Risks of Patriotism

Wilhelm Heitmeyer is a professor of social science at the University of Bielefeld and chair of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence. He is an expert on right-wing extremism, xenophobia, ethnic and cultural conflicts. For the past five years, he has been conducting an empirical study of hostile attitudes in the German population.

DW-WORLD.DE: What are the "weak minorities" in Germany that are being excluded by the society?

We operate with the term "group-focused enmity syndrome," which means that people are devalued, discriminated against and sometimes even attacked not because of their individual conduct, but because of their belonging to a group. And it's not only people of foreign origin -- for example, immigrants, Moslems, or in a somewhat different way, Jews -- who are devalued, but also homosexuals, the homeless and the disabled.

What could Germany do to eliminate group-focused antagonisms?

Well, that's a hard question, but, first of all, we can start by saying that the common root of all types of group-focused hostility is inequality. Which is why we must take action against all forms of inequality in public debates or everyday discourse. Secondly, we have established that those who are hostile, discriminatory, etcetera, have a specific relationship to their own social situation. Processes of disintegration -- whether they're professional, political or social -- are accompanied by a sense of disorientation in the affected population. These two elements -- disintegration and disorientation -- foster the devaluation of weak groups, which is always an attempt at ascribing positive values to one's own positions.

You have been critical of Germany's national identity campaigns such as "Du bist Deutschland" (You are Germany) and the ongoing debate about Germany's "leading culture." Why?

Indeed, I find them to be exceptionally problematic. It's certainly worth exploring the theory which suggests that such identity campaigns, calls to patriotism and national pride or debates about what constitutes a "leading culture" are aimed at providing surrogate solutions to the problems of a disintegrating society. Such campaigns are meant to become a kind of binding material that keeps the society together. But each of these campaigns creates borders by marking what is one's own and what is foreign. This, in turn, means that all these identities have their "opposites," which various mobilization experts can then make to seem hostile.

Were you, personally, not at all proud during the World Cup? Germany had probably never before experienced such a fun and friendly street carnival.

You have to differentiate these things -- the World Cup was about soccer and the national team's joy of playing soccer. That has nothing to do with pride. Or you would have to define what you're proud of. Personally, I simply enjoyed the sport -- that a cross was made, a pass received and goals scored -- that was it, but it was nice.

The media were in love with the World Cup, not only because of the soccer but also because -- as it was said at the time -- Germans "found the way back to their national flag." Are the media responsible for a kind of surge in national pride that overcame the country this summer?

I do believe that the media fell for the surge of emotions that was apparent at the time. Media are always amplifiers of certain developments and in that sense it would have been better if they had approached certain events with more subtlety and from a critical distance. But I can't say if the media were causal in these events, because I don't have the empirical data to support that.

Does the emphasis on German national identity have to go hand in hand with the exclusion of minorities? Is there no such thing as healthy patriotism?

Well, it's extremely important to note that our analyses over time have clearly shown that national pride generates xenophobia. This is different from patriotism, although, quite frankly, I don't like the term "healthy patriotism." Patriotism, according to our analysis, does not cause damage if one defines it as being proud of German democracy, for example, or the society's achievements in the development of social security. But if the national pride is all about German history or the cliché "I'm proud of being a German," then one has to be extremely careful.

Is patriotism the same everywhere or should we really be talking about patriotisms? Are there differences between, say, US American and German national pride?

Indeed, both the place of origin and historical context of patritoism make a difference. As far as the situation in the US is concerned, we know of some very problematic developments there, especially in terms of American provincialism and a religiously tinted patriotism. I think that these kinds of patriotism are not receptive to rational enlightenment and, in that sense, appear to be extremely dangerous.