Christmas is a major time of celebration and reflection in Bermuda and many parts of the world, urging us to think globally and act locally. This focus on the birth of a Palestinian Jew — Jesus — in very humble circumstances reminds us of the sanctity of each life, especially that of every child.

That said, be reminded that one of the power elites of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago — as the story in the Bible goes — ordered a genocide on hearing the good news of that impending birth.

Here in 2025, there seems to be increasing evidence of a disregard for life, especially that of those others, notably by today’s elites. That reality has existential implications given their control of the most devastating war machine in human history.

Please be reminded that war-making is highly profitable — a fact that the late US president Eisenhower warned us about in revealing the dangers of the military-industrial complex.

With this background, we see the disregard for life being played out in many ways locally and globally, including:

• The sixth murder by gunfire in Bermuda this year, on the night of December 18 — the tragic continuation of the local cycle of violence

• The continued deaths (30 per day, many children) and devastation in Gaza in spite of the so-called ceasefire

• The tragic killing of 16 members of the Jewish faith in Australia and the killing of two students at Brown University (yet another US mass shooting), all on the second weekend of December

• Other acts of genocide — under the radar — including that in the Congo

The prevalence of this global culture of violence is perennially evident when one scrolls any number of media sources — including the planet’s first live-streamed genocide, including boasts of perpetrators and published video clips of small boats of people being blown out of the water with high-tech missiles — a la video games.

Unlike the global challenge, this local cycle is mainly perpetrated by our society’s most marginalised. This violence is more out of a sense of powerlessness — a misguided attempt to adopt the dominant ethos of might is right. It is most likely addressed by fostering a healthy sense of agency for those caught up in the madness, requiring a community-wide renaissance.

On the matter of a sense of community agency, it is evident that there is a considerable global campaign to normalise inhumane actions on the vulnerable and even to maintain roadblocks to basic humanitarian aid. A part of this campaign to justify madness includes attacking/sanctioning international bodies — including the UN — that steward global norms.

To remain silent in such circumstances would be complicity.

We, the undersigned, believe the best of the Bermuda spirit of community is actively siding with the cause of justice. This was evident when our ancestors collaborated in liberating 73 enslaved people — mostly children — in February 1835, and with the substantive solidarity of most Bermudians in the 1980s and 1990s for the people of South Africa, challenging that system of apartheid.

We, the undersigned, stand with the 139 countries that on Friday, December 12, voted in the UN General Assembly for a real ceasefire in Gaza — one that allows the UN humanitarian agency, UNRWA, to facilitate the supply of life-saving goods to those hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in Gaza.

We call, in this season, for real peace, one that requires real justice.

THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

BERMUDA IS LOVE

PEACE COLLECTIVE

• This letter was also signed by local community members Arlene Brock, Dale Butler, Dr Gordon Campbell, Joan Dillas-Wright, Maxine Esdaille, Glenn Fubler, Wendell Hollis, Ellen Kate Horton, Dianna Kempe, Dr Janet Kemp, Dennis Lister, Lynn Millett, W. Alex Scott, and Roy Wright