Re: Euro-Immigrants was: Anti-Americanism

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan and Carmel Brain" <aebrain@webone.com.au>
> Some observations about my 6 years in Germany:
>
> When in the office, I said "Ich bin Gastarbeiter" at least
half-serously,
> the more staid people contradicted me: "Gasterbeiter" = "Guest Worker"
> has the same connotations as, say Mexicanos working in the US. And
> I mean Mexicanos as opposed to Latinos. What I was trying to express
> to them was that there is no difference from a white, Australian
Engineer
> who knew at least as much as they did, and a semi-literate Turk or
Khurd
> who cleaned out the room. We were both non-Germans living in a foreign
land,

I'm not really a proper German myself, and I have observed similar
thinking.A lot of Germans don't consider Northern
European/American/Australian people here as real
"Gastarbeiter"/"Asylum-seekers"/"Foreigners" etc. in the pejorative
sense.
Of course, you were absolutely right in the sense of the word, but too
many
Germans think it's a dirty word.

On the other hand, I don't feel that low-level racism here is worse than
in
a lot of other places :-(
And there are a lot of people who are open, tolerant and supportive.

> Guests if you will, there to earn a living and send it home, and
expected
> to behave in a civilised manner and obey the local laws.
> Apart from a very small loony rightist fringe - who gather a lot of
> publicity  for a very few very terrible acts like firebombing migrant
hostels - there's
> not a lot of racism in Germany now.

> There's more Loony Green/leftists who are  so PC (Politically Correct)
that they'd allow anyone non-German to get away
> with murder simply because any sanction would be "racist".

Right. At our boys' school, they hold after-hours Polish classes. For a
time, things would be broken/stolen/soiled the next morning. There was a
serious debate about whether complaining about this would be "racist".
And
when it was brought up, the Polish teachers complained about racist
harrassing. Oh well... Things at school have settled down now.

Greetings
Karl Heinz