The home of a middle-aged couple in who put up a display featuring England’s patron saint for St George’s Day was defaced with “NAZI” graffiti and fouled with 50 bags of dog faeces in Milton Keynes.
The couple’s model showed St George, a Cappodician Greek officer in the Roman army who, according to legend, slew a great serpent at Dragon Hill in Oxfordshire — or, alternatively, at a city-state named Silene in modern-day Libya — and later became a Christian martyr, dressed in the Crusader-style garb he has been associated with in the popular imagination, and carrying a sign saying “The NHS will slay Covid-19”.
But on the morning of the English national day, they found that someone had sprayed the word “NAZI” on their path with an arrow pointing at their house in response to the display — and some fifty bags of dog dirt had been thrown over the wall into their garden.
“I’m so mad,” said the couple’s daughter, in comments reported by the Milton Keynes Citizen.
“We have been attacked for having St George up on our fence. It’s a racist attack,” she added.
“Why do we still live in a world where people can’t accept we’re all wonderfully different in many ways. Racism of any sort is not okay.”
UK Health Sec Thanks Muslims for Lockdown ‘Sacrifice’ on St George’s Day, Doesn’t Mention St George’s Day https://t.co/3Xg9E5XZUt
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 24, 2020
Establishment politicians in England have long suffered from a certain “cultural cringe” with respect to St George’s Day, as well as with the English flag with features his cross, resisting calls from politicians such as Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and some Tory backbenchers to make it a national holiday to celebrate English culture, at the Irish — and many others — do with St Patrick’s Day.
Some are troubled by his association with the Crusades launched in the Middle Ages in response to the conquest of huge swathes of the Levant, Asia Minor, North Africa — and eventually Europe — by jihadist armies, with the English having adopted him as their patron after he was said to have appeared as an apparition leading a ghostly army to the aid of Crusaders at the Siege of Antioch.
Others seem to believe that English national pride in general is “problematic”, pathologising “Englishness” as inherently racist and imperialistic.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, for example, made no mention of St George’s Day this year — choosing instead to wax lyrical on Ramadan, the Islamic holy month which began at the same time, lavishing praise on Muslims for their “sacrifice” and their contributions to public life during the coronavirus lockdown which was not extended to Christians on Easter Sunday, for example.
Sikh Shopkeeper Abused for Flying St George’s Flag, Slams Those Who Don’t ‘Enjoy English Culture’ https://t.co/RCDGNvLOSD
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 25, 2018
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