Die Weltmeisterschaft und Patriotismus

I seem to have far less time than I thought I would this summer, but at least I've had the chance to watch a lot of the World Cup. I was rooting for Germany and the US and now just Germany. My friends back in Freiburg tell me that the whole city goes crazy every time Germany wins, and based on what I saw last semester, I totally believe it. Whenever SC Freiburg or Bayern Munich played last semester, it seemed like every student in town was watching the game at one of the hundreds of bars broadcasting it. This wasn't unique to Germany, of course - I'm sure the fans are even more rabid in England, Italy, Spain, or any of the other traditional powerhouses.

One night last spring, I went with some friends to a local Italian place that sold spaghetti bolognese for 1.80 Euros between 6:00 and 7:30 pm. It was one of our favorite little cheap places to eat, but it would always be super crowded as everyone tried to take advantage of the spaghetti deal. That night we were there, I asked a man sitting alone at a table if we could sit with him (which is a totally normal social practice there). I asked in German and he responded in a strange combination of French and German. We were all a bit bewildered, but he was nodding enthusiastically so we sat down anyway. He then went on to explain, in the same mixture of French and German, that he was French but was in town for a while. We were struggling a bit with the muddled language, so he asked us what he spoke and informed us that he spoke French, some German, and some Spanish. We answered English and his eyes lit up before he started chattering away and asking us about "Arsenal." We had no idea what he was talking about, but as soon as we realized he was pointing to his FC Barcelona jersey, we understood that he thought we were British and was asking us if we supported Arsenal, a major team in the English Premier League. We all started laughing and explaining that we spoke English, but were actually just Americans studying abroad in Germany. He then laughed and asked us where we were from, and when I said California, he immediately began listing all the Californian cities he knew. When he got to San Diego, he said, "Mais San Diego ist wirklich in Mexiko, ja?" Big laughs all around as I, my three friends, and our new dinner pal enjoyed some delicious and cheap spaghetti.

The point I'm trying to make in this long-winded reminiscence is that football brings Europeans (and the world) together regardless of language. It would have been so easy for us to politely ignore our table-mate and speak only in English to each other so he couldn't understand us, but instead, we figured out where we were all from, what we were all doing in Freiburg, why we liked this restaurant (1.80 Euro spaghetti, of course) and which teams we supported in a strange mixture of French, German, English, "sign language", and even a word or two of Spanish. We all enjoyed our dinner and our talks, even if we sometimes didn't understand all of it. It sometimes only takes finding a little common ground to strike up a conversation, and in Europe, football seems to be a pretty good starting place.

I'm writing about football here not only because I want Germany to win the World Cup (I'm wearing a pair of shorts with German colors on them as we speak), but because it relates to some of the other themes I encountered while abroad. I had to interview my flatmates for a project for German class, and most of the questions were about patriotism, or "Patriotismus." When I asked two of them if and when they were proud of Germany, they both independently said "only during the World Cup." Most of my classmates got very similar answers from their flatmates, leading me to wonder why Germans are so hesitant to be patriotic. The short answer? Germany can't be patriotic with flags, glorious songs, and declarations of allegiance after Hitler and World War II. German nationalism is associated with too many horrific memories of the Third Reich, both for Germans and the rest of the world that witnessed that awful period of history. The long answer has more to do with the nature of patriotism in general, and I would never claim to be an expert on it, but my time in Freiburg really made me think about German patriotism, or the lack thereof, compared with American-style patriotism. I'm saving it for another post, but as long as everyone's waving their flags at the World Cup, I thought I'd put out a little introduction now. I'm sure our dinner friend is rooting for Spain, although maybe it was his homeland of France, or his neighbor Germany, or the object of his admiration, England...

Bis spaeter!