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Speech of Ségolène Royal - Berlin, November the 8th 2009

 

Institute for Cultural Diplomacy

(Version originale prononcée)
 
Presidents,
Prime Ministers,
Ministers,
Members of Parliament,
Your Excellences,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
 

I am happy to join you in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I would like to thank the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy for their invitation and more specifically its Director, Mark Donfried.
I see 3 main levels of meaning in the fall of the Berlin Wall: the beginning of the reunification of Germany, the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the reunification of Europe.
I am going to start with the first 2 levels but, I will dwell at greater length on the European level, because being a French political woman in Berlin, it seems to me to be the most essential point. It will allow me to insist on one of my major political commitments: the dream of “The United States of Europe”. Even if, within my country, within my own political party, many were surprised to see me during the European campaign in Athens with my friend, the current Prime Minister of Greece, Georges Papandreou, in Nantes with my French socialist comrades, insist time and time again on this idea. I would like to take the opportunity I am given here and now, to emphasize it even more clearly.
Some dates will forever be printed in the great book of human History. November the 9th 1989, the day of the fall of the Berlin Wall, is one of them.
Today, I can still remember that day. A few images come back to me.
Happy faces, thousands of Berliners walking and shouting “Wir sind das volk” : “We are the people”
A motto which, by the hour, turned into: 

“Wir sind EIN volk” “We are ONE people”
 

Everything is within this shift, this spontaneous cohesion, this emerging brotherhood from a wall falling down to the reuniting of Germany into a single people. Just as a dam which would have collapsed and let go of a water held back for too long. And all that without anybody getting wounded, without anybody getting killed.

I remember hands reaching for one another, people embracing, families reuniting, improvised concerts, the great Miroslav Rostropovitch playing the cello among the rubbles, groups singing, dancing, raising their flags on these pieces of stone tagged with graffiti writings, the blows of hammers bringing this wall down and then, all those who put a piece of it in their pockets as if they were taking away a piece of history with them.
I remember the improvised toasts, the mugs of beer, the joy, the faces of the East-German border guards torn between astonishment and emotion…
A whole crowd laughing… Ein Volk… One single people.
 

I remember these days, that we followed live, hour after hour, an event that had still seemed impossible a few months before.

Rare, at that time, were the analysts and the experts in Kremlinology who could anticipate what was to come. With few exceptions, they all affirmed that on the other side of the Iron Curtain, nothing would ever change; that, sooner or later, repression would strike. And in 1989, they still said that we ought not to be fooled, by M. Gorbatchev whose glasnost and perestroika were only decoys meant to fool the West. It did not matter that the head of the Kremlin spoke of Europe as a “common house”, that he, for the first time, organized pluralist elections, that Andreï Sakharov was a member of the new Parliament: it had been written by these experts that History was doomed to repeat itself.
 

Those who underestimated the fullness of the changes introduced by M. Gorbatchev and those (often the same ones…) who blamed him for being the apprentice sorcerer of the involuntary disintegration of the Soviet empire underestimated the historical and profoundly positive role played by this great leader. Lucid on the failings of the Soviet system and determined to reform it, he was intelligent and courageous enough to reject repression. For this, we are all for ever indebted to him. 

There is in the fall of the Berlin Wall one of the best lessons that can be learnt. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the parts, more or less clearly assessed played by Soviet, American, German, French or British leaders ; there is, beyond the underground diplomatic scenery, beyond the public speeches, only one truth : nothing can resist the strength of a people on the march. No dictatorship, no totalitarian system, no perverted democracy, can resist the surge of a people that decides one day to say “NO MORE”.
 

All perverted systems collapse because of the strength and the courage of their citizens.

All democratic systems arise because of the strength and the courage of their citizens.
 

On that day, I thought: “Everything is possible. No walls can resist the determination of a handful of individuals that first start as a few water drops, then a brook, then a river, then an ocean”.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, which had been preceded 10 years earlier in Poland by the rebellion of the Solidarnosz union, heralded the fall of the Soviet empire in 1991.
 

Soviet Communism, that misappropriated doctrine, the devious bearer of hope, which turned very quickly into a destructive tyranny, destroying human lives, consciences, creativity, freedom, equality and brotherhood… Soviet communism collapsed within 12 years.

 
Yes, 1989 was indeed a year to remember…

We could see the German people put down a despised wall of shame, the USSR remove its troupes from Afghanistan, Poland elect a non communist government, South Africa choose Nelson Mandela in order to topple the wall of the Apartheid, Pinochet give up his position, Brazil organize its first free elections in 30 years, Hungary open its border to Austria and change its government, the Velvet Revolution triumph in Czechoslovakia, and the Bulgarian and Romanian governments overthrown.

Let us never forget that in China too, in 1989, students, with many others at their sides, made that ideal their own. But over there, 1989 meant the imposing of Martial law in Tibet and the crushing of the democrats on Tien An Men square, something we will never, never, never forget.
 

Today, in 2009, the people of Iran draws its inspiration from the lesson we were all offered by the German people in 1989.

In France, that year, we celebrated the Bicentennial of our Revolution.

July the fourteenth, November the ninth… now we could dream of a world free from injustice.

And, in the middle of this euphoria of freedom, in this joy which we all felt part of by looking at German people dancing and singing, we thought for a few weeks, for a few months, that the world was really going to change; that this world would finally be freed from this East-West division, from this cold war.
 
Part of that was true.
 

But a few intellectuals, such as Emmanuel Levinas, as always a visionary, had warned us, in the early 90’s.

The great philosopher had told us: “Beware! If it indeed is the end of an obvious tyranny, it is also the end of a hope, even if it was a devious hope. Beware of the coming of a time bereft of promises.”

 

A prophetic warning indeed, announcing the crisis that we are living through today: an economic, environmental and ethical crisis stemming undoubtedly, from a time when ultra-liberalism and financial capitalism, gradually confiscated the promises and misled expectations; whereas a global Governance should have been able to serve the progress of humanity.

 

Yes the Berlin wall has fallen, that wall that had scarred Germany since August 1961.

 

But other walls have risen.

The over 700 kilometres long wall between Israel and Palestine, the electric fence that has been separating North and South Korea since 1953, the one that India has built on its border with Bangladesh, the wall between the United States and Mexico, the wall in Cyprus. 
There are on this planet, dozens of walls, physical as well as socio-economical, all built to protect, to trap, to encircle, to maintain in a ghetto and to avoid the free circulation of populations.
These walls will fall one day, just as the Berlin Wall did, due to the strength of the people.
But these walls are nothing compared to the insurmountable barriers that ensnare our decisions. It is easier to break barricades than mental barriers. Physical walls exist but we know that ideologically devious walls entrap the world as well: the terrorist fanaticism that exploits religion, economic fanaticism and ecological inertia also lead the world to its loss.
 

Yes, the invisible walls exist, sometimes even tougher than barricades. And they can only be broken down by political will power and democratically shared rules of right and duty.

We are here in Berlin, a highly symbolic city in a country that could break down not only a stone wall, but also and maybe more fundamentally the mental wall of tyranny.
I cannot but compare the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Storming of the Bastille. I cannot but tell you again and again how fundamental is the brotherhood which links France and Germany.
For 50 years, our two countries have been moving forward hand in hand, in a constantly renewed union, which never gives in, notwithstanding the trials and the occasional moments of despondency and quagmire.
 

When the wall fell down, I was a Member of Parliament, I had been a deputy for over a year in the rural department of the Deux Sèvres.

It was just after working for 7 years, as close collaborator, by the side of a French President, the man who taught me a lot in politics, who inspired me, a man who had gone through the chaos of the 20th century, carrying this history with him until called upon to embody it, a man called François Mitterrand.
François Mitterrand shared with Willy Brandt the same dream of an ever more humane, caring and inventive Europe.
And I remember him, with Helmut Kohl, raising so high the flag of Franco-German brotherhood.
There was, of course, the unforgettable moment, the reinvention of the bond between our two countries, on September the 22nd 1984 in Verdun.
I will never forget this picture, the two clenched hands of François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, in so intense a gesture of meditation and brotherhood.
There were, as well, the words which were among the last ones the President pronounced in his official role. It was here, in Berlin, on May the 8th 1995, for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
On that day, François Mitterrand expressed his pride at being in your capital city, in order to fulfil one of his last acts as President of the French Republic; he never stopped working to reinforce the links between our two countries.
That day, he uttered very simple and meaningful words: “ A strange, cruel, beautiful and strong adventure it is, hesaid, that of those two brother-like peoples which took more than a thousand years to accept themselves as they are, recognize one another, unify and go back together to their very roots.”

 

 

That is exactly what I would like to tell you tonight.
Here we are, you and us, back together to our very roots in order to celebrate together the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of a people that, more than any other in Europe, could face, eyes wide open, its own history without erasing its darkest times, allowing it to survive and contribute its share of light to our world.
Yes, I can remember these historical days.
 

If Europe was partly built on this Franco-German closeness, it is today constituted of 27 state members all aspiring to democracy, to a sharing of wealth, to the creation of a true political entity, strong because of its very differences, able to contribute major economic and diplomatic decisions to the future of the planet.

As far as History is concerned, political Europe is still very young and very embryonic, even if the Treaty of Lisbon, imperfect as it may be, represents a progress, with of course, the emerging of a European President.
 
But, we must go further.
 

The common culture of Europe has been a meaningful reality for long centuries.

It is the daughter of the big Medieval Universities – Bologna, Oxford, la Sorbonne, Cracow… – and people have long travelled from one to the other to share knowledge, hopes and visions.

It is the daughter of the humanist explorers of the Renaissance. It is the daughter of the Enlightenment and the controversies that it generated all over the continent.

The daughter of the quest for freedom of conscience, of speech and of religion.

Yes, the Europe of Culture can justly be proud of its centuries of dialogue, creation and vision. And when I marvel at the extraordinary cultural blossoming of Berlin today, after decades of stifling greyness, I am more than ever convinced of the importance of the essential belief we, as Europeans, all share: the great quarrel of Man can only be Man himself.
The fall of the Berlin wall urges us to go further now.
Now is the time for political Europe.
It is up to us to confront this enthralling challenge: to forge a true political Europe.
 

Yes, we must reach a harmonious political coexistence in order to raise high and strong the values of Europe which for centuries has been one of the wider battle fields of humanity, which was the place of the most horrible crime of all times, the Holocaust, and could become, against a part of its own History, by its cohesion, through the union of its differences, a continent that I call “the United States of Europe”.

I would like to dwell a little more on this idea for I know it is a major element of the meaning of our political commitment. Just as during the European campaign, now is the opportunity for us to express this deeply held belief.
I stood up for it in Athens last May, at the meeting on The future of European lefts, a meeting initiated by current Prime Minister of Greece, Georges Papandreou and, as I mentioned earlier, I developed my point of view in Nantes during the European campaign in France.
Now is the time to dream and to think about something bigger than ourselves.
Now is the time to raise ourselves up to the demands of a realistic utopia: The United States of Europe.
 

I know this expression might surprise many, for it somehow seems to be copied from the United States of America when our Nations can in no way be compared to the American States.

For those who, therefore, are surprised, I will recall that great thinkers in Poland, in Italy, in Scotland, and all over Europe, have mentioned this expression since the middle of the 19th century. In France, Victor Hugo mentioned the expression “the United States of Europe” on August the 21st 1849 at the International Congress for Peace in Paris.
This does not mean that it is an idea from the past, on the contrary it has never been so contemporary.
Just as he said it with such strength…
 “There will be a day, Hugo said, when weapons will fall off your hands! A day when you France, you Russia, you Italy, you England, you Germany, all nations of the continent, without losing your distinct assets and your glorious individuality, will be firmly blended into one superior unity and constitute European brotherhood. A day will come when the bullets and the bombs will be replaced by the votes and by the Universal suffrage of the peoples”.


 


 

While we can hear of shady dealings aimed at the emergence of the next European President, I would like to paraphrase Victor Hugo, and say that “A day will come, I am certain of it, when the President of the United States Of Europe to come, will be elected by direct Universal suffrage.”

I think the unprecedented crisis we are going through today leads us to redefine the way we could build together a Europe with a human face that would unify us.
It is up to us to build a fair economic zone, to create wealth, to redistribute and to regulate financial capitalism.
It is up to us to make this social model exist, already perfectly functioning in Northern European countries where it allies wealth creation with social justice.
It is up to us to respect all cultural diversities, beliefs and differing identities.
It is up to us to reconcile citizens with this Europe which seems so far away, so technocratic, so abstract. A Europe which seems far too far from the sufferings of its working class massively laid off because of outsourcing; far from its middle class, which wonders if they too will lose their jobs; far from its youth, hit, harder than any other category, by unemployment and despair.
 

Yes, Europe has to change. But Europe can change. Let us not forget that Europe is a continent of creativity, the first economic power in the world, with vigorous workers and businesses, and with a population bigger than that of the United States of America, with a way of life admired by the rest of the world.

Last time I came to Berlin, it was in March 2007, during the French presidential campaign. I had the opportunity to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel. At that time, Airbus was announcing plans to lay off thousands of workers in France and in Germany. And I had to defend the interests of French workers, and of course Chancellor Merkel had to defend the interests of German workers. But I remember very well that during our discussion, we could rise above our opposed national interests and think of a European solution which would take into account our common general interest. My point is that, today, the power of money is much stronger than divided nations, and that we have to unite our forces for our citizens.

 

 

And our peoples already know that very well, and they have already very often taken this idea forward. For instance, when, in April of this year, the French workers of Continental went to Hanover to demonstrate with the German workers of Continental, it was a real act of European brotherhood. Today, it is our duty to reconcile these citizens with political Europe.

 

Reconciling citizens with Europe and the values of progress and humanism, is to establish at a European level participative democracy, the implication of the, too often perceived as tentacular, the 27 countries of the Union.Beyond the referendums and popular consultations, it is up to us to push forward in our regions, our departments, our cities, our countries, this participative democracy which imposes itself day after day as an obvious necessity. Yes, participative democracy is the vital means in order to create cohesion between citizens, between countries, and to create this feeling of belonging to a common entity called Europe.

Yes, let us walk towards these citizens that have lost faith in Europe, let us reach out to them, let us organize participative votes, participative budget management, referendums, citizen juries to assess public decisions.
And ultimately we must reconcile Europe with the world.
Europe must play a part in the big conflicts and issues of our times. Europe must play a part in the Middle East, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Europe must imagine and create a true partnership with Africa, Asia, Latin America. Europe must help the people of Iran to emancipate. Europe must participate in the development of the peace plan in the Middle East and the creation of two states that coexist in mutual respect.
 

We must deepen and reinforce our partnership with India which is the largest democracy in the world.

We must take care of the billion from below, the billion human beings living under the poverty threshold, with less than two dollars a day.

Europe must play a part in the Pacific zone, in the latent conflict opposing North Korea to all the countries in that zone, starting with South Korea and Japan.

We must adopt the right attitude in order to make Human Rights progress in China, in Myanmar, or again in several African countries, everywhere where universal values are threatened.
We must have a clear position towards Russia, torn between its dream of past glory, its mistrust of the West and its desire to be its part like any other actor on the world stage.
In this multilateral world, agitated by constant convulsions, this anxious and dangerous world, Europe will play a major part with its political solidarity and exemplarity.
An Asian proverb says that it is better to take 1 step together than 10 steps alone.
That is the great design of Europe!
 

I don’t believe in the clash of civilisations, nor am I fascinated by the perverse seduction of decline. I believe that the election of Barack Obama a year ago, as leader of the largest world power, has naturally created a huge hope but has proved as well that the people is always ahead of its elites, that the peoples are ready to hear the language of reason, of wisdom and of unity. That the peoples aspire to only one thing: peace, where leaders sometimes can only think of war.

I don’t believe in the clash of civilisations, in this fantasy suggesting that History is already written, the complexity of cultures, religions and populations would be mapped, organized, and inevitably lead to confrontation.
If the world is dancing on a volcano, it remains totally possible not to arouse that volcano while walking at its edge.
It is up to us to create a dynamic diplomacy, based mostly on constructive interaction and precision, without compromising our values but with total respect for the others. The European diplomacy should address mostly peoples as they really are so as not to engage in any arrogant monologue.
And even if results take a long time to come, we must carry on, and carry on again. Abraham Lincoln had a rule in his life “I move slowly but I never move back”. There lies one of the keys. Perseverance. It is indeed easier to gather people together around the hatred of the other, pandering to their lowest impulses, flattering nationalism, ethnicity and racism. Courage is required in order to unite around humanism, benevolence and respect.
Well, I believe in that kind of diplomacy in Europe. If Europe knows how to let go of an excess of caution and how to be united on the international stage, Europe, the bearer of Enlightenment values, will play a major part in the solving of contemporary conflicts.
 
We can believe in it.
We can also believe in it because of the day on November the 9th 1989, when an entire people could make a concrete wall collapse, an ideology wall, an anger wall, without shedding a single blood drop and shouting “Wir sind das Volk”. We are THE people.
Yes, I believe in the Europe of the peoples, that is why I believe in the Unites States of Europe.
 

We can no longer allow ourselves to wait. Every single one of us, at his or her own level, must contribute, from now on, to make this idea come true. That must be the task of our generation, of your generation, young men and women, and I can think of no better one. It is the reason why, I have embarked, since May the 18th along, with Stéphane Hessel, in a complex and demanding thinking process which will lead to concrete proposals in order to take the dream of “the United States of Europe” forward.

I have actually decided to take the dream of the United States of Europe forward and in a very concrete manner. Before the end of this year, I will give an exploratory mission to a well known public figure who will work with European think tanks – and I hope with yours –, with citizens, trade-unionists, elected representatives, artists, research scholars, legal practitioners, and European journalists on this “Unites States of Europe” project.
 
We will lead this mission with our think tank, Désirs d’Avenir, in connection with all people of good will who truly desire a change.
 

Désirs d’Avenir will organize, before next summer, a major meeting in Paris in order to exchange our Europeans points of view, a first step in a long series of interactions that we will lead throughout the year 2010 to make of Victor Hugo’s dream a concrete reality. That dream, I am certain of it, is indeed the dream of a vast majority of people in this room. You are all invited in Paris to take it forward.

I would like to end on a more personal note. When a child, I lived in Lorraine, in the East of France. Between the war of 1870 and the first World War, it was a German region. It is a region of shared blood, tears, and hopes too. It is in this region that I heard for the first time the Ode to Joy by Beethoven. When I hear the Ode to Joy, I feel an immense joy myself. I made some research on that piece years after that. It was composed by the Great musician at one of the darkest moments of his life. Almost broken, hit by a galloping deafness, slowly abandoned by the public. But in spite of all this adversity, this 9th Symphony which became the European Anthem, sprang from him. The music, and the lyrics by Schiller, celebrate the strength of the people and their brotherhood.
 

The path that I suggest to you for this new stage in the building of our Union is in the image of this Ode to Joy composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven : a great adversity, transcended by the courage and the strength of brotherhood with one and only one goal, making sense here, in Berlin, of today and tomorrow. I quote : “For the city to come, forget the time of weeping”. So ends the Ode to Joy. What a beautiful political program that is !

Vielen dank für dieses schöne beispiel von freiheit und brüderlichkeit, dass die Deutschen ganz Europa und dem rest der welt, vor zwanzig jahren geschenkt haben.
 

Und wie es schon, am vorabend des neunten November gesagt wurde, möchte auch ich sagen : “wir sind alle Berliner ! und glücklich darüber !”

 
Thank you./.