Humane Angela has fans who aren’t just grateful refugees
Merkel doesn’t seek an eye for an eye, in stark contrast to what Trump is all about. The German Chancellor, with that muscular handshake of hers, is heading a new breed of compassionate leaders
The Sword of Damocles is a Greek mythological metaphor representing ever-present perils. But this is European, so forget it. Let’s go America First. Remember Skylab, the rogue American satellite that hurtled towards the Earth in 1979? The first manned space station had become a 77-tonne loose cannon with its orbit fast decaying. The world waited with baited breath, uncertain where the orbiter would fall and end its final journey to self-destruction.
Fast forward to 2017 and recreate the Skylab threat as a euphemism for Donald Trump’s temper tantrums that have befallen whoever has come in his way, across all continents big and small. Politicians and world leaders scurry for cover as his authoritarian lingo and etiquettical abuses shower down like the burning Skylab debris. With great power comes great responsibility. This sage wisdom doesn’t hold water in the case of the American president. Trump-the-president has become as temperamental and unpredictable as were Trump-the-candidate and Trump-the-businessman. Old habits die hard, especially narcissistic traits. Many lies have passed under the bridge since his arrival at the White House about soliciting help from Russian intelligence to further his presidential chances.
The question on every political mind is: Can Trump be trusted to lead the free world at a time when we are facing myriad problems like bloody regional conflicts, mounting refugee influx, gripping poverty, declining growth, and devastating terror attacks in European capitals? No one in his sane mind would think so. The era in which military might called the shots is over. Statesmen of international stature need to show their commitment to the values of liberal democracy. Wearing the armour of a narrow-minded autocrat, Trump has taken on the world at multiple levels. He has barred the entry of Muslims from certain countries; summarily expelled illegal immigrants, wrecking thousands of families; unilaterally quit the Paris climate accord; attacked the media; fought the EU, China and Mexico on international trade; and questioned the very principle of the Nato alliance while wanting to work with controversial leaders accused of human rights violations.
Enter Angela Merkel. The principled German Chancellor is heading a new breed of humane leaders, including Canada’s Trudeau and France’s Macron. She was sucked into a leadership void that Barack Obama’s grace and class had left on his retirement and that Trump’s crass act failed to fill. Trumpism contrasted with the political values of Merkel which she was vociferous about in her congratulatory message to the American president-elect: “Democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule of law and the dignity of the individual, regardless of their origin, skin colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political views.” Trump replied with a snub, refusing to shake her hand during their maiden meeting at the White House.
This ironic reversal of national agendas, wherein Germany embraces values that America abandons, is a rejoinder to political theorists who argue that the scars of World War history haven’t healed for Merkel to don the mantle of global guardian. If modern America, its hands stained with the blood of racial victims, can be a global champion of civil rights, Germany, which has made genuine efforts to bury its sinful past, has every right to stake its claim to global leadership.
The world has already seen the writing on the Berlin Wall that had crumbled. The former scientist from East Germany, with a doctorate in quantum chemistry, has of late taken a muscular stance towards international and domestic issues. The longest serving European leader, who has already
Merkel doesn’t seek an eye for an eye, in stark contrast to what Trumpism is all about... The world took notice of her compassion as images of her selfies with the refugees filled international media.
thrown her hat into the ring for a fourth consecutive term as chancellor, has called upon Europe to be prepared to look after itself, depending less on the EU-weary US and UK. “The era in which we could fully rely on others is over to some extent… We Europeans must fight for our own future and destiny,” Merkel sounded out in a warning to Trump at a campaign rally in May. As a Berliner friend once told me, there was nothing standing across Germany post-World War, all razed to dust in Allied bombings. Rising like a phoenix, they brought up the nation as the strongest economy in a few decades. East Berlin, which was a sea of grey in the Cold War era, was rebuilt to a swanky city in a few years after the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel knows better than anyone that the Americana is no match for that sort of German perseverance.
Merkel was thrust into the limelight when she threw open the doors to a surging tide of Syrian refugees fleeing tyranny in Syria and other conflict zones. “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won’t be the Europe we wished for,” she told her countrymen who stood by her side and went to the railway stations to welcome exhausted refugees — more than a million of them so far. The world took notice of her compassion as images of her selfie sessions with the refugees filled the international media.
According to Constanze Stelzenmüller, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Merkel’s Germany is making a genuine effort to live up to its responsibilities as the de facto leader of Europe. It’s spending more on defence, arming and training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the war against Daesh in Iraq, sending combat units to protect Lithuania, deploying soldiers to Mali to fight terrorism, and spearheading the European sanctions against Russia, says Stelzenmüller, tracking the traits of a visionary in Merkel.
Troubled Eurozone nations saddled with massive debts look up to the Mutti, a German sobriquet in reference to her motherly figure, to douse violent street protests. Rejecting a double-speed Eurozone, the taskmaster has pushed through bitter austerity measures in return for bailouts in those fledgling economies, earning herself the portraiture of an economic Hitler.
Merkel doesn’t seek an eye for an eye, in stark contrast to what Trumpism is all about. When a Tunisian suspect rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people, the chancellor called on Germans to hold firm to democratic values in the face of terror. “As we go on with our lives and work, we tell the terrorists: You are murderers full of hate, but you will not determine how we live and want to live. We are free, compassionate and open,” she declared, ripping a page from the philosophy of non-violence. People listened, giving her Christian Democratic Union a resounding victory in the recent state elections.
Political analysts, who watched the Trump-Macron bromance at the recent Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, say Merkel has a leadership challenge growing in her backyard. It’s true that the new French president is a shooting star on the European political horizon, but his “muscular handshakes” with Trump have raised many an eyebrow. If a man is known by the company he keeps, Macron had better watch it. His White House friend’s orbit is decaying by the second.