A word worth knowing: HoGeSa (pronounced
HO-gay-sah). German for:
“Hooligans gegen Salafisten”
(hooligans against salafists). And you say: Wha- ? - ?
(1) Historical semantics
The word hooligan
(possibly related to the Irish surname Hoolihan)
was first attested in England in the late 19th century, referring
initially to Irish rowdies.
It carried no ideological connotation.
The word then took a very strange detour into
Russian, as Хулига́н. For the
Soviets, it functioned as a sort of defanged continuation of the ever-useful
term Lumpenproletariat, which dates
back to Marx. Again, for the
Soviets, it denoted no clear political current, but was still -- class-analysis
being paramount in Marxism -- more or less eingestuft
into a class-struggle worldview:
Lumpen and hooligans being the dregs who, logically, should fight alongside
the proletariat, but who instead engage in pointless criminality. (The very phenomenon rather jarred with
the neatness of Marxist analysis, which overestimates the purely economic.)
Later, in England, from the ‘70s on, it took on
a particular coloring, being associated especially with soccer rowdies, who
got quite a reputation on the Continent for acting up, and were banned from
some countries. For some reason,
this phenomenon was much more characteristic of England than of any of the
other soccer-mad nations of the world;
to elucidate that fact might prove quite revealing.
And now, in our own day, the word pops up borrowed once again into a foreign
language, this time German, and still with a particular association with soccer
(or, in European terms, football). Colloquial abbreviation: die
Hools.
Now:
What is quite interesting
is that this German term, Hooligans,
is a self-designation, not an exogenous pejorative epithet.
But: Why would any group do that?
Well, this is not the place to delve into the
psychology thereof, but it’s a plucky thing to do, and many groups have done
it. Thus, Quakers, Tories, etc.
etc. : the defiant adoption by an outgroup of the ingroup’s trashtalk. The most recent (and rather
close) analogy is the word behind the “N” in NWA (which, as a non-N, I am not
allowed to write out).
(2) Morphology
For concision, I called HoGeSa an ‘acronym’, since that is a familiar word. It is composed, though, not of initial letters, but of initial syllables.
Again, there is a Soviet parallel. This sort of logopoeic confection was completely
characteristic of the Russian of the time, e.g. Komsomol (roughly: COMmunist /SOviet/MOLodyets (youth).)
Somewhat similarly, in German, among the opponents
of the Hooligans (who are perceived
as right-wing) are the Antifa -- those who oppose what in French are
called the fachos (fascists).
Most famously: the GeStaPo (Geheime Staatspolizei).
Contemporary bureaucratic German is likewise given to such things. Thus: LaGeSo (Landesamt fuer Gesundheit und Soziales), a virtual/vocalic palindrome of HoGeSa.
Most famously: the GeStaPo (Geheime Staatspolizei).
Contemporary bureaucratic German is likewise given to such things. Thus: LaGeSo (Landesamt fuer Gesundheit und Soziales), a virtual/vocalic palindrome of HoGeSa.
For those of my generation (for you young’uns:
i.e. : Old! Fagedabouddit !!), these syllabic abbreviations (as Wiki calls
them) have a certain relent louche, owing to their association with the
whole Proletkult/Agitprop deviations
of the Soviet era.
(Twenny-thirdy-fordy-somethings:
Any idea what I’m talking about?
Never mind.) But they have
much to their credit, over against “acronyms” in the narrow, initial-letter
sense.
At the time, the issue was pronounciability. With strict-acronyms, you never
know: FBI (letter by letter) vs. NASA
(like a word). Whereas now, in
addition to that (still valid), there is the matter of cross-linguistic searchability.
Thus, strict-acronyms are often translated (FMI vs
IMF; ADN vs. DNA), which makes
online string-search perilous. But if you confect what is obviously a word -- yet a word in no obvious language
-- everyone will let it be, like a proper-name (“Washington”; “Napoleon”),
which no-one would dream of “translating”.
From this strictly philological standpoint, we
salute the “Hooligans” for their coinage:
HoGeSa.
(Note:
Granted, as a vocable, as a hoagie-of-syllables, it is not especially attrayant. Cf. Gröfaz. Ah well.)
~
So much for the linguistics. Now we get down to brass tacks.
Today in Cologne, roughly five thousand “Hooligans” answered the call to demonstrate, against
the IS-leaning Islamist extremists known broadly as Salafists. Whence: HoGeSa. This led to fairly violent street-confrontations.
This very significant public demonstration has so
far scarcely been reported outside of Germany: and when so, curly and dumbed-down, simply referring to “hooligans
and neo-Nazis” battling police -- apparently for no reason.
To undumb you back up, consider this:
(1) Recently in the streets of
Hamburg: 400 Kurdish demonstrators
were attacked by 400 IS-supporters.
(2) A cri de coeur, from the Lower Depths:
Notice
that the speaker invites moderate Muslims to join with them.
The speaker also seems to allude to recent
beheadings in Germany. Whether
that happened, I have no idea; if
it did, it was hushed up. But
certainly it is in the offing:
 |
| German hostages of Salafists in the Phillipines |
(3)
Overview:
Rasantes
Anwachsen der deutschen Salafisten-Szene
Die
Behörden sehen sie als Sammelbecken für Kämpfer der Terrorgruppe Islamischer
Staat und befürchten Stellvertreterkriege mit Kurden, Hooligans und
Rechtsextremen.
The fact is, Germany has long been unwisely
importing problems from abroad;
and now is too frightened to do anything about it. Like the socialos in France, the German authorities have been dithering; it thus falls to the wretched of the
earth, at last to roar in protest.
European background:
[Mise à jour, 28 oct 2014]
A parallel in Calais:
www.nzz.ch/international/ein-neonazi-profiliert-sich-1.18412750?extcid=Newsletter_28102014_Top-News_am_Morgen
Pronunciation of Pegida: peh-GEE-da (with hard "g" -- rhymes with "Uneeda").
A parallel in Calais:
www.nzz.ch/international/ein-neonazi-profiliert-sich-1.18412750?extcid=Newsletter_28102014_Top-News_am_Morgen
[Update 9 December 2014] And now HoGeSa is
joined by two new syllabic acronyms:
Pegida „patriotischen Europäer gegen die
Islamisierung des Abendlandes“
Dügida, „Düsseldorfer gegen die
Islamisierung des Abendlandes“
Pronunciation of Pegida: peh-GEE-da (with hard "g" -- rhymes with "Uneeda").
http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/pegida-duegida-und-hogesa-die-unerwuenschten-retter-des-abendlandes/11093158.html
Update 13 Dec 2014] Good heavens, and now
this: äRTeäS (sic).
[Update 14 Dec 2014] Oof, and now this (of all things):
"Arschhuh"
[Update 5 January 2015] The latest re Pegida, in
English:
As one might expect, the New York Times turns
itself into pretzels trying to minimize the march, referring instead, early in
the article, to the much smaller pro-immigration march in the liberal
stronghold of Berlin (a few hundred), while claiming that “No figures were
immediately available for the turnout in Dresden”. (Somehow, the
BBC was able to get these, stating: “A record 18,000 people turned out” -- and
this, despite a chilly rain.)
The Times interviews no-one from Pegida or,
indeed, from average Germans, but recur to the usual anti-Pegida crowd: “On
Monday, business leaders had joined the swelling chorus against Pegida” (well, they would, wouldn’t they; they want a cheap workforce, importing
a Reserve Army of the Unemployed to keep the unions in line).
The Times describes Pegida as “murky” -- a purely
rhetorical flourish”, and quotes this remarkable dismissal of the marchers:
“For
my taste,” Mr. Schneider wrote in the newspaper Die Welt, “the crowd was too
white.”
Also, far too German!
For much better coverage, from a mainstream German
source, try this:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/pegida-proteste-die-trotzigen-von-dresden-a-1011394.html
Likewise Kagida (Kassel), Cegida (Chemnitz).
[Update 8 March 2015] Another HoGeSa demo in Cologne. The march monitors wore police-style jackets labeled, amusingly, "HOOLIZEI" (i.e., Hooligan Polizei).
Another example of the lengths to which the
bien-pensants will go, to sweep the popular upswell under the rug:
Pünktlich
zum Beginn der Kögida-Demonstration um 18.30 Uhr wurde wie angekündigt die
Außenbeleuchtung des Kölner Doms ausgeschaltet. Dompropst Norbert Feldhoff
wollte verhindern, das eines der bekanntesten deutschen Wahrzeichen den
Hintergrund der rechtspopulistischen Demonstration liefern würde.
[Update Monday, 12 January 2015] And now Legida:
In Leipzig stellten sich am Abend rund 30.000
Menschen dem Aufmarsch des Pegida-Ablegers Legida entgegen.
Likewise Kagida (Kassel), Cegida (Chemnitz).
[Update 8 March 2015] Another HoGeSa demo in Cologne. The march monitors wore police-style jackets labeled, amusingly, "HOOLIZEI" (i.e., Hooligan Polizei).
[Update 20 March 2015] The German mania for APO-related syllabic acronyms proceeds apace. The latest is Blockupy : from Block (as in Black Block) plus Occupy (Wall Street).
 |
| Here they are exercising their right to free speech |
They turned out to the numbers of roughly ten
thousand, in the staid old banking capital of Frankfurt-am-Main, breaking and
burning and sending a hundred cops to the hospital. Nothing done by Hogesa or Pegida or Legida or any of
that, approaches that level of violence, but the bien-pensant press is much
more muted in criticizing Blockupy.
[Update 23 Sept 2015]
They haven't gone away:
[Update 26 July 2015] And now this ungainly confection:
EnDgAmE
: engagierte Demokraten gegen die Amerikanisierung Europas
[Update 23 Sept 2015]
They haven't gone away:
Rund 5000 Menschen haben sich nach
Polizeiangaben in Erfurt an einer Demonstration gegen die Asylpolitik von
Bundes- und Landesregierung beteiligt. Sie zogen am Mittwoch durch das Zentrum
der Thüringer Landeshauptstadt bis zum zentralen Platz der Stadt, dem Anger.
http://www.welt.de/regionales/thueringen/article146781556/5000-Menschen-bei-Demonstration-gegen-Asylpolitik.html#disqus_thread
A reader comments:
Bei PEGIDA waren letzten Montag in
Dresden nach meiner Überschlags-Zählung auf dem youtube-Video mehr als 15.000
Menschen dabei (die Polizei gibt offenbar keine offiziellen Zahlen mehr
heraus).
Warum herrscht darüber totale
Stille im Blätterwald?
[Update 17 Oct 2015] Wertvoll:
http://sciencefiles.org/2015/10/17/feindbild-weg-pegida-demonstranten-sind-keine-nazis/
[Update] Bilan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/world/europe/germany-migrants-refugees-pegida.html?_r=0
http://sciencefiles.org/2015/10/17/feindbild-weg-pegida-demonstranten-sind-keine-nazis/
[Update] Bilan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/world/europe/germany-migrants-refugees-pegida.html?_r=0
The core of the matter:
ReplyDelete"The fact is, Germany has long been unwisely importing problems from abroad; and now is too frightened to do anything about it."