I get the creeps any more hearing people say "Homeland"

[liveoaktx]

[lastknowngood]

1. It's a hold over from Nazi Germany. The Fatherland they aren't

even trying to hid it.

[tocqueville]

5. but "patrie", "patriot', "patriotic" is OK ?

when it has exactly the same meaning = "fatherland". The difference is that the root is Latin (Pater = Father, hence patriot). Some say motherland, like the Swedes or in French "mère-patrie". or in Spanish : tierra natal (terre natale is used in French too).

Homeland is similar to "heimat", "the land where we grew up".


homeland:
in Spanish | in French | in Italian
in context | images

Adapted From: WordNet 2.0 Copyright 2003 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

homeland
A noun
1 fatherland, homeland, motherland, mother country, country of origin, native land

the country where you were born


wikipedia quotes :

"It was extremely rare for the term to be used by United States citizens to describe their own country up until the term of President George W. Bush, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the subsequent creation of the Department of Homeland Security. It was more common for people to use it to refer to the land of their ancestors, so many found the use of the term to be jarring, and others, due to the word's ethnic nationalism connotations, feel it has almost Orwellian overtones."


the term isn't offensive in Europe, why should it be in the US ?

[SmokingJacket]

7. It just IS, here.

We have negative cultural associations: "homeland" means Die Heimat, which was used over and over again by Hitler to work up nationalistic hate. Why it doesn't trigger the same sense of unease in Europeans has no bearing on American associations...

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/heimat.htm

And for some of us, "patriotism" has similar (though somewhat less powerful) associations.

[tocqueville]

9. I understand that

but basically if you let positive associations be hijacked by thugs, you grant them a favor

the word "patrie" (basically the same meaning) was one the first emotional words used by the French Revolution. The revolutionaries coined the expression "la patrie en danger" (homeland/fatherland in danger), because it gave a new dimension to the French community. Before it would have been said "the Kingdom in danger". The difference is monumental, because it means that the land that has to be protected is the land of our ancestors, not the "land of the King". There is no good word for "home" in French except "maison" (house). It's interesting to note that Chirac in one of his big speeches about environment said "the house is on fire", meaning the planet.

I don't think that the association Hitler/heimat is 100% accurate. He used a concept that existed BEFORE him :

Heimat is a German word that has no simple English translation. It is often expressed with terms such as home or homeland, but these English counterparts fail to encapsulate centuries of German consciousness and the thousands of connections this quintessential aspect of German identity carries with it.

Heimat is a specifically German concept to which people are bound by their birth, their childhood, their language and their earliest experiences. Heimat found strength in an increasingly alienating world as Germany's population made a massive exodus from rural areas into more urbanised communities around the country's major cities. Heimat as a reaction to the onset of modernity, loss of individuality and intimate community.

Heimat began as an integral aspect of German identity that was patriotic, not nationalistic. The specific aspects of Heimat -love and attachment to homeland and the rejection of anything foreign- left the idea vulnerable to easy assimilation into the fascist blood and soil literature of the National Socialists.

Heimat is most readily seen in the Heimatfilm from the Heimat period c.1945-1965 where film makers would place a profound emphasis on nature and the provincial homeliness of Germany. Forests, mountains, landscapes and rural areas portrayed Germany in a homely light with which the German people readily identified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimat

and the first to use the word officially was.... the Clinton administration !!!!

"It may be giving too much credit to the Bush people to suggest that they deliberately chose "homeland" to send such a signal. It's more likely just a clumsy attempt to tug at our heartstrings. In fact, Jeff Greenspan, writing on the libertarian news and commentary site lewrockwell.com, has traced the phrase "homeland security" to a pair of Clinton Administration documents, "Presidential Decision Directive 62: Protection Against Unconventional Threats to the Homeland and Americans Overseas" and "Presidential Decision Directive 63: Critical Infrastructure Protection," both dated May 22, 1998."

http://www.spectacle.org/1201/bartlett.html

read the article above, it's very interesting. I understand that the concept is "foreign" to American history. But on the other hand, the nasty side of American national pride, jingoism, can also be seen as a perverted approach to obliterate the "foreign" that created America.

[SmokingJacket]

11. Yes, Hitler exploited the term...

I guess that's at the crux of why I feel the word "homeland" is so creepy translated into American parlance: we, too, are deeply sentimental and patriotic, and vulnerable to being taken advantage this way.

I can almost see a group of thugs (Cheney would be there, and Rove, not necessarily Bush) getting together shortly before or after 9-11 and deciding what words to use to take full advantage of the new sense of patriotism. "Home" is a loaded word here -- already overused by real estate agents -- along with "mother," "flag," etc., and it probably was perceived to appeal to women. "Land" is another powerful part of our identity, our nature-loving, guns/hunting masculine element. And it's a term that was NEVER used before 9-11.

It's SO contrived -- so marketed -- and so reminiscent of they way totalitarians and fascists use words.

[Art_from_Ark]

12. "Patriot", "Patriotism" and "Patriotic"

have been part of the American lexicon-- and psyche-- for at least the last 230+ years. "Homeland", on the other hand, has never been popularly used by Americans to refer to their own nation; on the contrary, there had been an aversion to use the term because it conjured up images of repressive Old World countries, especially in central Europe. And in the not-too-distant past, "national" or "federal" were the adjectives of choice for naming government organizations.

[tocqueville]

14. but still you use the words "Founding Fathers"

I think (check my updated post above) that the problem has to do with America's (relative) youth. While Europeans can trace their existence back to the last Ice Age (the signs are everywhere) it's impossible for Americans, except for natives. White Americans original "home" is... Europe. I really understood that when I met chocked Americans here in France in the direct aftermath of 9/11. They expressed their gratitude when they heard the mourning bells in the churches and the sirens by saying stuff like "overwhelmed by the support from where we originally belong". It was a bit like suffering children seeking comfort from their grand-parents... they were really lost. An American woman I know (settled 30 years in France and with family here) told me that her first reaction was "I am going home"... but her children told her "Mom, your home is here"... they were very, very lost. It was really sad.

So I understand that the emotional around "homeland" is very complicated...

[Extend a Hand]

2. me too!

Actually it gave me the creeps the first time I heard it.
I absolutely can't stand hearing The United States referred to as the "Homeland"
It's like fingernails on a chalkboard. It makes me swear every time I hear it.

I feel like asking the speaker if he is some kind of nazi or something
or maybe doing this:
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[northofdenali]

4. Me, too sad_one, right from the start.

I just smacks of "patriotism" by the sword.

[liveoaktx]

6. Was trying to think about how we USED to describe ourselves

and, at least for me, I would say (and still do) Our "Country".

[tocqueville]

16. interesting, because "country" can have different meanings

and when you use it not in the pure geographic meaning you mean nation :

Nation
Main article: Nation
A nation is a 'set of people with a common identity who have formed a nation-state or usually aspire to do so' (Viotti and Kauppi, 2001). In this sense of country, the reference is more likely to be to a group that supposedly shares a common ethnic origin, language, religion, or history (real or imagined). The term has become synonymous with 'country' where nations without sovereignty (that is, nations that are not states) have aimed to identify themselves on the same terms as sovereign states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country

and the definition above is not very far from the definition of "homeland" in the positive sense (original "heimat")

[Ron Green]

3. Joke about it at every opportunity.

I'm always saying "It must be Homeland Security" when any unexplained delay occurs, or a glitch in any kind of system. I'm trying to do my part to diminish it within our language. The more scorn and derision that can be piled upon this whole Neo-con, Neo-Nazi fear game, the better.

[theHandpuppet]

8. You must have been reading my mind

I heard "homeland" so many times on the nat'l news tonight I seriously thought of starting a thread about it. Constantly hearing/seeing the word "homeland" as a substitute for "America" or "United States" just creeps me out no end. Shades of Nazi Germany! And the MSM has simply adopted the Bushreich's new name for our country as if they are either unaware of the connotations or just blindly go along with whatever King George and Rove decide.

[JohnyCanuck]

10. You're probably right to be creeped out.

The Nazification of America

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. I've taken to referring to the Department of Homeland Security

as the Ministry of Fatherland Security. Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer!

[BrewerJohn]

15. It's what you might call your country if it were an empire

And that's creepy enough for me right there.