in assessment:
won.' Powell was referring to the Anglo-Irish LIC DIeVIOus week rich premier Haughey. met Margaret Thatcher, Lord Carringtor Hurry Howe Atkins Powell's assessment many on the been ched be many on une covaust see neen reinforced Haughey, who described the meeting as historic" and ad *The meeting in Dublin Castle was CUrt cernea wan ine retronsno between the two islands of Ireland and Great Britain. believe that it represented a manor situ or ware in inat long and tangled relationship, do conceal the that through development that relanonsnio e somuron nroniem Norinern Ireland will eventually come Summit The practical outcome of the summit also suggests Lial somelning Monday's Guardian with the Haughey significance did occur.
Ine joint communique 9 Tel the talks reported the commissioning Trish/British. covering a range of issues, including possible lICW sulullulla. structures. cuzersao rents security matters. economic operation and measures to mutual understanding.
Right • these mace decided U-turn. Previously the Tories have that Ireland has no right to have ally sas i wital Happens In une norto As recently as August, Hined: The Atkins tained: South has interest (in Lilc alvoody ourse ine united Kangcom We finderstand that, but it is our respon sibility and nobody else's. I wal solution is put tor Waro for the north of re anc change illustrated by tse most гогедІ secretary Carrington represents Foreign Office the last couple of years, ha let it be known that it is sick and tired ot the whole north or iciana situation The reason for this impatience is illustrated by the hunge strike.
seem of the prisbers in eems tual uc urcat Consider The failure of the latest government itiative o-called plan has given strength to the Foreign Officc causc. and it appear: unal anarcher agreed to consider an option the north of Ireland provided that north last. ten been unable to secure within the north of Ireland such a dependable or credible pupSecurity operative Britain cross-border 'security are Thatcher's anu he has ncouvical reputation which can give Socialist Challenge - 17 December 1980 Page 7 otte nana should the hunger striker Irish display their anger seen summit may prove after all, to be one effort Ireland's British problem.
earliest stereotypes of Christmas -Yet the cultural accumulation of myth and symbol.
The very Herein, argues dialectic of Christmas.
All kinds of Roman Persian; Celtic, Teutonic and Christian elements have been mixed up to produce the festival as we now kow aamoran today we are oppressed by the weight Christmas as fixed tradition, its form is determined by a long historical and social evolution.
Yet very origins based on myth and falsehood is alleged to be Christian festival, celebrating the birth of Christ, the son God, on 25 December in the year 0.
The historical Christ was not born in December, une or five dewas nor bord in the year 0 but just before, or iust after: and Christmas is a pagan festival used by early Christians incall diverting pagan loyalties into following the new religion.
Christ was born
Bethlehem, Joseph's where his gone for a census, ple in the Roman empire had to go to meir nome cowas lo registered when there Roman censuses conducted in the when it was easier to travel and there were censuses just before and just after the year 0, not in that year itself.
The celebration of a festival of festivity and rebirth in late December is- found pagan Socates astronomical factor involved is the winter solstice December wnen ine start to get longer.
Socialist Challenge: 17 December 1980 childhood pudding, decorations, snow, festivity and drink.
forms now Christmas are the result of thousands of years of As each epoch bequeathes its symbols to the universality and Christmas makes it the major communal festival of late-capitalist society. But it is also a yearly reminder of the possibility of overthrowing the society we have and replacing it with another.
FRED HALLIDAY, .basall.
Jewish, period 17-24 December, feasting, of celebrated Part are rich foods ding.
In ancient Persia, but in worshippers sull. saviour.
is obviously previous religions cient world, the tians did Christmas unal une lourt century At that time two religions, Mithraism worshipping cult parents. had The leaders because peo• WaN sion of I WCIC thereby to. wit Mithraism religion.
sun as saviour, ped Christ as saviour.
This adoption in many was common: also taken — around 22 Mithraism days borrowed Adonis, been born in Since • this sion, bols, and has served BRUNCON societies in flourished.
The Jewish know the lies the The Romans celebrated the as the occasion for dancing and dressing up. In the north, including Britain, there was a more sombre festival of Yule when fertility sisted in the making of special.
- the origin of the modern turkey and plum pudthe suncocoraice invincible Although Christianity itself the product of anearly Chriscelebrate as a major festival oriental Christianity sunpeting for the following of the Flights, suppressed classes and peoples of the decaying Roman empire.
Flights Christianity decided therefore to adopt the pagan date and to celebrate it as the birth of Christ and an occarejoicing, followers and Roman Instead of the celebration of Saturn or of the birth of the they worshipof pagan symbols for Christian purposes I ne halo was straight as a symbo. sun - of divinity. The crib was Cull alleged to have ra stable. again tactical Calmly move in the politics of converChristmas has picked up all sorts of other cultural symdifferent the various which it has festival of Hanukkah, led to the practice of putting up coloured at Christmastime although the fact that it is often dark at that time of year must also have helped.
celebrated on 6 December. Nicholas was an early Christian sailors and children as wel Russia. patronage of children and con nection with giving gifts are grossly ideological legends about him some litle rich boys were killed by and their parents alive and well.
Another story concerns a who was suddenly thrown into poverty and wa going to sell off his daughter as prostitutes, when along came gave them the dowries they needed to marry according to their position.
The latent sexual and class content of these legends is ob vious. However, in the Anglo. Saxon world at least, the givin of presents was transferred from 6 December to Christmas Day, while St Nicholas himsel! was banalised and secularised into Santa American name in Dutch came Christmas as we now know it took shape in 19th centuries. tury coaches south of cards with an cards reflect its sion of the cheap post in the 1860s, of the Christmas tree by Prince Albert are later additions. St complex of myths and symbols, but their varied subordinate which Christianity serves the preservatio capitalist society. It is not mere cultural inertia or human Christmas to be celebrated each ide ronal reinforce ties Claus an his and the 18th and The 18th cenand houses on and the popularisation we now have is this origins the function. for tossing late.
The enables - but the inner dynamic certain crucial in capitalis The two central figures time;
• monarch - are both given fice dance. time, this time in the service of capitalist mystification.
messages stress the unity of Church and Empire Christmas may be experienced as a predominantly secular occasion but religious ideology is trumpeted through the radic and culture of the period.
. And the once yearly visits to church to witness the spectacle serve to blunt materialist consciousnes in young and old The boosting of the monarchy is also an of carols and cards, and there i always Good King Wenceslas crumbs to the Bohe Illal ocasalllry temporary pora social tenaside of class sions in the Wenceslas carol is found in all kinds of festivals of this period. In ancient Rome slaves were temporarily freec during the Saturnalia land lords in Russia would give thei presents at Christmasand we find its modern drunken embodiment in the ofparty and the factory
More generally Christmashe is characterised by O carag wever genuine .and. deep se aspirations are they also ve to displace the need for C OHILU al dl lidl ws onto a spiritual saviour They obscure the need for Ulict if peace and goodwill to be possible. A universal acacos ul crisis ls cissolvea passive fatalism, nign idiocy.
At the same time as blic structures of mystifican are reinforced, the privațe acture the family engthened. However pnistic the relations ceats and children, however differences between Christmas is a time to them.
violence of familial • is drowned in .of. nostalgia cooking. ristmas dinner WILDCSES scendo of faith eit forced on the individual family pressure and guilt at violation of the tradition. This helped FiSTECi " CEHi tions in this period fantalisation that serves to protect the myths of the family; the and more generally prevents the individual men'. the liberation Christmas.
people's salvation takes round the spiritual altar of the Church. a rea celebration ot our repression is found at the material altar of the tamilv the Christmas dinner-table.
and spiritual liberator, DCO I LIC back bv the that carves the family turkey Christmas is quite simple: it is good business: an- of approaching of- the tinsel and shops.
Christmas measured in MERKEI before Christmas' and is done in December. By miq- November the media are full of The advertisements urging and to buy their wares.
La spontaneous act rounded by capitalist pressure; the value measured by how much they cost; and the up-tight nature of relations between parents and winkling out potential of While a false celebration of place The Christmas repressive we are stab' the knite LL DOCICLY A second major funcion oi Western The first signs and Christmas are decorations period beTore shopping days An eighth of all retail trade The people Instead of gift-giving being has times. Far it ls surgifts is often child is perhaps reflected in the fact that they can only give at institutionalisec period, and even then they often have to divert the giving through a mystical Santa Claus.
third aspect reflects the channelling liberating emotions and forces Christmas has inspired some of the greatest works of music and painting no one can deny that Christmas expresses the deepest aspirations of suffering men al WoCt - a longing to happiness, good food, social equality and free giving of commodities.
In the deepest winter and at the end of the. year all these forces are annually released.
expression these liberating emotions is however controlled by social ritual as it been since pre-historic from finding their fulfilment in a liberated society they are diverted to reinforce the structures of oppression.
he function of mvth is to provide diverting solutions to real problems, and the function of ritual is to provide trolled : way emotions can without destroying tures against which they are reacting is controlled by the very institutionalisation. of its expression People should be able to choose when they rave it up and give presents and love each other: yet CEMSDM ritualises them. pressured into celebrating these at one date in the year to stop one from expressing them toi the rest of the year.
guve in this form is an expressjon of uliccuoll.
Christmas masks the misery of society. rents of gross ideological gibDOIAEEDHLSOHEALLSS also serve to awal clc. and revolutionary potential.
decorations, these adorn them.
The frenzied ch.
Lanict Billy focuses and clowns Here significance militant was • tool tionary marshalled carefully critical To conin walco nima longing be resolved . the SLI UCI ICvuiuLOn.
The liberation of Christmas In the enjoy it. and Ordallls expression of freedom The happiness The infantilisation of ana period, blunt any of critical content The critical, creative and aesthetic faculties are assaulter by the awful level of Christmas paraphernalia; yet blackmailed into submission by the very "traditionality" of it.
The lights. across Regent Street sum this up instead of Soho to Mayfair: instead suggesting the end of the class relations on which the shops of central London are based, decorations attempt to overconsumption and omn cente Christmas also serve to divert ПОРИМ О СПОРМ?0100 volved. The social implications are reinforced by the fact that coo oæd s exoccc d atomised and enclosed manner Everyone is at their family lun.
The streets are never so as on Christmas Day The real social unity of the meser nation and its common accep.
this exuaorallal, ideological festival are conceal. ed; the only unity is via TV MM The Church, the Queen and • Smart's Circus are the of external attention While all are socially unified in this observance of Christmas • Ils conscious umty Is projeciec onto the most absurd actors of lațe-capilansmn — goas, queen.
lies the dialectical Christmas.
Jesus Christ was once seen as a saviour. Christianity once revolutionary ideolot pure ion ang mena oppresion and myth, and except in the case of revolupriests Latin America it serves to reinforce capitalist society.
The desire for happiness is to detend the struments of misery ideological symbols of myth are used to drown the and liberating content of the Christmas festival.
smash the institutionalisation of happiness is to men and women from myth, from the need to displace salvation onto gods or charity, and to realgn our hopes on conscious historical action.
Within the apprarently i cuous shell of Christm ound both oppression and th for iberatior and The Puritans bann. ed it; the Cubans postponed it we can transcend it This involves the release o the revolutionary potential now marshalled late-capitalist forms.
meantime, can, of course, Socialist Challenge 17 December 1980
Lete'ier arrested in Chile after the coup Letelier meets Henry Kissinger sion was lo nave been lni assassination • of two well known leaders of the Chilean Socialist Party and .Communist Party in Mexico Carlos Altamirano and Volodia Teitelbaum. • But the operation never came off. Instead Townley found himselt Europe orders to eliminate the leader of the Chilean Christian Democrats in exile, Bernardo Leighton, who lived in Rome For once, Townley varied his Teda Fresno, gs hot Leighton's wife, Anna in the shoulder; Leighton was shot in the head but survived.
Townley riow turned his attention to Leteiler. The investigation this murder revealed something very in-
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ENOCH POWELL; the Ulster Unionist MP for Down, South, ended an article
'The hunger strikers won; the Irish Republic won, Charles
country for y " in tha
next the meaning is transformed and shaped by the new social systems which adopt them.
gifts, turkey and surrounding magnitude of
rebrated. Partor yeas were this con-
nostalgia that
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ology of goodwieace
endos y CAristmas