When will people learn?

[M H]

Just noticed this:http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,856562,00.html


Makes me ashamed to be British... Some people in this country can be so bigoted and ignorant...

[Weishaupt]

Ha!

i think, people like this are in every country..................

:-/

[invisibleplanet]

Originally posted by M H
Just noticed this:http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,856562,00.html


Makes me ashamed to be British... Some people in this country can be so bigoted and ignorant...

Thankyou for posting that, Mark. Although we've never spoken, I know u travel to Germany alot. I too have German and Austrian friends, and am Boardmaster of a Swiss/German/Austrian/English Language Forum, which has been supporting uboot chat (sms community).

Also, Weishaupt, I remember clearly you asking myself, Grobelaar and Darkbreaks after Pure Filth in Notts, back in November, 'What does the average man on the street think about the German People'. I think we didn't answer you well enough at the time, and I hope I can do so here.

Mark, I understand the shame (schade) which u feel in regards to our British Heritage.
Recently, in the chatroom, a British Teenage Boy was chatting to a Teenage Girl. He was talking well with her until he discovered she was from Germany. Upon making this discovery, he shouted abuse at her, calling her a NAZI.
Whilst this is not the norm in our chatroom, as most chatters are aware that uboot is based in Switzerland, and serves the German Speaking countries, there is every now and again an incidence of Xenophobia which causes distress for the German Language Teenagers, and some degree of embarressment to the English Speaking Teenagers.
After that incident, I created a topic in our chat forum, about UK Racism, and specifically discussed the incidence of UK youths calling German youths NAZI's. There, I specifically made reference to the fact, that most 15 yr old Britishers must have inherited their anti-German values from the old b/w propoganda films from the US and UK filmmakers, and also blamed in some small way, games like 'Medal of Honour', where u can kill Nazis, and possibly even the values of their parents, and grandparents. After I had made this statement about where teenagers might have developed these unreasonable 'labels' for German people, I was myself accused of making racist statements. I was appalled! It is very good to see, that two weeks after this fiasco, someone has written an article focussing on that same unreasonable xenophobia which affects our British Youth, stating in that article the same causes for their unreasonable hatred.
I don't think I am overreacting to say that children today have inherited these xenophobic values from the media around them. Recently, the terrestrial TV stations have focussed on Nazi Germany, and the rise of Hitler, whilst at the same time, denying the fact that ANY NATION can possess NAZI/FASCIST VALUES.
I look at the American Military and I see FASCIST values, and I do not personally equate FASCISM with Germany anymore, but the recent flooding of British TV with this 'How we fought the Gerries and Won with the help of USA' is not helping Britain, or it's latest genration to embrace European values.

Unfortunately, I am NOT the average man on the street, and neither is Grobelaar or Darkbreaks.

I can't see things getting better for British/German relations until the media and the education of History in our schools begins to focus on the silent (for UK) reparation which the German nations have endured since the the WWII.
If Germany could share with us, detailed accounts of the repartion which it's people have undergone, and raise in the European Parliament, the obvious LACK of post-WWII reparation which the British have missed out in their social education, then maybe their is hope for the British People to make amends for their continuing narrow-mindedness and xenophobia towards German speaking countries.
British people are more like Germans than they realise, but their lack of reparation makes them stupid.

[pille'ocheoni]

damn this is an issue.sad to hear and see this ignorance still in healthy effect.i too see gerneralization of the crudest manor quiet to often,but trust that things are going to improve.my opionon of germany is quiet differnt.i see germany being a center for culture,history,freinds,spirit s,and something differnt from where i am.fortunatley i grew up with a african american godfather,a gay uncle,cousin,and a german babysitter.with countless others to include.i think meshing as humans is fundamental.

[c s]

Originally posted by invisibleplanet

and also blamed in some small way, games like 'Medal of Honour', where u can kill Nazis

well, this is a topic i'm familiar with, and i must say the reference to this game is not really fitting into the anti-german thing because the most popular thing about today's games is multiplayer via internet - and there you can be either nazi or ally, and it sometimes changes every 10 minutes for team balance reasons. so this is really dialectic. ;)

the problem with "medal of honor" is another one - the campaign (story which you play through in singleplayer mode) is very u.s.-style. it's promoting a mentality which is very welcome in the u.s. today, "duty", "honor", "sacrifice", "die for the cause" etc. with cinematics and horn music that sounds like an ode to war in general, and the nazis could almost have been replaced with islamic terrorists. this is why this game made me sick - total absence of humour and irony, like there was in return to castle wolfenstein for example. the funny thing is that rtcw is forbidden in germany, while moh is not...

well, sorry for being a bit off-topic. british yellow press has always been like this i think. when i was on holiday in the 80s and looked thru 'the sun' or so there was always something like 'sauerkraut is steffi graf's recipe to win". but i didn't expect british people to take this seriously. the british are known for their humour, aren't they ?? if there's really a new wave of anti-germany feelings coming up in the u.k. i really wonder where it comes from, really from old films ?

however, i still think it's much harder to be a muslim in certain western countries today than a german...

[M H]

Found the artical quite odd compared to my own experience, only the other day there was some German guy chatting away in German on his mobile phone whilst on the bus on the way into town, whilst no-one batted an eyelid.. I think it's the excveption rather tan a rule, and this was one isolated incident.. However, the British do sometimes seem to have this totally ignorant attitude to anyone who isn't from this country, suppose it could be an island mentality thing.. As far as the Nazi thing goes, the english aristocracy commited 10 times more genocide before that particular political party had even been thought about.. Goes to show, the winners always write the history books...

[deccard]

fascism is gay

[DsD]

are people who attack germans cause of theire history better then nazis or is it the same?
that was my first thought while reading the article...

[jukka]

they are worse than nazis becouse they condemn the nazis for their thinking/behaviour but they are not better...hate sowing hate..stupid racists just like all the stupid nazis (worldwide....).

[DsD]

right...
let`s wait 50 years... perhaps the people stop thinking that all germans are nazis ;)

[invisibleplanet]

good idea, dsd

with the birth of the inet, the state cannot easily control the flow of information and propaganda, and so that gives everyone a chance to make their views and experiences known.

perhaps in another 50 yrs, we will view this time in history very differently.

[c s]

i cannot share this optimism i'm afraid. while the net provides the opportunity for everyone (who has internet access and bypasses possible gouvernment filters) to gather information from various sources, the mainstream mass media are getting worse all the time, less ambitious, less critics, less brain, more 'opinion', less information, more commerce... and i believe that for the majority they still matter because most people just don't have the time to compare a dozen points of views from many small websites. i think it would be the job of a good news program or a good newspaper to do that and present it all in a neutral manner.

but ok, at least for those who are already sceptical the net is a great source - of course.

[DsD]

the internet is not free. we have censorship and we still watch tv.
tv is propaganda. the us tv is the best example.

the most users are able to read stuff in 2-3 languages but most of them don`t understand everything (including me).
that means we just have a litle bit of the information the internet can give us. we don`t know what is realy going on in irak or other countries. we have only a few informations and our governments are trying to censor a lot of stuff.

i don`t belive that it takes more then 5 years until they filter 50-80% of the informations. filters that work like echolon (recording ur calls if u say a keyword like "bomb" or something else). keyword based filtering...

AND NO I`M NOT PARANOID! :P
;)

[DsD]

hmpf. never react if your phone bells until u have finished ur post cause c s is waiting out there to write something like it. ;)

[aleks]

maybe the brititish couldn´t take it that they won the war, but lost afterwards...regarding that germany´s economy overtook the british 14 years later.

[bitch one]

complaining that british schools don't teach enough german history?? they don't even teach scottish history in scottish schools..we just get english stuff.

and i think that a lot of the 'anti-german feelings' that the average british person supposedly has are not serious - rather they are a joke. in the same way, scottish people 'hate' the english - but we don't actually hate them - it's more to do with wanting to beat them at sport. hardly any scot would actually want to attack someone for being english - and the sort of people who would would probably be equally likely to attack a scottish person. violent twats are violent twats.

[c s]

i can't remember we learned anything about british history in german school. perhaps from medieval times but definitely nothing from 20th, 19th century. well, a slight touch of industrialisation, perhaps, but nothing about politics, not even about the victorian era or so.

[DsD]

@c s: we learned a litle bit about the ww2 and the british armada too.

[c s]

well, we didn't, ww's of course, but no armada. can't remember why, perhaps the teacher was ill ? lol i remember we dealt with yugoslavia/bosnia war as well during the last year at school. this was not in the plan of course, but actually i think it was a good idea to bring current events into the lessons.

[DsD]

i didn`t say that we have much about it. 2x45 minutes... that was all ;)
the problem is that we need not only history. we need something about current politic in the world. ;)

[wheezer]

having lived in the us as a german during the time of the collapse of the former ddr, I had the sublime pleasure both of being the subject of xenophobic "heil hitler" type of idiocy and at the same time watching people shrug when asked wether the collapse of the berlin wall was of any relevance. of course ignorance & the topic of this thread go hand in hand, but personally, I have to say that I don't really care (wether I'm subject of that kind of crap or not). I was just entering my teens then and still it was clear to me that these types of people are idiots at best... of course in my case I was really just subject of some stupid phrases every once in a while, I think some the types of racism you see in Germany is much more frightening...

[aleks]

my mate is on tenriffa (don´t know how you call it in english) right now and there he met this english bloke. they were drinkin together for hours and everything was fine. then the english asked him where he is from and my mate said germany. well, the english wasn´t amused at all...he was like fuck germany, fuck all y´all blah blah...well, bad luck for that english dude ...he got what he deserved for his endless stupidity:) lol

[aleks]

Originally posted by wheezer
I think some the types of racism you see in Germany is much more frightening...

is it really that bad in germany? i don´t think so...maybe some places in the east. i am not german and i never ever had any problems here.
i think it´s worse in places like denmark, france, austria, italy.

[DsD]

uh it`s bad here? i`m half german but i don`t look like a german. i never had any real problem here.
some people look at me but i think it`s because i look a litle bit hm... how can i describe it... strange? ;)
never had any problem with skinheads or something like this. only with some stupid idiots but they were from abroad. ;)

[wheezer]

@DsD&Aleks

what I was referring to is the whole extreme right neonazi movement...

[marcel]

Originally posted by aleks


is it really that bad in germany? i don´t think so...maybe some places in the east. i am not german and i never ever had any problems here.
i think it´s worse in places like denmark, france, austria, italy.

you've never been to chemnitz have you? here are GERMAN people! there where a time you couldn't go out without seeing neonazis. what was disgusting, frightening and annoying and...
but it has becoming better now, the people formerly known as nazis ar now hihopfans....

[DsD]

hm thats east germany. not west germany... and don`t say we are one country. we are still divided. u know what i mean...

[marcel]

yes i do..

[actionjetzon]

It really depends on where you are in Germany, the eastern part is more "dangerous" for foreigners for sure, but its going down i think too. To be racism was a kind of trend there...so, now its hiphop marcel said! How stupid can people be?
I do not looking german too, and i also had never any problem here with "nazis". In contrary, only peepz from south-east europe wanted to make trouble...curious that

[amble]

we surely have serious problems in some parts of east-germany, there's things like the "National Befreite Zonen" - just imagine this: no foreign restaurants, no shops, no people. scaring!

then again you can get knocked out pretty much everywhere in the world. if you meet the wrong guy you get busted.

as for the nazis: i wouldn't take the majority of them political serious (i guess 90% and going would be overdemanded with the word 'duce'..:! ), they are just poor fools. give them a job and a future and they will retire.

and about that propaganda thing: why do you think is there an increase in britain right now? no other themes? maybe too dividing other topics? when will you finally send tony b. for a conference to atlantis?

[DsD]

hu we are a germans only thread now ;)
the people who voted hitler were poor fools too. don`t forget that.

[M H]

Not German only...
I myself have had problems getting to my hotel room in Leipzig on reunification day due to these dumb ass fascists... We have similar problems here with the BNP and National Front... Also the massive scapegoating of asylum seekers by the tabloid press is pretty disgracefull....

[DsD]

M H that was east germany and it is not as bad as it was a few years ago... they have lived without any foreign people in the time of the wall and they had work in this time. they don`t understand that the ddr payed them and that this was one reason why the ddr couldn`t survival. they think that the foreign people steal their work. stupid but thats what they think.

the problem is not the skinhead scene. the problem are the people behind them. the people who tell them lies about people from other countries and they are not some stupid skins... that people are intelligent, they have money and they have power. thats realy dangerous.

[jukka]

sorry but original skinheads aren't facsists..they do listen to ragga and ska music and are totally against racism and facism.

and also not just the people from another country do have probs with the damn fucking nazis i think everybody who isn't same minded do have probs with them !!!!

and no one who is hanging around in the streets and drinks beer all the day gan get a job !!!

[DsD]

jukka i know that but u know what i mean.

[jukka]

okaydokey dsd ;)

[jukka]

Originally posted by actionjetzon
so, now its hiphop marcel said! How stupid can people be?

people can be as stupid as bread lol

there was a time here in wolfsburg we had lots of facists here also lots of facists from the east came here that time...i can remeber i just left the gas station (bought some chips or so) whan a car hold ten metres from me and five 20-25 year old facists came out of the car and shouted at me that they wanna beat that "fucking punk" me up (i was 13 or 14 years old)....when they came toward me i took my legs in my hands and run....luckily they don't catched me ;)
after a punk concert in a youth club here where i used to hang around all the punks and othere people went out to beat up da damn nazis.........that evening/night there was a street fight were stones flyed, even on the copcars when they arrived...but luckily that bad times are gone....and now lots of them are sunnyboys and even some of them are junkies....mostly just people you laugh about today !!!!!!!

[Tomoki]

The funny thing here in Germany is that in cities with high foreigner percentages (like Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Cologne and Munich) the unemployment is lower in relation to the cities with less foreigners (Dresden, Leipzig).

The regions with high foreigner percentage have high incomes.

Me as a guy who lives in the city with the highest foreigner percentage in Germany (Frankfurt) have no problems, although that here are some very strange persons (not only here, even in cities with low foreigners).

Some people generalize this and say that all foreigners are like this and want to throw them in their homelands.

This would be a very bad thought, a city or a country only with Germans.

[DsD]

hehe what about the strange german people? ;)

[amble]

Originally posted by Tomoki
This would be a very bad thought, a city or a country only with Germans.

yes and if you take a look at social statistics you can see that we will need lots of them foreign workers to keep our social system away from collapsing. so maybe the poor (working) beaten up alban ends up paying the skins pension.;)

[c s]

ok but the main target of hate are those seeking asylum. who, by the way, are not even allowed to work. seems like politics is promoting prejudice - and not only in this case by the way. asylum seekers are simply labelled 'economic refugees' and this means they have no right to stay here. people stopped asking themselves how those might feel who leave their country to get a job in some dirty kitchen in europe, which is paradise for them compared to poverty at home. have you heard of what's happening at the channel tunnel between france & britain ? a taste of what is to come ! :( infrared vision patrols at the borders won't keep us from getting into severe trouble.

[M H]

cs, I think you've hit on the pont here, that the whole of the EU seems to have a messed up view on immigration, and like it's been said here before, we're gonna NEED immigrants to keep the whole social security system going...

The Asylum issue seems to be one that governments pull out when everything is going wrong for them, a usefull bit of smokescreen.. Unfortunatly there are people who are ignorant enough to be spoon fed this rhetoric..

[amble]

Originally posted by c s
ok but the main target of hate are those seeking asylum. who, by the way, are not even allowed to work. seems like politics is promoting prejudice - and not only in this case by the way. asylum seekers are simply labelled 'economic refugees' and this means they have no right to stay here. people stopped asking themselves how those might feel who leave their country to get a job in some dirty kitchen in europe, which is paradise for them compared to poverty at home. have you heard of what's happening at the channel tunnel between france & britain ? a taste of what is to come ! :( infrared vision patrols at the borders won't keep us from getting into severe trouble.

yeah i know they are not allowed to work. i think that's the reason they 'all' go selling drugs and stuff. i mean they can't stay at home all day watching german television can they? (..btw it must be a terrifying experience to see e.g. Werner Schulze-Erdel without understanding a word of this speech..)

i think the state should finally free all drugs, give them pushers an official job and retire. they got all the connections already, they know how it's going and they can handle a knife. that way it should be easy to restore wellfare-system and safe money for police too. sun would finally shine 24h.

cs what's going on at the tunnel? rabid foxes finally making it over to britain?

[DsD]

first of all we need integration for the imigrants. a lot of german people can`t accept that the people have their own culture. i think it`s the same in every country.

äh amble i don`t buy drugs from foreign people. i just buy from germans ;)

[c s]

Originally posted by DsD
i don`t buy drugs from foreign people. i just buy from germans ;)

aaah, i heard that before ! wasn't it in 1933 when uns adolf said 'germans, from now on, buy your drugs at german shops only !' ? lol

[c s]

Originally posted by amble

rabid foxes finally making it over to britain?

yeah, that's exactly about it... the way it's described by politics and mass media. ;)

[DsD]

they sold drugs in shops? good old times. ;)

[c s]

oh that's offtopic and i'm not at all an expert in drugs, but i think heroin was once sold at pharmacies, just like cocaine - am i right ? anyway, i don't think people in 33 had money left for drugs.

[DsD]

hm i think i am not better than a nazi. i hate people with the "techno look" (the babyravers with funny hair and strange clothings) and i hunt them in clubs. (just something that came to my mind right now. not important for the thread or something else ;) )

[c s]

don't worry, that's something natural. ;)

[deccard]

you guys forget that in some eastgerman areas in smaller villages its "normal" to be rightwing. i heard that before and just read it again today. the "browns" are the only youthculture there.
some assholes tortured a guy to death and the mayor of that town said that happens everywhere in big cities in germany?!?! whack shit out there i must say...time to leave germany maybe....

[DsD]

thats stupid! why schould we let them win? give them good music and a clear statment against nazis. show them that we are all people from this planet and that we don`t need any kind of prejudices against other humans (are babyravers humans?).
we have to show them that we are not political uninterested... back to the 68er! ;)

[deccard]

hm they don´t except criticism from outsiders. "we are normal. we don´t have a problem here. go away and leave us alone."
maybe we should bomb them away :) damn rightwing terrorist hives.

[DsD]

bombs are not the solution. we should use spoons. (uh i am a nice guy. yes i am. ;) )

[c s]

creating martys is never of any use. we have to dig for the roots of problems. but everything's going into the opposite direction. :(

[DsD]

which roots? we do it like the usa. kill the people. thats an easy way to solve problems. why thinking if acting works too.

[Irrungenwirrungen]

I don't like the terms 'nazis' or 'neo-nazis'. People are 'racist' to varying degrees or 'non-racist'. The so called 'neonazis' are responsible for violence & killing, but I think if they are made to look like extremists, it actually allows many people to think that telling racist jokes etc, what might seem like just a bit of fun.. is actually okay.
No form of racism is acceptable whether it be the milder verbal or the more brutal physical aggression. As long as there are nations,there will always be patriotism, nationalism, xenophobia and groups who directly attack outsiders. I think therefore that we need to actually work on eradicating institutional racism & showing individuals the merits of other cultures. I've always liked this...

Dein Christus ein Jude
Dein Auto ein Japaner
Deine Pizza italienisch
Deine Demokratie griechisch
Dein Kaffee brasilianisch
Dein Teppich persisch
Dein Urlaub türkisch
Deine Schrift lateinisch
Deine Zahlen arabisch
Und Dein Nachbar nur ein Ausländer?

For me one of the most shocking events of the nineties was the Rostock incident in Germany. The way that nobody in the community- even the police would help the asylum seekers. Similar incidents happen in Britain- The riots in Northern England a couple of years ago. I heard of Asian youths being arrested, but heard nothing about the detention of the racists who sparked the whole thing off.
The most frightening aspect of the whole issue is that 'right wing extremism' fares worst of all during times when there is a strong rightwing government in power. Margaret Thatcher proved that point quite well when she referred to Britain being 'swamped' by foreigners, as did Charles De Gaulle in France.
In other words......Which is the lesser of two evils- institutionalised racism or violent groups?

[c s]

yes but the times have changed since thatcher (and kohl, reagan). i think the main problem is that now even the former 'left' side in politics has started to use the same shameless populism against minorities, be it 'asylum seekers for economic reasons' or 'unemployed who don't want to work anyway' or perhaps employees in shops who are about to become the slaves of the rest of the people by working all day, all week - although it is proven it doesn't improve anything in the economy - only the buyers feel 'more comfortable' now, just another populist act.

so there are no counterparts anymore in politics. in many issues they all agree, they feed the thoughtless, disinformed man in the street with what he wants. another one of my favourite topics is the regulation and surveillance of both the internet and the real world - i think this is all part of the same problem.

[Irrungenwirrungen]

Originally posted by c s
yes but the times have changed since thatcher (and kohl, reagan). i think the main problem is that now even the former 'left' side in politics has started to use the same shameless populism against minorities, be it 'asylum seekers for economic reasons' or 'unemployed who don't want to work anyway' or perhaps employees in shops who are about to become the slaves of the rest of the people by working all day, all week - although it is proven it doesn't improve anything in the economy - only the buyers feel 'more comfortable' now, just another populist act.

so there are no counterparts anymore in politics. in many issues they all agree, they feed the thoughtless, disinformed man in the street with what he wants. another one of my favourite topics is the regulation and surveillance of both the internet and the real world - i think this is all part of the same problem.

You are totally right- times have changed and politics has become a game of mirror-imaging, and the problem is that perceptions of what is left- or right-wing in terms of the traditional political parties are left a little confused- Just adding to the problem.

[wheezer]

Originally posted by c s
perhaps employees in shops who are about to become the slaves of the rest of the people by working all day, all week - although it is proven it doesn't improve anything in the economy - only the buyers feel 'more comfortable' now, just another populist act.

instead of longer working hours, that should translate to more jobs, e.g. for newly arrived foreigners. call me naive, but I'd like to see that proof.