COMMENT:
Guy Fawkes night has passed its use-by date. It is ridiculous in a New Zealand context, rides roughshod over New Zealand history, causes distress to animals, disruption to anyone living close to the morons who decide it's a great idea to let off fireworks at all hours of the night for weeks on end, and causes all kind of headaches for Emergency Services. It's time for it to go.
I know this will be controversial. And unpopular in some quarters. There will be those who wish to cling to any and all traditions regardless of their relevance, and those who are desperate to maintain New Zealand's increasingly tenuous ties to ye olde British Empire. I'll be unlikely to change their minds, but for anyone who's ever scratched their head and thought, "this Guy Fawkes thing doesn't really make sense in New Zealand, does it?" here's an argument for change, and a proposal for what we should do instead:
Let's start with the history. Guy Fawkes night marks the anniversary of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot on November 5, 1605. Basically, during a period of religious tension against Catholics, a group of men including Guy Fawkes decided that blowing up the Parliament and killing the King would bring an end to the suffering of the Papists. Barrels of gunpowder were stored under the Parliament building, but the plot was discovered before anyone could come to any harm.
For this act of treason, however, Guy Fawkes was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered (though he broke his neck before he could be killed in such a brutal way), and the tradition of burning his effigy on bonfires began (which has morphed into today's Guy Fawkes celebrations), apparently to celebrate the survival of the king. So, in essence, what we're really marking when we celebrate Guy Fawkes is both the avoidance of a major loss of life (good), but also the continuation and indeed strengthening of the state-enforced oppression of Catholics (not good). After Fawkes died, the Gunpowder Plot was used as fodder to implement even more oppressive policies targeting Catholics.