Sharing our winter lights
This winter, while Frank Sinatra and Mariah Carey are spinning in our heads, the streets are lit up to welcome the festive season. As we plunge into the cold and darkness, the three monotheistic faiths give pride of place to lights. Each community enhances the illumination of street lamps and wall decorations with candles, ancestral rites and traditional dishes...
Christmas, Mawlid, Hanukkah...
The date of December 25th is well known to all. Christmas is a time for families to gather around a sumptuous meal. With its cribs, Christmas tree and midnight mass, this is also a celebration of light. A symbol of wisdom, tolerance and discernment, light is never taken for granted. The candle remains a key decorative element, echoing the birth of Jesus, who is said to have inaugurated “the light of the world”.
In Hebrew tradition, light is both an ideal and a struggle. It is said that in the 2nd century BC, Judah Maccabe fought the Seleucids in the hope of rekindling the Menorah in the sacred Temple. In memory of this event, Jewish families light the Hanukiah (9-branch candelabra) for 8 days from Kislev 25. During this long-awaited week, oil-coated doughnuts are served in abundance, while children spin spinning tops and unwrap their gifts, and candles and electric garlands light up homes and mosques in predominantly Sunni Muslim countries. Mawlid, the birth of the Prophet, is celebrated on 12 Rabi'Al Awwal in the Hegira calendar. This public holiday in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and the United Arab Emirates commemorates the pre-existence of the prophetic light “nûr muhammadî" through which the world was created. In the evening, families gather around a family meal featuring regional specialties — couscous, tamina, rechta…
Globalization of festivities — Christmas markets, a boon for retailers the world over
Is Christmas a commercial holiday ? It sure is ! In Casablanca, the kingdom's economic capital the kingdom's economic capital are also looking forward to December. The General Manager of e-commerce platform avito.ma, Zakaria Ghassouli, noted a sales of his consoles had risen by 20% compared to the annual average, as the in the run-up to the arrival of “Baba Noel” (as Moroccan children call him). While the Morrocco Mall is packed with entertainment and shows, shoppers are crowding to buy gifts, delicacies and the famous “Nordman” Christmas tree — a rare conifer species, in great demand and selling for 1,200 Moroccan dirhams.
The influence of globalization on the cultural and festive events that punctuate our year is obvious. In Saudi Arabia, which is increasingly open to the outside world, it has become commonplace to celebrate Christmas. In the district of Jeddah, the melody of the jingle “All I want for Christmas is you" escapes from a bakery. Ten years ago, this would have been a scarcely believable statement, but since 2016, with the Vision 2030 initiative unveiled by Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the Gulf Kingdom has been sharing its festivities with the rest of the world. Globalization is accompanied by the rise of urbanization. This phenomenon encourages the meeting* - not the "clash*" - of cultures. Since the 1980s, the Loubavtich movement has organized annual Hanukkah celebrations in public spaces around the world. This initiative temporarily blurs the boundaries between the world of ultra-Orthodoxy and the urban world. Hanukkah in the city is tantamount to imbuing it with the ceremony, and vice versa. In the southern Sahara, the Mawlid holiday is also celebrated in public spaces, with children singing in the streets while rigorously executing a very specific choreography.
“We remember that light always wins over darkness”
Druze woman at a Christmas market in Hanukiah installed every year at the entrance to the
Nazareth. Credits: @IsraelenFrance
Be it a Christmas, Mawlid or Hanukkah miracle, in Haifa stands a sparkling fir tree right next to a menorah and a crescent moon. Every year, this city in northern Israel hosts the end-of-year festivities in the unique atmosphere of the Hag HaHagim (holiday festival) instituted by the Beit Hagefen Arab-Jewish cultural center. Every year, this event brings together all city dwellers around its Christmas market. Jews, Arabs and Christians celebrate together. The same is true of Nazareth, where the Druze also take part in the festivities. In the light of joy, laughter and song, cohesion becomes a reality. Sheikh Mohammed Al-Issa, Secretary General of the Islamic World League, reminded us in an interview — “Islam does not forbid Muslims from exchanging Christmas greetings with Christians”. At the other end of the hemisphere, a similar message of hope shone from the White House. On December 19, the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, lit the first Hanukkah candle with her Jewish husband. “This is a special time in our house. We remember that light always wins over darkness”. This confidence takes on its full meaning in the light of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. This candelabra is a strong marker where, 80 years earlier, the flags of the Third Reich flew. “It's very symbolic to be here at the Brandenburg Gate, which on the one hand symbolizes Germany's greatest moments, and on the other, its darkest, to celebrate Hanukkah together”, declared Culture Minister Monika Grutiers in 2015, and so the vision of this glittering Menorah can be understood as a response to Elie Wiesel's Night — after the darkest years in human history, the day finally dawns.
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