From: werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.german
Subject: Re: Demonstration in Berlin Sun 8 Nov 92
Date: 13 Nov 1992 20:22:10 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: dimebox.cs.utexas.edu

 montas@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Hubert J Montas) writes:
|
|| More or less the same reason a lot of the skinheads do what they do:
|
> About Autonomen, ...they were protesting against the hypocrisy of the first
> and third speakers....

hmmm; I'm basically willing to make such an assumption, but I wonder
if there really was a way to have this insight into motivations and
motives and intentions of the folks who were "physically" participating..?!?


> About skinheads, I [doubt] the validity of... racism => skinhead...

thanks for thinking to point this out, Hubert.  My generation still smarts
and resents that the length (and style of wearing it) of our hair had people
comment "dirty commies"...

in that sense, I was glad to meet in the sons and daughters of friends
some "nice kids" which fashioned some "frightening" costumes and hair-do...
...which served to remind me:  don't assume, don't use wrong labels and
identifiers, Werner !!


> Certainly some of the people attacking refugee shelters had no hair
> on their heads and may have identified themselves as skinheads...

	yeah.  our journalists aren't of any help in their reporting (once
	again), and they are the ones that brought terms like "hippies",
	"peacenicks", "hackers", and "long haired" into bad repute, now
	they are busy creating the popular image of "short hair == mean
	and nasty and dangerous"; heck we see it in our society, where
	blacks have always been typecast, no matter if large Afro or
	short stubbles, African/Arab fashions or military fatigues, boots
	or bare feet ...  the report on police harrassment of blacks on
	60 Minutes last week was surely interesting, and the beating to
	death of a black man by 2 undercover cops in Chicago with their
	flash-lights last week surely are worse than anything we have
	heard from Germany yet (because these were actions by officials
	acting on behalf of society, and not of the social fringe elements
	of society, as is happening in Germany ...)


> There is indeed a number of skinhead organisations against racism (one of
> them is called SHARP: SkinHead Against Racism). Here again you may want to
> check the posts in alt.skinheads.

	no, I don't want to.  but I'd welcome a brief summary (and your
	caveat to this topic, in general).

> I think that instead of putting the blame for this or that on Autonomen,
> or skinheads, we should get back to the root of the problem: Hypocritical
> Politicians and Racist FuckHeads. In this way we might actually get to solve
> a real problem rather than creating new false ones.
>							Hubert  


	Inshallah !  Amen!

	as an (interesting?) anectode:  the (Indian) wife of a good friend was
	visiting me this week; she lives with her 2 elementary school age
	sons in Munich and is, by dress and skin-colour CLEARLY not German.
	I was concerned and asked about her impressions and experience, and
	her comments were most reassuring:  the problems in Germany are minute
	and distant and largely overblown (as far as she is concerned); now
	returning to Wash. D.C. to check on her apt and house, THAT was a
	SCARY experience....

	Go figure!  No reason to feel reassured and lower our guard regarding
	the political and social events in Germany, but, was it not for the
	burden of the Nazi history, events in other parts of Europe are clearly
	of greater urgency and calling for attention and action...  no?!?
-- 
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