http://www.spaceandculture.org/2006/01/31/thoughts-on-nationalism/ Welcome to Space and Culture - the international journal and weblog dedicated to social spaces of all kinds. Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:07:05 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.spaceandculture.org/2006/01/31/thoughts-on-nationalism/comment-page-1/#comment-79 mo Tue, 28 Feb 2006 00:19:00 +0000 http://www.spaceandculture.org/?p=413#comment-79 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.. 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..

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