St. George’s Day

As it was St George’s day recently (and apparently again soon due to it being too close to Easter) it’s worth writing something about it.

We always hear the same things around this time. Liberals will point out that St. George wasn’t even English, he was Turkish. Nationalists will paint their faces and chant “England till I die”

George wasn’t even Turkish, he was a Greek soldier in the Roman Army. If liberals don’t like or can’t understand why a foreigner is our patron saint, they could venerate St. Edmund instead.

St. George wasn’t even a crusader as depicted, but English crusaders adopted him as a warrior saint following the example of the city of Genoa.

The flag was used by the New Model Army in the Civil War and St. George’s Hill was the site of Gerard Winstanley radical diggers’ settlement. It’s part of our history.

He is not just the patron saint of England, but also Georgia (which is named after him) Germany, Lithuania, Palestine, and also one of the national saints of Russia.

Even Muslims consider him a prophet and call him Jirjis.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating St. George’s day. There’s nothing wrong with a parade of wooden dragons and Morris dancers. To associate it with racism is frankly, silly. Racists don’t need a day to be racist, they’ll do it all the time.

We should enjoy it in all innocence and know that others worldwide are doing the same.

In England and Wales we only have 8 public holidays a year. Scotland has 9, one of which is St. Andrews day. We have less holidays than China, Pakistan and the Lebanon to name a few.

We workers deserve more holidays, so why can’t St. George’s day be one of them? St. David’s too!