I tried to write an essay four years ago, over my impression of Germans and racism. A number of folks felt I was too harsh on the Germans and racism simply didn't exist in Germany. I came to have some doubts, and on that rare occasion....dumped the essay after a week or two.
Over the past two weeks of watching this Mesut Özil soccer episode unfold, I've picked back up this racism thing, and will write my view of this German issue.
Germany, as a group, a country, and a people.....didn't really come into being until you get to the 1830-to-1870 era. Pull up a map of 1800's 'Germania' and it consisted of 200 city-states, empires, kingdoms, and lands.
If you were looking for multicultural tendencies, it's hard to find any group that came in to claim asylum or immigration and got readily accepted until the 1950s came along with the 'guest-workers' (first, Italy.....than later the Greeks and Yugoslavs, and then came the Turks).
The Jews? They weren't exactly an original tribal unit in Germany, and were introduced during the Roman era. They came as traders and their bad-luck moment came up with the Roman era ending and the Catholic Church era beginning. As the Catholic vision got laid out.....to pay taxes, it was simply morally wrong for Christians to loan money to neighbors with money-conditions attached. Course, it was perfectly ok to borrow money (with money-conditions) from Jews. Various Germans fell through on their loans, the Jewish money-crews confiscated what was promised, and their negativity with the public feel apart because of that moral vision. Nothing much recovered after that moment of early German history.
Acceptance of Turks? In the 1960s, Turks arrived to find a pretty decent wage situation, and gravitated to the cheaper apartments. The older areas of metropolitan areas got labeled as 'ghetto-like'. Maybe it wasn't a fair deal but it stuck.
In the old East Germany.....guest-workers came from Vietnam and Mozambique. Same story.
If you were around Frankfurt in the 1980s, you kinda noticed more Africans showing up, and Germans weren't that happy or thrilled over their arrival.
The folks who don't really get on the German racism list? Nordic country folks....like Swedes or Icelanders? No. French or Spanish folks? No. The Dutch? No. The Swiss or Austrians? No.
So you get to Poles. To a point or two, they get on the list....mostly for coming in and working jobs at lower rates. Poles aren't stupid....there's plenty of job opportunities, and they are just happy to get their foot in the front door.
Russians? Germans seem to be split here. You have some Germans who seem to want to hug every Russian they bump into. Then you have some Germans who remember WW II, and family members they lost because of the Russians. Most Germans dislike Putin, but if you ask why.....they gave the standard ARD or ZDF (public TV media) explanation....he's a dictator (beyond that, little else).
Up until 2013, most Germans had never met a Syrian or Iraqi in their life. They could speak to the location, and the 'dictator-status' that they heard about via public TV news.
Americans? One might laugh but we tend to get on the racism list these days, if there's any discussion going on about Trump or tariffs.
To say that it's about skin color only? No.....that framing of racism no longer works. You have to include nationality, religion, political stances, and current news of the day given to folks by public TV.
So to this soccer story. One single photo....with this player standing with Turkey's Erdogan, has set off this whole discussion of racism. The German soccer league? They basically stepped into a fairly big-size cow-patty, and in the public arena.....they look stupid. Politicians are wearily of talking over this because it all leads back to Erdogan, who they all dislike.
A long period public forums over this topic? In about three weeks....the summer vacation periods ends in Germany, and I expect a whole month of racism chatter on public forums. Whether this achieves much of anything? No, I'd generally say it does very little. But it's better than discussing the pension program which can't be fixed, or the anger over TV taxes which can't be fixed, or the approaching global warming business which can't be resolved.
4 comments:
I tried to write an essay four years ago... I came to have some doubts, and on that rare occasion....dumped the essay after a week or two
You mean this one? (http://schnitzelrepublic.blogspot.com/2013/02/this-question-over-racism.html) I tried to use your blog's search feature and couldn't find that article, so I used Google to search for it. When I clicked on the link, it said it was gone. Judging from the URL, it was published sometime in February 2013, so I'd say five years.
The folks who don't really get on the German racism list? Nordic country folks....like Swedes or Icelanders? No. French or Spanish folks? No. The Dutch? No. The Swiss or Austrians? No.
I can understand why some of them aren't on the list. Last time I checked, Scandinavians (save for Finns obviously), Dutch, (German-speaking) Swiss, Austrians and Anglo-Saxons (this means Britons, Americans and Australians) are also of Germanic origin, so it wouldn't make much sense for a native German to be racist against any of those peoples unless motivated by self-hatred. Unless you're talking about xenophobia, which is a different matter.
Not sure about the Spaniards, though. Was there as much criticism dished out on them as was on the Greeks during the financial crisis?
P.S. Is there any other way of contacting you besides using the comments section? Thanks.
Xenophobia is a contrived mechanism and often has severe limitations. It would normally mean hating all things foreign, but you might only dislike one single group, while accepting 90-percent of other foreigners.
The Greek issue goes to extremes. Once the EU figured out that the 'books' were all faked for entry into the EU and getting into the Euro....that reshaped the German perception big-time. Then the realization of Germany loans having to be created just went to the next level. Then the Germans wanted to dictate conditions, which infuriated the Greeks. Sothe Greeks pulled out the Nazi card and things went badly for several weeks. The stupid thing is that Germans went negative about the Nazi accusations and that spoiled to some degree that year....German tourism into Greece (when they needed the money more than ever). Things have recovered to some degree, and the negativity about the Greeks rarely ever mentioned (the Turks emerged into the picture).
My question was not about Greece. It was about Spain. The question was, what were German opinions on Spaniards during the financial crisis, and were they were any better or worse than were opinions on Greeks?
The Spanish economic crisis (2008 to present day) has been an EU, ECB, and IMF issue....without much German involvement. I think the loan guarantees end up near 100-billion Euro. Other than getting on front-page coverage, I don't think the Germans did much criticism over how Spain got so deep into trouble. From what I remember...most of their issue led back to a construction boom and heavy speculation investments into the construction projects.
Unlike the Greek situation, where for decades...people avoided paying taxes, and the gov't borrowed money to fund their 'gifts' back to the public. The Germans couldn't help but offer their standard criticism, with a bit 'extra'.
It would be hard to find negativity about Spain via Germans. A lot of Germans will go there on vacation twenty to thirty times in their lifetime. A fair number of upscale Germans buy property there.
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