Monday, 14 January 2013

Julie Burchill - a Brutalised Hater and Xenophobe




Intercultural Musings doesn't normally comment on journalistic ongoings. There are so many, and a few weeks later nobody knows what the whole thing was about. But in the case of the unspeakable J. Burchill, I will make an exception. If only to raise my eyebrows that somebody like that can peddle her dirty tricks campaign for so long - and hitherto unchallenged.

It goes wiithout saying that her ramblings about transgendered people are abhorrent and shocking ( I will not quote her awful comments here, look it up if you're interested). One can only hope, she was (as seems quite often to be the case) drunk when she wrote such abysmal, crude, and rude stuff.

What perturbs me slightly, however, is that this horrible woman only gets taken to task now. Her hate-campaign against all sorts of groups has been going on for years. In particular, she writes the most inflammable hate-filled xenophobic stuff. She hates all foreigners, is rude about the French, the Irish, the Americans. She is however particularly disgusting about "the Germans".

You can read her unacceptable, vile and ridiculously badly-written stuff here (if you can stomach it)


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2001/sep/22/weekend.julieburchill

That The Guardian decides to publish something like that, makes me wonder about that paper (but not for the first time). Imagine somebody would write a piece like that about black people, about Pakistanis or any other ethnic group. But the Guradian obviously thinks that "The Germans" are fair game. (The Daily Mail of course is the runner-up for Euro-hating and -bashing of any kind.)

Maybe it took that below the belt twaddle about the transgendered community to make the British public wake up to the fact that writing brutalised hate-filled stuff  is absolutely unacceptable, and that xenophobia is as disgusting as homophobia, or the hate-targeting of any group.

Friday, 4 January 2013

Emigrating to Germany? Well, yes!


A seismic shift is rippling through the intercultural perspective. Germany has suddenly become the country people move to. For work, yes - but not just. For a more agreeable and relaxed lifestyle. For going to university and not having to pay. For living in an exciting and culturally vibrant environment (Berlin) whilst not having to fork out masses of money for a flat. For understanding that it's not necessary to lumber yourself with a mortgage all through your life - and yet still be able to live ina nice flat or house -because in Germany renting is the genrally accepted norm. And for safety. And for a thousand other reasons...

The once frowned-upon country which never even featured on the travel pages of magazines (despite having some the most spectacular scenery in Europe) has suddenly become the go-to place of choice Maybe Germany had just been overlooked for some time. Maybe there didn't seem to be a particular reason to go. People had it down as solid, but boring, unexciting - just sort of there.

The deteriorating economic climate in many European country turned out to be the intitial spark that made people aware of Germany. But suddenly it's quite literally on the map. Tourist numbers are up, people - especially Britons - are suddenly very knowledgeable about Germany, discussing export figures (up?) versus retail sales (down?). And who would have thought - they're even reading German novels that had been all but forgotten in Germany were it not for the boost from Britain, yes I'm talking about Fallada's Alone in Berlin which became a bestseller in the UK! http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/23/hans-fallada-thriller-surprise-hit

Quality standards improve quality of life - it's as simple as that. And not just for those who can afford it - in Germany, class inequality is a lot less pronounced than, say, in the UK. Decent standards in all wakes of life (housing, transport, food are available to all. Concomitantly, there is much less (or actually no) class hatred, and a lot less crime.

Nobody's saying Germany is the new Eden. You will still have to put up with a certain staidness, with hermetically shut shops on Sunday, a strong regionalism, and an often technological way of thinking. But these disadvantages are far outstripped by the enormous benefits and the pleasures of living here.


If you have any specific questions about life in Germany, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm also on twitter @Margit11