I agree with pretty much all of this, and I get that any display of cultural attachment can be fraught at best in Germany. "Proud" can be a (softer) dog whistle here too, and I perhaps used the wrong term.
"People of any origin who live in Germany are allowed to like and feel attachment to good things that happen to be in Germany, both current and historical. The Fischbrötchen isn't Fascist." is what I was aiming for.
That said left needs to be able to say that it's ok to like the place you live in, while engaging with the fact that all the good things are always tangled up in an antagonism with the bad parts. One that can't be fully resolved, only progressed.
To be internationalist doesn't mean to float in a disembodied sea of enlightenment universalism, or to say only the cultures of the Third World have any validity (even though they must be defended from imperialism.) To engage with local culture in the west without enabling Fascism is a hard problem for leftists but we need to work with it.
I agree with pretty much all of this, and I get that any display of cultural attachment can be fraught at best in Germany. "Proud" can be a (softer) dog whistle here too, and I perhaps used the wrong term.
"People of any origin who live in Germany are allowed to like and feel attachment to good things that happen to be in Germany, both current and historical. The Fischbrötchen isn't Fascist." is what I was aiming for.
That said left needs to be able to say that it's ok to like the place you live in, while engaging with the fact that all the good things are always tangled up in an antagonism with the bad parts. One that can't be fully resolved, only progressed.
To be internationalist doesn't mean to float in a disembodied sea of enlightenment universalism, or to say only the cultures of the Third World have any validity (even though they must be defended from imperialism.) To engage with local culture in the west without enabling Fascism is a hard problem for leftists but we need to work with it.