No Guy Fawkes Day celebration for fear of upsetting foreigners

Not a big fan of dudes who try to blow up Parliament buildings...but still, this is beyond ridiculous.

Sounds more like concerns about public safety, carbon footprints and expense. The nanny state has grown to the extent that nothing can be planned without consulting attorneys and bureaucrats, ergo nothing will take place. Laws and regulations have proliferated to the point that gridlock has resulted. It all sounds kind of familiar vis a vis July 4th celebrations, football team bonfires, and other events here in the Amerike. It's funnier than hell thinking about 'em scampering around in front of a movie of a fire. Sort of like the yule log channel on cable tv.

If England worried 1/1000th as much about the Islamic menace as they do about other menaces...

Well, there is another angle, namely that Catholics may take offence at Bonfire Night and issue death threats, riot, set fire to embassies.

This piece articulates such a view and even throws in a spot of America-bashing for good measure:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4408078.stm

"Not surprisingly, Catholic Britons have always been uncomfortable with 5 November, and nowadays there are frequent calls to abolish an event which seems to them to be based on little more than religious bigotry and intolerance.

"It's possible to be a Catholic Briton and admire Nelson; it's hard to be a Catholic Briton without wincing at the sight of an effigy of Guy Fawkes going up in flames. I'm not a Catholic, but I do rather sympathise."

Don'tcha just love the smell of political correctness?

In light of the recent revelations that it was Muslims who defeated the Armada, maybe future historians will discover that Guy Fawkes was actually a Muslim?

Guy Fawkes was tortured and executed for attempting to blow up Parliament and King James I. Since it's now verboten to burn Guys, maybe someone could accordingly try blowing up Parliament. If it is the Muslims who try to do it, then the only complaint I can see about Guy Fawkes is that he wasn't a Muslim. If it's anyone else, they could at least justify it with some PC - namely, that they are reaching out to Guy Fawkes supporters (assuming there are any) and doing what he wanted.

I wonder what MPs would think about what the Yorkshire authorities are doing?

Maybe they just didn't want to give anyone ideas.

I have never once heard any Catholic moan about bonfire night. I'm sure if they had, the Labour government would have laughed at them.

I think you posted that just so you could write "A penny for the old Guy." Fess up.

A British friend maintains that Guy Fawkes was the last man to enter Parliament with good intentions.

Celcius

This sure sounds like something Catholics ought to do - bitch about Guy Fawkes, a Catholic, being demonized in this manner. Maybe have schools and other Catholic institutions in Britain named after him.

I'm guessing that in Britain, Hindus don't get to burn Ravana during Dushera like they do in India, or else, that too would be a subject of complaints.

Fires? Foreigners? Fawkes? Fun?

Better put a stop to it. That's what you get with to much goverment.

In the true spirit of equivocal thinking: one simply can not forbid ‘South Asians’ blowing up buses and then turn around and show favoritism by permitting a few wild Guy Fawkes revilers to toast innocent woodland creatures. It’s simply not multiculturally sensitive!

Hugh

I confess it.

Yrs
R

Why not burn Omar al Bakri in effigy instead of Guy Fawkes, just to bring the holiday up to date?

didnt david copeland make his bombs from fireworks? fireworks used in celebration for another revolutionary/terrorist/freedom fighter. just a thought.

MP has got it right it is just another example of the nanny state. Since our friend Tony Blair changed the law to allow anyone sue anyone for anything and give the laywers a slice of the take local officials have been covering their a***s as never before. And believe me it was bad enough before.

I have never once known a Catholic complain and our Irish Catholic neighbours actually joined in the fun with everyone else. There was one exception though which was commented on every few years. Guy Fawkes old school in York did not have a bonfire but the line of these reports was "Did you know?" and "It's understandable really"

sceptico

In a one place they burn a more up to date effigy, I think one year they burned Margret Thatcher but they wanted to burn Osama Bin laden one year and guess what happened?

NO PRIZES FOR THE RIGHT ANSWER

My husband is Catholic and Scottish, and he always celebrated Guy Fawkes night as a kid (in a neighborhood that was majority-Catholic, by the way). While I admit I do not care for the anti-Catholic aspects of some Guy Fawkes celebrations (the Pope is burned in effigy in a few Scottish towns, etc.), it's funny how only now that Muslims are in Britain that anyone in the government or media seem concerned about people's religious or ethnic sensibilities.

The precedent for proper treatment of terrorists. The passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 63 should likewise be celebrating the demise of Richard Reid every December 22nd:

Remember, remember the twenty second of December,
The Shoebomber Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Shoebomber Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Richard Reid, Richard Reid, t'was his intent
To blow up passenger and attendant.
Three-part acetone and peroxide below
To prove flight 63’s overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With dark footwear and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let freedom ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God bless the USA!

-XRDC

could guy fawkes had been a closet Muslim and that could be the real reason they are banning the celebration or could it be that they don't want to give Muslim extremists ideas

Jesus, what gutless excuses for living organisms.

The "Authorities" may eventually wind up as the object of a new bonfire celebration...

I'm sure if the Islamists in Britain wanted to have their own version of Bonfire Night with burnt effigies of Bush, Blair, etc., the government there would give them a f@#%ing grant.

Go Britain. Er, I mean, you're already gone.

Did this ban only apply to York?

BTW - look up John Betjeman's poem about 'Slough'. It is very appropriate to this story.

If the ban only applies in the York district, then I hope that everyone else all over Britain did the bonfire thing. Can anyone here from Britain report in?

Great suggestion, sceptico. Depending on the mood in one's neighbourhood, a 'burning in effigy' of turbanned and scimitared/ AK-47ed Moor-Saracen-Turk-Arab figures representing, for example, Hassan Nasrallah, Osama Bin Laden, Hamza 'the Hook', Hassan al-Banna, and of course Il Capo himself, the Don, Big Mo, could have replaced or accompanied the burning of the Guy. (With suitable explanations given, I'm sure plenty of Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish Britons would be only too happy to dance round the bonfire and let off fireworks! A multicultural anti-dhimmi celebration).

For, after all, the 5th of November is not in essence anti-Catholic but can be re-read as involving a broader matter of principle - that is, that the Houses of Parliament should not be blown up. There was a 19th century Irish politician who instead of bombing Parliament WENT INTO Parliament and eventually got them to pass a 'Catholic Emancipation' bill. THAT was the way to do it.

I understand that, not so very long ago, there were a bunch of jihad plotters proposing to blow up the House of Commons, in the name of Islam (since, of course, all kafir authorities, as it might be, Queen Elizabeth II and her duly elected ministers, etc, are in strict Muslim eyes, illegitimate and to be taken down by all means necessary). Consider, too, the jihad plot that was thwarted in Canada, a Commonwealth country - a plot to invade Parliament and behead the Prime Minister.

So - 'gunpowder treason and plot' has become not a quaint memory of danger averted in the past, but a clear and present danger to our political freedoms and sovereignty, TODAY.

If the ban mentioned here was merely local, and Guy Fawkes bonfires are still permissible in other counties and countries, then all non-dhimmis in non-Muslim British Commonwealth countries, but especially in the homeland, in England, Scotland and Wales, should start planning NOW as to how they might utilise Guy Fawkes Day, next year, as a major psy-ops event and teaching moment. Even 'penny for the old guy'...collect money for the Barnabas Fund, or for any human rights group that is genuinely known to be standing up to Islam. Of course, make sure your friendly neighbourhood mosque doesn't get wind of what you're planning...

Awhile ago a chap called certiorari posted here - he sounded like British landed gentry. Such folks could surely sponsor a Guy Fawkes bonfire on their very own property, all fire danger precautions duly taken, invitation-only to anti-dhimmis who felt like burning not only 'Guy Fawkes' but a Mohammed effigy.

If muslims can burn Ronald McDonald - and smash churches in Kosovo, and break crosses, and deface the icons in the Hagia Sophia - then non-Muslims can burn Big Mo or Bin Laden in effigy, back to back in the fire with Guy Fawkes.

PS - and as for the silly thing about logs and woodland creatures. They're not the only thing that burns. Straw. Dead leaves. Old cotton rags. Cardboard cartons. Old newspapers. You don't need genuine woodland logs for a bonfire! If you know what you're doing you can have a nice non-smoky fire. In any case - one day of the year? What's the big deal?

As for upsetting foreigners, to repeat, I'm sure many British Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jews, once brought up to scratch on the horrors chronicled by Bat Yeor, Andrew Bostom and K S Lal, would be only too happy to dance round a bonfire if it contained an effigy of Big Mo along with an effigy of Guy Fawkes, and to let off fireworks afterwards.

I phoned a friend who lives in York about this and he asked me what the hell I was talking about. He had a bonfire last night for his children and a few friends (complete with fireworks) He phoned me back later after making a few enquiries and it appears only the York official bonfire didnt take place. There were bonfires all over Britain last night! I know-Iwas there.

hold on, i thought that all new comers to the UK are considered british? now they are foreigners? so we have foreigners living in the UK? i'm confused, i thought that the british people were a mix of ethnic groups from all over the world? how can we have foreigners? nurse nurse!!

MP said

Sounds more like concerns about public safety, carbon footprints and expense.

It sounds like someone (the authorities or the reporters) is afraid of giving the real reason for cancelling the event.

I mean, the story is that the animals and birds living in the tree cannot escape when the tree is cut down, or when the tree is cut into pieces, or when the wood is thrown in the back of the truck and driven down the highway for hours? And when the fire starts, they still do not have a chance to escape? That's about as believeable as Islam being a Religion of Peace.

And a bonfire one day a year is going to cause global warming?

And why would the Muslims be upset about Guy Fawkes Day? It seems that he, among all the infidels, would be one with whom they could feel some affinity.

"...kill animals that settle into the wood before it is set alight and are unable to escape."

What kind of animals are they talking about? Spiders? Termites? The odd mouse or rat? No animal higher on the food chain would be so stupid as to wander into a big pile of wood surrounded by shrieking, drunken human beings. Give the animal kingdom some credit, people.

As for the event "upsetting foreigners" who have "no tradition of Guy Fawkes Day," the fact that it is even raised as an argument is symptomatic of the self-hating psychosis and ill-logic affecting Britain and the rest of Europe. No, they do not have a tradition of Guy Fawkes Day in other countries because it is a UNIQUELY BRITISH TRADITION!!! Are they also going to abolish such things as double-decker buses, plum pudding, cricket, and standing in line at the bank, because they are so frighteningly alien to the non-British?

BTW, to those non-British posters, Guy Fawkes Day (as far as I understand it)is not an event to celebrate Guy Fawkes as a hero; he was a traitor and was caught and executed as a traitor. It's his capture and execution they're celebrating (gotta love those British!) albeit in a fairly bloodless and light-hearted way. Fireworks, rather than the traditional community bonfire in which a straw effigy of Fawkes is burned, are actually the biggest tradition on that day. If it makes some foreigners squirm, too bad; they should be thankful they are living in a country in which the only public executions now are fake ones.

Cherie Blair went up in smoke this year. I believe it was in Kent.

Unfortunately, just an effigy.

...heck ....everyone knows the fire was banned to help stop Global Warming....

Maybe they should start stoning Guy instead of burning him to bring it in line with muslim minorities!!

Here's another ancient tradition that needs to be stamped out for reasons of cultural diversity...I mean health and safety.

http://www.tarbarrels.co.uk/

Ottery St. Mary is internationally renowned for its Tar Barrels, an old custom said to have originated in the 17th century, and which is held on November 5th each year. Each of Ottery's central public houses sponsors a single barrel. In the weeks prior to the day of the event, November 5th, the barrels are soaked with tar. The barrels are lit outside each of the pubs in turn and once the flames begin to pour out, they are hoisted up onto local people's backs and shoulders. The streets and alleys around the pubs are packed with people, all eager to feel the lick of the barrels flame. Seventeen Barrels all in all are lit over the course of the evening.

Some friends of ours had planned a Guy Fawkes party last Saturday - in Nova Scotia, Canada. The celebration was postponed due to Hurricane Noel, but will be going ahead as planned, this Saturday.

I'll be sure to pass along this post as well as some of the witty one-liners. They're sure to be a hit at the party!

George Washington, commanding the Continental Army, similarly sought to suppress the celebration of Guy Fawkes day, in order to avoid offending persons of a different culture: "As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope–He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada."

... and kill animals that settle into the wood before it is set alight and are unable to escape

Did the authorities in Slough have similar concerns about the welfare of the animals who bled to death during Eid?

so we have foreigners living in the UK?

Don't be daft, leon. What we have are British Asians, British Africans, British Muslims, and now, thanks to our membership of the EU, British Romanians living in our parks:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=452328&in_page_id=1770

It makes me proud to be British. And I won't hear a bad word said about our glorious prime minister, who always has the best interests of our wonderful British Muslim community at heart. Hey, they're as British as anyone else. Right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5NjnqKUTa8

In fact, I hear that Gordon Brown has decided to bestow British citizenship on every inhabitant of planet Earth. So, folks, what are you waiting for? Come and collect your welfare payments now. Apply to:

Gordon Brown,
Department of Hand-Outs for the Global British Community,
Hammer and Sickle Square,
Lenin Street,
Londonistan,
EUSSR

Political correctness takes all the fun out of life. If people don't like Guy Fawkes Day, then they don't have to participate. The nanny state ruins everything. What a bunch of wet blankets.

http://grizzlymountain.blogspot.com/

"Are they also going to abolish such things as double-decker buses, plum pudding, cricket, and standing in line at the bank, because they are so frighteningly alien to the non-British?"

Yes.

Seamus wrote, "George Washington, commanding the Continental Army, similarly sought to suppress the celebration of Guy Fawkes day"

Seamus, it was not the burning of the Guy Fawkes effigy Washington was referring to; further in the very same quote he refers to "that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope." Because Canada had a much larger Catholic population (virtually all French Canadians were Catholic), Washington quite rightly did not want to offend and alienate useful allies.

Perhaps this practice was connected to Guy Fawkes Day; I seem to recall reading that Guy Fawkes was a Catholic, so perhaps the many anti-Catholic zealots in Britain at the time used his religion as an excuse for Catholic-bashing, and continued that tradition into the next century...if so, I very much doubt that you see much Pope-effigy burning in Britain today, and that if it ever occurred now, it would rightfully be widely condemned.

I personally share Washington's view that all effigy burning is "ridiculous and childish", but as long as no real people actually get hurt and they don't frighten the horses, I see no justification for legally suppressing it. Ditto to allowing consenting adults to run around town with burning barrels on their backs (as I said before: gotta love those British!)

I believe that in addition to environmental concerns, this ban was instituted to avoid making British Catholics feel bad. Perhaps this is another example of political correctness at work.

Among other things, the Slough authorities have argued that a bonfire would violate environmental laws, upset residents from foreign countries with no tradition of Guy Fawkes Day and kill animals that settle into the wood before it is set alight and are unable to escape.
......................................

This last bit is especially absurd. Hey, I'm a vegetarian and work with pet rescue groups, but this is ridiculous. We are not talking here about families of badgers, or hedgehogs, or even field mice taking up residence in a newly built pyre. They can only be refering to bugs.

Well, in that case you will have to abstain from watering your garden, or picking grubs off your organic vegetables, or even venturing outside your door in your non-leather birkenstock knock-offs, lest you step on an ant.

And here we are, up against a lot who have no trouble keening "Bismillah" while slitting animals' throats, or slashing at their babies' heads with swords, amputating the limbs of children who steal, and savagely beheading sympathetic journalists. God help us!

When my mother was a child in England Guy Fawkes day had become a sort of British Hallowe'en as much as a commemoration of a historical event--Guy Fawkes was a sort of bogeyman as much as anything. They would sing:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Let's hope not. A penny for the Guy, indeed.

Seamus, it was not the burning of the Guy Fawkes effigy Washington was referring to; further in the very same quote he refers to "that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope."

That was how the people in Massachusetts used to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, or
"Popes Day," as those Sassanach witch-burners called it.

(I know, I know: they didn't actually burn witches in Massachusetts; they only hanged them.)