The wrong mindset: When confetti is more dangerous than reality

There was a time when Carnival was a release valve. A place where people reflected reality through exaggeration. A tradition where excess was permitted because everyone understood it was about symbolism, not crime. But that time is apparently behind us. Today, what you do is no longer what matters. What matters is what people assume you think.

In Plaffeien in the canton of Fribourg, a Carnival float declared a national traumaBlack dolls. A refugee boat. A political statement on the upcoming vote about migration. No violence. No threat. No harm. Just a symbol. And that was precisely the problem.

Not the plot.
The attitude.

One teacher expressed her shock. A strong word for a society that consumes real news of violence daily, like weather reports. But a symbolic float with dolls? That apparently crosses the line of what is morally acceptable. Not because someone was hurt. But because someone could have been hurt. Theoretically. Emotionally. Hypothetically.

Welcome to the age of ideological fascism!

Here, reality no longer matters, but its interpretation. Not the act itself, but the moral reading. A carnival float is declared a scandal, while the everyday tensions reported by citizens are politely ignored. Threatened bus drivers. Security escorts on public transport. Uncertainty in daily life. All unpleasant. All inconvenient. Therefore, all invisible.

Modern morality operates on a simple principle: reality is optional. Outrage is mandatory.

What's particularly fascinating is this selective sensitivity. The same society that deems it necessary to banish cultural symbols like the edelweiss shirt from classrooms to avoid "discriminating" against anyone sees no problem in systematically delegitimizing the concerns of its own population. Tradition is suddenly declared a problem, while insecurity is dismissed as imaginary.

It's a remarkable way of setting priorities. A shirt is dangerous. An ideology is untouchable.

The new ideological fascism doesn't need laws. It only needs social control. It functions through stigmatization. Through moral labels. Through the silent but effective signal: Whoever thinks incorrectly no longer belongs. It's a cult of purity without a uniform. And like any cult of purity, it thrives on double standards.

When cultural symbols of the native population are deemed potentially discriminatory, that's progress. When that same population voices its concerns, that's regression. When activism provokes, it's courage. When citizens provoke, it's hate.

The rules are clear.
They only apply in one direction.

Carnival has never been a place of political neutrality. It has always been a mirror of its time, a release valve for tensions that found no outlet elsewhere. But today, even this space is monitored. Not by the police, but by self-appointed moral guardians—people who see themselves as defenders of sensitivity while simultaneously delegitimizing any dissenting perspective.

It's a remarkable irony. A society that preaches diversity doesn't tolerate diversity of thought. The message is subtle, but clear: You can be anything. As long as you think the right thing. And if you don't, you won't be arrested. That would be too honest. You'll be morally isolated. Shamed. Categorized. Not as a citizen. But as a problem.

That is the true power of ideological fascism. It doesn't need prisons. It only needs consensus.

The carnival float in Plaffeien was not a crime. It was a symptom. A symptom of a society increasingly afraid of its own thoughts. A society that has learned to monitor itself in order not to be excluded from the moral consensus.

Confetti is not dangerous.
They are thoughts.
And that's precisely why attempts are being made to control them…