Guyfawkes celebrations to be replaced with aBengali fold tale?

[pitstopbunny]

What has happened to Nov 5th, the time we celebrate the thwarting of the gunpowder plot.... it has been replaced by a Bengali folk tale - what are your veiws on this - political correctness gone too far?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles /news/news.html?in_article_id=414098&in_pa ge_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule& amp;icc=NEWS&ct=5

[Catso]

When I saw this Q header, I thought 'Daily Mail'. And lo, I was right!

Actually, I think it in rather bad taste to celebrate a/ a terrorist plot against a legitimate government b/ the torturing and ritual murder of the perpetrators.

Let alone the undesirable by-product of a month of firework misuse.

[pitstopbunny]

From what I understand, we aren't celebrating the plot to blow up the government, rather more the fact that it was thwarted and the perpetrators were caught.

[sp1814]

This one will run and run.

I'll sit this one out actually because I can see both sides of the argument.

[admarlow]

a local council should not be allowed to edit history!

[pitstopbunny]

My arguement has to be the history behind it, the idea of Nov 5th started beacuse of the gunpowder plot and has been a tradition since 1605, the whole point was to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes to commemorate him being captured....how does a 'Moghul Emperor, the Wise Man and the Guardian of the Jungle' represent this?

[pitstopbunny]

mine's a very large Vodka - better make sure it's Polish though - I don't want to offend anyone!

[Oneeyedvic]

And do you know that Channel 4 don't show the Queen's speech (you know the Ruler or this country) - in fact they show a parody!

Political correctness gone mad I tell you!

Why should we have alternative things happening - next people will be celebrating things like Chinese New Year - they should update their ruddy calendars!


;-)

And do you know, in this Christian country led by Her Royal Majesty, I am fascinated to know how many people go to Church every Sunday and watch the Queen's speech on Christmas Day.

[pitstopbunny]

I'm afraid that I do not go to church, because I'm not in anyway religious. However, I do watch the Queen's speech every year, bit of a traditionalist when it comes to being patriotic.

[Lonnie]

Hi pitstop, I remember as a youngster, going out with my Guy, parking myself outside the Local, and making a mint, however, as far as your question is concerned, your correct in what yousay, also, its part of our,British History, The Bengali Folk Tale is not. next, we'll find the Gunpwder Plot has been written out of our History Books.

[pitstopbunny]

Hi Lonnie - and we used the money to buy a few sparklers, and a rocket or 2, not to send the oldest looking kid in to buy the alcohol for the night, so we could get wasted - ah, where have those days gone..........

[dyli795]

They haven't gone anywhere, -where they are is where they'll always be, for ever. It's too bad we can't have the "nowadays" a bit more like that.

[NH]

Typical of our bold and rebellious spirit- the Russians used to celebrate their revolution, the French still celebrate theirs, but we set off explosives because an attempt of ours failed.

For that reason I wanna hear the folk tale instead.

[pitstopbunny]

We set off the fireworks etc to celebrate the fact that the act of treason DIDN'T work, some though may see this as failure.......

[NH]

Well come on! What kind of successful revolution doesn't overthrow/bloodily kill the government?

I think Guy Fawkes, if he could give his word on it, would admit he cocked up.

Now read the article, and discover that the local council have done a different theme for the last four years. Why does the Daily Mail pick up on it now?

[pitstopbunny]

Why try to re-write British history? Aren't you proud to be British at all? Maybe we should swap Christmas and Easter for something far more politically correct??????

[pitstopbunny]

Just to clarify.......We do not celebrate Nov 5th because Guy Fawkes failed to blow up the houses of parliament...... It is because the fact the government foiled the attempt... a subtle but noticable difference.

"The tradition of Guy Fawkes-related bonfires actually began the very same year as the failed coup. The Plot was foiled in the night between the 4th and 5th of November 1605. Already on the 5th, agitated Londoners who knew little more than that their King had been saved, joyfully lit bonfires in thanksgiving."

[NH]

I don't think I live in a country that's greater than every other, really. Sure, I wouldn't want to live in Iran, or North Korea, but let's not forget that this country has done some shocking things through intentional action or negligence.

(Noticing argument deviating) Ahem...tired argument here, but all too true. Britain has never been definitively "British", even our language is an endless combining and rehashing of every other one. This country changes; it wasn't the same when the Romans were here, or when the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and so forth arrived. There is no "Golden Age" of the past. Get over it.

Technically Christmas and Easter are stolen pagan festivals.

[prattler]

Guy Fawkes always has been and always will be for kids, just like Halloween and Christmas.No need to look into any deeper than that nowadays I don't think.

[reinganum]

The Health-and-Safety commissars have been trying to suppress Bonfire Night for years (I even remember calls for it to be banned when I was a boy over forty years ago). They have already succeeded in taking much of the fun out of it (when I was a lad you could build up your firework 'portfolio' gradually bit by bit over the previous weeks but since you can no longer buy individual fireworks that joy has gone).

Here in Sussex where I live, fortunately they have as much chance of suppressing Bonfire Night as shooting down the moon. Partly this is because of local history - East Sussex, where most of the bonfire societies are, was strongly Parliamentarian during the Civil War, so the thwarting of any attempt to blow up Parliament was greeted with enthusiasm. I'm sure that this attitude still prevails in the unofficial Sussex motto "We wunt be druv".