Guy Fawkes was no hero, and certainly no anarchist!

Whilst you're right about Fawkes, he was a member of a persecuted minority who faced the death penalty for his beliefs. It was illegal to be Catholic in the UK until the 1850's from memory. I think the Fawkes celebrations in the uk now are more driven these days as an inchoate expression of dissent against the powerful per se, not the persecution of Catholics as such.

The Fawkes mask is a symbol of that dissent that has caught on globally whenever people are protesting governmental action. And the fantasy of blowing up government to solve social ills in one fell swoop is an appealing, if highly unrealistic, one. So it does tie in loosely with the desire for self governance and the no masters principles of anarchism.

Much more worrying to my mind is the situation where supposedly secular governments are keeping or implementing laws based on religious dogma, like anti-abortion or anti-gay legislation. Here our government is trying to push through a Religious Freedoms bill that would allow religious believers to discriminate in the area of employment and service provision. It means doctors can deny medical help based on their religious bigotry. Pharmacists could refuse to stock things like condoms or dispense oral contraceptives or the morning after pill. We may even be prevented from critiquing their favourite sky friends dogma.

Now I've got no problem with what religious types choose to believe within the privacy of their congregations and lives, but I draw the line when they pressure governments to make laws based on their particular dogma that affect us all.

 

Fair enough. I believe the Religious Freedom bill they are talking about here is actually based on the US model.

 

Yes, Fawkes would likely have been a happy cat if only the monarch were Catholic. While atheism is most compatible with anarchism, especially looking into the distant past, I think we should recognize that religion is sometimes against the state.

Also, see Erica Lagalisse's book, Occult Features Anarchism.