Sunday Times 2
“Mayday Mayday” on May Day
View(s):The May Day rallies last week have been so much in the news that I was musing on the significance of this festival and how it has become so important.
The JVP's May Day rally in Colombo. Pic By Amila Gamage
I discovered that May Day or the celebrations of the first of May originated as a traditional festival in the countries of northern Europe as they heralded the first day of summer. In pre-Christian time, the Romans celebrated Floralia around this time in honour of their goddess of flowers – while in Gaelic countries (Scotland and Ireland) the May festival was known as Beltane, when the cattle were driven to their summer pastures. After Europe became Christianised, many of these pagan holidays lost their religious significance and May Day became a secular celebration – celebrated with the giving of flowers and cakes and dancing around a maypole. The Catholic church encouraged devotions to Mary, the mother of Jesus, on May Day – replacing the worship of goddess Floralia with the worship of another goddess-like mother figure Mary.
May Day was chosen in 1891 as the International Day of Workers by the Communists and Socialists of the Second International in order to commemorate the massacre of workers that took place at a demonstration in Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4, 1886. After it became a popular day of solidarity for workers all over the world and this was associated with communism, the Catholic Pope Pius XII in 1955 decreed that the feast of St Joseph the Worker (the foster father of Jesus who happened to be a carpenter), be celebrated on May 1– most likely to provide a church –sanctioned alternative festival to the communist celebration of May Day.
So we see that throughout history, people have used this May Day holiday as a means of showing their strength – asking folk to choose between going to church to celebrate the feast of St Joseph the Worker and going to a May Day rally to show their solidarity with the Socialists and the Communists.
And I am sure that throughout the years there would have been folk who placed their bets both ways by going to church to show their face at St Joseph’s feast day service early morning and then going off to a socialist workers’ rally later in the day – just as last Sunday in our own country there would have been folk (not so much the genuine workers but the politicians who profess to serve the workers) who played their cards very carefully and showed their loyalty to two leaders. After all, are not many of our ministers and MPs people who have belonged at various times in various parties, loyally wearing the colour that seemed most likely to benefit them at the time?
And there is another meaning to this May Day that is even more relevant these days. When written as one word (‘Mayday”, in contrast to ‘May Day’) the word is a distress signal, a call for help like the Morse “SOS”.
In 1923, since voice radio transmission was improving so much that it was replacing the hitherto used Morse code for communication, a senior British radio operator Frederick Stanley Mockford was asked to select a code word that ships and planes could use to communicate that they were in distress and in urgent need of help. Mockford selected the word “Mayday” – which was an Anglicisation of the French “M’aider’ meaning “Help me”.
The word was soon adopted, and today is the standard international radio distress signal used by ships and aircraft.
With the increasing burdens being forced on my suffering fellow citizens, now that Value Added Tax has been increased from May Day – which will add to the price if not the value that all of us will now have to pay for electricity, telephone calls and health care – we should all rightly be calling “Mayday, Mayday” in distress.
But with all this jockeying around for position and power by politicians, would be politicians and the members of the jumbo sized cabinet that our President has lost control of, who is there to help us poor citizens in distress?
With the loyal politicians of his own party openly defying him, calling his bluff and laughing at his empty threats to expel them, we really have to question if this Governement has any power or interest in helping us.
The May Day sycophants are too pre-occupied with their own slitherings to hear our calls for distress. They remain with their torches poised, unsure which leader to light their torches for but ready to jump with their pandan held high to serve any leader who provides them with the perks of office.
And sad to say, we poor citizens can shout “Mayday, Mayday” for all we are worth – but there is nobody among these politicians out there who wants to help us.