Citizenship in a Global Age

Abstract

s Keough School of Global Affairs in September 2017.During his second visit to Notre Dame, at the invitation of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, Koehler led a global policy seminar for Notre Dame global affairs graduate and undergraduate students and gave the following speech on what it means to be a citizen in a global age marked by geopolitical instability, climate change, and swift technological adoption and change. IIf you look at the big picture of history, it is not a matter of course that I am speaking here today.A few hundred years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a Protestant to speak at a Catholic university.Seven decades ago -let's say, in the year I was born, 1943 -my country was the biggest enemy of the United States until it was, thankfully, defeated in a war which cost millions of lives.And finally, as the son of simple farmers who became refugees twice within the first ten years of my life, I really wasn't predestined to be called »President Köhler« one day and give a speech at a prestigious American university.And yet I am here, and none of you seems to want to go for my throat because I am protestant, or because I am German.None of you seems to question my legitimacy to speak because I wasn't born into a family of wealth or nobility or fame.All of this -if you look at the big picture of history!-is not a matter of course.None of it should be taken for granted.Times have changed -and they have changed for the better.Humanity has made progress within the last few decades that would have been unimaginable for the grandparents of your grandparents.Statistically speaking, the species of Speech by Former Federal President of Germany

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