Allgemein

Oh Gino, Oh Gino Ginelli

Oh Gino, Oh Gino Ginelli
Yesterday, a friend reminded me of what name Stefano Stefani reminded me of – a popular Italian Ice cream advertising character from the late 1980s, Gino Ginelli.
As for Stefani, he has been signalled by someone important to take a longer vacation. He supposedly resigned a few minutes ago. Apparently his apology did not please his master, even though it is indeed funny – but I understand that Mr Berlusconi is a bit more careful now with his laughs ;). That’s what Stefani said earlier today, according to MSNBC
”I’m sorry,” Stefani said in a statement to be published in the newspaper on Saturday. ”I love Germany. If my words caused a misunderstanding for many Germans I would like to say here that I am very sorry.” Stefani added that Germans ”are always welcome in Italy” and that they are ”exemplary neighbours and reliable friends.” He said his earlier criticism had been misunderstood and he was only trying to defend Italy against those who had attacked it. Stefani, responsible for tourism, told a newspaper last week Germans had been ”indoctrinated from the beginning to feel top of the class whatever the situation.” He also said Germans ”loudly invaded” Italian beaches and called them arrogant beer guzzlers who hold ”noisy burping contests.” He had until Friday refused to apologise for the remarks. ”
Hilarious. Bild is certainly not too happy about the sudden end to this affair. Now that they actually planned a German invasion of Italian beaches…
Done and over with. But before we really forget about this nonsense, let me tell you about a really funny link that Lillimarleen found. It confirms all your steretypes about Italy and is nonhteless funny… in a stereotypical kind of way ;).

Standard
almost a diary, cinema, filme

A Movie, With Me.

It might come as a shock to you, my gentle readers, but from time to time I do act in student short films. And as this week saw the premieres of two more recent productions, I thought to myself ‘why not experiment with streaming media and put an older one on the web?’
And so I did. Clicking on the image below takes you to a realmedia-encoded version of a largely improvised short film by Sebastian Linke called “49 degrees”, shot in English for and shown at the Hamburg International Film Festival in June 2002. The film was part of the category “thee minute quickie”. A category named after the length of the films shown rather than their content… As for the content, the theme the “quickies” had to deal with in 2002 was “thirst”.
For those who can’t remember what I look like – or have never seen me -, I am “Robbespierre aka the guy who doesn’t drink” ;).
Enjoy.

49 degrees

Standard
Allgemein

Naumann on Ze Tschermans

Michael Naumann, editor of Die Zeit is pondering in the leader of this week’s Die Zeit about stereotyping Tschermans as blonde beasts, Kraut bashing and the historical hand “we” have been dealt.

He’s basically writing about the same I wrote about in my Kraut bashing comment from January, re-posted below. But his perspective is rather different. I suppose that must be a consequence of his age, and, in return, the age of the people he interacts with.

It’s not his best article, top be honest. Naumann thinks that the Berlusconi remark is a useful indicator for the state of Europe and the way people think of Germany, and the Germans.

Such a statement could not be further from the truth. To understand this, it actually helps to read Mr Boyles review of last week’s European press I linked to below. No one thought that Berlusconi just called the Germans by their real name, and only a handful thought Berlusconi was even slightly funny, even in Italy.

Standard
media, oddly enough, US Politics

Shorter Denis Boyles.

Denis Boyles over at the National Review Online reviews last week’s European Press for the literate American conservative. Here’s a summary :

“Germans are sissies for not agreeing with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that calling the “annoying socialist” Martin Schulz a Nazi is indeed really funny. Why? Germany is Unpatriotic/ Antiamerican/ LEFT/ EVIL to its core as it was against the war in Iraq. And Silvio Berlusconi was for the war (boy did we kick Saddam’s ass!). And he’s also rich, powerful, and never has to actually pay for the illegal stuff he did, aka self-made, which is really cool in my book. But those sissies on the European LEFT/EVIL, just can’t see clearly. They’re always lamenting about justice (bleah). Europe needs more RIGHT people like Mr Berlusconi. Disclaimer: Beware – Europe is in the hands of THE EVIL/THE LEFT! Ceterum censeo THE LEFT/THE EVIL should be destroyed.”

Standard
Allgemein

Kraut Bashing Re-Post.

I don’t know why, but I am getting quite a few google hits of people looking for “Kraut bashing” today.

Could be related to the Stefano Stefani story, or to the rebranding Germany campaign that has been started in the UK last week. The BBC has written a little about it.

I know that blogspot archives can be moody, so I decided to repost my personal “Kraut bashing” contribution from January 6.

Kraut-bashing. Some personal context.

Kraut-bashing is *so* passé. That is at least what the British comedian Frank Skinner tried to tell his countrymen when he publicized his support for the German team before last year’s World Cup final. His arguments have been summarised and endorsed by the BBC but as the article tells us, there was not just enthusiastic support for his stance. The Sun subsequently called Skinner “Franz” and digi-dressed him wearing lederhosen – they had gone Brazil nuts!

No one should have been surprised by this display of journalistic creativity. Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids as well as all other specimen of British quality publishing like to spice up dull English headlines with some Tscherman words from time to time. And it is certainly true that a vicious circle of linguistic militarism is fueled by them as well as by those English fans whose choice of words demonstrates that football can be so much more than just a game whenever a match between the old Germanic rivals looms on the playground. Their strange confusion of war and sports is very visible on the famous 1918-1945-1966-T-shirts.

But I suppose to some, T-Shirts and Blitzkrieg-laden headlines are only side effects, as Der Spiegel’s recent suspicion (link in German) that Germans have become “prisoners of history”, at least in Britain, shows. The magazine’s attention had been sparked by an article, published in the Guardian earlier last December, in which the new German ambassador to the United Kingdom, Thomas Matussek, lashed out against the country’s history curriculum – “I want to see a more modern history curriculum in schools. I was very much surprised when I learned that at A-level one of the three most chosen subjects was the Nazis.” – alleging that it contributed to an anti-German sentiment responsible not only for hunny headlines but also for physical and psychological violence committed against Germans in the United Kingdom.

“You see in the press headlines like ‘We want to beat you Fritz’. It ceases to be funny the moment when little kids get beaten up…”. The ambassador’s remarks point to an incident in October last year, when two German schoolbays on an exchange programme were assaulted by a gang of British youth in Morden, south London. According to the Guardian, they were heckled as Nazis before one had his glasses broken and the other was shoved into a bush.

I am terribly sorry for the pupils’ experience. And I think it is entirely appropriate for a German ambassador to demand a more prominent place for the post ’45 “model Germany” in British textbooks. But I don’t believe that those studying the Nazi dictatorship for their A-level exams will become notorious Kraut-bashers – quite to the contrary.

In Britain – as everywhere else – physical violence against Germans for ascriptive reasons is de facto nonexistent and most instances of verbal Kraut-bashing are likely not of malevolent intent. They are simply an element of the usually acclaimed British humour Germans often have a hard time to find funny.

There are plenty of stories like the one a young German Navy officer told me last week. When he went to the UK on NATO business recently, he was greeted with a joyful “Heil Hitler” by his British comrades. However, the British soldiers lifting their right arms in all likelihood did not intend to imply he was actually a Nazi or even seriously insult him. In their eyes, it probably was a joke honouring the tradition of John Cleese’s famous “Don’t mention the war”-episode of Fawlty Towers.

Although the young officer was not amused about the incident, I would like to point out that, yes, even for a Kraut, Kraut-bashing sometimes can be fun. I know I may be generalising a bit here, but people have always made fun about alleged ascriptive characteristics of other people. But only very few are serious about them. Being able to tell the difference is what is important – for both parties involved. Quite a few usually well meaning people in the UK do not seem to understand that there are different kinds and styles of Kraut-bashing. And believe me, I know what I am talking about: I have been Kraut-bashed by Brits, too.

We all know that there are inappropriate derogatory terms for people of all ethnicities and nationalities in all languages. And we all know that the same derogatory words can have a very different, sometimes positive, meaning in a different context. It’s exactly the same with Kraut bashing. My British flatmates in Paris were allowed to Kraut-bash me. Just as I kept joking about the British “cuisine”, the Empire they lost and how their German would be much better now if the US had not saved their country’s ass twice. The way we talk to a person only depends on the kind of relationship and our mutual respect. What may be in order for a friend is likely entirely inappropriate for a stranger. And I know how much being told you are what you want to be least does hurt, especially if you’re not expecting it.

My stranger’s name was Julia. She was the friend of a friend of one of my flatmates and in Paris for a night in Summer 1998. So we all met in a bar somewhere in the Marais (for those who know Paris). I have to say that her first attack was as much a surprise for me as it was for my British friends. I think you get a useful idea of Julia when I tell you that the only thing she wanted (or was able?) to talk about were her freshly pedicured toenails. But being the gentleman that I am I complimented her, just as expected. But her reply was as unexpected as inappropriate – she told me that she wasn’t interested in my bloody Nazi opinion anyway.

You probably remember – the first time does hurt. And it did. I was stunned. I did not know what to say. No one had ever silenced me by telling me I were a Nazi. And she was serious about it. Not knowing how to deal with the situation, I made the fatal mistake of actually trying to explain to her that I was no Nazi, which clearly provided sufficient incentive for her to keep bashing me until she was eventually silenced by my friends.

However much it hurt that day, I now think of the episode as a valuable experience. It helped me realise the difference between those who joke about beating “Fritz” [ or decapitate the Kaiser, for instance ;-) ] and those who actually do beat him. It also taught me how to deal with the very few Julias around.

And there are only very few Julias around. Thus, in my opinion, those trying construct a theory of German victimhood around incidents like the the teenage clash mentioned above or negligeable individual experiences like mine are creating an urban myth rather than a useful representation of reality. In a letter to the publisher, a German exchange student in North England told the magazine last week that she had spent a year in Britain and never experienced anything like the alleged British anti-German sentiment. She felt “stabbed in the heart” by the article, she said.

When I lived in London, I never experienced anything even slightly reminiscent of the Julia-episode. I walked past the “Bomber Harris” memorial almost every day and never cared about it until a British friend told me how embarassed he was when the Queen (of German descent…) unveiled a memorial for a person responsible for WW2 area bombing German cities in the early 1990s. Another interesting encounter I had with respect to the anti-German sentiment in Britain was one with an older lady, who had clearly survived at least one, if not two world wars, and who explained to me that, yes, the British fought the Germans in two world wars but, after all, they’re decent people, as opposed to those frog-eating French. German tourists are still scared by the myth not to speak German in London Buses to avoid trouble, there are literally tens of thousands of Germans working in the City everyday. When you enter any of the fifty Starbucks outlets between Fleet Street and Monument tube station, chances are, you will hear almost as many German conversations as English ones.

The BBC is certainly right to admit that ”British hostility to Germany simply isn’t reciprocated … [and i]t could be that by using outdated stereotypes … the British are saying more about themselves than anyone else.” but, in my experience, less and less people are seriously thinking in those stereotypes. Kraut-bashing may not be *so* passé yet, but it is definitely passé.

Last November, the American writer, Pulitzer price laureate, and Princeton University literature professor C.K. Williams made a very interesting argument in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit (link in German) about how Germans have become a group no longer defined by what they actually are or what they actually do – but what they stand for. In his opinion, the eyes of the world see Germans, more than anything else, as a symbol of evil – they have become Ze Tschermans.

While my personal experience is largely different, Mr Williams is probably right to some extent – some Tschermans are still out there, on celluloid, in the history books and, most importantly, in the memories of those who suffered unspeakable horrors under the Nazi dictatorship. As long as we define ourselves as German, we have to accept the historic context which we have been handed – just like everybody else. While history does by no means excuse ascriptive prejudices, it can help explain their existence. Time may be a healer, but big wounds heal slowly.

Sometimes it is up to us to explain where we feel things are no longer funny. The young German officer clearly told his British comrades that he did not enjoy their joke. All people but the very few Julias around will not cross that line again.

And Sometimes we should just relax. Julia taught me to no longer care if some stupid person believes I am a Tscherman. Why should I? I know I am not. And those I care about do know that, too.

What else could be important?

Standard
German Politics, oddly enough

Spoke too soon.

I did indeed. Looks like this morning’s press reports have been wrong. Gerhard Schroeder is not going to do the Hanibal this summer, after all. Now he’s just staying at home in Hannover. Not quite the same, I have to say. Although the town does have beautiful corners here and there…

According to Spiegel Online, his Italian friend and host, the artist Bruno Bruni explained the chancellor’s decision with the words “There’s a limit to everything.” I doubt not going is any better than going in this situation. It’s too bad for Schroeder, but this bizarre discussion has turned his holidays into a public matter. I am pretty sure that Mr. Stefano will be politically punished for his publicity desire once Mr. Berlusconi no longer feels the need to prove something by not restraining him.

So instead of hosting the Chancellor this summer, the Italian province of Pesaro, is going to host a lawsuit. According to Spiegel Online, the regional government is going to sue Silvio Berlusconi’s central government for compensation for the economic damage done to the region’s tourism industry. The website quotes the region’s president, Palmiro Ucchielli, saying (my translation) –

“The stupidy of the people at the helm of government is of such an extent, they are doing great economic harm to the image of our region’s tourism industry.”

Did no one tell them about Mr Berlusconi’s record with respect to law suits?

Standard
compulsory reading, Iraq, oddly enough, US Politics

The Psychology Of WMDs

Salon.com’s Louise Witt is wondering why America is in collective denial that [someone in] the Bush administration knowingly “sexed up” the WMD charges against Saddam Hussein, as the administration is now admitting itself –

“[f]inally, on Monday, the White House admitted the president relied on inaccurate, incomplete information for that crucial passage of his State of the Union address.” [this is referring to the President’s claim that Iraq was about to aquire radioactive material from Niger]

She asks why lying is perceived as bad in some cases – and she uses the obvious Clinton impeachment example – while most people will accept it without problems in other cases. She chooses an interesting and helpful angle to analyse this question: behavioral psychology, a scientific discipline that is predominantly occupied with exploring the limits of human information processing and decision making abilities. Obviously, she can only allude to some of the insights such a perspective has to offer for the problem at hand. But these allusions are well worth reading.

Here’s a part of Ms Witt’s article I found particularly interesting –

“When Gustave Gilbert, a psychologist who interviewed the Nuremberg prisoners, talked to Hermann Goering, the former leader of the Third Reich’s Luftwaffe, Goering volunteered that it was relatively easy to persuade a populace to go to war.

As quoted in Gilbert’s book “Nuremberg Diary,” Goering said: “It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Gilbert disagreed with Goering’s analysis. “There is one difference,” he answered. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

But Goering held his ground: “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Of course, such a statement has to be read as carefully as possible. It certainly does not add any truth to the recently rather popular, strange comparison of George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler.

But it does indicate that even liberal democracies could be heading in a dangerous direction. Especially when fear is calling the shots in most people’s brains.

Standard
oddly enough

Sommerloch.

Sorry for the recent lack of updates… my very own “Sommerloch” – “summer-hole” -, meaning lack of real news in July and early August.

I thought this year there was not going to be a big one in Germany, given the economic situation and the government’s reform agenda. Well, I might have been wrong.

Usually, the fact that nothing is really happening during the summer in conjunction with the fact that many journalists prefer to hang out in beer gardens, too, but nonetheless have to fill papers and airtime means that some bullshit story becomes blown up to an unbearable extent by free riders looking for some publicity.

Goodies from the past include a runaway Crocodile named “Sammy” terrorising a lake, and some Bavarian politician jokingly floating the idea of Germany buying the Spanish Island of Mallorca, as it is half German during the summer anyway. Of course, that would have probably lead to another war with HM the Queen, whose subjects tend to occupy the Island’s other half. So after filling “Bild” templates for a couple of days, the joke was silently buried. Usually, a single story won’t carry the day for the entire two months – as attention spans are invertedly proportional to the amount of time spent in beer gardens. But sometimes, those responsible for filling airtime and pages are just lucky…

Like right now, when the Italian Prime Minister’s Nazi slur is offering plenty of opportunity for all interested, mostly unknown, parties, to get some longed for publicity. Take the case of the previously invisible Italian Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for tourism (of all things!), Stefano Stefani (Lega Nord), who evidently thought that he had use the opportunity to utter something “nazi-esque” quickly, as long the fire was still burning.

So last Friday, he complained in a letter to Lega Nord’s party paper “La Padania” about uniform, “super/hypernationalistic blonds who loudly invade Italy’s beaches” [reader Hans Ze Beeman mentioned this in his comment to the previous post.] He also said Germany itself was “drunk with inflated self-importance.”

Inflated self-importance – he probably knows what he is talking about. The Austrian paper “Der Standard” has translated his article into German, should you care. I haven’t found an English version on the net yet, and I don’t think translating his remarks is worth my own precious beer garden time…

Translated or not, supernationalistic or hypernationalistic (the papers aren’t quite certain as far as the translation goes, and super [supra?] nationalistic rings a different bell in my head), the blonds and Schulzes, the Godfathers and publicity free riders on either side of the Alps are liekly going to stay with us for the forseeable future.

It’s just too good a show.

When the Chancellor’s Official Spokesman, Bela Anda, hinted that Gerhard Schroeder might consider cancelling his already planned private trip to Italy if he were not welcome, “Bild”, Germany’s most important tabloid, took the opportunity to try to prove its clout by keeping Gerhard in Germany, which, in return, has led Mr. Stefano to invite him to his own house at lake Garda to show his remarks did exempt at least certain Germans of his criticism – the Chancellor, for example – or his wife, who accidentally hails from Frankfurt… but then again, who knows. They are separated, according to Der Standard.

At a press conference yesterday, he boldly refused to regret his remarks, even in light of mounting criticism by scared tourism managers. But he did manage to say at least something helpful, albeit rather self defeating – in his very own opinion, Germans are intelligent enough to not to listen to an Italian Parliamentary Undersecretary’s rants when it comes to making decisions about their holidays.

Well, of course, normally no one would listen to him. That’s exactly why he wrote this article right now, when there was still a chance of someone picking up the story. So the consequences are not entirely clear, although very likely neglectable. They probably to some extent depend on the time German journalists want to spend in the sun.

However, Gerhard Schroeder for one seems to be “doing the Hanibal” this summer, given that the Junior Minister’s superior, and the Italian forign minister, have both officially regretted his subordinate’s remarks (see The Scotsman).

So there’s still a change there will be pictures of Schroeder invading an Italian beach with died blond hair, wearing camouflage Bermuda shorts and a European/German flagged t-shirt, firing from a pump-water-gun…

Standard
German Politics, oddly enough

Berlusconi apologizes. Or Not.

From the Guardian. Berlusconi apologized to Gerhard Schroeder (who was not exactly offended by him, but had demanded a formal apology).

“Italy’s billionaire prime minister Silvio Berlusconi last night expressed regret for his Nazi jibe against a German MEP, in a bid to end a serious diplomatic stand-off between the two countries just as Italy takes over the European Union presidency. The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who had demanded a full and formal apology, told a news conference in Berlin: “He expressed regret for the choice of this expression and comparison. I explained to him that as far as I am concerned this ends the affair.”

And regarding the Italian tv coverage of Wednesday’s incident:

“In Italy, state television’s evening news programme TG1 dubbed over the prime minister’s voice as he delivered his offending “joke”. “TG1 shuts its ears and hides European gaffe,” said the left-leaning daily Repubblica. The chiefs of the three state television channels, which are all indirectly controlled by Mr Berlusconi, were called for questioning next week by a parliamentary broadcasting commission.”

Update: Silvio Berlusconie today not only stole my “Hogan’s Heroes” joke and used it in a press conference, he also stated that he did in fact not apologize to Gerhard Schroeder. I guess this is like when the US and China had to find a word that meant “apology” in Chinese and “regret” in English after that US spy-plane had to land in China following a collision with a chinese fighter aircraft sent to intercept the reconaissance operation, back in 2001. C’mon people, you just have to love diplomats for their never ending efforts to build bridges so politicians can have their cake, and eat it, too.

Standard