I heard a summary of her remarks on the news. That was practically the day after I heard that there had been an exhibit mounted of Nazi artifacts including toys and publications used to spread and popularize Nazism.  The commentator said that only now after all these years was German society confident enough to have an open discussion about its Nazi past.  Judging by the comments I heard perhaps that confidence should have been characterized as "over confidence" (or would that be "uber confidence").  Politicians often seek election using the tactic of vilifying "outsiders", nevertheless, there is something quite ominous about seeing it used by the Chancellor of Germany.  

 

What bothered me more than anything was that her remarks seemed to imply Merkel thought these conclusions of hers were completely natural and inescapable and that Germans would mostly agree with her.  Perhaps it means I am a cynic but I have no doubt that they do.  Pity!

It is not just happening in Germany.  There is a backlash against immigration all over Europe. 

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/63122/sec_id/63122

I think it's mostly that Merkel is a bit of an idiot.

It would seem that a lot of people in Germany agree with her.  The whole immigration thing isn't working too well in Europe.  It seems to work better in Canada. 

Germany has a lot of guilt over the war. German culture has been filling with othernesses for decades. Anything other than German was the in thing. German folk music? No! German musicians were playing Sweedish, Balkan, Klezmer, Asian, Russian, anything but German. Lots of fear of being Nationalistic. Perhaps that is backfiring. I hope the German people can come to a happy pride in German-ness without the fear of Nazi-ism and anti-semitism. I'd like to see the immigrants joining in with the Germans playing Oom pa pa on the street corners.

Here's a fun tune. Austrians don't have the same fear.

 

When I left Germany 13 yrs ago at a time when neo-nazis got away with murder and refugees were regularly attacked without any severe consequences for the criminals, there was multi-culturalism in the sense of multiple cultures living in Germany- but the German gouvernment did not have any legislation nor bylaws to promote and support multi-culturism, nor did they have any intention to do so.

I remember a scene at the passport office, where I was renewing my passport:

The officer yelling at a refugee with very limited language skills: "If you come to Germany, you have to speak German!" - I cannot picture this scene in a public Canadian office without having serious consequences for the employee.

I would say that the idea of Germany being "flooded" by refugees who are all coming to take advantage of the social system has been the official gouverment position back then as much as it is(again) now and has always been greatly supported by the tabloid media.

The simple minded likes simple answers- as the Jews were the answer to the unemployment problems in the thirties, the muslims are the answer now and lets the average German still believe that he /she is more civilized than "them".

And, I agree Jon, as much as I like to see women in politics- she is an idiot.

The CBC article I linked to in the original post has more than 1000 comments.  Most people posting at CBC seem to think multiculturalism isn't working out too well in Canada.   I'm surprised CBC hasn't closed the story to comments, since they are usually uber politically correct.

Here's another excellent example of everybody getting along, and getting down to the beat, from Austria: (Love that song!)

 

Here is an interesting take on the issue:

 

STRATFOR Global Intelligence.

Link does not work.

Here is the naked link:

 

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101018_germany_and_failure_multicultura...

We just need to invite Ms Merkel to visit Lac la Biche (one of the oldest mosques in Canada), Drayton Valley (Muslim mayor for the past 12 years, just re-elected, and Calgary.

Interesting article.  Is it suggesting that Germany might become  a threat to world peace?   Somehow I don't think that is likely.  But  who knows what the future holds.  The problem with Muslim immigrants is not confined to Germany.  The same thing is happening all over Europe.  Germany's Chancellor is the first leader to say out loud that the emperor has no clothes. 

What I got from it is the difference between my concept of 'Multiculturalism' and 'Germany's' and my concept of 'Nation' and 'Germany's'.

 

(or, to be more precise, the writer's concept etc etc)

 

We always operate from a point of view.  Just because people use the same words as I do doesn't mean automatically that it means the same thing or that it has the same history etc etc etc.

 

The more I experience, the more what I consider to be 'true' are shewn to be...comfortable points of view by me.

 

The more I travel the more I am finding out that, even in the metropolis where I hie from, Canadians are sooooo provincial...though I try not to take that literally :3

Nicely said Mrs.Anteater. 

 

Immigrants have been lured into countries - Canadian history is peppered with different groups, Africans (with promises of freedom), Chinese (the bones of the transCanada railway), the Irish, the Italians, the Scots - all enticed to come to this country with promises of milk and honey; many facing back breaking labour and poverty.

 

My history is that of the immigrant, from my great x6 grandmother fleeing the American revolution in the 1700's to my grandmother fleeing the poverty of Glasgow in the 1920s.  Am I really supposed to feel superior to those who come after because their religion or skin colour differs?

 

There is no Other, there is just people.

 

 

LB

---

At that period my love for Canada was a feeling very nearly allied to that which the condemned criminal entertains for his cell–his only hope of escape being through the portals of the grave.

     Susanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush

LB,

the difference between Canada and Germany is in terms of how immigrants are treated and the understanding of Canada as a "land of immigrants". While both countries have their history of treating immigrants unfair- at least Canada has a certain foundation of laws, reputation and social manners that condems this injustice and usually the press goes along with this. Not so in Germany. The CDU had never signed up for multi-culturism, thats not part of a right wing party's concept. German people are not raised in the attitude of embracing the differences or being the offspring of immigrants-

we are the offspring of a people that started two world wars- and lost. While that made most of the people in my generation feel bad about themselves, we were also influenced by being the ones that were occupied by the Allies- usually embracing their culture and valuing it as "progressive"- which was the tendency to see everything "American" as better.

Yes, Germany was not interested in their poorer and darker coloured neighbours and their culture. There was no education plan for German kids to explore it, no laws to support and protect refugees human rights and lots of media supporting the ideas of "them" wanting to drain our social system.

When my best friend had to avoid certain neighbourhoods in Berlinfor fear for their lives, because she had a coulored toddler in her stroller,  13 yrs ago, and I had the opportunity to emigrate to Canada- I decided that I'd rather be treated like a stranger in a foreign country than continue to watch my country treat strangers that way.

Yes, they had their token muslims in politics, and they might still have. There are more mosques and the jewish places were all rebuilt and renovated for lots of money. I don't think they made a dent in the neo-nazi movement, though, but I haven't been following Geman news for a while.

I'm sad to hear that Mrs Anteater. What part of Germany were you in?

 

I haven't been there in 21 years, since I was 15. I was in Hannover and area in 1989, and I don't remember any such sentiment. I remember there were some black kids in the school my host family's daughter went to, and they were happy and had friends and were accepted. I also remember asking the family to take me to an antique store, "Wo mann alte sachen kaufen kann" and I found a neat hat that I thought looked kinda sharp and stylish. It was black with a small brim and gold cord on it. I bought it, and they thought I must be a fascist, and said they don't share those views and I quickly defended myself, and they said, well you can't wear that or people will think you're a white supremacist. It's a touchy subject.

 

Anyway, I found Hannover to be a modern, cosmopositan, worldly place. I know times were different then, before the wall came down, but I only saw a few skinhead teenagers in West Berlin. I read this morning that the skinhead movement has grown since then.

 

I have also been reading about German folk music, and know that East Germany used to support folk music if it was purely ethnic German, but not other types. Also political parties have used German ethnic music in their propoganda, which has made the music unpopular. Hence the lack of it in hip young culture. However, I just read an article by a student who was on an exchange program studying Bavarian folk music, and he writes:

 

"At my host school there was a folk music group which I went along to. The music was all traditional Bavarian melodies. The students told me they were rehearsing for a school Christmas concert and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. However, only about a quarter of the pupils that filled in my questionnaire said that they liked folk music and even fewer played or sang it. At the same time, many students who wrote that they personally had no interest in folk music said that they knew one or more folk tunes. Interestingly, they did not want to see this tradition lost, as it is part of the Bavarian culture and identity. This point about national identity was a recurring theme I noticed when speaking to anyone, young or old, musician or listener on the subject of folk music.

 

To say that all Bavarians have a strong sense of tradition and home culture (Heimatgefühl) would be a sweeping generalisation, but it is true to say that there is much more patriotism and the feeling of needing to carry on something because it is in a country’s culture than there is back in the multicultural society that is Britain today. The folk music brings together the Bavarian people; it is something which all Bavarians relate to. I believe that if the opinions which I heard in Starnberg are the same throughout all of Bavaria, then this art form which is so fascinating to English eyes will continue to flourish in the area."

 

I would really hate to see Germany's reputation go downhill because of something careless said by one politician and the actions of a minority group of crazies.

Hi Eleanor,

I grew up in West Berlin, which is as opposite of an environment to Bavaria as you could imagine. You won't find anybody being a fan of Bavarian folk music up north in Germany, unless it's a Bavarian who has moved there. Or maybe a American, who for some unknown reason to me, enjoy this kind of music and have made Oktoberfest a symbol of Germany per se.

All this racism and neo-nazism popped up after the wall came down and found good ground in the east german youth, who- instead of having the job guarantee of their former communism regime suddely found itself unemployed and competing for their second education, taken advantage of by westerners and was had no clue how to adapt to the changes.

Even 10yrs after the wall came down, you still got significantly less paid in east germany than the one working the same in the west.  

I would highly caution to set Germany equal with Bavaria, culturally as well as politically.

Bavaria has been historically Catholic, while the rest of Germany is Protestant. Simply said, Bavaria is the strong conservative part of Germany while the rest is more progressive.  The East, because of communism which didn't allow english songs, had developed quiet a bit of German songwriters and bands, which I would way more prefer as Germany's  typical culture than the Octoberfest "uhmpta" music.

I like folk music from many countries, including Germany. 

Beshpin,

there is several ways to come to Canada. With a work visa, you need to have an employer before you come.

We came as landed immigrants, which is a longer process, but if you have the right profession and enough money to keep youself alive for the first year you become a landed immigrant without needing employment beforehand. The education and work experience in your profession gives you a certain amount of points, together with knowledge of language, age and some other criteria -and if you have enough and pass the health test, you are in.

Or you can come as business person and you have to start a business and employ one or two Canadians. I think you need to bring at least a half a million for that one.You are not permitted to become an employee with that status. They check on you and if after a year or two you didn't succeed, you might find yourself back home..

Right, Thanks for the clarification about Bavaria, I didn't really know. I haven't been there. I have been to the Hartz mountains, but I don't know where that is. I remember enjoying Schutzenfest as a kid, there was a bier tent there where they played folk songs and dressed up. Omi sent me two dirndls and a pair of lederhosen as a child, and she would send us the hit parade records. I liked Heino. One thing I would really like to do is go visit Germany's archaeological sites one day. I do have one song by East German group Wacholder, which I quite like. I was really impressed with the punks in West Berlin when I was 15! Quite extreme!

I also like Oom Pa Pa music, and folk music in general. Here's a German group doing folk with a German flavour, which I like, and is also quite rare,  last I knew. The group normally include electric guitar, but this track is accoustic. Great stuff.

 

You are right, Beshpin, It wasn't easy

  13 yrs ago, the Canadian National Association was wonderful- I got all the info they could get me by fax within a month a year before we came here. The NS licensing body, back then with very limited resources (has changed since), didn't even bother responding my two requests for information, even when I had an OT in Canada sending them a letter from Canada.

Then when I got here, we were lucky that my husband got some work though church connections (casual, though) and not enough. When I then again contacted the licensing body of my profession by phone twice, I got a very unfriendly phonecall back, basicly just telling me that it would be illigal to work without a licence.

Since we had a whole lot of other issues to deal with at this time, I gave up on this and started a minimum wage job in a nursing home. I had no clue that you had to have enough currency hours in Canada to go back into your profession and I was loosing time. (No such thing as yearly licence renewal or currency hours in Germany, I could go back anytime and just start working)

I had tried to job shadow an OT at the local hospital to find out how OTs are working here. Impossible. I wasn't suposed to see a patient for confidentiality reasons.They put me in the Rehab department in a room where I got to sort out old files (with names on them- no confidentiality problem there...).

Then I injured my knee and was off work for three month. My Canadian friend encouraged me to try again, and I studied and passed the Canadian National exam.

I didn't get extra time for the exam for having English as my second language, so the last hour, I wasn't able to read the questions completely through, I had to go with the first best answer. There were answers that were culture based- like: as a treatment option for a patient: -"Play a round of shuffelboard". No clue, what shuffelboard would be, but I passed it with average grades.

Ready to start working?- No, sorry.  By then I had lost my currency hours. The licencing body now had changed the volunteers in charge and over the course of the 1 1/2 yrs that this took, some people proved to be very helpful. I do think I was their first case of foreign OT, so they were learning as we went on.

So now, I needed currency hours and finally there was a "Refresher education" pathway I could go. This opened up the option for my hospital to sign a contract with me to let me work under supervision (I had to pay my own insurance). I am deeply grateful to them for giving me that chance. I worked at the hospital during the week and at the nursing home on the weekend. (Only the latter was paid) from May to September. Then I got lucky again- as I finished my refresher, a maternity leave came up and I was hired.

For seven years, I worked whatever came up in whichever distance from my home. I worked private for a nursing home one day a week and in two other sites for the hospital the other days. Then, I finally got a fulltime permanent postion. It's 10 yrs this month since I got my Canadian licence and started working and I love it.

I am sure, compared to others, I might have had it easy.

Beshpin,

Not all OT schools in Germany were recognised by the WFOT (World Federation ot Occupational Therapist)- but mine was. Otherwise, it would not have been "that easy".

Not according to Lowell Green,  radio announcer in Ottawa. He even wrote a book about how immigration in Canada was going to destroy Canada. Now I might have taken what he said out of context but I think the gist of it is pretty accurate, I for one will not throw good money away to buy his book but I am sure he will have a following.

To clarify the issue with not letting me see patients because of confidentiality- it wasn't really the problem, because every volunteer signs papers to keep confidentiality-

they simply didn't know what to do with me at that time. Today there are better pathways in place- though still not enough, as the health system is in crisis to find trained workers and they will likely have to come from oversees.

and yes even as I type this CAOT with some deferal funding is offering  a course to prepare foreign trained OT's to write the Canadian certificationn Exam. It's being offered in BC and ONt. and perhaps elsewhere and is offered in french and English.

Thanks for telling your story Mrs. Anteater.

Luckily, I have a friend who is going to Germany to live for three years. I will be sure to find out from her whether racism is rampant in Germany today or not. I do not expect to find that it is.

Unless your friend has a different coloured skin, she might not notice too much.

I will ask her to be on the look out. She is very observant.

 

I just found some info about German folk music, from someone in the know, written in 2001, if anyone is interested. It explains what I was on about in my first post:

 

I grew up with German songs sung by my parents, sung in the boy scouts and I loved singing them. At about 18-20 I found that many of those songs had a very conservative (reactionary) background and some of the more innocent ones had been "browned in" by a too close association with Hitler. Can you imagine my horror when I found out that too many of the songs I loved where printed in my father's 'songbook of the Hitler youth'? I stopped loving Deutsche Volkslieder at all.

Loving Irish and later Scottish, English, and recently American folk music was a kind of outlet. This was a music in which you could have pride and love without the singing tradition being interrupted by a period of horror. I was fairly, and still am though slightly less so, left of the middle of the political spectrum and didn't want to be identified or identify with 'right-wing' music.

I was very naive. About ten years later I slowly found out that there were several Irish (English etc.) songs I didn't like at all for several reasons and I slowly rediscovered the beauty of many German songs. I even found that there was a huge reservoir of German democratic and revolutionary or rebellious songs. Many of these songs had never been sung by the Hitler youth. Others had been sung by them but why should I not sing a song from the Bauernaufstand (peasants' uprise) in the middle ages only for it having been sung in the Third Reich as well?

I then even found that there were many groups and singers (though overall a minority) in Germany singing these good songs and many of them in a musical style similar to what I knew from english-language folk. The list is very long and I can only mention a few like Zupfgeigenhansel, Hannes Wader, Elster Silberflug, Ougenweide, Fiedel Michel,... I listen to their recordings with as much fun as I listen to the best of english-language folk musicians. Only in passing I mention the beautiful Music by minorities in Germany as Sinti and Roma (Reinhardt family) and the recent developments of blending different traditions from immigrants from (roughly) South Europe with the German tradition (Schää Sick Brass Band; mind you, only the last two words are English).

However, there is still a big divide. Deutsche Volksmusik is often entwined with political reactionary groups. The many songs from former German parts in East Europe (now Russian, Baltic, Polish and Czech) are sung nearly exclusively by Vertriebene (expelled persons) who long to get their homes back. The songs are often very beautiful, but the political allegiance of the organisations of the expelled is often at least to the very extreme of the parlamentiary right, sometimes beyond that. Singing these songs means to be identified with that tiny political minority of revanchists or to explain yourself continuously.

And there is a big divide in musical taste. The prime example is Heino, a singer of German folk dividing hearts and families. Heino's political leanings are impeccable (though not those of his fans, often to his dismay), but his music is, well, marching music, umpta, easy beat. I love many of the songs but I shall never listen to Heino any longer than it takes to change the station. It's just personal taste, same as I now know to avoid Irish CDs which have more than three of the following items on their cover: donkey, turf, red-haired girl, shamrock, harp, leprechaun.

What I consider to be good German folkmusic I find about twice a year in German TV. The Volksmusik-Hitparade (no need of translation) comes about once a week, Saturday evening. Not my music at all. When I sometimes look for German Volksmusik CDs in other countries I nearly exclusively find the music I don't like. A bit similar to German wines. There are so many fine German wines, but abroad I only find Liebfrauenmilch (Blue Nun). We seem to be proud to export the worst of our music and wines. It's a pity. But then, my taste is obviously a minority taste.

I wouldn't mind at all singing German songs at Mudcat gatherings. There are so many good ones that it would be easy to fill an evening. But as many above have seen correctly, the traditon is broken by Hitler's years and all lovers of folk music still feel the divide until now between what I call German folk and Deutsche Volksmusik. If you want to read a tiny bit more to understand why the political inheritance of German folk is still heavy on us, read the German contributions to the Ich hatt' einen Kameraden thread. You might understand why we are sometimes divided within our own souls.

 

I have now begun a new hunt to find the Volksmusik he is talking about.

OK folks, get ready to cringe. I loved this one as a kid in the early 80's.

 

Elanorgold,

Interesting, and sad how a whole genre of music has become tainted by association with Hitler.  In North America folk music was taken up by hippies and such like in the 60's, so it is (or used to be) associated with the left and the anti-war music.  (eq Joan Baez)

A lot of the Irish songs (for example those sung by the Clancy Brothers) are sympathetic to the IRA, which is off-putting.  But I still like those songs.  The IRA seems too far away from my world to spoil the music for me.  A lot of Scottish folk music is about war, etc too, but those wars were so long ago that they seem like misty romantic legends now. 

 

I like the song Die schwarze Barbara in the video above.  I can't understand any of the words.  I just like the tune.  It doesn't make me cringe. 

Yep, this is the kind of music part of my parents' and grandparents used to like.

By the way- Hitler also brought us the Autobahn and the VW beetle- and people are still using it without a problem.

Hmm, I hadn't known about the beetle and autobahn, good that we all forgot eh! Hopefully the folk music connection will also be forgotten.

 

Glad you like the Schwarze Barbara! I played it last night and got a cry of "That's Awful!" from my husband in the bedroom. I still like it too. It's about his love of a girl with long black hair, red lips and heavenly blue eyes. That's about all I ever understood.

 

I'm not put off by any political associasions either, as I either don't know about them or they don't affect me, yeah, too far away. I even enjoy English songs about whaling! "Oh the Diamond is a ship my lads, for the Davis Straight she's bound! And the quay it is all garnished with bonnie lasses round! And it's cheer up my lads, let your hearts never fail! For the bonnie ship the Diamond goes a fishing for the whale! It will be bright bnoth day and night when the Greenland lads come home, whith a ship that's full of oil my lads and money to our names..."

I'll have to look that song about the Diamond up..sounds like a good one!  The Weavers did a different whaling song that I also like--even though I hate the idea of whaling!  I'll post a link to it later--off to work now.

 

My favorite is: The Diamond by Blowzabella, off their album A Richer Dust. The song also goes as: The Bonnie Ship the Diamond. There's lots of versions on Youtube: Dylan, the Watersons (unfortunately there's skips in it, or that would be awesome, it's still worth listening though), the Corries, etc... The one posted by KelticKnots is quite good. I really ought to get to work too!

Can't resist posting this, 2nd song I've listened to by this group. It's an anti war song.

 

 Zupfgeigenhansel - Ich bin Soldat

 

Ehemm.. I said, my parents and grand parents liked Heino...

Zupfgeigenhansel sings:

Only tyrants need to have a war- I'd rather be a soldier of freedom...

A soldier of freedom, sounds like an anti war rallying hippy song to me. No? What do they mean by soldier of freedom? I couldn't understand the lyrics, except that it sais anti-kriegslieder in the description.

Here's a nice song I enjoyed last night by them. "Autumn Song"

 

 

Hi Folks

Autumn song  is beautiful......

 

Is anyone familiar with Heintje?  He was a child singer, about 14 I think, from the late 60's and 70's.  I believe he's Dutch but he sings a lot of German and also some English. He sings a lot of xmas songs in German. I have some of his lp's. Now I see as an adult he sings showing Heintje as a child singing. I don't care much for that. 

 

He has a beautiful  child voice I think......check for  his Eng. and   German songs on You Tube.

 

 I Sing a Song for You