In class yesterday, while we discussed the possibility of global citizenship, I was again struck by how difficult it is to talk about the benefits of nationalism without conjuring the nightmares of fascism.
I thought about Germany slowly suffocating under the weight of guilt and remorse.
“A week before today’s 61st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, Landeszeitung Lüneburg, a national newspaper in Germany, ran an article about the deportation of a Sinti boy from Lüneburg to Auschwitz. The article was accompanied by a large red ad from one of the biggest energy companies in Germany bearing the tagline (roughly translated): ‘E.ON provides today for the gas of tomorrow!‘ The paper later published an apology to the author, readers, and energy company for the ad placement, claiming they had not checked the content of the ad.”
And I thought about how national identities both struggle with and against time.
“For weeks now [in France], groups associated with the far-right organization Bloc Identitaire have been handing out soup — which they are calling ‘identity soup‘ — to the homeless across the country and in neighboring Belgium. But rather than altruistic charity, critics see blatant racism. Muslims and Jews are forbidden by their religions from eating pork — and excluding these groups, say many, is exactly the point of the handouts…Those offering up the swine swill — who say they are not connected to the far-right National Front party — deny that their charity is in any way racist or discriminatory. Pork soup, they say, is firmly rooted in traditional French cuisine and that they wouldn’t refuse service to hungry Muslims or Jews. ‘With pork in the soup, we return to our origins, our identity,’ Roger Bonnivard, head of homeless-support group Solidarity of the French and pork soup chef, told the Associated Press. ‘On every farm, you kill a pig and make a soup…. The pig is the food of our ancestors’.” (via)
One Comment
Basically my comment (sorry for being late) mainly concerns the first part of the post about ‘germans suffocating under the weight of guilt and remorse’ .. and still (as being german) I want to disagree here. True is for sure that concerns on nationalism in general and everything concerning the Nazi period still is to be considered as very sensitive. I recall this ad, but I think the context is a little bit more complex as by the placement of an ad of a bigger company the involvement of major german companies into Nazi and war activities (up to producing the concentration camp gas) touches real problematic fields concerning their wins (and again being around after the war and today’s society), forced laborers (with still difficulties in compensation acts – see here also concerns and controversy about the Flick collection for the Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin / http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3680302.stm) and also reminds to societal developments after the IIWW. In this respect I think the sensitivity more appropriate than suffocating, as it also recalls development of the 60s and 70s of a society with a tendency to just continue without much acknowledgement leading to student protest, RAF ..etc On the other side I can agree on some paralysing forces in this sensitivity, when for example criticising Israel politics still is difficult to place without being considered as anti-Semitic. For sure there is a general problematic in this point which has a steady influence on the situation here, but would conclude that I prefer sensitivity as a reminder to what has happened and preventer for future times – rather than to listen to also existing voices who just want to forget …now …. as time passed .. etc..