Guy Fawkes Day is upon us!  This moment in history has sort of faded in modern generations.  It is sort of an odd event to commemorize, even if the original intent was to praise God that the King was spared a swift execution.  It immediately begs the question of alternate history:  What if the Catholic conspirators had successfully overthrown the British government?  Would a similar British Empire thrive or would British policy be limited to local and tribal conflict?  Would the new rulers be as ruthless or possibly more ruthless than the other monarchy? 

Many of these questions were posed in V. for Vendetta, a movie that ran with these themes in a slightly different perspective than most English celebrations of Guy Fawke's day.  It was once typical for children to go out in masks begging door-to-door, asking "Penny for the Guy?"  While V. seeks to unite the masses in undermining the imperial system, the children celebrating the 5th might instead mock the pope or sing songs about burning him to death.

In America, Guy Fawke's Day has been tied to anti-Catholic sentiment AND anti-British colonial sentiment, an interesting development of early multi-culturalism in America .

. 

Its pretty rare that a single event could so change history, but on 9-11 we were reminded of the ability of a singular event to reshape the world.  

I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot!!!

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.