In short, a group
of Catholics attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament with the Protestant
King, James 1, and his Government inside.
I was researching the
facts - 36 barrels of gunpowder, the cellars of the Houses of Parliament, Catholics
v Protestants, Robert Catesby, Guido Fawkes – and then I got to the bit where
the plotters were arrested, tortured and executed.
Yep, tortured AND
executed.
Two things struck
me, then. Firstly neither side came out of this smelling of roses.
Secondly, doesn’t
it all sound depressingly familiar?
One religious group
fighting against another. Torture and execution. It's an age old problem that continues
today along with slavery and discrimination.
Will we ever learn
to live together in peace? Are humans destined to fight for supremacy?
Whatever your
beliefs, whatever your race, gender, sexual orientation, hair colour or whatever, we all, every single one of us, have a fundamental
thing in common.
We are human.
And yes, we may be different
in lots of other ways but surely that’s a good thing! No, actually it’s a GREAT thing. Being
different helps us all to survive. It most certainly doesn’t make us better or
right or superior to anyone else.
We don’t have to
like everyone. I'd even go as far to say that it's practically impossible to like everyone. But wouldn’t it be
BRILLIANT if we could look at a person and see just that… A PERSON not a
religion, an ethnicity, a sexual orientation or whatever.
Nadiya caused a bit
of a storm when she won Bake Off. It's all over the media with shouty headlines like, 'Veiled Muslim Woman.’And? Nadiya
won Bake Off because she was a FANTASTIC baker. On top of that she was also kind
and very entertaining. Congratulations Nadiya. You deserved to win.
We’re all in this life
together. In the scheme of things we’re not even here for that long.
See the person.
Accept that
sometimes you have to agree to disagree.
Try much harder to
be TOLERANT.
It’s not rocket
science, which brings me back to Guy Fawkes Night. If you’re celebrating on November 5th then have
fun.
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Fireworks
at the 2009 British Fireworks Championship in Plymouth.
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