Today in my Political Science class “Collective Violence and the State”, our professor discussed Germany. He argued that in the generations prior to WWII, German people were raised as victims and had seen their leaders, from Otto Von Bismarck, to Kaiser Wilhelm to Adolf Hitler, blame the state’s various struggles on a multitude of scapegoats –some legitimate, some tragically absurd. It’s the Jews’ fault. It’s the communist’s fault. It’s the British Empire’s fault. And so on and so forth.
His greater point was that even countries with a mutual hatred as historic and fevered as that of Germany and France (who fought three massive wars between 1850 and 1950), can overcome those differences and become allies, as those two nations have in the European Union. A reason for this, he argued, is that since WWII and specifically the Holocaust, Germans have been raised as “perpetrators.” Germany’s problems are no longer the rest of the world’s fault. By that mindset, a lot of the world’s problems are/were Germany’s fault.
Without delving into the unspeakable crimes that Germany committed against pretty much everything but funny mustaches and fascism, it’s possible to say that some really good things have come out of WWII. The European Union for example, has been a greater success than anybody with a history book and an atlas could have guessed. And the formation of the state of Israel, although somewhat less directly stemming from the War, has a great deal of personal significance for me as a Jew and descendent of survivors.
As such, I also hold some biases. One of them is that I root against Germany when it competes in international sporting events like the Olympics. And as you may or may not know, Germany beat Turkey today to advance to the finals of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. None of this, I admit, is very exceptional. The grandson of Holocaust survivors roots against Germany; your eyes are probably still in their sockets after reading this.
But today in class I got to thinking about that bias of mine, and about the whole idea of younger German generations still being brought up as perpetrators. I spent most of last year in Europe, and while I didn’t make it to Germany, I met quite a few Germans my age.
They were very nice. Polite, intelligent, engaging, whatever adjective –just good people overall. And one feeling they all communicated (usually in the most subtle, understated, inoffensive manner), was how awful it is to grow up in a country where every day in school they learned how horrible their ancestors were. How as fast or as far as they run, they can’t outpace or escape the lurking shadow of the atrocities that their grandparents committed.
When I hear this, I feel bad for about 3 minutes. Then I think about the other side of those barbed wire fences, my people’s side, and I don’t feel bad any more. I just don’t. But I still liked the Germans I met. Nice people.
And today’s Germany, in a political sense, is pretty okay as well. I wouldn’t call it a definitive model for good government or anything, but it is a fairly respectable EU state with some serious economic influence to exert and a set of problems not totally untypical of Central Europe.
So I don’t have a problem with the current political entity that is Germany, nor do I have a problem with the people, at least the young people who compose that entity.
And yet.
And yet I root against them in sports, and not just casually either. I go out of my way to cheer for the country that plays them. I wanted Turkey to win that game, and not just because it’d be cool to see a “fringe” European nation advance to the finals, but because they were playing Germany.
Why is this? Do I still hold some lingering prejudice against Germany even with all that’s happened in the 60 plus years since WWII?
Well yeah, apparently I do. It may or may not be rational, or entirely explainable, but I do hold some sort of resentment. Call it bias, or general distrust, or something else entirely –doesn’t matter. Athletic competition is a relatively safe place for me to express that feeling without coming off as short-sighted, or intolerant, or overly sentimental about something that happened a long time ago.
But it’s not as if I’m going to sit here and root against Germany in other ways. I’m not going to pray that the policy initiatives of Chancellor Angela Merkel begin to fail, or for a huge plague to befall the nation, or for a random German backpacker to fall and break his wrist, or for all the BMW’s in the world to stop running all at once. That’d just be cruel.
And sports are simultaneously more and less important than those things. Tangibly, they don’t matter all that much. But intangibly, sports can inflate a person’s spirit like a blimp. Then, in just a moment, send that spirit crashing and burning to the ground like the Hindenburg.
However, I don’t root against Germany in any sort of dogmatic way. I don’t care more about Germany losing than America or Israel or Spain or any other country I have ties to winning. And if Germany were to compete against a country whose politics, or more recent history I have issues with, say Iran or Zimbabwe, I’d root for Germany. But my interest in the event would probably dwindle massively.
I will end this rambling post here, as I’m approaching 1,000 words, which is far too long for my own comfort. But to conclude, I guess the lesson is that sports don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen in the cultural context of the rest of our lives (I was born in LA; hence I am a Dodgers fan). And with that in mind, I’ll write soon about why I support using the Olympics or World Cup or other such events as political leverage when that is necessary.
Until then, Spain plays Russia tomorrow for a chance to meet Germany in the final. Either way, I’m rooting for the winner of that game. But for now, Viva la Furia Roja (yes Spain soccer’s nickname is the “red fury”). And olé.
