To make Muslim migrants in Germany feel more welcome, several schools and daycare centres in Düsseldorf have decided to skip the annual Feast of Saint Martin on Nov. 11 and instead name it as the secular "Festival of Lights."
The annual celebration honouring the Roman soldier turned monk usually involves communities gathering around for a bonfire on St. Martin's eve called "Martinsfeuer," followed by a lantern procession, according to Breitbart News. But this year, many Germans have decided to do away with the decades-long tradition to give "consideration for the refugees."
However, not everybody is gung-ho on renaming the celebration and skipping it altogether. The director of Sun Road primary school in Düsseldorf said their Muslim parents "appreciate the traditional lore of the Martin procession" so in their school, "the celebration of St. Martin will stay."
The same thoughts are echoed by Kerstin Breuer, head of Urban Street School in Kita Velberter, Oberbilk. "We celebrate St. Martin and not 'Festival of Lights.' This was the parents' decision as well," she said, adding that 90 out of the 100 children in their school actually come from immigrant families, and about 3/4 of them are Muslim.
Blogger Pamela Geller, on the other hand, does not see how giving up their yearly tradition will make the migrants feel more welcome. "These migrants are coming to our countries from failed, devastated cultures. When and why was it decided that we have to mute and censor our traditions and mores for theirs — a failed society that suffocates and destroys?" she writes on her blog. "They are running from devastation and failure; why adopt that?"
The yearly celebration has already come under attack in the past, with Rüdiger Sagel of The Left of North Rhine-Westphalia party insisting back in 2013 that they need to change the Feast of Saint Martin to accommodate the "high proportion of Muslim children in the day care centres."
"You should not impose the Christian tradition," he stressed.