Wahala represents a state of being. In Nigeria, the word originates primarily with the Yoruba ethnic group and means "problem" or "trouble". Yet the word itself has Arabic origins from the word "wahla". Here, wahla means "fright" or "terror."
Quoted from @scholaris blog post, who runs the wotw-contest.
War, where it happens for real, is hideous, terrifying, and traumatizing. Where bombs fall, where buildings collapse, where weapons fire is heard, fear reigns.
For me, war expresses the meaning of Wahala par excellence.
You may, if you have followed my past entries for the word of the week wotw-contest, be used to a light tone of mine. This time it will be different, though. It's going to be a long read - I divide my text into two parts - but I want you to go through it.
My intention is to make ourselves sensitive to news and not take sides hastily.
No one wants to experience war.
Yet such things happen. If I now assume this fact, that acts of war happen without me being able to influence them myself directly, I am thinking ahead of a future in which I imagine that the war is over.
Source
Subtitle of the picture:
Intimate socialist brotherly kiss between Walter Ulbricht and Leonid Brezhnev
When Germany lost the Second World War, it was divided into occupation zones.
My perception as a child was anything but feeling defeated in an occupied zone.
I sometimes saw the troops and tanks moving through the streets (I remember it vividly, it must have been around the End of the 1970s, beginning of 80s), but I was more fascinated by them than frightened. My older siblings and friends socialized with the foreigners in the discos, that is, the English and American soldiers, whom we called "Ammies" and "Tommies."
By Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.Reproduction Number: LC-USZ6-2067Location: NYWTS -- BIOG - The Library of Congress retrieved 3d02067r.jpg from Jailhouse Rock., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=727693
The term does not originate from the Second World War, as I always thought, but from the First. As a child, I didn't make a distinction between American and English; for me, all English-speaking soldiers were "Tommies", even if we alternately called them simply "Ammies". Since I grew up in the north of Germany, we had to deal with the British.
Many of those who later stayed here as civilians married German women. Contrary to what can be found on German Wikipedia, not everyone used the term pejoratively, but rather as a marker and brand; we were even proud to know some of the Tommies personally. Our parents may have handled it differently.
So, in fact, the teenagers and young adults were interested in these friendships.
And what should the stationed people have done, supervising us all the time, that we also had to accept one pro British and one pro American culture?
That's what we did anyway. Because the foreigners exerted a fascination on us. They were not die-hard nationalists or programmed cyborgs, but ordinary people, lower-ranking soldiers who wanted to feel at home in the environment to which they had been sent, without being suspected or constantly sent hostile signals from the besieged ones. Others, whom might have detested us or vice versa, probably did not make contacts, I suppose.
Everything is relationship
It was not difficult to see in them the "liberators", firstly because it had been propagandistically prepared that way, and secondly because the people who finally meet on the real ground are the ones who live and experience relationships.
In fact, however, it is simultaneously true that the German cities had been subjected to an unimaginably violent bombardment by Allied planes. Forgets easily for those to come, when the events are displaced by other messages.
As an average Joe, I probably would have felt the same way about wanting my intact skin saved in all that horror. I would have had other things to do than to speculate cool-headedly about who would now have supplied whom with the necessary weapons to achieve an annihilation strike. I would not want to deal with it any second longer.
But back to my childhood. Neither my parents nor everyone I knew at that time said things like "now we have to become English and Americans", although we had English as a foreign language at school, one cannot say that the Germans were particularly eager or good at accepting this language as a second tongue. To this day, the generations of parents from that time are known to speak very poor English, if any at all. Even in my generation, it's not a matter of course to be very skilled with it.
Thus, it can be said that the American way of life had indeed found its way into German everyday life
After all, the people were supposed to see someone as a liberator and friend, weren't they? So they did. They probably had had enough of hunger and destruction and their own government had been exposed as insane. Which tells also something about the degree of sanity of its folk.
The Russians, on the other hand, who unlike the Americans had not been attacked on their soil, had suffered terrible losses. It's said that it was 27 Million people dying. This was made very clear by the Russian occupation, which resulted in the division of my country, to which all occupying powers finally gave their consent, didn't they?
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Berlin police wanted poster from September 1933 (Ulbricht bottom left ...)
Placed under the Russian regime, the GDR came into being. However, I would like to ask the question whether it was then only the Russians, i.e. Russian-speaking normal people, who henceforth put every German under suspicion of being "pro-Western"? Was it not Germans who spied on other Germans? Wasn't it German Volkspolizisten who shot at German refugees at the border? Was it not Germans against Germans who made possible the preservation of the GDR for so many decades? Did not Germans have to fear other Germans, neighbors, colleagues, even family members?
As horrible as this may sound. I think not, that it was the masses, who did so, who betrayed one another, who supported in all enthusiasm and utter conviction the Stasi and the regime.
Non-Heroes
What one would not hearing is, where a German Volkspolizist did not shoot at refugees or who did not report suspicious people to their commanders at regular border controls. You would not know and not hear from those probably many incidents where the folk just disobeyed by not seeing and not paying attention to anything "against the regime". Why not? For it would have been too dangerous in talking out loud about it. So, I suspect, people kept quiet. That is sometimes the smartest thing to do.
There is no heroism to be found. But there, where it cannot be found, it often happens without anyone knowing or talking about it.
We were told as young students at school about the very strict GDR policy, we were taught that Russia is the enemy and why would a child not believe it when you let the school classes travel to East Berlin, give them the experience of passing the border and being controlled by those strange Volkspolizisten who seemed utterly distinct from those you would see on your streets at home? Did we believe, that our other half, all the people shielded from western nations, were utterly unhappy? In fact, I did not think of it in that way.
At the age of sixteen I made a trip to East Berlin
with my school class and it was mostly fun. We gossiped about our experiences there. We laughed about the restaurants, the simple food, the old fashioned clothed people, about the ridiculous cars. We felt "better off" than them. I have no memories whatsoever to be interested in my other German fellas other than taking this experience as an opportunity to be lucky myself not having been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Pack of cigarettes you could buy in East Germany, never heard of
Source: Von N-Lange.de 15:13, 9. Nov. 2008 (CET) - Eigenes Werk photo by N-Lange.de., CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10786494
When the wall came down, I was on vacation in Spain.
It didn't even impress me very much, either. I saw of course the pictures on TV but I cannot say that the celebration of which my country was known to feel and do, had caught myself. Mostly, I was indifferent to the whole matter. I was eighteen years young at that time and had other worries.
What people like to make of history is that it's all heroic or horrific. While in many cases it's neither, nor.
We young people just passed the 1990s, barely interested in politics,
and you may have a good laugh at this, for we were indeed really busy to live our American dream and this way of life, which was presenting itself as way more interesting and adventurous than what we perceived at our visit in East Berlin. Scarcity and low fashion. Of course, when our class were led to the places of importance and history, we teenagers pretended to be stricken by the horrors, but actually we felt bored and wanted to escape those historical sites as quick as possible. To get back to our youth hotel and to become drunk and happy.
We were nevertheless parroting slogans like "never again" and may also have felt deep despair and sadness but it vanished quickly when our actual interests were triggered. Mating, dancing, having a good time. Trying out smoking for the first time.
You were supposed to be a good consumer and also to believe in the possibility of getting rich quickly. Which we believed in, more or less, of course. Those poor dogs across the borders for sure were not able becoming rich, right?
Shall I blame myself for having been brainwashed unter this or that regime? Shall I call myself bad names and regret my former stupid young me?
And while I was only pretending to be interested in history and politics as a young student, what about todays teenagers?
You've got to have an opinion on everything.
You are an informed young person who knows what's going on in the world and either you become very angry or very suicidal, right? LOL Wrong.
Those angry or sad teenagers again are a minority; I would say. But in the era of media all over the places it seems to be different.
I can only tell so much from my own experience, now, that I am way beyond my teen years and became a mother myself.
The "good youth" does not distinct itself so much from past times. You pretend to say the right things, use the right vocabulary, while you indeed give a damn (it can't be otherwise for the youth, they need to become adults in order to gain insights).
End of part one.
Read the second part.
Right now sensations are being held high due to the happenings in Ukraine. A family member was approaching me with this, so it also came into my intimate sphere and will probably stay, as long as the media is full of it.
I am open for conversation.
All pictures shown have a source underneath them.
This is a fascinating account of your life growing up in post-War Germany.
The German soldier underwent massive amounts of regimented training that made them effective and efficient but also very rigid. The allied soldiers had a more "just-doing-my-job-so-I-can-go-back-home" kind of attitude. Not refined but flexible. Even the American generals were very informal, fraternizing with lower-ranking soldiers in ways that were unthinkable in the Germany army. I know it's difficult to generalize cultural behaviors because every person is unique, but from your experience, have you noticed other differences between Germans and Americans?
Excellent article and very interesting to read.
Thank you very much.
I really have no idea at all about soldiers and their training. As for the differences, it's very difficult to say, because here in the north we had little to do with the Americans, but rather with the British. All in all, I would say that Germans have the image of being eternally complaining. In general, I would think that the peoples of Europe, especially the more northerly they are, have a certain seriousness in common and some have to go down to the cellar to laugh. My country, historically speaking, has a string of never-ending conflicts.
Fraternising with the soldiers was therefore certainly so appealing to both sides because of the differences. I was a little enamoured of a Tommie myself, and the way these young men moved around the dance floors was also interesting. Our German boys never danced in that way.
I got to know the Americans later, having been to the USA myself many times, for longer periods of time. I was fascinated by being approached by complete strangers just like that in the queue at the supermarket checkout, their spontaneous cordiality, their interest in light conversation, their fast pace. But then there were also the stark contrasts I experienced there. From easy cheerfulness the quick change to obedient citizens. As young people, we were never so afraid of the police and there were no security guards anywhere for a very, very long time.
I am attached to this international friendship, just as I am attached to the Russian one, a completely different but equally valuable relationship. It couldn't be any other way, given my family history.
I look at the current events with concern. Until a while ago, my son proudly claimed to be half Russian (which is not true, lol), I think he would refrain from such jokes now. It's a shame when you start denying your origins, experiences and friendships all too quickly as soon as the wind blows from a certain direction.
Is there a particular country for you that you have personal ties to outside of Canada?
I know a bit about WW2 from my own reading, which is biased in many respects but factual in others. That's how I learned about my favorite chocolate in the world:
It is fascinating to me how cultures in Northern Europe are more serious in character than the southern Countries. Countries in mid-Northern latitudes seems to be a balance between the two. What are the odds? A more serious approach to life has led to highly developed and wealthy societies in the north, but one has to wonder at what cost?
There must be some differences in courtship between the two cultures. Fascinating!
Some places are uptight in the USA and Canada, but others are more easy going. We have a lot of cultures and counter-cultures with different ideas on how to live. We have reached a happy medium that requires following a few rules so we don't have to resort to guns to settle our differences, but sometimes we do just that because there's no other way to persuade somebody to mind their "gawdamn" business. 🤠
I wonder the extent to which post-War Germany has been careful not to appear too 'militaristic' or like a police state. Perhaps the freedom that you experienced as a young girl was a consequence of this effort by German culture to distance itself from that tumultuous past. In Nazi Germany, the police state controlled society to a T, very efficiently, and very ruthlessly. They even appointed block wardens to ensure everyone was following the rules such as flying the flag. Many aspects of life were controlled, even leisure time, art, and entertainment. Everyone had to play along or else. So, after the war, it seems that Germany tried to distance itself from that past by banning certain symbols and 'right-wing' attitudes such as overt expressions of nationalism. You adopted a more 'liberal' world-view. Even military style board games were banned, especially those involving conquest of territory. Now that Germany is increasing its military budget in response to a perceived Russian threat, it looks like the pendulum is about to swing the other way. German society may be about to ask itself some hard questions about freedom vs security.
I was raised in the woods. By wolves. 😉
HaHa, nice, chocolate with caffein :D never knew this brand myself.
Indeed, one wonders.
We overdid it in terms of controlling the peoples bodies and minds and payed the price. Then, we also overdid it with banning our own sense of nationality and mistook it for having cleansed the past. Even though I mentioned that the elders did not accept English as a language, the younger ones felt ashamed of their tongue and til the 80s you could not find German modern music on the hitparades.
I was around 14 years young when the "Neue Deutsche Welle" entered the music charts and Nena became famous in the world, singing in German. Singing in ones mother tongue was long considered as "the language of the criminals". Until today you cannot call yourself a patriot, for you will be quickly labeled as a Nazi (not, that I find it neccesarry calling myself a patriot). These times seem to have a comeback.
Yeah, the differences in courtship were clearly there and they were welcomed :) One can look at it this way: Once the fact is there, that a nation lost war, it doesn't help wanting to defeat foreign influences in terms of everyday peoples encounters. Befriending the strangers is, in my opinion, a good way to get along. There is no way to control all the people and turn them around mentally. They even will stick to their convictions the more you try.
Also, what often is called the "conflict of generations", is a result of having gone through war and hard ridden times. I wouldn't want to estimate how often my mom shook her head about us children inwardly but did not break it loose.
I think that was something we got careful about. No military parades walking the streets ever since, I guess.
I really am not sure, if I adopted liberality as primarily an active effort to overcome those strict times and it was more the effects of "non effort", if you know what I mean. The great silence by the elders, who had experienced war first hand, that often is mentioned, may also have contributed to this form of growing up unbothered. I myself can consider myself lucky to have grown up in a time window between 70s and 90s in a non political household. Also, I might have felt liberty because I myself was a liberal young person, LOL :-D
Since then I often asked myself, if visitors from other countries experience our boarding controls in the same way like I did, when I first came to the US. I felt like a criminal under those suspicious eyes and checkups at the emigration points.
HaHa! I like this attitude of "mind your own business"
Please greet your wolfish relatives from me. I bet they still eat meat ;-)
I don't blame you. I laud you for having seen your way out of the propaganda induced hypnotic state.
Very interesting essay. I had to look some of the words up to understand it better. While you were taught Ammie sentiments, we learned nothing about the post war Germans. Nothing that I can remember. We had in common, however, learning that Russians were the enemy. So we were set up way back then to play our parts, to follow instructions really, and to hate the Russians today, Our war machine never forgave them for ending Hitler. We were making too much money and promoting eugenics there. The US entered the war reluctantly, only when we would lose face if we didn't. I'm thinking out loud here. I need to learn much more about those world wars.
Sounds like teenagers then are very much like teenagers today.
Thank you so much for commenting. I am very interested how Americans were raised and what they have been taught in school about the Germans. We young people had no sentiments towards the US whatsoever.
I was eager to go there and my first trip took place in the mid 90s. We enjoyed the stay, were pleased by the open minded folks we met and the easy to make contacts. But I also remember how shocked I have been to experience so much restrictions and being controlled in public. We wouldn't have thought how prudish and fearful it also was. You weren't allowed to lie topless on the beach (totally normal for us), you weren't allowed to drink alcohol in public and the clubs and festivals had much stricter prohibitions than ours (back then). I flew home with the feeling that things were much more permissive in my country, even if I found the taciturnity in German supermarket queues a shortcoming afterwards.
Oh, I have rarely heard this aspect in this way. How does this view come about? Was there critical journalism on this?
Yes about the freedom. I live in New York State, where everything is illegal. Here we are, coming off two years of having been told where to go, what to wear, who to hang out with, and who to believe, but we Ammies still think our government is trying to insure that freedom reigns in the world. It's absurd. We are not the good guys. No matter how many times our commander in chief says so, and how many in the halls of power cheer him on for saying so.
Same here.
I agree, there are no good guys. Everyone has also a dark side, it's just very difficult to admit. I wouldn't want to get to know myself that way for an even longer period of time. Already, my mind has hardened due to the last two years.
In a crooked way, all those cheerleaders maybe smarter in a way, for they seem to think that there, where the power lays, more safety and acceptance will be found. ...
I detest it very much being told where to stay, with whom and how many.
Quite a lot actually, but the only one I have handy discusses what we did for the German scientists, the men who designed and performed the experiments, after the war. If you want an overview, check out Corbett's two excellent documentaries How... and Why Big Oil Conquered the World.
Thank you for the video. I have not yet watched it. Will do.
Are you familiar with Chestertons book "Eugenics and other evils"?
The life style of victors always finds its way on the occupied one, by hook or by crook, Sometime subtly, at other times by force. When we live with people who are superior to us in any way (being in ruling position is a superiority in its way), we are influenced by them.
Hasn't it been happening throughout the course of history. Whenever there is an external power on any country, the forces and powerful elites ally with the occupiers just to maintain and strenthen their positions. They don't care for the masses, do they?
There is no use of regreting. At that age we have dreams of future. We see the brightness around us that is spread by the propagandas. The brightness dazzles our vision. We cannot see anything else.
So far as Ukraine thing is concerned. I am not happy for the war anywhere in the world, but I feel really very sorry on the insensitivity of the world when I find no voice for Palestine and kashmir from anywhere. They have been in the war and facing barbarism for decades. No media speaks about them. For Ukraine, at least there is voice around the globe.
Dear Amber,
thank you so much for commenting and your feedback. There is nothing I would debate with you here. You use your life experience to see through what is served to us, the people, and make up your own mind about it.
Only one thing I would be a bit careful about is the fact WHEN the media talk excessively about a country, one should be doubly and triply careful.
"Palestine" is something I grew up hearing on the German news almost every day. The conflicts there and in the "Gaza Strip" were part of the news like morning coffee. People use such news to see their prejudices confirmed or to get upset about the dictatorships of other countries, while remaining blind to what is happening in their own country. I think, we need stories and anecdotes which counteract what evil happens and personal stories and descriptions of friendship and hope as to not fall for the doomsday talks.
I read this book right now and copy a passage:
I don't know, if it's true or not but I think that there is something to it which sounds coherent.
In order to counter the war drive, it is probably wiser not to fall with the door in the house and to find other forms of the message of friendship and love. I have used an erotic story for this, there was the winged expression "Make love, not war" for a long time. It's maybe a bit shocking or not to everyones taste, but when I wrote it, I felt all the lightness and appreciation towards us human beings.
Receive my sincere greetings!
I will remember this always...
Don't mind me, please. I couldn't make the sense of it.... language barrier, you know. Hehe. That's why it take me longer to respond to your comment.
Overall, I would say I am now speechless. Something that I have understood is that I am superficial about these political happening. I need to have deeper understanding of these matters.... you are the one who has witnessed the war and its aftermaths, your Knowledge is accompanied with firsthand emotions and feelings.
God bless you @erh.germany
!ALIVE
No worries, I sometimes reply on comments long ago :)
Let me try it saying it differently.
What the media tells, tells nothing from the lives of individuals, ordinary people. By anecdotes and stories I mean personal events, memories and experiences of me and you. We are not headlines, politicians, celebrities or famous people. We have family experiences and they have meaning. By telling them, we help make other perspectives possible. We can build bridges instead of misunderstanding each other or having the debates of those who like to see us busy with their stuff. There is too much of this and too little of that.
Personal anecdotes, I would like to clear this up, do not have the claim to truth, just as political communication does not. People nowadays know the names of famous politicians and actors, but they don't know who their own grandparents were, or their parents, what kind of life they led, and so on. Being interested in the world stage seems to take up more space. Strangely, we identify more with screen personalities than with where we come from. We ordinary people are supposed to accept the rules made by those who do not abide by them. By arguing on the horizontal level, we sow discord among ourselves and claim that it is necessary to be governed for us to be united as a people. But the ruler thrives on disunity and it does not bother him.
I myself have not experienced war firsthand, but my parents and their relatives did. In trying to understand their stories, I come to understand myself better.
It is remarkable that you say you have superficial knowledge in these matters and I would agree with you, my knowledge is also limited.
Greetings to you :)
Hmmmmm. They make rules to control us and they give loopholes in between the rules to always do what they want. Might is right, right???
Well, yes media is serving more to spread hatred than to evoke kindness. It only creates hype.
Sometime ago @kenechukwu97 stated in his post that he thought Pakistan was a place of terrorism because it is what media told him, but when he came accross Pakistanis he had to change his views.
Thanks for the explanation @erh.germany ma'am.
!ALIVE
@erh.germany! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @amberkashif. (3/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want.
Of course the the youth are no different, and the horrors of war, so easily forgotten, are repeating themselves as we speak. ❤️💕🤗
Where silence took place from the side of the elders, it seems to be the role of the further generations to give a more forgiving view towards what they experienced. My job as my mothers daughter is a tough one, for I don't talk politics in front of my son, or, I should say, where I did, I regret it. He needs to know though about our personal family history and that will give him some material to think about when he is a grown up. Right now he needs to mate and have a positive outlook towards his future. That is why I do not sympathize with fridays for future.