Editorial

Bastille Day Ponderings

The first time I remember being aware of Bastille Day, the national day of France, was in my Year 9 French elective in 1990.  It has occasionally been suggested at school reunions since that the unusually high male enrolment in that class may have been as influenced by the popular, young, single, not unattractive female French teacher as they were by my colleagues’ thirst for academic enlightenment. 

On the week of 14th July, we had the highlight of the year, a visit to the Le Gaulois French restaurant on Blackburn Rd, Syndal, which incidentally, is still there 33 years later.  While our focus was mostly on the excitement of sampling escargot and non-alcoholic wine, our impression of Bastille Day was that it was a celebration of a mistreated working class eventually rising up to overthrow a corrupt church-coupled monarchy to form a modern day republic.  My schoolboy studies were supplemented at home by exposure to the stories of Les Misérables which was written by the pro revolution Victor Hugo and watching the 1982 version of the film The Scarlett Pimpernel, based on the novel by Baroness Orczy, which painted the uprising in a far less favourable light.

The latter of these two great tales, which have both been made into high profile theatrical productions and films on more than one occasion, was for me a particular highlight. The tale of a foppish English aristocrat and his associates who saved dozens from the guillotine was fascinating because it reflected a less known and less fashionable element of history, that the French revolution was a very brutal development, in many ways inspired by a secular humanist philosophy that had taken root in France in preceding decades. (As an interesting aside, the novel The Scarlett Pimpernel inspired “the hero with the secret identity” concept which spawned later familiar twentieth century literary creations such as Superman, Batman and Spiderman.)

That foundational knowledge was very helpful and in the years that have followed, I have become interested in both the causes and outcomes of the extraordinary event which was the French Revolution.

On the other side of the channel in the late eighteenth century, many in England were hoping for French reforms echoing their own that would result in a sustainable, democratic, constitutional monarchy which eliminated the excesses of a corrupt ruling class and created fairness and opportunity for all.  Across the Atlantic, another great experiment to design a modern free state “under the blessing of Almighty God” had started in 1776. But in France, something very different eventuated.  While the final outcome was no doubt a fairer society, the pathway there was extremely violent and the philosophical heart profoundly different. There can be little doubt that the blood of thousands of innocent people was shed and that Christianity, a target of both enlightenment thinking and a desire to punish the Catholic Church for it sins, was a significant casualty.  It would be hard to argue that France and those countries, of which there are several, which emulated the motivation and style of these brutal reforms, have resulted in societies since where the influence of Christianity has dropped markedly.

Through the developed world, this Voltaire inspired, secular, enlightenment, arguably anti-faith philosophy continues to pervade some 230 years later.  The modern derivative of this humanist uprising continues to push faith aside in its quest for a non-God centred version of “Liberte, egalite, fratenite.”  We see this in recent decades with growing momentum across western society in our schools, hospitals, businesses and cultural arenas.

At Plenty Valley, we seek to provide our students with the educational building blocks that in the words of our vision statement, “equips them to transform their communities”.  One of those building blocks is an appreciation for history, another, our formation of faith, imbues hope from scriptural promises for an eternal future which involves the greatest change that will ever happen to earthly governance, the one where Christ returns in his final role as King.   When that uprising occurs, but not before, I shall gladly proclaim “Vive la revolution”

Peter Bain 

Business Manager