Baader-Meinhof to Bin Laden

ON November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was caught with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, attempting to blow up the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster, during the State Opening of Parliament. The plot was to assassinate the King of England along with almost the entire British aristocracy. Since then, in adherence to tradition and the true spirit of British democracy, parliament has never been opened on the November 5 (except once), and the Houses of Parliament are ceremoniously searched by the Yeomen of the Guard, as a precaution against traitors and religious zealots. Parliament was subsequently opened on November 9, when His Majesty did not miss the opportunity to wax eloquent on "the divine right of monarchs" to rule, and the infernal "Catholic question".

The King was not alone in anti-Catholicism. Even those reluctant to accept his divine credentials were one with him on this issue.

What is perhaps not appreciated enough, however, is the realisation that the gunpowder plot was nothing less than an act of war -- a religious coup d' état which, had it succeeded, would have proved as thoroughly comprehensive as France's infamous reign of terror, and far more devastating than America's 9/11. England might have been a part of the Pope's domain. In spite of this, or rather as a consequence of its failure, history cannot credit the gunpowder plot with England's civil war, Cromwell's Commonwealth, or the Glorious Revolution. It stands alone, foremost on the list of lost causes.

Ironically, Guy Fawkes, "that brave bad man," who was the inspiration for the Devil in Milton's Paradise Lost, has of late acquired something of a cult status. In 2002 he was ranked 30th in a list of Briton's 100 greatest, and among Yorkshire's 50 greatest. In a strange twist of fortune, Guy Fawkes, who was once demonised as Briton's best known traitor, is today celebrated as "the only man ever to have entered parliament with honest intentions".

Not surprisingly, Catholics were not the only irritants to early English society. The Edict of Expulsion of 1290 expelled all Jews from England for over three hundred and fifty years, until it was formally revoked in 1656. It was immensely popular at the time, and countless colourful anti-Semitic myth have emanated from that formative era. Indeed, well before the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal and long before the notorious Nazis, England was the first country in Europe "to require Jews to wear a marking badge." But the Jews never produced a Guy Fawkes of their own -- on the contrary, the virgin Queen's personal physician was a Jew, who is believed to have inspired Shakespeare's Shylock. The quiet comeback of the Jewish community culminated in Benjamin Disraeli's assumption of office as Prime Minister of Great Briton. Although a convert to Anglicanism, he was nevertheless essentially of Jewish origin.

Be that as it may, November 5 has come and gone for four hundred years since that fateful night, and sectarian differences, indeed religion, is no longer the great divide of the British body politic. Great Britain, which has always been a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural realm, finds itself once again, in the twenty first century, under siege by yet another non-Anglican faith. Despite the diligent Yeomen of the Guard, since then, religious zealots abound and the sinister Catholics are replaced by British radical Muslims, who have sprung from British soil, and made no pretence of loyalty and bore no allegiance whatsoever to King and Cool Britannia. These "revolutionaries" are a new species of "crusaders," whose hearts and minds belong to a world apart from the middle gentry of merry England.

Increasingly, this scenario can be seen throughout Europe, indeed the world. Muslim militants have become an unwelcome phenomenon even in Muslim cultures. Not since the "Hashisheens" despatched by "the old man of the mountain," from whom the punishing word "assassin" is derived, has history witnessed such a deluge of dedicated executioners, on a global scale.

For the full version of this article please read this month's Forum, available free with The Daily Star on November 2.

Nadeem Rahman is an author and a poet, his most recent work Politically Incorrect Poems is widely available.