Identity is a nightmare. Either you belong to the majority, therefore in a position of power, or to a minority/migration community, identity is self-explanatory. You have to permanently confirm who you are and request others to subscribe to the group narrative. Request by force, if necessary, as often happened in national states in the last decades.
Germany is a special case within the European context, given the post-war pressure towards 'behaving' in a more inclusive way and the identity split in two states. Did it matter in the end, when it comes to the national identity? Adding the term 'Heimat' - that German country defined by the 19th century philosophy which means more than a geographical determination - to a ministry - 'Ministerium des Innen für Bau und Heimat' - plus the sometimes physical aggressive outburst of the far-right in some parts of the country - Sachsen is a notorius example, but unfortunately not the only one - requests a different answer.
What does it mean to live in the Heimat? Authors with foreign-sounding names, some with a different skin colour, many born in Germany and with a German passport are sharing their so-called 'multicultural' experiences in Germany - and one in Austria - in a remarkable volume edited by Fatma Aydemir and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah.
At certain extents there are the experiences of everyone having lived here, with a non-German name, a slight accent, which looks different, doesn't have blonde hair and blue eyes. How many times I had to answer the obsessive 'Where are you from', from people I've met only for a couple of seconds. How my Indian friend, on a train to Leipzig, was stared at by a family whose child asked her mother: 'She can't be German, isn't it?' and answered 'Of course not'.
Indeed, this Heimat is a nightmare. The essays are collected under individual labels: Work, Sex, Identity etc. Although at least since 2001 there are institutional structures created which confirm that Germany is a 'Einwanderungsland' - country of immigration - the institutional racism (in schools, police, other state structures including Finanzamt or Burgeramt) is growing. How fast the 'integration policies' went and at what extent they failed it is another discussion, but reading those essays makes a 'tour de force' displaying how deep is discrimination and racism thinking into the everyday life and local mentalities.
The answer is not to 'go back from where did you come from' as me and many others 'migrants' in Germany are often told. The answer to be persistent and courageous enough to not let such voices become the majority.
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