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“一切都不應一成不變”
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2019/05/commencement-angela-merkel
德國總理安格拉·默克爾向2019屆畢業生發表演講。
作者：Marina N. Bolotnikova 和 Lydialyle Gibson 2019年5月30日
在開始畢業典禮演講的主體部分——關於現在、未來以及2019屆畢業生即將繼承的這個令人恐懼的世界——之前，德國總理安格拉·默克爾回憶了她在蘇聯統治下的東德的生活。除了簡短的引言和結束語外，她主要用德語講話，並由翻譯逐句翻譯。在三百周年紀念劇院，她向眾多觀眾講述了一個故事，這個故事為她接下來的演講定下了基調，並引導觀眾思考想象力，以及過去難以想象的快速變革的可能性。整個下午，默克爾都沉浸在這樣的思考中。 “我在東德長大，在民主德國——我的祖國，那是一片不自由的土地……人民飽受壓迫，處於國家監控之下。政治異見人士遭受迫害。東德政府害怕人們逃亡尋求自由。於是，他們修建了柏林牆，一道鋼筋水泥築成的牆。任何試圖翻越這堵牆的人都會被逮捕或槍斃。這堵牆把柏林一分為二，分裂了一個民族，也拆散了一個個家庭。”
安格拉·默克爾的翻譯，多蘿西·卡爾滕巴赫
“我大學畢業後的第一份工作是在東柏林科學院擔任物理學家，”她繼續說道。“我住在柏林牆附近。每天從研究所回家，我都朝著它走去。牆的後麵是西柏林，自由的天地。每天當我快要走到牆邊時，我都不得不在最後一刻轉身，回到我的公寓。每天我都不得不在最後一刻背棄自由……柏林牆限製了我的機會；它簡直就是我的攔路虎。”然而，在那些年裏，這堵牆有一件事卻做不到。它無法限製我的內心世界。我的個性、我的想象力、我的夢想和渴望——任何禁令或脅迫都無法限製這一切。1989年，對自由的共同渴望在整個歐洲釋放出不可思議的力量。在波蘭、匈牙利、捷克斯洛伐克以及東德，成千上萬的人敢於走上街頭。人們示威遊行，推倒了柏林牆。包括我在內的許多人都認為不可能發生的事情，變成了現實。”
因此，她總結道：“30年前的這幾個月裏，我親身體驗到，一切都必須一成不變。親愛的畢業生們，這段經曆是我今天想與你們分享的第一個想法……任何看似一成不變或不可改變的事情，實際上都是可以改變的。” 這句話深深地觸動了聽眾；她繼續說道：“我父母那一代人以極其痛苦的方式發現了這一點。我的父親和母親分別出生於1926年和1928年。當他們和今天在座的大多數人一樣老的時候，納粹大屠殺和第二次世界大戰——對所有文明價值觀的背叛——剛剛結束。我的祖國德國給歐洲和世界帶來了難以想象的苦難。戰勝國和戰敗國之間本可以輕易地長期不和。但歐洲卻戰勝了長達數個世紀的衝突。一個基於共同價值觀而非所謂國家實力的和平秩序由此建立……而德國人和美國人之間的關係也展現了昔日的戰時敵人如何成為朋友。喬治·馬歇爾在1947年於此地舉行的畢業典禮上宣布的計劃，為此做出了至關重要的貢獻。
默克爾自2005年起擔任德國總理，將於2021年任期結束後卸任。她在35歲，也就是兩德統一後，放棄了科學家的職業，進入政界。在餘下的演講中，她廣泛地探討了畢業生們如何麵對他們所麵臨的世界，並觸及了一些與大學畢業日演講者阿爾·戈爾和肯尼迪學院畢業日演講者胡安·曼努埃爾·桑托斯相同的主題，例如氣候變化以及“智能”設備已成為監視和影響行為工具這一日益明顯的現實。她以曆史感、她一貫的對妥協和建立共識的關注，以及一種信念，即跨越差異與他人建立聯係不僅是可能的，而且是富有成效和至關重要的。
“氣候變化對我們地球的自然資源構成了威脅； “氣候問題及其引發的危機都是人類造成的，”默克爾說道。“因此，我將竭盡全力確保我的國家德國在2050年實現氣候中和。”這一承諾贏得了熱烈掌聲。“如果我們共同應對，就有可能實現更好的改變……因此，我想與大家分享的第二個想法是，我們的思維方式和行動比以往任何時候都更需要多邊合作，而非單邊行動。”
“全球化而非國家主義。外向型而非孤立主義。”她提供的與其說是一個像1947年歐洲所需要的方案，不如說是對當代美國國內、歐洲許多國家內部以及近來它們之間的政治話語的嚴厲批判。
“親愛的畢業生們，你們未來將擁有與我們這一代截然不同的機會——畢竟，你們的智能手機的處理能力可能比我1986年被允許用於論文的蘇聯製造的IBM大型計算機的複製品要強大得多，”她開玩笑地說。科技似乎提供了無限的可能性，但她問道：“是我們為科技製定了規則，還是科技決定了我們如何互動？我們是否將人視為具有人類尊嚴及其多麵性的個體？還是我們僅僅將人視為消費者、數據來源和監視對象？這些都是難題。我認識到，如果我們始終嚐試通過他人的視角看待世界，即使是難題也能找到好的答案。”如果我們尊重他人的曆史、傳統、宗教和身份認同。如果我們堅守自身不可剝奪的價值觀，並據此行事。
“如果我們不總是衝動行事，即使麵臨倉促決定的壓力——而是停下來，靜下心來，思考，暫停，”她補充道。（觀眾似乎對這句話感到好笑——或許是文化差異在作祟。）
“讓我們用行動來證明一切可能，讓自己感到驚訝，”她說道，這與她首次當選德國總理後在德國議會發表的講話如出一轍。讓我們展現自己的能力，讓自己感到驚訝。就我個人而言，近30年前柏林牆的倒塌讓我得以走向光明……那是一個激動人心、充滿魔力的時刻，正如你們的人生也將如此激動人心、充滿魔力。但我也經曆過懷疑和擔憂的時刻。因為在那個時候，我們都知道過去會發生什麽，卻不知道未來會發生什麽。或許，這也多少反映了你們今天在歡慶這一時刻的感受。”
她最後想留給畢業生們的是：“走向光明的那一刻，也是冒險的時刻。放下舊有的，是新開始的一部分……我相信，我們需要一次又一次地做好準備，不斷終結過去，才能感受到新起點的魔力，並充分利用機遇。這是我作為一名學生、一名科學家所學到的，也是我現在在政治生活中所經曆的。”對開端的反思，讓她想起了演講一開始引用的德國作家赫爾曼·黑塞的名言：“一切開端都蘊藏著一種神奇的力量，守護著我們，幫助我們活下去。”
“正因如此，我想把這個願望留給你們，”默克爾總結道。“打破無知和狹隘的圍牆，因為一切都不必一成不變。”
“Nothing Has to Stay the Way It Is”
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2019/05/commencement-angela-merkel
German chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the class of 2019.
BEFORE SHE LAUNCHED into the main part of her Commencement address—about the present, the future, and the frightening world that the class of 2019 now inherits—German chancellor Angela Merkel recalled her life in East Germany under Soviet rule. Speaking primarily in German (save for a short introduction and conclusion bookending her address), with an interpreter translating sentence by sentence, she told a huge crowd in Tercentenary Theatre a story that would set the tone for the rest of her comments, inviting the crowd to think about imagination, and the possibility of swift, previously unimaginable change, throughout the afternoon. “I grew up in East Germany, in the GDR—the part of my country which was not free....People were oppressed and under state surveillance. Political dissidents were persecuted. The East German government was afraid that people would flee to freedom. And that’s why it built the Berlin Wall, a wall made of concrete and steel. Anyone caught trying to overcome it was arrested or shot dead. This wall, which cut Berlin in half, divided a people and divided families.
Angela Merkel's interpreter, Dorothee Kaltenbach
“My first job after college was as a physicist at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin,” she continued. “I lived near the Berlin Wall. I walked towards it every day on my way home from my institute. Behind it lay West Berlin, freedom. And every day when I was very close to the wall, I had to turn away at the last minute to head toward my apartment. Every day I had to turn away from freedom at the last minute....The Berlin Wall limited my opportunities; it quite literally stood in my way. However, there was one thing this wall couldn’t do during all of those years. It couldn’t impose limits on my inner thoughts. My personality, my imagination, my dreams and desires—prohibitions or coercion couldn’t limit any of that. Then came 1989. A common desire for freedom unleashed incredible forces throughout Europe. In Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, as well as East Germany, hundreds of thousands of people dared to take to the streets. The people demonstrated and brought down the wall. Something which many people, including myself, wouldn’t have believed possible, became reality.”
And so, she concluded, “During these months 30 years ago, I experienced firsthand that nothing has to stay the way it is. This experience, dear graduates, is the first thought I want to share with you today....Anything that seems to be set in stone or inalterable can, indeed, change.” Her audience was stirred by these words; she continued: “My parents’ generation discovered this in a most painful way. My father and my mother were born in 1926 and 1928. When they were as old as most of you here today, the betrayal of all civilized values that was the Shoah and World War II had just ended. My country, Germany, had brought unimaginable suffering on Europe and the world. The victors and the defeated could easily have remained irreconcilable for many years. But instead, Europe overcame centuries-old conflicts. A peaceful order based on common values, rather than supposed national strength, emerged….And the relationship between Germans and Americans, too, demonstrates how former wartime enemies can become friends. It was George Marshall who gave a crucial contribution to this through the plan he announced at the Commencement ceremonies in 1947 in this very place.”
Merkel, who has been chancellor of Germany since 2005 and will step down at the end of her term in 2021, left her career as a scientist and entered politics at 35, after the unification of Germany. She used the rest of her wide-ranging speech to address graduates about confronting the world they face, touching on some of the same themes as College Class Day speaker Al Gore and Kennedy School Class Day speaker Juan Manuel Santos, such as climate change and the increasingly evident reality that “smart” devices have become tools for surveilling and influencing behavior. She did so with a sense of history, with her characteristic attention to compromise and building consensus, and with a conviction that connecting with other people across difference is not only possible, but generative and essential.
“Climate change poses a threat to our planet’s natural resources; it and the resulting crises are caused by humans,” Merkel said. “I will therefore do everything in my power to ensure that Germany, my country, will achieve climate neutrality by 2050”—a pledge that elicited strong applause. But: “Changes for the better are possible if we tackle them together....The second thought I want to share with you is, therefore, more than ever, our way of thinking and our actions have to be multilateral rather than unilateral. Global rather than national. Outward-looking rather than isolationist.” She offered not so much a plan, like the one Europe needed in 1947, but a stern critique of contemporary political discourse, within the United States and within many nations in Europe, and, of late, between them.
“You, dear graduates, will have quite different opportunities to do this in the future than my generation did—after all, your smartphones probably have considerably more processing power than the copy of an IBM mainframe computer manufactured in the Soviet Union that I was allowed to use for my dissertation in 1986,” she joked. Technology might seem to offer limitless possibilities, but, she asked, “Are we laying down the rules for technology, or is technology dictating how we interact? Do we prioritize people as individuals with human dignity and all their many facets? Or do we see in them merely consumers, data sources, objects of surveillance? These are difficult questions. I have learned that we can find good answers even to difficult questions if we always try to view the world through the eyes of others. If we respect other people’s history, traditions, religion, and identity. If we hold fast to our inalienable values, and act in accordance with them.
“And if we don’t always act on our first impulses, even when there is pressure to make a snap decision—but instead take a moment to stop, be still, think, pause,” she added. (The audience seemed amused at this comment—perhaps displaying a cultural difference.)
“Let us surprise ourselves by showing what is possible,” she said, echoing what she told the German parliament after she was first elected chancellor. “Let us surprise ourselves by showing what we are capable of. In my own life, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall that allowed me almost 30 years ago to step out into the open....That was an exciting and magical time, just as your lives will be exciting and magical. But I also experienced moments of doubt and worry. For at that time, we all knew what lay behind, but not what might lie ahead. Perhaps that reflects a little how you, too, are feeling today, amidst all the joy of this occasion.”
The final thought she wanted to leave with the graduates, she said, was that “The moment when you step out into the open is also a moment of risk-taking. Letting go of the old is part of a new beginning….I believe that time and time again, we need to be prepared to keep bringing things to an end in order to feel the magic of new beginnings and make the most of opportunities. That’s what I learned as a student, a scientist, and what I experience now in politics.” The reflection on beginnings recalled her quotation, at the very start of the speech, from German writer Herman Hesse: “In all beginnings dwells a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live.”
“That’s why I want to leave this wish with you,” Merkel concluded. “Tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, for nothing has to stay as it is.”
