Abstract
This paper problematizes the subtext of ‘race’, which underpinned the contradictory process of German ‘unification’. The following question guides my inquiry: how and why have ‘white’ East German workers in post-‘unification’ Germany come to think of their ‘Germanness’/’whiteness’ as meaningful? Clearly drawing from the work of David R. Roediger, I argue that ‘white’ East German workers were paid the ‘wages of Germanness’. The concept is fleshed out as I interrogate three interrelated dimensions of changes pertaining to the lived experiences of (‘white’) East German workers: (1) German citizenship regulations with its lines of inclusion and exclusion; (2) the qualifier East denoting the existence of various degrees of Germanness; (3) individualized market dependence giving rise to conflicted emotions. Setting in motion a process of extensive and complex change, ‘unification’ had an impact on social relations of power, lived experiences and cultural means. The concept ‘wages of Germanness’ expresses the connections between political, ideological and economic aspects of ‘unification’, and further brings into focus the historical legacy of racialized notions of Germanness. Using the framework of historical materialism, this paper articulates a critique of hegemonic ideology, which suggests that racism in post-‘unification’ Germany was, by and large, spatially confined to <em>East </em>Germany.
Highlights
German unification – this term carries with it a heavy bag of contradictory meanings that speak of a contradictory reality
Following a demand articulated by Toni Morrison, this paper aims to uncover some of the ways in which racist ideology has impacted on “the mind, imagination and behavior” of ‘white’ East German workers (Morrison, 1992: 12)
What is the relationship between the violence against non-‘white’ people and German ‘unification’? Ignorant of the long history of the term ‘German’ as what Roediger might call a “racially inflected term” (Roediger, 2005: 5), the hegemonic discourse suggests that racism could be spatially fixed as an entirely East German ‘problem’
Summary
Résumé Le présent article cerne les problèmes liés au sous-texte de la « race », qui régit le processus contradictoire d’« unification » de l’Allemagne. Ma recherche est axée sur la question suivante : comment et quand les travailleurs est-allemands « blancs » de l’Allemagne réunifiée en sont-ils venus à percevoir leur caractère « allemand » / « blanc » comme porteur de sens? C’est un concept qui s’étoffe lors de l’exploration de trois dimensions interreliées des changements marquant l’expérience vécue des travailleurs est-allemands (« blancs ») : 1) la réglementation de la citoyenneté allemande, avec ses lignes d’inclusion et d’exclusion; 2) le qualificatif « Est » indiquant l’existence de différents degrés d’allemanité; 3) une dépendance individualisée par rapport au marché suscitant des émotions conflictuelles. Dans l’optique du matérialisme historique, le présent article élabore une critique de l’idéologie hégémonique, qui infère que, dans l’Allemagne réunifiée, le racisme s’est essentiellement restreint, dans l’espace, à l’Allemagne de l’Est
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