After two years disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the city of Aalst is preparing this weekend to rediscover the full scale and tradition of its famous carnival. From Sunday (February 19) to Tuesday, it’s party time in the city of “onions” (historic nickname of the inhabitants of Aalst), in eastern Flanders.
The festivities start on Sunday with a procession traversing the streets, made up of nearly 300 groups: 71 carnival societies and 217 additional groups. Between 5,000 and 6,000 people are expected to march, starting at 1:00 p.m. from Statieplein, the square that runs along Aalst station. The route of the procession is 6km long, via the Vlaanderenstraat and the Keizersplein to the Grote Markt, the city’s Grand Place. He will take his time, pounding the pavement until 8:30 p.m. About 80,000 onlookers are expected along the route.
The carnival in Aalst has been in the news for the past few years. Given its tradition of satire and “political” carnival making fun of major current events and well-known figures, its floats usually do not leave anyone indifferent. The main controversy of recent years: tanks and disguises caricaturing the Jewish community. What had made say in 2020 to the European commissioner in charge of the Promotion of the European way of life and the fight against anti-Semitism, the Greek Margaritis Schinas, that the carnival of Aalst was “a shame”.
In 2019, the carnival of Aalst had made the news well beyond the Belgian or even European media. Unesco had decided to remove the event from its list of intangible cultural heritage, on which it had been inscribed since 2010, because of a float presenting Orthodox Jews with crooked noses and fingers, seated on bags of gold. The mayor of the city, the N-VA Christoph D’Haese, has meanwhile always defended his carnival tooth and nail, rejecting any anti-Semitic intentions and repeating that there is no reason to censor carnival societies.
It is no different this year. “The right to party is a fundamental right. We know what we can laugh at or not. But the right to humor is central here“, he says. According to the mayor, the desire of residents and revelers from elsewhere to let go this year, after the cancellations due to the pandemic, is noticeable. “But we do it safe“, he insists, speaking of the carnival”the most secure“never organised. On Sunday, 278 police officers are active to supervise the event, and the emergency services as well as the fire brigade have provided additional personnel. The navigation police are keeping an eye on the Dender, while police departments are monitoring social media.”The challenges are greater every year. People with bad intentions are not welcome“, warns the mayor.
The party area is closed to traffic, with concrete blocks and local trucks. And the police carry out identity checks.