By Chris Hedges, December 24, 2017
https://www.truthdig.com/
The tale of Jesus’ birth is not for oppressors. It is for the oppressed. And what is quaint and picturesque to those who live in privilege is visceral and empowering to those the world condemns.
“In the early 1980s I was in a refugee camp for Guatemalans who had fled the war into Honduras. It was a cold, dreary winter afternoon. The peasant farmers and their families, living in filth and mud, were decorating their tents with strips of colored paper. That night, they said, they would celebrate the flight of Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus to Egypt to escape the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem ordered by Herod. The celebration is known as the Day of the Holy Innocents.
“Why is this such an important day?” I asked.
“It was on this day that Christ became a refugee,” a farmer answered. … “