This weekend is one of Christianity’s great and perhaps most significant feasts, to use the ancient word in reference to holidays. It also includes some of the longest legally established holidays. When most people leave their work or schools on Thursday, they will not be going back until Tuesday.
This is because the intervening weekdays, Friday and Monday, are holidays ordained by law, not just in Kenya but in many other countries, including our near neighbours Uganda and Tanzania.
The Easter Weekend is really a Christian religious holiday that starts from Good Friday and ends on Easter Sunday. It draws from Christian’s commemoration of the crucifixion of Christ on Good Friday until his resurrection on Sunday, known as Easter Sunday.
However, Easter Monday is a holiday in Kenya and in most countries for the reason that the law states that if a holiday falls on a Sunday, or another day which is a non-working day, then the following day shall also become a holiday. That explains why although the Christian Easter is really on Sunday, the holiday extends to Monday.
In Kenya, the Public Holidays Act makes this a public holiday consisting of the Good Friday and ending on Easter Monday. By a holiday, it means that businesses, workplaces schools and government offices remain closed, save for essential and emergency services such as healthcare and security services work.
In the United Kingdom, Good Friday had been a common law holiday, that is, a holiday by convention but not by express written law almost since Christianity reached England. Easter Monday was established as a holiday by law (also known as a Bank Holiday) under the Bank Holidays Act of 1871. This legislation thus established the legal position that a person could not be compelled to do anything that he could not do on other common law holidays such as Christmas and Good Friday.
This reprieve did not just relate to freedom from work but is extended to other legal obligations such as repayment of a debt. This means that if a debt became due on Easter Monday for example, the debtor would be excused from its payment until the following day and without consequence such as accrual of interest for the delay.
As a result of the tradition and law on Good Friday and Easter Monday, most British colonies such as Kenya adopted Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays. This would explain why, for example, Easter is a holiday in Hong Kong and Singapore and India. Good Friday and Easter are also legally recognised holidays in Australia under its public holidays legislation. Then same is the case with Nigeria, which recognises the Easter holidays in law.
In India for instance, though the majority of its citizens are of Hindu religious faith, Good Friday and Easter are indeed recognised as holidays on which persons professing the Christian faith are entitled to leave from work and other activities in observance of this religious holiday. In India, the states of Kerala and Goa for example even have the day preceding Good Friday, known as Maundy Thursday, as a holiday as well.
France and Italy have the two holidays of Good Friday and Easter Monday as official holidays, due to their mostly Catholic citizenry. Needless to say the Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays by law in the Vatican.
The United States, on the other hand, does not have religious feasts as national holidays which require all businesses to close. Under its Uniform Mondays Holidays Act which took effect in 1971, official holidays are observed on Mondays with the exception of New year’s holiday, Independence Day, Veterans’ day and Christmas. However, by historical convention and practice, Good Friday is a holiday in fact if not in law, when the stock markets, schools, universities, banks and most businesses are closed.
In South Africa, Good Friday and Easter have been legally established holidays since 1910. However, from 1980, Easter Monday remained a holiday but has since been known as Family Day.
Egypt does not have a legally mandated Easter Holiday although it has a fixed Christmas day celebrated on January 7 in accordance with the Orthodox/Coptic calendar.
Ethiopia also recognises the two holidays of Good Friday and Easter known in Amharic as Siklet and Fasika, but on dates different from the common dates of other Christian traditions. It relies on its separate Ethiopian Orthodox calendar for the two religious holidays.
But because Easter is essentially a Christian religious holiday, it is not legally recognised as such universally. Easter is not recognised as a holiday in Saudi Arabia and most of the Middle East.
In Israel, there are nine official and statutory holidays which include holidays of religious significance such as Yom Kippur (day of atonement), Rosh Hashanah (New Year) when no businesses of any kind is open and no traffic on the streets, with the exception of emergency vehicles. Neither Christmas nor Easter are official holidays. This is despite the fact that present day Israel and Palestine is the geographic location of the events that lead to the Easter holidays having to be commemorated.
Most countries that have a history of Marxist socialist leaning or history do not recognise Easter and any other religious holidays. These Include China, the Soviet Union and now Russia, North Korea and Cuba, which do not recognise Easter Holidays as an official public holiday. Interestingly, Venezuela establishes Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays despite the socialist Marxist leaning of its governing party.
The examples cited above indicate the various approaches to religious life as sometimes being anchored in law and show that the existence of religious holidays is but an extension of expression of religious faith through legal recognition of religious holidays, of which Easter is just one example, and of how law is used to disseminate, and in other cases, anchor religion and give the faithful space and time to exercise their right to conscience and religious belief.
In countries where one kind of religious holiday is not anchored in law, a different kind of holiday is given legal recognition and succour. Yet in regimes that are antagonistic towards religious belief of any kind, the law provides no such succour.
In countries that have no religious holidays, you will instead find holidays dedicated to other historical events in the life of those nations. Examples could include the holiday in Cuba commemorating the days after the initially unsuccessful assault on Moncada Garrison, being the invasion of a military garrison that set up Fidel Castro’s leadership of the revolution, and eventually put him power; or in North Korea, where there is a holiday commemorating the birthday of the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, the so-called eternal president of that country.
The lesson here is that the law is used in different countries for purposes of commemorating events of political and religious significance in the lives of nations. Easter is one such holiday and it is recognised in law.
