09th Jul 2008
Berlin to welcome Obama as President
Last week the French Ambassador to the UK may have described his president as a political force of nature but this summer a man who has not even been elected to the highest office will cross the atlantic like a a great warm wind. Obama is coming to Europe.
The media tell us he intends to make a major foreign policy speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, an honour normally reserved for American presidents. He may be the presumptive nominee in the US but in Germany it appears he is already the presumptive president.
According to the International Herald Tribune:
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the capital would be thrilled to welcome Obama, wherever he wanted to speak.“Of course the Brandenburg Gate is an important symbol and we would be delighted if one of the most promising presidential candidates, namely Barack Obama, would use Berlin as a platform, either before the Brandenburg Gate or elsewhere in the city,” Wowereit told N24 broadcaster.
Wowereit diplomatically added that Berlin would also welcome Republican candidate John McCain.
The prospect of an Obama presidency has excited many in Germany, where trans-Atlantic relations have cooled significantly during the tenure of President George W. Bush. A poll of 501 Germans conducted last Thursday for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper found that 72 percent would like to see Obama win the presidency, with just 11 percent preferring McCain. Bild am Sonntag did not give a margin of error.
In the past, only sitting U.S. presidents — not candidates — have had the honor of addressing a crowd in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which has symbolized both a divided and later a united Germany.
Ronald Reagan memorably stood on the former West German side of the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, exhorting Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “open this gate” and “tear down this wall” — referring to the Berlin Wall that for decades divided the city in two.
In 1994, Bill Clinton symbolically spoke from the other, formerly Eastern, side, declaring “Berlin is free!” In 2002, the former U.S. president addressed a crowd of 1 million at the formal unveiling of the newly refurbished monument.
Although John F. Kennedy did not speak at the Brandenburg Gate, his declaration in Berlin of solidarity with besieged West Berliners in 1963 — “Ich bin ein Berliner” — is deeply remembered here.
With his message of hope, his relative youth and his trim figure, Obama has often been compared to Kennedy, especially in the eyes of many Germans.
Also on the trip will be visits to London and France. It is a terrible pity he is not coming here. I am quite sure the streets of Dublin and Belfast would fill to welcome a man who has put hope back into politics.
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