Although this time around surely no one would have tried to prohibit Barack Obama from delivering a speech right in front of the Brandenburg Gate, the fact that his first trip to Germany as president is merely a fleeting visit to tranquil Baden-Baden and not a big spectacle in bustling Berlin has provoked no reaction worth mentioning in our country, either from politicians or the public.
And why should it? The new president’s term has scarcely begun, and almost all his official visits lie ahead of him; previously, he’d been only to Canada. Given the present crisis and empty coffers, working meetings geared toward results are more appropriate for politicians than a program of touristy forays, throngs waving flaglets and bulletproof glass, the whole culminating in a neo-feudal state banquet.
This objective outlook, however, has done nothing to diminish Obama-enthusiasm in Germany; on the contrary, it has imparted, especially to citizens inclined toward criticism, the soothing feeling that the glamour that surrounds the American president as it does no other statesman on the world stage is a natural and inevitable byproduct of his personality, and not an end in itself.
The euphoria on the occasion of Mr. Obama’s visit to Berlin last summer, the rejoicing after his election victory, and the upsurge of emotion that gripped many German television viewers too as they watched the inauguration festivities have by now turned into an enduring sense of relief. It seems we’ve reached a second stage in our relationship with Mr. Obama, as Americans have; thus Germans weren’t likely to fly into the sort of frenzy that we are observing among the British and Czechs and Turks, who are seeing Mr. Obama in the flesh for the first time.
Many of the people I talk to describe a new stage in their relationship with the United States, a condition of positive normality that has a different quality from what they felt when Bill Clinton — another man they liked — was president. Nevertheless, in the medium term, current warnings that Mr. Obama must inevitably disappoint the hopes we’ve placed on him will probably turn out to have been somewhat justified. The incessant stimulation of today’s news media — which keeps the public in permanent expectation of the next superlative and of the ever-greater satisfaction it is sure to provide — entails the danger that a peculiar feeling of emptiness will spread, followed by shame for past exuberance, as after a night of furious drinking.
So far, however, I’ve been unable to detect the slightest symptom of any such emotional hangover. Even those who were resolutely skeptical that Mr. Obama’s undeniable charisma would be combined with concrete political skills have been imbued with restrained optimism. People like my 75-year-old grandparents, who live in the countryside and have always thought and voted conservatively, are of the opinion that this presidency is off to a good start, as are nearly all of my friends here in Berlin. The announcements made and the measures undertaken in Washington in the past 10 weeks — including the beginning of the process of closing the prison at Guantánamo, the revocation of the licenses to torture in terrorism cases, and last week’s announcement that America will seek a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council — have given rise to the impression that the new president means to turn his campaign promises into action as decisively and quickly as structures, bureaucracies and legislative procedures allow.
As for his efforts to solve the financial and economic crisis, at present no one feels really capable of judging whether or not they’re the right ones. All the same, at the G-20 summit meeting in London, a compromise halted the conflict between Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France on one side and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Obama on the other.
While the American and British press made much of how unhappy most European leaders have been with Mr. Obama’s stimulus package and other efforts to counter the economic meltdown, it would be wrong to assume that the man on the street — or at least the German on the street — shares that view.
Most of the people I’m in contact with, many of them intellectuals inclined to the humanities or the arts, can comprehend only gradually and hesitantly the extent to which the economies of the world have become one inextricable tangle, and we never cease to be amazed at the level of irrationality present in the reactions of the institutions and individuals that play a part in the economic process. In us, it elicits a shrug expressive of something between cluelessness and resignation.
In general, the politically minded members of my generation have world views shaped by the conflicting ideologies of the 20th century, even after the economic beginnings of those ideologies had coagulated into state doctrine and philosophical or socio-psychological theoretical constructs. The extremely mood-driven reactions on the international stock exchanges and in financial centers suggest that humanistic ethical criteria and rationally considered arguments alone will not suffice, in the present crisis, either to support individual opinions or to develop effective solutions.
For now, we ponder two things: Mr. Obama’s efforts to renew America’s claim that it accords greater political weight to moral tenets grounded in reason than to the urgings of self-interest and lobbyists, and his winning combination of intelligence, compassion and charm. I can’t remember ever seeing Angela Merkel smile at anyone the way she smiled at him in the photographs from the dinner at 10 Downing Street. Likewise, the images coming out of Baden-Baden on Friday evening make clear that whether she and the president are reviewing the parade together, meeting selected citizens or fielding questions from the press, the chancellor, too, has come down with an unequivocal case of Obama fever.
It gives one the hope that Barack Obama actually is the right man in the right place at the right time. And for the time being, neither I nor the majority of the people I know can find any real reason to surrender that hope.
Christoph Peters, the author of the novel The Fabric of Night. This essay was translated by John Cullen from the German.