Corno Dolce – I apologise if we have a slight misunderstanding here. I was not implying that you would legislate against anything, merely attempting to raise a number of questions that, I think, are involved with this issue.
There have been many incidents of effigies being burnt – traditionally, in the UK, we burn an effigy of Guy (Guido) Fawkes on 5 November each year to mark the plot in 1605 to blow up Parliament and the monarchy. But this has, over the years, also been linked with general anti-Catholicism and indeed, in Lewes in East Sussex, the townspeople also mark the burning to death of 17 Protestants between 1555 and 1557, and also burn an effigy of Pope Paul V. More recently, in the wake of 9/11, an effigy of Osama bin Laden was burnt at Lewes.
Are all Britons who follow this tradition "satanically inhuman"? If not, why not? What is the difference, philosophically, between watching/burning an effigy of someone that one does not know personally and watching/burning an effigy of someone that one does know personally?
In 1991, the corrupt newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell met his death. Just a few weeks later, I attended a Bonfire Night party organised by one of the trade unions at his newspaper. An effigy of Maxwell himself was burned. Was it "satanically inhuman" to relish this way of marking the demise of a nasty, thieving criminal who stole from people's pensions?
