Everything starts and ends with the language. Wars, discrimination, crimes, but also education, relationships and social and political change. This duplicity of the language brings not only risks but also responsibility and hope. Because actually there is a chance that once we acknowledge what a powerful tool we acquire - through education, birth priviledges or disadvantages, family and social interactions, to name only a few - we can realise the shortcomings and proceed to the changes.
German journalist Kübra Gümüșay is a patient observer of the German everyday complex relationship with identity. Sprache und Sein is an excellent work of reflection and applied hope for redefining the power of words. The everyday words we are using, not necessarily fully aware of the meanings those words are carrying. Painful meaning for some.
One of the things that in a way suprise me in Germany is, on one side, the curiosity towards other religions, languages and identities - I don´t remember how many times people were in awe upon being informed about the number of languages I do speak - but without a real awareness about what really means to be different. It´s like you are asked where you are coming from but once you mention the exact geography, you are in fact talking about a place hardly someone can figure out where it is on the map. Thus, you are requested to rather find a place in the safe geography of your place/country of residence.
It´s not superficiality the word that may describe this situation. It´s also not mind laziness. But what it happens for sure in the case of the person whose identity is on a display in a very carnavalesque way is that after a while you are getting tired. You may be asked more than once by the same person the same amount of classical questions, and the reaction will be as the first time. No one asks you about what is the name of the food you like, or what is your favorite poetry or about your fashion sense. Such questions are not on the list.
Gümüșay is an excellent social doctor, spotting the paradigms of conservative refusal of identity but at the same time searching to identify and set new realms for discussing and recognising the difference(s). It´s a spin change which on the long term will definitely challenge the German post-war paradigm. But it took two generations - at least - for verbalize the need to end the intolerance of words. The diverse reality of nowadays Germany request a new vocabulary of freedom.
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