Source: GoetheCome along with me to three stops in my travels in the worldwide network of the Goethe-Institut.Yaoundé, October 2021: Despite Covid restrictions, I’m celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the Goethe-Institut Cameroon with its staff and many partners. The highlight of the event is the awarding of the Goethe Medal to the charismatic cultural manager Princess Marilyn Douala Manga Bell. Her great-grandfather Rudolf Manga Bell led the main Cameroonian resistance movement against the German colonial power. I’d visited his grave in Douala as soon as I arrived in the country. My programme in Yaoundé includes a visit to the CLAC, the Centre de Lecture et d’Animation Culturelle de Yaoundé, a cooperative district library with which the Goethe-Institut works closely. Its director, Charles Kandem, guides us to the long shelves with over 10,000 well-assorted books: African novels, children’s books, comics, scholarly works, literature on Cameroon-German history and much more. There’s a small event space and a cybercafé for the many neighbours lacking internet access. In the open courtyard are games made by local craftsmen. And then Charles shows us the worktables with new computers and tablets that he was able to purchase with funds from the Goethe-Institut’s covid relief fund. It enabled the CLAC to offer virtual work opportunities that are so important during the pandemic and that are lacking in private households, schools, universities and even the national library.With the support of the Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut launched a covid relief fund in summer 2020 and renewed it in 2021. Well over two hundred organisations from more than sixty countries – including the CLAC – each received up to 30,000 euros in funding. This meant swift support to civil-society cultural initiatives where state funding was lacking, and the pandemic threatened to destroy the cultural scene. The fund helped maintain innovative structures and thus promote artistic freedom, social diversity and critical discourse.Tbilisi, June 2023: The Goethe-Institut in Georgia, founded in 1994 and a chief supporter of the film scene ever since, is once again showing the award-winning documentary film Taming the Garden by Salomé Jashi. I’m quite moved by this poetic, serene film, which accompanies ancient trees from Georgian villages on an adventurous journey. Bought from the residents, the giant trees are dug up with huge excavators, packed into wooden crates, transported away on colossal articulated lorries and finally taken on ferries across the Black Sea. Their new home is the private dendrological park of Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, former prime minister and now the éminence grise of the ruling Georgian Dream party. Taming the Garden is politically undesirable in Georgia. The Goethe-Institut is one of the few places in the increasingly authoritarian country where such films can still be shown.After the screening, I discuss the film with director Salomé Jashi, film manager and Goethe Medal winner Gaga Chkheidze and Lasha Bakradze, director of the Georgian Museum of Literature. Chkheidze, founder of the most important film festival in the Caucasus and director of the national film institute, is one of the first victims of the wave of dismissals with which the Minister of Culture wants to align the cultural scene with the government course. Soon after my visit, Bakradze is also sacked for protesting the “foreign agents” law. Many viewers see Taming the Garden as symbolic of the curtailment of artistic freedom and freedom of expression as well as the oppressive omnipotence fantasies of a Russia-backed oligarch. In general, Russia and its attack on Ukraine are ever-present in Georgia. Memories are still fresh of the 2008 invasion by Russian troops in the north of the country. And the concern that the Georgian government is moving ever closer to Russia rather than Europe makes the Goethe-Institut an important meeting place and haven for many freedom-loving cultural actors.Johannesburg, September 2024: A former employee of the Goethe-Institut accompanies me on a tour of the most important sites of the apartheid regime. Our tour ends at Constitution Hill, the seat of the South African Constitutional Court, which was built on the historic site of the Old Fort, once an apartheid prison complex. In one corner, the organisation South African Jews for a Free Palestine has planted an olive grove, the Palestinian Nakba Memorial Forest. The history of this Jewish-Palestinian memorial forest is just one episode in the complex relationship between Israel and South Africa. The South African apartheid regime was one of the first governments in the world to recognise Israel under international law; their military and secret services worked closely together; Israel supplied weapons, South Africa uranium. The ANC, on the other hand, had long cultivated a close alliance with the PLO. The fate of the Palestinians reminds many South Africans today of their own suffering under apartheid, including South African Jews, such as the guardians of the Nakba Memorial Forest, also accuse Israel of settler colonialism. The ANC government recently called on the International Court of Justice to declare Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip as genocide.The Goethe-Institut has been criticised by many South Africans for unconditionally siding with Israel. Numerous cultural players accuse it of not being genuinely independent and therefore not taking a firm enough stance against the German government’s policy on Israel. “Strike Germany” is also calling for a boycott of the institute in South Africa. This makes it even more crucial that we persist in organising discussion events, exhibitions and film screenings, as well as meetings in small, intimate circles. The Johannesburg institute is continuing its dialogue in the cultural scene. The aim is to understand the experiences and perspectives of others, but also to explain our own historical responsibility and the current debates in Germany.My visit is meant to contribute to this. I meet the Israeli-born South African historian Tali Nates – also a Goethe Medal awardee – and give a lecture on the history of German remembrance policy at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, which she runs. An audience member is concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany and asks sceptically whether the Goethe-Institut really stands firmly on the side of the Jews.In contrast, the next evening I meet the writer Zukiswa Wanner who criticises the German government and the Goethe-Institut for showing insufficient empathy with the Palestinians. Zukiswa and I had met in Weimar and were looking forward to seeing each other again in Johannesburg. Only at the end does our conversation turn to why she returned her Goethe Medal in March of this year. In her view, Germany is once again on the “wrong side” of a genocide. It may remember the Holocaust, but not its colonial crimes, she believes. She sympathises with Germany’s special responsibility towards Jews and Israel but claims that the motto “never again” must also apply to the victims of colonial genocides and now to the Palestinians. I explain that I criticise the extent of the Israeli military response and deplore the civilian victims but also recall the Hamas terror and the fate of the Israeli hostages – about which Zukiswa, like many other cultural actors in the Global South, remains silent.The evening does not end in agreement, but with a promise to remain in dialogue. Zukiswa will not boycott the Goethe-Institut. I am convinced that only with this attitude of mutual respectful listening can the Goethe-Institut prove itself a bridge builder, even in the bitter global dispute about Israel and Palestine, about racism and anti-Semitism. Listening does not necessarily mean agreeing – a nuance that gets lost in fast-paced social-media communications. The Goethe-Institut clearly opposes anti-Semitism, racism and the glorification of violence. But it is also prepared to engage in open dialogue with people who look at the world with different historical experiences and cultural influences.Yaoundé, Tbilisi, Johannesburg. These three locations represent the three major crises that have characterised my time in office: the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East. Linked to these is the global increase in illiberalism, the general shift to the right in the US and Europe and the polarisation of the opinion landscape, including in Germany. These are difficult times for an organisation like the Goethe-Institut, which stands for freedom and promotes diversity, understanding and trust worldwide.I took office on Friday, 13 November 2020. In my inaugural speech, I promised as president to support the Goethe-Institut in its mission to enable polyphony and cross-border encounters and thus contribute to a democratic, non-violent, tolerant world. I quoted Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s entreaty to “treat the impossible as if it were possible.” How very apt this motto would prove itself time and again!During my four years in office, the Goethe-Institut and its president have operated in crisis mode, often to the point of exhaustion. But despite all the challenges, I was impressed by the institute’s great strengths and enormous potential, especially during this time of crisis. Its decentralised organisation, competent and committed employees and profound knowledge of the local scenes all make it possible to act flexibly, quickly, unbureaucratically and successfully. The resilience of the Goethe-Institut’s global network is brought to bear particularly in violent conflicts and illiberal contexts. Where the local institutes are no longer able to provide protection and freedom themselves, the Goethe-Instituts in neighbouring countries offer refuge and support the diaspora. Events at the Goethe-Institut in Exile in Berlin, which has been consolidating this work since 2022 and makes international diasporic voices audible in Germany, are among the highlights of my time in office.To ensure that the Goethe-Institut can continue to make its contribution to an open, peaceful and diverse world and retain its agency in the future, I have worked tirelessly on what is probably the most important major project of my term of office: the transformation of the Goethe-Institut, its global network and its headquarters. The changes initiated two years ago are an expression of the institute’s own desire for reform and increased efficiency but also respond to new geopolitical challenges and severe financial constraints.With my professional background as an anthropologist, I was able to support the work of the Goethe-Institut with constructive curiosity and critical questions. At the same time, this large freighter had to be steered through rough waters with determination and prudence. This included close cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office, but above all constant intense dialogue with the executive board and the management team of the Goethe-Institut. Securing its future viability also meant making the Goethe-Institut association more effective, more participatory and more diverse by reforming the statutes and introducing transparent selection and decision-making procedures. This has enabled the association to take on numerous new members in recent years whose expertise will help the Goethe-Institut on its course.Crisis management and reform processes were the focus of my time in office. However, I was also able to advance some issues close to my heart, in particular remembrance work and decolonisation. Both topics are just as important for European cohesion and Europe’s relations with the world as diplomacy, the military and the economy.With my book on the history of the Goethe-Institut, I wanted to strengthen institutional memory and make the institute’s fundamental contribution to German foreign cultural and educational policy more visible. In addition, analysing past crises puts current difficulties into perspective and encourages us to believe that the institution will also overcome future crises. In order to strengthen the institute’s institutional memory, I also initiated the development of an archiving concept that will be firmly anchored in the future.I have pursued the second topic – decolonisation – in many discussions, events, speeches and publications. The Goethe-Institut can make a special contribution to dealing with the colonial legacy because it works multilaterally and from multiple perspectives. As an institution of the Global North in a world still characterised by the consequences of Europe’s violent expansion, the Goethe-Institut must reflect on the ongoing traumas and power asymmetries. And in view of transatlantic and European challenges, it must not lose sight of the Global South! For me, it was instructive to gain an insight into the artistic treatment of “other,” non-European memories and foreign visions of a post-colonial future. Art creates an emotional connection that is not easy to establish in any other way. And it was gratifying to feel the trust that is placed in the Goethe-Institut everywhere. For a long time to come, I will remember the many enriching encounters.It is therefore with a feeling of deep gratitude that I leave office. It has been an honour to serve the Goethe-Institut and its mission for four years. Some things may not have worked out as well as I had hoped – such as a closer connection between “domestic” and “international” cultural policy. But overall, I am satisfied and pleased to be able to hand over the baton to a successor who has been associated with the organisation for some time. Gesche Joost will actively support the Goethe-Institut with her knowledge and networks. I wish you, dear Gesche, good fortune and every success!The times in which you will serve as president are turbulent. The election of Donald Trump and the dissolution of our governing coalition have many people worried. Trump’s foreign policy is more unpredictable than that of his predecessor. Europe needs to focus more on its own strength than before, which is made difficult by the many divisions on our continent. However, it is precisely in this turbulent world that the Goethe-Institut can deploy its silent yet effective bridge-building powers. It must respond to geopolitical challenges, but it does not need to join in or comment on every political wave. It relies on long-term, trusting networks.In addition to adequate and reliable funding, I see three important conditions for this:Firstly, cultural and intermediary organisations such as the Goethe-Institut must remain independent. This is the only way they can sustainably promote our country. They must be allowed to find their own way how to respond to new challenges with strategic decisions.Secondly, language work and cultural exchange must desist from being conceptualised unilaterally from Germany but must continue to be geared towards different regional and local needs. The Goethe-Institut’s decentralised way of working is an enormous strength.And thirdly, productive cultural exchange requires a great deal of room for manoeuvre and willingness to take risks on the part of all those involved, openness to unexpected results, and tolerance of mistakes. Even in times of uncertainty, we need to keep conceptual spaces open and encourage changes of perspective. This is the only way to overcome multiple crises. We need the creative power of culture to playfully explore new possibilities, connect people and cross borders.Finally, I’d like to express my thanks to everyone for four intensive and personally enriching years.I would like to thank the executive board and the management team of the Goethe-Institut for their excellent and trusting co-operation.The Goethe-Institut’s greatest resource is its creative, committed staff. Thank you all for the wonderful encounters and conversations.Many thanks also to the members of the association and the executive committee, who have supported me and provided constructive criticism.I would like to thank the Federal Foreign Office for the excellent collaboration despite all the adversities that had to be overcome together. My thanks also go to all the other partners in politics, especially the many members of the Bundestag who had an open ear for the Goethe-Institut.I would also like to thank the Goethe-Institut’s Economic Advisory Board and the many specialised advisory boards for their good advice and their willingness to act as ambassadors for the Goethe-Institut.Thanks, also, to the many partners in the cultural scenes in Munich, Berlin and elsewhere with whom I have been able to exchange ideas in a spirit of trust over the past few years.And last but not least, I would like to thank my friends and academic colleagues who have had to put up with my constant lack of time and have always given me advice and encouragement.Thanks to all of you!“We are fated to have a future. Moreover, we bear responsibility for it,” said the Ukrainian writer Serhiy Zhadan in his acceptance speech for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2022. The future, Zhadan insisted, “is shaped by our visions, our convictions, our willingness to take responsibility. We will work at returning our sense of the future, since there’s just so much in our memories that demands our involvement tomorrow. We are all linked by this current that carries us, that won’t let us go, that unites us.”
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21 November 2024 : Speech on the transfer of office on 21 November 2024
