A Flag Isn’t Just A Flag In Soccer-Crazed Germany
The German soccer team meets Argentina Saturday in a much-anticipated World Cup quarterfinal match. Across Germany, fans are fired up. They’re singing “Deutschland,” beating drums and waving flags from cars and buildings and just about anything else.
But fervent flag-waving patriotism and displays of nationalism — even for sports — are not sitting well with all Germans.
The flags are everywhere, so Lebanese-born Ibrahim Bassal is annoyed and a little perplexed why masked young men keep coming in the middle of the night to try to tear and burn his absurdly large German flag — nearly 70 feet long and 20 feet wide. Bassal proudly hangs the black, red and gold symbol of his adopted country down the side of the building above his small mobile phone resale and parts shop in a gritty section of East Berlin. He says the flag is in honor of the World Cup and is meant to show solidarity.
“We want to show that we are integrating ourselves, that we’ve already integrated,” he says. “We belong here. When the team plays well, we are happy and all party together. We are German citizens. We participate.”
Flag Thieves From The Left?
But Bassal is already on his third flag this World Cup — at a cost, he says, of nearly $2,000. It’s not anti-immigrant far-rightists who’ve attacked his property. He suspects it’s local leftist protesters who have told him the big flag is simply too nationalistic and “reminds us of the past.”
The latest attack came at 4 a.m., he says, when 10 masked kids climbed onto the roof and ripped and tried to burn the banner. The Beirut-born shopkeeper says he’s fed up and is now posting family sentries to protect the flag.
“This time we’re not going to let them attack it. We’re going to guard our flag. We are sleeping here in the shop and waiting for Saturday. We’re not going to let the left-wingers destroy us — or the right-wingers. We live here. Our kids are born here. We want them to keep living here,” Bassal says.