Most of us have fond memories of the Halloweens we enjoyed as children. The costumes, the haunted houses, the parties and the knocking on doors in pursuit of treats were generally innocuous forms of fun.
Little did we realize that we were fanning the flames of anti-americanism around the world.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez last week told his countrymen that Halloween has no place in his socialist paradise. according to CNN.com, he used his weekly TV and radio broadcast to caution that the observance is strictly a "gringa," or North american custom.
Moreover, he warned that the celebration is emblematic of U.S. culture: "terrorism, putting fear into other nations, putting fear into their own people."
Having cracked down on freedom of speech and the press in Venezuela, Castro's amigo Chavez knows a thing or two about putting fear into people. Kids decked out in Darth Vader or Dora the Explorer costumes don't engender the same terror.
a Halloween backlash is also surfacing in Europe. The associated Press canvassed there and reported on the mayor of an austrian village who terms Halloween "a bad american habit." He's talked several other mayors into boycotting the occasion.
an authority at Sweden's Language and Folklore Institute says that even as Halloween's popularity has increased there, so has the judgment that it represents an "unnecessary, bad american custom."
The aP interviewed an Italian priest who believes that Halloween undermines his nation's cultural identity. Denouncing Halloween as a "manifestation of neo-paganism" and a symbol of america's would-be cultural supremacy, the cleric claimed hallowed out pumpkins reveal our own emptiness.
In Germany there's concern because Halloween's October 31st date is also Reformation Day, a commemoration of Martin Luther posting his 95 Theses. Germany's Deutsche Welle online news service reports the Evangelical Church is responding by encouraging the faithful to hand out Luther Bonbons. The treats are wrapped in a paper with a likeness of a winking Luther and an Internet address for more information.
Meanwhile, a German bishop told a radio audience that Halloween has become a day celebrated by Satanists.
I'm weary of foreigners condemning americans for our lack of culture, our gross commercialism and our thoroughly pernicious influence on the world. at the same time the foreigners are censuring us, they're wolfing down american fast food, reading american books, listening to american music, watching american TV shows and movies and looking for deals on blue jeans.
The United States is so dreadful that millions of people from around the world are dying — sometimes literally — to get here.
Yet some foreigners smugly look down their noses at us and lecture us on what heathens we are. How crude, greedy and coarse we are as we imperialistically force our uncivilized ways on them.
It's true there are americans who don't like Halloween. at least one school banned it this year because it's unfair to witches. Others have opted to drop Halloween in favor of "Fall Festivals."
This is a continuation of the theme that anything that offends the sensibilities of even just one person must be tossed aside. The majority has no rights.
The absurd american Civil Liberties Union checked in with its distilled wisdom that municipalities enforcing ordinances designed to protect trick or treaters from sexual predators might be discriminatory. To sexual predators. Pass the Kleenex, please.
There are Christians who object to Halloween because they think it's the work of the Devil. and non-Christians who grouse because of the night's purported Christian or Catholic roots.
But most of us accept Halloween for what it simply is: a day of fun. a day to let the kids dress up, laugh and play, and stuff themselves with candy.
Granddaughter Norah, known as Miss Nice in some quarters, is a typical five-year-old. She and her friends looked forward to Halloween for weeks. When the big day arrived, they had a terrific time running around, screaming and "scaring" adults. You'd think the goodies she garnered were gold.
I don't see any harm in that. If it's nothing more than a bad american habit, so be it.
I hope Norah's children and grandchildren carry on the tradition. Seeing how it irritates so many who dislike america, it might be the patriotic thing to do.
This appears in the October 27, 2005 Oak Lawn (IL) Reporter. Mike Bates is the author of Right angles and Other Obstinate Truths.
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