Berlin — Our friend and chair of Berlin-based American Voices Abroad, Ann Wertheimer, gave an inspiring speech recently in Hamburg. Here is part of it.
Defending Democracy rally, Hamburg, September 22, 2024My name is Ann Wertheimer. I was born in New Jersey and lived there until I moved to Washington, D.C. to work as a public school teacher. I have been living in Berlin since 1971 where I taught English at the Freie Universität.
I am the chair of American Voices Abroad Berlin—or AVA, for short. AVA is a politically progressive group independent of all political parties both in the United States and in Germany. We offer a community for engaged U.S. citizens and provide a forum for a wide spectrum of views. We began in 2003 as Americans in Berlin Against the Iraq War. After a while, we began to focus on other issues and then changed our name.
And, by the way, we are not only citizens of the United States; we are also members of the community where we live. We seek to engage all members of this community in dialogue on issues of mutual concern.
Und übrigens sind wir nicht nur Bürger der Vereinigten Staaten, sondern auch ein Teil der Gemeinschaft in der wir leben. Wir wollen alle in dieser Gemeinschaft in einen Dialog über Fragen von gemeinsamem Interesse einbinden.
Joining American Voices Abroad is a way of engaging in American civic life even from here.
Democracy, we think, is something you do. You do it as an individual and you do it as part of a community.
Doing democracy starts with voting. Free and fair elections are the basis of democracy. Voting is how you do democracy as an individual, but significantly as one individual among many. Voting is a political act that we carry out with all of our fellow citizens.
A strong democracy needs high voter participation, but the United States State Department estimates that, of the over 80,000 U.S. citizens of voting age living in Germany, less than 10% voted in the 2022 general election—even though registering and voting from here is fairly simple. (If you haven’t yet registered, go to votefromabroad.org and do it.)
So why do so many overseas Americans not vote, not even in an election as crucial as this one? Do they not know that they can? Do they not know how? Or is it cynicism? Or resignation? Or fear of being tracked by the government? Does low voter turnout possibly reflect a lack of civic engagement among Americans abroad, a lack of community? In our efforts to participate in the life of our country of residence, in Germany, have we forgotten the rights and responsibilities of citizenship? Are we perhaps confused about what it means to act as individuals and, at the same time, to be part of the body politic?
With all good will, people may say, “My conscience just won’t let me vote for this or that person because I disagree with her so strongly on … name your issue.” So they sit out the election with a sense of political righteousness. In the end, the candidate who wins the election is often much further from the non-voter’s ideals than the candidate who offended their conscience.
Democracy may be exhausting, messy, confusing, and fragile, but it is truly our best hope. And we might take heart from legal scholar Jedediah Purdy, who writes: “Although no formula can make a polity democratic, there is one that goes a long way toward doing so: the principle that everybody votes.” (from Two Cheers for Politics: Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening — and Our Best Hope) ...
In the up-coming election, what’s at stake has never been more clear. It is the understanding that our government must work for all of us, that we are equal under the law, and that the rule of law, rather than the whims of one person or small group, must prevail....
We have learned that when wannabe dictators tell us what they intend to do, we should believe them. Wenn Möchtegern-Diktatoren uns sagen, was sie tun wollen, sollten wir ihnen glauben.
