Xmas xeaxon

It's Christmas season once again, with carols being played non-stop and countless gifts being purchased in innumerable stores across the world.  But the Pope may have thrown a wrench into the celebrations, with his sermon punctuating the start of the festivities.  That sermon, unfortunately, characterized the celebrations as a charade.

That's right, you heard it right. The Pope thinks Christmas this year is one big giant charade, what with bombs and terrorism striking deep in the heart of Paris, and if one thinks about it, within easy striking distance of the Vatican.  Instead, the Pope wants his faithful to think about the third world war happening, the war between the civilized world and radical Islam.

We all saw how horrific the attacks in Paris were, how large scale it could become, and how unprepared normal citizens can be when faced with such an assault.  How does one respond to a terrorist attack?  There's no emergency backpack available for such occasions, like the ones available for sale for earthquakes or floods, which are being snapped up by worried Metro Manila residents.  There's no SOP that comes into mind, except, flee! Run like the wind! Escape!

And that is probably what we the ordinary citizens should be thinking about right now.  No, not escaping, or even more desirable, escapism a la Christmas cheer, but how to respond to terrorism.  How to contribute in the fight against it.  What we can do to prevent it.  Instead of running around in a holidaze, thinking of buying presents and wrapping them up and planning feasts and reunions and get-togethers and vacations.

That's a tough message to send across, but one which the head of the Roman Catholic faith has decided to soldier on and broadcast.  Imagine, the Christian world is celebrating the birth of the savior of the religion, and you have to tell them to hold their horses and think of something else?  This is one of the greatest advertising vehicles for the religion, one big propaganda machine about the origin of redemption, an entire season that gives its believers happy emotions and makes them content with the religion that they belong to, and then you interrupt it with this dark message?  Takes a lot of guts.

Or, perhaps, the actions of someone with his head on his shoulders.  Perhaps, it is indeed the best time to take stock of these otherwise unsavory world events.  Instead of thinking that this war is happening in distant places thousands of miles away, on shores that we will never even set foot on, and whose victims are people we will probably never ever meet, we should instead try to imagine how we can be affected, and plan accordingly.

Will we, as a country, take in Syrian refugees?  What can we offer to these refugees aside from bare entry into our country?  I mean, our policemen are made to sleep in concrete spaces with makeshift toilets to help guard the First World leaders attending APEC, so what can we offer refugees? Will we have jobs to offer when so much of our countrymen are unemployed?  Or will we be able to give them housing, when we have so many homeless still living on the streets?

It sounds more glamorous if we contribute to the fight against terrorism.  Like deploying our tech wizards to root out recruiters and terrorist supporters in the internet.  Eavesdropping on internet chatter and mining the web for advance info.  Our computer geeks are world class apparently, so why don't we harness them?  (That's the spy/crime fiction fan in me talking, so disregard at will).

How else can we contribute, aside from changing our Facebook profile pics in red white and blue colors, or lighting up buildings in these colors?  There must be a more concrete way.

And yet, those alternatives aren't readily available to us.  It seems we have no outlet to funnel those well wishes and warm thoughts for the Paris and Mali and Beirut victims.  And don't look to me for bright ideas yet, because I have none to suggest thus far, aside from the lame suggestion above.

Perhaps, this is what we should be doing this holiday season. Mull over what's happening in the world.  Figure out where we fit in the scheme of things.  Appreciate what we have, count our blessings and maybe, hit upon an idea as to how we can contribute to world peace.  Counter terrorism.  Defeat radicalists and extremism.

Sounds like a great Christmas wish.