Looking to the Past for Deeper Meaning: Applying New Historical Criticism to Recent News Events

Looking to the Past for Deeper Meaning: Applying New Historical Criticism to Recent News Events

Film, when analyzed within the historical/cultural continuum, can provide tremendously valuable insights into current events. State policies, political transformations, growing nationalism and discriminatory practices against refugee populations are merely reflections of social constructs which originate within the collective cultural psyche of a host nation. The video “The Night that Changed Germany’s Attitude to Refugees” highlights the dangers that a nation’s past can pose to present crises.

            Using the example of the hypersensitivity exhibited by authorities following the Cologne New Year’s Eve crimes committed by immigrants, one can identify a persistent and dangerous antinationalistic mindset. The police were reluctant to accurately report on the identity of the perpetrators lest they interfere with the “… culture of silence around crimes like this committed by people with the migrant background” (Jorneymanpictures, 7:26-7:54). Echoes from Germany’s fascist past during the first half of the 20^th century reverberate into the present discussion of immigration.

            State sanctioned political correctness, while intended to not incite far-right nationalist movements, may have had the opposite effect. The film illustrates the frustrations felt by a host country that feels victimized by its own hospitality and betrayed by left-wing politicians who mitigate the demonized perception of immigrants based on the fear of antagonizing the nationalist leaning minority. Again, we find that to fully understand the motivations beneath current crises one must place them within the historical/cultural context. “It is an extremely touchy subject for Germany to talk about crime rates among foreigners,” however, if they do not apply an appropriate balance across the political spectrum they may embolden the very factions their past cultural guilt motivate them to suppress (7:48).

            New historians refuse the myopic interpretations of isolated incidents that fail to appreciate the cultural and historical underpinnings that complicate our interpretations of such within broader contexts. This film is an extremely effective example of a current news event that deserves that critical lens. By applying the conventions of structuralism to the modern immigration issue, the analysis provides more meaningful understandings of the issue within the historical continuum and relational to the cultural motivations of the participants.

Works Cited

Journeymanpictures. "The Night That Changed Germany's Attitude To Refugees." YouTube.        YouTube, 04 Apr. 2016. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.             <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm5SYxRXHsI>.