The Holiday Story

This came up yesterday with the German Minister of the Interior....de Maiziere...having proposed the idea of a national holiday in Germany for the Muslim religion.

Yeah, it did bring a fair amount of criticism from his own party (the CDU).

Oddly, from the SPD....Schulz commented that it was worth a serious discussion in the Bundestag.

From the current holiday scheme....how many relate to Christians?  Karlfreitag and Ostermontag revolve around Easter (the Friday and the Monday).  Cristi Himmelfahrt and Whit Monday also fall into this holiday schedule.  Christmas and Boxing Day would be the last two.  So a total of six holidays related to the Christian religion.

The 'other' holidays?  Three additional days....New Year's Day, May-Day, and Unity Day.

Just adding one more day?  Companies will fuss that is a problem and want some day to be exchanged.

If you did pick a day....there's only three days of the Muslim faith that might work.

First you have Eid Al-Fitr.  This occurs at the end of Ramadan.  This usually involves a fest day, with gifts given and people giving to charity.

The second option is Eid Al-Adha. This is actually a four-day period, with families meeting and sharing in an extra long dinner/feast.

The third option is the Islamic New Year....which rotates year after year.  In 2018, it's 11 September. 

The other dozen-odd related holidays?  They might drag different groups into the middle from the Islamic religion who'd argue about direction given from such-and-such Mullah. 

My own humble opinion....of the three....only Eid Al-Fitr might fit...although this is going to bring up a long discussion about the lack of eating/re-hydration by Muslim employees for this four-week period.

If you were swapping out a Christian holiday?  It'll be impossible to touch Christmas or Boxing Day....as well as Karlfreitag and Ostermontag.  So only two options remain....dumping Cristi Himmelfahrt or Whit Monday.

Taking this as a topic into the Bundestag  I can imagine that Merkel is just going to sit there and shake her head because it's going to be a lightning rod for public conversation.  Just adding another holiday on top, and not removing one?  It's a cost factor to companies and stores.

Then you have the Muslim asking....why the Christians get five holidays and they only get one?  You can sense how the German is standing there and was willing to cough up one single holiday and now you might be talking about two or three?  Which do you cough up then?   How do you explain this across to the voting public? 

This also brings up another issue....are there other religions on the fringe which you might see going into court and challenging the judges to allow their religion to have a special off-day as well?  Well....yeah, that might get brought up.

Scientology wanting 13 March off for L. Ron Hubbard's birthday next? 

As for the general public?  You can expect every single German to pick this up and have a definite opinion.  Working-class people?  It's simply begging to turn this whole discussion into a bigger mess.

Fake religions being invented to just take on this topic?  Yeah, I suspect it'll happen pretty quickly. It's a curious topic, with no real solution to make people happy.