It’s ALAAF And HELAU In Germany

Germany celebrates the yearly “Karneval” and like every year the floats are brimming with political messages. And today was “Rosenmontag” (Rose Monday) which means that the floats and music bands have been parading through many inner cities.   To the delight of thousands of spectators, this year, many parades were showcasing the American President doing what he does best, Trumpeting and raping women. If you recall one of the recent cover photos of “Der Spiegel” where Trump was shown with the trophy of the Statue of Liberty’s blood-dripping head, Liberty now says it’s pay-back time and cuts off the ugly Trump head. Love that picture. But before Liberty got Trump’s head she had to endure him from behind.  …and below is “Trumpeting Trump Elephant Aside of Trump, the floats had a field day with the Turkish President Erdogan who is, just like Trump, known to be entirely free of humour and has threatened German journalists with prosecution calling them out as “Terrorists”. See what Trumpists should learn from all this is, that only dictators fight a free press. The carnivalists formed the Turkish president Erdogan in the "Erdovahn", which throws himself on clowns and humorists. In fact, the overall political scenery in Europe bears a lot of likeness to the one in the U.S. with populist party leaders popping up here and there.                  Blonde is the colour of the new fascists German Karneval is not only political satires, it also is a lot of fun for everybody, a lot of good-hearted humour for young and old. The origin of the European Karneval or “Fassnacht” as it is also called, stems from old rituals and customs from before Christ. It stayed alive through the medieval ages when it took on a mocking fashion against local rulers, which was the reason why it became prohibited at times. The fun part has always been that people dressed up in fanciful costumes hiding their real identity. Dressing up in wild costumes is still part of German and European Karneval. People made up songs and music for the time of Karneval which has contributed to this rich cultural feast. Interestingly, Karneval was never celebrated in the northern parts of Germany, until a few years back when some people started celebrating in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen. However, most of the German Karneval is celebrated along the river Rhine and predominantly in the cities of Duesseldorf, Cologne and Mainz. The traditional greeting between karnevalists is ALAAF in Cologne and HELAU in Mainz. On Wednesday it will all be over as the day is called “Aschermittwoch” (ash Wednesday) People go back to their real lives and they are sad that all the fun is over.