Christmas message

I think I am right in asserting that the custom of broadcasting a Christmas message to the nation was the brainchild of the first Director General of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Early in the 1930s Sir John Reith persuaded a reluctant King George V to speak into a microphone to the nation and to the British Empire for five minutes. It was the first time most of his millions of subjects had ever heard their monarch's voice.

This harmless little custom has taken on a significance out of all proportion to its meaning. I can understand the President of the United States jumping on this inoffensive bandwagon; I can see the logic of the Pope taking up the idea. I was mildly but pleasantly surprised to see TVRI thought it sufficiently important to devote not inconsiderable time on its main news bulletin to the message broadcast to Britain and The Commonwealth by Queen Elizabeth II, though what significance this pretty little tradition has for Indonesia I have yet to determine. But when I read in your excellent newspaper that Joseph Savimbi, the rebel leader, had broadcast a Christmas message to Angolans my credulity was stretched to the limit.

It broke with a loud snap when I glanced further up the page and read that Saddam Hussein -- of all people a man not habitually recognized as holding to the tenets of peace and goodwill to all men -- had also broadcast a Christmas message to his fellow Iraqis. If anyone needs further confirmation of what they already suspected, this is it: the world has indeed gone mad.

ROBERT WALKER

Karangasem,

Bali