New passport, new identity, new home? Kate Connolly, Germany correspondent of the Guardian, has requested in accordance with the Brexit vote a German passport. Why, she writes in “Exit-Brexit – How I became a German”.
Kate Connolly is a Brit. For years, she lives with her husband and two children in Potsdam on the outskirts of the German capital. Then the Brexit decision sets your world on its head. 23. June 2016 was. “Today,” she States in an Interview with rbb24, “it may be that the tears come when I think back to this day.” But German? Coffee instead of tea? Prussian virtues instead of British politeness? “Unity and justice and freedom” instead of “God save the Queen”? Never!
Then she did it, a bit of a Protest against her parents, (mother) and (father) the Britain to leave the EU agreed. However, it is the threat of a Brexit, the uncertainty about the consequences, the overthrow of the 47-year-old in an “identity crisis”. In her Anger, disappointment and self – pity mix.
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Until she grabs the bull by the horns: “My own country appeared to me like a ship that was heading straight to an unpredictable storm”, she listed. “What I did here now, would guarantee me a place in the rescue boat, if it should be necessary to leave the ship.”
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At almost 300 pages, Kate Connolly outlines the ambivalent relationship of the United Kingdom to Europe. She describes love as hatred, as a constant Back-and-forth, declared that, not least since the end of the war and the government days of Winston Churchill – with the geographical location of the country:
“The feeling, through this physical separation from the Rest of the world, especially favored, is pronounced in the case of many of the British strong, just like your Belief that the UK is different and Special, precisely because it is an island country.” To date, the British EU culminates-scepticism in the famous handbags in the appearance of Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher, who called in the year 1984 to the address in Brussels: “I want my money back!”
Usually Kate Connolly, Germany declared the British. With your book, but, it seems, is the journalist for your countrymen would like to apologize – in the case of the Germans. In the UK ruled part of chaotic conditions, confess them. And Yes, you have assumed because of the Brexits the German citizenship.
Kate Connolly (3.v.l.) at the “Stammtisch” of the German wave
Furthermore, British home feelings
What you missed, told you this week the news magazine “der Spiegel”:”a Lot of things. Family and friends of course, but also the great theatre and the Humor. The is in everyday life in the UK is very important, he is our valve.” If, for example, the U-drive track, did the British black Humor and laughed. “Even the Brexit, which is also just an expression of our identity crisis.”
Of their Britishness, Kate doesn’t want to let Connolly – not even in the face of a Brexit. Although she now possesses a German passport, she writes, feel the deepest feelings of Home continues to be where you grew up. “A sense of home lies in the strong smell of the sidewalk after a rain and the smell of malt vinegar, which rises from a steaming Portion of Fish and Chips.” In this point Germany to hole slowly. “There’s also the smell of a Sizzling appears to me, in the meantime, the Bratwurst familiar, the sharp smell of melting rubber on the brakes of a train or the bold touch of ricotta balls on the Christmas market.”
Kate Connolly’s “Exit-Brexit – How I became a German” is published in the Munich-based Hanser publishing house.