Great Expectations

By Stefan Sirucek

(BERLIN)

Tomorrow Senator Barack Obama will deliver a major speech in front of the Siegessäule, or “Victory Column”, in Berlin. He will speak in front of thousands – some have predicted hundreds of thousands – in a speech that will mark the first and only major public address of his closely followed overseas tour.

People have grown to expect a lot from Senator Obama’s speeches, but then, people have grown to expect a lot from Senator Obama. He is hailed, for better or worse, not just as a rising political star and potential future U.S. president but as a bearer of hope – a savior.

True, as the campaign has gotten muddier and Obama has made the American politician’s traditional migration to the center, the Senator has lost some of his shine and it seems that in many corners the Obama-worship has cooled into controlled optimism. The Spiegel cover shown above (which reads: "Germany Meets The Superstar") is partly tongue-in-cheek, both an acknowledgement of the Obamamania that has caught fire in Europe and a play on "Germany Seeks A Superstar", the German version of "American Idol". Nevertheless among the people (and especially among Europeans, who view him as the glittering Anti-Bush) he remains enormously popular. According to a Spiegel poll 76% of Germans think Obama would make the better President compared with 10% who would prefer Sen. John McCain.

Due to a combination of factors, Obama’s powerful speeches, his relative youth, and the excitement his candidacy has generated, comparisons to the fond figure of John F. Kennedy have been abundant. The endorsements of both Sen. Edward Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy (the latter in a notable op-ed ) have also certainly contributed to this idea.

Whether Jack or Jesus these are big shoes to fill. And though anticipation is running high, no one really knows what to expect.

What will Obama say?

What’s clear is that he will address the German-American relationship and stress unity and the rebuilding of alliances. These themes are universal pleasers and of course very important. On the pricklier side, some in Germany suspect that, in an effort to highlight his recent push for a refocusing of U.S. energies away from Iraq and onto Afghanistan, he may call for increased German support there. (Germany has some 3,200 troops stationed in Afghanistan but has, for political and historical reasons, resisted taking on an expanded combat role beyond its current peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts.)

What’s also clear is that the senator’s speech, despite its location, will be meant more for American ears than for German ones. Obama is engaged, for those who have forgotten, in an active presidential campaign and the world tour he’s embarked on is not a vacation from, but rather a part of that campaign, meant to shore up his foreign policy credentials and deflect criticism that he his a foreign policy lightweight. Though it may seem like a victory lap, it is campaigning and an early plan for Obama to speak in front of Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate - ala Ronald Reagan - was squashed for precisely that reason (German chancellor Angela Merkel felt it was an inappropriate venue for a political candidate).

The ongoing status of the campaign has complicated the trip in other ways as well. As Maureen Dowd of the Times pointed out in a recent column, Obama must walk a very fine line in his foray abroad. He must act and appear presidential without acting as though he is already President and thereby seeming arrogant. He must show he can heal our wounded foreign alliances without appearing too chummy with the Europeans and putting off meatloaf-eaters at home.

The more interesting question is, perhaps, not what will Obama say - but what can he say? Whatever words the senator from Illinois summons, it’s likely that expectations have risen beyond the point of possible fulfillment.

To quote the German news magazine Der Spiegel (21.7.2008):

“He is awaited like a wizard, who can transform a dull world into a beautiful one. There’s never been so much fuss in Germany over a candidate’s visit. Obama wants to be President of the United States, but there’s so much ado, that it’s as if he were already two steps further, as though he were the president of the world. …Surrounding Obama is the impression that he won’t just change America, but politics itself.”

The article goes on to make an important point, namely that Obama has become as much a symbol as a man. In a time of economic crisis, war and political turmoil, a worried Western world has heaped its hopes on Barack Obama and pinned its future on his star.

The reason the simple campaign slogans of “change” and “hope” have proven so appealing to so many is that the direction of events over the last eight years has left a majority of people hungry, above all, for a dramatic change of course. Whether that would happen under a President Obama, of course, remains to be seen.

Obama is known for his strong, stirring speeches. His opponents have tried to turn this against him by characterizing him as little more than a pretty-talker. But Obama has never been “just words”. He has inspired in people a forgotten optimism that would be the necessary engine of any real change in America. In other words, Obama hasn’t just talked about hope, he’s given people hope, something very real indeed.

Whether Obama is the soon-to-be President of the World is probably a silly question. Even so, as he takes the stage in Berlin on Thursday afternoon, the world will be watching.

A Quarter Pound of Delicious Self-Loathing

Burgers as S&M?

Admittedly the New York Times article linked to above is simply about the growing popularity of hamburgers in Paris and the French fascination with and reinvention of the venerable patty (think blackberry ketchup). There's nothing particularly illicit in the piece, however one particularly choice quote offers a glimpse into the psychology of a country where many aspects of American culture are both publicly decried and privately indulged in :

“It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even,” said Hélène Samuel, a restaurant consultant here. “Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.”

Tres, tres mal...

Read the full story HERE

The World's Game

By Locke Mckenzie

As I sit in a bar in the middle of the Graben, one of Vienna’s oldest and most famous streets, I am surprised.

I watch a German man sporting black, red, and yellow striped hair, and a jersey of the Germany national soccer team climb aboard a statue of a saint blessing a young boy. In his hand he holds the ends of his country’s flag, a flag that does not generally have a place here in Austria. Once he reaches the bishop’s head, he reaches down and fashions a flagpole out of the holy man’s staff. Below him, a crowd of a couple thousand Germans (there were 100,000 there that day) sings soccer tunes.

I take a sip of my beer and remain surprised.

A crowd of Germans making what is unquestionably a German ruckus in the streets of Austria. This is something to gawk at. Considering the fact that the Austrians have been holding a grudge against Germany for the last 60 or so years - ever since Hitler and the Nazi party annexed the country in 1938 – the Germans’ extremely loud and shameless German-centric enthusiasm seems completely contradictory to everything I know.

Welcome to the European Cup, I guess.

When I found out that I was going to have the opportunity to go to the final game of the European Cup (Germany vs. Spain), I instantly knew that it would be something worth writing about. Especially for an American, the occasion was more or less a once in a lifetime chance. The funny thing was that after spending a few days in Vienna, one of the many host cities for this year’s cup and the host of the Final, I began to realize that the final game itself would probably be the least noteworthy thing I saw.

Even the stadium where the game would take place, an arena once used as an overflow concentration camp during WWII, somehow dwarfed the importance of the game in my mind. This was much more than a game, this was a matter of national pride. With memories of their past hanging sometimes all too ominously over the heads of the German people, pride can be a very sensitive issue.

After seeing this massive group of Germans parade around the street – and at the same time hearing the equally large group of Spaniards making their own noise a block away – it was obvious that sensitivity was not the theme of the weekend, and therefore I had to ask a new question: How could this international gathering of exaggeratedly nationalistic people ever be a good thing?

At first I found a positive outcome hard to imagine. When, as an American, do I ever think it beneficial to run around waving the Stars and Stripes over my head and singing the National Anthem? I expected racial slurs to be hurled and bitter nationalistic lines to be drawn on the streets of Vienna. What I experienced during the last days of the European Cup, however, greatly surprised me.

1. June 25th (Flash back to four days before the finals) - I am in a bar in a train station watching the Germany – Turkey game. The Turks are the largest and least integrated immigrant community living in Germany. The crowd in the bar is mostly white-faced Germans. Two Turks sit in the back. When Turkey scores a goal in the last 5 minutes of the game, the German man I am sitting beside turns around. Expecting him to make a derisive comment, I hear him ask, “How the hell are you guys always so good in the last few minutes?” “We eat a lot of Döner,” is the response.
   
   
2. June 29th (Hours before the game) - Walking through a crowded bar full of Spaniards (myself wearing a jersey of the German national team) a Spaniard catches me looking at one of the Spanish girls as she walks by. He smiles, and begins saying something to me in Spanish. The only word I understand is hermanas. He repeats himself a number of times, each time with more elaborate hand gestures, until finally the girl I was caught looking at turns to me and says in German: “He says you can have us. He likes the German girls better.”
   
   
3. June 29th (The Game) – Forced to sit on the Spanish side of the stadium in my Germany jersey I feel a bit outnumbered. To my right, my friend stands cheering with the rest of the crowd for Spain. To my left, an old Frenchman tells me he is also pulling for Spain because of France’s bad history with Germany. Nevertheless, throughout the game he attempts to speak with me in broken German about the good plays and the bad plays and how nervous he is that Spain might lose (he thinks I am German).
   

Each one of these instances was a moment in which two would-be rivals were able to come together over something they enjoyed. Instead of an atmosphere that fostered bitterness between different nations and their fans, which was what I expected given the hooliganism that generally accompanies European soccer, I found an atmosphere of openness. It was a moment in which representatives of different nations were able to make jokes and drink beers together; where they could impress some small snippets of goodness onto the minds of people who didn’t know them before. These are the instances that leave us knowing each other better and that can erase the old notions of past generations and propel us towards a more cohesive future.

Who would have ever guessed that an event where national pride runs strongest could also be an event where nations get along with each other the best?

Certainly not me.