A new Germany heads toward Cup greatness
A shopkeeper recently hung huge German flags in front of his apartment building in this cosmopolitan capital only to have them ripped down by people accusing him of inspiring Nazi sympathies.
He is a big fan of Germany’s national soccer team, which faces the mighty Spanish team Wednesday in a World Cup semifinal. Yet some in his neighborhood, teeming with a mixture of Muslim migrants and educated German elites, think such symbols of nationalism are uncouth.
Here’s the twist: The flag-bearer is an Arab immigrant to Germany, more willing to show off the national colors than his native German neighbors. He told local papers he was proud of the national team, which for the first time this year includes three Muslims, of Turkish and part-Tunisian descent.
“They come and curse us,” Youssef Bassal Mohammad, a Lebanese-born citizen of Germany, told the Berliner Morgenpost. “They do not understand that Germans who are not of German descent would defend Germany.”
Mohammad’s tale is but one example of how much Germany has changed since its team last achieved greatness in the World Cup two decades ago, a time when I was living there as a college student.
Legally and culturally, Germany long held to the pseudo-scientific definition of national identity as race, as opposed to nations that formally define it as a matters of rights and responsibilities.
Over the last 20 years, however, Germany has moved toward a definition of itself more in line with its multicultural reality and status as a global political and economic powerhouse.
*
“Die Mauer ist weg!” the Turkish teenager cried out, running past the West Berlin bar I was at on Nov. 9, 1989. “The Wall is gone!”
East German border police had unexpectedly opened the Berlin Wall. Thousands streamed into the West.
Within a few months the structure that symbolized the Cold War had all but disappeared. Russians and Poles who were descendants of German families displaced and abused by Stalin after World War II sought citizenship. It was easily obtained by proving they had “German blood,” even if they didn’t speak a word of German.
Meanwhile Germany’s large Turkish population seethed. With their hands and sweat, they had contributed to the West German Wirtschaftswunder, the postwar economic miracle. Their kids spoke only German and cheered Deutschland during soccer matches.
And yet they were still Gastarbeiter, guest workers, with few rights. Meanwhile, right-wing radicals were a rising force. As West Germany advanced in the 1990 World Cup it would eventually win, an emotionally wrenching national debate was underway. Does being German mean having German ancestors, or is it a shared vision? Where do immigrants fit in?
During that tournament, everyone was charmed by the scrappy team from Cameroon, which made it to the quarter finals against England. I watched the game with a German friend and his parents at their home in a tiny village in the Swabian countryside.
“Who has anything against blacks if they play great soccer?” a TV commentator said during halftime.
My friend roared that the statement epitomized racism. His mom fired back, accusing him of overreacting. It was a German version of the shouting matches between Archie Bunker and Meathead on “All in the Family.”
They quieted as the game restarted. Cameroon lost, edged out by England in the final minutes.
*
Twenty years later, Germany appears to have partly resolved questions of race. Landmark legal changes a decade ago opened a path for immigrants from Turkey and other countries to obtain German citizenship by showing a commitment to the country’s values and laws, rather than some genetic connection to its past. Hundreds of thousands of foreign-born longtime residents and their children obtained German nationality.
Outside observers lavish praise on the German national team as an emblem of this new Germany. About half of the 23 players were either born outside Germany or have a parent who was. Without the naturalization law, some — including star midfielder Mesut Ozil — might have failed to qualify.
Perhaps more significant is the rise of Aygul Ozkan, the daughter of Turkish migrants to Hamburg, who is the first Muslim to serve as a minister in one of Germany’s 16 states.
Then there’s 36-year-old Fatih Akin, a German of Turkish descent who is perhaps contemporary Germany’s most innovative film director, tracing immigrants as they move back and forth between his native Hamburg and the Turkish countryside.
*
Some scoff at the notion of Germany as a model of integration. Though longtime immigrants can obtain nationality, it’s become much harder for those who’ve recently arrived.
As well, signs of discord persist. Before World Cup soccer matches, many of the German team members of foreign descent have declined to recite the national anthem while ethnic Germans sing along boisterously.
Last year, Zeca Schall, an Angolan immigrant now serving as a ranking government official, was threatened by by right-wingers after appearing in a campaign poster with a local politician last year.
But even that story has a twist.
Schall is not a member of the Green Party or even of the Social Democrats, which have long boasted minority politicians. Rather, Schall belongs to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, which 20 years ago was a bastion of anti-immigrant sentiment.
Some walls tumble down suddenly with a crash. Others fall slowly and quietly.
