Nationalism may be an infantile disease<\/p>\n
By David Jardine<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): \"Nationalism,\" the great scientist Albert
\nEinstein once said, \"is the measles of mankind, an infantile
\ndisease.\" It is often rather easy to agree with him. Reading
\nAntony Beevor's Why can't the British get along with old enemy?
\nin Feb. 18 The Jakarta Post, it was certainly easy to squirm at
\nthe infantile nationalism of some of his British compatriots he
\ndescribed.<\/p>\n
While not necessarily agreeing with Beevor as a film critic,
\nit is not difficult to sympathize with his major point. Yes, many
\nof the British are trapped in an atavistic anti-Germanism. This
\nis sometimes deeply embarrassing because it takes account neither
\nof the post-Nazi reality of modern Germany nor of the realities
\nof war itself (if there was anything to be said for Saving
\nPrivate Ryan, then it was surely the harrowing first 20 minutes
\nand the scenes on Omaha beach!)<\/p>\n
West Germans after World War II underwent a painful and
\nimperfect transition from being one half of \"the thousand-year
\nNazi Reich\", a transition that forced them to \"look into the dark
\ncircle of their crimes\" as the Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman put
\nit.<\/p>\n
That process was unfinished by the late 1960s, and the West
\nGerman student movement was one element of society determined to
\ncomplete it and denazify society completely. Part of the
\nmovement became caught up with terrorism in the Baader-Meinhof
\ngang, but the majority were more cerebral in their approach,
\nlistening to the voices of great writers like Heinrich Boll and
\nGunther Grass.<\/p>\n
If there were Nazi hangovers still in positions of importance,
\nthen there were also anti-Nazi Germans, many of them, and one,
\nWilli Brandt, who had gone into exile and become a member of the
\nNorwegian resistance, became chancellor and arguably West
\nGermany's finest.<\/p>\n
Since the late 1960s many of the students have taken up
\npositions of influence, and it is partly as a legacy of their
\nstruggle that their country has the best record in all of Europe
\nof giving asylum to refugees, hundreds of thousands of them from
\nplaces as diverse as Bosnia and Iran. This has not been without
\nits cost, proven by the mounting attacks by neo-Nazi elements on
\nforeigners like the Turkish migrants immolated in Hoyveda, but it
\nis a record of which Germany can be rightly proud.<\/p>\n
Why, I ask myself, are so many British people unaware that
\nGermany has changed, that the Germans have recreated a civil
\nsociety that is at least as strong as their own, if not more so?
\nEmpire, as suggested, plays a role, and its echoes in the
\nstrident anti-Europeanism -- not to be mistaken for anti-EU
\nsentiment, which is an altogether more complex matter -- of
\nleading politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit
\nare all too obvious (it was Tebbit, the \"Chingford Skinhead\", who
\ntold Asian immigrants they failed \"the cricket test\" and were
\nthus not loyal citizens). All that \"Rule Britannia, Britannia
\nrules the waves\" baloney!<\/p>\n
One of the answers to Antony Beevor's question is, sadly, that
\nmany of the British are either tied to a fossilized version of
\ntheir history or do not really understand it at all. An
\nillustration can be found among English soccer supporters. Three
\nyears ago among some backpackers on Jl. Jaksa to watch a Euro '96
\ngame between Germany and Hungary, the following revealing
\nutterance was heard.<\/p>\n
When the Hungarians came out, one young Englishman said
\ngleefully, \"Oh, good. We liberated the Hungarians\". Wrong, very
\nwrong. First, it was the Soviets who defeated the Nazis in
\nHungary, and, as events in 1956 rather bloodily proved, occupied
\nit. Second, Hungary for most of World War II was a pro-Nazi Axis
\npower. Third, unlike Yugoslavia, where British support for Tito
\nwas important, Allied aid to the small Hungarian anti-Nazi
\nresistance was totally insignificant.<\/p>\n
If that young chump knew little of the recent history of
\nEurope, what then of those English soccer fans who chant \"Two
\nWorld Wars and one World Cup\", a sorry conflation of the military
\nand the sporting? Why is it that they know so little about World
\nWar I, and the huge almost continent-wide suffering it
\noccasioned, that they can be so flippant with history?<\/p>\n
The answers perhaps are not very palatable but include a
\ncautionary tale for just about everybody. When you allow your
\nfree press to become dominated by sensationalist tabloids that
\nstir up antiforeigner sentiments at every turn -- one editorial
\nin The Daily Star last year was titled The Frogs (French) deserve
\na good kicking and sadly typical -- when leading politicians like
\nThatcher build their careers on xenophobia, when the
\ncountervailing ideas of internationalists are squeezed out of the
\nmedia, then perhaps it is no wonder that unsuspecting young
\nGerman visitors to London are exposed to the \"measles of
\ninfantile nationalism\".<\/p>\n
This is a tragedy. And as an antidote, those who sit in
\ncinemas and cheer as movie Germans die should make the journey to
\none particular gravestone, among the hundreds of thousands there
\nare, in a war cemetery near Laventie in Flanders.<\/p>\n
There lies one British soldier, a Sgt. Owen of the Sixth Black
\nWatch, who was executed on Christmas Day 1915 for attempting to
\nfraternize with German soldiers in the true spirit of the season,
\nas soldiers had done the previous Christmas in the legendary
\nAnglo-German soccer match. Then, if they have absorbed the story
\nat all, they might just say \"Two World Wars and one World Cup
\nindeed!\".<\/p>",
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