- There is nothing to cope with for me. I did not live it and did not participate in anything that happened "65 years ago". No, I take that back: I cope with the fact that Germans have not been allowed to be patriotic in the least bit, and I have to be so careful with what I say, lest I be called a Nazi or worse. I avoid Bavaria because that sort of thinking, this extreme nationalism, disgusts me, but I am proud of who I am and that I am German.
- I would imagine that any sort of nationalism reflects badly throughout surrounding areas, and that you are expected to apologise for things beyond your control.
- Exactly. This is something that is unique to the German experience, and to be honest we really don´t verbalise this much amongst friends because we all feel it. No need to pour salt in the wound, or to kick the dead pig or whatever you say. But if we say anything to the Turks, like if we don´t respect something they are doing and we say something about it, they call us Nazis, and that´s something we want to avoid obviously. But this is why the World Cup was so important to me, because it seems now it is alright to wave a German flag or to express pride in ourselves as people, or in our government or how we live, and I think it was very instrumental in changing the way the world sees us. It gives me goosebumps talking about such things.
- Well, one thing I can say is that, at least among people who pay attention to what is going on in the world and foreign relations and these types of things, Germany seems to have taken the right approach in integrating Jews and other minorities back into the fold.
- Yes, and the turnaround was relatively quick when you look at it from a wider perspective. I ask, what have the Americans done to atone for their years of atrocities, with the Indians and slaves in their own country and the amount of lives they have ruined in so many countries in the world? How do you cope with this?
- By distancing ourselves from our government and the ruling class. The American government, as opposed to yours, has done very little in terms of making up with the oppressed, if that´s the right word to use. You know, we actually have a holiday still to celebrate Christopher Columbus??
- I know, I couldn´t believe it when I found out about that!
- And certian things, like being able to read his personal diary, these things are so easily available for the public to access and yet so many people either don´t know the real story or they choose to ignore it and blame it on the "self-hating" ways of the "far left". You can open up his diary and he makes fun of the Indians, he writes something to the effect of, ´Well, it´s funny because they have no idea we will soon be raping all the women and stealing their gold and burning all their houses down´.
- Our situation is unique, but in certain ways it´s not, in that people now and before have always been easily led to believe such ridiculous things. It happened here, it´s happening in America now. They label everybody terrorists and they bomb countries because they say they want to spread democracy, and everybody knows that democracy has nothing to do with it. I just don´t understand how so many people are so easily misled.
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1 comments:
Wow!
-steve
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