An Easter Message: Britain Must Go Pagan!

Image based on a photo from the Vivienne Westwood Archives

Instagram: @thewestwoodarchives (10 Jan 2023)

 

 

I. 

 

Some people are continuing to choke on their chocolate eggs that King Charles - Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith - has not shared an Easter message this year, despite wishing Muslims a blessed Eid at the end of Ramadan.  

 

With a mixture of outrage and insecurity, they protest that this is yet another sign of the Islamification of the UK and the erosion of Britain's Christian culture; its history, heritage, system of values, etc.

 

These are often the same people obsessed with flag waving and playing identity politics who tie their ethno-nationalism to Christianity; assembling beneath the Cross of St. George like modern day crusaders wearing replica football shirts. 

 

Where this will lead, is anybody's guess - although I think we all have a pretty clear idea ...

 

 

II. 

 

The argument seems to be that if you wish to counter the rise and spread of one virulent religious ideology, then you need another equally fanatic faith that preaches One God, One Truth, One Way.  

 

In other words, one must fight fire with fire and respond to a challenge by adopting the same methods, tactics, and weapons as one's opponent. 

 

It's a fundamentally anti-Christian philosophy, but ironically, it's one that far-right militants who call themselves Christian frequently fall back on in the belief that such a strategy is necessary to ensure not only the victory of Good over Evil, but their survival as a people.      

 

 

III.  

 

Personally, as an anti-theist, if the last thing I want to see is the submission of the English to Allah, then the second from last thing I wish to see is a resurgence of Christianity. Indeed, I would echo Vivienne Westwood during her late-1980s early-90s phase and declare: Britain must go pagan ... [1]

 

Whether that best takes the form of Ancient Greek aesthetics combined with classic British tailoring - as Westwood envisioned - or of a retro Anglo-Saxon heathenism, in which the English finally wake up to the fact that Christianity is itself a foreign import and the imposition of a Middle Eastern deity upon a people who have forgotten their own gods [2], is debatable.

  

Notes

 

[1] Click here to watch a short video on YouTube in which Westwood discusses her idea of neo-paganism in relation to her design aesthetic. 

 

[2] Without wanting to delve too deeply into English religious history, it's worth remembering that Christianity only became the dominant faith in England in the 7th century. Before that time, polytheistic religions were practised, including Anglo-Saxon heathenism, which encompassed a heterogeneous variety of beliefs and practices, with a good deal of regional variation. In was in many ways very similar to the Norse paganism practised by the Scandinavian peoples that would later be introduced to England by the Danes.

      If I were an ethnonationalist, it's this Early Medieval period that would excite my interest and inform my politics; it would be Woden and Thunor I'd worship, not Jehovah and Jesus.