Shrove Monday and war: Yellow and blue are also multicolored

For two years now, the "Helau" in the region has been almost completely silent: the carnival celebrations in Mainz and also in Frankfurt, Flörsheim and Seligenstadt have to get through a second campaign with almost no foolishness.

Corona had led to the cancellation of all major events and parades at an early stage.

And the war in Ukraine has smothered the last tender shoots of the party spirit that remained under the 2-G-plus rules.

The consequential damage that the almost eternal Ash Wednesday will have for the clubs and the carnival culture in Mainz or Frankfurt is still in the stars.

Offspring may have been lost due to a lack of events.

Many a club threatened by a loss of active members and financially strapped will probably lurch towards dissolution.

The restraint on the Shrovetide weekend seemed necessary in view of the events in Ukraine.

And yet a look at Cologne shows that the Mainz carnival has obviously lost a little strength and inventiveness in direct comparison.

In Cologne, a peace parade was set up at short notice, in which many people took part in their carnival costumes and yet did not appear out of place or irreverent.

As early as 1991, when the carnival parades were canceled because of the Iraq war, the people of Cologne took to the streets more actively in the spirit of peace.

In Mainz it was thanks to a few counter-demonstrators this weekend that the street was not left to a small group of "lateral thinkers" alone,

Show solidarity on the streets

The guard service on Sunday morning proved that things can be done differently.

Deputations of the guards showed the flag in the Mainz Cathedral and were allowed to listen to the words of the emeritus cathedral dean Heinz Heckwolf, who, starting from the carnival classic "Gell, Du hast mich gelle Gerne" by Margit Sponheimer, very fitting thoughts on the ambivalence of foolish goings-on and the melancholy rooted in the carnival formulated.

In this spirit, a peace procession would have looked good in Mainz, especially since the Ukrainian colors yellow and blue are not only included in the four-color combination of the carnival flag, but appropriately lie next to each other.

With a well-divided make-up on the right and left cheek, Fastnachter could have shown their solidarity on the streets and stood up for cultural values, of which Fastnacht is one.