It’s Time to Decolonise Father Christmas, Says Brighton and Hove Museums Blog
A Brighton and Hove Museums blog post has dragged Father Christmas into the culture wars, arguing that his story needs to be reinvented in a way that challenges the “colonial gaze”. The Mail has the details.
In a startling intervention ahead of Christmas, Brighton and Hove Museums argued Father Christmas must be “decolonised” in the name of diversity, claiming his traditional role reinforces damaging ideas about power, authority and Western superiority.
The claims appeared in a blog post published on the museum’s website, which suggested Santa’s familiar naughty-and-nice routine promotes a “Western binary” and casts the bearded gift-giver as a global moral judge.
“For many children, the story of Santa Claus is as much a part of Christmas as gifts and Christmas dinner,” the post said.
“But the tale of a white, Western Santa who judges all children’s behaviour has problems.”
Museum chiefs went further, questioning Santa’s right to assess children across different cultures and traditions.
“As he visits each nation he determines if the children deserve presents based on being ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’,” the blog added.
“But who decided Santa should be the judge of children’s behaviour in every community? How can he assess, for example, Indigenous children practising their own cultural traditions?
“Told like this, the story presents Santa as the ultimate authority of all societies. This asks us to accept colonial assumptions of cultural superiority.”
Parents, the museum urged, should actively “challenge the colonial gaze” by abandoning the idea of Father Christmas “rewarding children based on a Western binary of ‘naughty/nice’.”,
“Focus on bringing joy to kids of all backgrounds rather than judging them,” the post advised.
Instead, families were encouraged to reinvent Santa as a symbol of ‘cultural exchange’, rather than discipline.
“Have Santa learn about different cultures rather than judge them,” it recommended.
“Stories could show him experiencing their traditions. Emphasise cultural exchange rather than assessment.’
Even Santa’s workshop was not spared scrutiny, with the museum suggesting the man in red should abandon his traditional leadership role.
“Include people from around the world in Santa’s workshop. This acknowledges global input. Put Santa to work in the factory alongside the elves. This shows him and the elves as equal.”
And in a further twist, the blog floated the idea of replacing Father Christmas altogether.
Alternatively, Santa could become ‘Mother Christmas’.
Worth reading in full or you can read the original blog post in full here.
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We clearly need more straightjackets and padded cells.
Another idea would be to start deporting people who want to preach to us about what they believe to be deficiencies in imported US consumer society culture rituals as if these were our own and we were responsible for them to the USA.
I don’t know if the Americans would be particularly happy about these USA cosplaying pseudo-intellectuals but I certainly don’t want to be subjected to their waffle until I voluntary chose to join their LARP¹ groups (which I certainly won’t ever do).
¹ Live Action Roleplaying, see also “Transistors are istors!”
Please leave my country out of your crazy, we did not import socialism it is all yours. Enjoy.
Christmas in Germany is (or at least used to be) more a religious than a commercial event, ie, there is no such thing as “the Christmas partying/ holiday seasion.” I consider this an American influence which is stronger in the UK because of the closer cultural ties to the USA.
I have no idea where you got the “socialism” from but it was a temporary alliance of British communists/ socialists with British imperialists which gifted first Stalinist rule over half of Europe and then, about 50 years of communist overlordship to the world and we’re still dealing with the fallout of that today, as evidenced, for instance, in this attempt to “decolonize Christmas.”
That’s certainly all yours and insofar this craziness of yours exists also in Germany (which it unfortunately does), that’s because it was imported straight from the USA.
I think both our countries suffer from a blight of socialist headbangers – it’s difficult to tell the mayors of London and New York apart, for example.
Santa Claus is a fantasy figure that most children by the age of 5 realise doesn’t exist – although they might like to go along with it for a while longer.
That alleged adults think he’s real, does indeed support the need for lunatic asylums.
The world of The Left is truly a joyless world.
There is no part of our culture, heritage or history safe from their ideology.
This is a variant of “To someone whose only tool is a hammer, every problems looks like a nail.” These people cannot ever escape from the mental straitjacked they’ve chosen to place themselves in and hence, whatever the topic, they always repeat the same phrases.
To these people the great days of Britain only started in 1945 when Attlee kicked off our steady decline as a nation. Baroness Thatcher managed a brief halt before the spread of the lefty disease in her party saw her ousted and the decline resumed.
Somebody should publish a ‘Socialist Dictionary’. They have invented their own form of Newspeak and use it to browbeat us at every opportunity.
Better still, geld him, stuff his willy inside him, give him silicone implants and put ‘shim’ in a dress.
And a one-way ticket to Gaza.
Perhaps we should ‘decolonise’ our Institutions of all the people who make a fetish of Identity Politics?
No, send them to one of the remaining colonies. Pitcairn or South Georgia would do nicely.
What have the penguins done to deserve that?
“…But who decided Santa should be the judge of children’s behaviour in every community?…”
Who decided Marxists should be the judge of anything?
Ugly Buildings
Ugly Art
Ugly …
Ugly minds.
No problem!
Everyone’s view is equally valid.
It’s time to decommunise Brighton & Hove Museums, more like.
Can someone please start a fundraiser to pay a few teachers to bring employees of “Brigthon and Howe” museum a little up to speed wrt Christian traditions of Europeans in Europe? Or maybe even better – but that’s certainly hoping for too much – about the Germanic religious traditions the Christian church culturally appropriated to become more palatable to us rather ‘nordic’ Germanic people?
We never claimed that Wotan (the original Santa) would be the god of all of mankind, it was always ours.
Where would we find teachers like that?
“Decolonise” is madleft Orwellian code for the destruction of white cultures and white civilisation. Which is why the odious marxo-fascist scream to “decolonise” is only ever made of white cultures.
The Ottoman Empire hasn’t yet been decolonised, and Brighton and Hove are oblivious!
If the museum wants to decolonise Father Christms, let’s defund the museum. I’m sure there must be a lot of taxpayers’ money they’d hate to lose.
That’s an easy one: If he thinks kids are naughty he doesn’t give them a present. Their parents can decide whether to try and cover for him or not – as they see fit.
Not really. The statement is just complete nonsense: Saint Nicolaus (“Santa Claus”) is a saint of the catholic church. He transcends all “indigenuous” cultures because of God who is all-knowing and all-powerful. People who aren’t Christians probably won’t believe that but it’s what Christians believe.
The only indigenous children of England are English and their own culture isn’t a problem for them.
“Naughty and nice” are abstract categorizations. What precisely constitutes “naughty behaviour of children” and “nice behaviour of children” depends on what their parents regard as such. Indigenous cultures may have their own ideas about appropriate and inappropriate behaviour of children but they certainly have some. Hence, the Santa Claus myth is universally applicable, with its specific interpretation changing in line with local customs.
The night 6th of December tradition really refers to the Wotan/ Odin riding through the night on his 8-legged horse Sleipnir. It was just repurposed by the Catholic church to intertwine its teachings with popular customs among the predominant group of people in Northern Europe.
Is there a single element of Christianity that wasn’t nicked from other religions. Yule, Eostre, Halloween, because originally their belief was too weak to indoctrinate the Northern tribes of Europe. At least the Romans were a bit more honest when they merged the gods, such as Mithras, into their beliefs.
”Saint Nicolaus (“Santa Claus”) is a saint of the Catholic Church….”
Saint Nicholas was a historical figure in the early, undivided Christian Church, venerated by both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, but he’s especially prominent in Orthodoxy as St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and a primary saint, predating the 1054 Schism. He was a Greek bishop in Myra (modern Turkey) who lived before the formal Catholic/Orthodox split, making him a shared, unifying saint celebrated by both traditions.
(I come in peace, RW, and I hope that you don’t mind)
Thanks for the additional information. I knew that already but not everybody else might.
The only good things in Brighton are the music venues – Dome, Concorde 2 and Brighton Centre – and the Amex Stadium.
If non-Western cultures are using “Father Christmas” or “Santa”, surely that’s cultural appropriation? Perhaps they just like the story. I wonder if anyone asked them.
“Nice…naughty….Western binary…” Are they saying non-Western cultures can’t tell the difference between bad and good behaviour? Racists!
The problem is that she’s really an AI running on a Spectrum which naturally limits her text generation abilities somewhat.
Yeah, limited training data too. Is there a special command to search for woke bollocks?
INV. VIDEO (as opposed to TRUE VIDEO) would be my suggestion.
Or maybe a sentence: ERASE POINT, INVERSE BEEP, BRIGHT FLASH OVER PAPER.
Wow. The ZX Spectrum. A machine which proved simplicity can be highly effective.
Think I’m gonna puke.
Do Brighton and hove museum have nothing better to do than destroy everyone’s Christmas. I have an idea. Let’s try really hard to not give places like this a soupçon of your precious time and attention for one good reason. They do not deserve it. Hey museum bright sparks, how about making sure no one in your town is left alone at Christmas. Now wouldn’t that be an act of kindness you should be doing?
Like the “kindness” you’re prepared to show to people who aren’t happy with the heavy commercialisation of something which should be a much more somber and religious festival? Let’s call that “They’re Christians! Hit them on the other cheek as well”-‘kindness’.
I think I prefer spending Christmas alone over that.
Sounds like an Xmas fools joke, surely just a windup. And it’s from 2023.
This may be the case. But there are Christmas decolonization events in Berlin, nominally organized by the protestant church of Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland) and they’re featuring Mullahs explaining “the colonial roots” of popular Christmas symbols/ traditions like having a wreath of fir branches with four candles on a table somewhere¹.
¹ The candles are lighted one-by-one on the last four Sundays before main German Christmas day (the so-called “holy evening”, 24th of December) such that one candle is burning when there are still four Sundays until Christmas, two for three and so on.
This reads like an item from The Two Ronnies’ news desk.