Germany’s new national hero, Oezil was born and grew up in Hamburg in a family of Turkish immigrants, or Gastarbeiter. He grew up speaking German and Turkish and holding dual nationality. His homepage is available in both German and Turkish. Oezil happily says he recites Koran verses to himself when the national anthem is played before kick-off.
Oezil is being celebrated in Germany as a national hero today, and his ethnic diversity was the rule rather than the exception among the German players that took the field against Ghana yesterday in Johannesburg.
But only eight years ago it was all very different. In the 2002 Japan-South Korea World Cup, Germany fielded a white-only team that seemed a holdover from the past. Ageing stars such as Oliver Bierhoff and Oliver Kahn looked pale and slow against a colorful Asian backdrop. The fact the German team reached the final anyway simply confirmed clichés about German efficiency. It was all very twentieth-century.
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Part of the thrill of the Germany-hosted World Cup in 2006 was the number of new ‘non-traditional’ faces in the national team: such as the Polish-born and speaking Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski, and the multi-national cocktail Kevin Kuranyi, who is what you get if you mix a Hungarian, a Panamanian and a Brazilian.
Now with the 2010 World Cup hosted by the original Rainbow Nation, Germany has finally also arrived in the twenty-first century. Not only was yesterday’s winning goal shot by a Koran-reciting Hamburger Turk. Germany also fielded Berlin-born Jerome Boateng to face off against his brother Kevin-Prince who was on the field for Ghana. The 1-0 German victory meant both teams went through to the next round,so the singing Ghana supporters watching the game at Kyiv’s German embassy left in the best of moods.
Germany also fielded German-born Sami Khedira, who also holds a Tunisian passport, Brazilian-born Claudemir Cacau, who came to Germany in 2001 and was naturalised in 2009, and the Polish-born Piotr Trochowski and Lukas Podolski.
Paradoxically, the new multi-ethnic German line-up will strengthen rather than weaken German identity: It helps Germans wary of national sentiment due to the Nazi past become less embarassed about being German. It also helps nationally-minded Germans in both east and west of the country come to terms with a multi-ethnic future. And it also helps immigrant communities in Germany commit to their adopted country.
