Failing to get the point about pride in one's culture
A rather sad story from Brittany, where a small gang has just been arrested for vandalising chapels, votive fountains and wayside crosses. The state prosecutor explained their 'rationale' thus: "Christianity snuffed out the ancient Celtic religion" and "they think too much attention is given to [churches] and not enough to those expressions of the traditional culture and beliefs of Brittany, like certain places in the forest of Huelgoat or Carnac". Had this rabble had the courage of their convictions, they might have taken on Saint-Corentin cathedral in Quimper. Anyway, so far so mundane and much in line with similar desecrations in Sweden and elsewhere.
What is a little out of the ordinary is that the vandals have been marking their handiwork with 'TABM', which apparently stands for 'True Armorik Black Metal'. These are individuals who supposedly did what they did in the name of traditional Breton culture, and yet they express themselves not in Kerneveg Brezhoneg or even Parisian French but rather in English. And I do not think that the Celtic roots of Black Metal are exactly obvious.
As a minor meander, Goths are called 'les Colds' in France.
What is a little out of the ordinary is that the vandals have been marking their handiwork with 'TABM', which apparently stands for 'True Armorik Black Metal'. These are individuals who supposedly did what they did in the name of traditional Breton culture, and yet they express themselves not in Kerneveg Brezhoneg or even Parisian French but rather in English. And I do not think that the Celtic roots of Black Metal are exactly obvious.
As a minor meander, Goths are called 'les Colds' in France.
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Christianity snuffed out the ancient Celtic religion
In France/Gaul, Roman polytheism wiped out the native Celtic religion, the Roman Empire then converted to Christianity later on.
Had this rabble had the courage of their convictions, they might have taken on Saint-Corentin cathedral in Quimper..'
Non-literary communication of emotion has always created destructive aggression, just the same as written communication does. But people react by attempting to destroy the former as it is much less copmmon to have been taught any command of artistic or musical response. They just try to cancel it out as their feelings are roused but not understood; or they collapse in heaps or have fits should they turn their response on themselves rather than on the art form.
So it may not be quite 'courage of their convictions'; poor Florence is under continuous assault from people with what are now called 'unresolved personal issues'. it seems this behaviour can be sprung by quite minor art works too, as well as wholesale collapse in S.Croce.
You make a serious and an interesting point. I was thinking more in terms of how easy an individual 'kill' is in this context. I know rural Brittany well, and calvaires, chapels and the like are often found in very sparsely populated areas, and therefore acts of destruction are easy to carry out without the risk of being caught in the act. Rather less so with Quimper cathedral...
Brittany is great, whoever the oppressor is. The place names are still quite celtic and they have their own accent.
They do the best fish soup in France in my opinion.
I'm off there in a few weeks.
No doubt a bunch of overweight pale spotty teenagers pissed on cheap cider and dressed like twats.
I say flog them and rub scotch bonnet chilies in their eyes
Ed make sure you know about the problems you will have paying for petrol with abritish credit card.
Thanks for the tip Hitch - I always use my Amex :-)
Ed they dont work either, it is a problem with auto payment petrol stations , they only accept french debit cards.
Do some googling or you could end up out of petrol.
There is of course a solution the cunning gaul is inviting other eu citizens to take out french prepaid debit cards.
As to Amex I had one for 6 weeks before cutting it up and deciding never to deal with them again.
wankers.
I have had this problem before Mr Hitch. I remember once we were at the pump trying to sort it out while behind us there was a large queue of irate Citroen drivers honking les horns! Can't remember how we resolved that one. The main problem was the at the normal petrol stations were closed because it was early closing day or something like that.
I dispute that Armorik is English!
I didn't know that Bretagne /Breizh was Armorica till I was 17.
Did you know that G.B. is Breizh-Veur in Breton?
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