No quietly slumbering thing

Monday night the Germans beat the Austrians. The game was shite. But the relief was palpable. And there were many flags a-waving.

The thing is, there are a lot of people whose skin takes to prickling in a most unpleasant way at the sight of black-red-gold flapping from balconies, cresting car antennas, painted across kids' cheeks, dyed into the very strands of their mohawked hair.

Even I could feel the twitch of discomfort at this sudden swathe of Deutschie colors.

For years, nary a whisper of nationalism has been permissible here. Saluting the flag? Singing the anthem (and on one's feet, eyes teary, at that)? Treating the country's founding, and the principles upon which it is founded, as a Gift to All Humankind? Unthinkable.

Thus it is no small deal that Teutons of all ages now gather in masses and roar their support for Deutschland's players. It was at the 2006 World Cup in Berlin that it first happened -- the Germans allowing themselves a wary, held-breath pride about their high-scoring team. Not just about the team, but about the World Cup itself, with members of every nation gathered on Germany's soil, welcomed peacably, without incident. An awakening, of sorts, to the celebration of one's homeland. 

In Germany, however, the past does not lie sleeping. It informs every moment of the present. Rather, every interpretation of every moment of the present. Thus:

A recent news show took an undercover look at Neo-Nazi groups in the former East Germany, which is where, among the undereducated and dispossessed, they tend to flourish. The show then segged to left-wing students protesting the average German's newfound patriotism. Dressed as PacMans, the students gobbled up flag-waving Fussball fans. Also interviewed: an Israeli expert on German-Jewish history who pointed out that the Nazi flag was red-white-black, so what's all the fuss about?

But that's not really the point, is it?

The unspoken question is, is it safe? For Germans to feel nationalism. For Germans to express it. And how can one answer that without answering the far more unsettling, and to my mind unanswerable, question: What is responsible for the horrific events that unfurled on Germany's soil beginning in 1933? Was it simply a confluence of forces -- the Great Wars's aftermath, a people in poverty, centuries-old anti-semitism? Or does the German character itself have something to do with it?

Scholars have had a go at this. Too hot for me to touch, thank you very much.

I will say this: I am no fan of unbridled patriotism. If your German mother had been born halfway through Hitler's reign, and your father had had to flee California for Italy with his parents in 1950 lest they be blacklisted by McCarthy, well, you might be no fan of unbridled patriotism either. I do not like the gusto with which our country celebrates "what it means to be American" -- nor the jingoism I believe it leads to. Last year, Michael Moore's Sicko, viewed by me on July 3, left me so sickened by our country's national and international policies, that I could not even contemplate the fireworks. "I am boycotting the Fourth of July," I told my friend Rosemary.

On the other hand, it's no fun to be ashamed of who you are either. In my family, the eye was always on America's ills. How stupid, how crass, how superficial were my countrymen. What an embarrassment when abroad. Ignorant and poorly dressed and fatter than all the rest. It took me many years, and many a road trip, through Wyoming and Montana, New Mexico and Arizona, even Texas, to realize what I loved about the States --  and not just the red desert plains and the vast stark canyons -- but the people who inhabit them, and the decidedly unique open-mindedness we tend to possess, the sense of possibility, the innovation, the ties that do not bind.

So, here is what I think. It is good that the Germans wave their black-red-gold. And it is good that they pay attention. To what it means. To what once happened. In a way we so rarely do in the land of my blue passport.

Here is what else I think. If Germany beats Portugal in today's game, I will fall of the sofa, stunned. Just because I'm routing for the Deutschies, clad in my black-red-gold bikini, doesn't mean the team's any good. Sorry to say it.

Comments

[dan]

It's not really about patriotism, it's more like competition and fussball (soccer). Germans like many others just like that their team wins and they want to be proud (what ever the achievement of soccerfans really is - more like nothing) about their team. So its more like being proud of something and being aloud to show it.