In the hood

The old retiree neighbor from across the street dislikes Turks.

Very much so.

His next door neighbors in a cute older house are Turks. An old, first generation migrant couple with their son and his family. They are Muslims and attended the Lutheran funeral of the old German neighbor who passed last year.

The neighbor who dislikes Turks does not dislike us.

A couple of times, during a chat, he went off into complaining that Turks are not willing to integrate, not willing to learn German and the German ways.

We very calmly told him that we understand, and that we try to avoid sweeping statements about ethnicity.  We mentioned that not all Americans are great and good people. He got it.

Our "people are people" mantra at work. Or, you can call it "Hearts and Minds" for those who have never heard of Montaigne (this Wikipedia article does not do the man justice).

The latest xenophobia statistics for Germany are out, and they are more interesting than you might expect.

Location and age of the Germans who hold strong anti-foreigner beliefs also tell us about the country's recent past.

As it turns out, xenophobia in the old West German lands is most prevalent among the old folks age 60 and up.

In the former East Germany, the sentiment is very much that of youngsters under 30.

Researchers think it has something to do with growing up at a time when the respective dictatorships had crumbled and people were trying to rebuild lives in a new, insecure quickly changing environment.