Hoping to catch the first train of the morning, I made my way towards the nearest U-Bahn station. The Berlin night air was cold and I was looking forward to my journey home in a warm subway car. I was physically tired. But I was also tired of seeing things that reminded me of where I was and, as far as I was concerned, should have had nothing to do with where I was.
I was in Germany. And, on this particular night, I had caught sight of several young German girls trying out new rap dance moves in a McDonald's parking lot, vying for the attention of some gold chain-wearing, thugged-out non-native. You could see that, without doing practically anything, the migrant exuded coolness in the minds of the girls. I wondered if that was because their televisions had convinced them of this. It was almost as if this promotion on MTV had been offered up as a trade, or reward, for not going around and doing the criminal things that the music the non-natives listened to glamorized.
I thought about this for a bit, but my thoughts were briefly interrupted by the faint sound of an approaching subway train in the distance. The smell of engine brakes and oily metal invaded my nose, and I realized I had reached my destination. I trudged down the empty concrete stairs into the U-Bahn station, my tired eyes fixed downward. I was thinking about the current state of Germany and began to wonder if I would ever find the things I was searching for. Well, as I looked up, if I was searching for a young foreigner with spray paint in the hand, standing inside the arriving train and vandalizing the interior of a subway car, I would have been in luck.
I was in Germany. And, on this particular night, I had caught sight of several young German girls trying out new rap dance moves in a McDonald's parking lot, vying for the attention of some gold chain-wearing, thugged-out non-native. You could see that, without doing practically anything, the migrant exuded coolness in the minds of the girls. I wondered if that was because their televisions had convinced them of this. It was almost as if this promotion on MTV had been offered up as a trade, or reward, for not going around and doing the criminal things that the music the non-natives listened to glamorized.
I thought about this for a bit, but my thoughts were briefly interrupted by the faint sound of an approaching subway train in the distance. The smell of engine brakes and oily metal invaded my nose, and I realized I had reached my destination. I trudged down the empty concrete stairs into the U-Bahn station, my tired eyes fixed downward. I was thinking about the current state of Germany and began to wonder if I would ever find the things I was searching for. Well, as I looked up, if I was searching for a young foreigner with spray paint in the hand, standing inside the arriving train and vandalizing the interior of a subway car, I would have been in luck.
Yes, there he was tagging his "gangsta" shit on the wall when suddenly he realized that the train had come to a stop in the bright lights of the station. For a split second, he froze like a deer in headlights, but soon collected himself, stepped off the train and started walking away as if nothing was wrong in the world. But there were plenty of things that were wrong, one of them being the state of affairs in the country I was in. I glared at the young migrant until he disappeared in the distance. Surely, he was poised to continue being a degenerate some other time.
Where had he learned that graffiti was cool? Perhaps something in the latest rap video on MTV Europe? Perhaps that was the stimulus...
...and this site, not far from the U-Bahn station, is merely the response:
It would certainly fit the pattern. From that pattern, the result is that the cities across the West are starting to look indistinguishable from one another:
- people rejecting the native population's native culture ✔
- promotion of hip-hop culture (poster in above, to the left) ✔
- promotion of anarchist-leftist politics (poster above, to the right) ✔
- endless amounts of wannabe gang graffiti (everywhere in that image) ✔
- increased crime (from ugly and petty graffiti to assault, theft, murder, etc.) ✔
Wake up, Europe. Is this the future you want for yourself?
