world cup sadness & german national identity

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Evening:

Well, Germany lost, I'll spare the details. Oddly enough, no one at the little Shawarma place and neighboring hipster bar where I watched the game seemed to care that much. I heard all this cheering and fireworks down the street--Italian fans? And people are driving around, honking their horns. I met a woman at the bar (a contact improvisation dancer who does Body Mind Centering, a form of body work founded in Western Mass where I went to school--the world really does seem weirdly small sometimes!). She said that all the German flags are very strange in Germany, especially in Berlin (which she described as particularly "alternative"), because Germans tend to eschew national identity "out of shame over WWII." She said she thinks the flags and the public pride is a sort of healing experience for Germans. Sounds specious written here, but I can sort of see what she means. Its a very harmless, even wholesome way to embrace group unity based on national identity, as compared to one based on military or even political campaigns.

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