Life's not a beach for all of us, so let's not be blinded by petty prejudices at home and abroad, writes Kevin Ritchie.
More than two millennia ago, a couple made their way to a strange town. The wife was expecting, but despite her condition, they couldn’t find anywhere to stay, so they found shelter in a stable.
She gave birth among the animals, and her baby’s first crib was a manger.
It’s a tough story, even if it's more than 2 000 years old. But it’s timeless; in fact it could be going on today.
The world’s full of refugees; this year has been marked by an incredible exodus from Syria because of the implacable civil war there.
Aleppo is one of the oldest cities in the world; it used to be one of the biggest in the region but now it’s just a pile of rubble as despots use it as a proxy battleground for their own aims.
Those who can, flee. They face incredible depredations along the way, preyed upon by vicious thugs and opportunists.
Their flight to a hoped-for better life is stymied by a world turning its back on refugees. It’s a world that fears refugees and fears the immigrants who came before, them bringing a multiculturalism and a richness to their societies.
It’s the same world that will spend tonight and tomorrow remembering the birth of a little Jewish boy 2016 years ago in Bethlehem – just more than 500km to the west of Aleppo.
That same world will celebrate not just Jesus of Nazareth’s birth, but also his life. They will give one another presents in his honour and will speak of peace on earth and goodwill to all men.
They’ll remember the hope of the promise he represented – and the fear that his advent wrought in a tyrant like Herod, who ultimately wanted all male children under the age of two put to death.
Many of them will try not to think about the refugees of the 21st century. They won’t ponder the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of a man who was held up by thugs, assaulted, robbed and left for dead.
Many of the victim’s ilk turned their heads and walked on by as he lay at the roadside, until a Samaritan – a person from another, despised country – came to his help.
From that flows the injunction “Love thy neighbour”, but we aren't very good at it either in this country. We gifted the world legislated segregation with the doctrine of apartheid, even going as far as to try to justify it academically. Ironically, the former National Party government self-identified itself as staunchly Christian.
We haven’t been much better since, except now we use the euphemism "xenophobia" for our absolute contempt for the African diasporas of economic and political refugees who now call South Africa home.
There’ll be many refugees finding no room at the inn at the weekend, just as they haven’t found a place to lay their head all year. The struggle to fit in, to fight for a better life, will remain well into 2017, with the playing fields often perilously skewed against them.
The haves, as we have seen this week, will still do everything in their power to ensure they continue to have, to prevent others from entering their neighbourhoods or going to the beach – even if the roads in those areas or the sand itself belongs to the municipality in trust for everyone.
It’s not very Christian, is it? It certainly isn’t much of a harbinger for peace on earth or goodwill among men.
How do we celebrate Christmas, not just in the face of such inequality, but, if we are honest enough, in the face of our own hypocrisy?
The truth is, if Mary and Joseph came to Joburg tonight, or Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Durban, Polokwane or any point in between, they’d be lucky to find a manger to put the Baby Jesus in. As it is, the shepherds would struggle to get past the taxi drivers.
In the old days, the wags used to ask why Jesus couldn't have been born in Bethlehem in the Free State. The answer, of course, was because they couldn’t find three wise men or a virgin in the Free State.
It’s cruel and untrue. I’m sure there’s a virgin in the Free State, but I’m not too sure about charity. Just ask Andries Tatane’s family. Ficksburg, where police officers shot him dead, is only 100km from Bethlehem; in fact the riot cops were probably brought in from there.
But, just as I sometimes start to despair, I get a WhatsApp from the indefatigable Imtiaz Sooliman of Gift of the Givers. He has a team at Ar Rahma hospital, west of Aleppo, which Gift of the Givers has been busy building and serving for the past four years. It’s snowing there. It looks cold and miserable.
South African doctors are giving medical treatment to needy patients, South African volunteers are giving food to the hungry, beanies and scarves to freezing kids. A seven-month-old malnourished baby girl has been brought back up to the weight she ought to be after almost starving to death in Aleppo.
And then there’s my old friend Yusuf Abramjee and the brand new #OperationSA with its #SAve Syria campaign, which raised R13million in a 10-hour telethon.
The Good Samaritans are at it again.
Merry Christmas, everyone.