Karine Maucourt ([email protected])
Thu, 17 Dec 1998 15:32 +0100 (MET)
All the messages i've read since a few days and especially the last
one from Zeek made me think about german people's feelings after the WWII.
For instance, they felt collectively guilty about all the pain the nazi
ideology was responsible for, whereas they were the first people to suffer
from it. And for instance, they were afraid of coming to France (and some
others countries i suppose) because of a possible hatred from french people
to them. I have to tell you we have a village here named Oradour/Glane in
the south of France where all the people were massacred by (german) SS (the
second village for the importance of the number after a village in
ex-Yougoslavia). And this attitude/fear lasted until the 80s ! The german
tourists always avoided this village for instance. I even saw people
removing their label "D" on their car ("D" for Deutschland, Germany in
german) after they passed the frontier ! The young germans could easily talk
with young french but their parents not so much. And it wasn't because of
the language, because i'v enoticed many of them could undersntand french. Of
course, we (young and old) didn't consider them as collectively guilty. But
enough of this...
About U2 being Irish/English, I personally think we don't have to
mix up religion and nationality. They are 2 different things. You're always
from the country you have the same kind of mind, the same way of
life,...even though it's not your native country, and even if your religion
is a minority religion. I know many muslims in my country (Islam is the
second religion here) who consider as french as christians. And for those
who remember this, the french football team for the World Cup this year is
one good example (amongst others) of the non-importance of religion to be an
inhabitant of a country. However, it's sure the History of some countries
made people more sensitive about religion (as in NI, Lebanon...) but the
problem is that always (IMO) leads to intolerance and violence. As ZeeK said
it very well, these people don't have to live in the past because they can't
find peace by this way. I don't mean you have to forget and/or forgive
everybody/everything, but you have to go beyond your pain and learn to live
with the others. And it's not easy, not easy at all....But all human beings
can do this, we're often stronger than we think. It take time but we have to
hope. So, don't give up !
In the name of love
Karine
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Thu Dec 17 1998 - 06:31:12 PST