In a prescient post in February, the blogster called the German "Leitkultur" Leidkultur. A culture (Kultur) of needless suffering (Leid) instead of prevailing, common (Leit).
Right on cue before major state and national elections, the German Interior Minister penned a piece in the most awful media representation of Leitkultur, BILD Zeitung, spelling out ten aspects of that culture. Here is a British take, and here a summary by the German international broadcaster DW.
It remains unclear why the Christian Democrat came up with ten - as in the number of commandments - items that make up his Leitkultur. The blogster could add many more, such as the need to regulate even small aspects of life, or leftovers of a feudal caste system in modern German society.
The minister's claim "we shake hands, show our faces, and tell people what our names are" is utterly pathetic. German police at demonstrations tend to be in ski masks, and German teens don't do the handshaking very well.
When we see "that Germany's overall western outlook and
its defense of European unity were also part of the cultural make-up of
the kind of "Leitkultur" he defends", we get a much better indication of the gentleman's mindset.
Because these are political statements, and fairly recent ones to boot.
His outlook is deeply static, and no amount of explaining that "that Germany appreciated cultural diversity" can ultimately make the title of his piece go away: "We are not Burqa".
The original German, "Wir sind nicht Burka", is grammatically incorrect, so don't tell me "the German language" is a mainstay of Leitkultur. That language is spoken in Austria, Switzerland and Swakopgmund (Namibia).
As to the name for the country and the people, we have been using German and Germany, and other countries still use the names of tribes. That's how the French have Allemagne, the Russians use "Strangers", the Finnish call them Saxons, and more. Don't forget, the moment you get outed as a native speaker of English around here, you can kiss your effort to learn German goodbye, except when talking to really old people.
If you feel like browsing a list of German companies that use English at all levels of the German organization, this (in German) is a good start.
Whether he picked the title or not is unimportant, he owns it.
It is negative, "we are not" - which is not how you start defining something positive and valuable, so valuable in fact that you want 80 million people to live by it.
And the article title was fundamentally anti-Muslim, make no burqa about it.
So, whiny whites are having a great time visiting China Town in San Francisco or taking over the better part of a major Spanish island while bitching about ethnic neighborhoods at home. The blogster, for its* part, enjoys the Turkish booths at the local small town Christmas Market.
The minister's appeal for "enlightened patriotism" is as unnerving as it is useless. The blogster has written more than enough about Germany's supposed patriotism problem in August 2015.
[Update 5/5/2017] The minister also extolled the virtues of hard work: "We regard good performance as something that each individual can be proud of". One flip side of this was mentioned by a friend who stated Germans don't like Germans, or at least undeserving compatriots.
And finally, let's bring out the bad label.
White supremacy.
The DW article phrases it like this: Opponents also say that such a set core of values would automatically
lead to cultural clashes, with a "Leitkultur" being treated as
inherently superior to immigrants' native cultures...
It is uncertain whether Leitkultur will become a simple euphemism for white supremacy, but uses by politicians and media on the far right clearly indicate it is being used as a dogwhistle in some quarters.
* Gender neutral.
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