Angela Merkel will celebrate her 63rd birthday in July. Merkel has kept Germany wealthy and stable, as many of the countries around it struggle. Germany’s economy is the largest in Europe. Germany’s strength has resulted in a steady increase in its standing and influence in the world. This, in turn, has forced upon Merkel the issues that may come to define her political career: the eurozone crisis, and the war in Ukraine. She is seen by Putin as the means to reach Europe, and the West looks to her to lead its engagement with Russia. Both sides have no choice but to respect her. Europe’s Iron Lady.
‘Leader of the free world,’ that is what she is being called across and hailed as across the globe: Angela Merkel. Hesitant, shy, rather simple, but firm. Neither flamboyant nor reticent, polite but resilient and on-the-face, not comfortable with histrionics, pseudo-symbolism or atmospherics, but a symbol of sober, sensible, sensitive politics and a head held high; never afraid to go against the current.
She does not even claim to be a feminist, though her positions have been outof-the-box and forthright. You can call it a result of her hard training in East Germany where she grew up and where she lived a quiet life, or her personal, not so visible profile with her husband, professor of theoretical chemistry, Joachim Sauer, who apparently needs no security.
Merkel, truly, has emerged as the leader of a parallel stream of politics in Europe, and despite being a Christian Democrat, the whole world with different ideological paradigms have come to respect her, including the Left. Including, Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom she has channels open, but it is a hard game she is playing. And, truly, in her own quiet way, she is influencing the contemporary political and social discourse, in the subaltern narratives on lanes and bylanes of cities and towns in her country, as much as in power politics in the corridors of power.
The finest expression of it was the manner she ‘handled’ Donald Trump recently in important public platforms, he fumbling and stumbling, clueless about alternative cultures and civilizations, or the finer nuances of international diplomacy, riding on a wave of hate politics, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and white supremacist and isolationist propaganda, often driven by what is now called the fake news of post-truth. But Merkel is not a fake and she is not a Leftist either. She is a centrist, and she is sure of that.
Consider the fact that she was hated at one time by the Greeks, Irish or other countries because she pushed hard the ‘austerity measures’ driven by the financial crisis in the European Union. From that position, she has now emerged as the undisputable leader of the EU, with French leader Emmanuel Macron of France a close and popular ally, who clearly aligned with her, even as he too ‘handled’ Trump with a certain firmness, including a prolonged and firm handshake. The best was the manner they negotiated the climate change deal, and when Trump backtracked, and predictably so, they did not flinch, hesitate or stumble. They categorically stated no more negotiation on the Paris agreement, with the majority of the nations of the world backing this position. This was statesmanship par excellence.
Consider also the fact that Germany is a global power, despite the global financial crisis, austerity measures, the war in the Middle-East and the massive influx of refugees across Europe. And, yet, Merkel refused to buckle down, despite the neo-Nazi or anti-immigrant campaign in Germany and around the neighbourhood, including in France and Britain, even as observers stated that she is in a bad wicket in terms of popular ratings, and Islamophobia is on the rise, especially after Trump’s victory. She resisted the alleged popular misconception or hidden phobia against refugees, or hate politics, and accepted a gigantic mass of people from Syria and the Middle-East: almost one million people.
That is not easy, not even for great political leaders with mass acceptance. But she went against the current, did precisely that, and swayed the German population in support of this great political and social gesture. So much so thousands of Germans came out on the streets to greet the refugees. This was again high statesmanship unprecedented in world history, especially in the current circumstances, where Islamic fundamentalists and ISIS are killing innocent people all over, including in France and Britain.
This was no guilt trip or a move to remove the chapter of mass ethnic cleansing by Adolf Hitler and his concentration camps. This was indeed a move away from guilt, or collective guilt of the past; that Germany has moved away from its murky nightmares, the epic tragedies and monstrosities of the past, the gas chambers. This was a clear and decisive pointer towards optimism and resolution, and a very difficult one at that that Angela Merkel reasserted: of humanism, solidarity with fellow human beings, taking responsibility for a massive human crisis as generated in Syria, and reaffirming the entrenched values of love, sharing and eternal compassion. And there was no Biblical or mythical element attached to it. It was political as much as social and human to share space with one million children, women and men, who have suffered a dirty war for no fault of theirs, and who have gone through trauma and tragedy unprecedented since the crisis in the Balkans in the heart of Europe. This was Merkel showing the way to the world, and with as much humility and steadfastness, as only she can.
Even in terms of Brexit, she did not dillydally. Go if you want, she told the hardliners in Britain. Her lead was taken by the entire European Union. Hence, even large sections of the quit EU campaign in Britain started to dilly-dally. So much so, Theresa May, who went hobnobbing with Trump as the first leader from Europe, found herself in such a sticky wicket that an old Left radical and socialist like Jeremy Corbyn, down in the dumps, rose like a phoenix and showed her true place in both British and European politics; indeed, not only has she become utterly vulnerable and weak, she has helped Corbyn and the progressive forces in the Labour to reassert a different kind of propeople politics. To say that the victory of Macron was not an influence in these sudden British polls, or that Merkel’s strongly inclusive, non-sectarian and humanist policies were not a factor, would be like looking for a winter sunset where there is rainbow shining across a sunny day.
That is why Merkel says what she says, and the people believe her; because she is riding on a new wave of strength and consolidation, unlike what May would have wanted to achieve. She said, “The times in which we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over… I’ve experienced that in the last few days. We Europeans have to take fate into our own hands.”
In that sense, truly, Europe is showing the way to a world which seemed to be fast receding into a neo-Nazi syndrome. It’s the promise of a new world, however still distant: a world driven by the ideals of the French revolution, and the political philosophy of liberty, freedom and harmony, if not equality or egalitarianism. Surely, it will be too utopian to comment that Germany has turned socialist or Left; it is still driven by globalization. But, as the refugee crisis has proved, a new language of hope has started to emerge.
Writes columnist Suzanne Moore in The Guardian: “What an extraordinary woman. There are no problems, she says, only “tasks” to be solved, as she sits rapidly texting in meetings. Refusing to see herself as a female leader, she prefers to think of herself as part of a class of political heavyweights. Increasingly she is in a class of her own and watching her, one thought comes to mind: this is what strong and stable actually looks like.”