The Ice Cream Man

This ain't John Brim's seminal Ice Cream Man and perhaps little more of David Lee Roth's take on it. In this week's Camino a Ítaca Christmas and what it means for the oldest city in the world. Will it turn into a Turkish colony? Will the Israelis make a huge land grab or simply annex it? Will it become Kabul-West? Will the Kurds finally get a 'promised land'? Will the Ice Cream man still be around? Click over to read the Spanish version in the HOY or the English. If not, the original unedited piece below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

It took place just down a covered corridor that was sporadically lit by what seemed like bullet holes in the tin roof. In my memory, it was the scene that most represents Christmas. By that I don’t mean the conical medieval torture device by day and notional Christmas tree at night that vitiate each and every main square across the peninsula. Nor do I mean the anodyne motifs that line every street in the country that so ineffectually attempt to put a secular face on these generous annual donations from our municipal coffers to the Ebenezers of Iberdrola.

Here, where the chiaroscuro lane met the wide square, layers of history rose up in front of you like a millefeuille pastry. At ground level, the remains of an ancient Aramaean temple to Hadad-Ramman could be deciphered in the walled courtyard. From there, a series of Roman pillars supported a colonnade leading to a semi-ruined entranceway that the Romans had built after they assimilated Hadad with their own deity of thunder, Jupiter. And there in the centre of the square stood the Byzantine remains of an enormous church that had been dedicated to John the Baptist until the Caliph al-Walid I converted it into a temple that is still known as the Umayyad Mosque.

In the transitions you could palpably envision ancient Semitic rites being adopted into the Roman solstice of Saturnalia. In the air hung memories of the smell of the acrid papyrus smoke from the fundamentalist Christian bonfires as they consciously turned their backs on the accumulated knowledge of the classical world by implementing their dark, fatalistic vision of monotheism and thus monothought.

Then came the mark of the subsequent version of zealous believers, equally convinced that their new prophet was the sole interpreter of their celestial dictator’s whims, even if their coat of whitewash left the Christan murals in the church, and the myths that accompanied them, disfigured but visible. All this at the gates of a bustling market that displayed all the tenets of the rampant consumerism that Christmas now entails.

I was ordering a pistachio ice cream, just steps away from where Saul of Tarsus fell off his horse, when I realized that the seller wasn’t just giving me the ice cream but was just about to give me his phone number. Here I was in an Islamic country and I was being openly hit on by another man.

But this was a country that defied stereotypes. Just a few blocks away, while music rang out from shops in the Armenian neighborhood, I had seen more exposed flesh than you would in Ibiza. The booksellers in the souq were also doing brisk business. The Assad regime would drop barrel bombs and wipe out entire neighborhoods if you were against them, but under Bashar’s rule there was a razor thin veneer of stability. Like Saddam and Muammar before him, he was the only deity the people had to fear and obey.

Now the deposed dictator lives among empty vodka bottles in freezing Moscow as Russia’s Mediterranean colony takes on a distinct Turkish flavor under the expansionist and increasingly Islamist Erdogan. The big question now is, will you be able to say Merry Christmas here next year?

Love Actually

War on Christmas concentration camp

It's the big loooong weekend here in Spain, the equivalent of their Thanksgiving travelwise, and even though the season started a long time ago, it seems like Christmas is in the air. Company parties are out in full force and the streets are filled with holiday shoppers (if you're looking for the perfect give, try gifting my new book). The onslaught of the Christmas seasons also means that the annual wingefest has started up again as the false flags are raised everywhere in search of the mythical 'War on Christmas'. This week's Camino a Ítaca looks at how the queen of false flag warfare here in Spain launched the most recent attack on an nonexistent enemy. Click over to the originally published version in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

It’s something that in all of my wandering I can honestly say that I have never ever heard expressed by anyone, at least outside of Japan. It’s something so freakishly unlikely that I would sooner expect someone to say that they enjoyed chewing on broken glass or that they spent their leisure time getting unnecessary root canals done.

But profess to this?

True, the phrase might be heard in the context of someone referring to others, but certainly not themselves. Most likely when someone wants something but can’t get it that day or disparagingly regarding people they employ. But never have I heard someone regretfully utter the phrase, “I have too many holidays.”

There isn’t, nor has there ever been, a popular movement to reduce the number of holidays we have long fought for. It doesn’t take the ghost of Christmas past to remind us that holidays weren’t willingly offered to workers, but something fought for.

And it’s with these truisms in mind that I wonder, just where is this ‘War on Christmas’ that the far right fervently claims is underway? Exactly where are these barbarian hordes that are ripping down the millions upon millions of LED lights that illuminate each and every city, town and village from Malaga to La Coruña? Where are the general strikes and throngs of laborers demanding to be able to work on the 25^th? Just where are these leftwing lunatics who supposedly want to get rid of Christmas?

Yet even with a complete and total lack of evidence, every year we are subject to the same high-pitched whine coming from the right side of your screen. It grates on the ear like that of a squeaky door or, more accurately, a spoiled child who has something taken away from it. In their imaginary persecution, they throw themselves on their self-constructed pyres of immolation, rend their garments and claim that they are being attacked for their beliefs.

In a startingly candid admission of their long-entrenched privilege, those who once delightedly immolated heretics and used the pear of anguish on blasphemers whinge that less and less people use the word Christmas these days. Their lament is that they no longer control the narrative. They bewail that their creation myth is no longer rammed down the throats as fact to unsuspecting children in schools, even if nativity scenes are near ubiquitous throughout the country.

The divorcee mayor of Madrid, who happily supports the genocide happening to Muslims and Christians alike in Gaza, recently alleged that Christmas was being cancelled. Dressed in her American romcom Christmas sweater, she bemoaned things like the fact that scientists who have nothing to do with the Christian tradition are now using terms like BCE and CE, thus, as she sees it, depriving Christians their god given right to place their stamp on recorded history.

Much as the Romans surely grieved when their beloved Saturnalia was replaced by the anemic Christian celebration, complete with its festive imagery of a tortured man, relinquishing privilege is never easy. Opportunistic politicians like Ayuso will always try and create false flag polemics where none exist.

So, whatever you are celebrating as the solstice rolls around, enjoy your holidays and Merry Christmas. 

Troy Nahumko Writing Profile

I first got to know Rolf Potts in the dark depths of the pandemic when he hosted a series of interviews with people around the world discussing their experiences through the COVID-19 lockdowns. He has a wonderful collection of author profiles on his site and I'm proud to be a part of them. Click over to have a look.