Shakespeare weeps
Henry V, act 3, scene 1
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’
Shakespeare weeps: Race fears spark St. George ban
The pins showing the English flag — which has often raised hackles due to its connection with the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries — could be “misconstrued,” Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said in a section on race in a report on a jail in the northern English city of Wakefield.
The pins “had been bought in support of a cancer charity”, according to the article.
At Jawa Report , English Flag Banned from English Jails as “Racist Symbol”
So a nation’s own flag is considered a racist symbol by some? Disgusting, to say the least–and I’m saying this as an American. Further, it’s not like this is coming out of Ireland or some other foreign country with a national identity which is intimately tied in with anti-British feelings. Wakefield prison is in West Yorkshire–that’s England for the uninitiated!
The Saint George’s Cross is the official flag of England. The Union Jack, so familiar to us all, is actually the flag of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, and Wales. The Saint George’s Cross remains the symbol of English national identity today.
Saint George, according to this website,
The future archbishop of Alexandria began his career as a humble cloth worker in Cilicia (now southern Turkey). By ‘assiduous flattery’ or other means he acquired the contract to supply the Roman army with bacon.
Making a pig’s ear of defending democracy
When every act that a culture makes communicates weakness and loss of self-belief, eventually you’ll be taken at your word. In the long term, these trivial concessions are more significant victories than blowing up infidels on the Tube or in Bali beach restaurants. An act of murder demands at least the pretence of moral seriousness, even from the dopiest appeasers. But small acts of cultural vandalism corrode the fabric of freedom all but unseen.
. . .
It has been clear since July 7 that the state has no real idea what to do to reconcile the more disaffected elements of its fastest-growing demographic. But at some point Britons have to ask themselves – while they’re still permitted to discuss the question more or less freely – how much of their country they’re willing to lose. The Hundred-Acre Wood is not the terrain on which one would choose to make one’s stand, but from here on in it is only going to become more difficult.
Or, as Hitchens put it, will they stop giving in to the lethal temptation to exchange freedom for security: a bargain that inevitably ends up with the surrender of both?
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
(technorati tags books dhimmitude censorship)
What an excellent post! I have linked to it here:
http://aladysruminations.blogspot.com/2005/10/for-harry-england-and-saint-george.html
Thank you Lady Jane!