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rfmcdonaldIn the comments to my post about the East German flag-waving by the side of the luge track during the Vancouver Olympics, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kentrosaurus linked in my comments to an interesting discussion over at dict.leo.org surrounding the proprieties of waving the East German flag at all.
East Germany remains a distinct territory inside reunified Germany, East Germans remain a distinctive population within the German, and there's no reason why East Germans shouldn't continue to celebrate their identity? It's not all about the Stasi.
Or is it? East Germany was a totalitarian regime, a puppet state founded on mass repressions that disappeared as quickly as it could, and the East German flag by definition was an emblem of tyranny beyond rehabilitation.
Was waving the East German flag as offensive an act as waving the Confederate flag is commonly taken to be? By extension, if the East German flag is as fundamentally unacceptable an emblem as the Confederate, what else could be used to represent the collectivity of East Germans? Or does the very creation of East Germany by totalitarian tyranny invalidate the idea of being East German at all, or at least the idea of expressing it publicly for the world to see?
What do you think? Are there any group identities, or collective nostalgias, like the East German or the Confederate, that strike you as politically delicate?
Discuss.
kentrosaurus linked in my comments to an interesting discussion over at dict.leo.org surrounding the proprieties of waving the East German flag at all. Was waving the East German flag as offensive an act as waving the Confederate flag is commonly taken to be? By extension, if the East German flag is as fundamentally unacceptable an emblem as the Confederate, what else could be used to represent the collectivity of East Germans? Or does the very creation of East Germany by totalitarian tyranny invalidate the idea of being East German at all, or at least the idea of expressing it publicly for the world to see?
What do you think? Are there any group identities, or collective nostalgias, like the East German or the Confederate, that strike you as politically delicate?
Discuss.
