Everyone is a foreigner, almost everywhere
December 23, 2014 6:29 AM   Subscribe

Der Spiegel asks if cultural tolerance is coming to an end in Germany as Pegida (“Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident”) keeps growing. 17,500 people gathered in the opera square in Dresden yesterday to protest against immigration and what they perceive as the “Islamisation” of Europe, an increase of 2,500 compared to last Monday—in a state with a Muslim population of less than 1 %. The organisers had planned to sing traditional Christmas carols in the light of the opera house. But the building stayed dark in response, and white flags were hoisted by the management, reading “Open your hearts. Open the doors. Human dignity is inviolable,” the latter a quote from the first paragraph of the German constitution.

In other German cities, such as Bonn (where this remarkable photo was taken) and Kassel, counter-protesters far outnumbered the local Pegida offshoots. A planned “Muegida” march (300 expected participants) did not take place after all in Munich, where the counter-protest attracted the biggest crowd in the Federal Republic with more than 12,000 people. Domestic media has taken the side of the anti-racist movements (Süddeutsche: Munich can be proud of itself, Die Zeit: Munich sets an example against racism). The social-democratic city government has been supportive of this counter-rally. Mayor Dieter Reiter appeared as a speaker.

The first Pegida demonstration occurred in October. Yesterday’s protest was the movement’s tenth. Many protesters don’t think of themselves as far right or xenophobic; they feel ignored and discriminated against by politicians in the face of a growing number of (mostly Muslim) asylum seekers, and want to protect the “Christian identity of the Occident.” Far right groups routinely appear at Pegida protests. Lutz Bachmann, the initiator of the movement, has called for zero tolerance against criminal immigrants among many other demands. He has been convicted for 16 burglaries and dealing drugs.
posted by wachhundfisch (96 comments total) 41 users marked this as a favorite
 
This gives a really good intro to something I didn't know much about. Thanks for putting it together. I found he Opera House photo quite moving.
posted by latkes at 6:40 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Can a german mefi jump in and explain a bit more whether the trend is anti-islamic or anti-turkish? I've seen a few things over the last few months talking about the large number of turkish immigrants in germany and the hostility they face - of course other ME immigrants will face similar barrier but what is the cultural history behind the german/turkish discussion. Or am I totally off base and this is symptomatic of the nationalism we see in France and England?
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 6:41 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Back when I subscribed to the Economist they had an article about how Europeans, when surveyed, think that their countries are becoming majority immigrant, but the actual numbers are much smaller. That may be partly because of how immigrant communities are clustered in large cities, so the perception is of a very diverse place that does not reflect the reality of an entire country.

I will say that living in and visiting Europe stand out as the times I have encountered the most open racism I have ever seen anywhere. I'm not saying Europeans are more racist, just that racism there can still be expressed openly, whereas in many other places it has become something that has to be expressed through coded language only.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:47 AM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


Lutz Bachmann, the initiator of the movement, has called for zero tolerance against criminal immigrants among many other demands. He has been convicted for 16 burglaries and dealing drugs.

Well, there you have it, he's trying to eliminate some of the competition. Foreign born criminals take opportunities to commit crimes away from native born criminals. It's a clever move...
posted by MikeMc at 6:50 AM on December 23, 2014 [27 favorites]


Racism is expressed everywhere except in America, in my experience. Perfectly nice Asian people will say things like "I don't mind you whites, but blacks are horrible!"
posted by sonic meat machine at 6:50 AM on December 23, 2014 [11 favorites]


I find the word "racism" to be over-used in discussions about Europe. Personally, I think the correct term is "xenophobia" This is especially true in discussions about Islam, whose followers do not constitute a race.

In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate. What they appear to resent is what they perceive is the eroding of their culture in favor of another alien culture.
posted by vacapinta at 6:52 AM on December 23, 2014 [18 favorites]


Lutz Bachmann, the initiator of the movement

So would you say the Bachmann is spreading?
posted by zombieflanders at 6:53 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


"Abendland"? Really?!
posted by slater at 6:54 AM on December 23, 2014


Islam* is the Mexico of Europe.

* Yes I realize that Islam is not a country.
posted by blue_beetle at 6:57 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


Vice has some good video of a recent right wing protest in Germany. "Your T-Shirt says Auschwitz University. What does that mean? A: I don't know my husband made it."
posted by stbalbach at 7:00 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate. What they appear to resent is what they perceive is the eroding of their culture in favor of another alien culture.

Which perfectly mirrors the discussion that led up to the Holocaust.

It also happens to be a bullshit argument, the European version of the "I'm not homophobic, I'm just protecting traditional marriage" argument, and not far afield from "I'm not racist, I'm just opposed to the thug culture that black people embrace that causes so many of them to be criminals."

It's all shitty, and whether you call it xenophobia or racism (and I don't think it is easy to tease those two apart), it stems from hatred, ignorance, and intolerance, and that road has a history of leading to genocide, particularly when partnered with the sense that an invading culture is somehow diseasing the dominant culture. I'm glad so many are speaking against it. because sometimes I fear "never forget" has actually meant "grudgingly remember until a majority of the people who experienced it die, then minimize, deny, forget, and relive the worst of history with a psychotic amount of gusto."
posted by maxsparber at 7:06 AM on December 23, 2014 [66 favorites]


In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate. What they appear to resent is what they perceive is the eroding of their culture in favor of another alien culture.

This strategy has also been long adopted by white racist apologists, e.g., "I don't hate black people, I just hate black culture, you know, babies out of wedlock, that rap crap, gangbangers etc." and it's equal amounts of nonsense there as it is in Europe. You can't divorce someone's culture from their ethnic origins as though human beings were ahistorical vessels ready to assimilate to any culture at any time. Maybe an orphan can do that. What "cultural" racists are saying is: we don't mind this ethnic minority so long as they abdicate their own history and abandon everything that makes them unique except the absolutely unalterable things like their genetic phenotype. Become as white-european as possible and we'll forgive you for not being white-european! In any case it's not as though black Africans are a racially homogenous group either, any more than the French are racially homogenous with Serbians. Race, that is, is a cultural category far more than it is a biological one.

No, these folks are racist, plain and simple.
posted by dis_integration at 7:07 AM on December 23, 2014 [54 favorites]


Europeans didn't ask permission to colonise the Middle East and Africa, to export people to North & South America, to get rich off the production of the world.

Europeans owe the rest of the world big time - of all the people in the world, they have the least right to complain about immigration (and I include white non-Europeans in that "people"). The alternative is welcoming home hundreds of millions of Euro-Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Americans -- and dealing with our demanding selves.
posted by jb at 7:09 AM on December 23, 2014 [30 favorites]


Lutz Bachmann, the initiator of the movement, has called for zero tolerance against criminal immigrants among many other demands. He has been convicted for 16 burglaries and dealing drugs.

That's a sweet little ad-hominem there.

As a minority in the US, I'm very familiar with people attacking the shortcomings of leading cultural voices - in the native community there's always the undercurrent of family issues/alcohol/tribalism. It's a nasty trick and not one that engenders honest, open dialogue.

The fact that it's being used here is telling.
posted by Setec Astronomy at 7:12 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


That's a sweet little ad-hominem there.

I don't know if that really qualifies as an ad hominem. It simply demonstrates that his argument isn't against criminality, it is about applying the law unequally.
posted by maxsparber at 7:14 AM on December 23, 2014 [17 favorites]


In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate. What they appear to resent is what they perceive is the eroding of their culture in favor of another alien culture.

Which perfectly mirrors the discussion that led up to the Holocaust.


Which is why I am so happy to see responses like that from the Opera House. Germans, of all people, should know what talking about people as "aliens" leads to.

On a lighter note: if they were actually upset at the takeover by an alien culture, these protestors should start with getting rid of that Middle Eastern import which not only took over but eradicated the native alternatives: the Christian Church. Damn Levantine monotheism messing up perfectly good tree cults.
posted by jb at 7:14 AM on December 23, 2014 [50 favorites]


Lots of people in Nordic countries follow exactly that train of thought, jb

Then again I am mostly acquainted with Nordic metalheads than non-metalheads.
posted by Tarumba at 7:20 AM on December 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


Damn Levantine monotheism messing up perfectly good tree cults.

Actually many European neofascist/far-right groups advocate for a revival of the local pagan/pre-Christian religion.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:22 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate.

It's amazing that you've discussed this with people in Ireland and Sweden and Sicily and Poland and Serbia and Greece and discovered such consensus.
posted by sobarel at 7:25 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Damn Levantine monotheism messing up perfectly good tree cults.

Actually many European neofascist/far-right groups advocate for a revival of the local pagan/pre-Christian religion.


In the future, what was once snark will soon become mandatory.
posted by jonp72 at 7:27 AM on December 23, 2014 [14 favorites]


There's really no need for the sarcasm. I have discussed this with people in Britain, Germany, Austria, and Spain. I'm just relating some of my impressions of course. The post is about Germany specifically. (Actually, in discussions with a Polish friend, it was definitely racism.)
posted by vacapinta at 7:27 AM on December 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate.

In my experience, when someone says "I don't hate X, I'm just uncomfortable with people who look or act too X", that person will inevitably reveal him/herself to be fully racist once they think Those People aren't around.
posted by Etrigan at 7:31 AM on December 23, 2014 [15 favorites]


In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate. What they appear to resent is what they perceive is the eroding of their culture in favor of another alien culture.

Most people are secretly worried about jobs and wages but they don't usually offer this fact.
posted by Brian B. at 7:34 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Actually many European neofascist/far-right groups advocate for a revival of the local pagan/pre-Christian religion.

I was joking (obv) - I was into paganism when I was younger, but then my historical side overruled my romanticism side. Aside from the fact that we really don't know much about them (way less than neo-pagans claim), pre-Christian European ritual practices were pretty damn nasty, often involving slaughtering of slaves and/or prisoners of war.

The neo pagan stuff is fine: more trees, fewer people burned alive.

In my experience, when someone says "I don't hate X, I'm just uncomfortable with people who look or act too X", that person will inevitable reveal him/herself to be fully racist once they think Those People aren't around.

I can imagine some people really do have no problem with brown people, provided that they act just "like us."

But it doesn't stop them from being racist. Ashkenazi Jews look just like other Europeans; they were hated for their cultural practices -- and that was bad.

Living in harmony means learning to live with people who don't just look different, but who live differently. I have no problem with the majority culture setting certain simple standards that apply to everyone (eg no child marriage - which fundie Christians and Jews have to be stopped from doing as well) - but discriminating against someone because they don't eat pork, or cover their head, or worship on a different day of the week: that is just as racist now as it was in 1933.
posted by jb at 7:38 AM on December 23, 2014 [11 favorites]


Is maybe part of the Dresden demonstration being so big the fact that it was in Dresden, in the former East Germany? I'd read for some time that much of the neo-Nazi movement in postreunification Germany was in the east, due in part to it lagging behind the west and in part as a long-overdue reaction to communism.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:41 AM on December 23, 2014


Put it this way: if what you're saying could be easily mistaken for something said by Goebbels, you are in the wrong. (Same thing for right-wing Israelis, who are freaking me out with their Goebbels-like rhetoric about people as a "cancer".)

and you can't Godwin an Internet conversation about racial tensions in Germany. It's been pre-Godwined.
posted by jb at 7:43 AM on December 23, 2014 [8 favorites]


> Damn Levantine monotheism messing up perfectly good tree cults.

Not totally. I have a tree in my living room right now.
posted by jfuller at 7:44 AM on December 23, 2014 [30 favorites]


As a minority in the US, I'm very familiar with people attacking the shortcomings of leading cultural voices - in the native community there's always the undercurrent of family issues/alcohol/tribalism. It's a nasty trick and not one that engenders honest, open dialogue.

Implying that Bachmann speaks for Germans in the way that a Native American leader might speak for their tribe, and that Germans in Germany are analogous to Native Americans in the United States, is deeply silly. His movement, as described in the FPP, is widely opposed in his own country, despite its recent growth. Moreover, he's stirring up animus against a small minority, not leading a defense of his own. Pointing out his actual hypocrisy has little of the sting that slander against a tribal leader has.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:49 AM on December 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


After the reunification there were unemployment marches every Monday in Dresden for a long time. I wonder if the Opera square protest is an offshoot of that. I'm glad to see the anti-racist protests in Munich and elsewhere in the West.
posted by Golden Eternity at 7:52 AM on December 23, 2014


now, watch the Swedish Democrat's "Salute to the European Youth"

It's no coincidence that the resurgence of fascism in Europe has coincided with the attempt to use austerity to deal with the financial crisis. History's apex predators have been reintroduced to their native habitat.
posted by ennui.bz at 7:54 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


Here in the Netherlands we have Geert Wilders, who is being prosecuted after a controversial speech he made, calling for less Moroccan immigrants.

Here is an opinion piece of him in the Wall Street Journal.
posted by Pendragon at 8:06 AM on December 23, 2014


[...] and that Germans in Germany are analogous to Native Americans in the United States, is deeply silly.

I disagree but this is missing the point.

Smearing political campaigns with the personal details of leading voices is dirty pool. It doesn't matter what side it's coming from. It's wearying and divisive. We need to be better than that.
posted by Setec Astronomy at 8:09 AM on December 23, 2014


Dude, when someone who is advocating for zero tolerance against criminals of one racial group, while he has a long criminal history himself, mentioning it is necessary because it reveals that he is profoundly racist, not just a 'citizen concerned about crime'. You really don't know what a personal attack is, do you?
posted by tavella at 8:14 AM on December 23, 2014 [29 favorites]


Pointing out his actual hypocrisy has little of the sting that slander against a tribal leader has.

Are you saying that tribal leaders cannot speak out about issues regarding drug use or alcohol if they themselves have battled addiction issues in the past? Of course they can. I don't see why this guy isn't afforded the same privilege.

Crime (akin to cultural drug use) is a multi-faceted thing and a person's background can have a huge impact on their outcomes. If we can't look past that, we have forever marginalized a person's voice before they're even born.
posted by Setec Astronomy at 8:19 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


There is nothing more Christian than zero tolerance. Christ himself said "One strike and you're out" before having his chauffeur drive him to Calvary to get his nails done.
posted by srboisvert at 8:21 AM on December 23, 2014 [31 favorites]


Burglaries are not a disease. The guy is a lifelong criminal, which is an entirely relevant issue when someone is campaigning under a guise of anti-crime.
posted by tavella at 8:34 AM on December 23, 2014 [15 favorites]


This is a guy who tried to evade prison by hiding in South Africa. No, I don't know about the personal circumstances that made him turn to criminality, but he doesn't come across as a particularly remorseful individual. If my admittedly pointed line at the end there seems like a personal attack... well, I can't say I'm sorry. I live in Germany at the moment and I'm honestly angry at how this guy is contributing to turning the conversation about immigration into what I'm used to from my native Austria (and am quite glad to have got away from).
posted by wachhundfisch at 8:36 AM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


I don't see why this guy isn't afforded the same privilege.

Oh, I don't think he lacks for privilege. But surely you see there is a difference between a tribal leader saying "this is a problem with the Indian community" and a German saying "this is a problem with an immigrant population."

It's much closer to a racist saying "they're all a bunch of drunks" while finishing his seventh beer,
posted by maxsparber at 8:40 AM on December 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


Are you saying that tribal leaders cannot speak out about issues regarding drug use or alcohol if they themselves have battled addiction issues in the past?

No. I don't know how you wrung that meaning out of what I wrote.

Of course they can. I don't see why this guy isn't afforded the same privilege.

As far as I know, he isn't exercising the same privilege. Tribal leaders acknowledging their own struggles against addiction as they inveigh against addiction in their own communities are speaking differently from a man leading a movement which is nominally against the criminal element in some other community.

Could someone who speaks German clarify whether Bachmann acknowledges his criminal past, and if so, could they describe how he talks about it? I have no reason to believe a right-wing populist leader would muddy his message by talking about how growing up as a particular kind of German would lead him into a life of crime which he now regrets, but I could be wrong.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:44 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate. What they appear to resent is what they perceive is the eroding of their culture in favor of another alien culture.

Ha ha ha NO.

For some reason few racists are actually able and willing to own up to their racism, but erm, the best you can say is that these people have no problems with white immigrants, as long as they're not from Eastern Europe of course, and for everybody else they'll find excuses to mask the racism. Whether it's the criminal mentality of Jamaican or Surinam immigrants in the eighties, the job stealing of Polish now and Turkish forty years ago, or that whole Islam religion of death thingie now, it never is simply about not wanting to see foreigners, because of course nobody is racist like that.

All of which has been made possible of course by thirty years of pandering to xenophobic nutters by socalled respectable politicians under the guise of addressing the very real fears of the white working class, mostly being that they don't want no fucking [ethnic slur du jour] living next door.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:49 AM on December 23, 2014 [13 favorites]


Is maybe part of the Dresden demonstration being so big the fact that it was in Dresden, in the former East Germany? I'd read for some time that much of the neo-Nazi movement in postreunification Germany was in the east, due in part to it lagging behind the west and in part as a long-overdue reaction to communism.

The former GDR was heavily targeted by neo-nazi recruitment campaigns in the early 90s. Major points were: the extremely high unemployment rates and lack of prospects within the East, especially in small towns, after unification, unification itself, which even among people who were involved in the freedom campaigns that brought down the regime, and have no love for the previous status quo in the GDR, can feel one-sided enough to be seen as the East being absorbed into the West, rather than a reunification of two separated countries into a whole, as well as GDR propaganda about the FRG explicitly claiming that denazification never happened there, and that it was still a fascist regime. Furthermore, while the East had anti-nazi education, it was narrowly focused on the symbols, actions and words of the nazis of the 30s and 40s, without encompassing changes in fascist ideology and rhetoric in the post-war years.

In short, what the neo-nazis offered people who were reeling from how quickly everything was changing, was an ideology and identity to grasp onto, specifically one that could say whose fault things were.

Dresden also has a lengthy history of clashes between neo-nazis and anti-fascists, as it's been a focal point of neo-nazi organisation in Germany, especially revolving around the anniversary of the city's firebombing.
posted by frimble at 8:51 AM on December 23, 2014 [7 favorites]


You can't divorce someone's culture from their ethnic origins as though human beings were ahistorical vessels ready to assimilate to any culture at any time.

Forgive me for being so blunt, but that's an incredibly racist thing to say. Race is not culture, and as far as race exists it does not determine culture one bit. Indeed, believing that race and culture are intertwined is the very essence of racism. It is dependent upon us all, in a liberal society, to hold culture up to criticism, and folding it away behind the veil of race is illiberal and damaging to society. If you insist that a person's culture is inseparable from their race, then you expose them to an enormous risk of racism.

I am astounded at the racist assumptions that some, otherwise liberal, people make. Ethnic essentialism is a curse we would do well to remove from our thinking. Liberals should criticize culture--especially their own--freely.
posted by Thing at 8:57 AM on December 23, 2014 [7 favorites]


Forgive me for being so blunt, but that's an incredibly racist thing to say.

Well, your version of what they said was racist, but it was a lot to read into a single sentence. There's literally nothing in there that says we can't criticize people's cultures, nor that they can't help themselves, not that race and culture are the same.
posted by maxsparber at 9:02 AM on December 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


Indeed, believing that race and culture are intertwined is the very essence of racism.

Everything I said was deeply anti-essentialist. Race is an historico-cultural category, not a biological one. The scientific consensus is with me on this one: racial categories are socially constructed outcomes of encounters between previously historically and culturally divergent groups. Ergo, to say "It's not your race, it's your culture" is to say: "It's not your race, it's your race". This has nothing to do with whether or not there are more or less caustic cultures or whether or not cultures should engage in processes of critical self-renewal. All cultures should do that, sure, and white culture should most of all, starting with it's fanatical tendency to murder Ethnic Others by the thousands.
posted by dis_integration at 9:10 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Racism is expressed everywhere except in America, in my experience. Perfectly nice Asian people will say things like "I don't mind you whites, but blacks are horrible!"

Yeah, as a white-looking person living in New York, I haven't had a white person express openly racist sentiment since I was in junior high... But a number of Asian immigrants have just assumed I'd be happy to kvetch about "the blacks" with them.

In discussions with people in Europe, they have no problems with immigrants who arrive and try to integrate. What they appear to resent is what they perceive is the eroding of their culture in favor of another alien culture.

Is there an aspect of liberalism vs. tolerance in Germany, as there was in the Netherlands? In the Scandinavian countries, there's been a lot of trouble with Muslim communities insisting that taking abused wives away from their husbands was discrimination against their culture, while many gay and woman-friendly liberals wanted the intolerant traditional cultures to not be tolerated. Or is it strictly "taking-our-jerbs" talk?
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 9:12 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Back when I subscribed to the Economist they had an article about how Europeans, when surveyed, think that their countries are becoming majority immigrant, but the actual numbers are much smaller. That may be partly because of how immigrant communities are clustered in large cities, so the perception is of a very diverse place that does not reflect the reality of an entire country.

My firsthand experience with this: I once lived next door to a British man who held these views (we were in Japan and didn't have much experience with each other's cultures), and one night he started ranting about immigrants taking over the UK. I started to tell him off and he said "Well you don't understand, you're American; Britain has a much higher minority population than the US and there are whole towns now where the majority of the population is black or Asian, and it's causing tension." OK; I don't know anything about the demographics of the UK, and I trust that the person I am speaking to would know this about his own home country; I am still obviously hurt and infuriated that a close friend of mine thinks that "my kind" are an inherent evil that must be contained, but I accept his premise and do my best to argue my point of view.

When I got home that night the first thing I did was look up the demographics of the UK on Wikipedia. I nearly went right back over and punched him out.
posted by sunset in snow country at 9:38 AM on December 23, 2014 [11 favorites]


MartinWisse you make some good points, but I don't think that here in the Netherlands it's quite that cut and dried. Or rather, I think there's a lot of conflation.

On the one hand you're completely right that racists gonna racist and Holland certainly has plenty of racism and xenophobia. And of course the arguments the racists use are generally either obfuscations of not wanting "different" people and their unfamiliar ways around them or a basic misunderstanding that generally poor and disenfranchised groups are often going to have higher crime rates, live near each other in "ghetto" areas, etc. while they are getting established in a new country.

All that having been said I think it's ok to ask which cultural values incoming immigrant groups offer are worth adopting and which are to be discouraged. I just don't want the racists doing the answering.

I seriously doubt even the most non-racist Dutchperson would continuance how many immigrant groups treat women or view education or even how they view basic civil and human rights in many cases. Also it's disingenuous to think that immigrants coming to a new country have zero responsibility to adapt to the most basic moral tenets of their new country. We would just shake our collective heads at a European woman driving around with an open beer in Saudi Arabia.

So I think the new conflation is Other = Islam where actually it's just a few cultural values having nothing to do with Islam that conflict with the "European" values that most people agree are cornerstones of whatever "European" culture there is. I think the large numbers of counter protesters is a very, very good sign that Germany, and other countries like the Netherlands, are willing to use the values of tolerance to encourage more tolerant values among new immigrant groups.

But as long as we have protests at all, we can't hand wave the issue away and say it's just racism or leave only the racists to discuss how to expand and reward tolerance among our newer citizens.
posted by digitalprimate at 9:46 AM on December 23, 2014 [9 favorites]


Is there an aspect of liberalism vs. tolerance in Germany, as there was in the Netherlands? In the Scandinavian countries, there's been a lot of trouble with Muslim communities insisting that taking abused wives away from their husbands was discrimination against their culture, while many gay and woman-friendly liberals wanted the intolerant traditional cultures to not be tolerated. Or is it strictly "taking-our-jerbs" talk?

I work in refugee resettlement. There is a significant problem in asylee and refugee communities all over the world regarding this point. All refugee resettlement programs I am familiar with struggle with finding the balance between respecting a people's culture and standing up for the values of the countries that receive them.

Particularly sticky situations I have seen first hand include a refugee who murdered his wife and accused the resettlement agency of discrimination because it is not a crime to kill a disobedient wife in the Sudanese culture so we should not have called the police, a couple of Afghani fathers who accused us of discrimination because we forced them to enroll their daughters in school, and a Pakistani man who became violent towards us because we called the police when he beat his wife and threw his mother down the stairs. We have situations like this one pretty much every week.

Most people in my office are liberals, and I am pretty sure I have seen most of them reach their boiling point in similar situations and say something like " if you want to live here then you have to behave like we do".

Now I'm not saying the people in my examples are an accurate representation of the other individuals (they are extreme examples), but there are issues related to subjects that range from gender roles to standards of hygiene that can make it really difficult for the community to accept immigrants. Some of these issues make it really hard for me and my coworkers to know if this is program is actually a positive thing sometimes. Part of our mission is to help the refugees acculturate, and that means they do have to change to comply with our basic standards. Is this discrimination? I think in a way it is. But the alternative would be to tolerate things like abuse and disfranchisement of women to continue.
posted by Tarumba at 9:50 AM on December 23, 2014 [42 favorites]


One of the things I most enjoyed living in Europe was smug Europeans lecturing me in the "WE aren't like you. WE have a progressive civilization based on Universal Health Care and taking care of each other. WE are far more enlightened than you Americans with your guns and your crime. WE aren't racist like you are."

Then you could mention the Muslims/Pakistanis/Polish/Slavs/Roma and get a torrent of the most vile abuse you could imagine followed by "No no, it's not racist, they're literally all like that."

The "We can't be racist because we have universal health care" was uniformly common.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:04 AM on December 23, 2014 [19 favorites]


Metafilter: More trees, fewer people burned alive.

I'm saying.
posted by wuwei at 10:12 AM on December 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


While advocating for women's rights is, of course laudable, assuming disrespect for women is an inherent part of a culture or ethnicity is racist, and I find it interesting that media pundits who are very concerned about woman in Islamic societies rarely show such zeal in relation to conservative Christian societies. One might be excused for thinking that the women aren't the point.

Which doesn't mean that those issues don't have to be addressed in immigrant communities, obviously they do. But Islam and/or Middle Eastern or African cultures don't have a lock on misogyny.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:14 AM on December 23, 2014 [16 favorites]


Ghostride: I know two expats who pretty much told the same story. They both mentioned how as a liberal american they had always had they impression that Europe Does Things Better than America and then they moved (one to Germany, one to France) and realized that it was far from that simple. Both were amazed and how acceptable blatant racism was, as well as who were the targets of that racism. I think it's the sort of thing you miss as an American looking at a culture from the outside. For instance the Brit anti-Irish stereotypes don't really resonate when watching British TV until you start to realize that, oh, that person is IRISH and that's why they are being written that way.
posted by aspo at 10:18 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


More trees, fewer people burned alive.

That's why I have rejected the new Gods in favor of the old pagan ones of my Celtic ancestors.

Now come, you are late for your appointment with the Wicker Man.
posted by maxsparber at 10:22 AM on December 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


While advocating for women's rights is, of course laudable, assuming disrespect for women is an inherent part of a culture or ethnicity is racist, and I find it interesting that media pundits who are very concerned about woman in Islamic societies rarely show such zeal in relation to conservative Christian societies. One might be excused for thinking that the women aren't the point.

Of course for the Usual Suspects women aren't the point. That doesn't mean it's not a valid point.

The "We can't be racist because we have universal health care" was uniformly common.

And that's less-than-helpful and a touch inflammatory as several European members have already admitted we have problems with institutional racism in many - if not most - European countries. This is not about how Americans view Europe.
posted by digitalprimate at 10:47 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


Most people in my office are liberals, and I am pretty sure I have seen most of them reach their boiling point in similar situations and say something like " if you want to live here then you have to behave like we do".

I find that sentiment troubling. There are cultural differences that can and should be celebrated when welcoming immigrants...

The thing about your examples though, that makes it clear that ya'll aren't being racist when you try to stop that kind of behavior though... Is that they are breaking the law. And if a native of your country were to beat their wife, the police would be called and they'd go to jail (hopefully). So there are a ton of things immigrants can do to preserve their culture, and traditions they can hold onto. Committing acts of violence (towards any group) is not one of them.

I would imagine that many of those immigrants you are dealing with are refugees... They are literally leaving their land because of the violence that they want to escape. It seems pretty reasonable when welcoming folks to your country to demand that they do not commit acts of violence.

That being said, I too find it pretty disgusting when the right (and liberals as well) talk about women's rights being awful in a country, therefore it's time to invade them and kill their leaders and impose a new regime; because I know for damned certain the US doesn't really give two shits about women's rights in foreign lands (if we did, Saudi Arabia would be our first target for intervention).

My response to 'do you know how they treat women in afghanistan?' from someone in a political discussion that wants to justify our intervention there is... 'Do you know how women were treated in Iraq before the invasion? How about now?' (spoiler alert: it's gotten worse).
posted by el io at 10:55 AM on December 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


I once had to share a very small plane with some people who were traveling to DC for W.'s Inaugural Ball (2004). They were discussing the impact of the recent tsunami on South Asia, and came to the general consensus that those people deserved a big wallop from God because they weren't Christians and were incidentally all selling their children as sex slaves to tourists. These were educated, wealthy, sophisticated-appearing white people in their 30s and 40s.

Racism knows no boundaries and makes excuses for the basest, most criminal kind of self-justification, up to and including invasion.
posted by jfwlucy at 11:45 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Europeans owe the rest of the world big time

Europeans have benefited the world big time.

in a state with a Muslim population of less than 1 %.

This is disingenuous. The Muslim population in Germany is 5% and projected to be 7.1% by 2030. In Europe as a whole, 6% projected to be 8%. You may or may not find these numbers problematic, or indeed, Islam itself problematic, but do let's be honest with our data.

Racism knows no boundaries and makes excuses for the basest, most criminal kind of self-justification, up to and including invasion.

Which gets to the uncomfortable problem of ISIS abuse of non-Muslim women. Invade? Don't invade?
posted by IndigoJones at 11:52 AM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


The sentiment "Well, they aren't good Christians - so we should just kill them all" boggles my friggin mind. I'm like have you read the words of Jesus? I mean, I'm no Christian, but I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't preaching genocide, ya'll need to skip past that old testament and read those things that dude supposedly said.

If I argue with them (those that think that non-Christians should be killed) I'm inevitably met with 'well, all of that religion wants to kill all of our religion, so therefore we should just kill them all, like pre-emptively'. To which my response is - did you even listen to the words you just said?

Anytime anyone argues that 'pre-emptive strikes' are justified, I just want to punch them hard. (you know, pre-emptively).
posted by el io at 11:52 AM on December 23, 2014


some people who were traveling to DC for W.'s Inaugural Ball (2004) [...] came to the general consensus that those people deserved a big wallop from God because they weren't Christians and were incidentally all selling their children as sex slaves to tourists.

Well, c'mon, you can't really blame people whose only personal experience with the developing world is for the purpose of child sex tourism for coming to that conclusion.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:53 AM on December 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


Europeans have benefited the world big time.

How odd that you would say such a thing and then follow it with the word disingenuous. European colonialism was the massive pillaging of the rest of the world, and whatever benefits it brought were accidental and incidental when compared with the misery it engendered and the legacy of poverty and violence that still remain.
posted by maxsparber at 11:56 AM on December 23, 2014 [11 favorites]


in a state with a Muslim population of less than 1 %.

This is disingenuous. The Muslim population in Germany is 5% and projected to be 7.1% by 2030.


The state in reference is Saxony, not Germany. Der Spiegel gives it as 0,1% or roughly 4000 people in Saxony who are Muslim.
posted by frimble at 12:00 PM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


IndigoJones: Invade what? Iraq? You mean invading Iraq might be the solution to the problem of ISIS? I thought invading Iraq was the CAUSE of the problem of ISIS.

Anyways, we already tried the invading Iraq thing. That didn't work out too well.
posted by el io at 12:02 PM on December 23, 2014


Racism is expressed everywhere except in America, in my experience. Perfectly nice Asian people will say things like "I don't mind you whites, but blacks are horrible!"

and

Yeah, as a white-looking person living in New York, I haven't had a white person express openly racist sentiment since I was in junior high... But a number of Asian immigrants have just assumed I'd be happy to kvetch about "the blacks" with them.

you guys live in a different america than this asian american. no openly racist sentiment in the US expressed by white people?
posted by twist my arm at 12:06 PM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


I thought invading Iraq was the CAUSE of the problem of ISIS.

A stonemason was once asked how he was always able to choose the perfect stone to fit the spot he sought to fill. He said "you misunderstand: when I place a stone I am not seeking to fill a gap; I am making a bed for the next stone."

In a similar sense, De-Ba'athification was not a solution to any problem in our then-current war: we were creating the enemy for our next war.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:12 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


European colonialism was the massive pillaging of the rest of the world, and whatever benefits it brought were accidental and incidental when compared with the misery it engendered and the legacy of poverty and violence that still remain.

It is and forevermore will remain impossible to prove that whichever civilization first achieved global circumnavigation and firearms wouldn't have done it exactly the same or worse. Singling out Europeans as being particularly vicious is no more or less disingenuous than any of the other crappy views being criticized in this thread.

...unless of course the civilization hailed from a Buddhism-dominated culture, in which case yeah I have difficulty believing it wouldn't have turned out way better than it did.
posted by Ryvar at 12:28 PM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


The thing about your examples though, that makes it clear that ya'll aren't being racist when you try to stop that kind of behavior though... Is that they are breaking the law. And if a native of your country were to beat their wife, the police would be called and they'd go to jail (hopefully). So there are a ton of things immigrants can do to preserve their culture, and traditions they can hold onto. Committing acts of violence (towards any group) is not one of them.

Right, but I think Tarumba is talking about the preemptive 'acculturation' bit of their work, which must involve assumptions based at least somewhat on ethnic profiling.

See also this, from the "Rights and Responsibilities" section of the Canadian immigration manual, on which the citizenship test is based:

The Equality of Women and Men

In Canada, men and women are equal under the law. Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, “honour killings,” female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.

posted by cotton dress sock at 12:30 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


It is and forevermore will remain impossible to prove that whichever civilization first achieved global circumnavigation and firearms wouldn't have done it exactly the same or worse. Singling out Europeans as being particularly vicious is no more or less disingenuous than any of the other crappy views being criticized in this thread.

I don't see how this matters. I suppose if we are writing alternative universe fiction, it is an interesting exercise, but we are in the real world, where Europe circumnavigated a trail of blood and genocide in pursuit of robbing indigenous cultures of their riches, and this is something you described as benefiting them.

Do you have no knowledge of history? It might be worth gaining some -- and real history, not the imagined one where Native Americans would have done exactly the same thing given the opportunity -- before discussing this topic.
posted by maxsparber at 12:34 PM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


you guys live in a different america than this asian american. no openly racist sentiment in the US expressed by white people?

The thing is, people still feel racist; so when you give them anonymity, they express themselves pretty freely. Everyone also has Uncle Joe who is an unreconstructed ass and thinks anyone other than White Anglo-Saxon Protestants is a degenerate Satan-worshiper. However, I have never been introduced to someone in America and had them ask me within ten minutes "So, what do you think about black people? Aren't they obnoxious?"
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:39 PM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Do you have no knowledge of history? It might be worth gaining some -- and real history, not the imagined one where Native Americans would have done exactly the same thing given the opportunity -- before discussing this topic.

It would be safe to say that I am at least a few standard deviations above the median on the bell curve in terms of historical knowledge, but I appreciate your snide, unprovoked and wholly unwarranted condescension. Europe circumnavigated a trail of blood and genocide and any other culture in their position would have done exactly the same thing, because the institutions that come with the prerequisite level of technological achievement are concerned solely with extraction of economic value by whatever means necessary. Their presence is as inevitable a byproduct of human collaboration as cancer is of cell division, and equally horrible.

Whether it's the Mongols, Persians, Macedonians or Romans, all cultures in a position of military superiority behave in the exact same fashion, and acting as if Europeans somehow invented genocide is about the single most ignorant reading of history I can imagine.

and this is something you described as benefiting them

I never said anything of the sort, you were replying to my first post in this thread. Please read more carefully before you start implying I'm some sort of ignoramus, thank you.
posted by Ryvar at 12:51 PM on December 23, 2014 [10 favorites]


I apologize for confusing you with an earlier poster. In my defense, you seemed to be joining in a chorus of minimizing the horrific effects of European colonialism, and those sorts of voices tend to blend together for me.

As to "unprovoked," well, I'm not sure what it takes to provoke a slightly mocking response, but I would suggest that behaving as though a specific, actual history that resulted in quite literally billions of deaths was just some sort of historic quirk that anybody might have done given the chance seems to be unnecessarily minimizing the real horror of it, and perhaps not everybody will be as sanguine about the subject.
posted by maxsparber at 12:56 PM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


I would suggest that behaving as though a specific, actual history that resulted in quite literally billions of deaths was just some sort of historic quirk that anybody might have done given the chance seems to be unnecessarily minimizing the real horror of it, and perhaps not everybody will be as sanguine about the subject.

Technological progress to the point of circumnavigating the globe was always going to unite the world into an effective monoculture, enable those with military superiority to exploit those without, and lead to gigadeaths. The history you accuse me of ignoring is terribly clear on this, and in fact there was never a point in time when it read any differently. Perhaps the Sumerians get a free pass.

In my defense, you seemed to be joining in a chorus of minimizing the horrific effects of European colonialism, and those sorts of voices tend to blend together for me.

There is a consistent subtle implication during any discussion of race on Metafilter that the unique racial sin of white Europeans is that they were/are somehow uniquely lacking in compassion when compared to other races and cultures. That rather than simply being the flavor of the month when a technological inflection point was reached, they were somehow "special" in their capacity to foster atrocity. As someone who wholly embraced and continues to embrace his childhood indoctrination that racist prejudices are the literal root of all evil, I am simply stating that this characterization is every bit as ignorant as all those prejudices which happen to be presently out of fashion.
posted by Ryvar at 1:21 PM on December 23, 2014 [7 favorites]


As far as I am concerned Ryvar's recent post absolutely captures significant portions of the discussions re: race, culture and white Europeans that regularly occurs on MetaFi. It as if the Mideast had not had 16-17 invasions before Europeans ever got involved, Japan was a peace loving Island in the Pacific, China was non existent South and Central America were Edens of peaceful coexistence. And when some of these issues are raised frequently the answer is yes, but no one was worse than the....... Recognizing the social, economic, educational, religious and technological conditions that have lead to a history of inhumanity does not minimize the pain of European colonization nor does it mitigate the positive changes brought about colonization. There are seldom any real angels or devils--just imperfect people, running imperfect countries, in flawed and resourceful cultures attempting to survive and grow.
posted by rmhsinc at 1:40 PM on December 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


Back when I subscribed to the Economist they had an article about how Europeans, when surveyed, think that their countries are becoming majority immigrant, but the actual numbers are much smaller.

The Guardian ran a very entertaining piece about this just recently. Tl;dr: everyone is wrong about their country's immigration rates. People who live in the areas of lowest immigration tend to rate immigration rates the highest (Racism in action!).
posted by smoke at 1:52 PM on December 23, 2014


SDU: Salute to the European youth

As always it's the comments that really deliver. Under that rousing call to fascism, we have this comment:

"People listen to me. Im a Boer. Ive seen what happens when you give your country away. For GOD'S SAKE! or ODIN'S SAKE! Dont let these None-Whites and Communists win us Boers are already paying for letting Blacks take South Africa. Remember Eugene Terblanche! Dont let your countries fall to Communism and Islam! "

Not only is irony dead, apparently for some people it has never ever been alive.
posted by VikingSword at 1:55 PM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Just remember that since everyone is guilty (even counterfactually!) then no one is guilty!
posted by wuwei at 2:28 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wuwei. Not sure what that means, especially "even counterfactually" but I assume since we all are responsible then we all might make a commitment to assume responsibility for ourselves and our behavior towards others.
posted by rmhsinc at 2:50 PM on December 23, 2014


smoke: "People who live in the areas of lowest immigration tend to rate immigration rates the highest (Racism in action!)."
Yup, which also helps to explain why 15,000 people turn out for this crap in Dresden (population with migratory background 8.2%) versus a few hundred in Bonn (~25%). Here's a nice map of the distribution which shows that outside Berlin, there's almost nothing but born-and-bred Germans in the former GDR.
posted by brokkr at 3:13 PM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


""never forget" has actually meant "grudgingly remember until a majority of the people who experienced it die, then minimize, deny, forget, and relive the worst of history with a psychotic amount of gusto."

Well said. I offer the Cambodian genocide as an example.
posted by clavdivs at 3:16 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


The End of Tolerance? Anti-Muslim Movement Rattles Germany
Lutz Bachmann has brought them together. The impetus for his movement, he says, was a walk through Dresden's post-Socialist Prager Strasse shopping district. He witnessed a rally by supporters of the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, which opposes the Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. His reaction was to start a Facebook group, primarily to oppose arms shipments to the PKK.
Christ. It wasn't the terrorists but the Kurds fighting against the terrorists that got the nazis all rattled up!
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:11 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well that figures. I'm not saying the PKK is without sin, but for the past couple decades a sure-fire bet for finding the real-world mustache-twirling-villain of the day is simply looking up who's currently fucking over the Kurds. Their recent history reads like a guide to Imbuing A People With The Will To Power In Four Easy Steps, and it would be super awesome if we could avoid going down that road. Again.
posted by Ryvar at 5:30 PM on December 23, 2014


I doubt Herr Bachmann knows anything about the PKK. He was probably just more like, "what's going on here? Why are foreigners waving their flag in das vaterland?"
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:43 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Europeans have benefited the world big time.

No, they didn't. You've linked to a comedy bit about the Romans; I've studied colonial history in detail. Colonialism at best disrupted and at worst utterly destroyed native societies and economies wherever it went. It's not for no reason that Botswana is so much better off than its neighbours (re equality, life expectancy, etc) -- it was the only one that escaped direct colonisation.

The white inheritors of colonialism in the settler colonies are rich, but only because we've stolen the land and resources of the native people.
posted by jb at 6:45 PM on December 23, 2014 [9 favorites]


It is and forevermore will remain impossible to prove that whichever civilization first achieved global circumnavigation and firearms wouldn't have done it exactly the same or worse. Singling out Europeans as being particularly vicious is no more or less disingenuous than any of the other crappy views being criticized in this thread.

Oh, I'm sure that whoever could, would have conquered the rest of the world.

But all that matters is that Europe DID. European wealth is based on an industrial revolution fuelled by slavery, colonialism, and unequal trade. Through theft of land, slavery of people, and military might Europe became vastly more wealthy, and now uses its wealth to make more money off the rest of the world (there is a reason that the City of London is a centre for global finance).

Anyone else would have done it, but the point is that we did, and just like a kid who stole and ate another kid's birthday cake, we owe for it and the least we should is to share our own birthday cake.
posted by jb at 6:51 PM on December 23, 2014 [7 favorites]


The point is that Europe - and it's settler colonies (eg Canada, USA, Australia) - all continue to benefit from the wealth transfer from the rest of the world, just like how lots of rich Southerners stayed rich after the end of slavery. Our industrial revolution was based on land, labour and resources from colonialism. Trust me: England got rich off sugar and cotton spinning, and neither were grown in Lincolnshire by yeomen farmers.

Spoiler: it was grown by slaves in the Carribbean and the US. Later, the Portuguese forced people in Mozambique to grow cotton at gunpoint, even though it meant they starved; the British were "nicer" and just used coercive taxes to force people to grow cash crops instead of food.

It's only been 30 years since the end of colonialism in some places. And the wealth inequality between coloniser & colonised remains. I once read a brilliant article comparing New Zealand and Ghana: both British colonies, similar in size and climate. In the majority non-white colony, people were pushed into cash crop production; the colonial government made no investments in infrastructure, had no interest in stimulating industries so that more profit (from processing, finishing products) stayed local -- all of which they did for white producers in NZ.
posted by jb at 7:09 PM on December 23, 2014 [9 favorites]


Anyone else would have done it, but the point is that we did, and just like a kid who stole and ate another kid's birthday cake, we owe for it and the least we should is to share our own birthday cake.

100% agreed. We did it, we owe for it, we should share what we stole. My only point of contention was that we shouldn't special-case any group of people selected via lazily-drawn racial or cultural lines, for good or ill, no matter who or how or why.

This isn't a zero-sum scenario, and we don't need to condemn anybody or any group of people who aren't actively resisting progress in order to begin making things right. I realize it's human nature to seek out an antagonist figure when constructing an inner narrative about why you're fighting for something...but it would be pretty great if we could learn to see corrupt institutions and power structures as enemies worthy of our immense talent for destruction, rather than endlessly capitulating to our innate tribalism.
posted by Ryvar at 7:11 PM on December 23, 2014


"doubt Herr Bachmann knows anything about the PKK. He was probably just more like, "what's going on here? Why are foreigners waving their flag in das vaterland?"

Herr Bachmann would not or should not use the term 'vaterland'

"As such, the word "Vaterland" and the near English translation "fatherland" are often connotated with National Socialism outside Germany; in Germany, this is not the case."
posted by clavdivs at 8:11 PM on December 23, 2014


"Anyone else would have done it, but the point is that we did, and just like a kid who stole and ate another kid's birthday cake, we owe for it and the least we should is to share our own birthday cake."

Plug in data about 1945 and the U.S. monopoly of the bomb. We had the means to conquer the world like no other civilization.

How did that work out.
posted by clavdivs at 8:21 PM on December 23, 2014


Plug in data about 1945 and the U.S. monopoly of the bomb.

Plug in a war-weary populace, a military infrastructure in desperate need of a protracted maintenance cycle, an economically ravaged continent, a domestic economy that could only remain on a war footing for so long. Most importantly plug in an ascendant Stalin who might get his hands on the bomb at any time because we had no clue what the Russians had or had not learned from the German program.

When we obtained the bomb it addressed exactly one problem: how to deal with Japan without millions dead on both sides via conventional conflict. It provided nothing remotely shaped like the impunity of previous major military advances.

16th century European exploration put countless people still living in the Iron Age within feasible reach, and it occurred at about the same time firearms provided relative impunity when pursuing military ventures against those people. The only two remotely comparable events would be: 1) the Achaemenids' implementation of a professional military and serious investment in roads and similar logistics infrastructure, which resulted in what we know as the Persian Empire conquering roughly 45% of the world's population - a feat that no empire before or since has approached (we can probably discount the Mauryan Empire briefly capitalizing on the implosion of Alexander's campaign), and 2) the Mongols' perfection of light calvary archers taking a completely unprepared Asia and eastern Europe by storm, with a second act by Kublai Khan reducing the population of what we know as China from the 120 million of the last Song Dynasty census, to the 60 million of the first Yuan dynasty census 21 years later.

The nuclear bomb? The nuclear bomb put the stakes on that kind of behavior so high that the sociopaths we elect suddenly lost their appetite for sending millions to die in their name. It doesn't really have a place in this conversation.
posted by Ryvar at 9:01 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


"When we obtained the bomb it addressed exactly one problem: how to deal with Japan without millions dead on both sides via conventional conflict. It provided nothing remotely shaped like the impunity of previous major military advance..."

Wrong. "By the time the bomb was tested" might work but it's inception and intended target was Germany.

Plug in data about 1945 and the U.S. monopoly of the bomb.

"Plug in a war-weary populace, a military infrastructure in desperate need of a protracted maintenance cycle, an economically ravaged continent, a domestic economy that could only remain on a war footing for so long. Most importantly plug in an ascendant Stalin who might get his hands..."

What better rationale to use for a preemptive strike, actually strengthens the argument. Your asserting that the U.S. population would not allow this which I agee with. Reasonable civilizations tend to do that.
Your talking hopplites and bread fruit. The technological advances you posit are apt and were used
Weren't they.
You mention the impunity of other military advances. What does that mean, it's impact? The technological and sociological fall out of said systems?
The Germans had shit in 1945 concerning the bomb and the U.S. Had good idea of stalins capability. Even more supporting data to use a preemptive strike.

Plug in data about 1945 and the U.S. monopoly of the bomb


"The nuclear bomb? The nuclear bomb put the stakes on that kind of behavior so high that the sociopaths we elect suddenly lost their appetite for sending millions to die in their name."

Yet the wars continued. Korea for one. Remember, the use of nucs was discussed to stem the Chinese advance.
The bomb does not really have a part in your obviating on the past.
It is in catagory all its own.
It makes all those shit bag war mongers look like fucking children.

Would G. Khan have used the bomb?

Merry Christmas planet.
posted by clavdivs at 9:49 PM on December 23, 2014


What I notice about the xenophobia that I think makes it different from, say, anti-black racism (we have both), is that we're constantly presented with headlines like "St. Nicholas no longer to visit schools because of muslim students!" Or "Muslim songs to be sung for Christmas, in church!" It's like a barriage of warnings that from here it's just one more step until we all have to wear the hijab. It's not so much "they are lazy/stink/are criminals" as much as "they are making us a minority in our own country."
That doesn't make it any better, of course. I've just been puzzling for a while about this. Do Americans feel that way about, say, Mexicans?
posted by Omnomnom at 2:47 AM on December 24, 2014


Plug in data about 1945 and the U.S. monopoly of the bomb. We had the means to conquer the world like no other civilization.

Are you saying that Americans didn't engage in colonialism? Perhaps you should ask the Phillipines or Puerto Rico or, you know, the native inhabitants of the entire United States.
posted by jb at 9:13 AM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


That doesn't make it any better, of course. I've just been puzzling for a while about this. Do Americans feel that way about, say, Mexicans?

Yes, I have heard that sentiment - white people who fear becoming a minority. Thus the phrase "majority-minority" (already true of some places, predicted nationally for the not too distant future).
posted by jb at 9:15 AM on December 24, 2014


It's not so much "they are lazy/stink/are criminals" as much as "they are making us a minority in our own country."

Because you can't say "immigrants stink, and I wish they would all go away" and pretend you are not racist any more. Furthermore, presenting an absurd situation as a consequence of immigration is a dig at two kinds of people: immigrants themselves, and those damn liberals who think we should tolerate them. As usual in this kind of thing, any relation to actual reality is a secondary concern.
posted by Dr Dracator at 9:25 AM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Particularly sticky situations I have seen first hand etc

Jerks gonna jerk off. Why the hell did you believe them? Don't abusers lie through their teeth in your country?
posted by glasseyes at 11:11 AM on December 24, 2014


Plug in data about 1945 and the U.S. monopoly of the bomb. We had the means to conquer the world like no other civilization.

Bullshit. Complete 100% utter nonsense.

This claim is pure ignorance based on unexamined assumptions. The atomic bomb did not provide military (as opposed to psychological) advantage from 1945 to about 1955 . There are five fundamental reasons. First, there was not enough suitable fissile material available immediately to mass produce atomic bombs - this only happened toward the mid-50's. The U.S. had enough fissile material for one more atomic bomb available after two were expended in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Had the Japanese called our bluff, we'd have one more bomb to throw at them... and then, bupkas until more material was developed months later. We certainly did not have enough fissile materials to dominate Japan, let alone the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. By the time we had militarily unlimited fissile material, the Soviets exploded their own bomb - so check. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings - which are usually discussed in great ignorance of the nitty gritty realities - were psychological in nature. You couldn't stop with Hiroshima, or the first thought would be: that's all you have, just that one, huh? So they had to follow with Nagasaki plenty fast. And because they didn't have an unlimited number of nukes (enough material for 3), they had to make the ones they had, count. In that scenario, it is not exactly as convincing, psychologically to call up a bunch of crusty old generals and do a demo in the desert, then turn to them and say "See?!". Nope. Sorry. You needed a city to be leveled and deaths by the tens of thousands. That speaks to the entire country and breaks the morale like nothing else. This is not for some war besotted old generals. This is for the whole country. End of story. It worked. Thank dog. Because if it didn't... we had not much more of a military advantage with nukes specifically - we'd have had to do the hard work of invading - more below.

But let's say a fairy donated unlimited atomic weapons to the U.S. back in 1945 - you would not have had any military advantage from their use. Why? Because back then, atomic weapons were incredibly blunt instruments - tactical use of atomic weapons was not technically possible until the 70's. Therefore, you had ZERO advantage - militarily - compared to mass bombings through conventional means. The fire bombing of Dresden killed more people than in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki alone. For that matter, our "strategic" bombing of Tokyo produced more deaths than in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki alone: cite (deaths in Tokyo bombings, deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki). You could accomplish - and we regularly did in Japan - as much destruction through conventional means as through atomic bombings - and given the limitation of number of bombs available, actually more would die in conventional bombings. So what military use of atomic weapons? Now, once we developed much more powerful atomic weapons, including the H bomb, that calculus changed - but by that time, the Soviet Union had their own massive atomic arsenal - again, check.

The fact that conventional bombings - and even artillery! - could be more powerful than atomic bombs of the 40's and early 50's has strategic implications if you want to "dominate the world". For example: North Korea has held South Korea and the U.S. in a check with purely conventional firepower for decades - NK has mass artillery aimed at Seoul. They can obliterate Seoul with purely conventional weapons - not even bombers. The annihilation of Seoul was enough to check the combined powers of a nuclear armed U.S. and the whole South Korean military for all this time. We can't even dominate North Korea today - and you're babbling about dominating the whole world in 1945? That is simply insane. The Soviet Union had massed firepower on the doorstep and in the heart of Europe in 1945 - remember, they were in Berlin. In retaliation, they could set Paris, London and Rome on fire had we as much as dropped a single bomb on them - remember, the Soviet Union had at its disposal an enormous military power that just defeated Germany - ready and willing, and battle-hardened. No mere destruction of a Moscow or Stalingrad would have slowed them down. And the Soviets had other crucial advantages - see below.

The third reason why the possession of atomic bombs in the 40's meant little militarily, is means of delivery. There were no reliable rockets that could carry that payload with any precision. All you had were bombers. And good luck with bombers getting free skies above the Soviet Union compared to Japan. A very, very, very different environment, and different staging. The Soviets had by that time (1945 onward) very good anti-aircraft defenses both on the ground and interception in the air. Once reliable rockets were developed, everything changed of course, but we relied on the "second leg" of bombers for strategic delivery of atomic weapons right into the 1980's (original reason for development of the B1 bomber). Back in the 40's and 50's that's all we had. And the Soviets, if anything, were more advanced in rocketry. So, even if a fairy granted us unlimited atomic bombs - how would we deliver them over the Soviet Union? It's a non-starter. The Soviet Union was not Japan, which brings us to the fourth reason.

Geography. Japan is a small island country. You wipe out their cities and you blockade them and you've brought them to their knees. The Soviet Union was the world's largest country. It is very hard to reach even the European parts by flying over hostile territory - now remember, that Stalin moved the bulk of their military production infrastructure far behind the Urals and into Asia (including all atomic work, rendering it safe for them) - how are you reaching there flying U.S. bombers of the 40's? Answer: you can't. That was the entire reason Stalin did that move - to deny Germany air power - everything behind the Urals was safe from the air. We would have - at best - destroyed Moscow, Stalingrad and with the fairy's unlimited nukes, perhaps the rest of the pre-Ural area of the Soviet Union - and also granting that the fairy for some reason incapacitated all of the Soviet anti-aircraft capability and grounded their entire enormous air force - and you simply would not have the range to go to the Soviet military production sites, leaving them fully armed for a furious response. Complete, 100% non-starter. Which - the response - brings us to the fifth reason.

The fifth reason why we could not dominate the world in the 5-6 year window of atomic monopoly, has to do with the retaliatory power of the Soviet Union. As I mentioned before, atomic weapons did not have the technical capability to be used tactically until the 70's. All we could do with them would be to rubbish large cities in the Soviet Union - with a lot of help from the fairy. It would not have touched their military or industrial capability. They would have struck back - hard. They had staging areas in the far east from which they could launch devastating strategic bombing attacks against the U.S. mainland. We could reach their staging areas from Alaska, but atomic weapons against dispersed airfields - dozens and dozens - are pretty much useless, because they are not precision weapons. Meanwhile, whether from Alaska or anywhere else, we couldn't reach their military factories just behind the Urals where they produced their bombers and bombs unmolested, while they could keep trucking their bombs to their staging areas in the Far East. Geographical advantage - Soviet Union. Now, if we were willing to sacrifice all of Europe, and South Korea, we would not be willing to sacrifice our own territory to devastating conventional attacks. The Soviets were willing to take enormous punishment - heck, they themselves set Moscow on fire to deny Napoleon supply relief - they would hardly be stopped by our doing it to them. They took inhuman level of casualties in WWII from Nazi Germany in the tens of millions dead - they shook it off and then relentlessly pursued them down to the last bunker in Berlin. If we bombed them with atomic weapons, knowing - as we suspected - that they were feverishly working on their own atomic weapons, we would also know that they would stop at nothing to bring vengeance to us in our own home. That calculus was simply not one where under any scenario our use of atomic weapons would not expose us to unacceptable levels of retaliation.

The Soviet Union as a factor - with nothing else including China - would have utterly precluded such domination at any time. The U.S. atomic monopoly was meaningless militarily during that period of time - although it did have psychological value - demonstrably - against Japan. In contrast, that psychological edge, by the way, would've been useless against the Soviets, who fully understood the advantages as well as the limitations of atomic weapons - since they themselves were working on them feverishly; the Soviets were a different kettle of fish, and would not have fallen for any bluffs. A few bombs on their cities would only guarantee gaining a fiercely determined foe. Interestingly, there were discussions about taking on the Soviet Union at that time, and it was wisely decided that that was an untenable course of action.

To imagine that the brief 5-6 year monopoly on primitive atomic weapons gave us some kind of carte blanche of world domination is to understand exactly nothing about the realities of military power.
posted by VikingSword at 5:11 PM on December 24, 2014 [7 favorites]


How did a thread about racist protests in Germany become about US nukes?
posted by brokkr at 4:52 PM on December 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


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