Contribution
Emergence of the Neo-Nazi culture, children's behavior and hauntings of my past
Austria -- Last summer I together with my husband Tom, our son Trajan, and Tom's family visited an alpine fun park in Imst, a village about an hour away from Innsbruck, Tirol. In my car stayed Max, Tom's 12-year old brother, and was later joined by his cousin, a year older than him. In my 4 years stay in Austria I have the privilege to finally understand the German language, I am not fluent but I understand it better than I speak it. I normally don't talk to anybody not only because of my bad Deutsch but because I learn that feigning not to talk nor understand them keeps me on a distance.
A lesson I learned a few weeks after I stepped in this country--familiarity breeds contempt. Not that Tom's family is bad, in fact they are very caring, it's about the difference in culture, and the color of the skin. Europeans seem to have an impression that every Asian comes here either for money or to have a perfect life (of course, less privileged people do search for greener pastures but once they have it, they eventually go home) but not all Asians are less privileged, some I am proud to say, are hell of a lot richer and live a much luxurious life than any Europeans could imagine.
Anyway, I am not here to compare European from Asian life, but of children's behaviors. As a young mother, I couldn't help but be concerned of how I raise my kids, being half European and Asian, what culture I should implant in them and how I should do it considering that we reside in Austria. A few weeks before the Alpine fun park adventure, I happen to read an article about the Neo-Nazi pop culture princesses that are spreading words of violence in the airwaves across the United States. I was appalled, it is very sad, these girls are after all 13 years old, they talk about the Holocaust like it was just made up, they named their album Prussian Blue, after the residue from the liquid used in gassing the Jews during the war, sport Hitler's face on their shirts, brand their farm animals with swastikas and claim they were not really Supremacist but White Nationalist that just wanted an all-white community and doesn't want any other race especially the Black people around.
Now this Friday while on a long drive Tom was explaining to his cousin and brother that Pres. George W. Bush, in contrast to what the present teachers in Austria teach their students, is in fact trying to secure the future of the US for the next 50 years with what he is doing in Iraq. I was honestly flabbergasted as Tom's cousin started screaming he is a Nazi and he likes Nazi's and he wrote a book about Nazi's all the way to Imst.
In the Philippines this wouldn't matter, but Austria, Germany and some other European nations are very strict about this, you could go to jail for screaming Hail, Sieg Hail or Hitler or for simply denying the Holocaust, take for example the case of British author David Irving locked behind bars here in Austria. As an Asian it didn't occur to me how terrible this was before, in Asian sidewalks and flee markets you can see bags and shirts or any other goods sporting Swastikas but not here. As a History student I became very engrossed with such topics especially the war against the Jews therefore I took advantage when I came over to visit most concentration camps not as a tourist but as a soul that feels the anguish of the victims both young and old. Every visit pains me, in every camp one could feel the horrors of injustice, the unheard screams of anguish and pain. My heart goes out to every owner of the little baby shoes on display in the museums.
Throughout history one strong culture always comes to conquer the weak, take the massacre in Hagia Sophia by the Romans, they were all like animals cracking the skulls even of innocent little babies or of the French killing the Cathars not for God but for territorial expansion. History always seems to repeat itself.
But what about now? Is the war on Iraq a goal for territorial expansion? For the black gold it keeps on its soil? For freedom and equality? The saddest thing is what the teachers educate their students with, they poison their brains and the parents sometimes, as they are not always around due to their hectic jobs, are not able to prevent what damage was already done. In a way I was judged as 'unsymphatisch' (German word meaning unsympathetic or disagreeable) just because I told tom's cousin not to scream those terrible words especially not in front of me and especially not in my car. It is shocking how kids act nowadays, to be completely honest I haven't uttered a single word to this boy except hi and goodbye, I am not very often in their house nor I considered his existence at all. I was appalled to hear that after this, he invented stories that I am a shopaholic and that I always get what I want when I see it in stores. Wherever did this kid get the idea? In the ears of people who heard it, it would seem like I am always raiding my poor husband's wallet even if we can't afford it. How mortifying!
Maybe a few years ago when I was still with my Lola I demand too much and never understood the value of money, I only want to shop, I get new Triumph bras almost every week and my grandma unselfishly provides me with all I yell about even if she doesn't buy new ones for herself. But ever since I am with Tom I learned the value of money and of responsibility, by the time we moved out from his father's house I realized there is no more grandmother to provide me with salt, I have to use it sparingly.
Finally, all the luxuries I have known in my life, I simply set them aside. No more manicures nor new shoes, not that I can't afford it, I just don't want to waste money on it because there are other important things than having perfectly well-trimmed fingernails, living in Europe is just too expensive, I can't avoid comparing Euro to Peso.
Don't get me wrong on why I am totally affected by this behavior. For one thing I am surprised a kid could invent stories via hate much less tell it to other people especially that he never talked or was alone with me for just a minute. Kids of course are entitled to have their points of view but it has to be controlled especially words of racism and topics they have no inkling about nor even read even in two sentences. My little brother-in-law who reads more and lives in America explained Bush's point of view and said he only read one book on Nazi's but was polite enough to stop when I said this topic is something that is not to discuss in cars.
Growing up in Asia in a strict and religious family taught me to be sensitive and much more respectful to my elders, in Austria however, as my husband explains it, age doesn't count for respect. In my childhood days, I am allowed for my own points of view but I was never allowed to butt in on adult conversations much worse scream and be disrespectful or act like a smart ass when the only thing I read was a cover of a chocolate wrapping. We always stopped for Angelus and kiss the hands of the elders that passed by, nowadays especially in the European lands you can never see this ever. Kids act like adults, smoking, drinking and smoking pot on every street corner near their schools. Not that Asian kids don't do this, of course they do but these kids that sniff rugby in the corners of Atrium in downtown Iloilo are less privileged. They sniff to make hunger pass, to make the cold pass because the only thing that covers their shoulders is a thin rag that is even smaller than they are. The cause is poverty.
Let me quote Angelina Jolie on her interview in CNN, she said she spent her entire life being selfish, angry and rebellious but after her visit to Somalia she realized she has no right to complain, every clothes and pretty things that she ever wanted she can get when unprivileged kids as young as 2 months old go hungry for days and just eventually die. What right exactly do we have to complain? I can see my little son jump and play around in my garden, my flat is not the biggest in the world but my husband afforded us with the best he can give, what right do I really have when I sit on a designer couch and cook in a designer kitchen? Yet I complain because I think my flat is not big enough therefore I forgot the people in the slum areas of Manila living under the bridge and build houses out of cardboard boxes. I forgot the kids as young as my two year old boy digging garbage in Smokey Mountain to feed ailing and unemployed parents and the rest of their siblings.
In the Philippines, life is a myriad of jungles, the aim is to survive but only the fittest can. I roamed the streets once when I was 17, for 8 months I roamed it alone, I learned to be tough and rough. Now I am sheltered by a loving husband and the little family that we are building yet I feel vulnerable after all I've been through, how can I let my kids know that they as Austrians are lucky enough just for having the passport, that they can be assured not to be hungry even if their dad and me wont bother to save in their bank accounts? That they will never be like the kids in Africa, in Cambodia or the Philippines? And that they have a mom and a dad that will use every power in the world to protect them? How can I explain to them never to look down to other people just by the color of their skin and the status of their lives? How can I teach them respect when we are in a culture and a land where things like this don't really matter?
It seems to me that my world is still a jungle and I am still hunted, the ghosts in the past and the monsters of the present are still here but this time I have to keep my head clear, I am not alone anymore, I have my little family and that's all I need.
(The author is a native of Barotac Viejo, Iloilo who now lives in the middle of the Tyrolean Alpen range in Austria. She is an alumna of University of the Philippines in the Visayas with the degree of BA Lit-His. She's married to 1st Lt./Engr. Thomas Pittracher and got two sons, Trajan Thomas,3, and Caleb Hadrian,9 mos. She's into photography, cooking, gardening and writing.)