A Different Kind of Patriotism

Before I begin, allow me to first apologize for not posting for awhile. Generic excuse: I've been busy.

You will be pleased, though, to know that I haven't been wasting my time with partying and sleeping. No, in the past several weeks, I have been observing my fellow classmates, especially in my English class, where we are discussing the United States. This in itself is very interesting, especially when they have opinions that differ from mine.

One of the huge differences that I have taken note of is, at first glance, the distinct lack of German patriotism. I first noticed this one day when people where attacking the United States for its egotism and self-absortion, so being the good little citizen that I am, I raised my hand and said something along the lines of "We like other cultures, and we incorporate them into our own, but in the end, we're proud to be Americans... I think that every culture has some sort of pride and patriotism for itself."

This, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. Well, maybe "wrong" is a bit of a strong phrase to use in this situation, but the vast majority of my classmates disagreed with me. My teacher then went on to explain how Germans were perhaps a bit more modest than the United States, for example, because of World War II and the hurt that still caused throughout the culture. The students all nodded and added little anecdotes: "We don't want to seem to proud, as the Germans during the reign of the Third Reich were", or things along those lines. Only one student argued the opposite: "I'm proud to be German, we have a good country now and that's nothing to be ashamed of." (please note, these quotes are not exact. At all.).

This lead to my reflection today. What I see here in Germany is a nation that is back on its feet after a long run of being broken apart. Things are definitely not perfect, but they could be so much worse. I feel that Germany doesn't have the national pride that the United States does (which, ok, I admit can be over the top). Instead, they choose to quietly get over themselves and continue on, trying to make their country the best place possible. Like I was always told at orientations, "It's not better or worse, just different." And so it is.