German Chancellor Angela Merkel bags honorary Doctorate Degree for laws from Harvard University, for her resolute leadership on the world stage and her unwavering defence of democratic ideals and international cooperation.
Angela Merkel bags honorary Doctorate alongside eight others at the Harvard University 368th commencement on Thursday. She also gave a speech to the graduating student, drawing from her own personal life story as a 35-year-old scientist in communist East Germany who rose through the ranks of the newly unified state’s political system to become Germany’s first woman chancellor and, many analysts would argue, leader of the free world. She urged the new graduates to take risks, make thoughtful decisions, and hold onto core values.
“Our individual liberties are not givens. Democracy is not something we can take for granted. Neither is peace, and neither is prosperity,” said Merkel, the main speaker. “But if we break down the walls that hem us in, if we step out into the open and have the courage to embrace new beginnings, everything is possible.”
Speaking about the Berlin Wall, and her story, she said:
“Every day, I had to turn away from freedom at the last minute,” she said of her early years, during a 35-minute speech to the graduates and alumni during the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) before an overflow crowd at Tercentenary Theatre.
“The Berlin Wall limited my opportunities. It quite literally stood in my way. However, there was one thing which this wall couldn’t do through all those years: It couldn’t impose limits on my inner thoughts, my personality, my imagination, my dreams and desires.”
Indeed, the wall’s unexpected fall in 1989 with the collapse of communism not only ended a divided Germany, but it also presented Merkel with new possibilities, including a chance to become someone she never imagined she could be. “A door suddenly opened” and “I was able to cross this border and venture out into the great wide open,” she recalled.
What she learned from that transformative experience, she told the audience, was that “anything that seems set in stone or inalterable can indeed change,” and that they ought to approach the walls they’ll inevitably encounter in their lives, whether physical, social, intellectual, or cultural, in a similar fashion.
“That is something you, too, need to keep asking yourselves,” she said. “Are we laying down the rules for technology, or is technology dictating how we act?”
A deliberative leader, Merkel suggested graduates take more time when thinking through decisions, a process that will require “courage and truthfulness” in how they deal with others.
“And perhaps most importantly, it calls for us to be honest with ourselves. What better place to begin to do so than here, in this place where so many young people from all over the world come to learn, research, and discuss the issues of our time under the maxim of truth? That requires us not to describe lies as truth and truth as lies,” she said, to a standing ovation.
In parting, Merkel advised graduates to go out into the world and “tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, for nothing has to stay as it is.”
(harvarduniversity/yellowdanfo)