Hurra Barack Obama Ist Da

Mayhill Fowler, Off the Bus
9:00 PM, BERLIN,
24 July 2008
Back at the Adlon and pondering the speech. Live blogging, you only capture
a moment. I'll be thinking about Obama's introduction of himself to the Old World for a long time. Basically, he gave the speech
that many of us Americans knew he would give, but that Europeans, for all their
interest in U.S. Politics, were not ready to hear.
It's not going to be easy for a President Obama, should he win in November,
to shape European mindsets. Likely it's a good thing that he found that out
early -- today. After the speech, a Brit reporter and I listened and took notes
as Director Carr of the American Academy in Berlin
held forth. "The audience expected a rock concert," he said.
"Instead they got a serious, nuanced speech on foreign policy." This
was Carr implicitly addressing the fact that the bar had been set so high for
Obama in Berlin
that perhaps it was not surprising that, on first consideration, he failed to
rise to it. But Carr found the speech thoughtful and beautiful, as well as
surprising. "It was aimed at Europeans, not at Americans. That's not what
we expected. We thought it would be a campaign speech directed at the American
audience back home."
Trust Barack Obama for boldness.
At the beginning of his remarks, Carr said, "I wanted to see if he is
real, if there is anything beyond the mythology." Carr got his answer --
he couldn"t praise "the subtlety and humility" of Obama's speech
enough. Other Brits heard a different Obama. "It was a speech to Americans
on foreign soil," one young man said. "To sharpen Americans'
diplomatic skills."
The final crowd tally for Berlin
is not in. Richard Wolffe says the crowd stretched to the Brandenburg Gate.
Will check the many German newspapers tomorrow.
7:20 PM, BERLIN,
24 July 2008
Senator Obama takes the podium and at first many in the crowd don't
recognize him, for one of the Secret Service checking the podium shortly before
is African-American. Obama calls himself not a candidate but a citizen, a
citizen of the world. Speaking in English, with no German phrases, he begins
quietly, to subdued applause.
Immediately, he invokes freedom, complimenting Berlin, "this city of all cities knows
the dream of freedom."
Now is the time to build more bridges across the world." Interestingly,
Obama is echoing much of Bill Clinton's speech at the Brandenburg Gate on July
12, 1994. "Building bridges, not walls," Clinton had said.
Despite the distracting echo from the video screens down the Strasse, the crowd
is slowly warming to Obama.
They aren't so enthused about "a new dawn in the Middle East," but
they applaud on Darfur, nuclear weaponry and
"saving the planet"--the latter most of all. Berliners take in
politely Obama's call for more action in Afghanistan.
"People of Berlin,
this is our moment, this is our time.". Now towards the end of his speech,
the Senator weaves in common phrases from his campaign. "The road ahead
will be long."
The crowd has liked some of what they heard, but clearly they are just
getting to know Barack Obama. To what extent he has met their expectations
remains to be seen. Obama himself seems tired. At one point, he even stumbled
in his phrasing--a rarity for him. Persuading Europeans to his view of joint
engagement in the world is going to be a long process. Tonight has been a
wobbly first step (great expectations contributing to a sense of an
underwhelming performance), but as Obama himself has just said, the road will
be long.
Later I'll tally the parallels with Clinton's
speech. Bill has yet another reason to be pleased.
7:00 PM, BERLIN,
24 July 2008
Gypsy music now -- must be in Europe -- not
to mention the fact that I haven't heard anything but German for three hours.
The German press are taking photos of one another.
Traveling press (American) has arrived. As well as the mosquitoes.
Police estimate the crowd at 3,000 around Lady Victory and another 30,000 in
the Strasse outside the security perimeter. Giant TV screens are out there for
the late arrivals. Likely more people are strolling and cycling forward.
Berliners have taken a casual attitude about the timing of this event. It is a
beauteous evening, calm and free.
Have been re-reading Kennedy's and Clinton's Berlin speeches. How
often will Obama invoke freedom?
4:15 PM, BERLIN,
24 July 2008:
How can there be so many German reporters? And not most of them TV? This is
a nation devoted to reading.
Crowd in front of the monument has reached parity with press. They appear to
be Europeans, mostly. How to tell -- other than the cigarette smoke blowing
towards the podium set in front of Victory? Shoes. Energy level. Obama crowds
stateside are never docile.
Of the few people I've questioned in the Tiergarten, everyone says they like
Obama because they believe he will take the lead on climate change. "He is
very close to Gore," a young Fraulein confides while her toddler stands
quietly at her side.
Now here's an irony: Germans themselves have already set an example. No
frigid air conditioning here -- not even at the Adlon. Despite wurst and beer,
moreover, Germans are fit. Take the commuter train out to Potsdam, and you'll notice the absence of
parking lots at the stations for the towns along the way. People walk to and
from, even in winter.
Thank God some live reggae. It's kinda tentative though.
4:00 PM, BERLIN,
24 July 2008:
More press than people at Siegessaule, which needs one of those good
European monument cleanings, by the way. Once again I've talked my way into the
press compound. Although I've been credentialed for this event, my name is not
on the list. Furthermore, the German Obama volunteers are a seriously bossy
group of women. "Nein! You have left the working space" -- frowns
accompanied by tapping of a watch face -- "it is four o'clock. No
return." Three wardens confirm this decree among one another in rapid
German. Too ridiculous. There's a press path to our own special porta-potties
and snack bar (not as yummy as the ones along the Strasse.) I push past them.
Derivative Euro techno-music is playing. Just last week I'd said out loud,
to no one in particular at a McCain meet in Albuquerque, that if I heard canned
Bruce Springsteen one more time at a campaign event I'd spit. Be careful what
you wish for.
3:00 PM, BERLIN,
24 July 2008:
No million for Obama in Berlin.
Bill Clinton, who used to brag about the size of his crowds (a mil in Africa once), will be pleased. When I broach this
possibility with Dirk Minow, he spews a torrent of laughter-punctuated German
consonants -- something about a synapse-crazed German newspaper editor
fostering the possibility. "Everybody will stay home and watch on
TV," Dirk says. The man from Kiel
should know. He's been assiduously following Obama on TV and YouTube.
With a sunflower in his straw hat, Dirk is standing at the corner of 17 Juni
and Y. Rabin Strasse. He has the "welcome standard" he made at 2 AM
as the gathering point for Americans Abroad. He's holding a sign urging Obama
to run for Chancellor. Despite the sign, the standard and the sunflower,
enthusiasts have yet to appear. A Japanese TV reporter is not detered and
repeatedly thrusts his microphone at Dirk. More laughter. Clutches of Americans
are racing by us on bicycles.
The action -- really the lack of it -- is back up the road at the Adlon.
Stepping out the front entrance, I was taken aback to see, behind barricades,
several hundred people standing as still and quiet as small animals caught in
headlights on a country road. "They're waiting to see Obama arrive,"
the doorman tells me, before adding with hauteur, "but of course he's already
inside."
Dirk and a new pal Heiner are disappointed that I "haven't met Obama in
a small group." They are counting on him to bring major change to
German-American relations. When I say that could mean more German troops in Afghanistan
(and not just in the relatively peaceful districts), they don't seem to hear
me. In fact, both men can not quite get beyond the fact that I come from the land of Bush. Guilt by association is seductive,
I suppose.
Continuing through the Tiergarten, I find that the Obama food at this event
is going to be the best ever: Pilsner, wursts and grilled summer mushrooms.
Berliners are doing a brisk business.


5:00 AM, BERLIN,
24 July 2008:
"Be Obama, be change, be Berlin,"
the Berliner Zeitung babbles on the morning of the American Senator's visit to
this city. The newspaper goes on to extol "the openness of the city,"
and how Obama will be showcasing Berlin
to the world. Gary Smith, the director of the American
Academy in Berlin,
tells Zeitung, "For America, Berlin
is the most interesting city..." Not sure that the folks back in the
States would agree. But we all can see that Berlin, and Europeans farther afield than
the River Spree, are caught in the grip of Obamamania. "Hurra! Barack
Obama ist da!" Or, as the editorial page of Zeitung puts it, "Yes, he
comes."
Every German newspaper today has devoted several pages to the Obama visit.
"Obama, Obama, Obama -- kaum ein Blatt in Huseyin Dimirs Kreuzberger
Zeitungsladen," says the Berliner Morgenpost, reporting that there are no
papers left in the shops in Kreuzberger, the Turkish quarter of the city, an
unwitting reference to the strained relationship between Germany and its
Turkish immigrants. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung analyzes the pictorial
differences between (the now discarded) Das Obama-Siegel and the U.S.
Presidential Seal. (After all, this is the culture that introduced the
discipline of art history.)
At 5 AM, this far north the sun has been up for a while, and I'm standing at
my bedroom window on the top floor of the Hotel Adlon and looking out at a
completely empty city. At home, early commuters would already be to-ing and
fro-ing on the streets and sidewalks. This is but one example of how Berlin and Amerika don't
really have all that much in common. Yet we share some history. This bond, as
well as other histories, will be the prism through which everyone views Senator
Obama's remarks this evening. By now, likely everyone knows he is speaking at
the most unlikely of venues, the Siegessaule, a monument to German victory in
the Franco-Prussian War and more generally to Prussian militarism itself. The
statue has given its name to the best-known gay newspaper in Berlin. It is the destination of the annual Love Parade. In
a strange way, therefore, the Siegessaule is right for Obama, in peace and in
war, for it seems likely that if he is our next President, he will be known
both for "love," in the adoration of supporters, and for
"war," since he is determined to re-direct the war on terror to
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This early I'm thinking not so much of Barack Obama as Dirk Mirow, the
self-described German Obamaniac "from Kiel at the Baltic Sea" who is
organizing the Americans Abroad for Obama gathering at the Siegessaule. Kiel reminds me of German
submariners. And it always seems strange, as a baby-boomer, to be standing on
the eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate. Growing up during the Cold War, I had
"night thoughts" about the evil designs of Russians and East Germans,
whom I perceived completely through the lens of American propaganda. The
eastern part of Berlin,
for example, is nothing like the grim picture the Stalinist apartment blocks
near the Wall presented to the world. With its lovely parks, old churches and
Art Nouveau apartment blocks, the former East Berlin,
and not the tired 60's architecture in much of the western part of the city, is
the favored haunt. An historical irony -- the German papers today are making
much of irony -- it will be interesting to hear if Senator Obama invokes it.
Obama's presence here is campaigning -- of course. I'm guessing that many
Americans will take a dim view of his traipsing about Europe.
So exactly what he is campaigning for is unclear. Leader of the world? Curiously,
the Obama postcards that volunteers have been handing out in Berlin are completely in German. Certainly,
many young Europeans embrace him as . . . some kind of leader. "It
[Obama's visit to Berlin]
symbolized [sic] the good relationship, which Obama will have with all
Europeans and citizen [sic] of the world," writes one European fan on the
Obama website. Later today I'm talking with some of these European Obamaniacs,
for I'll be live blogging from Strasse des 17 Juni, the part of Unter den Linden
renamed after a 1956 East German uprising in which hundreds of people were
killed. The boulevard leads from the Brandenburg Gate westward to the
Tiergarten, where Obama has that rendezvous with German history.
The Senator will get his Tor experience, after all -- and not just because
spectators will go through security at the Brandenburg Gate and then walk the
blocks west along Strasse des 17 Juni to the Tiergarten. (The closing of the
ancillary streets will be a massive undertaking. No wonder Obama is costing the
city of Berlin
so many euros.) Obama meets Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit this afternoon here at
the Adlon, in an upstairs room overlooking the Gate. By 6 AM, security is
putting up the first of the barricades outside the hotel. By 8 AM, the
concierge staff has beautifully arranged an arrivals table for the traveling
press, and the requisite German Shepherd is heading upstairs to secure the
floor. The lobby, full of other reporters, could be a harbinger of just how big
the afternoon's stroll along the Strasse will be. I can't wait to find out.
Stay tuned.