Pseudo-Patriotism, Polemics, and Propaganda: European ‘Indianness’ and Contemporary German Populism

Authors

Dagmar Wernitznig, University of LjubljanaFollow

Abstract

This article highlights and explores new nuances of colonialisms that can be witnessed in German populist politics in conjunction with public discourses about migration and refugeedom. In their xenophobic aversion towards aliens, ultra-nationalist organizations and parties in Germany pervert the colonial trauma of Native American peoples by projecting it onto their own existence. By drawing analogies between their own lives and the plight of Native American expulsion or forceful assimilation since the arrival of the first European settlers, right-wing individuals and groups perceive themselves as a vanishing tribe that is threatened with extinction, caused by Arabic and African newcomers on German soil. This process of incorporating and representing ‘Indianness’ for the sake of ‘racial purity and survival’ can be interpreted as the most recent step in an exceptionally intricate and problematic historiography of physical, cultural, and psychological intrusion of indigenous peoples’ identities and spheres on the North American continent.

Recommended Citation

Wernitznig, Dagmar (2021) "Pseudo-Patriotism, Polemics, and Propaganda: European ‘Indianness’ and Contemporary German Populism," The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE): Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/ije/vol3/iss1/6