Undiplomatic language

Yesterday, former SNP politician and academic Christopher Harvie received the German Order of Merit in Edinburgh. I popped along, primarily because the consulate was holding a competition to win some Lufthansa-branded beach towels.

It was a predictably staid affair, the great and the good giving speeches, musical interludes and the like. The final speech came from Stephan Mayer, CSU MP for Altötting in Bavaria. It was standard fare – not exactly gripping, but nothing scandalous.

What followed next, however, was odd – Wolfgang Mössinger, the Consul General, thanked Stephan Mayer for giving his speech in English and said this:

“I can’t imagine a Westminster politician going to Germany and making a speech in German”.

Ok. Wait a second.

There are two huge problems with that. First: Gisela Stuart, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston. She is German, a genuine German who grew up in Germany, has German parents and – despite coming from Bavaria – speaks German.

Second: Statements like this do nothing for the relationship between our two countries – it merely cements the antipathy held by certain groups on both sides by playing on cheap stereotypes*. The reality is that Germany and Britain get along pretty well. There are nearly 100,000 British people living in Germany and 3 times as many Germans live in the UK – all without much of a problem.  We all watch the same (American) films and TV shows. British people use T-Mobile, Germans use Vodafone. We have even elected a German to parliament – and Germany has a state prime minister with British heritage.

Of course, our language skills are subpar and we have plenty of xenophobes – the name of this very website is testament to one of our hang-ups – but Germany is hardly perfect in either of those regards. Herr Mössinger: If you judge us by what’s in The Sun, we’ll judge you by the contents of Bild. You really don’t want that – so be more careful in future.

As you can probably guess, I didn’t win anything.

*The stereotypes about Bavarians are all true.