Tales from Germany

Beeld at Bahnhof Zoo (c) Anli Serfontein 2011 I had to do a double take as I walked in the crowdy Bahnhof Zoo in the heart of Berlin last Friday: There was the front page of the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld prominently displayed among the bustle of one of the busiest train stations in Europe. Up there with the journalism elite of the Washington Post! Thousands of tourists, locals and visitors passing by were greeted in my mother tongue Afrikaans!     After attending the Festival for Afrikaans in Amsterdam in June, it looks like Afrikaans has truly arrived on the world stage in the most positive way possible. Its is no longer the Pariah language of the apartheid oppressors! Beeld at Bahnhof Zoo in Berlin on July 29, 2011(c) Anli Serfontein 2011    

It has been a week where I was once again confronted with cultural differences in interpreting core social values. A popular, key Minister in the Cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel is caught out: a great chunk of his summa cum laude doctorate of Law was plagiarised. A scandal! Der Spiegel this week on the plagiarism scandal surrounding Germany's Minister of Defence But what shocked me most is not the fact that his doctorate was plagiarised. What shocked me was how the general German public viewed his plagiarism and how they urged him to stay on as a Minister. Worse still how his popularity rose with each passing day of this scandal week. Der Spiegel article A Facebook page was set up in support of him and it is growing rapidly day by day; the mass circulation red top newspaper Bild seems to support him. And a political survey shows that nearly 75% of the population thinks he is doing a great job, compared to 68% at the beginning of the month, before the scandal b...

This morning I heard the sad news that Brian Hanrahan , one of the BBC's finest correspondents had died. I've worked with Brian, many times in the last decade covering mostly stories related to recent German history. He was thorough, seeking the truth, a sticker for details, good research and facts and more facts. So many times when I rambled on, giving my personal take on events, he said to me "Just give me the facts" (c) Anli Serfontein 2009 He was fair on those who worked with him and those he interviewed. He was a Mensch. Today I remember after a heavy day of filming, the many thought-provoking conversations we had over dinner in Berlin and Leipzig and Dresden and Cologne.  We talked about the media, current affairs, history, books and art. He certainly shaped my view of the role of journalists in our day and age.  At every shoot I learnt something from him. In Dresden he encouraged me to still visit the world-famous Zwinger art museum with only an hour ...

(c) Anli Serfontein 2010 - Nikolaus Schneider in Trier By Anli Serfontein Trier , Germany, 23 November (ENInews)--A European form of Islam needs to develop before a meaningful interfaith dialogue can take place on the continent, the new leader of Germany's 24 million Protestants has said. "We are only at the beginning of a serious inter-religious discussion on a theologically high level and that is because there are problems with finding counterparts," the Rev. Nikolaus Schneider told ENInews in a 17 November interview in Trier. "The imams who come from Turkey to Germany can hardly speak German and that means that we need to train imams in Germany at our universities," said Schneider, who was elected the new chairperson of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) on 9 November during a meeting of its governing synod in Hanover. He had been the EKD's acting leader since February, when his predecessor, the Rev. Margot Kässmann, stood down ...

With the German team firing on the World Cup fever in South Africa, I had to think back of what it was like when the World Cup was held in Germany four years ago. I ended my first book with the World Cup 2006 which forever changed the perception of the way the country was seen by the outside world. Here is an extract from the last chapter of my book:     "F or a month in the warm early summer of 2006, Germany was transformed into one big party venue, as the nation played host to the 2006vSoccer World Cup. Their catchy host slogan was “ Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden —A time to make friends” was the official translation, which does not catch the spirit. “The world are our guests: at home with friends,” might have captured it better. When I first saw the slogan, which was on billboards everywhere, I thought it was quite kitsch, but as the tournament went on, it absolutely caught the spirit of the new Germany. They were the perfect hosts and showed the world an unexpected side—...

Germans are reliable, is one of the myths that we foreigners have. And on a hot early summer Saturday in June, they have once more shown themselves more reliable than I actually wished them to be. In my book on Germany I have lamented the fact that service as we know it in the Anglo-Saxon world is not a word understood in the same context or intent by people here.  To make things worse we live in a border area where the locals have unfortunately adopted the worst of the German idea of no service and the absolute top of the French concept of bad service:  a toxic combination. So on this hot summer’s long-weekend Saturday, my husband and I decide to take the scenic route through the hills and woods of the Hunsrueck area to fetch our daughter  in Idar Oberstein from the Youth Camp 2010 of the Evangelical Church in Rhineland. Idar Oberstein is famous for its precious stones and a mere 80 kilometres from our home. So we set the GPS system to take the minor roads, dre...

One day each year, foreigners living in Trier, - and they make up 8% of the local population after all - can celebrate their cultures  on one of the city squares. Yesterday on a rainy Sunday as people from the Middle East and Asia and Africa cooked their specialities, danced and sang, they were also introduced to German culture. Coming from South Africa and having worked in the townships during the Unrest of the late Eighties and early Nineties, I for one, for many years  after moving to Germany, made a wide berth around anyone in uniform. Too many bad memories clouded my rationality. I wonder how many of the foreigners on the Kornmarkt yesterday are political exiles who still have nightmares from the way they were treated by men in uniform? Maybe even tortured?  In my experience many of us coming from the Third World fear dogs. However they were introduced to the law in their new country. With intercultural (in)sensitivity the German police put their police dogs thro...

A story that continues to rock the Protestant Churches in Germany and that I did for Ecumenical News International in Geneva. T rier, Germany, 24 February (ENI)-- Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders have expressed their regret about the resignation of Bishop Margot Kässmann, the first woman to lead 24 million German Protestants, who belong to the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). At a 24 February press conference in Hanover, where she was resident bishop, Kässmann said she was resigning from her leadership positions, only days after she was stopped for a drink-driving offence. When she made her announcement she was flanked by her four grown-up daughters. Kässmann said she had given up her posts as a bishop and as head of the EKD but would continue as a pastor. One commentator said the resignation would hurt the EKD more than it would help it because of a shortage of well-known leaders in the church grouping. Still, one cleric from a theologically conservative gr...