Saturday, November 05, 2005
Remember the explosive real world
Four hundred years after the event is perhaps time to review the jokes about Guy Fawkes being the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intent.
And also review our actual history not the Patriotic Gloss that stands between us and a real appreciation of our ‘heritage and identity’. The despicable and self-destructive terrorism of the Catholic Powder Plotters is part of this,a sis the hysterical reactions. But there is more.
Here is something for our newer communities to contribute. I hope that British Historians with a Moslem culture, for example, will do some serious analysis of these times – I suspect that there are uncomfortable and salutory lessons to learn for many people.
One thing to review is the history of the rise and fall of Taliban England, the takeover of South Britain in the course of a century and a half by a network (an al-Qaida as they say in Arabic) of religious purists who vandalised and destroyed centuries of artistic heritage, looted community resources for private gain and finished by attempting to establish the rule of a community of saints, to use Cromwells phrase for the appointed godfearing Rump Parliament.
Much to think about both for British traditionalists and for modern radical faith movements.
And also review our actual history not the Patriotic Gloss that stands between us and a real appreciation of our ‘heritage and identity’. The despicable and self-destructive terrorism of the Catholic Powder Plotters is part of this,a sis the hysterical reactions. But there is more.
Here is something for our newer communities to contribute. I hope that British Historians with a Moslem culture, for example, will do some serious analysis of these times – I suspect that there are uncomfortable and salutory lessons to learn for many people.
One thing to review is the history of the rise and fall of Taliban England, the takeover of South Britain in the course of a century and a half by a network (an al-Qaida as they say in Arabic) of religious purists who vandalised and destroyed centuries of artistic heritage, looted community resources for private gain and finished by attempting to establish the rule of a community of saints, to use Cromwells phrase for the appointed godfearing Rump Parliament.
Much to think about both for British traditionalists and for modern radical faith movements.
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