After reading Sue's article about the November 5th national celebration of the executions of Guy Fawkes. I started thinking about how civilized we are. I have come to the conclusion that were not as civilized as we would like to think.
Granted Guy Fawkes was a traitor and deserved to die for his crime. But his execution was truly barbaric, in that after several sessions of severe torture and under great duress, Fawkes finally admitted that the conspirators had planned to free Sir Walter Raleigh and other Tower of London Prisoners by blowing up Parliament with a large cache of Gunpowder.
He was finally hung, drawn and quartered which was the traditional punishment for traitors on January 31, 1606. Guy Fawkes was hung until he was half-dead and then his genitals were cut off and burned in front of him. Whilst still alive, his heart and bowels where removed from his body, he would be decapitated and his limbs removed from his body. Finally, his body parts would be publicly displayed and left for the birds to eat them. All but one of his co-conspirators died this way.
Honestly, the hanging alone (if done properly) should have done the trick. But to be drawn and quartered, this was truly barbaric.
We Americans have had our bout with barbarism too, especially with the Klu Klux Klan treatment of blacks (similar to Guy Fawkes execution) and the recent Abu Ghraib Prison scandal.
The Arabs are not very civilized ether. Arab terrorists decapitating prisoners of war in Iraq and showing it on TV, and now the genocide of native people in Sudan by the Sudanese government.
We haven't progressed very far from our savage Ancestors.
History in the Movies columns
4 years ago
1 comment:
I read somewhere that only two known living things invade a host and take over it completely until they destroy it. One is humans and the other is a virus.
Food for thought.
All we can do is hope or pray, depending on what your beliefs are.
I'm a pessimistic atheist so I am doomed anyway. Good luck to the rest of ya's.
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