Two Heads of State
November 6, 2009
It was quite exciting for me to see Merkel chatting easily with Obama in the White House during her historic trip to address the US Congress; in some way, as the daughter of a German mother and American father, I was pleased and proud to see the leaders of my two homelands coming together in this fashion. As is good and proper, she thanked the Americans for their help during two critical periods in German history: the end of WWII and the fall of the Berlin wall, which led to the reunification of Germany twenty years ago.
Yet Merkel was in a bit of a pickle because she was also supposed to address two key issues at which Germany is slightly at odds with the US - ticklish themes such as Afghanistan and united action against global warming (to the consternation of the international community, the US, one of the world’s biggest polluters, has still not yet signed the Kyoto protocol). As far as Afghanistan is concerned, the Germans, like most Europeans, are critical of the notion that America is the world’s policeman, and would have preferred not to become involved in the war. However, having acknowledged US help in the past and expressed gratitude for it, Merkel had very little choice but to announce continued support for a foreign policy that is actively disliked by most German voters. Similarly, in the guise of a grateful guest, it was difficult for her to exert much pressure on her hosts to mend the error of their ways and radically cut their outrageous carbon dioxide emissions
As a very cynical and jaded student and teacher of political science, I am very good at ripping government speeches to shreds and was curious to see just how she would address these issues. Yet when I received the full text of Angela Merkel’s speech from the government press office, I was surprised to feel tears starting to my eyes as I read. Why? I still had not yet quite realized to what extent the presence of Angela Merkel in high government is every bit as astonishing as Obama’s presence in the White House. She is a woman (as my discerning readers will already have noticed): a highly educated divorcee with no children in a country where most women work only part time, if at all, so that they can remain at home to care for their children and household.
Not only is she a woman, but she is a woman from the former German Democratic Republic, or East Germany (also ex-DDR, as the Germans say) and a minister’s daughter to boot (I think it is safe to say that the clergy were not overwhelmingly popular among the Communists, who famously held that religion was the opiate of the people). Merkel was seven when the wall was built and recalls seeing members of her father’s congregation crying at the news.
As a child myself, I remember seeing my German grandmother send huge packages off to mysterious and unknown relatives in the DDR. I understood vaguely that there were many things that were unavailable to people over there, and that there was some sort of difficulty with simply going to visit them, or having them come visit us, but I shrugged it off carelessly, as children do, glad that I was on the ’right’ side of whatever it was that seemed to loom ominously, creating hardship for those on the ‘wrong’ side where those shadowy other people lived. Those on the ‘wrong’ side lived under a dictatorship, as I was later to learn – their lives were circumscribed by the government. They were spied upon by the Stasi (shtaah-zee, or Ministry for State Security), considered one of the most repressive and efficient secret police agencies in the world; some sources claim that the Stasi had one spy/informant per 66 citizens of East Germany: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Merkel has revealed that early in her career, the Stasi had even approached her in the hopes of recruiting her. Ever the diplomat, her response was that she couldn’t, because she was no good at keeping secrets – a brilliant response that rendered her instantly uninteresting for the recruiting team. One of the reasons she chose to study physics, she says, was a direct result of having grown up under a Communist dictatorship in which accommodation was a way of life. As a science student, she would not have to compromise so much: in physics, it is not so easy to distort the truth.
But to return to my main point: the story of a little girl who lived in this claustrophobic state, who did not set foot in West Germany until 1986, yet who went on to enjoy the fruits of democracy and a key political post is one that is every bit as moving and inspiring in its way as the election of the first black U.S. President. I keep reminding my students that they, like the multicultural law review editor or the minister’s daughter, can one day go on to change the world: YES, YOU CAN!
About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in
Brilliant story, yet again!