Help the aged – because Soylent Green is no solution…

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

How we care for the elderly in our society very much defines ourselves as a community. Yet also, how we care about those who care. People in nursing professions who usually just make ends meet financially, and relatives who deal with the decrepitude of their own parents / and or loved ones. Sometimes under great pressure trying to deal with both their professional life and the fact that someone lives with them or close to them, who simply became too old in order to look after him- or herself.

How does the Gumboot-tribe arrive at this topic? Well, simply because it became a personal issue to me. Recently, my gran left us. She was 95 years old when she died, and I can assure you: Especially the last year of her life wasn’t too good. It was not that she was sick, she was simply old. But old age in the end works like a slow disease, and during the last weeks she was barely able to get out of bed, let alone speak.

My grandma, Hildegard Krause, who recently passed away.

Yet the true issue was this: Most of the work rested on my mom’s shoulders, who is also 67 years old by now. Of course, we had a nursing service who came in the mornings and evenings, but still, those are expensive, and the workload they do is limited, because our state nursing insurance plans don’t allow for much extras. So apart from washing and dressing gran, getting her through the day was my mom’s business. It’s just lucky mom’s always been a hausfrau (my parents are from that generation when that was the way – and when you could live decently on one salary), because if she’d still had a job, which would’ve been quite possible, had she been ten years younger… then things would’ve gotten tricky.

I’m glad that both my grandmothers lived out their days at home. But I also know that especially my mom payed a price for it. When my dad’s mother started to not be so well, mom was fifteen years younger, and dad could help her more (he had multiple heart surgery last year, so during gran’s last year now, he couldn’t help out that much). And well… apart from the fact that both my sis and I work a lot, my mom simply didn’t want us to help more than necessary. Stubborn generation, these people born in the 1940ies…

We all want to get old, but no-one wants to be disabled by his own Biblical age. In a global society dominated by a

German comment in cartoon: "Thanks to the new gymnastics program for our nursing staff we were able to cut our costs by two thirds."

youth-cult unrivalled in history, the issues of ageing and caring for nursing cases are often swept aside, ignored, not deemed as tasteful input for conversation at cocktail parties.

And so, it happens often with the aged: They end up in a home, locked away (more or less) and forgotten (well, most certainly).

It ends boils down to a quote from Brit-rockers Pulp: “Help the aged, one time they were just like you, drinking,

Regardless of what other people say: Soylent Green is NOT the solution.

smoking cigs and sniffing glue…” I wonder sometimes who will take care of our generation, when we’re REALLY old. Like, hm, our countries don’t have any youth bulge for real, the age pyramid will soon rest on its top. And certainly, we don’t want to go Soylent Green (if someone remembers that classic SF-movie).

Germany is facing huge difficulties this way. Until 2030, the number of nursing cases will rise by 50 percent. Stationary hospital treatments will also increase, some German politicians are already warning that our federal health care and nursing systems may collapse. Demographic change is definitely not working in a favourable way here, and I am quite sure it’s the same in Canada.

I don’t have the answer. Do you? One thing is sure: Just constructing new approaches around insurance and financial questions won’t be the solution. In Germany, a lot of municipalities are experimenting on alternative ways of having people live together. I guess in North America there is probably something parallel going on to our multi generation-house movement here. Basically, we need to recreate the multi generation households that were normal in the then larger families up to WW2. Because after that, the cookie started to crumble for various reasons that we’re probably all aware of and need not go into here because that would lead too far

The Jedi nursery service: Not quite what Luke Skywalker expected.

now to be debated in this article. How do we deal with this? Preserve individualism and the lifestyle we all want (which may differ greatly) while still having solidarity amongst the younger and older generations? I’m afraid most of us will have to make their minds up about this during the next three decades – because of our own parents, and because we will be the best agers and silver surfers then, on the brink of turning into Yodas…

Douchebags of the world, unite!

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

The "spacken" in his natural habitat.

Douchebags in Germany… For once, my dear Gumbooteers, I don’t have an answer. The term first came to my attention two or three years ago, when I saw the infamous douchebag-girl on youtube. As for the German incarnation of the DB – I believe there are many. You could talk “Spacko” or “Spacken”, meaning people who are inept to properly look after themselves – general failures of the kind that you can’t even pity because these guys are really, really idiots.

“Spacko” is also often heard, if someone who is socialized in a metal- or rock-context (real rock, not, you know, The Killers or such crap) wants to designate a really, big-time uncool person.

“Opfer”, would be another take, involving mainly the immigrant’s viewpoint, especially seen from the popcultural vantage-point of Hip Hop. “Opfer” means “victim”. The term is used quite widely, and there are certain parts of Berlin or Hamburg, where ANY average ethnic German may be regarded as an “opfer” by the prowling ghetto youth. Well – there you go. Three or four decades of not trying to really integrate people into the mainstream of German society – and the whole thing tilts. Somehow the negativity of “douchebag” makes me think that, maybe, if I had to translate “Opfer” into English, I’d go for douchebag as an equivalent.

Ghetto-kids at some problem-school in Berlin. These tykes surely know who their "opfers" are.

Alright, and now for some complementing terms you might also use, just for variance of expression: “Honk”, “Doespaddel”, “Depp”, “Vollhonk”, “Behindi”, “Vollarsch”, “geistiger Fußgaenger”, “Flachschaedel” – oh I could go on like this forever, I suppose. The gist, I guess, is this: We know the equivalents of douchebags in many shades and forms. Yet the phenomenon as such… does not exist, I’m afraid. But then again – thanks to the web, I recently heard someone on a train swearing “Bob Saget!”. So – if it’s on the web, it’ll be on German streets one fine day. Which will be when I will welcome douchebagdom with open arms! ^ ^

May 1st: A celebration of the best we could be

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

The best thing to report, when it comes to political demonstrations involving radical parties, is when there’s nothing to report. As I informed you all in my last post, two neo-nazi parties, ProNRW and the NPD, singled out Solingen for public rallies on May 1^st.

Downtown Solingen: Everyone was on their feet for the counter-demonstration. Photo: Lilian Muscutt

The good news is: Nothing happened, no clash between left-wing activists and the Nazis. The better news is: The Nazis had to abandon both rallies after short periods of time, because the sheer decibel-volume of all counter-protestors made it impossible in both locations for the Nazis to hold speeches without getting a hoarse throat instantly – while still speaking over a PA. Well, yours truly also suffered from a sore throat the next day, as did many counter-protestors. But it was absolutely worth it, shouting these idiots down.

Yet the best thing is: It wasn’t just the usual left-wing activists (some of them dubious) who came for their average nazi rally-tourism, and a friendly “bash” with the police as they do so often. No, my friends, the whole CITY was on its feet. All political parties, from green, liberal, socialist to conservative, all unions, all churches and congregations, the mayor and high ranking town-officials, local companies, citizens young and old, hipsters, gays, lesbians, blacks, whites, Asian people, Solingers from the East, the West, and what have you places on Earth – everyone was there. Including some people I hadn’t met in quite a while, it was a bit like a school-reunion. There were bands playing, probably around 1000 people alone downtown attending the counter-demonstration, it was a good day for democracy in our town. Remindful of “No way back” by the Foo Fighters: “No more left and right, Come on take my side, I’m fightin’ for you…” It was really a colourful celebration of the best that our city and German society can aspire to be: A meeting place for many cultures and beliefs, kept alive by a spirit of mutual respect under the roof of our constitution.

Well, but one bitter drop there is: Of course we also have to thank 800 police-men and -women for doing a great job

Thumbs up for the police: 800 officers did a good job in keeping the peace. Photo: LM

on this day. Since of course, had they abandoned the two protective cordons for the Nazis downtown and near the main station, the peaceful demonstration would surely have turned into a street battle. Right up front with the hardcore antifascists, the real radicals, the atmosphere had heated up quite quickly, insults were shouted, battle hymns sung (some of them funny, I really liked taunting the Nazis singing “You lost the war, you lost the war” to a famous soccer-stadium melody), eventually there were three arrests, in one case because someone had thrown a bottle at a departing van full of Nazis.

Interestingly, there were fewer Nazis then expected. ProNRW managed to mobilize some 70 people instead of the assumed 200, and the NPD – well it looked like a small school-class, no more (those guys I could see better, when I was at the barricades in Ohligs with my buddy Zeli, the ProNRW rally was sealed off way better).

Around one p.m., the spook was over. Both groups had given up by then and left the town. Victory for “Solingen is

Do the silly walk, kick the nazis out: Some of the messages delivered by protestors were poignant and funny. Photo: LM

colourful instead of brown”, the driving force behind getting everyone up and saying no to fascism. Full credit goes to them, their committee really did a great job in getting everyone together and in action. Especially the NPD-rally in Ohligs gave me the creeps. Because it was in a spot that I walk by almost daily (right in front of my union savings bank-branch), and for a couple of minutes, you could hear the leader addressing his boot-boys. It sounded like a Hitler-speech. Weird and creepy. And I admit: It made me angry. Which is probably a good thing in this case.

I’ll leave you with a few quotes from friends of mine, whom I met at the demonstrations:

Uli Preuss, journalist and fotographer: “Ever since when in a right wing-case of malicious arson, five Turkish people died in 1993, Solingen has been especially sensitive and on its guard against right wing-tendencies. It’s part of the culture of our town, to defend ourselves against brown propaganda. Greetings to Canada and the Gumboot-readers all over the globe!”

Lilian Muscutt, freelance-journalist and novelist: “It’s somehow tough, that these two groups had the cheek to come

A lot of people felt reminded of 1993, when right wing-perpetrators burnt down the house of a Turkish family, killing five occupants. One of the blackest in the recent history of the city of blades. This a picture from the day after the fire.

to Solingen. The past, i.e. the murders of 1993 make their appearance here unbearable.”

Dr. Markus Butz, neurologist at University of Duesseldorf: “I am here, because this city belongs to all the people living here. And I feel insulted as a Solinger, because nazi-extremists try to spread their hatred here. Especially the campaign against Islam appals me as a Christian.”

Some moving pictures from the day: Uli Preuss’s report for the web-TV of “Solingen Daily”:

http://www.solinger-tageblatt.de/tv/?id=659

Colourful instead of brown: Solingen holds anti-Nazi rally on May 1st

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

Today, dear Gumbooteers, it’s getting serious. We must talk. About Nazis. Think those guys went extinct in 1945? Or that they all went to Argentina? To Antarctica? To the Moon? Well, they did not. And some of them managed to keep a tiny spark of their horrible ideas alive. In Germany. We’ve been a sound democracy for 61 years now. But still there are those who spit on our parliament and who adhere to the thought of a master-race and German world domination. They try to be as nice and bourgeois as they can, these days, wearing suits and telling everyone that they’re not the bad guys. Yeah, right. But usually, if you do a little research you spot that there’s something fishy. That there are connections to militant neo-fascist organizations. On May 1^st, one of those nice guy-groups, ProNRW is holding a big rally in my hometown, here in Solingen (NRW, our province, will have elections soon). So right now, the ranks are closing: In favour of a multifaceted, colourful German society of the 21^st century. Against those who wish to bring back the brown hordes.

ProNRW has self-styled itself as a “civil rights-movement” that tries to limit Islamic influences in German society. They push the right button there, since a lot of Germans feel that immigrants from Islamic countries aren’t well integrated, 911 and the War on Terror of course added fuel to that debate. All of this can be discussed: But it must be clear that the solution of those problems should not be left to people who still think Hitler was great.

A specialist from the University of Duesseldorf, Alexander Haeusler, gave a speech on the topic in Solingen this week, at a meeting of “Bunt statt Braun” (“Colourful instead of brown”), an initiative formed by citizens opposed to those wolves in the fold known as ProNRW.

250 people came to hear the truth about this right wing-group. Haeusler has been watching and studying ProNRW closely for quite some time now. And he arrives at the same conclusion as German authorities: These guys are using the disguise of a civil rights-movement in order to propagate fear and hatred against Islam in Germany. And now they intend to carry that climate into individual cities in Germany’s west. Hence the rally in Solingen on May 1^st.

ProNRW is a threat to democracy in Germany because a lot of people still just perceive them as an option for a “vote of protest“ against the established parties, not knowing of their true alignment and their connections to aggressive para-military Neo Nazi groups.

The Solinger Tageblatt (Solingen Daily) reported this week, that the ProNRW-candidate for the provincial parliament, a guy named Tobias Nass from Solingen, has a vivid past as a Neo Nazi. He claims to have cut all connections in that direction, yet whether that is really the case remains to be doubted.

Thanks for showing us your true face: ProNRW-candidate Tobias Nass.

Solingen Daily also published a photo of Nass, that shows him dressed up as Hitler. Until the beginning of this year, said pic was to be found in his StudiVZ-account (a German Facebook-variant for students). When he announced his candidacy, this photo suddenly disappeared from the web. Talk about coincidence… ProNRW probably tried to clean up his public image, and Nass claims the Hitler-pics were a joke. Very funny, dude. And: In 2007, Tobias Nass was still a member of the NPD – THE German Neo Nazi-party. The only reason why this party isn’t banned is that our authorities and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution fear uncontrollable radicalization once these guys should be forced to go underground.

In 2007, the NPD tried to get a foothold in Solingen. Unsuccessfully. All major political parties, cultural institutions and most importantly THE PEOPLE of Solingen showed them that they weren’t welcome. It was then, that the alliance “Colourful instead of Brown” was forged in order to organize counter-demonstrations. Hundreds of Solingers demonstrated peacefully against the hitherto last public NPD-activities in our city. Yet now, ProNRW is rearing its ugly head in the City of Blades.

And they mean it: While Haeusler, the specialist on right wing tendencies from University of Duesseldorf, was holding

This week's meeting of "Colourful instead of Brown"-initiative in Solingen.

his speech this week in Solingen, the centre for alternative culture where he informed about ProNRW’s Nazi connections was ambushed by about a dozen militant Nazis. Well, as police spokesman Michael Bartsch told Solingen Daily, it was just a “minor brawl”, and only a 19-year supposed Neo Nazi suffered minor injuries. Yet still, the police arrested some of the unbidden guests and told the rest to leave the premises. Eye witnesses claim the mischief-makers were armed with clubs.

Well, I hope that such a clash does not happen again. Nevertheless, I’ll be there for the counter-demonstration on May 1^st. Because I want those fascists to know: I don’t want no Nazis in my city. My dad was born in 1934, so he’s got some first hand experience with the reign of terror that was Nazi Germany. From the things he tells me, it always boils down to the quote from famous historian Sebastian Haffner: “The first victim of Nazi oppression were the German people.”

I’ll come back with a report on the counter-demonstration on May 1^st, so stay tuned. And always remember Thomas Jefferson: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with “Die Aerzte” (“The Physicians”), who, in the early nineties, published “Schrei nach Liebe” (“Scream for Love”), a song against fascism written from the point of view of someone arguing with a Neo Nazi. At that time, right-wing violence reached a dangerous peak in Germany. Enjoy German Punkrock against neo-fascism – with lyrics translated into English:

Job eats brain? Save yourself with business yoga

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

Hey there, my fellow-gumbooteers! In one of my last posts, I guess it was the one about larping, I wrote something about me not doing any yoga, since my other ways out of the dead-end of modern society that is stress and burn-out are working so well.

Hell, now I might even go for some yoga! Because I met an astonishing young woman: Julia Rumi. She’s half-Indian, half-German and works as a coach for business-yoga in Dortmund. In Germany, four million people are practicing yoga and numbers are rising. I did a piece about Julia in another journalistic context, but I see no reason not to share with you the astonishing things I’ve learned. If recently the classic Ramones-song “The job that ate my brain” aptly described your life, then business-yoga might be something to think about.

a) Yoga does not necessarily mean putting your foot behind your neck. It can be practiced in manageable and discrete ways that don’t interfere with a normal office-environment (hence business yoga). Even a small movement of your ankle may activate your entire metabolism in such a fashion that you benefit from it a lot.

b) It’s not all about sitting cross-legged in a candle-lit room heavy with incense. Well you CAN do that, but you don’t have to. “To some, yoga is something more esoteric, others prefer a medical approach or thinking of it in terms of wellness“, says Julia. That is also why she very much respects the views and convictions of her clients. “Of course, what I do is still yoga and it hails from the Indian spiritual tradition yet I prefer to think of it in terms of a ’down to Earth spirituality’.” So relax: You can do yoga and be a devoted Catholic or you may even not believe in anything at all. Business yoga comes with a spiritual-skip function.

c) Yoga Nidra. That sounds really tempting to me. For the record I need to state here, that I practice autogenic training since 2006. It’s a good form of stress management, yet after a while you’ve learned all the techniques and then that’s that. Yoga Nidra is kinda business-yoga meets power-napping. That really fits into most offices. The only prerequisite is a spot, where you can lie on the floor, although it is possible to do that in a sitting position. “It’s a special kind of deep relaxation, also called dynamic sleeping or sleep yoga. The goal is to really shut yourself down for 25 minutes”, Julia explained to me. So it’s the power nap amongst power napping-methods. You do a systematic set of mental suggestions and coax your brain into an alpha-state, i.e. a state of brain activity during which your alpha-waves dominate, as when you’re asleep. Relaxation goes way deeper than with autogenic training, you can also measure that on an EEG. The whole procedure is physically, emotionally and spiritually more relaxing than normal sleep. The main aim of Yoga Nidra is an equilibrium between the two hemispheres of your brain.

Yoga-coach Julia Rumi.

d) And one more thing: I like Julias approach because it’s not just talking the talk but walking the walk. She lost both jobs in 2008, and instead of sitting down and crying (a very German thing) she decided to go entrepreneur and work self-employed. She combined her passion for yoga with her experiences as a consultant and ZAP! – business yoga. I know that that is nothing that HASN’T been done before. But still – it takes courage and a lot of chutzpah. So… kudos for that! (my, that was almost one of John’s get to know your community-rants…)

“Burn out-syndrome is so common-place in our society now, we really need to listen to our inner needs and take better care of our spiritual well-being“, Julia likes to point out. And sometimes, your spiritual well-being starts with doing something for your physical self. Like learning to relax again in an age of cognitive overload.

Of course you won’t be able to book Julia in Canada (unless you have her flown in) but maybe this is of interest to some of you guys and our readers (hello, parents of John Horn!). If everybody went about their daily business (and gumboots) a bit more relaxed, wouldn’t that also mean a great benefit to all the communities that we’re all part of?

Julia Rumi’s homepage: www.julia-rumi.de (sorry folks, site only in German)

PS: Apparently the US military uses Yoga Nidra to treat post-traumatic stress in veterans: http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2007/sep/20070909Puls002.asp

Now that’s a twist I wouldn’t have expected…

Welcome to the afterlife: In Germany, the Ramones are still touring

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

Germany – what’s that you say? Lederhosen, Oktoberfest… Sigh. Dammit, my fellow Gumbooteers, it is So. Much. More. Germany hosts a wide spectrum of sub cultures. One of ‘em being punk. I love punk, and most from that strata, punk rock. And a lot of other Germans do, which is why you get one of the best Ramones-coverbands, the Raemouns, who are natives of the Ruhrgebiet, from Velbert (about 50 klicks from where I live). The name “Raemouns” (with an a-Umlaut in German typography) signifies a germanized version of the famous New York four-piece’s name. Pronounced with a heavy German accent, s.th. like “Rae-moans”. And like the almighty (and original! having come years before the Sex Pistols) punkrockers from Queens, NYC, the Raemouns, now in existence for ten years, have created their own fan-following.

2nd from right: Butsch Ramone... No wait - that it IS Joey... Or isn't he?

Whereever they play in the republic, you ALWAYS meet some familiar faces. I recently had the opportunity to talk to Udo Butschinek aka Butsch Ramone, who figures as your German Joey Ramone-surrogate. The gist with the Raemouns is, and that is also why people always come back, that they’re not just another cover-band. The Raemouns were meant to be an imitation band, right from the beginning. “We always meant to do it right”, says Butsch. “We studied Ramones-live footage for hours, trying to get the poses right. Some of our leather jackets were purchased in New York, because we couldn’t get the real deal in Germany. And the white Mosrite guitar that our Lemmy Ramone plays, well he built it himself. No kidding. He got the specs on the web and built it himself, because he wanted the look and the sound of Johnny Ramone.” These guys are hardcore, my fellow gumbooteers. Their shows are exactly the same white heat the Ramones used to radiate. It’s “1,2,3,4” – two minutes of chainsaw punkrock, “1,2,3,4” two minutes of chainsaw-punkrock and so on. The whole night. The only longer pause you get is when they take their leather jackets off.

Raemouns or Ramones? Which are the real ones? The guys above? These four?

What kinds of people attend Raemouns-gigs? “Oh that’s the whole range”, says Butsch. “You get thirteen year-old disco-girls who’ve only just heard of the original band, you get old rock’n’rollers, rockabillies, real street punks, normal average guys who just like rock’n’roll – everyone. Which I think is really cool.”

The greatest success for the four Ramones-heads from Velbert was as yet their tour in Argentina. There, the Ramones are apparently something like the Beatles to national consciousness. They’re huger than anywhere else. “It was weird, they treated us like the resurrected Ramones (most original members are already dead). The crowds were going absolutely bonkers, and we had to sign autographs for hours. I kept on thinking ’wait a minute, we’re just some dudes from a backwater-place in Germany who like to play the songs of our favourite band as close to the original as we can…’ But for these guys down there, it was totally happening. A great experience.”

While I can only say, that Butsch need not be too modest. The Raemouns ARE great. Which is why I, for at least seven years in a row, now keep on going to their shows whenever they play near where I live. And perhaps it is their zeal, their mission which they take to heart, which makes them so sympathetic: To keep the flame that used to be the Ramones alive in the world. If you can, go see the Raemouns. Even if you’re not into cover-bands: After your third beer, you’ll think it’s Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Marky (or Tommy). Hey ho, let’s go!

Rock’n'Roll beyond control: The Raemouns live in Berlin, Germany. For the daring amongst the Gumboot-followers…

Welcome to the quagmire: German dialects!

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

As we delved into language and community with the bit on Germans and English in one of my last contributions, this time I take thee, dearest fellow-gumbooteer and interested, keen reader of this blog (hi, parents of John Horn!) into the linguistic quagmire that is Germany: Welcome to German dialects!

In contrast to nations derived from colonies like the US or Canada, Germany has not just accents, it has actual dialects – varieties of the common High Language or Standard Language that are far older, than that very concept itself (okay, I know there’s stuff like Pennsylvania Dutch, but that’s more like an island of German…). They usually stem from the West Germanic or other Indo-European root-languages. Hence, one could argue, some German dialects are still closer to the tongues spoken by German tribes when the Roman empire stretched to the banks of the Rhine than to today’s standard variety of German (which by the way, is just the variety spoken in and around Hannover).

Solingen's "Kottens": Small, rather workshop-like cutlery factories, running on water power. High German wasn't heard in them until the early 20th century.

Unfortunately, most regional dialects have almost died out, because late in the 19th century it was accepted doctrine in Wilhelminian society that dialects are not the spearhead of progress. In the 20th century, the battle gathered momentum: In fact, my great-grandma went to great pains that my mum ought NOT to speak our dialect (Solinger Platt, as it is called) lest it hinder her from getting a better position later on in life (mum was basically raised by Oma Selma, who died around 1955 when my mum was 12 years old). And Oma Selma spoke nothing but Platt (she never mastered High German, according to my mum).

The result is, that my sis and me (born in ’71 and ’78) are able to understand our dialect, but we aren’t fluent in it. We can sort of make up a conversation, but a real expert will know that we may be from in and around Solingen, yet that we normally speak High German in our everyday lives. Platt is funny too, because it’s closer to Dutch and English than High German. In Platt “Zieh Dich an, beeil Dich” (Standard-German for “Hurry, get your clothes on”) means “Trek Dich ens aan, mak fueran” (note the vocabulary differences – would you’ve thought it’s the same language?). Now that’s a sentence I sometimes heard from gran when I was in danger of being late for school…

Not known was a lover of dialects: The last German emperor, Wilhelm II.

So, the dialects were deliberately sentenced to extinction because of political will (and to a certain extent necessity, because a worker from my region wouldn’t have been able to understand someone living in Bavaria, a hundred years ago), and now, a good hundred years later, people have realized what they’ve lost: A piece of truly community-forging regional identity.

In fact, when I first visited a friend in Thuringia in the East, in Weimar, around ’98, was the first time that I really noticed that the “Standard German” that me and my buddies speak isn’t so Standard after all. Five minutes after getting out of the car and into the first beer, all the easterners remarked that “we all sounded like Carsten (the guy we were visiting)” and that we all had “a Rhenish sing-song intonation”. They keep telling me the same everytime I go to Hessia, too.

Yet there are people who keep the dialects alive. Here in Solingen, there are groups who stage plays in it (either adaption of known stuff or pieces by their own playwrights, one famous example being Heidi Theunissen – whenever her new plays are on, the municipal theatre here is sold out!), and there are even some active poets. And our daily newspaper here in Solingen, for which I worked as an editor and reporter up to 2006, even features a daily column in Solinger Platt.

Once you enter the world of dialects, you encounter serious nerds anywhere in Germany – they all love their dialects and they all do a lot about it. For once I gotta hand it to Bavaria: There, they even teach their dialects still in school. I don’t think we’ll ever get there again here in the West. I’ll leave you with a line from Trent Reznor: “My words just echo off these walls…”

Oh, and one more thing. Two vids that allow you direct comparison between Standard German and “Plattduetsch”, the dialect spoken in the North. You all surely know the English original…

German Athletes complain about Olympic Village

Posted on February 12, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

It may not exactly be “The House that Pain built“, but then the Olympic Village in Whistler is also not likely to appear as the last track on a Killing Joke-album. (And “The House that Pain built” of course is still MacKinnon Residence in Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, QC, but that’s a different story altogether). Still, Whistler has German athletes complaining, as German newspaper „Die Zeit“ reported yesterday.

The Olympic Village is compared to a boy scout-summercamp. German athletes told reporters that the living standard was rather poor, compared to European standards: bad housing, food served on paper plates and with plastic cutlery.

The German team criticizes the conditions in Whistler, getting more and more worked up. Hermann Weinbuch, one of the official coaches, said it’d be bad that athletes and coaches were living so far apart. Regarding food and the way it’s served he said that it really left “a lot to desire”. Yet the biggest problem according to Weinbuch’s book are still the drafty tents. “You can really catch a cold here, easily.”

His colleague Werner Schuster from the German ski jumpers likened the Olympic village to a boy scout-summer camp. “The standard of living is quite low. Five or even six people need to share a bathroom, and the walls are paper-thin “, explained Schuster. He admits to have had issues with all that at the start. “But now I kinda like it. And I think it’s an experience for the athletes. It’s a different ambience than a hotel with four stars, because you really have to sort everything out for yourself “, Schuster continued.

Thinks Whistler is "an experience for the athletes": Werner Schuster.

During the Winter Games in Salt Lake City and Turin, some of the athletes were not accommodated in the Olympic Village. Because travelling to the games would’ve been long and cumbersome, the Deutsche Skiverband (German Skier’s Union) had booked private quarters near the event locations for athletes, coaches and other personnel. That’s a privilege that only our Alpine-ace Maria Riesch enjoys right now, along with the other ski racers as well as their advisors, trainers and their entire technical crew.

One user comments in the „Die Zeit“-forum: ”I was in Whistler two years ago. It’s a totally artificial village with everything that people under 25 need in order to have fun – if they’ve got rich parents, that is. Everything was so expensive there – so it really baffles me why the Olympic teams are housed in tents and cardboard-architecture.”

On the other hand, this anonymous user admits that we Germans have this knack of projecting our architectural and construction needs on other nations. And I guess he’s right: In Germany, everything is built to last for eternity, most architecture is really heavy masonry or even concrete, wooden houses are totally exotic (you have something like that in your garden, but you don’t live there). Maybe that’s one of the typical German quirks, to build any house like a u-boat pen. But it’s a nice one. F*** off, Katrina. Our masonry is as heavy as our music.

Suffers from "Whistler-shock": German coach Weinbuch.

I still remember when my wife was first exposed to Canadian architecture in 2005 (talking about individual houses, now). It was up in Belvedere in Lennoxville, where a couple of friends of mine back from the old Bishop’s days were living in one of those little houses (the white one with the green windowframes to be exact). Involuntarily, as we pulled up the driveway, my lovely wife Silke alluded to Star Wars: “They live in that thing? They’re braver than I thought…”

Speak English, you lot vs. No English, please

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

Hell, I like Germany’s conservatives. Now, don’t misinterpret me here. I like those guys, because they’re always good for a laugh. Well, I gotta admit, they kinda changed. As I pointed out in my article about “Gay Germany”, we’ve got a female chancellor now, and our foreign secretary is openly gay. Hussa! The only problem is, they are Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle.

Why do Germany’s conservatives figure in a blog dealing with community you say? Well, they recently discovered the topic of language, as in English being the most important foreign language. And language makes or breaks community. After conservatives complained for decades about “anglicisms”, i.e. words imported from English to German, Guenther Oettinger, former premier of German federal province Baden-Wuerttemberg, now EU-superintendent for Energy in Brussels, likes to point out, that English is THE language. In the vid that follows, he concludes that “English is the language of the workplace of the future, whether you work in an office, or in a factory.” He doesn’t say it, but it’s clear that he likes to imply: “You lot better all improve your English. Or you’ll be job-hunting soon.” Contrast it for yourself with Oettinger’s English, as he gives an official speech in his newly acquired function as a high-ranking EU-official.

Is it just me, or does he simply not get half of what he’s obviously just reading out from his script? Like the old Die Krupps-Song: “I open my mouth, words come out – that make no sense to a stranger’s ear…”

Whereever I go on the planet, I’m met with the expectation that Germans usually do well in English. It seems to be something almost like a trait that sticks to us. And I guess everyone in Germany now is proficient in English to some degree. At least in West-Germany, since we were lucky enough to have been occupied mainly by the US and the British after the war. (I guess I don’t need to explain here that the so called “German Democratic Republic” in the East was just a Soviet satellite state, essentially a dictatorship as bad as the Third Reich, with the only differences being a) they didn’t start a world war and b) they didn’t gas millions of dissidents – the body count up to 1989 is still in the hundreds, though – mainly because of all those East Germans trying to make a run for the West that were shot at the border).

But, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, we’re good at English. All but our new, neo-liberal turbo-capitalistic foreign secretary Guido Westerwelle. Look how well he did when talking to a BBC-reporter:

I could’ve handled this from anyone assigned to the new cabinet… After all, we’re in Germany, fair enough. But for crying out loud, this guy was ALREADY APPOINTED OR NEW FOREIGN SECRETARY…! So you see, these guys are fun. So much fun, they inspired the German Green Party to this witty reply, a message to our friends from the BBC:

So… we Germans are inclined towards English, yes, and it’s had a great influence on our collective, cultural space in the 65 years that have passed since the unconditional surrender of the last Reich aka Nazi Germany in 1945. However, I don’t see either how our own language would be endangered by this fact (enriched being the right term, I guess) or how English would become the “exclusive language” of working environments in Germany in the future (a ridiculous idea from Oettinger, unless you’re a top-manager). Yet most of all, I don’t see how we’re going to manage with a foreign secretary who refuses to speak any English. What do other Gumbooteers make of this? Is it cool for a Minister of Foreign Affairs / Foreign Secretary to refuse to speak the lingua franca of the world? Or is it just a pile of horse-hockey to be upset about this?

Welcome to our nation – German at last!

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Peter Joerdell

It doesn’t happen any day, that you officially welcome someone into a community, with all pomp and circumstance. So today, I am really proud to introduce my old friend Zelimir to you, who, finally after the 21 years that I’ve known him, has recently received his German passport. Zeli, whose family hails from Serbia, former Yugoslavia, agreed to talk about becoming a German here at the Gumboot.

Enthusiastic about German reading culture and literature: Zelimir Pecenica (31).

Pete: I remember being on the phone with you back in High School, when you were with your parents spending the summer in Beograd. The situation always reminded me of that Ramones-song: “You by the phone, you all alone – It’s a long way back to Germany…” So, finally you are officially a German citizen! Congratulations, mate! Do you feel any different now?

Zeli: Emotionally, it’s not much of a difference, since I’ve always lived in Germany. So, what’s new? Travelling in the EU is a lot easier now. Also, when dealing with bureaucracy, there are no more questions about my heritage anymore. I’m German, period. When you’re not a native, people will always harbour secret doubts about language proficiency and so on. The citizenship helps.

Pete: What was it like to vote in an election for the first time?

Zeli: I’ve lived here all my life, and now my vote counts, at last. My first election was the EU-parliament, and then I did the municipal elections here in Solingen and the election for the Bundestag in 2009. When you’ve never been able to do that, you really feel how special democracy is.

Pete: Do you think your relationship to Serbia will change?

Zeli: Merely acquiring a new citizenship doesn’t really change that. Yet it’s been a long and slow process, and I can say that I now relate to my ancestry in a different way. Maybe I’m just more serious about dealing with my roots.

Pete: What did your parents say, when they got the news?

Zeli: They like it, though it’s a cut. But then my status isn’t transitory any longer. My parents lived in Germany for fourty years, and they’re still not allowed to vote. Also, my dad said: “Son, it’ll also be better for your job perspective.”

Pete: Who gave you a harder time? The infamous German bureaucracy or the guys in Beograd?

Zeli: They were both tricky, on different levels. They took more bribes in Beograd, yet the Germans were also tough. Here I am, perfectly integrated into German society, fluent as a native speaker, good High School education, studying German and English literature at Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf – come on! Why the long wait with all that evidence in my favour?!?!?

Pete: What do you like especially about Germany?

Zeli: You have your rights here, as a citizen, and they’re respected. Also, everything is in order, be it infrastructure or bureaucracy. We know how to run things, this country simply works. And I like the high cultural level, the book- and reading-culture, the incredible way in which every small town sports the odd museum and library. There’s only a German term that describes this aptly: “Kulturnation”. Germany is a nation of culture.

Pete: What do you like better about old Serbia?

Zeli: Back “home” (in inverted commas, since my home is Solingen), people are more overtly emotional. They socialise easier, and they’re not as prone to having idiotic things dictated to them by the state. Nobody crosses the street at a red light in Germany, and if you do, at least two bystanders are bound to glare at you.

Pete: Now for a touchy question. All of us remember the civil war that tore Yugoslavia apart in the nineties. What was that like – seeing the war on TV, in your parents’ home-country, and with all your relatives living there?

Zeli (sighs): That was a difficult time. As a teenager, you’re struggling with your identity anyway, and such a situation doesn’t help. Especially, since the mainstream media made Serbia out as “the bad guys”, although in reality, it was of course a bit more complex than that. Some Germans seemed to be glad to finally be able to point their fingers at others. I rejected the war, yet of course the fault for it wasn’t on only one side. I didn’t tell a lot of people for a long time about my ancestry, unless I had to. But luckily, time is a healer.

Pete: Could Germany have done more for you and your integration?

Zeli: Not for me, obviously. I’m training to be a High School-teacher in the not too distant future. But lots of other foreigners in Germany could have needed and still need more help in finding their way around. A lot of people feel that all German society does for them is build them a ghetto.

“MULTI-KULTI” – Germany, home of many cultures

Germany has roughly 82.2 million inhabitants. 7.3 million have a different nationality, making them 8.8 %. In our province, Northrhine-Westphalia, you find 1.9 million people amongst the 18 million inhabitants who don’t have a German passport (10.6 %). Solingen alone hosts over 130 different nationalities. The largest group are Solingers with Turkish citizenship, followed by Italians. Then you get a lot of “foreigners” from former Yugoslavia like Zeli, and almost as many Greek Solingers, constituting the fourth larger group. 14 percent of all people in Solingen are not native Germans.

Check out this youtube-video (in English!) about young immigrants who are less lucky than my buddy Zeli – courtesy of Deutsche Welle-TV:

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