Karfreitag

A cautionary tale.

For as long as anyone can remember, Good Friday or Karfreitag has always been the same. Easter is a big deal here – after the chill snows and dark valleys of Winter, Spring bursts out with a fecundity unknown in Britain; nature is like a teenager pumped with hormones and just explodes into life. Spring flowers push through the last of the snow, and the first of the year’s butterflies spread jewelled wings over still-brown herbage.

For Catholics here in the alpine Land, the deal is work until late lunchtime and then home early for the weekend. Protestants, for reasons I can’t quite fathom, have always had the whole of Good Friday as a holiday, by custom going back to the 17th century. Paid. Like a Feiertag. Not taken from their annual leave.

Until of course some idiot claimed the arrangement was unlawful and discriminatory and started a legal action. Now the state government has introduced a new law – everyone gets a half-day on Good Friday. Work ends at 14.00.

Of course, both Catholics and Protestants are up in arms. Protestants have lost half a day’s holiday, and Catholics used to slink-off home at 2pm anyway so have gained nothing.

The politicians responsible have called it “einen guten, tragfähigen Kompromiss” – a good, sustainable compromise. Everyone else has predicted it won’t last the week.