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Angela Merkel and author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie before the performance in Düsseldorf
Photo: ROLF VENNENBERND / AFP
Well, let's say it right at the beginning: Yes, Angela Merkel has clearly committed to the F-word.
That would almost have been worth breaking news, because that with the F-word and Angela Merkel is not an easy story, as you know.
So now she has announced: "We should all be feminists".
Where "announce" is really the wrong word, she rather said it, well, yes.
Because an announcement would require a certain amount of pathos and echo, and neither is necessarily your business, but more on that later. Admittedly, it was also a somewhat unfair situation, because that evening in the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus there was a woman on stage with Merkel who became a global icon with a TedTalk about feminism: "We should all be feminists".
Wait a minute, how does it come about that Angela Merkel and the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sit on a stage in Düsseldorf and talk about their worldview? According to the announcement, as the two moderators Miriam Meckel and Léa Steinacker also said, the point is that both of them are linked by the following insight: a single perspective, a single story, a single narrative can never be adequate. So far, so banal, actually.
On the other hand, you are not exactly used to listening to Angela Merkel philosophizing about fundamentals with international stars.
And so one could observe something very interesting that evening, even more interesting than the commitment to feminism: Merkel's attempt to Obamaize, which was of course doomed to failure.
Which in turn turned out to be a great success.
Two build bridges, one digs the tunnel
So there sit the politically most powerful woman in the world and a global pop star and should talk about how their lives differ and yet are similar. "One should refrain from any excesses," says Merkel right at the beginning and makes no secret of the fact that she will not be placed on any pedestal here now. Of course, she will still be praised in the highest tones by the moderators as Leader of the free World.
And you can already tell from the expression on her face how uncomfortable this is for her. She almost looks disgruntled when Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says how much she admires Merkel. What follows is the 90-minute attempt at exaggeration on the part of the three women on stage, while Merkel always tries her best to sabotage this. While the others are building daring suspension bridges, Merkel digs a tunnel below and reaches the other end more quickly.
It starts with the fact that she starts almost every answer with a "well".
It continues with the fact that she manages to answer fundamental questions with concrete small and small.
The future of democracy?
It explains German federalism.
If you fit it with a steep template, it does not turn into a cross corner, but picks up the ball and describes what kind of material this ball is made of.
The hall was at her feet
When Adichie asks her if there are moments when the weight of responsibility that rests on her shoulders gives her pleasure, she says: Yes, if she has found a good compromise and rattles off contracts. Once the moderator asks whether the sentence "We can do it" would not remain her legacy, whereupon the Chancellor replied: It was actually just a normal substitute for politics. But, asks the presenter almost desperately, isn't that a little Obama too, "Yes we can"? Disbelief in Merkel's facial features.
In short: it wasn't a big, sparkling conversation. Nevertheless, there was no other way to put it, the audience in the hall lay at her feet. Merkel could not have behaved less star-like, and yet she was adored as if she had just explained the world with a grand gesture. This slight awkwardness. This self-irony, when asked about Adichie's very colorful strapless dress, returns: "My outfit is, as the saying goes, manageable."
This unconditional will to potato soup and this rejection of any hint of grandeur is then perhaps exactly what one in Germany imagines an ideal chancellor to be.
And if one can assume that most of the people in the hall did not vote, it is all the more astonishing what anticipatory melancholy one could see on their faces here.
What will happen when Merkel is gone?
One sentence almost sounds like a superstructure
What she will do in the future, the moderator wants to know what her narrative is.
Her "story" that she would like to tell about herself from now on.
"I have no narrative," says Merkel, a sentence that should definitely stay with her.
"I live in the present, more than some others." Sentences that almost sound like a superstructure.
They just bring the political legacy, if not to say: the political omission of this Chancellor inadvertently well to the point.
Maybe a little more future would have done well.
But there is no place for that this evening.
The mood for that is not the right one.
There is no accounting here, it is said goodbye here. Merkel says she does not feel a horror vacui. Don't be afraid of the black hole. Instead: read, let's see what she wants, what will stir in her. Where it will reappear. End. She stands up. A quick greeting. Leaves the hall. The doors remain closed to the public. Everyone has to wait until Merkel is far enough away. Only then do the doors open. Alone: at first nobody likes to leave.