User:Ruhrjung

Well, ...what to say?

My interests are for strange reasons centered around a line from the French Alps to Helsinki. Since December 2000 I live and work in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. Or, more precisely, I live in what's evolving into Copenhagen's easternmost suburb, the town Malmö in Sweden.

Having moved quite a few times in my life, both as a child and as an adult, I have a certain interest for Xenophobia and nationalist prejudices. The fate of linguistic, religious and ethnic minorities in Germany, in the European Union and in Europe as a whole, can usually get me heavily involved in boring discussions on transculturation. It will be hard, but I am doing my best to avoid that while here.

I consider myself (among other things):

• a post-Nationalist
• a Social-conservative[?] Environmentalist
• a cautious believer in Parliamentarism and Democracy
• an anti-Pacifist
• pro-Jewish
• an admirer of certain aspects of Quakerism, Taoism and the Salvation Army
• for integration, not primarily assimilation, of Muslims in European societies
• for education on mother tongues, not only in

My formal education is limited, to express it mildly. I wasn't tuned in on school and homework when I was in that age. Much of my life ever since has been sort of a compensation for that. My Wikipedia editing also - for sure!

On my handle, it can be noted that it has nothing with reality to do. I've never had any RL connection with the Ruhrgebiet. My not-so-clever classmates did however not believe me, when I as a 12 year's old arrived in the class, telling that I came from a country-town in westernmost Germany, West of Osnabrück. In "Westernmost Germany?" They knew nothing but Ruhr there, and I made the mistake to try to correct the misconception with exaggerated enthusiasm, ...why the name stuck on me. ;->

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Topics of obsession

My "post-formal" studies, if you allow the term, have followed no clear line:

• German history
  • Hanseatic projections of Germanness[?]
  • Secular aspects of the Reformation
  • the Napoleonic wars and the reaction (Nationalism, German unification)
  • The chain of events from victories in 1864 and 1871 to devastation in 1945
• History of thoughts
  • Jewish beliefs
  • Christian beliefs
  • Clan-societies[?] versus Feudalism
  • Christian adaptions to Heathen practices and myths
  • swings to and from Aristocratic rule
  • development of egalitarian democracy and parliamentarism
  • popular reactions on (rejection of) the industrial revolution, Modernity and Modernism (i.e. "Back to nature-movements")
• European history
  • Migration-period (a.k.a. Völkerwanderung)
  • History of Christianity (in Europe)
• Basic Sociology
• Sociolinguistics
• Basic Linguistics
• Cellular chemistry and Cell biology (for the pure fun of it, if nothing else!)

In retrospect great impacts and influences from friends and relatives are obvious, like when my closest friend celebrated his 18th birthday by proudly declaring he was to undergo Bris milah, learn Yiddish and start practicing Judaism, or when my great-aunt revealed how her much beloved big-sister (that was my grand-mother) had been an enthusiastic local activist of Bund Deutscher Mädel, giving a picture of their perception of Nazi ideology which hadn't much in common with how it has become known after World War II.

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Pages I consider to improve:

Autocracy, Western culture[?], Muslims in Europe, anti-Muslim[?] & anti-Arab, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Pia Kjærsgaard[?], Erkki Tuomioja, Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, mother tongue[?], indigenous minority[?], assimilation, standard language[?], melodic accent, Germania by Tacitus, Holy Roman Empire (of German nation), Napoleonic Wars, Scandinavia, Otto von Bismarck, Schleswig-Holstein (separate page for history), Southern Schleswig, First war of Schleswig[?], Second war of Schleswig[?], History of Denmark, History of Skåne[?], Finnish War, Campaign against Norway[?], war reparation[?], Sweden Finns, Torne Valley[?], slash and burn[?], Völkerwanderung, Continuation War, and Winter War (on foreign opinion, and foreign support).

Unwritten articles I've stumbled over
(ought to be written, maybe?)

Act on Åland Self-Government[?], alternative movement[?], Asian values[?], caretaker cabinet[?], Commander-in-Chief, Civil Rights Era[?], colonial era[?], East Karelia[?], Edwin Linkomies[?], Estate of the Peasantry[?], European culture[?], fennoman[?], Finland's Senate[?], finnicize[?], indigenous minority[?], Juho Heikki Vennola[?], Karl-August Fagerholm[?], Lapua[?], Lapua Movement, legitimacy[?], Mikkeli[?], Modus, Moscow Peace[?], mother tongue[?], multi-lingual education[?], nation building[?], Oskari Tokoi[?], personal union[?], Petsamo[?], Porkkala[?], Prince Oscar of Sweden[?], protest party[?], Rolf Witting[?], Scandinavian Monetary Union[?], slash and burn[?], socio-economic[?], Standard language[?], State of War[?], Tempus, Toivo Mikael Kivimäki[?], Treaty of Kiel[?], Wall Street Crash[?], War reparation[?],