Football does the trick for Merkel…
Of late, the Germans are a happy lot. Yeah, they are happy in spite of their World Cup semifinal loss to Italy. There is this newfound love for their country and for once, they aren’t ashamed of waving the Black-Red-Yellow stripes. Their sense of guilt, which seemed to be eternal, following the Nazi sponsored genocide in the first half of the 20th century has finally been overridden by their love and support for their football team. So this World Cup in Germany has achieved, what even the Holy See Elections of last year failed to fulfill. Following the election of Joseph Ratzinger as the Pope last year after the demise of Pope John Paul II, the German President Horst Koehler said – “We are not particularly overjoyed with his election. After all we have been home to the most horrific and atrocious acts of the 20th century and it will take a long time for those wounds to heal.”
That means Michael Ballack, Jurgen Klinsmann and Franz Beckenbauer are the saviors of German Pride because they have aroused the national spirit that had died along with The Fuhrer. The cicatrix of having killed more than 10m innocent people has vanished almost suddenly and it is now a thing of the past. Don’t you think this argument is ludicrous and borders on the extremes of ridiculousness?
Why cant the Germans take inspiration from pre-Nazi history? Why can’t they treat the Nazi era as an aberration in an otherwise rich history and culture? True, there is no bigger mistake than to exterminate a racial or religious group. But post 1945, the right way to go about it would have been to shrug away the happenings of the Hitler era and move towards the future, taking inspiration from the past. But that unfortunately hasn’t to be.
There have been enough personalities in the past who have made Germany proud. Even before the Industrial revolution in Europe, Beethoven made waves with his music. Around the same time, Karl Marx founded his economic and political philosophy that would give the world a new jargon called Communism. Germany’s contribution to Science has been priceless – Kepler, Daimler, Gauss, Hertz, Helmholtz, Otto Hahn, Diesel, Kirchoff, Planck, Ohm et al. Now you know why almost every SI or FPS or CGS unit was the name of a German Scientist.
If this was not enough, the greatest human mind of all time – Albert Einstein – was a German.
If we assumed that only sport brought Germans together, then why wouldn’t the magic work when Boris Becker became the youngest Wimbledon champion. One may counter saying that Germany wasn’t unified then. But didn’t Steffi Graf emerge victorious Grand Slam after Grand Slam and Michael Schumacher win race after race, long after the Berlin wall was brought down? Why didn’t Oliver Kahn winning the Golden Ball award and Germany finishing second best at the FIFA World Cup 2002 imbibe patriotism in the German public? After all, being in the final brings a special feeling that can’t be felt participating in a third place playoff, even if you are the host.
Whatever the reasons for this newfound nationalistic feeling, Angela Merkel wouldn’t complain as long as the public gives her a high approval rate, as they have been for the last few months. And surely, she will be mighty pleased that her people have at last learnt their National Anthem.
That means Michael Ballack, Jurgen Klinsmann and Franz Beckenbauer are the saviors of German Pride because they have aroused the national spirit that had died along with The Fuhrer. The cicatrix of having killed more than 10m innocent people has vanished almost suddenly and it is now a thing of the past. Don’t you think this argument is ludicrous and borders on the extremes of ridiculousness?
Why cant the Germans take inspiration from pre-Nazi history? Why can’t they treat the Nazi era as an aberration in an otherwise rich history and culture? True, there is no bigger mistake than to exterminate a racial or religious group. But post 1945, the right way to go about it would have been to shrug away the happenings of the Hitler era and move towards the future, taking inspiration from the past. But that unfortunately hasn’t to be.
There have been enough personalities in the past who have made Germany proud. Even before the Industrial revolution in Europe, Beethoven made waves with his music. Around the same time, Karl Marx founded his economic and political philosophy that would give the world a new jargon called Communism. Germany’s contribution to Science has been priceless – Kepler, Daimler, Gauss, Hertz, Helmholtz, Otto Hahn, Diesel, Kirchoff, Planck, Ohm et al. Now you know why almost every SI or FPS or CGS unit was the name of a German Scientist.
If this was not enough, the greatest human mind of all time – Albert Einstein – was a German.
If we assumed that only sport brought Germans together, then why wouldn’t the magic work when Boris Becker became the youngest Wimbledon champion. One may counter saying that Germany wasn’t unified then. But didn’t Steffi Graf emerge victorious Grand Slam after Grand Slam and Michael Schumacher win race after race, long after the Berlin wall was brought down? Why didn’t Oliver Kahn winning the Golden Ball award and Germany finishing second best at the FIFA World Cup 2002 imbibe patriotism in the German public? After all, being in the final brings a special feeling that can’t be felt participating in a third place playoff, even if you are the host.
Whatever the reasons for this newfound nationalistic feeling, Angela Merkel wouldn’t complain as long as the public gives her a high approval rate, as they have been for the last few months. And surely, she will be mighty pleased that her people have at last learnt their National Anthem.
posted by VAC | 5:15 AM
7 Comments:
hey vac,
i find this post to be a bit flawed though quite informative coz
1) it's mentioned that the germans are now experiencing a renewal of patriotic fervour after the world war. but, u've cited pre-war examples and asked why this is not enough to make a german proud of himself...
2) the post says if sports is the reason for the current bonhomie, why now and not during the days of becker n graf.. it's pretty much straightforward that it's because of the simple fact of football being a team game (remember, leander paes or an anand never has and never will evoke the collectivist sentiment of the indian public the same way our cricket or even our hockey team does). one might argue then why there was no such nationalistic bonding when the german team reached the finals in 2006. in my opinion, this must be attributed to them being hosts now. remember, argentina in 1978...
3) and hey, am not sure if the germans lack of spirit so far has been due to the memories and shame of the hitler era. i have read somewhere that the west germans were pretty much proud of themselves in the 70s and 80s with a lot of the technological breakthroughs particularly in the fields od automobiles, engineering and medicine.. not too sure about this, though..
4) and lastly, one has to wait and watch how long the new found fervour lasts.. let's not jump to conclusions like the newspaper people...
was just looking for an opportunity to make a critique of a blog..
hmmm... good analysis of why germans never feel comfortable abt themselves... my view is this:
after SWW, with the partition and demilitarization of germany, germany no longer remained an actual nation... it was the symbol of victory of the allies over the axis powers... a land which had experienced and witnessed the rise, the fall of a maniac, the death of the old order of colonies and the begining of what we call today internationalism... germany was a "project" undertaken by the US and the Soviets, a vast experimental land, a new found nascent and fragile country where the 2 world powers with 2 different princples of existence had the oppurrtunity to exercise control and rebuild a nation on their terms just of the sake of convincing their own people and the rest of the world that their ways are correct and the other side is evil. 3 zones controlled by US, Britan and France followed the old capitalist ways while the huge eastern front controlled by USSR was consumed by the marxist ideals. after about some 5 years of foreign occupation the three western zones formed FRG and GDR became one of the many satellites of the soviets. the wall thru berlin literally divided the world into 2 halves which were hostile. Germany was now an "international" country with no specific identity of its own. and any attempts by its citizens to find an identity was viewed with suspicion and fear. its amazing what one psychopath can do to the minds of a whole country for 7 long decades! only after the fall of communists did people dare to speak out of what their tutors from US and Soviets taught them. and that was the first few steps toward neo nationalism... and i agree with vivek abt why non teams sport like F1 cannot move a nation...
... and btw, how could forget the iron man of germany in ur list of the greats- Bismark??? he is an instance about whom the germans can be proud of as a person of military might who united germany and aroused nationalist feelings while not being a psycho!!!
@Vivek:Man, thanks for ur interest and ur views on my blog. Keep them coming da. Btw I will give my side of the story for each of the points u have raised.
1) I have heard this saying - "It is a much more formidable and difficult task to relate a historical tragedy than to take part in it". But by relating themselves to those war time tragedies, Germans are doing no good to themselves. Why look at the recent past alone and hang ur head in shame. Look at the not-so-recent past and try to learn that your country has been the leading light in many diverse fields.
Arthur Schlesinger once said, "The use of history as therapy means the corruption of history as history". But I beg to differ because, when history is causing so much pain and anguish for u, why not look at distant past and derive some consolation from it.
2) Its true that an Individual sport can't arouse the national sentiment in the same way a team game does. But in Germany's case, the complicated history of the two Germanies is one of the reasons for the people failing to identify themselves with these sorting stalwarts. In any case, I wud treat those individual glories as missed chances at rejuvenating the whole country that was tore into two for 45 long years.
3) The Germans were indeed ashamed of being born in the same land that had seen several million killings in the ghettos, concentration camps and extermination camps. You can feel bad when one of ur past rulers treats Jews, Homos and Disabled as below-par humans and kills them. But for how long? 70 years?? Thats a bit too much.
Even India witnessed carnage during partition. The Noakhali riots, then the Sikh killings in the 1980s, Bombay riots of '93 and the Gujarat Pogrom of 2002. Though the extent of damage is incomparable to the Nazi holocaust, each one of us felt bad and sympathized with the victims and did our bit to help bring things in order.
Did we ever denounce our country and show disrespect for our motherland? Was anybody ashamed of raising the Indian Flag? Did you stop singing "Jana Gana Mana"? Though, during Gujarat 2002, some Muslims, both victims and otherwise, joined LeT and other terrorist organisations, largely people remained Indians at heart.
4) Only a German can answer this!!
@Mars: You have pretty much summarized the history of Germany . You are right, i missed out Otto Van Bismarck. He did something that previous rulers couldnt do for more than a thousand years - unify Germany. And he did it without imperialistic ambitions. A stark contrast with Hitler.
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