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Sunday, August 27, 2006
"Auswandering" from Germany is in Despite, say, the many positive aspects of the German social system which immediately catch a foreigner’s eye; an affordable and efficient health care system, long vacations, a practically gratuitous university education system, generous unemployment benefits etc., the prevailing feeling here about such achievements is one of resignation. Rightly so, perhaps, as many of these benefits have simply become too expensive in the current era of mass unemployment and seem now more like ancient artifacts of a by-gone age: The good old days. Früher war alles besser. And although of course one doesn’t usually pack up his or her bags and immigrate to another country just because of cuts and reforms to the traditional social order of one’s own, I was nevertheless surprised to discover a television show the other night that made me reevaluate what I thought about the German reluctance to risk-taking and change. After a few minutes of watching Goodbye Deutschland! Die Auswanderer I was stupefied to see Germans who had not only stopped moaning about their lots in life, they were even willing to put everything they had on one card (not necessarily the green one) and leave their country behind them altogether. It’s what I guess you could call a reality-TV-report-documentary about five German families, all with very different backgrounds, who try their luck in Spain, Sweden, South Africa, a not-yet-disclosed South American country and, gulp, Texas. This wasn’t the first show I’ve seen like this. And I love shows like these. This kind of thing gets an ex-patriot’s attention, I suppose. These “Aussteiger” (get out, as in drop out or get out of the rat race) shows are in these days, although in this case it’s actually an Auswanderer (immigrant) show. And how could they not be popular? They reflect the sentiments of a huge number of Germans who are tired of all the resignation and consider leaving the country every year. 100,000 a year actually do it. Or at least that’s the number that Goodbye Deutschland! claims.But whatever the actual number of inner- or outer- immigrants might be, and regardless of where they or you I come from, they all have one thing in common that I really like: They’ve traded in their fatalism for something else. Come visit me at Observing Hermann... Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Clarsonimus at 1:06 PM |
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