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The poster advertises the government campaign for a citizenship policy that was intended to challenge the ethnocentric definition of the German nation. Graffiti, scribbled over the advert, engages with its message. The words “Parasites” (Parasiten) and Kanacken2 have been written over the faces of three young women (see Figures 2 and 3), identified by the poster as “Children of Foreign Parents” (Kinder ausländischer Eltern) and as “Here at Home” (Hier zu Hause) (see Figure 3). The racist graffiti in turn is challenged by a counter voice that condemns fascism with the words “Damn Shit Fascists” (Verdammte Scheißdrecker Faschisten)3 and with the drawing of a crossed-out swastika (see Figure 4).
Together, poster and graffiti messages display the highly contested nature of the German nation. Official government discourse and popular voices define the German self. An ethnocentric vision of German identity struggles against a liberal discourse that condemns fascism and propagates a civic understanding of the German nation.
For the researcher with an interest in competing discourses of national identity, Germany is perhaps one of the most fascinating subjects. The search for an answer to what the German nation might be is an objective that has not been put to rest for over a century. If one was to make claims about a German tradition or national culture, the search for a working definition of the German nation should be on the list of “German obsessions”. Because the nation is a discursive construct, ever in flux and in dialogue with other forms of identity, a discussion of all aspects of German identity is an undertaking beyond the scope of this book. Therefore, it does not make any claims about the totality of German identity, and does not presume to offer an insight into the whole complexity of this construct. The interest of this book lies in the very notion of national identity as a fluid and negotiated concept. To explore the contested nature of identity, it focuses on the discursive struggle over the very definition of what German national identity should be. Since the development of a German national consciousness, this question has never been fully resolved. At the heart of this struggle are two competing concepts of the nation: an ethnocentric and a civic one. The ethnocentric vision of the nation makes cultural identity the criterion by which people gain access to the national community. Citizens of a nation-state are assumed to share cultural and social practices, ethics, or even ethnicity (Bruter, 2003, p. 36). The civic nation, in contrast, defines national identity as identification with “a political structure, the state which can be summarised as the set of institutions, rights and rules that preside over the political life of a community” (Bruter, p. 36). These two concepts are easily distinguishable on a theoretical level. Yet, as previously argued, identities are complex and may incorporate potentially conflicting elements. A brief sketch of sociopolitical studies of German nation-building shows that the concept of German identity has, for a long time, negotiated both civic and ethno-cultural concepts of the nation.