Ethnocentrism in Germany

worldview connections and social contexts

Michael Terwey

pp. 69-94

in: Richard Alba, Peter Schmidt, Martina Wasmer (eds), Germans or foreigners?, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Abstract

Today, we have become aware that moments of aggressive ethnocentrism have not been exhausted, despite reasonable hopes. Recent terrorist actions and the conflicts in the Near East have restimulated ethnic and religious conflicts in a dramatic fashion. The cycles of violence and retaliation reveal again the salience of ethnocentric worldviews and of the corresponding intergroup differentiations. Barriers and hostilities that had once seemed on the verge of becoming obsolete have reentered the world stage with passionate intensity while terrorism from abroad serves as a new representation of "absolute evil."