Before the last world cup, held in Germany, it was always a taboo for a German to show his nationalism, as this was considered almost as a Nazi tradition. For instance, when I arrived in Dresden three years ago, it was easier to find a person wearing a Brazilian shirt than a German one. However, after the football event, this taboo is surprisingly over and now because of the European championship (EC), you can see everywhere cars displaying proudly the German flags on city streets.
Though it is nice to see that this long lasting taboo is over, it still makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. There is clearly a segregation of the Turkish community in the German society. For example last Saturday when Portugal and Turkey opened the EC, it was surprising to see that most of the Germans that I saw were supporting Portugal and not Turkey. I cannot see any good reason for Germans to do so, other than their xenophobia towards the Turks. In Brazil, we usually cheer for the weaker team, or the team that is plays fair, or if there is community of that nationality living in Brazil, we support them. But this was not the case in this match, since Portugal is clearly one of the favorites for the title and as far as I know the Portuguese community in Germany in very small.
What makes me more afraid is that the Germans that were supporting for Portugal were not uneducated people, but university students. After the match, I asked some of them, why you do not cheer for your fellow Turkish? They immediately demonstrated their discrimination towards them, by saying that the Turkish community is terrible and low-class people. From where they got this idea is not very clear to me, but I could only think that in Hitler's time this was the same propaganda towards the Jews. I just hope that this uprising German nationalism is controlled by not following the examples of Germany's recent history.
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Some weeks after I posted this message, I saw an article discussing the German discrimination towards Turks.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3430238,00.html
Sorry the article is in Portuguese.
nice observation Vivek.i think xenophobia is common in Europe not just in Germany.
Nice to have your comment Ida. I've written a bit about xenophobia in other countries:
http://kevivmagin.blogspot.com/2008/03/xenophobe-in-europe.html
I think this is the major problem in living in Europe, and I hope they get out of it soon.
Sorry Rodrigo, but I can only imagine the Nazi saying similar things when they used to describe the Jews. "They are not of our class". What is nonsense.
The real question is to understand why they are and continue to be poor. The answer for me seems to be segregation. Until this stops, comments such as those above will continue to come.
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