We hope you like Germans,
We hope you like Germans,
We hope you like Germans toooooooooo
4.21.2006
4.21 - Today's mission: to recruit several dreadlocked Germans (of which there is a seemingly infinite supply), wrestle up some lederhosen and big fluffy St. Pauli Girl style dresses, and use Nick's video camera to record them singing 'We're German' to the tune of Bob Marley's Jammin'. We shall then offer said video to the German government's office of tourism so as it might be used as a statement of this nation's hospitality to visitors and countrypersons alike. We will only ask a nominal fee. You know, for the effort.
We hope you like Germans,
We hope you like Germans,
We hope you like Germans toooooooooo
We hope you like Germans,
We hope you like Germans,
We hope you like Germans toooooooooo
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4 comments:
I heard that in German history books, all the pages from 1939 to 1945 have been whited out, and big yellow smiley faces have been drawn there instead. Is this true?
guezwho, you are not truly opening yourself to the message of the song. german is not a thing of the past. we hope it's going to last.
men in lederhosen and women in beer gowns linking arms, they help us to connect with that little part in all of us that is german, to read the horrible history books, and smile nonetheless. because of jah. jah my friend.
on another note, there is an interesting generational discrepency around the years you mention. those among the older generation, who were alive then, seem more inclined to forget this past, as the memories are still quite difficult. yet many of the younger generation seem to be more actively exploring the ideas of that era, how they gained came to power, and effected the violence that they did.
all joking aside, there is something about having to reflectively face up to your own incredible destructive potential (evil, if you will) that i think can be quite humbling. confronting this potential, as the german culture has been doing for the last half century, can make you more open and tolerant. it makes it more difficult to simply dismiss other people, their actions or ideas, as irrational, insane, or evil. (hint: you haven't seen many german chancellors of late going around making speeches about 'axes of evil') instead, you might try to understand where they come from, and how they gain currency.
>>as the german culture has been doing for the last half century, can make you more open and tolerant.
and yet Germany has the strictest laws against neo-Nazi and fascist speech of any culture outside of China or North Korea (if they even have such people in North Korea)
>>(hint: you haven't seen many german chancellors of late going around making speeches about 'axes of evil')
and yet the current democratically elected German chancellor has compared the Iranians, or Ahmadinejad at least, to the Nazis which I think in Germany is something worse than labeling someone simply evil.
mom, i just meant that the german people and culture after world war II have been forced to reflect upon the horrible atrocities in which they were involved. facing such evil within themselves has, in some ways i think, made them a more open society now. for america, wwII is still the good war, we were the good guys. i dont think that culturally we've ever really reflected very much about the atrocities that we committed. to us dresden, hiroshima, and nagasaki were all necessary parts of our fighting against the forces of evil. they weren't evil acts themselves. we weren't evil. we lost in vietnam, but we were fighting against the evils of communism. saddam, osama, kim jong il. evil, evil, evil. there's something about the nazi regime, about the way that we as americans understand evil, that allows us to distance it from ourselves, to see it in other people, cultures, leaders, etc. but never in ourselves. such distance allows us to continue justifying american militarization, and military deployment. with only the best intentions. down the road to hell...
in regard to your point john, i haven't been in germany long enough, nor do i know enough about its culture to give too much weight to my generalizations. there is certainly a part of german culture that does not really wish to examine its own past evils, and that remains incredibly sensitive to them. the laws against anti-fascist speech are a good example (and perhaps a dangerous one for the maintainance of democracy), i think, of such sensitivity. but i think that most cultures have such taboos, and particular gray areas around the ideal of freedom of speech. that doesn't justify them though.
like i said above, i do think that demystifying the nazis, personifying them, rather than making them into 'the face of evil' is an important part of understanding what allowed them to come to power, and to do the things that they did. yet the comparison of a particular politician, or a culture to hitler or the nazis is generally not very useful. it's most often an appeal to the particular emotions that such images conjure up rather than a thoughtful comparison of specific ideologies or patterns of behavior. i dont know the particular context of the chancellor's comment RE: Iran, but i imagine it was probably pretty similar.
ollie, the immigration point is a good one. it's certainly a very complicated and important issue throughout europe right now. german immigration and naturalization laws have historically been pretty strict. they're opening up a bit now, i'm told, but becoming a german citizen is still quite difficult. though i still think there are a lot of problems in america around these issues, whether lingering unaddressed aspects of slavery, or some of our current immigration issues, i think this is an area where america seems to be pretty well off. we've always been a pretty multicultural society, so maybe there's less of a push to essentialize 'an american identity' then there has been in france or germany or some other european countries.
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