Christmas celebrations: Joy returns for Peshawarites

The pre-partition event was postponed due to security concerns.

PESHAWAR:

The city’s Christian residents are happy they will be celebrating Christmas today by visiting their traditional fair after church services for the first time in five years.

Postponed every time due to poor law and order in the provincial capital, the fair will open on Sunday afternoon at a Christian school in Kohati Chowk. It is also held on New Year’s Eve. Christians comprise mostly low-income families, a large number of them are sanitary workers employed by civic agencies who live in the Tael Godam colony. Visibly elated upon coming to know of the fair, a resident, Amjad Parvaiz, shared with The Express Tribune the reasons for the jubilation. It was the biggest festival of its kind in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the only one for Christians. “The authorities never directed us to cancel the event. They would ask us to ensure foolproof security, which we were unable to provide,” he said. He said it was a big event for the minority and Christians converged from all over K-P and even Punjab to visit this fair. Hameed Malik said the fair predates Pakistan. “We used to think we had been deprived of our sole source of entertainment and get-together,” he said.

The colony where they live is itself an apt metaphor for the abject living conditions of Christians in the country. There are around 75 houses and approximately 2,000 people live in these dingy streets, where two persons cannot cross each other. Almost all the houses have two small rooms, and according to locals each home houses at least two families.

The entire area stinks and heaps of garbage have piled up at the colony’s entrance. Pointing towards these heaps, Parvaiz asks how anyone can celebrate their festivals in this environment. He says most of the people living here are unlettered and missionary schools have not done anything for them. “We only have access till their gates, we cannot afford to step inside.” He said the government should at least give them a bonus on Christmas as most of their people were very poor. “Our fathers, brothers and bishops do not serve their brethren.” According to him, there are some 5000 Christians scatted in poor neighbourhoods across Peshawar.

Ilyas Masih, a bank employee, complained that the government does not allow loadshedding on the eve of Muslim festivals. “There are three-hour power outages at a stretch. Loadshedding will mar our celebrations,” he added.

However, he was of the view that belonging to a minority automatically attracts discrimination and said they tend to remain silent on religious innuendos. Replying to a question, he was of the view that Christians were not particularly vulnerable to threats in the heyday of Taliban militancy. Everyone faced a higher threat level, he said. “We were not directly attacked or threatened in the past few years.”

However, Parvaiz said they did not face any kind of discrimination. “We celebrate four Eid a year, two with Muslims and two of our own.” At face value, this statement seems to be an exaggeration, but it hints at a wish for integration with the mainstream, instead of lurking on the fringes.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2011.