I remember the times when there was a lot of discussion about religious symbols in the workplace – an airline employee got in to trouble for wearing a religious symbol on a neclace.
In our open plan office there were some people that wanted to make a statement and display their religious symbols on their desk. It was discouraged. However we had some really nice artistic pictures in the conference room. They were of Egyptian images – in fact they were Egyptian gods. They were never commented on as far as I can tell.
In 2015 ISIS or ISIL or whatever the name was at the time destroyed a number of parts of Palmyra. To them the ancient gods, like Baal, were offensive. I remember the outrage.
This year several statues have been removed because they were offensive. For example the Edward Colston statue in Bristol that made all the news.
I started to wonder about the Egyptian gods that were acceptable in my office – did age make them acceptable? What about slavery in Egypt? What about other historical slavery? Should we be looking at bulldozing the pyramids? Did ISIL get it right or does history produce a “get out of removal free” card?