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Worzel's World - Pondering the ghost of Guy Fawkes past

 

 

My childhood days – not so long ago as lineal timelines go, but eons and ages past as far as cultural change is concerned – did not include Halloween. It was simply unknown and uncelebrated here in New Zealand. However, the culture of Americana had even then begun its slow and insidious infiltration of New Zealand life through such avenues as Mad Magazine and Charles Shultz' Peanuts comic strip. My own perception of Halloween was gleaned through such sources. I thought it somehow had something to do with pumpkins, and not being particularly fond of this stodgy vegetable deemed Halloween already horrific enough for me to not want to go there.

In the New Zealand of my childhood when horror and fear tried to compete with fun, fun was always the winner on any day. The time of year when the US celebrated the demonic, we were too busy with Guy Fawkes. There were bonfires to build and crackers to experiment with. I remember those days with great fondness.

Extorted candy then known as lollies could in no way compete with the sheer joy of noise, fire and explosion. The Bengal lights and Catherine wheels were spectacular enough – and I’m sure the pretty sparklers were good enough for the very young – but for the roustabout Kiwi kid there wasn’t much that could compete with such fun as the ignition of a clandestine jumping jack beneath the chair of an aging relative. There was certainly not just an element of risk involved, but several elements of risk, and perhaps even a little bit of stupidity and danger. Yes, there were casualties and a little collateral damage, but boy did we have some fun.

Back then I expect the various ghosts, phantoms spectres, poltergeists and other evil entities were sheltering in dusty closets with their knees shaking, afraid to show their ethereal faces for fear of New Zealand kids armed with strings of double happys and thunder crackers.

However somewhere, somehow, sometime, someone must have alerted the fun police section of government that is pledged to kill joy in the name of safety. I haven’t seen an actual firecracker for years. And jumping jacks? Not likely. The many and various regulations imposed have also seen the sale of other types of fireworks severely restricted.

Yet somehow shadowing the diminishing of Guy Fawkes, the Americana of Halloween has fully infiltrated our Kiwi culture and we have been fobbed off with lessons on stand-over tactics and threatening behaviour. Tooth decaying sugary rubbish and a celebration of occult demon worship seems an unworthy replacement for the fun remembrance of Mr Fawkes' attempt to abolish parliament by explosive intervention.

Somehow the concept of extortion by way of threat reminds me too much of how government operates to have much appeal. I wonder if the old US Mafia protection rackets – which along with prostitution and bootlegging was once their main form of income – owes anything to ‘trick or treat’?

I don’t think that encouraging children to either beg or practice extortion can be a good thing and I can only assume that the promotion of Halloween here where traditionally it never was could only be the result of greedy adults trying to make money by selling rubbish regardless of the consequences.

No doubt too that Guy Fawkes has also had a lasting impact on culture. The international ‘Anonymous’ movement has adopted the Guy Fawkes mask as their uniform. Is this because of his anti-establishment stand or simply because of the low cost and wide availability of the masks?

It is said that knowledge is power and for all I know this may be true. But for what reason do we need power? I can’t help feeling a little nostalgia for an earlier more innocent and perhaps less powerful age when I was ignorant of the history of such things as Halloween and Guy

Fawkes and myriad other examples of the sad folly of men.

However, with the possible exception of dementia we cannot unknow what we know. What we have done and what we have experienced has had an effect sometimes for good and too often for ill. Have we really learnt anything?

I can’t help but wonder in the wake of our recent election and one in the US, would anything much have changed had the great gunpowder plot not been foiled by a government informer? Although there are many quite prepared to rewrite history, we cannot change the past, but we do not have to continue making the same mistakes. So why do we?

n Feedback? Email prof_worzel@hotmail.com

There wasn’t much that could compete with such fun as the ignition of a clandestine jumping jack beneath the chair of an aging relative.


 
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