Posted in Germany forum
I just read a story on Spiegel online which shocked me: According to a new study, more than 14% of German teenagers can be considered as "anti-foreigners", while more than 5% fall into the category of the righ extreme with Nazi-tendencies.
Surprisingly, the bad reputation of foreigners seems to be higher in those regions with little foreigners (so those regions where people don't even know what they talk about!!!).
The original article is here: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,613844,00.h
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To me - this is just another example of human ignorance, but for a foreigners living in Germany, these numbers are pretty scary!
What are your opinions and personal experiences with the way Germans see foreigners?
@G.M
posted by Ron Saxena in Germany forum
I appreciate your private message. However I prefer to write on open forum. I am trying to inform incoming professionals, researchers and students about the reality. I am not ranting / whining here. I have a decent job with one of the largest Tech Consulting firm. But will not shy away from announcing that I had to slog much more in order to achieve this. And my European University peers had it much easier than me. Be it student assistant job to regular job. Thumb rule : Non Europeans are hired if there is a special need : My Chinese friend interned with an Automotive firm, where his sole work was to interact with Chinese speaking vendors in China. I have briefly worked with an IT firm, where the team was overwhelmingly Indians. From technical requirements, those special cases are
; - if the candidate is clearly offering more for lower price. E.g: applying for Bachelor job with Masters Degree, or freshers job with experience and specialized certifications. None of them can be called "equal opportunity". Equal opportunity and true competition means : u score 90% , your European peer scores 88%, so you get selected.
All in all, you get selected if you are over qualified, i.e Europeans with similar qualification would reject that job.@G.M
posted by Ron Saxena in Germany forum
I do not need to need to know anything about Sharia, I never claimed that I know. Perhaps you should consider brushing up your logical faculty.
I am not spouting hate against the country I live. If the old lady in tram cringes when I sit next to her, if I am routinely refused entry to clubs, if I am always made to wait the longest time in the bakery and offered the smallest piece of Leberkaese, then I am going to call it RACISM (in capital). Racism can be subtle yet stubborn. And I will not pretend that everything is hunky dory, unless it is race motivated attack.
Let me repeat what I have highlighted in my previous posts. I am not welfare sucking refugee. My circle overwhelmingly comprises of very much "high skilled" immigrant IT professionals, Consultant, PhD and Post-Doc researchers. My opinion about German society is by no stretch universal, but unfortunately very common.@G.M
posted by Ron Saxena in Germany forum
That's rather U turn from your earlier stance. Now, most of the users of this forum are not exactly demanding implementation of Sharia Law or affirmative action for Non-whites. Not to mention, Germany has far lower level of immigration than France or UK. In fact, post seventies, immigration to Germany reduced to trickle. Hence your claim of uncontrolled mass immigration fails to rise above utter tosh. However, the over-simplistic "take it or leave it" argument is genuinely charming. One can reduce half of the Worlds problem with this brilliant formula. The issue is : if you are routinely offered smaller piece of cake even when compared to Russian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Spanish, Croatian: that is indeed racism.
Racism in Germany
posted by Jack H in Germany forum
Katie E
I can only speak from my experiences here in Germany. Perhaps Germans are not "racist" per se - but from what I have seen, a great many people here (more than in any other country I've ever spent time in) fear and distrust anything that is different. If you're not the same as everyone else, you are automatically somehow 'bad'. There is no sense of difference being something to be interested in here. People want to know why you're NOT like everyone else and do not accept strangers easily.
yes - i am generalising a little. I have met many wonderful people in Germany. But I have met more than enough arseholes as well. Honestly, it is not an easy country to live in if you are not like everybody else.
I speak German and worked hard at it. It's not perfect, but it's good enough that I can converse easily with people over the phone. I have a job here. I have joined several Vereine. Despite this, I can guarantee at least once a week I'll have an experience that makes me think "Why do I bother"?
The only other place i can draw parallels to where I have spent time was Japan, but the discrimination was a lot more subtle there, and you can still get about on a normal day with people being nice to your face.
Just a few thoughts
posted by Katie E in Germany forum
Hey :)
I found this thread by chance and I gotta say I'm pretty shocked. I read a few posts and just thought I have to share my mind...Well, I am from Germany (sorry for mistakes in advance) and sure, I am pretty sure, a few germans are racist. That's really sad but honestly...In every country are racists.
I don't wanne pretend, I have no prejudices, but I'm sure no racist!
Prejudices results from ignorance. And ignorance results from no experience.
Sure, it's pretty easy to call someone a racist...but are we always that sure, we are right? Maybe it's just prejudices and no racism.
Don't get me wrong, I don't wanne defend any attack of other people, especially if it's because of racism, but I'm just not that sure, that every attack, every 'joke' is because of racism.
And who tells you, you aren't racist?I just think, we are all people, hell, most of my co-workers are foreigners, they have a migration background...and I can tell you, I don't wanne miss any of them. They are just great. And I don't care if someone has a darker skin than me or has black, brown or even pink hair. For me, we are all just people.
The problem is as long as we just see the differences, we all will be different. And as long as we all will be different, there'll be prejudices.I never would attack anyone. But I don't wanne be sanctimonious. I sure have my mistakes and I wouldn't deny it, but a racist? No, never....
I'm sorry for everybody, who made bad experiences in Germany. I'm really upset about that, because I think, a lot of people are very nice and it's just a shame, that a couple of idiots can destroy the picture of a whole nation.
Don't blame the country and the whole people, just blame the persons, who did this to you.
Maybe, if we lump everybody together, we are not that much better, because of the prejudices we have.
Sure, your experiences are horrible, but give people a chance to surprise you and maybe change your mind.Sumon Swagger
posted by Ron Saxena in Germany forum
You have no blooming idea , how to have a debate. Necessary condition for racism is that u need to be different race. Indians have little chance to be racist against BD as BD is same race as India. See, its not Rocket science !!
@Ron Saxena
posted by Sumon Swagger in Germany forum
ahahaha dude keep telling yourself that, so you'll really belive it... lol.
You don't know every single Indian, so you can't say if they are racist or not. There are racist everywhere (yes, also in your country, it might seem strange to you, but it's true).@Sumon Swagger
posted by Ron Saxena in Germany forum
What is your point. The rule 101 of a debate is that, you address the issue, and don't try to evade it by establishing "pot calls the kettle black" status-quo !! Pot can definitely call the kettle black. We will discuss pots blackness on another forum where that is the pertinent issue of the debate.
And I repeat: Indians cannot be racist against Bangladeshis, for same reason German cannot be racist against Swedish or Dutch. Xenophobic: yes, Racist: NO
@Ron Saxena
posted by Sumon Swagger in Germany forum
"Indians cannot be racist against someone from Bangladesh"
You say? Do you know every single Indian?? Anyway I didn't said that every indian is racist, but in the school where I studied (maybe because 80% of the students were son and daughter of rich people) there were a lot.My point was that in every country there are ignorant racist people (this doesn't mean that country is full of racist people), and we all have to deal with it.
@Sumon Swagger
posted by Ron Saxena in Germany forum
Indians cannot be racist against someone from Bangladesh, as they are same race as Indians. There can be other hostilities (like British don't like French) but that is not racism. I am sorry, if you had bad experiences, but that does not justify racism in Germany. These are separate situation and incidents. Not to mention, when your age was seven, you had barely any understanding of racism.