By: Hannah Long
When looking at Bulls work as well as Molnar’s work they both play with an idea of illusion, it is more so the illusion of progress. While there is no doubt that progress was seen in terms of widespread change across various countries and governments that is where the similarity ends, as this transitional period almost forced European countries to come face to face with many of the problems in their own respective states that they were ignoring for years. There were many blatant and ongoing problems related to migration and immigration then, and still remain so today. Interestingly, the issue of immigration (i.e. illegal & asylum seekers) into countries such as Germany seems to have had more attention in the spotlight than issues surrounding shrinking native populations migrating abroad, due to corrupt governmental structures or a depletion of jobs. Countries like Germany were now living in a more multicultural world, with many Germans already having nationalistic outlooks they became increasingly more extreme in their views against foreigners, specifically those of minority and non (white) European backgrounds. As Molnar explains in his work the 1990’s in Germany were marked with a fear of the “unknown,” or in this case a fear of what a more multicultural society would bring to Germany’s future, as a poll conducted in 1993 had over 60% of participants stated that the fear of over-foreignization should be taken seriously.
Sources:
Anna Cento Bull, “The role of memory in populist discourse: the case of the Italian Second Republic” Patterns of Prejudice, 50:3 (2016): 213-231.
Christopher Molnar, “Greetings from the Apocalypse”: Race, Migration, and Fear after German Reunification” Central European History, (2021), 1-25.
Hate 2.0 