Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Like Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Bush senior did before him, Barack Obama addressed the people of Berlin, nay the citizens of Germany and the world at large, in front of one of their beloved monuments yesterday and I was able to be there to watch it live. But wait a second, Obama isn't president yet? Well apparently that was/is the major controversy surrounding Senator Barack Obama's (the gentleman from Illinois) tour of the Middle East and Europe. It's being questioned why a non-head of state should be parading around Europe during his presidential campaign speaking about policies and treaties as though he were already elected. It has been compared to the idea of a German chancellor speaking in front of the Washington Monument.

I wasn't knowledgeable about any of this until about two days ago so I have no clear views on the subject at all. I just happened to be in Berlin for work reasons and after some long reflection, decided I should stay an extra night and watch Obama speak to the crowd of 200,000 people gathered at Siegessäule (Victory Column). I figured I don't get many chances to experience something like this so what the heck. The very site where he gave his speech was extremely controversial though in the days leading up to the event. Obama originally wanted to speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate which has become the symbol for the reunification of Germany, however, only true heads-of-state have spoken on this symbolic site. Obama and his team finally gave in and moved the site to the Siegessäule (Victory Column) which is another treasured monument and is in direct line of sight to the Brandenburg Gate. This gave Obama an opportunity to still have his pictures taken with the Brandenburg Gate in the background.

So all controversy aside it was a really amazing experience that was completely surreal. The speech itself was a bit of the pageant queen variety where Obama broadly spoke about the hot topics of the day such as the suffering in Darfur, the AIDS epidemic, global warming, and so on with no great detail or plans to address them. I did appreciate this portion of his speech:

"Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur?"

Although it was no "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!".

All in all I was just amazed to think that I was here in Berlin watching a serious contender for President of the United States give a poignant and charismatic speech standing only ~50 feet away from me. As a bonus I also had a short chat with Christiane Amanpour (CNN's emmy award winning chief international correspondent) who is/was covering the Berlin and Paris portions of Obama's trip.

The rest of Berlin was quite beautiful to see as well. I had my very own tour guide (Chief) show me all the major sites. Not only did Chief know the layout of Berlin, he was also very up to date on the political front and explained the whole Obama controversy to me so I was very lucky to have him around. Roaming around Berlin we sat on the grass in front of the Reichstag, winded our way through the Tiergarten, took pictures of the polizei in front of the Schloss Bellevue and were able to check out the nightlife in Kreuzberg (where we discovered a nut bar) and Mitte. These two neighborhoods reminded me very much of the Mission District and The Marina in San Francisco, respectively. On top of that we had some fanstastic food that included Bavarian pretzels, ice cream, and the best Vietnamese food I've had in Europe so far. Chief still owes me a ride on a water taxi down the Spree River though.