American Views Abroad


Thursday, July 13, 2006
 
The World Cup provided a wonderful, much needed diversion from hard and brutal news. Reality is now setting in, but crossing lines with the World Cup were bits and pieces in the news about the upcoming Bush visit to Stralsund, about three to four hours away from Hamburg. Our original intention was to be part of the 'welcoming committee'. First though, a bit of background on the political dialogue at the breakfast table between me and my German husband before the 2000 election. He: The US is getting out of control. Me: Yes, there are very worrying aspects but believe me, when push comes to shove, we have our laws, Constitution, Bill of Rights which no one, certainly not a President, would ever violate.

Right --- don't want to be reminded about these words today.

I do recall back in the mid-nineties when a Senator was being particularly vile and outrageous about the UN asking a US diplomat whom I knew personally if they in the State Department and others in Washington were not concerned about how the rest of the world interprets all this. No, he said. Look, everyone knows it's local and nobody takes it seriously.

Right ---- perhaps we should have paid a lot more attention to such pandering to the locals in some parts of the US. No point rehashing all the details of the double standard we were living back then. The State Department was loyally expounding one of democracy's most basic elements --- one person, one vote. Locally, of course, the Electoral College is the law of the land and it is most definitely not based on a national one person, one vote.

In pre-November 2000 days I would have been reluctant to demonstrate when a US President visits the country I reside in. Today, after all that has happened, I no longer have any qualms about taking part, depending on who is organizing it and where and what kind of event he has been invited to. These last two weeks have been taken up with trying to keep up with all the security arrangements which very much intrude on the lives of those living in the city and area POTUS will be in. First, it was announced that his visit to Stralsund would be on Friday. Easy enough, book a hotel in Rostock for Thursday evening, miss only one day of work, spend the weekend on the coast, but take the train to Stralsund on Friday morning. Then, it was announced he will be there on Thursday. So that means getting up real early and driving in. Alas no, because it was specifically stated that many miles of autobahn and roads would be closed off, as well as beaches, waterways, harbors. The center of the town will be shut down completely, even those living there will not be allowed to leave their homes, no shops would be opened, bikes would not be allowed, but baby carriages would. According to the website of ARD, the first public TV station here: 'Bush met a crowd of handpicked Stralsunders who had undergone extensive background checks. A quarter of the crowd was made up of students from a nearby naval academy.' Nice way 'to get to know' the locals. We wondered if the trains would be re-routed which happened when he was in Mainz. We also asked ourselves what is the point of demonstrating when one has so many security hurdles to cross and so far away from the events planned. Here from the ARD website: 'An estimated 5,000 people intend to demonstrate.......but they'll mainly be protesting for their own satisfaction because just as in Mainz, Bush is unlikely to see any of the protesters, who've been relegated to the outskirts of the city.' In the end radio and TV reports on several hundred protestors.

There is another element that discouraged many from joining in. The invitation for Bush to visit Merkel's election district which is in a state run by a coalition of the SPD and the new Left Party turned the visit into more of a tug-of-war in very local affairs. Newspapers here reported on insults, invitations arriving very last minute, the PDS, a party with roots to the Communist Party of East Germany taking a prominent role in organizing the protests and the fact that his visit was mainly to give the local economy which is in a depressed state a boost.

Instead of demonstrating we decided to sign an open letter to Merkel that was published on page 5 of the local newspapers there, the Ostsee Zeitung organized by Friedens Forum. The letter can be read at http://www.koop-frieden.de/ under Iran Brief an Merkel zum Bush Besuch (left bar). It seemed a good way, under the circumstances, for organizations and individuals to make public an explicit statement to the German Chancellor asking her to urge Bush to work for a diplomatic solution with Iran and it reaches a far wider public. The executive committee of American Voices Abroad in Berlin also has an open letter to Merkel at www.americanvoicesabroad.net/cgi-bin/berlin.pl#merkel.

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