Who are we again?
Sorry, Germany and football. That's not for me. Even if some people will now cry out and call me a traitor to the fatherland.
I have neither a fatherland to betray, nor do I feel obliged to speak in the pluralis majestatis for four weeks because of any national identity.
By Serdar Somuncu
I have neither a fatherland to betray, nor do I feel obliged to speak in the pluralis majestatis for four weeks because of any national identity.
By Serdar Somuncu
For me, this behavior of the Germans as a stumbling, staggering football power only gives me an uneasy feeling and a reminder of unspeakable traditions. The collective euphoria remains a balancing act with what has already failed, leading straight into a trap. It's like putting a sharp knife in the shaking hand of a convicted mass murderer so that he can use it to cut a salami into wafer-thin slices.
It all began with the alleged summer fairytale of 2006, the summer in which the then Interior Minister Schäuble declared that there were no no-go areas in Germany, although shortly before that the German-Ethiopian Ermyas M. had been beaten into a coma by neo-Nazis in the street in Potsdam.
Since then, there has been a worryingly large gap between the required understanding of reality and the demands that Germans make when asked about the practicality of chauvinistic self-invocation. While in the stadiums hands are raised in a thousandfold "victory" salute, the statistics show the number of right-wing extremist acts of violence in first place for years with an increasing trend. More than 20% increase in the last year alone. That seems about as strange as if a team from the Islamic State were standing on the pitch while the fans cheered the goals with "Allahu akbar". Or what does one have to do with the other?
Why is the political background being discussed in Putin's case, but the question of whether a Chancellor's visit to the players' dressing room is not just as instrumental as a German-Turkish footballer's thank-you to his Prime Minister remains open. Why are the dividing lines suddenly blurred when the accusation of spoilsport against German feel-good patriotism is enough to attack any criticism?
In the past, things were different. Germany and football have always been a combination of feelings of inferiority and an exaggerated need for recognition, but since the "We are somebody again" credo of the 2006 World Cup in our own country, everything has changed and the political instrumentalization of collective national feeling has become more blatant in everyday life than ever before. Chrupalla and Weidel are rubbing their hands together. Since the summer fairytale of 2006, football in Germany has been nothing more than an unbearable, dull preliminary stage of nationalism disguised as a folk festival, at the end of which it often frays into dangerously demagogic and the uncontrollably defiant repression of the eternal identity crisis sometimes even seems threateningly real.
The individual parts often merge so invisibly that as a critic you don't even know where to start or whether you should leave it alone. Whether it is the commentators' clumsy formulations of the "final victory" or the ostentatious arrogance of the Bild newspaper as a mouthpiece of the average, which first reveals 11 reasons why "we" won 3-0 and then the next day turns this into 11 points that the coach has to do better in order to escape the collective shame. There is always a contemptuous undertone in the headlines. When the Germans talk about their opponents, you can't help but get the impression that the Germans don't play to win, but only to beat the other team. In any case, they seem to accept defeat only rarely and reluctantly.
This is probably where this disgust in me comes from at the apparent temptation to indulge in national unity. Perhaps I have too much historical awareness, perhaps the responsibility of collective guilt gnaws at me, or I am simply incapable of being happy and uninhibitedly patriotic. And I am not even a native German. So I could make it easy for myself and join in unbridled with the chant of the convalescents.
But the German thing has long since gnawed at me and perhaps this hesitant attitude makes me more German than I want to admit. I simply don't like nationalism and I find German nationalism particularly bad.
In the next few weeks we will again argue about whether it is fashionable to put on this abysmally ugly jersey and to collectively wave the even uglier German flag, or whether it is appropriate to show modesty and make a nation whose history is its most precious legacy a model for unconditional and fair dealings between people who, no matter where they come from, are the same in one thing: they like to be happy about he enjoys success, but they also suffer in defeat.
And for me that has nothing to do with origin or homeland.
07/03/24
©Serdar Somuncu
Current program "Seelenheil" now downloadable in Shop
*Serdar Somuncu is an actor and director
It all began with the alleged summer fairytale of 2006, the summer in which the then Interior Minister Schäuble declared that there were no no-go areas in Germany, although shortly before that the German-Ethiopian Ermyas M. had been beaten into a coma by neo-Nazis in the street in Potsdam.
Since then, there has been a worryingly large gap between the required understanding of reality and the demands that Germans make when asked about the practicality of chauvinistic self-invocation. While in the stadiums hands are raised in a thousandfold "victory" salute, the statistics show the number of right-wing extremist acts of violence in first place for years with an increasing trend. More than 20% increase in the last year alone. That seems about as strange as if a team from the Islamic State were standing on the pitch while the fans cheered the goals with "Allahu akbar". Or what does one have to do with the other?
Why is the political background being discussed in Putin's case, but the question of whether a Chancellor's visit to the players' dressing room is not just as instrumental as a German-Turkish footballer's thank-you to his Prime Minister remains open. Why are the dividing lines suddenly blurred when the accusation of spoilsport against German feel-good patriotism is enough to attack any criticism?
In the past, things were different. Germany and football have always been a combination of feelings of inferiority and an exaggerated need for recognition, but since the "We are somebody again" credo of the 2006 World Cup in our own country, everything has changed and the political instrumentalization of collective national feeling has become more blatant in everyday life than ever before. Chrupalla and Weidel are rubbing their hands together. Since the summer fairytale of 2006, football in Germany has been nothing more than an unbearable, dull preliminary stage of nationalism disguised as a folk festival, at the end of which it often frays into dangerously demagogic and the uncontrollably defiant repression of the eternal identity crisis sometimes even seems threateningly real.
The individual parts often merge so invisibly that as a critic you don't even know where to start or whether you should leave it alone. Whether it is the commentators' clumsy formulations of the "final victory" or the ostentatious arrogance of the Bild newspaper as a mouthpiece of the average, which first reveals 11 reasons why "we" won 3-0 and then the next day turns this into 11 points that the coach has to do better in order to escape the collective shame. There is always a contemptuous undertone in the headlines. When the Germans talk about their opponents, you can't help but get the impression that the Germans don't play to win, but only to beat the other team. In any case, they seem to accept defeat only rarely and reluctantly.
This is probably where this disgust in me comes from at the apparent temptation to indulge in national unity. Perhaps I have too much historical awareness, perhaps the responsibility of collective guilt gnaws at me, or I am simply incapable of being happy and uninhibitedly patriotic. And I am not even a native German. So I could make it easy for myself and join in unbridled with the chant of the convalescents.
But the German thing has long since gnawed at me and perhaps this hesitant attitude makes me more German than I want to admit. I simply don't like nationalism and I find German nationalism particularly bad.
In the next few weeks we will again argue about whether it is fashionable to put on this abysmally ugly jersey and to collectively wave the even uglier German flag, or whether it is appropriate to show modesty and make a nation whose history is its most precious legacy a model for unconditional and fair dealings between people who, no matter where they come from, are the same in one thing: they like to be happy about he enjoys success, but they also suffer in defeat.
And for me that has nothing to do with origin or homeland.
07/03/24
©Serdar Somuncu
Current program "Seelenheil" now downloadable in Shop
*Serdar Somuncu is an actor and director
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