POSTCARD N.154 - GERMANY

Postcard sent on the 19th July; received on the 29th July 2024

Postcard image: Nationaler Love and be happy Day - Cologne Pride 2024
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Pride. The self-affirmation of one's nature. Take me as I am, just as I take you as you are, nothing could be simpler!

It all boils down to human and civil rights. And we all know that human rights, something that should be considered an axiom, part of our heritage from the moment we are born, a commandment, are many times only attained and acknowledged through hard fought battles, with their heroes, villains, symbols, pains, sufferance, successes, failures, for this is how humanity progresses, slowly unfolding its petals, like a flower.

Some of us, the lucky ones, have come a long way in the right direction in the last few decades. Particularly those who benefit from that "worst form of government, except for all the others", as Churchill once put it. Not so in places plagued by dictatorial regimes, who all tend to format people according to a self-constructed moral and  costumes code that be(ne)fits the ruler and his/her entourage, most times hiding beneath a blanket of "do as I say, not as I do".

Recognising that our differences are part of our signature as a species has not been an easy task, but step by step we're getting there, although, as good subjects of physics that we are, our actions will always entail reaction, and even if society as a whole is getting more and more open and respectful of  variance, the numbers of those who would rather spend their free time indulging in such strange hobbies as burning books or hating people for race, colour, national origin, sex, religion or age reasons is also gaining a regretful momentum.

Anyway, all this about a card I received from The Phantom, just before my holidays, sent directly from Cologne's Pride 2024, whose street festival took place from the 19th till the 21st July. Danke sehr, Alex!

"Today is the National Love and be happy day. 

(Nothing official, I just invented it, let them know...)"

Pride events have grown to become truly inclusive festivals in lots of cities around the world. Far from the few participants in the first gay rights demonstrations of the seventies we now have festivals that number hundreds of thousand, if not millions of attendees (Cologne Pride 2023 had  1.2 million people participating).

And large companies never sleep, when there are large numbers of people involved. DHL partnered with Deutsche Post for the 2004 event and on its first day, 19JUL2024, a set of three stamps (all equal, with three different denominations (0.70; 0.85 and 0.95 €) was issued, the stamps being illustrated with the New Progress Pride Flag.

I confess I was confused by the flag, because I was used to the rainbow flag, so I had to look it up and here's the explanation I found on Volvo's website (I told you, large companies never sleep....)

"New Progress Pride Flag

Given the evolving nature of the LGBTQ+ community and society at large, the Progress Pride Flag integrates many of these flags into one. Thankfully, it has been redesigned to place a greater emphasis on “inclusion and progression.” Our community is such a huge umbrella of different kind of people and that is what makes us so special, that is what makes us so unique and that is what makes us so powerful.

The modern pride flag now includes stripes to represent the experiences of people of color, as well as stripes to represent people who identify as transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC) and/or undefined.

Daniel Quasar’s flag includes the colors of the trans flag, as well as black and brown stripes harkening back to 2017 Philadelphia Pride Flag, which sought to further represent the queer and trans identities of black and brown people. Those two stripes also represent those living with HIV/AIDS, people who have passed from the virus and the overall stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS that remains today.

In 2021, the Progress Pride Flag was revised by Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK to incorporate the intersex flag. In the new design, the chevron of the Progress Flag includes a yellow triangle with a purple circle in the middle."

Source: https://www.volvogroup.com/en/news-and-media/news/2021/jun/lgbtq-pride-flags-and-what-they-stand-for.html

The first day Postmark, applied in Cologne, is illustrated with the logos of Deutsche Post and DHL.