Jennifer Yoder’s lecture on ‘The Presence of the Past in Angela Merkel’s Political Discourse’ showed the ways in which Merkel has evolved as a politician since 2005.
Angela Merkel has served as Chancellor of Germany since 2005. Merkel was recently reelected for her fourth term on March 14th, 2018. Merkel was the first female German chancellor, the first to have grown up in the former East Germany, and the youngest German chancellor since the World War II. Merkel is also the first chancellor to be born after World War II. This becomes particularly important in looking at her use of past events in her political speeches.
Merkel was not alive for much of the German history referred to in her speeches. Her identity as a young, female, quantum chemist makes us question her consistent references to the past in her political speeches. 67% of Merkel’s speeches between 2006 and 2015 invoke the German past. Merkel’s most referenced topics during this time were World Wars and Holocaust, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany’s GDR and communist past, and expulsions.
Many of these events occurred before Merkel’s life time and certainly before her election. Angela Merkel relies on memory politics in her speeches. Memory politics is the act of invoking the past and incorporating it into a speech to convey a certain feeling from the audience. By drawing on the past, Merkel has emphasized the progress that Germany has made. Even though she did not contribute to many of events that she references, she is able to show the ways that Germany has changed.
Memory politics is rather uncommon in Europe. While it can show a country’s progress and acknowledge past mistakes, it can also show a lack of pride in your country. In the case of Germany and its troubling history, memory politics makes sense. This is a country where most of the world can acknowledge and agree with its mistakes. This tactic however could be detrimental in other countries where the opinions on history were not as unanimous. I found it interesting to think about how the use of memory politics would work in other countries in the world. Many countries choose to ignore their past mistakes in an attempt to always move forward but acknowledging them reminds populations of their wrongdoings and on the ways in which they have improved and must continue to improve.
I felt that the way that Yoder presented this information was very cohesive. She used humor, images, and volunteers in her presentation, which made the information more approachable and easier to listen to and absorb. I thought the style of the presentation was very well done and the information was interesting.