As valid as many of the recent cOmments were, maybe we could try to focus more on the positive if MO10 and his playing.
On a positive note, while driving to berlin i was listening to the radio and heard a very great mini-doco created by a Turkish-German lass on all this It reinforced for me, how the perspective for minorities is in fact how Ozil has described over the years For them identity is important, and they see themselves as young germans It is a big problem all this questioning of identity and I think white germans really don't get it. As an immigrant myself since 2002 in the UK and then Germany I could really empathise which what she was saying. Because I am white I just don't have to deal with nearly so much bullshit.
I can't lie. I firmly enjoyed that the Germans were embarrasingly terrible. Maybe it's the economics, but I can't stand the normally rational Germany's ability to stare fact in the face and be beligerently irrational. It's maddening.
Well, I am a white German and I have a lot of sympathy for Özil. But if I had publicly shown support for an antisemitic and racist autocrat who slowly turns his country into a islamistic dictatorship, people would blame me and not those who react to that endorsement.
The issue is not that he is being criticized; the issue is the nature of the criticism. It is OK to disagree with Özil taking the picture and voicing that opinion, but it isn't OK to use that as a reason to say he's a bad footballer who is really not a German and shouldn't be on the team.
I agree with you - any racism directed at Özil needs to be condemned. And he is a great footballer - and Hoeness is an ******. And he is German - and people who say otherwise should also be condemned. But I don`t buy into the part of Özil`s statement where he portrays himself as apolitical who only met Erdogan out of respect for his office as president of his ancestors` homeland.
I didn't mean to imply that. As yes - but we've talked round the houses on all that before. There seems to be an intentional effort from the Seehofer set to misrepresent the situation and reassure middle germany that everything is OK But of course when you think about it for 2 seconds everything is pretty far from OK
I discovered that at age 17 Ozil had to give up his Turkish passport/citizenship in order to play for Germany and got considerable shit about that. (So he could take german citizenship - Germany usually does not allow duel citizenship). Something of a hangover from the messed up legal situation of so many guestworkers meant that often their kids born in Germany did not have citizenship. There was an effort about 10 years ago to clean this up. When I did my language test for permanent residence there were a number of Turkish germans on my course. They spoke fluent german as they were born here. But they were ticking the box to formalise their citizenship if I understood it correctly. So whereas I was panicking about aspects of grammar the advice they were getting from the teacher was not to speak any street german in the test. Then the teacher spoke some as a joke - then suddenly everyone was talking it. Surreal - i could hardly understand anything. Ozil is basically one of those kids - apparently his german was quite poor until recent years (he spoke Turkish at home). I hope to hear more viewpoints of the German Turkish community - it's quite fascinating (as long as its not the Erdolf stuff).
Gundogan weighs in on Ozil-gate. He has a different take from the likes of Kroos, Muller, and Neuer. I don't get it. What's different about Gundogan that he would see racism where the others don't? http://www.espn.com/soccer/germany/...acism-claim-and-will-keep-playing-for-germany Quotes: "Tell me: Is it not racism if a German politician takes to Facebook that the Germany team is made out of 25 Germans and two goat f---ers?" Gundogan said in an interview with Funke Media. "Such remarks must be labelled as racism. However, it does not mean that everyone in Germany is racist. Absolutely not. Almost all of my experiences in my life in Germany have been positive. But there are people who have used the photo for their political agenda. And in this context, the racism line was sometimes crossed."
Kroos, Muller, Neuer, Poldi, Hoeness etc keep knocking down the strawman that there is no racism within the team But Ozil never said there was According to 2 german journos i respect, it seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding of the issue
"Özil fancies an islamist fascist and the outcome of that is us talking about how racist is Germany?" Tuba Sarica
We have to talk about how racist is germany when 15% vote the AfD in to parliament and they proceed to racially harass members of the team
Pivoting off of the racism issue, I just listened to this week's Arseblog Arsecast and the 2 gents on there were pretty much lock-step in their opinion that Ozil has been disappointing and not good value for money. (Leaving aside for the moment the rumors about him refusing to sit on the bench) OTOH, pretty much everyone sincerely hopes that something be worked out within him, or with our tactics, so that his supreme creative talent can come to the fore and help the team ascend to the heights of the competitions we're in. Lastly, Andrew had an interesting point/speculation about how Emery has talked about Ozil. Supposedly he has said a few times since pre-season that Arsenal wants to "help" Mesut feel comfortable, be a part of the family, etc. (I'm paraphrasing from memory so don't shoot me if I got the words a little wrong) Then he said that those were particularly "emotive" words to use (assuming Emery chose the right words) and since the same word "help" was used twice, it makes Andrew wonder if something else isn't going on w/ Mesut which we don't know about. Implying some more personal or psychological issue going on? I dunno. In July I remarked on how happy Ozil looked upon joining the team in Singapore, which was right after his racism accusation became public? The whole thing is a bit puzzling, but somehow he and the club need to figure out a way to rise above any current problem/s, so that Ozil doesn't go down in Arsenal history as just a hugely expensive acquisition who underachieved. And they need to figure it out soon.
And this: Uli Hoeness outing himself as a horrid racist, in addition to the horrid tax evading stuff he already ruined his entire reputation with, is quite the look for 2018 https://t.co/b4pyIaHdPu— conor (@conorgarratt) August 28, 2018
As I don't think anyone here speaks German - some background to this. Middle Germany just loves its big sofa chattering pundit shows. I avoid them like the plague but they often do have some quality people on. (e.g I saw one about the people who are suing the EU over climate change a few nights ago). In this case they have put together a pretty balanced panel - including actual Turkish-germans which is good to see. They are then looking at the whole integration question and some of the racism that goes on. e.g. One guy is introduced in terms with the "where do you really come from" as an example of soft racism people deal with day to day. This is the stuff Ozil specifically complained about. I can't be bothered to watch the whole show - but a quick intro to the views of Tuba Sarica because it does show how complex the issues are for Turks. Sarica is an author and critic of Islam politic (especially the role of terror), racism in the Muslim community and especially Erdolf. She's is from a Gastarbeiter family so is on the same journey. I guess you can call her a classic globalist/liberal. So where it gets complicated is like a significant number of Turks, she despises Erdolf and everything he stands for. She stands against his interference in the german turkish community and the damage he is doing. So I guess she kind of sees that as disqualifying for Ozil to come from that context and attack the german 'multi-kulti' fabric. I see her point of view as Ozil is essentially acting as a foil for Erdolf's wider shit stirring. The tone is wrong and he should know better. I think what is missing from her analysis, is knowing all of the above context, and knowing that the AfD had unleashed some truly awful race hate from the right, the DFB (assisted by the likes of Bild) nevertheless chose to reignite this powder keg in the aftermath of the World Cup because they needed a scapegoat - and for that they are responsible. I am not sure if they talked about that aspect but DFB is obviously a very public face of integration and they deserve huge criticism for not standing up for a minority player given the simply awful shit that was thrown at him - regardless of the photo.
I listened to my first ever Arsecast for the Özil "insights" but couldn't take it seriously AM can't even pronounce his name correctly. I mean what the hell? I thought the best comment was given all the bullshit Özil has been through which is bound to have rattled him, what he does in fact need is the club and fans to rally around him because that is exactly what didn't happen in Germany
The fact that he brags about wanting to ring up Loew to tell him not to put Ozil on the team tells you a lot about that corrupt arsehole's sense of entitlement. Imagine if Ed Woodward rang Southgate and told him not to select Stirling because of Woody's own personal opinions on the players character. Sadly the Bayern cronies are allowed to act as if they own German Football. Probably they do.
What!! Dude you missed peak Arseblog years ago, he used to do an "Old Man at the Bar" bit, it was so damn funny. Sadly long, long, long gone.
Arseblog is easily the worst Arsenal podcast, imo. Terrible voice, not funny, and not insightful. As for this German/Ozil/Racism stuff, that country like the western world, seems to be embracing elements of fascism. Really disgusted at this concious misinformation these people are putting out there.
Arseblog felt quite flabby to me - like talk sport - loads of jawboning to say the same thing for 10 mins I prefer the likes of Honigstein - e.g. at the worldcup - who is talking to a lot of people and can introduce a lot of new material outside of the article format. I want the who's ********ing who and who's not paying! Years back I had dinner with a PR flack who was ex-press pack from the NZ Parliament. The stories! Especially the affairs and feuds that were part of the Wellington scene but never public. (some of these I saw because you could simply go the pub they all drank at). Proper journo's get a lot of shit these days but in reality they know a hell of a lot more about what goes on that gets left unsaid. This can be just basics like how people are behaving when the camera is off, who isn't talking to who etc. But obviously also includes a lot of off record briefings, drunken conversations etc. A lot of this stuff is not secret - but it won't make a 300 word article The thing about Ozil is he is a very well managed brand. We don't get leaks and placed stories out of his crew. He doesn't get pissed at a hotel wedding reception. So everyone is scratching around on this.
loooooooooooool Löw has come out saying that Özil's allegation were "exaggerated " "With his allegations about racism Mesut clearly went too far. There never was the slightest hint of racism within the team, no hint at racist remarks." Bierhoff too looooooooool