Opinion: May Day Is No Bull
We shouldn't be surprised that a celebration that can be linked with both Taurus and Mithras - two Anatolian deities - is a big deal in Berlin's favourite Turkish district. But few people seem to realize that there is any deeper connection between them. In this article, I explain how the seeds of the May Day rituals we know and love today were sown in ancient Turkey. When it comes to May Day in Berlin, the connections between the holiday and the city's Turkish population seem like they are mostly incidental. The aged, cynical patriarchs of the Turkish community seem reluctant to deal with the drunken tourist crowd, even as they desperately compete to entice it into their shops and restaurants to spend, spend, spend. But the Turkish community may well have more of a right than some Germans do to take more of an interest in May Day; after all, its connection to the spring holiday stretches back far beyond the Kreuzberg riots of the 1980's. In fact, it stretches b...