{"id":6117,"date":"2015-03-04T20:32:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T20:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=6117"},"modified":"2017-11-20T14:44:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T14:44:14","slug":"pegida-ueberfremdung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/pegida-ueberfremdung\/","title":{"rendered":"Die \u00dcberfremdung and PEGIDA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! Often when I write posts about \u2018untranslatable\u2019 German words I try to include references to German culture (where applicable) or add in extra information relating to those words.<\/p>\n

\"So<\/a>

Man at PEGIDA demonstration with jacket bearing the words: “Unsere Regeln – Unsere Tradition” : “Our rules – Our traditions”. Photo by gruenenrw on flickr.com under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today I\u2019ve chosen a word that is relevant to the current political situation in Germany.<\/p>\n

Die \u00dcberfremdung.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

What does \u00dcberfremdung mean?<\/strong>
\n\u00dcberfremdung describes excessive immigration in a town, city, country, etc., or the excessive influence of a foreign culture onto one\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

What does \u00dcberfremdung literally translate to?<\/strong>
\nIt consists of the words \u00dcber: Over\/overly and Fremd: Foreign\/strange. Together, and with \u2018ung\u2019 on the end, the word \u00dcberfremdung literally means \u2018over-foreignisation\u2019.<\/p>\n

How would you use it in a sentence?<\/strong>
\nIch habe Angst vor \u00dcberfremdung<\/em>. \u2013 I am scared of \u00dcberfremdung.<\/p>\n

What is the nearest English equivalent?<\/strong>
\nThe terms ‘excess immigration’ and ‘foreign influence’ are thrown around a lot – but I’m no expert on it! So if anyone has any more appropriate terms to describe \u00dcberfremdung, please let us know!<\/p>\n

Relevance to Germany today<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you\u2019ll probably have heard of the German political group known as PEGIDA. Over the past few months, Germany has been the centre of media attention due to this radical group\u2019s activities in Germany.<\/p>\n

Who are PEGIDA?<\/strong><\/p>\n

PEGIDA, which stands for Patriotische Europ\u00e4er gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes <\/em>(Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West), is a German right-wing political organisation founded by Lutz Bachmann (who has since stepped down after a picture of him impersonating Adolf Hitler was leaked) in Dresden in October 2014. As its name suggests, its main focus is protesting against what it calls the \u2018Islamisation\u2019 of Germany and the West.<\/p>\n

How did PEGIDA come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What started out as a Facebook group created by founder Lutz Bachmann became a series of weekly protests (which they call ein Abendspaziergang<\/em> \u2013 ‘An evening stroll’), which soon attracted media attention. Though they started out with just a few hundred members, the number of protesters in support of PEGIDA peaked at 25,000 on January 12, 2015 \u2013 5 days after the Charlie Hebdo<\/em> attacks in Paris. The group continues to march, and its huge presence has stirred up political debate regarding immigration in Germany.<\/p>\n

Simply put, PEGIDA believes that the West is experiencing \u00dcberfremdung<\/em><\/strong>, and is trying to counteract it.<\/p>\n

Anti-PEGIDA protests<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many anti-PEGIDA groups across Germany and in other countries, and more often than not the number of people turning up to the anti-PEGIDA rallies by far outnumbers those in support of PEGIDA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Vielfalt<\/a>

Anti-PEGIDA demonstrators in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Photo by gruenenrw on Flickr.com under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

PEGIDA held their first UK protest in Newcastle on Saturday, February 28th<\/sup>. Here, too, they were outnumbered by anti-PEGIDA protesters: 2,000 to 375.<\/p>\n

In Germany, the lights of the K\u00f6lner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) and the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) in Berlin were also switched off during PEGIDA protests in these cities in protest of the far-right group\u2019s message, and to show that Germany is a peaceful country that opposes the \u2018darkness\u2019 that comes from racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia.<\/p>\n

\"Vielfalt<\/a>

“For tolerance and humanity” Photo by gruenenrw on Flickr.com under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

In PEGIDA’s words
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are the first few lines from PEGIDA\u2019s \u201cAbout\u201d page on Facebook,<\/a> with a translation underneath:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

“Wir m\u00f6chten. dass alle Kinder in einem friedlichem und weltoffenem Deutschland und Europa aufwachsen k\u00f6nnen!<\/span><\/p>\n

Wir sind nicht “politisch korrekt”…!<\/span>
\n Wir beugen uns NICHT dem medialen Mainstream und somit auch nicht den “Gutmenschen”!<\/span>
\n Wir nehmen unser verfassungsgem\u00e4\u00dfes Recht auf freie Meinungs\u00e4u\u00dferung wahr.<\/span><\/p>\n

JEDER Mensch, gleich welcher Nationalit\u00e4t oder Religion ist uns willkommen !!!<\/span><\/p>\n

Wir wollen einfach KEINE GEWALT auf unseren Stra\u00dfen wie z.B. in Hamburg oder Celle !!!<\/span>
\n Unsere St\u00e4dte, D\u00f6rfer und Gemeinden sind KEINE Orte zum Austragen von Stellvertreter- oder Glaubenskriegen!!!”<\/span><\/p>\n

Translation:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

“We want our children to be able to grow up in a peaceful, liberal Germany and Europe!<\/span><\/p>\n

We are not \u201cpolitically correct\u201d\u2026!<\/span>
\n We do NOT submit to the mainstream, nor the \u201cdo-gooders\u201d!<\/span>
\n We exercise our constitutional right to freedom of speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

We welcome EVERY person, regardless of their nationality or religion !!!<\/span><\/p>\n

We simply do not want ANY VIOLENCE on our streets, eg. like in Hamburg or Celle !!!<\/span>
\n Our cities, villages and communities are NO place to carry out proxy wars or religious wars!!!”<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

The latest on PEGIDA is that they marched in Antwerp, Belgium on Monday 2nd<\/sup> March. The rally attracted just 200 protesters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether it rises or falls from here on in, the effect that PEGIDA (and its anti-rallies) has had on Germany and German politics is undeniable.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! Often when I write posts about \u2018untranslatable\u2019 German words I try to include references to German culture (where applicable) or add in extra information relating to those words.   Today I\u2019ve chosen a word that is relevant to the current political situation in Germany. Die \u00dcberfremdung. What does \u00dcberfremdung mean? \u00dcberfremdung describes excessive…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":7503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[376028,358423,95131,953,358428,375960,337679],"class_list":["post-6117","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-language","tag-current-events","tag-german-compound-nouns","tag-german-language","tag-german-news","tag-german-politics","tag-pegida","tag-untranslatable-german"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6117"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9202,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6117\/revisions\/9202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}