While use of the mask has increased, so have people’s opinions about what it truly represents. From New York, Sydney, to Bucharest protestors wear the mask of Guy Fawkes as they stand outside their national financial centers protesting greed, corruption, and an increasing lack of accountability within financial and political sectors. More recently the mask of Guy Fawkes has been worn by supporters of the international “Occupy Movement” against politicians, banks, and financial institutions. In addition, Anonymous members were also credited to disrupting the Church of Scientology’s online services and even making disturbing phone calls. The group Anonymous, a leaderless hacker group responsible for online attacks and protests against governments and multimillion dollar corporations adopted the Guy Fawkes mask to protest the Church of Scientology in a movement called “Project Chanology.” In February of 2008 members of Anonymous donned Guy Fawkes masks and stood outside Church of Scientology Centers throughout the United States protesting the Church’s censorship and Internet policies. Supporters of Ron Paul created a website called, which includes video clips of Ron Paul declaring statements such as, “The true patriot challenges the state when the state embarks on enhancing its power at the expense of the individual.” On just one single day, November 5, 2007, the website, whose very URL name references Guy Fawkes and his plot, was able to raise more than $4.07 million for Ron Paul’s campaign. The revolutionary tenor surrounding Guy Fawkes was used by supporters of the libertarian Ron Paul, an American politician in a very successful fundraising effort. In fact Guy Fawkes and his November 5 th holiday, once only celebrated in England, has become an increasingly universal emblem used by anti-establishment protest groups throughout the international community. The figure of Guy Fawkes has inspired Alan Moore’s novel V for Vendetta, a 2006 film with Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, and the film’s distinct Guy Fawkes mask created by David Lloyd. Today Guy Fawkes is remembered by even more than just a November 5 th holiday. Only “at the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, and on into the twentieth century” did bonfires and fireworks become popular ways to celebrate the holiday in England. During the seventeenth century, it was a Protestant celebration of providential deliverance.” Under the Hanoverians, “it became an occasion for riot, disturbance, and displays of misrule” amongst the lower classes. In the four centuries since November 5,1605, Guy Fawkes Day has taken on different meanings, “attracting the support of different groups, at different times, and for different purposes. And yet November 5 th has become a recognized British holiday: Guy Fawkes Day. After that Guy Fawkes should have become a forgotten martyr or terrorist of history.
However, the plot was discovered by authorities and Guy Fawkes was arrested, tortured, tried, and executed. Had he succeeded Guy Fawkes would have not only killed the entirety of London’s governing body, but also taken much of London and its citizens down with them. Fawkes’s aim was to remove King James I from the throne, and restore Britain’s Catholic monarchy.
The poem of course refers to Guy Fawkes and his now infamous plot to blow up London’s Houses of Parliament on November 5 th 1605. Remember, remember the Fifth of November, John Milton once penned a famous poem that begins:
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