Plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose)

"In the 19th century, Catholicism was regarded by many people in this country as thoroughly incompatible with Americanism. They saw it as a hostile foreign element that would subvert democracy. Today, a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic, and they are taken to be as American as Mountain Dew.

We've come a long way in religious tolerance. Or maybe not. The belief that Catholics are irredeemably alien and disloyal has given way to the fear that Muslims pose a mortal threat to our way of life."

Steve Chapman on the bogus threat of Islamic law in the US: Chicago Tribune, 10 June 2012

This is equally so in respect of the UK - Catholics and non-conformists were the "enemy within" for centuries (until the 20th century); in the 20th century it was Jews...  people of non-Christian faiths ... those of Irish origins... "ethnic minorities"...  and now, in the 21st century, specifically Muslims. Whose next?

Plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose) - translation:  the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

Do we never learn the lessons of history??

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