St. George’s Day

You would think that a patron saint to a country would be quite substantial and have a direct connection to the country he is supposed to protect. In the case of St. George neither is correct. Like most early church saints, he is more myth than fact. Somewhere along the way he also collected a dragon, and that’s how we know him today.

The legend has him born in central Turkey towards the end of the 3rd century A.D. As the Ten Commandments state that you shouldn’t kill, as a good Christian he joined the army of the heathen emperor Diocletian. Being a good killer, he rose to become an officer. When Diocletian decided he had had enough of all those sects calling themselves Christian, George got a beating. He was tortured, skinned alive, and his raw flesh rubbed with salt. After which he was executed, chopped to little bits, burned and buried three times. Still, or again, alive, his bones where then pulverized, his skull smashed, and his body and head sawed through the middle. Please note the order in which that was done. And there is no dragon.

By 700 A.D., 5 heads (complete and unharmed) skulls of him were on display all over Europe, and there were more to come. The crusaders chose him as their patron saint, not surprisingly. Being good Christians themselves, they went to kill people, as many as possible, and in full accordance with the scriptures they also plundered and raped. Very good Christians they were therefore, probably even better ones than their chosen saint. And the chosen device, the St. George’s cross, became a sign for Christianity and peace.

By 1222, the English church made the saint’s day a High Holiday as important as Christmas. King Henry VIII abolished all saints and their observances, and as with all things forbidden, St. George flourished. And still there is no dragon. But it was invented around that time as well, probably somewhere between the Crusades and the invention of the first bank holiday.

And now in modern times, this peaceful saint’s day has become a target for contention and strife. Instead of a national holiday as it is held in other countries, the British government led by Incapability Brown and the craven bishops of the Church of England try to hush it up. Their reasoning is, that it might upset Muslims living in the United Kingdom. What a lark. It took me several minutes to realise that they were talking in earnest, it was such a joke. But it shows what is wrong in this country. Political correctness is killing it. England has become so politically correct that you have to think first, before you say ‘excuse me’, it might be offensive to somebody. Stupid. And isn’t the Union Jack even more offensive, combining four crosses?

Maybe England is able learn something from Switzerland, even though they insist on doing things differently than on the continent. Switzerland has a national day, and it is a national holiday celebrated by everyone, including the Muslims living there. And Switzerland has a cross as national flag as well, like so many old nations. And anybody who gets a Swiss passport or any official letter or document gets the cross with it and on it, starting with the envelope. Maybe England should start that, too. It saves anybody from being offended, or if they are, then (as with all offended people) it’s their own problem. Or, as a Swiss judge informed a Muslim complaining about church bells that offended his religious sensibility, ‘you chose this country to live in, and even more, you chose the apartment you live in; we are a free country and you are free to move anywhere in this country where you do not hear church bells, even more, you are free to leave this country anytime you choose to’.