Guy Fawkes Night: Bonfire of Insanities

It's easy to forget exactly what we're celebrating on November 5th, when we so enthusiastically loose off fireworks all around the UK. In most countries, fireworks are used to mark some significant political, cultural or social occasion -- the founding of the nation, the end of  period of fasting, or the start of the New Year. But here in Britain our most extravagant displays are reserved for a day which commemorates a failed terrorist plot -- over 400 years after it was foiled. It's almost as if people in the 25th century were still celebrating the death of Bin Laden.

In some ways, that makes sense. It's a celebration of stability over chaos. If Guy Fawkes had succeeded in blowing up Parliament, killing the King and the people who ran the country, England would have descended (yet again) into a period of political mayhem. But less than 40 years after Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators were hung, drawn and quartered, the country did just that anyway: the battle lines of the Civil War were drawn up on the same old religious grounds. 

Remember, remember, the 5th of November: gunpowder, treason and plot, goes the old rhyme. But we would do better to remember the insanity of fanatical belief in a religious doctrine -- a madness of the memes that can drive people to kill and die for a cause rooted in a figment of the imagination. Another reason to prefer Halloween -- a secular festival that lets us escape the straightjacket of our beliefs for the day -- and save the fireworks for more joyful occasions.

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