Just for Old Times!

For those of you of a younger generation, the name Enoch Powell will conjure up a whole series of memories, thoughts and emotions. Forget his previous career of thoughtful politics; we just remember the notorious “rivers of blood” speech and the ‘right’ thinking (sic) reactions of those impressionable young men as they marched against the tide of immigrants, sorry ‘blacks’, as they threatened to swamp the traditions and the way of life of fascist bigots who disgraced themselves and their country by dressing up their prejudice by actually and literally using the flag!

I am in too relaxed a state to get myself agitated by reliving the furious frustration of those times, I prefer to remember a memorable episode from Private Eye which had a Steadman (of course) cartoon of Enoch as some sort of a spiv feline and under this caricature, a page full of letters purporting to come from concerned citizens all of which started with, “Dear Sir, I am no racialist but . . .” and effectively ridiculed a whole series of bigots from the genteel vicar through to the rough worker and exposed their ‘reasoning’ for what it was. The page has been reprinted in a ‘Best of Private Eye’ and is well worth looking out and reading.

I shall now take the leap of imagination from dear old dead Enoch to Easter.

If you read the whole of Enoch’s ‘Rivers of blood’ speech (as I have) then it is possible to see that old Enoch was quoted selectively and the presentation of the extracts, the sound bites, from his speech emphasised one emotive phrase, whereas the whole speech was much more reasoned.

It is, as I say, possible to read the speech and the situation in that way, but that is to ignore the fact that Enoch was a consummate politician and he knew exactly what he was doing and what would be taken from his speech: it was a nasty, mendacious, conniving and vicious piece of rabble rousing – premeditated and calculated.

So how do we get from Powell to Easter? Well, it’s through selectivity.

Easter is the paramount festival, the resurrection of Jesus proving that he was the Christ and therefore the person from whom all Christians take their name. But what do Christians chose to take as the most important aspect of this time of paramount importance in the sacred year? Easter eggs!

Easter named, of course, after a pre Christian goddess Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. A festival was held in her honour every year at the vernal equinox. The eggs are pre Christian as well and were appropriated by the ever resourceful Christians by the usual method of metaphor (egg, seed of life, resurrection, et voila! Christian already!)

So Easter is downgraded by ever reliable Capitalism from some sort of dangerous numinosity to practical, saleable and indeed edible tangibility. Select what is popular and it will take over from what is real and important.

Eggs are important. You only have to walk up and down aisle after aisle in any supermarket and see the serried rows of elegantly and seductively packaged temptations to see where the real centre of Easter lies.

And there is a sense of pain and guilt and injustice in the whole experience – all of which is provided by the manufacturer by the cunning way in which the customer is outrageously fleeced by the whole experience of the egg and its purchase.

I made the mistake of looking at the prices of these eggs. Tesco helpfully provide the cost per 100 gms so that you can make comparisons and see which is “best value.” Bearing in mind that 100 gms of chocolate in bar form varies from 27p to 55p but with the magic of a little cardboard and silver paper this is increased in one amazing case to £4-71 for 100 gms! And that wasn’t even for best quality Belgian chocolate that was for common or garden Nestle! You’ve got to admire manufacturers who actually get away with this daylight robbery!

I’m not sure about what it says about the punters who actually buy this rubbish. Celebration of the unlikely ‘resurrection’ of the founder of a major religion by paying over the odds to already bloated capitalists for a bit of gaudily wrapped chocolate.

It’s a funny old world, ain’t it?