I am so done with this topic
I just stumbled across an article in Foreign Policy about Germany and immigration: Germany's Age of Anxiety by Roger Boyes.
I think I have to scream now.
Indeed, Germany has little tradition as a welcoming home for immigrants. With no significant colonies, it had no tradition of assimilating foreigners. For 12 intense years in the middle of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich made a murderous ideology out of hostility to foreigners.
...
*points, splutters*
What?
No, really, what is this shit?
1) So how come many Germans I know have non-German ancestry? And I am not talking recent immigrants or children of recent immigrants. Many people in my neck of the woods have French Huguenot, Polish or other Eastern European ancestry. My family's roots probably lay in Hungary somewhere. The Brandenburg poet par excellence, Theodor Fontane, had French Huguenot ancestry. Thilo Sarrazin, who is currently trying to save Germany from the "genetically inferior" Muslim immigrants has French Huguenot ancestry himself, for heaven's sake. How come Potsdam has a Dutch quarter? What about the Edict of Potsdam? How do you explain German politicians like Lafontaine or de Maizière? What about the Sorbs? How about immigration from outside of Europe? Meet the German Romani who've been here since the late middle ages.
I wish that meme would die already. No immigrant tradition, my ass.
2) Really, dear author? You're following the Nazis' ethnocentric line of thought and declaring the persecuted and murdered German Jews and Romani foreigners? Are the socialist and communist Germans they put in camps still Germans? What about the homosexual or disabled ones? They foreigners, too? The Nazis hated foreigners, alright, but they started at home, you ignorant asshole. The first concentration camp was build in Bavaria.
Fuck that noise.
ETA. The charming author writes a column in Der Tagespiegel. This [German article] is what he has to say about Sarrazin. No further questions. Seriously, do not read what that man has to say. o_O
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. | Comments so far:
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I think I have to scream now.
Indeed, Germany has little tradition as a welcoming home for immigrants. With no significant colonies, it had no tradition of assimilating foreigners. For 12 intense years in the middle of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich made a murderous ideology out of hostility to foreigners.
...
*points, splutters*
What?
No, really, what is this shit?
1) So how come many Germans I know have non-German ancestry? And I am not talking recent immigrants or children of recent immigrants. Many people in my neck of the woods have French Huguenot, Polish or other Eastern European ancestry. My family's roots probably lay in Hungary somewhere. The Brandenburg poet par excellence, Theodor Fontane, had French Huguenot ancestry. Thilo Sarrazin, who is currently trying to save Germany from the "genetically inferior" Muslim immigrants has French Huguenot ancestry himself, for heaven's sake. How come Potsdam has a Dutch quarter? What about the Edict of Potsdam? How do you explain German politicians like Lafontaine or de Maizière? What about the Sorbs? How about immigration from outside of Europe? Meet the German Romani who've been here since the late middle ages.
I wish that meme would die already. No immigrant tradition, my ass.
2) Really, dear author? You're following the Nazis' ethnocentric line of thought and declaring the persecuted and murdered German Jews and Romani foreigners? Are the socialist and communist Germans they put in camps still Germans? What about the homosexual or disabled ones? They foreigners, too? The Nazis hated foreigners, alright, but they started at home, you ignorant asshole. The first concentration camp was build in Bavaria.
Fuck that noise.
ETA. The charming author writes a column in Der Tagespiegel. This [German article] is what he has to say about Sarrazin. No further questions. Seriously, do not read what that man has to say. o_O
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. | Comments so far:
| You can use OpenID to comment on Dreamwidth. |