Palestinian Christian activist Hanna Kawas has called for a boycott of Christmas as a result of the Israeli occupation of Gaza. “My family, relatives, friends and the whole population of Bethlehem are enduring the most repressive and discriminatory regime the town has ever experienced and that includes the hated Roman (western) occupation of the city 2000 years ago.” says Kawas “A 25 ft. high concrete wall, in addition to the military check points, are putting the population of the city behind an iron curtain and rendering the city an open prison, similar to what successive Israeli governments have done to the rest of the Palestinian villages, towns and cities,” says Kawas.
Jesus was Palestinian Jew born in Bethlehem, a city under siege under Israeli occupation of Palestine. Descendants of the first Christians cannot celebrate Christmas openly and Palestinian Christians cannot even visit Jesus’s birth place.
Indigenous, black and Christians of colour, also face racial discrimination in Christian majority places including North America, Europe and Austria. However, Chrisitan minorities around the world are very resilient and strong in their faith and have very unique customs and traditions, especially around Christmas.
A Pakistani Muslim man in a 15 year relationship with a Pakistani Christian woman, faces discrimination from the local Muslim population. He says that “We can legally get married, but after we get married, extremists will start threatening.” Christians face a lot of religious discrimination in Muslim majority countries even though the Quran says to protect the “people of the book” which includes Christians and Jews. Christians have also faced discrimination in the Hindu majority in India and Buddhist Majorities in Sri Lanka and Myanmar(Burma).