stories

Summer in Germany. My boy is big enough to sit in a seat mounted on the back of my bike. We go for a ride through the pedestrian zone. Saturday. Lots going on. We come to a street crossing. Narrow street, cars moving slowly. Red man showing. I remain standing. Son on bike next to me. Next to him an elderly gentleman. Looks me sternly in the eye. I sense something coming.

“Ihr Kind hat keinen Helm auf. Das ist von Ihnen äußerst unverantwortlich!” –  “Your son does not have a bike helmet on. Very, very irresponsible of you!” Before I can react the red man turns to a green man. Folks move across the street quickly. He was right. My son should have had a bicycle helmet on.

Three years later, while taking him to kindergarten on the bike, it suddenly slipped out from under me. A very slight amount of powdery snow was enough to do it. I heard my son‘s head hit the pavement. A plastic sound. He had his helmet on. That arrogant, cranky old man giving unsolicited advice. I wish I could thank him.

It is the summer of 1997. I’m working in the Bundestag. There is the German-American Parliamentarian Group, made up of senators, congressmen and Bundestag members who meet twice a year, once in Germany, and once in the U.S., and they have many individual meetings throughout the year when any one of them is in the other capital.

This time the Bundestag is the host. The group meets in Bad Münstereifel, a lovely, quaint town about 45 miles southwest of Bonn. It has many remnants of the Middle Ages. An ancient wall encircles the town, with narrow cobblestone alleys and a stream winding through it. The morning air is cool and fresh. The mind wonders and wanders back into history.

The meetings are not intense. The purpose is relationship building. There are discussions, yes, and an agenda, too. But they are exploratory, about points of view and understanding. Austausch. Exchange. The second evening, after dinner, down in the Ratskeller, we are enjoying German wine. The mood is relaxed, friendly, gemütlich as Germans would say.

Suddenly one of the German parliamentarians stands up. Tall, strong build, focused, a determined look, she toasts the group briefly then announces that she would like to address a problem, a difference of opinion, between American foreign policy and the views of her political party, the Social Democrats (SPD), who at that time were in the opposition.

German direct vs. American indirect

She wanted to talk about Cuba, about the Helms-Burton Act, otherwise known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which tightened the U.S. embargo on Cuba. She and her party were diametrically opposed to it. “This was absolutely unacceptable!”, she said.

The atmosphere in the group, in that Ratskeller, went from warm to cold within seconds. The Americans didn’t twitch a muscle. She continued, digging deeper and deeper. When her monologue was finished she remained standing. There was a pause. The U.S. chargé d’affaires (Acting Ambassador) stood up. He, a great admirer and friend of the Germans. He was first stationed as an Army officer, then made the switch into the Foreign Service.

Fluent in German, knowledgeable of their history and culture, he quietly and carefully stated that the United States, as a sovereign country, reserved the right to pass legislation which it deems to serve its foreign policy interests. He sat down as understatedly as he had stood up. Again there was silence. Not a movement. She, too, sat down. She was bewildered.

A side note. Earlier that day, during one of the meetings with all present, including support staff, a senior-level foreign policy advisor of the Free Democrats made a comment for all to hear about Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House. He commented about Gingrich‘s bad character, having served his wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital dying of cancer.

Clearly that was not a nice thing to do, but was it the right topic and tone for that kind of setting? One of the Americans, a Republican Congressman, raised his hand, cleared his voice, then politely begged to differ. He knew Gingrich as a colleague and a friend, found him to be a man of honesty and integrity. The room was silent. Not a movement. 

The Germans are direct. They believe in saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

But, wait. What’s so wrong with that? Americans are often nuanced, tolerant of ambiguity, diplomatic. Americans believe that indirectness allows people to say what they mean and mean what they say, without saying it explicitly. Right?

But, tact can be tactics. Tactics in the sense of not direct, not transparent, not honest. Do Americans not have their own screamers, accusers and “bomb-throwers” in politics and in the media?

Unfortunately, after those two incidents, the atmosphere never really improved in Bad Münstereifel.

Words. We use them to communicate. They are all that we have. When working across cultures we use English. American English. British English. And so on. But also the English spoken by non-native English speakers. In fact, that English is spoken by more people than those who speak native English.

1998. Federal elections in Germany. Chancellor Kohl recommended to a young Member of the Bundestag in his party to invite Father Kelly (name changed) to Bonn in order to talk about educational reform in the American university system.

Chancellor Kohl and Father Kelly had become acquaintances. Kelly, President of a major American and Catholic university located in Washington D.C., had done his Ph.D. in Theology in Germany. He was fluent in German. The Chancellor, also a Catholic, was very well-versed in both church history and theology. He was also quite well-connected with Rome.

University reform had become an important issue in German domestic politics. Federal elections were just around the corner. Father Kelly’s office gets a phone call. “Would the university president be willing to participate in a hearing in the Bundestag?”

The Bundestag is the German Parliament. And Parliament is analogous to Congress. Father Kelly’s chief of staff made the connection: a hearing in the Bundestag is like a hearing in the House or in the Senate. The Chancellor is inviting via the parliamentary group? “Yes, certainly. Father Kelly would be honored.”

Documents are sent back and forth per email. In English. It all seems to match up, but with a few question marks. A week before his scheduled flight to Bonn, it begins to occur to Father Kelly that the “hearing” he has been invited to as a very high-level subject area expert does not quite sound like one he would participate in across town in a Senate office building.

Words aren’t words

A phone call is made from Father Kelly’s office to the Bundestag seeking clarification without success. Father Kelly makes the flight from Washington to Bonn. The “hearing” in the Bundestag turns out to be a half-day meeting with a handful of young members of the Chancellor’s party who are focused on the issue and seeking expert input from across the Atlantic.

The “hearing” did not take place in the Bundestag. There was no large committee room. No panel of Bundestag Members from the various parties asking Father Kelly well-researched questions about how American universities approach the educational challenges of the future.

Nor did Kohl’s party schedule any other meetings for Father Kelly, neither with the press, nor with the presidents of nearby universities such as Bonn and Cologne, nor with German Secretary of Education or at least with his Undersecretary. Nothing.

Father Kelly flew from Washington to Bonn to speak with very junior members of the Bundestag for no more than half a day, then flew back to Washington. A terrible waste of time, and money, for Father Kelly and the university he is the president of.

Hearing isn’t hearing. Words aren’t words.