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Comment by guard-of-terra | Hacker News Reader

I doubt that Europe has much inter-Europe nationalism already. That is, between different nations of Europe.

And I'm not sure this program affects nationalism between locals and immigrants. It may do so, since a lot of university students are immigrants. But on the other hand, it is also true if you study locally.

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If you think there's no inter-Europe nationalism I'm not sure where you live. There's a bunch of it. In my environment (German) growing up it was mostly about French, Polish, and a bit about British people. Sure, straight racism mostly happened towards e.g. Turkish immigrants but that's where it stops.

racism toward Turkish is where it starts in Germany (even those 2nd or 3rd generation born in Germany). Where it ends is the institutionalized discriminatory education system [1]. But this mostly gets swiped under the rug as even liberals in Germany have trouble accepting the problems.

1.en: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/st...

1.de: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/gl...

That pamphlet makes for some scary reading, but is this typical of all of Germany? Perhaps some folks who are living in Germany can comment?

I live in Berlin, Germany's largest city and most liberal(?) city, which is where the PDF is largely focused. The problem is that unlike a media-hyperbolic society such as the US where meme's travel fast, Germany is a bit more civil and people mostly mind their own business. This brings its own benefits and problems. The problem being that most citizens believe the state of discrimination to be what they have seen (as you will notice from many comments of Germans here and other places). When in-fact in a meme based society eventually stories of real discrimination would become more widely understood.

When I talk to people here about the problem of discrimination in the education system few believe it at first. A stalwart all people here hold is that their education system is "great". The stats even for the general population, not accounting for different classes or races, brings that into stark question. Until you relay to them the stories then they start consider it more closely. Then they may start to see that the Gymnasium system meant to promote excellence is actually just a Cast system. Being that promotion to Gymnasium is dependent on a letter from a students teacher. If nothing else tacit discrimination a result of the natural psychology to favor the familiar helps found unfair results.

Prior to the Information Era the Gymnasium / Hauptschule system had a function as professional labor was highly valued. This is no longer the case and not getting into a Gymnasium has stronger psychological effect than it would have before. This system, for this era, is discriminatory at its base.

Consider The Pygmaliom Effect [1] (aka self-fulfilling prophesy) that proves measured aptitude is dependent on confidence and attention within the education system. Here in Germany you have a system that reaffirm the predefined bias against immigrants and you don't give them attention so they don't perform as well.

At least in Berlin, there is evidence that teachers and headmasters of Gymnasiums are just blatantly racist. Consider the arguments some made against Affirmative Action for Gymnasium enrollment in 2011 [2]:

    Headmasters have objected, saying this type of policy would be
    "a disservice" to poor children, that they would not be able
    to keep up academically. The headmasters have also expressed
    concerns that children of working-class families would not
    feel welcome at gymnasien. Wolfgang Harnischfeger, headmaster
    of a well-known Berlin gymnasium, has stated:

        It can be noticed in children as young as kindergarten
        students, that children take after their parents. They
        emulate their language, their way of dressing, their way
        of spending their free time. Kids from Neukölln [a poor
        neighbourhood] would not feel good about themselves if they
        had to attend a type of school that mainly serves students
        from social classes different from their own. They will
        not be able to integrate. Every field day, every school
        party will show that".

Effectively this headmaster is saying his school is racist so immigrants wont feel comfortable. The situation is not going to get better. In 2011 Berlin finally reformed their system requiring %30 of seats in Gymnasium be randomly selected. From any angle you look at it, this measure is too little and completely awkward. It doesn't address the ability of teachers to keep qualified students out by not giving them a letter. It doesn't deal with the structure in Gymnasiums that segregate children. It doesn't deal with the problem that very early in your life you are told whether you are worth of University or not.

I feel most Europeans want to protect their idea that whatever problems they hear about in the US, that they don't have anything similar. It's convenient and comfortable but absolutely blind.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect#Rosenthal.E2....

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_%28Germany%29

Haha really? Culture in Europe revolves a lot around nationalism. Especially the culture that spreads through jokes. Although this is mostly geared through neighbouring countries - everyone's got a couple of spicy jokes about their neighbours to the South or East (or both). The further South/East a nation, the worse they supposedly are.

But for a more serious example: Just ask any European how they feel about gypsies.

Gypsies being the only really outlying data point suggest they are for a big part responsible for their sad image.

If europeans were intolerant to other european nations, perhaps they'd despise many of them equally and not just one.

You can use Jews as a counterexample, but I hold my point for consideration.

"Black people being the only really outlying data point suggest they are for a big part responsible for their sad image."

See, it works for the US as well. ;)

The main difference between racism against gypsies and antisemitism is, that most antisemitic people are to afraid to stand to their prejudice because the public climate is against them whereas racism against gypsies is completely socially accepted in big parts of Europe, especially in the east and south. But around a quarter of the population beliefs in anti-semitic stereotypes if asked directly, according to studies in Austria and it's much, much worse in Hungary or Greece for example.

And Gypsies can't be "responsible for their sad image" as a whole because nobody is responsible for their ethnicity. Responsibility for prejudice lies at the racists who can't see people as individuals. One aspect might be that Gypsies in general aren't very visible in large parts of Europe except in stories about criminals.

To add to this point, the phrase "Don't be such a jew"[1] is widely accepted as a thing to say in large parts of Europe. It's probably got a lot to do with the fact that there simply aren't (m)any jews in large parts of Eastern and Germanic Europe. First time I interacted with somebody who identifies as jewish was when I came to the US.

This makes it easier for long-standing stereotypes to stay put because nobody is there to challenge them or give you a different experience than what is passed down through oral tradition.

[1] it roughly means something along the lines of "Don't be so calculative with money, be more generous, don't count pennies"

"nobody is responsible for their ethnicity" But you might be responsible for not setting yourself apart from poisonous culture prevalent within your ethnicity.

I know a few people of Gypsy descent, they're assimilated perfectly well into the society we're in (for multiple generations I should add). It is sad when they're confronted with stereotypes about culture they are not defined by, but the only constructive solution to this is changes to said poisonous culture. Do this and prejudice goes away fast.

It's also interested to look at the history of the Holocaust and the Nazis. They gassed the Roma/Gypises as well as the Jews.

> "If europeans were intolerant to other european nations, perhaps they'd despise many of them equally and not just one."

Nope. Racism is not exactly the same as "hating all other countries/races/ethnicies equally". Even the Nazis* treated different countries differently (treating the jews worse, eastern europeans / slavs very bad, and western europeans bad etc.)

* I think it's OK to discuss the Nazis when talking about the history of inter-european nationalism and wars, goodwins law be damned.

You must not live in the EU. Nationalism is alive and growing in EU countries, and it's not just aimed at non-EU nationals.

intra european nationalism is alive and kicking. Just ask Germans what they think of "lazy" spanish, "corrupt" italians etc.. but it is moving in a better direction - also thanks to programs like the Erasmus exchange.

Is there a difference between nationalism and the fact that Italy does in fact has almost twice as high of a corruption index as Germany or that Spain has half the GDP?

the difference is knowing a statistic and generalizing it to each and every citizen of a country. Especially the "lazy" part - that has even been proven to be completely untrue if you look at hours worked etc.

Comparing the GDPs of two countries and assuming the difference must be due to laziness is almost the epitome of prejudice.

Europe doesn't have much inter-Europe nationalism at the moment and Erasmus (Orgasmus btw holds some truth in it..) has a lot to do with it. By mixing students from different countries we all realize that there is nothing to separate among people of different nationalities, we all breathe and think and act similarly.

And this has tremendously helped Europe to get past its horrible past where almost each country was fighting against each other in 2 world wars etc into a future where no German will think of a French or British as enemy. But rather as just a guy/gal who happened to grow up in a different part of Europe.

We have had multiple wars with nationalism as a major factor in Europe over the last couple of decades. It's just that the most serious stuff have been happening "far" away from Western Europe.

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