Chosen

I came of age politically as a teenager in Germany, and a lot of my baseline political assumptions stem from that place and time. This means that I kind of inevitably spend a lot of time in this blog talking about how Canadian politics doesn't live up to some of the political-cultural ideals I embraced there. But there are also a lot of areas where the reverse is the case. And the biggest and most obvious one is something that matters a great deal to me: immigration.

While Germany has laudably liberalized its immigration laws in recent years out of a desire to attract more skilled professionals, citizenship is still based on the very outdated European "blood and soil" concept. In other words, if you came to Germany from somewhere else, then you just aren't gonna be viewed as German, no way, no how. The result? To the huge waves of immigrants who have come to the country since the postwar period, Germany may be a place of opportunity, but it isn't a second home. They can't vote, so they have no voice. Integration is difficult, leading to huge schisms between the immigrant population and the native one. Oh, and then there are the many handwringing journalists wallpapering the editorial pages with laments about the perpetual failure to raise the German birth rate--a problem that could be solved so easily simply by redefining what it means to be "German."

This is the context in which I read this wonderful speech from Canada's own John Ralston Saul, given back in the spring of 2005 on the occasion of the new Canadian embassy in Berlin. The whole thing is just terrific, but here's the part that the Germans really need to hear:

So how do you deal with high levels of immigration when what you are isn't written down, this sort of unspoken and unwritten agreements of a civilization? The solution Canadians seem to have decided upon is to create a very positive atmosphere around becoming Canadian, which then produces a desire to belong.

In other words, we look upon the idea of immigration as an invitation which carries with it the obligation. The invitation to come to Canada is an invitation to become a citizen; and we are extremely annoyed if people don't quickly become citizens. It's sort of an insult to us if they don't want to become citizens. They can become citizens after three years. Some do it after four years, most have done it within five years.

That sense that we want them to be part of our civilization is key to creating this atmosphere of belonging.

Obviously, as soon as an immigrant arrives, they have rights. But the trick is that as soon as they become citizens, they have responsibilities and obligations. If they know that the invitation to come to our country is going to involve obligations and responsibilities within three to five years, they're going to be very eager to seize them. They're going to speak out. They're going to join political parties. You may agree or disagree with some of what they'll say, and that's fine. The point is they're going to want to show that they belong and what they realize is that the invitation is conscious and intentional, not accidental or unconscious. They are chosen.

This rings remarkably true for me. I have a pretty inherent distrust of patriotism, and so I didn't really expect to feel more like I belonged in Canada after becoming a citizen. My decision to officially apply for citizenship was really more about gaining the right to vote than anything. But the process did change me, in subtle but profound ways. I'd always been engaged in Canadian life, but citizenship strengthened that engagement. I began saying 'we' when talking about Canada, without even thinking about it. And yes, I also began to feel a responsibility to this culture and society that I hadn't felt before--a responsibility to give something back to the country that had taken me on.

There's an awful lot we can learn from Germany and other European countries about things like political culture and sensible environment policies, but when it comes to immigration and 21st-century population issues, there's at least as much they can learn from us.

Culture clashes for Africa

As one who was a teenager in the '80s, I remember well the period when you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing one or another of the wave of pop songs recorded to raise money for famine-struck African nations. The phenomenon started with the British song, after which the idea spread country by country across the globe to the United States, to Canada, to Germany, to France, and to Spain and Latin America. I collected these songs back then--at my core I'm a big ol' sap, and the fifteen-year-old IP just loved them.

The movement wasn't as perfect as people tried to make it, though. It was saturated with the zeitgeist of the '80s: glitzy, wealthy pop stars coming together to record mostly not terribly catchy tunes with thrown-together lyrics, and sending the money they earned off to corrupt regimes that assured most of it didn't actually reach the people who needed it most. More interesting than that in retrospect, though, is the fact that since the whole point was to raise money for starving Africans, each country had to use the kinds of appeals they thought would work on their own citizens. What this ended up meaning was that each of the songs unintentionally got at the core of each country's individual helper ideology.

I mean, compare:

the British one: "We're all happy and snug in our homes, celebrating a Christian holiday. But there is a faraway place where people are so miserable that they DON'T EVEN KNOW that this Christian holiday is happening! Doesn't that make you want to donate money?"

the American one: "People are dying, and we are the ONLY ones who can help them. Their fates rest on OUR shoulders. And besides, it would make God happy. Doesn't that make you want to donate money?"

the Canadian one: "We can't pretend these bad things aren't happening. Instead, we have to prove to everyone that we are a CARING PEOPLE. It's our responsibility. Doesn't that make you want to donate money?"

the Spanish one: "We want to be a SHINING BEACON OF LIGHT to people who are sad and hungry. All we have to do is sing, and we can make that happen. Doesn't that make you want to donate money?"

the French one: "People are dying in Ethiopia, and that's AWFUL. Our song isn't nearly enough, but it's all we've got. There's a slight chance that we can still help them. Doesn't that make you want to donate money?"

and the German one: "In a faraway place, there are people who are suffering horrible experiences that we're going to describe here in excruciating detail. Some of them are even CHILDREN. The few things people have halfheartedly tried to do for them so far haven't helped, and the only reason anybody's ever bothered at all is because they didn't want the fates of these poor sods to weigh on their consciences. Doesn't that make you want to donate money?"

Apparently it worked, too, because all of these projects together raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Which is quite the phenomenon in and of itself, if you think about it.

It seems I didn't quite manage to "resist the pull of cynicism" today. Oops. Sorry 'bout that.

[Update: Welcome, visitors from the Falcon Twin webcomic. There's a certain irony in me getting a link about a "cynicism meter" "going to eleven" (given my tagline at the top, if nothing else) but I suppose it serves me right after this post!]

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.