Germany’s flag football

In Germany, the World Cup is flag season: not just German flags on houses, pubs and cars but an assortment of flags. During each of the past few World Cups, there were many more Brazilian flags on display than there are Brazilians in Germany. It is fashionable, here, to root for a team that is “exotic,” plays seriously good football and, as a bonus, tends to win. In some quarters, German flags are not very popular; displaying the colors of other countries gives the desired impression of worldliness and playful anti-nationalism.

Still, there is no commercial article that is not available in black, red and golden, the colors of the German flag. During the World Cup, many cars are decorated with small German flags, at least until the children decide to open the side windows that hold the flags. I don’t know who will win the World Cup, but I know for sure that when the tournament ends, the sides of the famous German Autobahn highways will be strewn with flags that have become road kill.

The ubiquity of German flags is relatively recent, and it is not uncontested.  Before the 2006 World Cup, waving the German national flag was seen as unbecoming. The dominant explanation was a belief that the serious excesses of German nationalism during the 20th century made it unseemly to show the national colors, out of respect for other countries — notably those once invaded or occupied by German armies. Anti-nationalists  argued that there is no such thing as good patriotism; waving any national flags equals nationalism. The German flag was seen as symbolically dangerous. In 2006, ahead of the World Cup in Germany, it was decided that the self-imposed moratorium on waving national flags should be lifted: The host country of the World Cup should not be seen flagless. Overnight, Germany had become a “normal country” whose flag did not pose any hazard for other nations. Yet, other cultural view about flags and nations persisted. For example, an Arab-German businessman in Berlin who celebrated the 2010 World Cup by hanging a national flag measuring 20 by 5 meters from his house repeatedly found his flag vandalized or stolen, allegedly by radical leftists.

During the World Cup, Germany is a country of many flags: most of them German, worn by people, dogs and cars. This year, 20.23 percent of the flags sold are black, red and golden; Brazilian flags rank second with 11.35 percent, trailed by U.S. flags with 5.41 percent. There is no reason to settle on just one flag: While Germany is reluctant to grant dual citizenship, during the 2008 Euro championship match between Turkey and Germany, many Berliners wore Turkish flags over German jerseys or vice versa, as if to demonstrate through dress that another form of citizenship is indeed possible.

*As told to Africasacountry.