Istrina on Boxing Day when we collect money for the Community Chest Fund. But that is directed help, guided towards some specific needs, which may be all worthwhile. But those who cannot get the ends to meet, those who face residency problems, those who do not qualify, are left by the wayside.

This in the most successful economy in the rich EU – we have our leaders to vouch for it.

Whereas the real meaning of Christmas is not the 92% who are satisfied but the 8% who are not. Putting the accent on those who have everything risks forgetting those who do not.

We celebrate Christmas with all this explosion of colour that light up the dark nights, the cacophony and the noise of Christmas songs in shops and in streets, the cars congesting the roads, and the hurry, hurry to buy more, do more, eat more and above all, drink more.

And all this to celebrate the birth of one who definitely was not one of the 92%, who did not even have a roof over his head and who would not have been able to join in the orgy of buying, eating and drinking.

If it is true what the Eurobarometer revealed, that over 90% of our population feel they are living a good life, the least that is expected of our leaders is that they remind us of the 8% who go hungry while the rest of us are gulfing down our Christmas lunches and getting drunk on our Christmas drinks.