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I found this extract interesting..

From The Economist - November 3 2007:

A RELIGIOUS fanatic feels persecuted, goes overseas to fight for his God and then returns home to
attempt a bloody act of terrorism. Next week as Britons celebrate the capture of Guy Fawkes, a Catholic
jihadist, under the Houses of Parliament in 1605, they might reflect how dismally modern the Gunpowder
Plot and Europe's wars of religion now seem.
Back in the 20th century, most Western politicians and intellectuals (and even some clerics) assumed
religion was becoming marginal to public life; faith was largely treated as an irrelevance in foreign policy.
Symptomatically, State Department diaries ignored Muslim holidays until the 1990s. In the 21st century,
by contrast, religion is playing a central role. From Nigeria to Sri Lanka, from Chechnya to Baghdad,
people have been slain in God's name; and money and volunteers have poured into these regions. Once
again, one of the world's great religions has a bloody divide (this time it is Sunnis and Shias, not
Catholics and Protestants). And once again zealotry seems all too relevant to foreign policy: America
would surely not have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan (and be thinking so actively of striking Iran) had 19
young Muslims not attacked New York and Washington.
It does not stop there. Outside Western Europe, religion has forced itself dramatically into the public
square. In 1960 John Kennedy pleaded with Americans to treat his Catholicism as irrelevant; now a born-
again Christian sits in the White House and his most likely Democrat replacement wants voters to know
she prays. An Islamist party rules once-secular Turkey; Hindu nationalists may return to power in India's
next election; ever more children in Israel and Palestine are attending religious schools that tell them
that God granted them the whole Holy Land. On present trends, China will become the world's biggest
Christian country—and perhaps its biggest Muslim one too. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, not
usually a reliable authority on current affairs, got it right in an open letter to George Bush: “Whether we
like it or not,” he wrote, “the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty.”

This reminds me of a quote (can't remember the source).

"Guys Fawkes 'The only man to enter parliament with sincere intentions'."

Shafique - have you seen V is for Vendetta?

Jabba - yes I have seen the movie.

It was interesting and passed the time, but not quite my cup of tea. I felt it tried a bit too hard - but I hear it was faithful to the comics/graphic novel it was based on. I have a copy of Sin City, for example, but haven't watched past the first 5 mins so far - one day I'll get round to watching it when there is nothing else more on (or that I've downloaded!).

Next on my list is 'Shoot em up' with Clive Owen - had that over a week now, just waiting for some 'me time' to watch it.

Cheers,
Shafique

Like many things, the British take the good things out of an event (the fireworks), it's not that we would be "celebrating" trying to kill a monarch.

My British history, which may be a bit rusty and I can't be bothered Googling it, is that the UK had been a Catholic state less than 100 years before but Henry VIII changed things for his own benefit. It was an audacious act, but one which my history teacher always told me was far from being enacted, despite what popular myth says.

Scot - the article from which the quote was clipped went on to say that it was over 200 years later that Catholics made it to power.

I wonder how outsiders view our custom of celebrating the capture of a Catholic terrorist by building fires and burning models of him.

Guy Fawkes was tortured horribly - drawn, quartered, disembowelled (but not burning... but not quite sure, perhaps they did burn him a bit... but can't be bothered to Google)!

The point is, we celebrate this.. and much fun we have too!

Cheers,
Shafique

Shafique, I know you grew up in the UK but you fail to grasp a saliant point - we're taking the piss!

The whole point of "celebrating" Guy Fawkes isn't to beat up on Catholics, it's to remind Parliament not to get too comfy.

scot1870 wrote:Shafique, I know you grew up in the UK but you fail to grasp a saliant point - we're taking the piss!

The whole point of "celebrating" Guy Fawkes isn't to beat up on Catholics, it's to remind Parliament not to get too comfy.

I agree there is nothing anti-catholic or even political, yet alone religious, about the Nov 5 firework displays and bonfires - they are purely a cultural and fun events now. I wasn't saying that - I was just pointing out that the benign fun (or taking the piss as you put it) commemorates a terrorist plot by a religious fanatic - or Catholic Jihadist as the article put it!

On the point of commemoration/celbration - I was taught in my English school history lessons that Nov 5 does celebrate the uncovering of the plot and capture of Guy Fawkes (so it celebrates the delivery of parliament, not the plot itself). In the same way that Christmas is now largely a secular time for most people to eat, drink and be merry - it was orginally just a pagan mid-winter festival (just ask the Jehova witnesses)

Given the discussions about on the term 'Islamic Terrorist', I thought I'd start this thread as I had never before seen the term Catholic Jihadist used before - and you have to agree that he has a point in using the term (well, I think so).

Cheers,
Shafique

Guy Fawkes was tortured horribly - drawn, quartered, disembowelled

Why don`t the English do the same now with the Jihadist and revive the custom of celebrating the capture of a terrorist by building fires and burning models of them and have firework displays and cheaper then locking them up.

satan-the-redeema wrote:Guy Fawkes was tortured horribly - drawn, quartered, disembowelled

Why don`t the English do the same now with the Jihadist and revive the custom of celebrating the capture of a terrorist by building fires and burning models of them and have firework displays and cheaper then locking them up.

I think that is what the English 7/7 bombers had in mind, sadly.

Cheers,
Shafique

satan-the-redeema wrote:Guy Fawkes was tortured horribly - drawn, quartered, disembowelled

Why don`t the English do the same now with the Jihadist and revive the custom of celebrating the capture of a terrorist by building fires and burning models of them and have firework displays and cheaper then locking them up.

Because some of us would like to think that British society has progressed somewhat since medievil times. Does this mean that we only have another 400 years before today's Jihadist societies progress to the same point?

The label is interesting.. "Catholic Jihadist", where the term "Jihad" is of Islamic origin.

^^ the opposite way round would be a muslim crusader