Human Flower Project

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

May 1: Choose Your Paganism

On May Day, the old celebrations of Flora compete—and combine—with Labor’s muscular demonstrations.

With red tulips, pro-Communist supporters

turn out in Donetsk, Ukraine, May 1, 2007

Photo: Valeriy Belokryl, for Reuters

What’s your pleasure? Nymphs or rockets? Okay, then, Hard-to-Get, what about a truck-sized rat in papier mache?

May Day has it all, as this online cornucopia explains (though it fails to mention the rodent, a feature of May Day demonstrations this year in Jakarta). In the Northern Hemisphere seams on the stems have burst, letting go with fever and flowers.

“Every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.”

That’s not Hugh Hefner but Sir Thomas Malory, 1485.

May 1 is a show of force, which, as we all know, comes in many forms. But face it. Today, they’re phallic. It’s hard to believe that the pre-teens at prim girls’ schools—like the one we attended—could dance straight-faced around “the May Pole” in front of parents and teachers. It was a case of mass obliviousness (one of many) that we all managed to overlook the Uber Erection. This was a rite passed down from Celtic ancestors (the school was all-Anglo then) via the beribboned era of Victoria’s reign.

Union activists demonstrate for better wages in Lahore, Pakistan, May 1, 2007

Their banner blends emblems for workers in agriculture, light manufacturing and industry

Photo: Arif Ali, for AFP

There’s of course, another show of force today, too. In Cuba, Germany, Thailand, and elsewhere, workers flex their muscle with parades and demonstrations. For much of the world, this is Labor Day. Some contend that’s because on May 1, 1886, the eight-hour work day came into effect in the U.S., a victory won by the American Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. That could well be the reason, but we think more significant is the much older and earthy expression of power erupting, now!  ‘“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower….” Dylan Thomas called it.

Fuses and phalluses, put ‘em together and what have you got? Huge May Day parades of the former Soviet Union. Pointy warheads laid tenderly in trailer beds would roll through the streets of Moscow amid red flags, tanks, and portraits of Lenin, looking quite the satyr with his rakish beard. It was all the heavy metal counterpart to our May Day in ballet shoes at Collegiate School.

Far-fetched? Please read this fascinating essay by Peter Linebaugh about the “Red” and “Green” sides of May Day (via interactivist.net). “Green is creation of desire; Red is class struggle. May Day is both,” he writes.

Communist Party members sell traditional May Day muguets (Lilies of the Valley) in Lyon, France

(the flier opposing right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy is presumably free)

Photo: Robert Pratta, for Reuters

It’s getting harder to see the two faces of this occasion at once. The May basket tradition of Annapolis, Maryland, is all gussy loveliness, the arrest of 550 demonstrators today in Istanbul all fists. But we offer a few blendings here, images from Pakistan, France, and the Ukraine.

In these culturally rich societies, Flora somehow manages to walk hand in hand with Mars.