LONDON — It’s that time of year again. As November turned to December, a work gang just arrived outside the front window to set up the neighbourhood Christmas tree and mark the approach of the annual season of peace and good will.
Meanwhile, across the Channel in Brussels, there is a distinct lack of good will this year as locals in the Belgium capital tangle over a controversial decision by the city fathers to replace the traditional pine tree with an abstract structure of illuminated cubes.
The 25-meter, or 82-foot, tree of light installed this year on the Grand Place, the main square in Brussels, has sparked a protest movement and an online petition, demanding respect for “values and traditions”, which has so far attracted 25,000 signatures.
Some are claiming, however, that the campaign amounts to a thinly veiled attack on multiculturalism in the capital of the European Union, with undertones of Islamophobia.
The controversy was sparked by remarks by Bianca Debaets, a city councilor from the Christian Democrat and Flemish Party, who claimed the Socialist-run municipality was pandering to the sensitivities of non-Christians by scrapping the traditional tree.
“What next?” she asked. “Will Easter eggs be banned from the city because they make us think of Easter?”
The municipality has defended its choice, saying it wanted to blend the modern and the traditional to show off the city’s annual winter fair. More traditional Christmas symbols would also be on display in the Grand Place, including a Nativity scene, officials said.
Ms. Debaets has since distanced herself from openly racist comments that have attached themselves to an otherwise innocent online protest movement, some of which claimed the city was bowing to pressure from its estimated one-in-five Muslim minority.
In online comments, Muslims ridiculed the claims and Semsettin Ugurlu, chairman of the Belgian Muslim Executive that represents the Muslim community, said his organization did not object to any kind of Christmas tree.
“We know we are living in a country with a Christian culture, we take no offense over a traditional Christmas tree,” the BBC quoted him as saying.
The organizer of the online protest petition, identified as Olivier, told Belgian television he was not a racist and merely wanted his children to enjoy the pleasure of seeing the traditional tree.
The wording of the petition, and some of the comments attached by signatories, nevertheless revealed a wider agenda. It said the scrapping of the traditional tree at the Grand Place followed a ban on Christmas trees at law courts, the suppression of religious symbols at school and a ban on pork at school canteens.
The Christmas tree controversy comes after two members of an Islamic list, who said they might one day seek a referendum on establishing Sharia law in Belgium, were elected last month as councilors in Flemish-speaking districts of the Brussels region.
That prompted its own online petition, sponsored by a far-right party, to have their grouping banned.
Their election embarrassed moderate Muslim organisations, one of which started its own petition rejecting Sharia law. The Belgian Muslim Executive also said it was inconceivable to most Muslims that Belgium would ever become a Muslim state.
Olivier Mangain, a center-right Francophone politician, meanwhile called for secularism to be written into the Belgian Constitution in order to prevent any religious or other group from undermining fundamental rights such as gender equality.
La Vie, a Christian weekly in neighboring France, commented: “In a country hit by economic crisis, in the grip of regional tensions, and now starting an annual battle over how to mark Christmas, this affair has once more sparked a debate over the identity of Belgium.”
IHT Rendezvous: Christmas Tree Controversy Fires Multicultural Belgium
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IHT Rendezvous: Christmas Tree Controversy Fires Multicultural Belgium
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IHT Rendezvous: Christmas Tree Controversy Fires Multicultural Belgium
