Note: The term "German psyche" is commonly used to describe German identity, a subject complicated by turbulent history and often fraught with mysticism and kitsch. We will try to stay clear of this but cannot guarantee it.
On the day the new U.S. president signed the Executive Order that became known as the "Muslim Ban", the blogster filled up its* car at a rural German gas station.
As it headed out, a German male, in his fifties or sixties, came in enthusiastically yelling "he's kicking them out, he's kicking them all out".
The station clerk obviously knew him well. Her body language only signaled that he should not be as boisterous. The blogster did not hang around.
One gas tank later, at another gas station, the blogster made some off the cuff remark, it really does not remember what it was about, that caused the owner to open her heart and share things that only foreign minded people will.
The owner hails from Africa, way down south, and seems to view "the German psyche" from the rare perspective of people who grew up in a German speaking community thousands of miles from where "the German psyche" is typically located.
Yes, there are corners of the planet, where people live in German speaking communities, and we are not talking about some Spanish resort, some Thailand old folks home for poor Germans, or any of the modern industrial outposts home to globalized German managers.
Southern Africa has some of these communities. South America, too.
The gas station owner immigrated to Germany with the cultural ease of Brits moving to the US, or Aussies moving to the UK.
It sets you up for a shock, for the experience of reverse culture shock. The US state department website has some good information about the phenomenon. Germans rarely talk about it.
Which brings us right to the point.
Germans rarely talk about it.
But they do at the gas station.
Expressions of dissatisfaction with the country's politics have made headlines when the anti-Islamization marches of "PEGIDA" drew thousands, or when the "right populist" AfD won state parliament seats in 2016.
And yet, the outbursts of xenophobia and some run of the mill revisionist history are only a small part of the story.
Or, as the gas station owner phrased it, many Germans feel stifled under the weight of bureaucracies that do nothing for the common good. The utter disappointment in successive governments that pushed austerity, bailed out banks, cut retirement and other benefits doesn't get nearly the focused attention that it deserves.
Only the gas station workers listen.
They are so afraid to speak their minds to the politicians and administration workers, said the gas station owner. They vent here, and they get upset when I tell them they should tell those who govern them. Vote for someone else. But no, they are so bound by what is "expected', they feel every position outside of what the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats support is extremism, it's horrible.
Our internal revenue service, for example, just worked, the owner continued. Think about it, in a small country with few resources. The one here is a nightmare, and people agree - but they won't speak up.
The blogster does not want to go on with the conversation. Those of us who have lived in other countries know. **
As to the German psyche, the blogster has nicknamed it Leidkultur instead of Leitkultur. A culture (Kultur) of needless suffering (Leid) instead of prevailing, common (Leit).
* Gender neutral, friends. Previously just because. More recently also to piss off binaries.
** For instance, if you want to find out how hard it is to get cheap local firewood, we have just the right post for you.
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