Saturday 25 February 2017

German translation



Loyal readers may recall a post we published last month about BBC Berlin correspondent Damien McGuinness. 

His strikingly biased Twitter feed ("one of the most blatantly biased of all the BBC Twitter feeds I'd ever read") had already revealed his strongly pro-EU and just-as-strongly anti-Brexit views...

...and then came a particularly biased BBC website article from the aforementioned Damien. which spread an unrelievedly downbeat message about the risks to the UK economy of Brexit. 

"Reading Damien McGuinness's BBC-branded anti-Brexit Twitter feed it's impossible not to put this down to bias", I concluded, (unusually) firmly. 

So, I've just spotted that Damien McGuinness had a piece on today's From Our Own Correspondent and am wondering if, after listening to it, I'll have to eat my words and offer Damien an apology. 

I really am trying this one blind, so here goes....

Well, I've only got to the programme's website so far and it already says:
British citizens living and working in Germany are worried about what might happen to them once the UK leaves the EU; Damien McGuinness hears how many of them are rushing to town halls to become German. 
Ah, so it's about Brexit and, yes, it's obviously not going to be positive about it. Should I even bother listening to it? It's obvious what it's going to be like. I'm guessing: 'Woe, woe and thrice woe!' 

OK. I should listen, just to see how bad it actually is. So here goes again...

Yep, it's pretty bad. 

There's talk of "worried" young British expats, and British pensioners living in Germany "scraping by...tied to a shrinking pound", plus several digs at the British tabloids. 

There's also the emotional story of a liberal British woman who loves the welcoming of immigrants (like her) in Germany. 

It's all about the liberating effect of "layered identities" rather than ethnic heritage, and the "successful" transformation of Germany into "a country of immigration" - and Mrs Merkel is getting a good press too.

And it ends on a personal note:
As for me, my own citizenship status is a bureaucratic muddle - no doubt my own fault for moving around too much. Growing up in a globalised world I had thought passports, borders and notions of citizenship were losing their importance. Today though, as I scrabble together previously unheard of documents to avoid suddenly becoming an illegal alien, I can see I was wrong.
Ah well, maybe the BBC will help keep you safe and happy in Germany, Damien, for a while yet.

5 comments:

  1. "Growing up in a globalised world I had thought passports, borders and notions of citizenship were losing their importance."

    Because of his beloved 'globalised' world, I need a passport just to make a flight within my own country

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well last time I looked Jenny Hill was the BBC's Berlin's correspondent...which begs the question - do we really need two?

    As for Damian - I am sure you will be Germany's gain and our loss...so go see how easily you find work in the liberal non-racist German media.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course we need two Jenny Hills.

      For 'balance'.

      Delete
  3. Here's what McGuinness and the rest of them don't get: the globalized world where passports and national borders and the like were losing their importance might have worked if the establishment mandarins hadn't screwed it all up. They - and the powerful media outlets championing the brave new world - broke it, not Farage or Le Pen or Trump. The latter are symptoms of a systemic failure, not the cause, and the people who vote for them are certainly not the problem.

    The ideas of McGuinness and other trans-national Progressives are wrong, full stop. That's not how you do it. They broke the toy, and now are angry and blaming mommy and daddy for taking the pieces away and telling them they can't have a new toy until they learn to properly play with the ones they have.

    The perspective from which the is coming is biased, based on specifically partisan assumptions informed by personal ideology.

    ReplyDelete
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