Last October, during the homily of the mass offered for the repose of the soul of Daphne Caruana Galizia, I discussed Ġaħan and Jonah as two diametrically opposed ‘personas’ in Malta’s current socio-political situation.
Ġaħan was originally understood to be a wise fool, the personification of verbal wisdom and humour. Though he is slightly similar to Joe Friggieri’s ‘Ronnie’, I believe he is more akin to ‘Napoleon’, not the great general but Shusaku Endo’s wonderful fool about whom I had written a commentary last April.
However, when a former minister tarred many of his party supporters with the same brush nominating them the ‘Ġaħan’, it took on a new lease of life.
Many on the social media jumped on this bandwagon, using the term to refer to those who do not agree with them politically, and whom they dub as politically naïve and stupid. The same people believe that the country is in a mess because of the ġħaħen or iġħna that populate it. During my homily I begged to differ, proposing a different hypothesis.
The problem with the country is not Ġaħan but Jonah whom I described as the epitome of those who know what should be done but, for one reason or another, renege on their duty to do it. This they do either because it is too difficult or not convenient or because they can get into trouble doing it. To hide their abdication of duty, these Jonahs blame the iġħna for corruption, abuses of the rule of law, and so on.
Calling people iġħna, meaning a stupid but not a wonderful fool, is not only demeaning but also shows an arrogance which is despicable. People are inherently intelligent, basing their choices on their value system and world view. What is important for some is not important for others as Maslow has clearly shown in his hierarchy of values.
But for the sake of this argument, I acknowledge the existence of stupid iġħna and skiving Jonahs, the worst, being the latter.
But now that it is Christmas, there is good news and bad news about the iġħna and the Jonahs. The good news is that though they fight for politically diametrically opposed views, they can celebrate together since they share the same view of Christmas as the season of caring, generosity and compassion for those less fortunate as well as the time of family gatherings. The bad news is that this view of Christmas – though popular and extremely mainstream – is a very limited and limiting treacle perspective which impoverishes Christmas.
Stephen Holmes, in his book The Politics of Christmas, blames the Victorian era for this treacle, limiting perspective of Christmas. He blames, among other things, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It is positive that the reformed Scrooge gave gifts to Bob Cratchit and his family. But there is no place in the tale for querying the basis of the economic and social system that impoverishes Cratchit in the first place or condemns Tiny Tim to a precarious life of dependence on random kindnesses just because of his disability.
Christmas should be the time when we ask why the poor exist
As Holmes notes, Scrooge generously gives gifts to those in need, but does not begin to imagine challenging the system that keeps them needy.
Christmas takes up this challenge as it is a radical feast. Christ became human so that humans can share in the nature of God. This realisation has strong political and structural consequences.
Unless horribly alienated, one immediately realises that the structures of the world we live in are not worthy of the dignity due to the children of God.
Christ became human to help us change all this. He became human to help us build a society based on love, justice, truth, freedom, and peace. To achieve this task, Christ did not give us instructions from some heavenly balcony overlooking earth.
He came down to earth and became one of us. He was ready to pay the ultimate price, and he did. But he also showed that the suffering endured in the fulfilment of this task is ultimately crowned by the Resurrection.
Besides giving money to the poor, Christmas should be the time when we ask why the poor exist in a society which can, if it wants, eradicate poverty. We should not need soup kitchens if wealth is distributed with justice.
Besides being a time when we organise social functions so that the lonely are not lonelier during the Christmas season, we should ask why loneliness is becoming more and more a characteristic of our society. A 2022 study by the Faculty of Social Well-being found that 54.6 per cent of Maltese experience a sense of loneliness – compared to ‘just’ 43.5 per cent only three years before.
Besides giving a bigger tip to the third-country nationals that deliver our food and other goodies, Christmas should be the time when we reflect on the national ignominy in the form of the creation of a class of quasi-slaves and abused humans.
We should ask ourselves how our conscience lets us sleep at night knowing that our model of economic growth is based on the exploitation of others.
Christmas is not just the time to be jolly. It is the time to be angry at the injustices that still sully and disfigure the human face of God that should be visible in the face of each man, woman or child. Christmas is the time to be Christ-like, that is, to incarnate ourselves into the human condition to change it by becoming active members of a political party, a civil society group or an NGO.
If the iġħna and Jonahs of this world team together in the struggle for a better world instead of fighting each other, the realisation of Christ’s kingdom of justice, truth, love, and freedom, will be a step nearer this Christmas.