German society (was: AW: [thechat] King Preaches Abstinence to Parading Maidens)

[Eike Pierstorff]

> Let me tell you a stunning fact.
> "Syed" is my family name. All Syeds are the descendants of the Prophet

I will need some time to read this carefully... I hope you'll be alright,
though.

> > If I need to explain anything, please let me
> > know.
>
> What do you think, which factor has enhanced the racism in Germany?

Rascism has not so much been enhanced as been brought back to the surface.
After all, most of the "founding fathers" of the Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG) have been members of a racist regime - former President Lübke built
the Concentration Camp of Dachau and the Death Camp of Dora-Mittelbau,
German Secret Service was set up by former Gestapo-Chief Gehlen, the most
influential commentator of the German "Grundgesetz" (constitution) was
Theodor Maunz, who should be better known for his work in the "Nürnberger
Gesetze" (the racist Nazi law) etc cetera. So racist politics always had a
stronghold in the FRG. As far as the population is concernced, there have
been only most feeble attempts to supress nazism and racism.

I don't want to say that Germany is a national-socialist country again (in
fact, it's far from it. FRG is a somewhat flawed democracy). But some of the
ideas (which, in fact, hadn't been invented by the Nazis but have been
around for some time) survived.

Germans (by that word, I don't mean all people that live in Germany; I'm
talking about the people   who take their pride from being german) are
convinced that their are in many ways superior to others, but that they are
denied from what by right is theirs by envious neighbours - colonies (in the
1870s) nuclear weapons (in the 1950s) world wide political influence (now).

One of the problems seems to be that Germany is quite a young country. Ideas
of a united Germany had been around for centurys, but the first german
nation that deserved that name was founded in 1871 after the war against
France. Not only that, but the process of becoming a Nation has been stopped
twice - the first time after Germany lost in the first World War, the second
time after the fall of the "Third Reich" - and this time is was stopped
until the early nineteen-ninties, since Germany de iure wasn't a sovereign
country until the 2+4 treaties where signed. So, the FRG  is still in the
process of nation-building. Since there is no viable definition of what
"Nation" really means, one starts by exclusion and negation - defining what
isn't part of it, so what remains is indeed your "nation".

The fact that Germany is caught in a recession makes it easy to appeal to
wide spread prejudice. Foreigners are constantly defined as a threat -
"taking away jobs frim the germans" (Chancellor SChröder et al), "arab drug
dealers" (current home secretary Otto Schily), "threat to the purity of our
race"  (Edmund Stoiber, who is running for chancellor in the upcoming
elections), "muslims who want to destroy our social security system by
getting too many children" (party leader Frey), "rats" (would-be state
secretary Schönbohm), "blackmailing jews who just want to get german money"
(more or less everybody). Many of the accused turks, jews, arabs, muslims,
blacks etc are not even 'foreigners' (but german citizens) but the word is
used in a strictly racist sense - somebody without "german blood".

>General perception in Muslim world is that the attacks of Sep-11 have
created a
>strong racial discriminated oppression for Muslims in Europe and USA.

One of the strange 'features' in german racism is that racists get along
quite well with the "inferior races", povided they "stay where they belong".
German government is disinclined towards a war against Saddam Hussein for
the simple reason that Germany is of of the biggest trade partners with
Husseins regime. Also some islamic radicals are on good terms with german
right-wing racist organsation, since they share anti-semitism and
anti-americanism (USA are often accused of "cultural imperialism" which is
bound to destroy german culture). Apart from that, you're right.

Active racists are (at the moment) a minority in Germany. Still they are
quite influential, since hardly anybody opposses them. And to vote for any
of the political parties on Sept.22 means to support racist measures, since
all parties from conservatives to socialist share the view that "germany
should belong to the germans". Depressing, really.

-- eike