From the Bonn to the Berlin Republic by Jeffrey Anderson Eric Langenbacher

Author:Jeffrey Anderson, Eric Langenbacher [Jeffrey Anderson, Eric Langenbacher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Germany, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science
ISBN: 9780857458575
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2010-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

Gender, Nationalism, and Headscarf

The recurrent phrase wir sind wieder wer expresses a renewed legitimacy for German pride, most recently stirred in the wake of unification. National pride is more problematic in post World-War-II Germany than in most countries, and the “economic miracle” of West Germany and the “antifascist principles” of socialist East Germany served in each case to anchor the identities of each postwar state in its respective bloc during the Cold War. United Germany needed a post Cold-War basis for legitimating its national self-congratulation and found this in part in the new coalition of “modern” states.10 This new “West” sees itself in a new confrontation with militant Islam, the new “East.” Taking its place as a powerful state in this new West bloc has led to re-normalized assertions of German authority, both in the cultural and military sense, including military engagements in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The moral claims to be an active supporter of human rights globally (nie wieder Auschwitz) have been used to override the moral claims of pacifism (nie wieder Krieg), and “women’s rights as human rights” has been invoked in this “new West” to justify its military interventions.

Despite the remilitarization of both divided states during the Cold War, the collective memory of war remains a powerful source of resistance to imagining military power in positive terms. Even as the Green Party chose to endorse a renewed militarization of foreign policy in the German engagement in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the emphasis of all political parties has been more on peace-keeping and protecting human rights than on overt displays of power. Insofar as Germany is again “somebody,” the national identity it seems most willing to embrace is a distinctly civilian one with economic power at the core. Yet, because of the identification of maleness with competition, no less than with war, German national pride has an element of machismo that feminists have always been quick to criticize.11

Even more significantly, national identity has been reclaimed as a matter of pride in upholding what are called “modern European” values, which now include gender equality and antiracism. The claim to being “modern” is central to nation-building projects in many parts of the world. In a reversal of Cold War moralism, the West is now presumed to be distinguished from the backward East by its secularism and emancipation of women, precisely the “virtues” that the GDR had proclaimed as distinguishing it from the bourgeois family politics of the West.12

Jessica Brown has particularly traced the emergence of a citizenship discourse that makes gender relations central to inclusion in the national community. Her study of local German culture courses for immigrants reveals that the lessons emphasize accepting the moral legitimacy of homosexual displays of affection, revealing clothing for women, and smoking and drinking in public spaces for both men and women. Despite some resistance to official tests proposed for ascertaining how well immigrants adopt such gender norms, she found considerable support in the curricula and classrooms for using gender relations as a focal point for teaching German-ness.

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