While in France the electoral campaign is in danger of becoming a carnival, with its hypocrisy and fake job positions, in all countries imbued with Christianity festivals bearing that name are starting, those inherited from the Greek Dionysus’ festivities and Roman Lupercales. From Dunkirk to Rio, and from Nice to Venice, decoy, and illusion along with masqueraded merrymakers and their painted faces reign…
A priori, the carnival bears no relation to the elections… And yet.
The carnival begins after the Epiphany and ends with Mardi Gras, just before Ash Wednesday marking the beginning of the 40 days that, in principle, the tradition of Lent lasts, during which one must abstain from meat. (Hence its name: « carne » (meat) and « levare » (to take away) in Latin).
The Carnival is not only the moment when eating richer is still permitted, but also a time of the year where everything is allowed. In particular, people have the right to claim to be someone other than themselves, to disguise themselves, to choose what they want to be. Moreover, in many traditions the Carnival is a moment when social hierarchies are temporarily reversed; when the rich give way to the poor; when the powerful, for a rare moment in time, obey the people; when all can denounce the evil deeds of the bad guys and burn them in effigy. A very brief moment, since when the Carnival ends the social hierarchy is restored, and those who might have thought for a time that the takeover of power was a fact, return to their alienated situation. Until the next Carnival.
No one expressed that sentiment better than the Flemish painter Peter Breughel the Elder, in his oil-on-panel work and masterpiece in 1559, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, which produced thousands of pages of commentary, and the battle between the two faces of humanity, that should have mutual respect for one another, for the world to function; and which, nevertheless, are incessantly both tempted to crush the other. In fact, as Breughel rightly suggests, in general, it is Lent that crushes the Carnival.
The same paradigm can be applied to the elections: for an extremely brief period, at regular intervals, the people believe they are in power, creating rights equal to those of the wealthiest, and imagining multiple futures, free, in which they could create their future, where wealth would not be accumulated, from generation to generation, by the same people. Where the weakest, especially newcomers to the city, would have an equal right to respect, prosperity, and happiness. In general, during this period, the people listen, fascinated, to entertainers denouncing imaginary enemies and promising impossible wonders. Once that moment has passed, the powerful regain power and, for all the others, introduce Lent, under the name of the principle of reality, security regime, or austerity policy.
There are rare occasions in carnivals where the temporary overthrow of the powerful leads to more than a brief parenthesis. There are few circumstances in the elections when the masks of the powerful and the demagogues finally come off.
In general, once the party is over, the people resume their business and let the powerful manage the world, and they simply prepare, in the backyards of their alienation, the mannequins, costumes, and masks of their next illusion.