Bush's touching cultural faux pas

As an American teenager living in Germany for the first time back in the 1980s, one of the hardest things for me to come to terms with was the fact that Germans don't touch each other very much. Oh, sure, you touched your boyfriend or girlfriend, but mostly when you were alone. And apart from the handshakes that happened whenever you greeted an acquaintance, there was essentially no casual touch--no hello or goodbye hugs, no giving someone a cuff or a gentle poke in the arm to make a point, no laying a reassuring hand on the shoulder of an emotionally distraught friend. Among the worst faux pas I made as a fifteen-year-old exchange student was reaching out to touch the necklace of one of my teachers and telling her that I liked it. Touching a teacher--someone with stature--was one of the worst things I could have possibly done.

At first all this felt cold and distant, and I resented it. But eventually I had to realize that this was no fairer on my part than the Germans' charges of Americans' "superficiality" that resulted from similar kinds of misunderstandings. It was a different culture, and they simply had different ways of expressing universal human emotions. This is the sort of lesson any American in Germany has to learn: any business executive, any diplomat, and certainly any politician. Unfortunately, it seems to be a lesson President Bush has utterly failed to wrap his mind around, given the fact that he felt perfectly justified in coming up behind Chancellor Merkel and giving her a little massage during the G8 summit in St. Petersburg.

Taylor Marsh refers to the incident as "groping," and Germany's infamous Bild-Zeitung certainly did try to make it sound titillating. Given the Germans' tendency to reserve casual touch for intimates and the sub-tabloid's tendency to sensationalize, this is perhaps unsurprising. The headline reads "Bush: Love Attack on Merkel!" and the text of the article translates as follows:

This political love is proverbially gripping! The U.S. president George W. Bush at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg. From behind he creeps impishly toward Chancellor Angela Merkel and surprises her with a quickie massage. You can see how the chancellor reacted to Bush's "love attack" here: Chancellor Angela Merkel was talking to Italy's prime minister Romano Prodi when George W. Bush came into the hall ... Merkel was having a conversation with her neighbour, without realizing the Bush was coming at her from behind ... suddenly the U.S. president laid both hands on Merkel's shoulders ... began his Texan one-second-massage ... the appalled chancellor winces and jerks her hands up, not knowing who grabbed her from behind ... and after the joke, President Bush heads for his conference table with an innocent air. Merkel sees the surprising love attack with a sense of humour, and smiles.

That's the Bild-Zeitung, though, and an editorial called "Alone among men" that appeared in the Berlin-area regional newspaper Märkische Allgemeine came much closer to nailing what really happened:

Although it was her first appearance there and although she was the only woman in the mega-macho-club of the G8, Merkel didn't let on at all that Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair and the other alpha males might have even tried to take away what was rightfully hers. Only George W. Bush didn't quite get it. While his fellow leaders were sitting at the table at the opening meeting, he came and caressed Angie's shoulders. She reacted as if it had been a natural disaster.

Nothing like that would ever have happened to Vladimir Putin. As long as you don't approach him with questions of democracy and criticism of his neoimperialistic ambitions, he abides by a strict sense of etiquette.

Far from showing his great "love" for the chancellor, what this event really illustrates is Bush's appalling insensitivity to the fact that not everybody else's culture is just like his own. In Germany, this will be perceived not as a joke, but as a man showing a woman her place. Don't look so shocked, Mr. President--there are actually places in the world where you don't get to massage the shoulders of a woman (and a fellow world leader) whom you barely know. After six long years of hobnobbing with the international elite, I'd think you might have figured that out.

(Hat tip to Majikthise.)

Update 21 July: The Berlin-based daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel now has a column on the incident, as well as on the reaction back on Bush's side of the Atlantic:

It took a few days for the first shock to recede, for the Internet to finally fulfill its function as a trading post for pictures and to present Bush's assault in endless variety. "Bush gropes Merkel" is the catchphrase, though it's important to pronounce it the American way: "Mörkel." But was it a form of momentary sexual harrassment? Or was the President just behaving like a typical Texan uncle at a family barbecue?

Update 27 July: Willkommen, Spiegel-Leser. Eigentlich hätte ich gedacht, der Inhalt meines Beitrags wäre schon klar, aber offensichtlich zählt man automatisch zu denen, die das als sexuelle Belästigung aufgefasst haben, wenn man auf der anderen Seite des grossen Teichs steht! Als Erklärung dann also: glaube ich, Merkel hat Buschs "Blitz-Massage" als sexuelle Belästigung gesehen? Nee. Glaube ich, Merkel hat das als (wahrscheinlich unbeabsichtigtes) Zeichen davon gesehen, dass Bush sie als ein etwas minderwertiges Mitglied der G8 sieht? Das schon. Damit stehe ich eher an der Seite der Märkischen Allgemeine als an der Seite der amerikanischen Blogger (oder--um Gottes Willen--an der Seite der Bild-Zeitung, die das ganze offensichtlich ein wenig "versexen" wollte).

Aber noch wichtiger: ich sehe Bushs grossen Fehler hier nicht als den Fehler eines Frauenfeindes, sondern als den Fehler einer falsch behandelten Kulturkollision. Nach langer Auslandsaufenthalt kenne ich die deutsche Kultur sehr gut, aber ich kenne auch die texanische, und es ist schon wahr, dass jemand in Bushs Alter sich dort viel eher solche beiläufigen Berührungen erlaubt als in Deutschland. Peinlich ist es, dass der Mann, der vor seiner Präsidentschaft kaum im Ausland gewesen war und erst recht keine Fremdsprachen beherrscht, auch so unbeholfen mit den Sitten und Gebräuchen anderer Länder umgeht. Und das zu sagen war Sinn und Zweck dieses Beitrags.