The Development of The Anti-German Current in The 1990s
The notion of a revival of German nationalism and racism as a result of the reunification seemed to confirm itself over the course of the 1990s, as shown by such events as the pogrom in the town of Rostock-Lichtenhagen (Rostock) and a murderous attack on a Turkish family in the West German town of Solingen. As a result of this populist wave of xenophobia and violence against foreigners, the German political establishment responded with an increased wave of repression against immigrants and a tightening of Germany's hitherto liberal asylum laws.
Throughout the 1990s, elements of the Anti-German critique of the German mainstream society found their way into the broader left, especially the then-popular Antifa movement, which was the dominant organizational expression of radical leftist youth politics in the 1990s.
In 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, Anti-Germans praised the bombing on the grounds that so many of the city's civilians had supported Nazism. James points to this as an example of a shift towards support for the United States that became more pronounced after 9/11. Similar demonstrations are annually held, the slogans “Bomber Harris, do it again!” and “Deutsche Täter sind keine Opfer!” (“German perpetrators are no victims!”) have become common.
The 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was also a focus of opposition for the Anti-Germans, as for most of the radical left. Many Anti-Germans condemned the war as a repetition of the political constellation of forces during the Second World War, with the Serbs in the role of victim of German imperialism. Some Anti-Germans thus issued a call for "unconditional" support for the regime of Slobodan Milošević. The reasons the German government gave to legitimize the war - from an Anti-German perspective - marked a turning point in the discourse of governmental history-policy. The war was not justified "despite but because of Auschwitz". This judgment is often combined with the analysis of the genesis of a new national self as the "Aufarbeitungsweltmeister" (world champion in mastering of the past) or "Weltmeister der Vergangenheitsbewältigung". This led to a break between "Anti-Germans" and so-called "Anti-Nationalists", the latter criticising nationalism more generally, which was intensified in September 2000 when the Second Intifada began: The Anti-Germans supported Israel while the PLO was supported by the Anti-Nationalists.
Read more about this topic: Anti-Germans (political Current)
Famous quotes containing the words development and/or current:
“If you complain of people being shot down in the streets, of the absence of communication or social responsibility, of the rise of everyday violence which people have become accustomed to, and the dehumanization of feelings, then the ultimate development on an organized social level is the concentration camp.... The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“I have come to believe ... that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)