The Aalst Carnival persists and signs. A year after the controversy over the tanks adorned with anti-Semitic caricatures, new figures were present this Sunday in the procession of the Flemish city. Among them are sculptures of men with a schtreimel, the traditional fur hat of the Orthodox Jews, on the float of the group ‘Vismooil’n’. “It’s a little wink, we shouldn’t exaggerate, we don’t want to hurt peopleexplains a carnivore. In Aalst, we laugh with everyone but we don’t want to hurt, adds another. They too must have respect for us“, says even a third.
The requests for moderation or even for the suppression of controversial tanks were not followed up. Here, carnival and mockery have all the rights. The bourgmestre reminded him during a press conference at the end of the morning: “Welcome to Aalst, the charming city of humor, creativity, satire and craftsmanship. Aalst is a very warm, open and democratic city. It is not a racist or anti-Semitic city.“
One can also see in the procession a group of carnivaliers disguised as “klaugmier” (ant who complains), ants wearing a schtreimel. Some were outraged on Twitter about this representation.
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The Jewish community is not the only one to mock at Aalst: other tanks depict Asians or Blacks. Delphine Boël and Kim Clijsters also take it for their rank. We even got to see … Gilles de Binche!
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