When Politicians Talk: The Cultural Dynamics of Public Speaking 9811635781, 9789811635786

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Ofer Feldman   Editor

When Politicians Talk The Cultural Dynamics of Public Speaking

When Politicians Talk

Ofer Feldman Editor

When Politicians Talk The Cultural Dynamics of Public Speaking

Editor Ofer Feldman Faculty of Policy Studies Doshisha University Kyoto, Japan

ISBN 978-981-16-3578-6 ISBN 978-981-16-3579-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021, corrected publication 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To the Hatanis—Akifumi and Asaya

Preface

This volume has many voices. It reflects the collaboration efforts of researchers from a diverse background. The contributors, specializing in communication, rhetoric, discourse analysis, social psychology, political science, history, and international relations, bring multinational, multidisciplinary diversity, and a range of theoretical/conceptual approaches and research methods, to examine the relevance of culture to political discourse. Regardless of our different research areas and approaches, we share the central argument that culture matters. As the title suggests, we focus on culture as a powerful element to detail the interaction between culture and the language used by political figures—presidents, prime ministers, and other officials— in selected countries. Some, including Japan, China, and the Philippines, can be regarded as traditional societies, where behavior is governed more by custom, and where custom continues with little change from generation to generation. Others, including Israel, Germany, Spain, and Poland, can be regarded as societies in transition. Cultural elements embodied in each of these societies—whether idiosyncratic to a given society or more common to other societies—affect elite (and also popular) political discourse in ways that determine the nature and characteristics of public speaking, what can be said in the public sphere and how, and what are the taboos. By examining these aspects, our contributions to this volume pose issues and questions that we hope will stimulate further thought, discussion, and research in manifold directions. As the editor of this volume, I would like to thank those who helped to bring this project to completion. First, I greatly appreciate each of the contributors for having undertaken their assignments with enthusiasm and for graciously considered suggestions and feedback and more than once, patiently and thoughtfully, revising and refining their contributions. They have summarized and presented an impressive collection of knowledge and perspectives, reflecting innovative and fascinating ideas related to their areas of research. I am also indebted to Sonja Zmerli, who as ever, was a source of support and encouragement during the various stages of this project, sharing her thoughts and opinions on a number of contributions and providing useful, intelligent advice. A special thank you also to Amos Kiewe, E. Hidalgo Tenorio, Anita Fetzer, Masamichi Iwasaka, and Taro Tsukimura, who offered their support and assistance at the earlier stage of this project, and to Masae Imai for her friendship and vii

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exquisite teryôri during the editing of this volume. I am grateful to Richard Anderson, who, through keeping constant communication, offered valuable ideas during the progress of this project, and for sharing his wide knowledge and judgment regarding the content and substance of the submitted chapters. A special, sincere gratitude to Sam Lehman-Wilzig who agreed to serve as our copy editor, carefully checking each and every word in the submitted drafts, always going beyond this role to offer his constructive ideas in the review process regarding the improvement of the chapters’ quality and coherence. Last, I would like to express my great personal regard to Juno Kawakami, our editor at Springer, who was constantly very responsive and helpful, offering excellent assistance over the duration of our collective efforts. Needless to say, none of the above mentioned individuals bear any responsibility for any mistake or shortcomings in this book—except perhaps my two grandsons Akifumi (22 months old) and Asaya (102 days old), to whom this book is dedicated. Kyoto, Japan

Ofer Feldman

Contents

1

Introduction: Assessing Cultural Influences on Political Leaders’ Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ofer Feldman

Part I

Religion

2

Deep Culture: The Hebrew Bible and Israeli Political Speech . . . . . . Sam Lehman-Wilzig

3

Qur’anifying Public Political Discourse: Islamic Culture and Religious Rhetoric in Arabic Public Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ali Badeen Mohammed Al-Rikaby, Thulfiqar Hussein Altahmazi, and Debbita Ai Lin Tan

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5

The Role of Culture in Turkish Political Discourse: President Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan and The Justice and Development Party . . . Ay¸se Deniz Ünan Göktan The Symbolic Construction of a Messiah: Jair Bolsonaro’s Public, Christian Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eduardo Ryô Tamaki, Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça, and Matheus Gomes Mendonça Ferreira

Part II 6

7

1

17

35

53

73

History, Economy, Climate/Geography, and Majority/Minority Relations

Rationality and Moderation: German Chancellors’ Post-War Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Melani Schröter

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Talking Politics: The Influence of Historical and Cultural Transformations on Polish Political Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska and Agnieszka Kampka

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Contents

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A Tale of Two Prime Ministers: The Influence of Greek Culture in Post-Crises Political Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Christos Kostopoulos

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Rhetoric, Culture, and Climate Wars: A Discursive Analysis of Australian Political Leaders’ Responses to the Black Summer Bushfire Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Nicholas Bromfield, Alexander Page, and Kurt Sengul

10 The Core Socio-Cultural Building Blocks Underlying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speeches to the United Nations General Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Yuval Benziman Part III Social Structure, Values, Popular and New-Culture Elements 11 The President as Macho: Machismo, Misogyny, and the Language of Toxic Masculinity in Philippine Presidential Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Gene Segarra Navera 12 Decoding Japanese Politicians’ Rhetoric: Socio-Cultural Features of Public Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Ofer Feldman 13 Culture and Politics in Contemporary China: A Cultural-Rhetorical Analysis of Xi Jinping’s Three Speeches in 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Xing Lu 14 Popular Culture in the Service of Populist Politics in Spain: Pablo Iglesias’ Parliamentary Speech as Leader of the Podemos Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Francisco José Sánchez-García 15 Donald Trump: Dividing America Through New-Culture Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Michael Alan Krasner Part IV Cultural Convergence and Discourse Divergence 16 Commentary: Choice and Innovation in the Interaction of Political Discourse with Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Richard Anderson Correction to: When Politicians Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ofer Feldman

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Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Contributors

Ali Badeen Mohammed Al-Rikaby College of Arts, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq Thulfiqar Hussein Altahmazi College Baghdad, Iraq

of

Arts,

Mustansiriyah

University,

Richard Anderson Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Yuval Benziman The Swiss Center for Conflict Research, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Nicholas Bromfield Department of Government and International Relations, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia Ofer Feldman Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan Matheus Gomes Mendonça Ferreira Political Science Department, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Agnieszka Kampka Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Christos Kostopoulos Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University Malaysia, Miri, Malaysia Michael Alan Krasner Taft Institute for Government and Civic Education, Queens College, City University of New York, New York City, NY, USA Sam Lehman-Wilzig School of Communication, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel Xing Lu College of Communication, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça Political Science Department, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska Institute of Linguistics, University of Opole, Opole, Poland; xi

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Contributors

Department of Creative Communication, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius, Lithuania Gene Segarra Navera National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Alexander Page Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia Francisco José Sánchez-García Department of Spanish Linguistics, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain Melani Schröter Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Reading, Reading, UK Kurt Sengul Faculty of Education and Arts, The University of Newcastle, North Gosford, NSW, Australia Eduardo Ryô Tamaki Political Science Department, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Debbita Ai Lin Tan School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia Ay¸se Deniz Ünan Göktan Istanbul Gedik University, Istanbul, Turkey

Chapter 1

Introduction: Assessing Cultural Influences on Political Leaders’ Discourse Ofer Feldman

1.1 Introduction This book focuses on the effect of culture on the verbal communication used by public figures—politicians, political candidates, government officials and other decisionmakers—in a variety of countries, within the broad context of political behavior and communication. Each of the ensuing chapters details specifically the question of how culture shapes (determines, at various times) the content, nature, and characteristics of the language political figures use to appeal directly, or through media channels, to their respective national public. These include addresses that public figures deliver in national or local parliaments, their statements during parliamentary debates, speeches during National Days, in election campaigns, and in political party conventions; their lectures in front of supporters, briefings during the course of press conferences, their replies during televised or radio interviews, and in the social media. Case studies in this volume detail empirical material gathered from a wide range of countries including the U.S., Germany, Spain, Israel, Poland, Philippines, Turkey, Greece, Australia, Brazil, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Japan, and China. The sample from such a variety of societies allows comparison of the different structures and contents of the political rhetoric used from West to East. Taken together, the following chapters focus on the question of the effect of culture on what public figures say and when they deliver specific content to a particular audience. The chapters in this volume follow the widely accepted notion that culture is intrinsic to both verbal and non-verbal communication, i.e., culture guides and affects communication and language, giving rise to words, influencing words’ use, their pronunciation and tone, and providing context. Sapir (1921, 1985), among others (e.g., Hadley, 2001; Hinkel, 1999; Trudgill, 2000), noted that language, as a social behavior, can be seen as a way to describe and represent human experience The original version of this chapter was revised: A minor grammatical error in the text has been corrected. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-35793_17 O. Feldman (B) Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021, corrected publication 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_1

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and understand the world; that is, as a way to reflect underlying cultural patterns. Language, Sapir (1921, p. 207) observed, “does not exist apart from culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives.” Communication, in turn, supports culture: it promotes social bonds and connections among those who share a common background, and causes change by relating common experiences. As such, different cultures allocate importance to different modes and patterns of communication (e.g., verbal, non-verbal, written, visual), accept different styles of public speaking (e.g., usage of particular words, ideas, metaphors, or taboos), and different type of appeals (direct or indirect) that politicians and aspired politicians use to persuade specific audiences (e.g., political party members, government officials, voters, supporters), under given circumstances (e.g., parliamentary debates, media interviews, election campaigns), all of which form and shape the political culture of that society.

1.2 The Concept of Culture Two aspects are at the core of each of the following chapters. The first is culture. In this book the term “culture” is purposefully vague, and contributors didn’t confine themselves to any particular definition. In fact, contributors were given a free hand in choosing their cultural perspective, as well as their theoretical, conceptual, methodological approaches, and analytical methods, through which they examine political rhetoric in their respective case studies. Indeed, some chapters use “culture” in a very “wide” and amorphous way. All the contributors see culture, however, as the system that encompasses the norms, values, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and artefacts that are shared, by learning, accepting, and use in daily life by groups of people, many of whom are strangers to one another. As such, culture embraces many areas of society such as symbols, practices, rituals, value orientations and worldviews, nationality, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, educational systems and socialization processes, the role of the individual or of the family, and employment. It is related to, affected, and shaped by the shared historical experiences of individuals and groups, social structure, family structure and relationships, geography/climate/topography, religion, economic system, immigration patterns, and majority/minority relations. Several chapters show how distinct, past cultural aspects, such as historical circumstances or economic events, idiosyncratic to a specific society or country, influenced modern rhetoric in that country. This includes chapters that detail the cases of countries such as Poland (Chap. 7), Australia (Chap. 9), Japan (Chap. 12), and China (Chap. 13). The case of Germany (Chap. 6) is noteworthy because a series of dramatic historical events and radical change that took place in a relatively very short period of time during the twentieth century, determined the political culture of this country, and also affected politicians’ discourse. As such, examining cultural factors that affect German leaders’ (e.g., chancellors’) political discourse dictates

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first of all understanding the influence of historical events such as the Nazi regime (including the art of propaganda used during Nazi Germany for 12 years, from 1933 to 1945), World War II, the Holocaust, the Allied Occupation, the Cold War and the separation of East and West Germany, the unification of the two Germanies, and the federal political system. In a very short span of time, all these historical events have influenced, shaped, indeed determined, Germany’s political culture and political discourse.1 As a result, the political language of contemporary Germany has not only “changed” but “turned around” (Lang-Pfaff, 1998). In foreign-policy speeches on multilateral cooperation and on German integration in multilateral institutions, there was a gradual yet substantial shift in the discourse of Federal Government representatives in the period before (1988 ~ 1989) and after (1998 ~ 99) the unification of East and West Germany. Analyzing speeches of politicians before and after the unification, Baumann (2002) noted that in the latter period, statements referring to German self-interest and to Germany’s influence in international politics have dramatically increased in number. Furthermore, the shift in discourse was reflected in the frequent use of new terms such as “national interest” (nationales Interesse) and “self-interest” (Eigeninteresse) that were almost absent in 1988/89 speeches, and in the reinterpretation of established terms such as “responsibility” (Verantwortung) after the unification. In the speeches from the 1980s, “responsibility” was mostly used to denote a German responsibility for overcoming the divisions within Europe or more generally for peace and freedom. This responsibility was usually linked to the legacy of Germany’s history, or referred to growing German responsibility in international relations. A decade later, in the 1990s, the call for greater German responsibility usually meant a greater say in international relations, and being ready to use military means. “Assuming responsibility” has become a synonym of “exerting influence” or of “participating in military operations;” thus, its meaning has become pretty close to “using power,” that is, to legitimize a substantially different foreign policy. Further discussion related to Germany in this context is offered in Chap. 6. In contrast to chapters that emphasize the idiosyncratic characteristics of a given society or country, other chapters, including those that examine Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia (Chap. 3), and Turkey (Chap. 4), demonstrate how more universal cultural tropes that relate to religion such as Islam (for example), are used today in somewhat culturally specific ways. Specifically, in the Arab world, leaders profusely use Islam in matters of symbolism, historical precedent, and vocabulary, in order to survive domestically and further their foreign policy externally (Israeli, 1998). Most often they quote verses or phrases from the Qur’an, the Islamic Sacred Book, in their political speeches. These verses are part of a sacred religious text viewed by Muslims as divine. To illustrate: during his presidency in Egypt, President Anwar Al-Sadat often employed a number of linguistic signs from the semantic field of religious discourse, 1 Whether or not certain elements in the current political culture serve as the catalyst for German right-wing groups to copy Nazi discourse by using such terms as Lügenpresse (lying press; a term that was invented and used by the Nazis), is beyond the boundary of this volume and should be examined elsewhere. In this sense, it should be noted that culture affects not only elite political speech (e.g., chancellors), but also of political groups and even the discourse of “regular” citizens.

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repeating the Lord’s name, using popular common religious expressions such as insha’allah (God willing) and bimashi’atillah (following God’s will), and referring to textual addressees as religious Muslims. Religion was an important argumentative device in Sadat’s texts. He frequently attributed actions and consequences to God, presenting God as always being on “our side” supporting what “we” are doing against the enemy who is usually referred to as “unbelievers.” In Sadat’s rhetoric there is also a lot of interrelationship between the genre of political speeches and religious sermons: starting with bismillah irahman irahim (in the name of God most gracious, most merciful), using opening salutations such as “brothers and sisters” and “my sons and daughters,” and concluding with verses from the Qur’an, and supplications. The title of al-ra’ies al-mu’min (the believing leader) was used synonymously with “President Sadat” by the Egyptian media (Abdul-Latif, 2011). Chapter 3 provides more examples on the effect of the Qur’an on leaders in Iraq, Tunisia, and Egypt. Distinct from the above examples is the case of the U.S. (Chap. 15), where President Donald Trump was able to create a powerful and effective rhetoric by blending traditional American cultural elements with new-cultural aspects, including blatant aggression, hyperbolic lying on a large scale, and calls to violence. It illustrates how a political leader’s discourse reflects traditional culture in some ways, but can use those elements to undermine the culture of which they were a part. Another aspect worth-mentioning in this context is that some chapters, including those about Israel (Chaps. 2 and 10), Arab countries (Chap. 3), Japan (Chap. 12), and China (Chap. 13), suggest how old elements of culture shape modern political discourse, indicating the transformation of old tropes into quasi-modern language. But that doesn’t mean new elements don’t affect language; political discourse itself is a continually new element that reshapes culture on a daily basis. As detailed in the case of the U.S. (Chap. 15), Reality TV is a cultural innovation in America, but it is one that has propagated very fast, and the point that Trump blended Reality TV with the white supremacy that has deep roots in European culture (acquired, incidentally, from European settler culture) is a good example of how culture shapes political discourse through value and linguistic innovation. Last, and related to the above observation, is the notion that all the chapters in the book run a spectrum: from use of ancient cultural tropes, including those in Israel (Chaps. 2 and 10), Arab countries (Chap. 3), Turkey (Chap. 4), Brazil (Chap. 5), Greece (Chap. 8), Japan (Chap. 12), and China (Chap. 13); use of more modern (the last 200 years) tropes, such as in Australia (Chap. 9) and Philippines (Chap. 11); use of relatively recent (past 70 years) tropes, such as in Israel (Chaps. 2 and 10), Germany (Chap. 6), Poland (Chap. 7), Spain (Chap. 14); and finally, the use of very recent tropes (the last few years), such as the U.S. case (Chap. 15).

1.3 The Discourse of Public Figures The second aspect at the heart of each of the chapters is the discourse of public figures, mostly presidents, prime ministers, and members of the government. On the

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one hand, contemporary politics is mediated politics. Politicians and candidates for political office communicate with both voters and with each other especially through the news media, mostly television, websites, and social media. Hence the importance of politicians’ media skills. On the other hand, modern politics is also direct communication through campaign rallies, debates, and political party gatherings, where politicians and aspiring leaders convey their ideas, plans, and interpretations of political developments, directly to voters, supporters, the general public, as well as to their political party colleagues. In Japan, for example, high-echelon national level politicians regularly give lectures to various organizations in and outside their district—even three or more lectures in different locations in the course of a single day. On average, they may give two or three lectures a week, amounting to at least 100 lectures a year. In addition, they speak within their party at meetings organized for various purposes, and deliver campaign speeches and official greetings, often on behalf of friendly colleagues or candidates (Feldman, 2004). Ultimately, in addition to their leadership qualities, negotiation skills, and ability to keep effective working relationships with colleagues and officials, decision-makers and candidates for political positions have to demonstrate that they possess sufficient rhetorical skills to be able to communicate effectively. Indeed, very often the public sees rhetoric as the most important feature of its political leaders, and evaluates them more by their words than by their deeds (Feldman, 2020). Whether through the news media and social media—or in front of voters, supporters, the general public, and even the international arena—savvy political communicators make conscious decisions about the content, timing, and the tone (e.g., emotional) of their speeches, appeals, inaugural addresses, U.N. declarations, and Facebook pages (Gayoso, 2020; Joathan & Marques, 2020; Johnson, 2020; Stein Teer, 2020; Tanke, 2019). They often focus their discourse on the issues that make them feel most comfortable and competent, and to avoid issues which they are unfamiliar with or that might adversely affect their political agenda or public image. Regardless of whether they face colleagues, supporters, or an interviewer on a televised program, politicians favor issues in which they have special interest, knowledge, commitment, or engagement, and that are likely to lead to success (Feldman & Kinoshita, 2019).

1.3.1 Informing the Public When addressing their audience, public figures aim to inform, entertain and to persuade regarding political events and processes, the political agenda, public policy, and their positions and views. First, they tell voters how they and other decision-makers view the significance of political issues, explain their objectives and motives vis-à-vis public opinion, and justify their activities and decisions in the public domain. They inform, explain, and interpret political developments and their objectives within it by using explicit

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and direct appeals, often summarizing their promises or policies into short slogans or buzzwords. Examples include such catchphrases or words as “we will make America great again” of U.S. President Trump; “harness all our willpower,” “global changes,” and “open to dialogue,” of Russian President Vladimir Putin (Gayoso, 2020); “Let our ‘moments’ [one of the functions of WeChat, which is the most popular social application in China] grow bigger and bigger,” and “We are all dream catchers” (Wang, 2020) or “putting people first,” “serving the people,” and “our great nation” of China President Xi Jinping (Chap. 13); and “mending the state,” “opportunities for Poland,” “welfare and skillful management,” and others of Polish prime ministers (Chap. 7 in this book). Political orators repeatedly fill their speeches with easily memorized and easily expressed clichés, or just recalling their own political party’s line. They regularly use implicit appeals in a form of figurative language, varying in content and intensity or strength. Figurative language, including metaphors, similes, and personification, referring to such attributes as art, disease, family, health, and war, are important component of politics that reflects and creates meaning for the audience (Feldman, 2004, pp. 111–151). Different cultures tend to use different metaphors; in Israel (Chap. 2), metaphors have more historical connotations, referring to “the long journey on the world stage of history over four thousand years among most of the world’s nations…our people continually encountered loathing and hatred,” and “destruction of the Third Temple.” Likewise, in Poland (Chap. 7) leaders rely on Polish history and mythology as sources of metaphors, referring to their country as “a building” or “common home,” and “an organism whose health and well-being need supporting.” In Germany (Chap. 6), chancellors used different metaphors to address a particular issue or the nature of the political process and mood that existed at a given time. They used such concepts as “steps” to take, to “progress” along a “road,” and to consider diverse “sides” with different “views”; they appealed for the need for “balance,” referring to “multiple levels” of policymaking, including “a long and stony road;” they underlined that “every step in a situation like this needs to be carefully considered,” and labelled the government’s policy as a “policy of balance.” In China (Chap. 13), President Xi declared, metaphorically speaking, his intention to conduct “the hard battle,” and to “laying a more solid foundation” to “win the battle” in order to eliminate poverty in his country (more examples of Xi’s use of figurative language can be found in Wang, 2020). Culture, and specifically political culture, determine which metaphors are acceptable or taboo, strong or weak. In turn, those metaphors themselves help mold other aspects of the culture and political culture.

1.3.2 Entertaining Audiences In addition to informing their listeners or viewers, politicians and political candidates entertain their audiences. They do it by revealing piquant, at times even provocative or unexpected information, detailing the stories behind the stories of their daily activities and contacts with colleagues and government officials. Skilled public speakers

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become likeable and trustable as they mix their rhetoric with funny episodes and experiences, even jokes. American Presidents as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan used humor while campaigning, to defuse stressful situations and to control the immediate threatening situation. By telling jokes, Kennedy for example was able to dismiss as unimportant the accusations against him, re-establishing himself as a worthy leader among the media and the public (Krasner, 2019). In the Philippines (Chap. 11), President Rodrigo Duterte entertains his audience while intensifying, even more than previous presidents, toxic masculinity in his presidential discourse through “rape jokes,” jokes about his female cabinet members as potential sexual partners, and Filipina as tourist attractions. This seems to be acceptable and even appreciated by Filipinos as Duterte has consistently enjoyed high ratings of support. In Japan too (Chap. 12), politicians and candidates tell humoristic episodes and jokes (but not of the sexual nature as Duterte) to show familiarity with their audience and to attract voters’ attention and support (Feldman, 2004; Feldman & Bull, 2012). Yet, as detailed in Chap. 12, sharing what political orators perceive as jokes can at times backfire and invite criticism because it is regarded as abusive and insulting language toward a particular segment of society. Eventually, in the case of Japan, such politicians have to apologize for their gaffes.

1.3.3 Persuading the Audience Lastly, political communicators try to persuade their audience to carry an idea forward in order to achieve a particular goal; attempt to shape voters’ attitudes toward themselves, their opponents, political institutions and parties, the political process, and also to affect public debate. Politicians, most notably populist leaders, including Trump in the U.S., Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and Beppe Grillo in Italy, invite the audience to follow and support them as their champion against a corrupt system and corrupt elite that includes a corrupt media (Cremonesi, 2019; Hameleers, 2019; Krasner, 2020). This volume, in addition to Trump, depicts five populist leaders who use their language to persuade viewers and listeners to endorse and follow their policies and agendas: (1) President Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan’s of Turkey (Chap. 4), who actively employs religious idioms, hadiths and references to the Our’an, as well addressing principles of democracy and secularism along emotional requests for loyalty; (2) President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil (Chap. 5), who emphasizes religious symbols, Christian appeals, messianic promises of salvation, order, and struggle against persecution, as he builds his sacred and mythic image of a Messiah that leads the people in this moral crusade against secular values threatening religious and conservative hegemony; (3) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel (Chap. 10), whose discourse signifies the central socio-cultural building blocks of what Israel is about, one in which Jewish religion, heritage and history have a huge impact on contemporary Israel’s activities, a narration that is a mixture of past and present, religion and nationalism, dreams and reality, of Israel being part of the world and trusted by

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others but simultaneously also suspicious of others, isolated, and standing alone; (4) President Duterte of the Philippines (Chap.11), who recontextualizes and extends an enduring machismo discourse of the country leaders depicting men as the primary source of strength, the arbiter of good behavior in society, and the presidency as the domain of men, i.e., inherently masculine, and regards women as servants of men, political ornaments; and finally, (5) Pablo Iglesias, the Vice-Prime Minister of Spain (Chap. 14), who uses concepts and ideas of well-known Spanish rap groups and reemploys relevant, sometimes direct quotations from influential Spanish poets to reconnect his discourse with the values and feelings of the long Spanish Republican tradition. Notably, although political speech is essentially monologic in form, it can also be understood as an interactive event in which political orators and their audiences coordinate their activities in the course of a speech. The construction of the speech itself, including the usage of formulaic rhetorical devices, may be used to invite audience displays of approval (e.g., by clapping, cheering, laughing) or disapproval (e.g., by booing, jeering, heckling), by indicating when and where it is appropriate; as a result, the audience’s reactions are highly synchronized. Displays of collective approval or disapproval can be seen as a manifest expression of group solidarity connecting, on the horizontal level, those audience members who display the same activity and, on the vertical level, linking the speaker to the latter (Bull & Feldman, 2011; Feldman & Bull, 2012).

1.4 The Contributions While examining public figures’ discourse in both their public speaking and media appearances, the contributors to this volume agree on the basic premise that like any other social and political behavior and attitude, discourse is also affected by a wide range of components that exists in the immediate environment as well as individuals’ personality traits. Yet, we all agree that culture matters and that cultural elements have direct effect on political orators’ discourse in a variety of situations in different countries. To examine and assess the effect of culture on political discourse, this book is divided into four parts, each of the first three focusing on different dimensions of cultural factors and the last part consists the conclusions of the book. The first part is entitled Religion. It includes chapters analyzing Judaism, Islam, and Christianity and their linkage with political language. In Chap. 2, “Deep Culture: The Hebrew Bible and Israeli Political Speech,” Sam Lehman-Wilzig examines how the Hebrew Bible (Torah), the foundation of the Jewish/Hebrew culture, continues to shape the current Zionist/Israeli political oratory even after more than 3,000 years. Lehman-Wilzig specifies a few main themes that constitute Jewish historic-cultural antecedents, and proceeds with a qualitative analysis highlighting certain tropes and expressions in light of ageless Jewish culture.

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This includes quotes over the last 120 years from leading early Zionist and contemporary Israeli politicians to demonstrate how Israeli political speech continues to be influenced by the “deep culture” of the Jews’ most revered religio-national source from a long time ago. Lehman-Wilzig concludes the chapter with reflections on the politico-oratorical expression of these cultural influences in the Israeli context. In Chap. 3, “Qur’anifying Public Political Discourse: Islamic Culture and Religious Rhetoric in Arabic Public Speaking,” Ali Badeen Mohammed Al-Rikaby, Thulfiqar Hussein Altahmazi, and Debbita Ai Lin Tan explore the extent to which Islamic values representing the core of Arab culture, and Qur’anic rhetoric, influence political discourse in the Arab world. They look at the influence of Qur’anic themes, stylistic techniques and discursive practices on public speaking of six heads of states in three Arab countries—Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia—during times of crisis across preand post-Arab Spring eras. Employing both analytical and stylistic frameworks to explain how public speaking in the Arab world is heavily influenced by Qur’anic elements, the authors identify remarkable similarities between the Qur’anic text and the political speeches analyzed. In Chap. 4, “The Role of Culture in Turkish Political Discourse: President Erdo˘gan and the Justice and Development Party,” Ay¸se Deniz Ünan Göktan pays special attention to how cultural elements influence President Erdo˘gan’s public speeches, as well as the discourse of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. She identifies two diverse cultural roots that influence President Erdo˘gan’s public speeches. First, Sunni-Islamic sub-culture that shapes political Islam, i.e., for example, as expressed ideologically through the longing for power, and an urge to make regulations and foster social change based on Islamic principles. Second, that reflects more mainstream cultural themes and values related to both Islam and secularism, including patriarchy, loyalty, religiosity, democracy, and autonomy. On the public level, individuals perceive themselves living under such principles as democracy and secularism, thus influencing the leaders of the Justice and Development Party to develop a discourse embracing such mainstream cultural values in order to gain and maintain political power in Turkey. In Chap. 5, “The Symbolic Construction of a Messiah: Jair Bolsonaro’s Public, Christian Discourse,” Eduardo Ryô Tamaki, Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça, and Matheus Gomes Mendonça Ferreira investigate the religious dimension of political discourse in contemporary Brazil. They indicate that Christianity is a central element of Brazilian culture, shaping practice, behavior, and the discourse of political candidates and representatives. Focusing in particular on the current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Tamaki and his colleagues reveal that his forms of expression in his weekly live appearances on YouTube are deeply and profusely marked by religious elements, including biblical references and religious symbols. Bolsonaro’s discourse touches on messianic promises of salvation, order and struggle against persecution, indicating the acceptance of majoritarian beliefs against constitutional secularism. The second part of the volume, History, Economy, Climate/Geography, and Majority/Minority Relations gives particular consideration to the effect of historical experiences, economic crises, climate and geographical factors on the discourse of political leaders.

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In Chap. 6, “Rationality and Moderation: German Chancellors’ Post-War Rhetoric,” Melani Schröter’s contribution draws attention to the parliamentary speeches and televised addresses of four post-WWII German chancellors in different times – Konrad Adenauer (the 1950s), Willy Brandt (the 1970s), Helmut Kohl (the 1990s), and Angela Merkel (the 2010s) to detail how culture affects their rhetoric. Schröter notes that whereas in some countries historical experiences that affect political culture mean maintaining traditions while adapting to new situations and conditions, in Germany political culture was shaped by discontinuity, starting from the nineteenth century and ending in German unification in 1990 with the establishment of 16 federal states. Rationality and moderation now appear as key elements of leading German politicians’ rhetoric. Through a qualitative, rhetorical, discourse analysis Schröter shows the effect over time of historical events following the devastating Nazi dictatorship, the division into two German states between 1949 and 1990, the unification following the collapse of the Berlin wall, and the processes such as secularization and individualism on German leaders’ rhetoric, have led to rationality and moderation becoming the applicable dominant norms of German political culture. At the same time, Schröter refers to the appearance of new groups and forces, including right-wing movements that promote an ethnically homogeneous population, campaigning against Muslim immigrants, and trying to stop the progress of gender diversity, re-evaluate post-war German history, and roll back the memorialization of the Holocaust—all threatening to undermine the stability of post-war German political culture. In Chap. 7, “Talking Politics: Historical and Cultural Transformations and their Influence on Polish Political Rhetoric,” Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska and Agnieszka Kampka elaborate on the effects of such factors as turbulent history, economic instability, national heritage, and recent social changes, on the content, the style and the rhetorical devices employed by selected presidents and prime ministers in Poland during, for example, their inaugurals and parliamentary debates, and populist party propaganda, since 2004 when Poland’s political system stabilized after the transformation from a communist to a democratic state. Their detailed qualitative study offers an interesting perspective on the rhetorical projection of cultural identity (Polishness, the Nation) through metaphors, tropes and populist, false dichotomies. In Chap. 8, “A Tale of Two Prime Ministers: The Influence of Greek Culture in Post-Crises Political Speech,” Christos Kostopoulos’s contribution examines how the political speeches of Greece’s two leaders—the current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the leader of the major conservative and liberal right-wing party of Greece, and previous Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the leader of a coalition of radical left parties—have been impacted by cultural factors. Analyzing the discourse of these leaders from opposing political positions reveals that both used a number of similar cultural devices, especially those referring to Greece’s ancient past and revolutionary struggle, but at the same time these are connected to different values based on the political delineation of each leader. Through a qualitative frame analysis of public speeches given by the two leaders in the last five years, Kostopoulos provides the main cultural frames employed by the leaders, the cultural devices used in these

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frames, and explains how these frames fit in the overall context of Greek political culture. In Chap. 9, “Rhetoric, Culture, and Climate Wars: A Discursive Analysis of Australian Political Leaders’ Responses to the Black Summer Bushfire Crisis,” Nicholas Bromfield, Alexander Page and Kurt Sengul lay particular emphasis on the discourse of four Australian political party representatives, including the prime minister and the opposition leader, as they addressed the ecological and existential crisis involving the Black Summer Bushfires of 2019–2020. Using qualitative critical discourse analysis of addresses to the media and the federal parliament, Bromfield, Page and Sengul reveal how each leader’s rhetoric interacted with, and wove together, their discursive climate policy positions, while adopting Australian cultural signs, symbols, and practices relative to new circumstances. As each leader varied in expressing cultural tropes, the discussion points out how culture can be negotiated to align with partisan political agendas, even in moments of unprecedented climate destruction. In Chap. 10, “Core Socio-Cultural Building Blocks Influencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speeches to the U.N. General Assembly,” Yuval Benziman probes the extent to which such fundamental, socio-cultural building blocks as Jewish history, heritage and religion, the feeling of being an isolated minority, but also the ability to overcome all obstacles and prevail against all odds, affect Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses to the United Nations General Assembly over the past decade. Benziman notes that by using elements related to socio-cultural building blocks, the prime minister presented Israel as a country that sees itself in constant danger and suspicious of all others, a country that tells itself a story in which it wants peace but confronts antisemitism, a country that has a history of standing alone and overcoming huge obstacles and therefore believes it can make “the impossible possible.” The third part in this volume, Social Structure, Values, Popular and New-Culture Elements, consists of five chapters. In Chap. 11, “The President as Macho: Machismo, Misogyny, and the Language of Toxic Masculinity in Philippine Presidential Discourse,” Gene Segarra Navera examines the language style of President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippine, along with selected speeches or utterances by his predecessors, particularly those that touch on women’s role in society and women’s issues at large, as affected by such sociocultural concepts as machismo, bossism, militarism, and strongmen. Relying on selected examples from Duterte’s speeches in which he regards women as objects of male lust and pleasure, where women are reduced to their faces or body parts that attract the male gaze, and primarily meant to serve men, Navera concludes that Duterte’s sexist, strongly prejudiced, anti-women rhetorical style should be seen not as a unique feature of the current president’s individual speech, but as an extension and recontextualization of macho rhetoric that had already been developed and perpetuated through the rhetorical history of the Philippine presidency, sustaining machismo through the language of toxic masculinity. In Chap.12, “Decoding Japanese Politicians’ Rhetoric: Socio-Cultural Features of Public Speaking,” Ofer Feldman is concerned with the dichotomous nature of

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the rhetoric used by Japanese political leaders, reflecting the different attitudes of a speaker conversing on a particular issue and in a given social circumstance. Peculiar sets of historical and cultural antecedents and norms, developed for centuries in Japan, determine that unlike Western societies, Japan does not have a tradition of viewing eloquence as a virtue. Rather, the society as a whole favors indirect speech patterns that use ambiguous expressions and allow the speaker to avoid taking responsibility. Eventually, politicians and government officials are inclined as well to talk vaguely and avoid disclosing their true thoughts and feelings in public. Real feelings and opinions about politics and personnel are not supposed to intrude on the “front” side of politics, where things must be kept calm and controlled. Adhering to this rule, Japanese politicians create a political “equilibrium” in the public sphere through informal political honesty. In Chap. 13, “Culture and Politics in Contemporary China: A Cultural-Rhetorical Analysis of President Xi Jinping’s Three Presidential Speeches in 2019,” Xing Lu analyses three speeches delivered by China’s President Xi Jinping. Lu draws the attention on how the classical and modern cultural and political elements have been adopted by Xi to appeal and boost the Chinese people’s self-confidence and build the nation’s trust in him and his party’s leadership. This study is of interest as Xi’s appeals took place at a critical season when China was increasingly perceived as an economic, technological, and military threat to the Western world and its neighboring countries. Lu suggests that even without explicitly mentioning the names and direct quotations from Confucius, Mencius, and Mao Zedong, Xi’s speeches have included Confucian values of putting people first as well as Mao’s rhetoric of nationalism characterized by victimization, nationalism, and the promise of a better life. The analysis of Xi’s speeches reveals a close link between culture and politics, demonstrating the power of political language to create identification, and the power of culture as premise for political persuasion. In Chap. 14, “Popular Culture in the Service of Populist Politics in Spain: Pablo Iglesias’ Parliamentary Speech as a Leader of the Podemos Party,” Francisco José Sánchez-García focuses on Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the political party Podemos, and his speeches in the lower house of the Spain’s legislature, from 2016 through 2020. Analyzing the lexicon, metaphors, and conceptual frames Iglesias used in a selection of parliamentary presentations, Sánchez-García identified the influence of popular culture rhetoric (e.g., music, poetry, religion, cinema, and TV series) on Iglesias’ rhetoric, and a progressive transition from initial antagonism to a more pragmatic agonism from Iglesias’ arrival at the political scene in 2016 until his entry into the government as vice-prime minister in 2020. In Chap. 15, “Donald Trump: Dividing America through New-Culture Speech,” Michael Alan Krasner focuses in particular on the way Donald Trump developed a powerful and effective political rhetoric that blended traditional American culture, e.g., individualism, materialism, and meritocracy, with new-culture elements drawn from Reality TV shows, e.g., blatant aggression (including bullying, especially of women), voluble, hyperbolic lying, and the call to violence. Krasner observes that this new cultural arrangement undermined democratic norms and nurtured autocratic tendencies. Eventually Trump, as president, took these elements to their extreme and

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produced rhetoric that incited the violent storming of the United States Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, a development in a series of rhetorical events that might foretell the end of America’s deeply fragile, social and political equality. The fourth and final part of the book, Cultural Convergence and Discourse Divergence, consists of one chapter entitled “Commentary: Choice and Innovation in the Interaction of Political Discourse with Culture.” In Chap. 16, Richard Anderson ties together the volume and examines two topics that are at the center of the chapters: the way contributors conceptualized the main dimensions of culture, and the commonality or diversity in the contributors’ perceptions of how culture affects political discourse in different parts of the world. In is distinguished concluding style and with a perceptive, critical eye, Anderson analyzes the ways of cultural innovation in political discourse. He wraps up his analysis in a socio-politico-historicallinguistic package that must be taken into account in any future scholarly research examining the nexus between culture and political discourse in contemporary society.

References Abdul-Latif, E. (2011). Interdiscursivity between political and religious discourses in a speech by Sadat: Combining CDA and addressee rhetoric. Journal of Language and Politics, 10, 50–67. Baumann, R. (2002). The transformation of German multilateralism: Changes in the foreign policy discourse since unification. German Politics and Society, 20(4), 1–26. Bull, P., & Feldman, O. (2011). Invitations to affiliative audience responses in Japanese political speeches. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 30(2), 158–176. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0261927X10397151. Cremonesi, C. (2019). Populism in self-directed and mediated communication: The case of the Five Star movement in the 2013 Italian electoral campaign. In O. Feldman & S. Zmerli (Eds.), The psychology of political communicators: How politicians, culture, and the media construct and shape public discourse (pp. 99–122). Routledge. Feldman, O. (2004). Talking politics in Japan today. Sussex Academic Press. Feldman, O. (2020). Introduction: Persuasive speaking and evoking political behavior. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 1–14). Edward Elgar. Feldman, O., & Bull, P. (2012). Understanding audience affiliation in response to political speeches in Japan. Language & Dialogue, 2(3), 375–397. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.2.3.04fel. Feldman, O., & Kinoshita, K. (2019). Political communicators and control in political interviews in Japanese television: A comparative study and the effect of culture. In O. Feldman & S. Zmerli (Eds.), The psychology of political communicators: How politicians, culture, and the media construct and shape public discourse (pp. 31–55). Routledge. Gayoso, A. (2020). Political public relations (PPR) techniques: Emotional input and output. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 104–138). Edward Elgar. Hadley, A. O. (2001). Teaching language in context (3rd ed.). Heinle & Heinle. Hameleers, M. (2019). They caused our crisis! The contents and effects of populist communication: Evidence from the Netherlands. In O. Feldman & S. Zmerli (Eds.), The psychology of political communicators: How politicians, culture, and the media construct and shape public discourse (pp. 79–98). Routledge.

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Hinkel, E. (Ed.). (1999). Culture in second language teaching and learning. Cambridge University Press. Israeli, R. (1998). The pervasiveness of Islam in contemporary Arab political discourse: The cases of Sadat and Arafat. In O. Feldman & C. De Landtsheer (Eds.), Politically speaking: A worldwide examination of language used in the public sphere (pp. 19–30). Greenwood. Joathan, Í., & Marques, F. P. J. (2020). Emotion, reason, and political attacks on Facebook: The use of rhetorical appeals in the 2014 Brazilian presidential race. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 214–229). Edward Elgar. Johnson, C. (2020). Gender, emotion and political discourse: Masculinity, femininity, and populism. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 16–33). Edward Elgar. Krasner, M. A. (2019). The new American electoral politics: How invited behavior and Reality TV explain Donald Trump’s victory. In O. Feldman & S. Zmerli (Eds.), The psychology of political communicators: How politicians, culture, and the media construct and shape public discourse (pp. 13–30). Routledge. Krasner, M. A. (2020). Battling for America’s soul: Donald Trump, invited behavior, and the midterm elections of 2018. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 86–103). Edward Elgar. Lang-Pfaff, C. (1998). The changing political language of Germany. In O. Feldman & C. De Landtsheer (Eds.), Politically speaking: A worldwide examination of language used in the public sphere (pp. 31–42). Greenwood Press. Sapir, E. (1921). Language: An introduction to the study of speech. Harcourt, Brace & World Inc. Sapir, E. (1985). Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture and personality (Mandelbaum, Ed.). University of California Press. Stein Teer, M. (2020). What makes a speech effective? Netanyahu’s and Obama’s SPECtrum of rhetoric intelligences (SPEC/RI) in UN speeches 2009–2012. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The Rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 34–52). Edward Elgar. Tanke, S. (2019). Comparing Japanese and U.S. leaders’ communication: The construction of meaning in addresses to the United Nations General Assembly. In O. Feldman & S. Zmerli (Eds.), The psychology of political communicators: How politicians, culture, and the media construct and shape public discourse (pp. 56–75). Routledge. Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. Penguin Books. Wang, J. (2020). Xi Jinping’s governance philosophy and language style: Analysis of the Chinese leader’s speeches. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 53–68). Edward Elgar.

Ofer Feldman is Professor of Political Psychology and Behavior at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. His research centers on the psychological underpinnings of mass and elite political behavior in Japan, and he has published extensively journal articles and book chapters on issues related to political communication and persuasion, political leadership, and political culture. His books include Talking Politics in Japan Today (2004), Seiji shinrigaku [Political Psychology] (in Japanese, 2006), Politische Psychologie: Handbuch f¨ur Studium und Wissenschaft [Political Psychology: Handbook for Study and Science] (in German, 2015, edited with Sonja Zmerli), The Psychology of Political Communicators (2019, edited with Sonja Zmerli), and The Rhetoric of Political Leadership (2020, edited). He was elected (2021) Honorary Chair of the Research Committee on Political Psychology, International Political Science Association.

Part I

Religion

Chapter 2

Deep Culture: The Hebrew Bible and Israeli Political Speech Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Every culture at any given specific historical period will be characterized by a limited repertoire of particularly central and salient themes… symbolically expressed through myth… (Aronoff, 1989, p. xiii)

2.1 Introduction As the chapters in this book attest, there are numerous aspects of culture in general, and political culture specifically, influencing political speech and rhetoric in any given nation and society. The present chapter will add to this list but with an emphasis on the “long-term.” Being a Jewish State, Israel has been heavily influenced by Jewish history—theological, social, political, and otherwise—over the past 3000 years (at least), given that traditional Jews believe that the Hebrew Bible was presented to Moses around 3200 years ago, and it is that biblical narrative that has shaped the general parameters of public and private behavior/speech for Jews ever since.1 In short, the Jewish tradition has created a recognizable interface between culture and language, i.e., a distinct “linguaculture” (Risager, 2019).2 1

Of course, this doesn’t deny the very large influence of the diaspora countries/empires where Jews lived over this huge historical span. Nevertheless, Judaism and the Jews in general had great facility (and experience) in adapting certain Gentile norms and behavioral patterns to Jewish culture. Many such examples are well known, e.g., the Passover eve “seder” is basically an adapted Greek Symposium with all the trappings: drinking cups of wine; reclining while eating; the give and take of storytelling and discussion, etc. 2 There are two main bases of culture, as Risager (2006, p. 5) notes: “linguistically formed culture and non-linguistically formed culture.” S. Lehman-Wilzig (B) School of Communication, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_2

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Of course, Jewish culture has not remained stagnant; it has obviously undergone change in certain respects. From a political culture standpoint, one can point especially to the significant difference between the biblical “mindset” of warlike Israel over its first 1000+ years and the Jews’ more “passive/defensive” mentality in the past 2000 years of diaspora life. Yet even here a certain continuity (or renewal) can be perceived: in their writings, the early Zionists almost exclusively harked back to biblical figures and heroics; indeed, they considered Zionism to be the “negation of the Diaspora.” David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s “founding father” and first prime minister, 1948–1954; 1955–1963) stated: “Our father Abraham, his son and grandson; Moses and Aharon; King David and his progeny; the prophets of Israel, all that happened to them and everything they said—are closer to us than the words of [the medieval commentators] Rav Ashi, Alfasi, Maimonides…” (Shapira, 1997, p. 661). Thus, one can occasionally ascertain internal “contradictions” within Israeli political culture and speech—sometimes based on the Bible and on other occasions clearly influenced by the Diaspora experience. As former Israeli President Ezer Weizman opined: “The one thing that changes very radically in Israel is the past” (Aronoff, 1989, p. xvi). This chapter commences with a survey of the major cultural influences on Jewish psychology and behavior. Judaism is a rare religion in that it is virtually impossible to separate ethnos/nationality from theology/religious practice. In the Jewish tradition, the Torah—loosely defined as the Book of Laws—was “given” at the exact same time that the Children of Israel became a unified nation during their desert sojourn after centuries of slavery in Egypt. Thus, simply put, Judaism has something to say (command) about every aspect of Jewish life, whether on the micro-personal plane or the macro-societal level. This is true even when—as is the case in modern Israel—the majority of its citizenry are not “religious”, although around half of the country’s Jewish population (itself constituting 80% of all Israeli citizens) consider themselves to be “traditional” at the least. There are three/four reasons for this cultural continuity. First, as noted at the outset, culture can maintain its integrity over long periods of time, especially if connected to ethnicity and religion. Second, most Israelis today—even the secular sector—are but one or two generations removed from grand/parents who were traditional in their belief and religious practice. For instance, Shimon Peres (Prime Minister 1977; 1984–1986; 1995–1996) was a completely secular person. Yet, in his swearing-in speech as President of Israel (July 15, 2007) he noted: “My grandfather… taught me the daily Talmud page”3 (Shapira, 2008, p. 293). Third and fourth, the educational system teaches everyone the basics of Judaism and Jewish history (however “distorted”), and all the official holidays are either based on the Jewish religious calendar or “secular” (recent Israeli) commemorations that include heavy Jewish symbols (e.g., menorah) and historical associations (e.g., Holocaust Remembrance Day). After presenting a few caveats and several preliminary points, the chapter will survey a few main themes that constitute Jewish historic-cultural antecedents, each accompanied by Israeli politicians’ speech quotations that exemplify those aspects 3

I have translated into English all the Hebrew texts quoted in this article.

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of Jewish history and culture. This will not be a systematic, quantitative study, but rather a qualitative analysis highlighting certain tropes and expressions in light of ageless Jewish culture. The chapter’s last section will then offer some conclusions regarding the politico-oratorical expression of these cultural influences in the Israeli context.

2.1.1 What Is Not Included in This Study There are several elements that this chapter will not analyze. First, it will not survey or relate to political speech of Israel’s Arab citizens. These include Moslem, Christian, Druze and Circassian Israelis—all of whom who have completely different historical pasts and respective cultures. They are deserving of separate treatment, but that is beyond this chapter’s purview. (For a brief survey of Moslems, Christians, and Druze, in light of political rhetoric, see Krebs & Jackson, 2007, pp. 48–55). Second, the focus will be on the verbal/textual language of Israeli political speech, and not aspects of “delivery” such as non-verbal (body) language, intonation, pauses, and the like. Of course, these are very important in their own right (Freeley & Steinberg, 2009, pp. 313–324), and also can be influenced by cultural speech patterns (e.g., hand movement and signing can be quite different between cultures), but that would make this study overly unwieldly. It does bear mentioning that Israeli speech in general is characterized by “[t]he absence of a sense of degree, of gradation. The absence of sub-tones… The listener is habituated to ear-splitting decibels and the reader to eye-dazzling colors” (Shavit, 2001). Third, with a few exceptions, this study deals with Israeli political speech directed at the domestic audience.4 One might think that if the focus is on political culture’s influence it should make no difference what language is used5 or who constitutes the audience. However, this is not true because each language has its own “subtexts” and associations that do not necessarily work in another language; thus, the native speaker might alter speech, i.e., consciously eliminate culturally specific texts (especially when the speech is prepared ahead of time). 4

Three exceptions will be offered below, but in these cases one can argue that from these Israeli leaders’ standpoint, the Israeli home front was their real target audience: PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the U.N.; President Ezer Weizman’s Bundestag speech; PM Ehud Olmert’s address to the U.S. Congress. 5 Many Israeli politicians intersperse their speech with occasional Arabic words such as inshallah (“God willing”), similar to the absorption of English (British Mandate and contemporary American influence), and also the occasional Russian word (one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union). This could be considered linguistic “cultural influence”, but at this point it is still a very minor phenomenon. Nevertheless, just as foreign words have infiltrated Hebrew through the ages (e.g., from Persian, Aramaic, and especially German-Yiddish), so too one can expect linguistic Arabic influence to increase slowly but gradually in the future, given that Arabs constitute 20% of Israel’s population, and also that a sizable proportion of Israeli Jewish families immigrated from Arab or Moslem countries in the 1940s and 1950s, their mother tongue being Arabic.

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Fourth, to maintain clear focus, the examples provided will concentrate on rhetoric and not dialogue, i.e., only prepared speeches and not media interviews or types of debate. Fifth and finally, there obviously are other—more “modern”—cultural precursors of Israeli speech that will not be dealt with here but certainly call for future research. Three examples will suffice. First, early Zionism’s main social philosophy (and institutional practice, e.g., kibbutz) was Socialism and even Marxist-Communism, with strong political residues at least until the late 1970s when the right-wing Likud took the reins of power; in reaction, the formerly dominant Labor Party began moving in an ideologically Social Democratic direction.6 A second historical-cultural thread from the modern period involved “Enlightenment pacifism,” a la Spinoza, Mendelsohn, and Buber—as a counterpoint to Zionism’s aggressive nationalism of Leon Pinsker and Theodore Herzl.7 A few politicians’ quotes will be offered below along these lines, within the context of the pursuit of peace. A third cultural factor—real-world and ideological—is “ingathering of exiles”, i.e., the Zionist homeland/state as the answer to the persecution of world Jewry. The newly established State of Israel doubled its population from 1948–1952, and today immigrants constitute about one-third of Israel’s Jewish population and another third their children (Semyonov & Gorodzeisky, 2012, p. 3). Such a melting pot philosophy (or mosaic reality) was bound to have a profound influence on the country’s culture and concomitant political speech8 ; here too, a couple of relevant quotes within other categories will be offered below. In short, the present study does not claim that the millennia-old, biblical tradition is the only cultural factor influencing modern Israeli political speech; rather, it uses biblical quotations in modern, Israeli political speech to show that cultural influence can extend over an extremely long historical time period.

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Socialism was (perhaps heavily) influenced by biblical injunctions against worker exploitation. Indeed, despite his father’s conversion to Christianity, Karl Marx was descended from a long line of major rabbis on both his parents’ side. Moreover, it is hardly a coincidence that so many early and later Socialists were Jewish: Moses Hess, Rosa Luxembourg, Eduard Bernstein, Léon Blum, Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Bruno Kreisky, and so on. 7 Here too one can discern distinct Jewish antecedents of both streams of thought: the former a function of the Jewish People’s pacifist ethos due to their political weakness in Diaspora over many centuries; the latter (Zionism), harking back to the biblical period of national independence and sovereignty. 8 This does have one source in the Bible: the sixth century BCE Babylonian exile and later return to the Land of Israel. Centuries later, the Jews wandered from country to country through the long Diaspora era, but other than initiatives by individuals there was no systematic, collective attempt to return to the homeland—until modern Zionism.

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2.1.2 Four Preliminary Points Some explanation and caveats need to be addressed before embarking on the thematic bases of Israeli political speech. First, for our purposes the historical veracity of the Bible and later (non-biblical) Jewish historical narratives is unimportant; Jewish culture (as any other) is a product of what the people believe and how that shapes their thoughts and behavior. In this case, before Spinoza and especially prior to nineteenth century Biblical Criticism, virtually all Jews accepted the historical truth of these ancient works (although some traditional Jewish commentators did gently address the accuracy of some specific numbers, dates and events). In the modern era, given the Bible’s cultural resonance, even non-believers view the Bible as (secularly) sacrosanct. Second, this survey of oratory will not include Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox political leaders because the Bible and Talmud are their main (and in many cases, only) source for their public discourse. Just as there is no reason to prove that a cat says “meow,” so too oratory by rabbis in Israeli politics (most politicians from these religious parties have rabbinical ordination) by definition base their oratory on what they view as Judaism’s main theological sources; there is no need here to show the obvious. Third, certainly in the more recent past—and probably to a limited extent earlier than that—political leaders had speechwriters pen their orations, or at least aid in their writing. This does not negate the theme of this chapter or others in this book, because in almost all cases three conditions attend such speechwriting: the speechwriter is intimately familiar with the political orator; the politician usually gives general instructions as to content and style9 ; and the speech is okayed or revised based on the politician’s comments after its construction. Fourth and finally, there is a certain irony in surveying biblical sources underlying modern political speech, as the Bible itself is almost devoid of leadership speechifying! (It also plays a very minor role, if at all, after the loss of sovereignty in 68 CE and during the subsequent long, powerless, Diaspora era.) Indeed, ironically its first manifestation is virtually anti-speech: the greatest leader of all was Moses, but the Bible relates that he tried to get out of his appointed leadership role by telling God that “I am heavy of mouth and tongue” (Exodus, 4:10). On the other hand, and far more influential for the later Jewish political tradition, are several kings (e.g., David) and especially the Prophets whose political and moral remonstrations echo to this very day in their powerful prose and poetry. Yet, even these cannot really be considered “political rhetoric” because in most cases the Bible starts an 9

For instance, Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin turned to the Israeli Army’s Head of Education to write his speech upon receiving an honorary, Hebrew University PhD after the Six-Day War. Rabin gave him explicit instructions to emphasize the moral aspects of the campaign. The speech was then vetted by several of Rabin’s General Headquarters’ staff (Shapira, 2008, p. 115). A somewhat different approach was taken by President Ezer Weizman for his speech at the German Bundestag (the first Israeli official to do so since the Holocaust and Israel’s founding): he asked the highly respected Israeli author Meir Shalev to write the text, sitting with Shalev several times before the speechwriting, with instructions as to the main themes (Shapira, 2008, p. 235).

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ostensibly “political” oration with the words “thus says the Lord”; therefore, these really constitute theological (not secular, political) speech. In other words (literally and figuratively), the Prophets were “mere” intermediaries (akin to modern media) transferring messages from one source (God) to another (the Israelites and/or the monarchs). One can see this best at Mount Sinai, where Moses descends from the mount to declaim the Ten Commandments as God “dictated” them to him. In that sense, one can understand Shapira’s (2008, p. 7) conclusion that regarding the entire Hebrew Bible corpus, “[t]he oration, as a tool aiding the leader or as a means of undercutting his leadership, is almost nonexistent.” On the other hand, it is worth noting that despite the Jews’ reputation as the People of the Book their most famous prayer (stated at least three times each day) is “Hear Oh Israel, our God is the one God.” In addition, the weekly Torah portions are read out loud in synagogue—and serious Talmud study is done through oral dialectic intercourse between two students. In short, the Jewish religious and scholarly experience is overall more an oral and aural phenomenon than a visual one. Thus, Biblical and Talmudic quotes, metaphors, and rhetorical flourishes are also part and parcel of modern Israeli political speech that has another forebear: 2000 years ago, in contradistinction to Hellenic and Roman public square oratory, the rabbis started giving oral, homiletic Torah lectures in the evolving synagogue. These eventually added “political” elements as the centuries went by (Shapira, 2008, p. 8). Thus, modern, Israeli political oratory is not modeled on any biblical tradition, but it did slowly evolve within Judaism’s central religious institution; as for Israeli oratory’s content, that is heavily biblical, along the themes to be outlined below.

2.1.3 Modes of Israeli Political Speech Obviously, political speech—as all other types—will never be identical in all situations or by different leaders. Talking to a few listeners at an intimate, salon meeting will differ from orating to a mass outdoor assembly; talking to a rationalist-oriented, academic audience demands a higher and different level of rhetoric than for a lower class, emotionally-driven neighborhood gathering (Hofstede, 1997); speechifying in times of national crisis10 will vary from normal legislative give-and-take (“contingency” or “situational leadership”: Hersey & Blanchard, 1969; Kellerman, 1984); politicians’ personalities differ as well. Nevertheless, all these should make a difference mainly in degree and not substance, if and when a common cultural tradition exists.

10

One could argue that in the Israeli case—given existential threats through most of its existence— the “normal” state of affairs is one of perpetual “crisis.” Jewish historical memory (pogroms, expulsions, the Holocaust etc.) reinforces this general feeling. In any case, “crisis” vs. “normality” is not a dichotomy that this study will compare. For an analysis of Israeli political rhetoric in times of crisis, see Tsur (2004).

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The following survey will focus on Israeli Prime Ministers (the actual leaders, henceforth PM), Presidents (who are titular heads of state), and a few other highprofile politicians: Abba Eban and Chaim Herzog, both Israeli ambassadors to the U.N.—Eban eventually becoming Israel’s most eloquent Foreign Minister (henceforth FM) and Herzog President of the State; Moshe Dayan, legendary Chief of Staff and Defense Minister (henceforth DM). These represent the broad panoply of political personalities—with differing ideologies and levels of Jewish education— demonstrating that despite their socio-demographic diversity, the specific cultural predispositions for political speech still exist.

2.2 Jewish Historical-Cultural Themes and Their Modern Expression A culture over 3000 years old obviously has numerous elements and themes. This section presents a few of the central ones that have impacted modern Israeli political speech. Each theme will be accompanied by several examples. Moreover, many of the quotes in the first two thematic categories clearly overlap, i.e., they are directly relevant to both. These representative (but by no means exhaustive) speech quotations are presented here roughly within their speakers’ chronology, i.e., from the pioneer Zionist founder Herzl to recent prime ministers and other political luminaries. Short contextual explanation is provided for each and a description of the leader (for those not already described), noting their official position—either at the time of that particular speech or ex post facto.

2.2.1 Historical Memory For the Jewish people, historical memory is not merely a “natural” phenomenon but a core requirement. Given the second theme of “victimization” (discussed below), one might expect Jews to try and forget their highly checkered history; exactly the opposite has occurred. Jewish religious practice is full of “remembrance commandments” and holidays: weekly reading of the bible; a specific annual Sabbath reading (before the Purim holiday) on how the ancient nation of Amalek attacked the Children of Israel in their desert sojourn after escaping Egypt (since then considered by Jews to be the nation’s archetypical evildoers); holiday commemorations of when they overcame persecution: Passover (with its Haggadah—a special reader for the evening Seder meal, recounting the exile narrative); Hanukkah (special prayers retelling the historical event); Purim (an entire biblical book, read twice on that holiday); the Ninth of Av (25-hour Fast Day, with a special lamentations prayer booklet); and three other Fast Days, each commemorating other mournful events from the far past. To these

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the State of Israel has added Holocaust Remembrance Day, as well as Memorial Day for its fallen soldiers in the young country’s already numerous wars of survival. All these keep the next theme—culture of victimization (and a form of self-victimization: internal factionalism11 )—in the forefront of the Jewish (and Israeli) mindset. Here are several examples: • Zionism’s founder Herzl, in a letter that he sent to Baron Edmond de Rothschild (central Zionist philanthropist): “We must recall the ancient matter, known and true… to attain our goal… the exile from Egypt (Herzl, 1997, p. 152). • PM Ben-Gurion soon after Israel’s establishment: “Through the generations we were an extraordinary nation; today we are also a highly unusual nation” (Shalom, 1995, p. 72). • PM Ben-Gurion: “A nation that existed for 2500 years, loyally keeping its oath sworn by the first exiles beside the rivers of Babylon, cannot forget Jerusalem” (Knesset Record, December 5, 1949, p. 221). • In another quote, he provides more substance to that general theme: “These two themes [Chosen People and Salvation] when paired and attached together reappear again and again in the biblical books and apocrypha, in the Mishnah and commentaries, in Hebrew prayer and poetry…forming the basis of the modern Zionist idea, that is nothing more than the new incarnation of the ancient salvation theme” (Ben-Gurion, 1958, pp. 78–81). • U.N. Ambassador Abba Eban in a 1958 speech at the Weizmann Institute: “Notwithstanding our enthusiasm and nostalgia for the glory of Israel long ago, during the First and Second Temple eras, we will know to make room in our hearts for a place to honor the recent past – the Zionist revolutionaries…” (Shapira, 2008, p. 88). • In extending his surprising invitation to Anwar Sadat to visit Jerusalem in 1977, PM Menachem Begin (Israel’s first non-Labor party Prime Minister, 1977– 1983) announced that the Egyptian President would be received “with the traditional hospitality you and we have inherited from our common father Abraham” (Gervasi, 1979, p. 49). • Moshe Sneh, far Left MK from 1949–1965 and considered one of the greatest Israeli orators (November 30, 1967): “We have shown in six days of war that we are the great-grandchildren of the Maccabees, but we have another great national pretension that makes us worthy of being the progeny of the Jewish Prophets, that they were prophets of peace” (Shapira, 2008, p. 137). • MK (Leader of the Opposition) Shimon Peres in 1978 during peace negotiations with the Egyptians: “We will stretch a defensible border in the east… because the ‘seed of peace’—as Zechariah [8:12] said—‘the vine will offer her fruit’” (Landau, 1988, p. 182).

11

Two holidays remind Jews of what hyper-factionalism can cause: 1- The Fast of Gedaliah, commemorating the assassination by Jews of a Jewish governor in the sixth century BCE; 2According to Jewish tradition, the Second Temple was destroyed on the Ninth of Av (by the Romans) because mutual hatred among Jews of the various religious sects fatally weakened them internally.

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• PM Yitzhak Rabin in Washington (September 13, 1993), on the signing of the statement of Israeli-Palestinian principles: “Our fortitude, our highest moral values, we have drawn over thousands of years from our book of books, in which one of them—Ecclesiastes—it is written: ‘…a time for war, and a time for peace.’ Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the time for peace” (Rabin, 1995, p. 25).12 • PM Rabin announcing the Jordanian peace treaty in the Knesset (October 25, 1994), quoting Isaiah, 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the good tidings messenger, announcing peace, the harbinger of good tidings, announcing salvation” (Rabin, 1995, p. 139). • PM Rabin, before the U.S. Congress, July 1994, for the soldiers who fell in pursuit of peace: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for your work is rewarded, says the Lord”—from Jeremiah, 31:15 (Rabin, 1995, p. 38). At the end, he declared: “I will conclude with the ancient Jewish blessing that has accompanied us in exile and in Israel for thousands of years—‘[God] That has enabled us to exist, to live and to arrive at this time’” (Rabin, 1995, 39). • PM Rabin, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 10, 1994), quoting Deuteronomy, 4:15: “This is the message accompanying the Jewish people for thousands of years, its birth in the book of books that our nation has given in inheritance to all people of culture: ‘Vigilantly protect your lives’” (Rabin, 1995, p. 50). • PM Peres eulogizing PM Rabin (November 6, 1995), quoting Jeremiah, 31:15: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded and there is hope at the end, says the Lord” (Shapira, 2008, p. 226). • PM Ehud Olmert (Prime Minister, 2006–2009), in his U.S. Congressional speech (May 24, 2006): “For thousands of years, we Jews have been nourished and supported by longing for our historic land… I was educated in a deep belief that the day will never come when we will be forced to part with sections of our ancestral land.” • “The Bible tells us that when Joshua was standing on the edge of the Promised Land, he received only one commandment: ‘Be strong and courageous’ [Psalms 29:11]. …God will give courage to his people. God will bless his people with peace” (Shapira, 2008, pp. 282, 284). • PM Olmert in a Knesset speech commemorating Yitzhak Rabin: “The ancient Jewish commandment: ‘Be a lover of peace and in pursuit of peace.’” (The quote is from the Talmud—Mishna Avot, 1:12) (Olmert, 2007). • PM Benjamin Netanyahu was steeped in Jewish history and the Bible (a point to be expanded in the Discussion section below). One could write a complete study just on his use alone of biblical quotations. As representative of this penchant, here is one speech that contained four separate biblical quotes or allusions: his October 1, 2013 oration at the U.N. General Assembly. 12

Even the title of his book uses biblical terminology: “Seek peace and pursue peace” (Psalms 34:15). His book title is taken from Rabbi Hillel’s dictum in the Talmud, as noted in PM Olmert’s Knesset speech below.

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As a consummate politician, Netanyahu was well aware that this speech would receive huge coverage back home, so that the main audience (for him) was actually Israeli society, as can be seen from quote #4. In that speech, he stated (Pilkington, 2013): 1. “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” He insisted that neither the world’s nations, nor the collective U.N., would determine Israel’s final borders but only God’s promises to the Jews’ forefathers. Thus… 2. “Israel will stand alone.” Here PM Netanyahu echoes the late PM Rabin’s use of this biblical trope (Numbers, 23:9) two decades earlier, presented in thematic category 2.2. 3. “The Persian king Cyrus issued a famous edict in which he proclaimed the right of the Jews to return to the Land of Israel and rebuild the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.” Here Netanyahu reminded the Iranians, Israel’s sworn contemporary enemies, that their forefathers enabled the Jews to return to their homeland to reestablish (quasi-)sovereign control. 4. “I will plant them upon their soil never to be uprooted again” (Amos, 9:15). For extra emphasis, PM Netanyahu affirmed this in English and then in Hebrew!

2.2.2 Victimization This is perhaps the most chronologically extensive theme in the Jewish tradition. It extends from the Bible (e.g., the “Rape of Dinah,” Genesis, 34:1–31) to contemporary Israel (Arab countries’ attacks against, and attempted invasions of, the country)—in short: “the world is against us.” Chronologically, the “lowlights” (from the Jews’ standpoint): Egyptian slavery; Amalek’s attack on the Israelites in the desert; Philistine incursions into Israel; Assyrian and Babylonian conquests; Hellenist and Roman oppression, eventually leading to the loss of political sovereignty and mass exile (first century CE and onwards). This eventually morphed into a “Galut”(Diaspora) mentality: Jews became defensive and suspicious of the Gentile powers-that-be, developing a practical mentality of perpetual political and personal survival. Quite frequently they were expelled from the lands in which they resided for centuries, a result of growing Christian, anti-Semitic persecution. The Holocaust in which six million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis in the early 1940s was but the catastrophic culmination of this ongoing, historical, Jewish victimization. But it did not end there; the Jewish State’s establishment in 1948 led to a massive expulsion of Jews in Arab countries, where they had resided for many centuries (Babylonian/Iraqi Jewry for 2500 years!). Indeed, Israel Prize historian Anita Shapira (1997, p. 670) argues that as time went on in the new state, “it was the Holocaust, not the Bible, that became the central strand in the Israeli sense

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of self.”13 Nevertheless, “the mythical symbols of the Bible did not stand in contradiction with their [Israelis’] direct relation to recent Jewish history, but rather formed a supplement to it” (Shapira, 1997, p. 671). Thus, many of the following quotes could have been placed in the “Historical Memory” category above. “Holocaust” quotes will be placed together further below in Sect. 2.2.2.1. • PM Ben-Gurion (January 16, 1948—four months before the war broke out): “In this war [of Independence]… the thousands of years historical struggle of the Jewish nation will be decided—and all that we underwent at the times of the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Crusaders, Chmielnicki, and Hitler, will be mere episodes in this continual and lengthy struggle” (Shapira, 2008, p. 41). • PM Ben-Gurion, announcing the Declaration of Independence, May 14, 1948: “After the nation was forcefully exiled from its country, it stayed loyal in all the lands of dispersion, and didn’t cease praying and hoping to return to its land and renew national freedom within it. From this historical and traditional connection, the Jews attempted in every generation to return and reclaim their ancient homeland…” (Shapira, 2008, pp. 37–38). • PM Ben-Gurion, after the Soviet Union severed relations with Israel: “In the long journey on the world stage of history over four thousand years among most of the world’s nations… our people continually encountered loathing and hatred” (Knesset Record, February 16, 1953, p. 720). • PM Moshe Sharett (Israel’s second Prime Minister, 1954–1955) disapproved of a military campaign against Egypt in 1955 because of his fear of the “destruction of the Third Temple” (Sharett, 1978, p. 1411). This trope is well worn in Israel, harking back to the destruction of the First and Second Temples, each of which put an end to Jewish national-political sovereignty (although those events were viewed as self-inflicted due to civil war infighting). • Indeed, in the first days of the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was in dire danger, DM Moshe Dayan stated: “This is a war for [retaining] the Third House [Temple]” (Bartov, 1978, vol. 2, p. 63). • PM Levi Eshkol (Israel’s third Prime Minister, 1963–1969), after the Iraqi staged trial of nine Jews that were executed: “The innocent blood of those killed by the Babylonian monarchy cry out to us and to the world from the plundered Babylonian daughter [modern Iraq]” (Knesset Record, January 27, 1969, p. 1283). • Ambassador Chaim Herzog, in his famous U.N. speech (November 10, 1975) excoriating U.N. Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism: “As I stand here on this podium, my eyes uncover the long and proud history of my nation. I see the persecutors of our nation through the ages, as they pass in a long parade of oblivion. I stand before you as the representative of a strong and flourishing nation that remains alive after all these travails, and that will still be around after this shameful performance and their initiators” (Shapira, 2008, p. 167). • As noted, a common Jewish trope is an “isolated people” echoing the biblical verse: “A people dwelling alone, not considered by other nations” (Numbers, 13

This was not monolithic. For Israel’s perceptual and ideological changing relationship to the Holocaust, see: Lustick (2017).

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23:9). PM Rabin used this verse in an inverted peace process context: “We are no longer a people living alone, nor is the whole world against us…” (Knesset Record, October 26, 1992, p. 11). • MK Yitzhak Shamir (no longer PM): “…the media, in their haste to describe the riots [First Intifada] as a conflict between the Israeli Goliath and the Palestinian David…” (Shamir, 1994, p. 220)—a critique of an inversion of the victimization trope, where Israel is no longer the “victim” but now perceived as the “victimizer.” • President Ezer Weizman devoted the beginning of his speech to Germany’s Bundestag members (January 16, 1996) to retelling Jewish history: “200 generations from the time of Abraham, the Jewish people’s founder…”. Before moving on to the modern period, Weizmann summed up: “And as is demanded of us, through the power of memory, to participate every day and at every event in our past, so is it incumbent upon us … to prepare every single day for our future” (Shapira, 2008, p. 236). From there he segued into the Holocaust as the continuation of that history, and then finished with the famous biblical peace verse (p. 238): “Every man under his vine and under his fig tree…” (Kings I, 5:5). 2.2.2.1

The Holocaust

The World War II Jewish Holocaust was easily the Jewish people’s most demographically devastating period in its long history. The State of Israel was established a mere three years after the war’s end—a facilitating factor, albeit not directly causal (modern Zionism commenced in 1897). In any case, as can be seen from these few selected quotations, the connection to lachrymose Jewish history was upper in the minds of Israel’s leadership. • Opposition MK Menachem Begin, in Israel’s first major—and arguably most violent—political protest (January 7, 1952), outside the Knesset against the Israeli government’s willingness to accept reparations payments from West Germany for its Holocaust depredations: “Wipe out the memory of Amalek” (Deuteronomy, 25:19) (Shapira, 2008, p. 70). • Gideon Hausner, the 1961 Eichmann trial chief prosecutor: “The nation of Israel’s historical record is replete with tears and suffering. The commandment ‘live in your blood!’ [Ezekiel, 16:6], has accompanied this nation from the time it appeared on history’s stage…but in all of this nation’s bloody path…no man arose that was able to do what Hitler’s evil regime has done…” (Shapira, 2008, p. 93). • PM Begin, in a passionate defense of Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor: “Israel will use all the possibilities at its disposal” to thwart attempts by its enemies to develop weapons of mass destruction. “There won’t be another Holocaust in history” (Shipler, 1981, section A1). • PM Rabin at Yad Vashem, Holocaust Memorial Day (April 6, 1994)—from Ezekiel’s dry bones vision (37:14): “And I have put my spirit in you, and you have lived, and I have placed you on your land” (Rabin, 1995, p. 173).

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Non-Violent Response

As can be seen from several quotes above, Israeli leaders stressed peace (through strength) despite surrounding enemy threats. However, some leaders went farther, placing great emphasis on non-violence—whether wariness to initiate war or to avoid civil war over significant differences regarding policy.14 The leading proponent was Chaim Weizmann—the pre-state’s Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, then Israel’s first President—who advocated a diplomatic solution to the issue of partitioning the Land of Israel between Jews and Arabs, despite the latter’s recalcitrance. Here, too, biblical verses were used in this controversy. • In Weizmann’s last WZO speech (December 16, 1946), excoriating the Jewish, anti-British terror organization Etzel: “Expunge the evil from among your midst!” (Deuteronomy, 17:7 and also 21:21) (Shapira, 2008, p. 35). He concluded by warning against violent means to reach political independence, with the admonition from Isaiah (1:27): “Zion will be redeemed through legal means” (Shapira, 2008, p. 36).

2.2.3 Miscellaneous Quotations—Bible and Prayer Book Political speeches are not always about the “great” matters of state; they also relate to mundane but important aspects of life. Here are two examples from the Bible: • PM Rabin, presenting his second government (July 13, 1992): “We owe our older citizens an honorable life, keeping to our tradition: ‘Do not abandon me in my time of old age’ [Psalms, 71:9]” (Rabin, 1995, p. 20). • Swearing in Shimon Peres as State President (July 15, 2007): “I was once a boy and became old in years” (Psalms, 37:25) (Shapira, 2008, p. 297). Although this study focuses on biblical-based oratory, it behooves us to touch on one other highly important source that emanated from the post-biblical period when prayers evolved, becoming an integral part of the Jewish religious and political lexicon. Two examples: • PM Rabin, in his Knesset speech (September 21, 1993, Yom Kippur eve) listing the principles of the temporary arrangements with the PLO: “Bring about peace, good and blessed, life, grace and benevolence, charity and mercy, for us and your entire people of Israel” (Rabin, 1995, p. 86)—taken from the last blessing in the central “18 Blessings” benediction, prayed three times a day. • PM Rabin’s 1994 Nobel Peace Prize speech: “I will bless you and we will all be blessed with the traditional Jewish benediction: ‘May the Lord give his people 14

Parenthetically, Israel’s level of internal, physical political violence is low compared to verbal violence (Sheleg, 2014), the latter expressed in Knesset debates and the media—an echo of the biblical Prophets who used extremely strong language in criticizing the powers-that-be.

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strength, and may He bless his nation with peace’ [Psalms, 29:11]” (Rabin, 1995, p. 53).

2.3 Discussion and Conclusion Why would Israeli politicians, enveloped by contemporary issues, hark back thousands of years? There are two basic goals in such a practice. First, as Pratkanis and Aronson (1992) note, emotional messages can increase the audience’s pride and strengthen its self-identity. Ancient tropes generally are not “rational” but rather play on collective sentiment, i.e., they do not engender or remind the audience of their differences but rather of what unites them—thus (at least theoretically) rendering non-supporters more amenable to considering, and perhaps accepting, the basic message of the politician. As the above list of quotes attests, this specific use of emotion-laden, ancient Jewish passages is used more frequently in “celebratory” speeches (e.g., inauguration, eulogy, national holiday) than in political or electoral propaganda oratory. On the other hand, the latter type of tactical/functional political oratory is buttressed by the second goal of widely accepted, cultural passages: “Because the authoritative source is similar to what the communicator believes, it is tantamount to a proof that the latter’s position is correct” (Landau, 1988, p. 181). Here the goal leans more towards influencing the audience through the quasi-rational use of a mutually accepted authority. In what sense is the Bible “authoritative? Obviously, the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”) is a religious work. Nevertheless, for the Jewish people it has long metamorphosed into something far more encompassing: myth, “history,” world masterpiece, moral guide, source of national pride, and fount of Jewish culture writ large. Thus, it is not surprising to find Zionism’s and Israel’s modern leaders—although almost all were/are secular (as noted earlier)—making heavy use of their national literary treasure in political orations. In part, this is due to the fact that until recently Israeli education had included significant Bible study, so that even the most secular Israeli politicians were—and many still are—able to spout chapter and verse from past biblical (as well as other traditional Jewish) literature. The classic Israeli example of this was PM Ben-Gurion who grew up and studied in Poland, in a Jewish religious school until age 13—and then became secular. Nevertheless, as PM in 1958 he started a bi-weekly, bible study group with other leading leaders (e.g., State President, Supreme Court Justices, Chief of Staff, bible scholars). As he noted when appearing at the pre-State British Peel Commission in 1937: “You are not our Mandate; the Hebrew Bible is our Mandate” (Shapira, 1997, p. 225). His bible study group continued through the following decades, run by Israel’s presidents and/or prime ministers (Seaburg, 1972). Over fifty years later, PM Netanyahu renewed it (albeit sporadically)—motivated by his deep knowledge and understanding of Jewish history, something obtained from his father, one of the world’s leading authorities on the Spanish Inquisition and subsequent 1492 Jewish

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Expulsion. To be sure, even those not steeped in biblical learning or study are “Bibleliterate.” For instance, as seen above, although raised on a highly secular kibbutz PM Rabin nevertheless tended to quote extensively from the Bible in his political speeches. Viewing matters from “below,” quoting biblical verses in the course of Israeli leaders’ political oratory makes strategic, electoral sense. Within the vast Judaic heritage, the Hebrew Bible offers the only source material that constitutes some sort of common denominator for all Jewish sectors in Israel. This is precisely because the Bible is perceived as a strictly religious text by the ultra-Orthodox and the Orthodox (together constituting 20% of Jewish Israelis), and also a secular (but revered) masterpiece of ancient literature by the non-religious. Israel has a highly fractured polity: the 2020 elections resulted in ten parties with Knesset representation, immediately splitting into thirteen parties. Over Israel’s 72 years (in 2020), no less than 93 parties/factions have sat in the Knesset! In such a near-chaotic, electoral situation—mirroring deep-seated cleavages along a host of socio-economic issues and ideologies—a wise politician will naturally gravitate to the one source that will ring positively with the widest spectrum of viewers, listeners, and readers. Thus, Israel’s political leaders are on solid footing in assuming that such biblically based oratory will resonate among the entire local (Jewish) audience as well; for Israelis, there is no source more “authoritative” than the Hebrew Bible. Of course, this is not to argue that the Bible is the oratorical “bible” for every Israeli leader. Obviously, different politicians will prefer different authoritative sources. As Landau (1988, p. 187) notes and as we have seen in PM Menachem Begin’s four quotes presented above, he preferred the Bible—but conversely, FM Eban specialized in quotes from later (usually Talmudic) rabbinic law decisors, which is why Begin’s biblical quotes are more numerous here than Eban’s. The Bible has an additional “electoral” advantage: it touches on almost all issue areas that concern the contemporary Israeli audience. The biblical quotes presented in this chapter related to national sovereignty; security & defense; pursuit of peace; the diaspora and return to Zion (Israel’s Declaration of Independence, that BenGurion wrote and read out as noted earlier, calls for what Israelis colloquially call “the ingathering of the exiles”15 ); anti-Semitism; the country’s standing in the world; civil schism & political violence; social welfare. This point regarding present-day germaneness was best summed up by PM Ben-Gurion: The story of our forefathers 4000 years ago: Abraham’s sojourns and life; wanderings of the Israelites in the desert after leaving Egypt; the wars of Joshua and the Judges after him; the lives of Saul, David and Solomon and their actions;… all these have contemporary relevance, and are closer and more instructive and full of a life force for the young child, growing up and living in the country, than all the speeches and controversies of [Zionism’s founding] Congress at Basel. (Tsakhor, 1996, p. 140, fn 32; italics mine)

15

Deuteronomy, 30:4–5—“Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. The Lord your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it.”

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In short, for Israelis and their leaders, the Bible is not some musty, ancient tome, merely to be studied academically, but rather is part and parcel of their cultural, religio-ethnic identity and guidebook for how to act in the here and now. It is difficult to convey to the non-Hebrew reader just how much even the “ancient” style of biblical Hebrew still resonates with an audience that in everyday conversation speaks a very different Hebrew. Paradoxically, this dual-track language does not weaken but instead reinforces the rhetorical force of biblical Hebrew employed by the country’s leaders in their official oratory. Finally, it remains to be seen whether this Israeli phenomenon is unique. There aren’t many modern nations whose culture extends over 3000 years—China (Confucianism) is perhaps the only “competitor” in this regard. Nevertheless, other contemporary countries do have cultural antecedents that go relatively far back: Christianity 2000 years; Islam 1500 years. Do their politicians use their own ancient cultural sources to the same extent? Future research should be able to show if this chapter’s Israel/Bible oratory phenomenon is exceptional or whether other political leaders express their own cultural past in similar fashion.

References Aronoff, M. J. (1989). Israeli visions and divisions: Cultural change and political conflict. Routledge. Bartov, H. (1978). Dado: 48 years and 20 days (Vols. 1–2). Sifriat Maariv (in Hebrew). Ben-Gurion, D. (1958). An ideal nation: Goal and means (1954 speech). In Vision and path, volume five (pp. 78–81). Am Oved (in Hebrew). Freeley, A. J., & Steinberg, D. L. (2009). Argumentation and debate: Critical thinking for reasoned decision making (12th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Gervasi, F. (1979). The life and times of Menachem Begin. G.P. Putnam & Sons. Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. H. (1969). An introduction to situational leadership. Training and Development Journal, 23, 26–34. Herzl, T. (1997). The Jewish issue. Vol. 1: 1895–1898. The Zionist Council in Israel (in Hebrew). Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. McGraw-Hill. Kellerman, B. (1984). Leadership as a political act. In B. Kellerman (Ed.), Leadership: Multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 63–89). Prentice Hall. Knesset Record. (1949, December 5–7). https://fs.knesset.gov.il/1/Plenum/1_ptm_250119.pdf (in Hebrew). Knesset Record. (1953, February 16). https://fs.knesset.gov.il/2/Plenum/2_ptm_250702.pdf (in Hebrew). Knesset Record. (1969, January 27). https://fs.knesset.gov.il/6/Plenum/6_ptm_252793.pdf (in Hebrew). Knesset Record (1992, October 26). https://main.knesset.gov.il/Activity/plenum/Pages/Sessio nItem.aspx?itemID=437236 (in Hebrew). Krebs, R. R., & Jackson, P. T. (2007). Twisting tongues and twisting arms: The power of political rhetoric. European Journal of International Relations, 13(1), 35–66. Landau, R. (1988). The rhetoric of parliamentary speeches in Israel. Eked (in Hebrew). Lustick, I. (2017). The Holocaust in Israeli political culture: Four constructions and their consequences. Contemporary Jewry, 37, 125–170.

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Olmert, E. (2007, October 24). Speech text of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. https://www.knesset. gov.il/rabin/heb/speech/olmert2007.htm (in Hebrew). Pilkington, D. (2013, October 6). Netanyahu quotes scripture 5 times in major UN speech. The way. https://www.theway.co.uk/news/netanyahu-quotes-scripture-5-times-in-major-un-speech. Pratkanis, A. R., & Aronson, E. (1992). Age of propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion. W.H. Freeman. Rabin, Y. (1995). Seek peace: The peace speeches of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Zmora Bitan (in Hebrew). Risager, K. (2006). Language and culture: Global flows and local complexity. Multilingual Matters. Risager, K. (2019). Linguaculture. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), Encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0709.pub2. Seaburg, A. (1972, October 15). Ben-Gurion looks at the bible. The New York Times. https://www. nytimes.com/1972/10/15/archives/bengurion-looks-at-the-bible-by-david-bengurion-translatedby.html. Semyonov, M., & Gorodzeisky, A. (2012). Israel: An immigrant society. In J. Frideres & J. Biles (Eds.), International perspectives: Integration and inclusion (pp. 1–18). McGill-Queen’s University Press. Shalom, Z. (1995). David Ben-Gurion, the State of Israel and the Arab world, 1949–1956. The Institute for Ben-Gurion Studies (in Hebrew). Shamir, Y. (1994). Summing up the matter. Idanim, Yediot Ahronot (in Hebrew). Shapira, A. (1997). Ben-Gurion and the bible: The forging of an historical narrative? Middle Eastern Studies, 33(4), 645–674. Shapira, A. (2008). We recognize this: 60 selected speeches in Israeli history. Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir (in Hebrew). Sharett, M. (1978). Personal diary (Vol. 1–8). Maariv (in Hebrew). Sheleg, Y. (2014). Brother, you are a Nazi: The paradox of violent rhetoric in Israel’s political discourse. In Y. Stern & B. Porat (Eds.), A view of brotherhood (pp. 318–335). Israeli Institute for Democracy (in Hebrew). Shavit, A. (2001, July 22). Telling it like it is. Haaretz. https://www.haaretz.com/1.5339857. Shipler, D. (1981, June 10). Prime Minister Begin defends raid on Iraqi nuclear reactor; pledges to thwart a new ‘Holocaust’. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1981/ 06/10/world/prime-minister-begin-defends-raid-iraqi-nuclear-reactor-pledges-thwart-new.html. Tsakhor, Z. (1996). Ben-Gurion as myth creator. In D. Ohana & R. S. Westreich (Eds.), Myth and memory (pp. 136–156). Hakibbutz Hameuchad (in Hebrew). Tsur, N. (2004). The rhetoric of Israeli leaders in stress situations. Hakibbutz Hameuchad (in Hebrew).

Sam Lehman-Wilzig is Professor Emeritus in Bar-Ilan University (BIU), Israel, where he taught in the Department of Political Studies and the School of Communications, serving as Chairman of the Israel Political Science Association (1997–1999), Chairman of BIU’s Political Studies Department, and Chairman of BIU’s School of Communication. He published three books including StiffNecked People, Bottle-Necked System: Israeli Public Protest, 1949–1986 (1991), and Wildfire: Grassroots Revolts in Israel (1992), and 60 scholarly articles in the fields of political communication, information society, and the Jewish political tradition.

Chapter 3

Qur’anifying Public Political Discourse: Islamic Culture and Religious Rhetoric in Arabic Public Speaking Ali Badeen Mohammed Al-Rikaby, Thulfiqar Hussein Altahmazi, and Debbita Ai Lin Tan

3.1 Introduction Although linguists and discourse analysts have extensively investigated the influence of cultural factors on public and political discourse in general, relatively little attention has been paid to exploring how religious culture determines the form and content of political public speaking, particularly so in the context of the Arab world. In light of the recent rise of religious fundamentalism and political populism, the role of religious culture has become very important in political discourse in general, and public speaking in particular. Situated within this context, this chapter provides new insights into the realm of Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) by investigating the influence of religious culture—more specifically, Islamic culture and Qur’anic rhetoric on the form and content of (public) political discourse. It also provides insights regarding how religiously loaded form and content can give rise to perceptions of reality that may serve the speaker’s agenda. The arguments advanced in this chapter are based on two assumptions. First, the theoretical concept of linguaculture (the cultural dimensions of language) can be useful in analyzing Qur’anic influence on public political discourse in the Arab world. Second, Qur’anic themes, poetics and discursive practices are often employed by public speakers to influence their audience—primarily to make their policies appear legitimate and to advance their political agendas. To that end, this paper seeks to develop an analytical framework that can capture the strands or traces of A. B. M. Al-Rikaby (B) · T. H. Altahmazi College of Arts, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq e-mail: [email protected] T. H. Altahmazi e-mail: [email protected] D. A. L. Tan School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_3

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Islamic culture and Qur’anic rhetoric in the tapestry of public political discourse, and highlight their discursive functions and manipulative potentials. This chapter discusses public speaking across the Arab world, across time, space and genres during times of crisis, wherein crisis in this context is defined as “events of profound significance and disruption” (Hicks, 2005, p. 1). In crises, public speaking becomes very vital because crises often involve significant events, mayhem and disruption that may put the lives of thousands at stake. In such difficult times, public speakers try to garner the support of the masses, weaken the claims of their rivals, and convince their followers of their policies (Jackson, 2005). Such a mission has to be achieved in a manner that appears compelling and unquestionable. This can be maintained by the use of specific persuasive techniques and rhetorical means, including religiously charged themes and forms that are more cognitively resonant with the audience. Furthermore, in times of crisis, citizens often look to their leaders for reasons and solutions (Hicks, 2005). Heads of state may need to restore solidarity and prevent chaos during a crisis, and in turn require their citizens’ support for their plans and policies (Nielsen, 2008). This solidarity can be reinforced by consensus-seeking themes and conventionally accepted styles of communication. The communal relationship between the head of state and the public encourages the recipients to accept the message presented as undeniable truths (van Dijk, 1998). The preferred interpretations of social and political realities by heads of state can have a long reach, not only in legitimizing their exercise of power but also, in extreme cases, their use of violence.

3.2 The Influence of the Qur’an on Muslim Lives For more than 1.8 billion Muslims around the world, the Qur’an represents God’s own words. To listen to its verses chanted, to consider its words written on mosque walls, to read the pages of its decorated text, generates a sense of holy presence in most Muslim minds and hearts (McAuliffe, 2001). For a very long time, Arab Muslim families have welcomed newborn babies by whispering Qur’anic words such as Allahu Akbar into the baby’s ear, which means “God is greatest.” As Graham and Kermani (2006) point out, the Qur’anic spiritual and aesthetic reception has foremost been associated with its orality and has only secondly been celebrated as written scripture. For many Muslims, the Qur’an should be recited during the daily s.alat or prayers; nightly during the Ramadan fasting month; in special recitations frequently convened in mosques, schools, and other places; and on many special occasions such as the opening of businesses, schools, legislative sessions, at weddings, circumcision ceremonies, funerals, and other events (Denny, 1989). Heard day and night, the sound of the Qur’an being recited is a pervasive background rhetoric of daily life in the Arab world. It is the core of Muslims’ religious devotion, the authorizing spirit of their cultural and social life (Padwick, 1996). Graham and Kermani (2006) note that there are many distinct phrases that have

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passed into everyday usage; spoken words of the Qur’an such as bismillah (in the name of God) typically precede routine acts like eating or drinking. Other examples of everyday usage are mashallah (as God wills) (Surat al- kahf (18:39)) and alhamdulillah (Praise belongs to God) (Surat Jonah (10:10)) to invoke rahma (God’s mercy) or istighfar (God’s forgiveness). Another form of communal recital is the ritual chanting during dhikir (remembrance of Allah) sessions in mosques (McAuliffe, 2006). Arab Muslim children typically begin their formal education in kindergartenschools, primary schools and secondary schools, with the Qur’an. They learn to form the letters of the Arabic alphabet, and to repeat the words and phrases from which their own recitation of the Qur’an will develop. Students who commit all verses to memory are treated with reverence. In fact, reverence marks most Muslim interactions with the Qur’an, whether done in silent prayer, a public statement, or via serious study of the verses (Shah & Haleem, 2020). In politics, the question of who can be a legitimate ruler of the Muslim Ummah after the Prophet’s death is often linked to the question of whether the Qur’an has mentioned anything about a legitimate successor, the next ruler of the Islamic state (Wild, 2020). Qur’anic verses referring to the legitimacy of sovereign decisionmaking over the Muslim public is clear in verse 4:83: “When there comes to them a matter, be it of security or fear, they broadcast it; if they had referred it to the Messenger and to those in authority among them, those of them whose task it is to investigate would have known the matter…”. It should be noted that the meaning of “those in authority among you” is highly disputed in Islamic legal and political writings. Nevertheless, religious state authority does exist in many traditional and modern Muslim societies under two titles: caliph and sultan. For example, in Saudi Arabia the Qur’an serves as the constitution itself, in Egypt the Qur’anic shari’a is the principal source of legislation (as is the case in Morocco), and in Iraq the constitution provides that no law contradicting traditional provisions of the Qur’an may be ratified. Still, under what religious authority they do so—and what form of relationship exists between the jurist who crafts the Islamic fiqh doctrine and the ruler who crafts the siyasa (literally politics)—is a complex topic beyond the scope of this chapter. In any case, these controversies clearly concern the legitimacy of Muslim rule and are therefore eminently political (Quraishi, 2006; Wild, 2020). To use Ayoub’s (2013, p. 50) words, “it seems that every legal or theological school, religious trend, or socio-political movement in Muslim history sought to find in the Qur’an its primary support and justification.” We claim that this is equally true for the present study with reference to the secular and Islamic political leaders we studied. In summary, the words of the Qur’an can be heard across diverse social and political worlds, ranging from private, more intimate settings to more communal, public occasions.

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3.3 Structural and Thematic Features of the Qur’an In terms of external subdivisions, the Qur’an is a condensed text of 114 chapters (suras). These chapters begin with the introductory formula “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” and of the 114 chapters, 86 are categorized as Meccan, while 28 as Medinan. This organization is fairly accurate with respect to the location of the revelation of the various verses; any chapter revealed after the migration of Prophet Muhammad to Medina (hijrah) is called “Medinan” and any revealed before that event is termed as “Meccan”. The suras, in turn, are composed of verses or, in Arabic, ayat. Individual suras are of unequal length; the shortest sura (Al-Kawthar) has only three verses while the longest (Al-Baqara’) contains 286 verses. This variation in length is noteworthy because the Qur’an employs length as an organizing principle. In other words, the longer suras appear earlier in the text and the shortest ones towards the end (Neuwirth, 2006). In the Meccan phase, Muslims incurred physical oppression from the people of Quraysh and were prepared to make significant decisions during that period of crisis. However, Qur’anic verses revealed in Mecca were tolerant and peaceful (McAuliffe, 2001). For instance, verse 16:125 states: “Call thou to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and good admonition, and dispute with them in the better way.” In Medina, with the success of the prophet in unifying conflicting tribes and in winning their loyalty to his mission, he declared that Islam, the new religion, was threatened by the disbelievers of Mecca and the Jews of the Arab Peninsula (Wild, 2020). Later, he declared via the Qur’an also that Islam is the only acceptable religion. For example, verse 3:85 states: “Who so desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him; in the next world he shall be among the losers.” Since then, the Quran and its rhetoric have played a vital role in the political life of Muslims as it has become a necessary reference for effective political decisions. Common examples include describing disbelievers as being unable to hear or see (meaning that they are incapable of discerning the truth), as evident in verse 18:57: “Surely We have laid veils on their hearts lest they understand it, and in their ears heaviness; and though thou callest them to the guidance, yet they will not be guided ever.” The metaphor lies in the expression indicating that the disbelievers have veils over their hearts and heaviness in their ears, or they are covered with darkness as seen in verse 10:27: “as if their faces were covered with strips of night shadow. Those are the inhabitants of the Fire, therein dwelling forever.” Nelson (2001) and Neuwirth (2006), in their seminal work on the structural, linguistic and literary features of the Qur’an, emphasized that the transmission of the Qur’an and its social existence are essentially oral. Both confirm that the Qur’anic rhythm and assonance are meant to be heard and to facilitate dissemination. Many verses of the Qur’an reproduce an ancient Arabic linguistic pattern known as Saj’, a form of rhymed prose in Arabic literature. This prose style is marked by very short and concise sentences, with frequently changing patterns that often produce expressive rhymes. However, in the later suras, this style gave way to a more lightly structured prose, with verses often exceeding one complete sentence.

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The thematic contents of the Qur’an are varied and not easily categorized (Neuwirth, 2006). For instance, one can find separate suras devoted to theological verdicts, some to social rules and personal behavior, others to prayers and liturgical conditions, chronicles of past prophets, to warnings about the Day of Judgment, and descriptions of heaven and hell. This makes it complex for scholars to decide what “the Qur’an ‘really’ says” (Roy, 2004, p. 10). They can only document and analyze what the authentic holy hadiths have said or say that the Qur’an says. The issue is not, therefore, about the verses of the Qur’an itself. We may argue then that what is at stake here are the political discourses and practices of Muslim state leaders who refer to the Qur’an and base their actions on this reference. The diversified structural and thematic features of Qur’anic verses provide Arab political speakers with two powerful resources. First, social and political concepts that are easily acceptable to Arab and Muslim audience cohorts. Second, rhetorical and stylistic resources that can embellish their political speeches and make them more persuasive. In political public speaking, these religiously loaded forms and contents, due to their cognitive resonance, can give rise to perceptions of reality that may serve the speaker’s political agenda.

3.4 Conceptualizing Arabic Linguaculture The Arabic language and Islamic culture represent two sides of a coin, that is, the Arab linguaculture. For although Muslims embrace several religious traditions (e.g., Sunni and Shi’ite) within their wider Muslim identity (Islamic Ummah), they share common linguistic and discursive practices culturally reinforced by Qur’anic language. Muslims share religious beliefs that are centered on Qur’anic ideas, themes and rhetoric within their main religious obligations, as articulated in the five pillars of Islam: faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage. This makes the Qur’an, which means “recital,” the core of Arab culture. For most Muslims, it is the infallible word of God (Dawood, 1990) to which Muslims look for guidance and inspiration. Aesthetically, the Qur’an is the earliest and finest work of classical Arabic prose (Charteris-Black, 2004). The Qur’an is often perceived by Muslims as an embodiment of eloquence because it includes different forms of exquisite stylistic features. In fact, traditional Arabic rhetoric is modeled after the Qur’anic text. The concept of linguaculture by Risager (2006, 2012a) provides a nuanced picture as to how the Arabic language and Islamic culture can be intimately related. Linguaculture is an embodiment and lexicalization of the idea that culture permeates all aspects of language or that linguistic practice is a cultural practice in its own right (Risager, 2012b). It is, in fact, a modification of the concept of languaculture, which was introduced by linguistic anthropologist, Michael Agar. Agar (1994, p. 28) introduced the concept of languaculture to enable the summing up of culture and language in one word. The words “language” and “culture” in the concept of linguaculture are understood in their broadest shades and senses. Language here is not understood in a Chomskyan sense, as sets of words and sentences, but rather envisaged as discourse

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involving social practices. Likewise, culture is understood as a vast concept that includes different shades of meaning that go well beyond “what the dictionary and the grammar offer” (Risager, 2012a, p. 105). Therefore, linguaculture, posits Risager (2012a), involves three key dimensions of language use: a semantic-pragmatic dimension, a poetic dimension and an identity dimension. First, the semantic-pragmatic dimension deals with the sense-making potentials offered in a given language (as opposed to other languages). This dimension accounts for how cultural conceptualizations and differences between cultures influence the communicative affordances and linguistic choices in the languages of these cultures. Second, the poetic dimension is related to aesthetic, rhetorical and persuasive potentials that arise from the exploitation of interplay between form and content in a given language. Third, the identity dimension covers linguistic issues related to identity construction in language, wherein linguistic and discursive practices are perceived, in accordance with Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985), as a series of acts of identity. Of course, such practices may include dialectal choice, code-switching, and referential strategies.

3.5 Design and Analysis The corpus of this study comprises public speeches by six heads of state including Presidents Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat and Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil elSisi of Egypt; President Saddam Hussein and Prime minister Nouri Kamil al-Maliki of Iraq; and Presidents Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Mohamed Beji Caid Essebsi of Tunisia. The study took place across two periods—pre- and post-Arab Spring. Selecting political speeches from two different periods allows for demonstrating the persistent influence of Qur’anic rhetoric and styles on both old and new political discourses in the Arab world. To ensure thematic and generic comparability, only speeches delivered during times of crisis were selected. Crisis in this context is operationalized as “events of profound significance and disruption” (Hicks, 2005, p. 1). The decision to examine the discourse of more than one political leader was made for the purpose of data triangulation, to attain greater validity and reliability, and to achieve a more balanced representation of the Arab world. Iraq represents the eastern end, Egypt the center, and Tunisia the western end. The dataset also represents a variety of political genres (see Table 3.1). The speeches were delivered in Modern Standard Arabic, with some exceptions in the Egyptian President’s speech, in which some colloquial expressions were used. A semi-literal translation approach is used to present the examples in this chapter. The semi-literal translation approach exhibits, as accurately as possible, how the political topics, actions and actors were originally realized by the speakers. The dataset totals approximately 8000 words and reflects strikingly obvious use of Qur’anic themes, sense-making potentials, stylistic techniques, and discursive practices.

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Table 3.1 Selected speeches by six heads of state Speech Country Speaker 1

Egypt

2

3

Iraq

4

5

6

Tunisia

Reign

Muhammad President Anwar (1970–1981) el-Sadat

Date of speech

Venue

Crisis addressed

February 4, 1971

Egyptian Parliament

Egypt’s readiness for war against Israel

Supreme Command of Armed Forces

Terrorist attack on Egyptian army in Sinai

Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi

President January (2014–present) 31, 2015

Saddam Hussein

President (1979–2003)

Nouri Kamil al-Maliki

Prime Minister April 25, (2006–2014) 2013

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

President (1987–2011)

November Tunisian 7, 1987 Parliament

Mohamed Beji Caid Essebsi

President (2014–2019)

March 18, Presidential Palace Bardo National 2015 (TV speech) Museum attack

March 20, Unknown 2003

Start of Iraq invasion

Prime Minister’s Anbar province Office (TV speech) uprising Ousting of former president

The present study also rests on the premise of linguaculture (by Risager, 2012a) that underpins the interweaving tapestry of language and culture. Risager stipulates that the link between language and culture can be manifested three ways: meaning, poetics and identity construction. Different scholarly works were also referred to for the purpose of designing a coding scheme; based on this scheme, the selected speeches were compared to the Qur’anic text. The works referred to were empirical and theoretical outputs on Islamic rhetoric and Qur’anic style and themes: Abdel Haleem’s (2011, 2020) typology of Qur’anic style and themes, supplemented by insights from Hart and Lind’s (2011) corpus-based stylistic analysis of Islamic rhetoric, and Badawi’s (2005) model of Qur’anic rhetoric. The coding scheme serves four functions. It codes sense-making potentials (modality, speech acts), interactional moves (addressivity shift), stylistic techniques (tropes, repetition, parallelism), and discursive practices (identity construction strategies that include the use of vocatives, as well as referential and predicational strategies). Based on the coding scheme, the analysis first identifies the sense-making potentials, stylistic techniques and discursive practices in the data that are characteristically similar to those prevalent in the Qur’anic text. They are then categorized according to the three linguaculture dimensions identified by Risager (2012a). Although each item included in the coding scheme is conventionally associated with a specific linguaculture dimension, it may indirectly contribute to the other two dimensions.

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3.6 Findings 3.6.1 Semantic-Pragmatic Dimension The most obvious similarities between the Qur’anic text and the six speeches analyzed in the current study are manifested in terms of the semantic-pragmatic dimension, concerning how sense-making potentials and speech acts are used at the local and global levels of discourse. At the local semantic level of meaning, like the Qur’anic text the speeches in question demonstrate significant use of deontic and epistemic modalities (see Abdel Haleem, 2020; Badawi, 2005). Deontic modality is mainly used to express necessity or desirability of future actions (Nuyts, 2016; Stevanovic & Perakyla, 2012). The analysis shows that deontic modality was used to serve two different functions. First, it was used to legitimize a specific course of action. For instance, Sadat’s justification of his new plan for combat readiness (“We must be frank with ourselves and we must admit that we failed to find in all Israel’s statement and behavior, …, no indication of its readiness to accept to implement the Security Council Resolution”), and as also exemplified in Sisi’s plea to the Egyptian people to support a security operation in the Sinai Peninsula (“I cannot change things without you; this must be clear”). Second, deontic modality was also utilized to highlight the necessity of a future plan, as observed in Maliki’s speech to the people of Anbar during their antigovernment protest, during which he asked dignitaries and tribal leaders from all over the country to mediate between the government and the protestors (“The concern now should be to focus on protecting Iraq by its entire people”), and in Ben Ali’s remark to the parliament in which he highlighted the need to initiate constitutional amendment (“… in accordance with the constitution, which needs to be amended”). Epistemic modality, on the other hand, is employed to express the speaker’s level of recognition or certainty of reality (Nuyts, 2016). The analysis shows that epistemic modality was frequently combined with various intensifiers in emphatic statements to indicate the speakers’ certainty and self-righteousness. Employment of epistemic meaning in this manner is a common feature in the Qur’anic text (Abdul Haleem, 2011). Examples can be found in Sisi’s speech (“I am sure that is the course we are going to take; we know what we are doing”), in Saddam Hussein’s declaration of war (“Your enemies are surely in disgrace and shame”), in Maliki’s televised speech regarding the protests in Anbar province (“Yes, it is surelysedition”), and in Essebsi’s speech addressing the Bardo National Museum attack (“Surely, the way we take toward democracy will be victorious”). An interesting finding is that deontic and epistemic modalities were also jointly employed to express a sense of optimism or certainty of the future if a desired action is collectively taken. This is exemplified in the promise Maliki made in order to overcome political and security crises: “We will be able, by the power of God, and with the help of the people of Iraq and the faithful, to achieve what is needed.” This sense of optimism reflects another commonality that public speaking in the Arab world has with the Qur’anic text and Islamic discourse at large (Hart & Lind, 2011).

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From a pragmatic perspective, the most obvious Qur’anic feature used in the six speeches is performative utterances (Austin, 1962). In this respect, Abdul Haleem (2011, p. 212) highlights the frequent use of specific types of speech acts in the Qur’anic text, stating that: The vitality of the language is also noticed in the high frequency of the affective sentence (al-jumla al-insh¯a’iyya) as opposed to the indicative sentence (al-jumla al-khabariyya). The difference between the two is an important feature discussed in Arabic bal¯agha books. An indicative sentence is one that can be said to be false or true, whereas the affective sentence cannot. It comes in the form of an interrogative, command, urging, persuading, etc.

These speech acts can be categorized into three main types: directives (speech acts in which speakers utilize language to make their addressees perform a certain act); commissives (speech acts that commit the speaker to a certain course of action in the future); and expressives (speech acts in which speakers express their feelings) (Searle, 1969). Table 3.2 showcases how these are realized in the six speeches: At the more global level of discourse, the dynamic style of the Qur’an, known as iltif¯at, is a common feature in Arabic public speaking. The iltif¯at, according to Abdul Haleem (2011), refers to change in addressee, in person or number (when using pronouns), and in a shift of tense or case. It has been argued by scholars that the iltif¯at has several pragmatic functions related to information packaging, indication of addressivity shift, and maximization of text vibrancy (Abdul Haleem, 2011). In this regard, the analysis of the corpus reveals the iltif¯at, particularly when indicating addressivity shift, to be a common feature in all six speeches. This can be seen in Maliki’s shifting between second and third person across his speech to indicate change of addressivity back and forth between the general Iraqi public and the people of the Anbar province, whose grievances and protests formed the crux of the speech, as exemplified in the following extract: “I call upon you to open up to one another and to take a step towards dialogue and to reach an understanding in one-to-one meetings to discuss our common issues, and on this occasion I thank those [from Anbar] who stand by the state and those who reject sectarianism and terrorism.” Another type of iltif¯at is also present in the corpus, involving shifts in personal pronouns when referring to nations. This can be seen in Sadat’s parliamentary speech about Egypt’s commitment and readiness in terms of renewing a ceasefire treaty with Israel. The following extract shows a shift in the reference to Egypt, from the plural first person pronoun “we” to the third person reference “certain people,” to implicitly advance the argument that America had fully aligned with Israel and had not pressured Israel to accept ceasefire conditions: “We have accomplished our duty towards the world and towards peace to the best of our ability. It is time that someone else performs his duty towards the world and towards peace. Duty is not a tax imposed upon certain people while others are exempted from it.”

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Table 3.2 Speech acts in the dataset Speaker

Directives

Commissives

Expressives

Warning

Promise

Praise

Condemnation

Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat (1970–1981)

To find a solution to the crisis before it reaches, with its effects, a stage when it would be difficult to offset its dangers to world peace

The United Arab Republic considers itself obliged to liberate the territories occupied in the 1967 aggression

The Soviet Union, by its attitudes towards us in this crisis, has consolidated one of the major friendships in history and made of it a model and an example of world fraternity

Israel has, once again, resorted to the same process of defamation and blackmailing

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi (2014-present)

The will of the nation, the will of the Egyptians, is targeted

By the will of Allah the Almighty, we will be victorious in this battle

You are the Egyptians who change the world

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (1979–2003)

We pledge to you in the name of the leadership and in the name of the Mujahid people of Iraq and their heroic army in the Iraq of civilization, history and faith: we will resist the invaders

Allah is the greatest and long live our great nation, Allah is the greatest and long live the humane fraternity with peace lovers

Iraqi Prime Minister If sedition Nouri Kamil al-Maliki flares up, (2006–2014) there will be no winners and losers; each one will be a loser

We will be able, I commend all by the power of those demanding God, and with their rights the help of the people of Iraq and the faithful, achieve what is needed

Your enemies are surely in disgrace and shame

Our enemy is al-Qaeda, terrorism, and the remnants of the Ba’ath Party that sparked this last sedition. Those are the enemies of Iraq (continued)

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Table 3.2 (continued) Speaker

Directives

Commissives

Expressives

Warning

Promise

Praise

Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1987–2011)

Based on his old age and the worsening of his illness, we can announce that he has become completely incapable of carrying out the duties of the President of the Republic

We will soon present the political party bill to the parliament

Our people are worthy of a well-developed and organized political system. Long live Tunisia and long live the Republic

Tunisian President Mohamed Beji Caid Essebsi (2014–2019)

I want the Tunisian people to understand that we are at war with terrorism

Those traitors will be eliminated, God willing

I [hereby] send them a message of greeting, gratitude and appreciation

Condemnation

Once again, the hands of treachery extend to Tunisia to undermine its security and stability

3.6.2 Poetic Dimension The six speeches analyzed in the present study exhibit the use of different stylistic techniques. These techniques aim to balance the logo-based arguments provided with more affective features that can be very appealing to the audience’s emotions. Generally speaking, the alternation between reason (i.e., logos) and appeal to emotions (i.e., pathos) is constantly brought into play in the Qur’anic text (Abdel Haleem, 2011). The use of tropes, especially metaphor and metonymy, was found to be common in the speeches. Interestingly, the use of Qur’anic themes such as fitna (sedition) and na:r (fire) in extended metaphors and metonymies appears salient, most notably in the speeches of Sisi, Hussein, and Maliki. This tendency can be seen in extracts like “it is the sedition, against which the Qur’an has warned,” “those are the enemies of Iraq who flare up sedition,” and “the region will turn into fire, whose extent is known only to Allah.” Repetition and parallelism, stylistic techniques commonly found in the Qur’an, were also frequently employed in the speeches. Repetition is mainly used to foreground and emphasize certain aspects of a speech (Simpson, 2004), as seen in Essebsi’s repetition of the clause “[this is] a message of reassurance for the Tunisian people,” and Sisi’s promise to the Egyptian people: “we know ones who hurt you,

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and we will not leave them, I say it again, we know ones who hurt you, and we will not leave them.” Not only is parallelism often applied to bring certain aspects of a text to the fore (Simpson, 2004), but it can also be employed to maximize textual harmony, aesthetic value and retention in memory. This is most clearly manifested in Hussein’s parallel vocatives (“O you great sons of Iraq, O you great sons of the Arab nation”), and Maliki’s rhymed parallel structures (“Yasu:n alsiyada, wa yahmi alirada,” that means “to safeguard the sovereignty and to protect the will”). Such rhymed parallel structures are similar to the Qur’anic saj’ (rhymed prose). However, the most striking similarity between these speeches and the Qur’anic text was found to be the frequent employment of rhetorical questions, often used for emotional and dramatic purposes (Abdel Haleem, 2020). In fact, the Ar-Rahman chapter of the Qur’an is characteristically known to employ many rhetorical questions for persuasive purposes. In the speeches analyzed herein, Sisi’s speech included more rhetorical questions than the other speeches. For instance, Sisi used rhetorical questions to dramatize the need for swift action against the Muslim Brotherhood organization, and the states that are ruled by and provide support to them, in an implicit reference to Turkey and Qatar. The rhetorical questions were phrased as follows: “We challenged an organization in its strongest status, a well-organized organization for long years. There are some states that are ruled by this organization. What do you think these states will do? Will they leave us alone?”. Noticeably, Maliki opted for a more conventional form of rhetorical questions, often used in religious sermons, to affectively warn of the consequences of Sunni protests in 2013: “Have I not delivered the message? Oh Allah, bear witness.” The other stylistic feature that reflects the speakers’ attempts to legitimize their political actions and perspectives through religiously charged discursive practices was the use of intertextual references to the Qur’anic text throughout their speeches. All six heads of state made intertextual references to the Qur’an throughout their speeches. These references were sometimes made both explicitly, via direct citation of Qur’anic verses, and implicitly, via the use of certain frequently occurring Qur’anic concepts such as fitna (sedition), ghadr (treachery), and kaid wa makr (scheming and cunning). In accordance with Abdul-Latif’s (2011) observation of the use of basmala, all the speeches analyzed started with the Qur’anic basmala (“In the name of Allah the most gracious, most merciful”) that opens the Qur’anic chapters. The speeches also concluded with Qur’anic verses and/or supplications; each of the speakers chose a Qur’anic verse that sat well with the context of the crisis addressed in their speech. For instance, Hussein’s declaration of war cited the Qur’anic verse “To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged. And surely, Allah is most powerful for their aid” (which originally gave permission to early Muslims to fight those who wanted to drive them away from their homes). In his speech announcing his temporary assumption of the position of President, Ben Ali cited the Qur’anic verse “And say: Work [righteousness]: Soon will Allah observe your work, and His Messenger, and the Believers” which is usually cited when a new endeavor is undertaken.

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In terms of effect, these explicit and implicit intertextual references to the Qur’anic text aim to elicit positive responses from the audience or at least restrict a potentially negative reception. Abdul-Latif (2011, p. 50) argued that such references restrict the responses of Muslim addressees: “Muslims’ responses to Islamic sacred texts are inherently restricted because disagreement with divine texts amounts to heresy. Accordingly, their responses to political speeches that present themselves as semireligious texts are highly restricted as well.” The more interesting intertextual references in the corpus were found in Hussein’s speech. Other than opening his speech with the Qur’anic basmala and verses, and concluding it with a Qur’an-styled supplication, he used parts of the Islamic call for prayer (Adhan) to appeal for religiously loaded emotions that can be understood as an implicit call for a holy war. Moreover, he also recited a poem written in the traditional style of ham¯asah (zeal or valor) which is a genre of Arabic poetry that “recounts chivalrous exploits in the context of military glories and victories” (Esposito, 2004, p. 106).

3.6.3 Identity Dimension Analyzing how identities are constructed in discourse is rather elusive, as the concept of identity is not specifically associated with specific linguistic levels of description and analysis. Nonetheless, there are certain pragmatic and discursive strategies that are indicative of identity construction. Such strategies include the use of appellatives (or vocatives), referring and attributing, or referential and predicational strategies in Reisigl and Wodak’s (2001) terms. Like in Qur’anic verses, appellatives were used in the speeches not only to address a specific audience but also to establish alignment and to construct clearly defined identities. For example: “O you Egyptians who made that decision…,” “O honorable Iraqi people…,” “O our brothers,” “O brethren…”. Such appellatives are often used to serve two functions. First, to positively represent the audience and second, to index affiliation with them, as demonstrated in the examples above. Additionally, appellatives are used to pave the way for speakers to perform directive speech acts oriented towards a designated audience, such as requests and warnings, as evident in the extract from Essebsi’s televised speech: “O honorable brothers, it is a grave danger to put things in the hands of extremists and the ignorants.” This is similar to Qur’anic warnings and prohibitions like “O believers! Do not let some men ridicule others.” This combination of appellative and conative uses of language positions the speaker vis-à-vis certain social actors and actions, which is indexical of identity construction. Meanwhile, disaffiliation and negative other-presentation were often realized in the speeches via the referential strategy (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001): “the enemy’s friends in the USA” (Sadat), “those terrorists” (Sisi), “those traitors will be eliminated, the evil enemy of Iraq and humanity” (Hussein), and “those savage minorities will not intimidate us” (Essebsi). These referential expressions also mark another

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similarity with the Qur’anic text, in which the disbeliever or polytheists are more often depicted in third person references. For example, “Allah is an enemy to the disbelievers,” or “Surely, the polytheists are unclean.” The analysis also reveals that the speakers tended to use the strategies of generalization and collectivization, as opposed to individuation and identification, to construct social and political groups. This was often done through the use of collective genericized references to “self” and “other,” such as “the believers” (al-mu’minoon), “the people” (ash-sha’b), “the nation” (al-Ummah), “the unbelievers” (al-kafiroon), “the evil” (ash-shar) and “the enemy” (al-adou). A clear example of the use of generalization and collectivization to refer to both “self” and “other” can be found in Hussein’s war declaration: “Iraq will prevail, and so will our [Arab] nation and humanity, and the evil will be hit so as not to be able to commit the crime.”

3.7 Conclusion The aim of this chapter was twofold: to develop an analytical framework that can capture traces of Islamic culture and Qur’anic rhetoric in public political discourse, and to bring to light their discursive functions and manipulative potentials. The analysis demonstrates that the concept of linguaculture is in fact very helpful for the development of such a framework. When augmented by empirical and theoretical outputs on Islamic rhetoric and Qur’anic style and themes, the three-tiered conceptualization of linguaculture proved analytically sufficient to account for the influence of religious culture on Arabic public speaking. The developed framework is based on a coding scheme that can identify sense-making potentials (modality, speech acts), interactional moves (addressivity shift), stylistic techniques (tropes, repetition, parallelism), and discursive practices (identity construction strategies that include the use of vocatives, as well as referential and predicational strategies). The results show that the selected speeches exhibit significant similarity in the semantic-pragmatic dimension at both the local and global levels of discourse. Like the Qur’anic text, the six speeches show significant use of deontic and epistemic modalities. Interestingly, both deontic and epistemic modalities were also found to be jointly employed to express a sense of optimism (or certainty of the future), identified as a distinctive feature of the Qur’anic text. In terms of pragmatic potentials, as with the Qur’anic text, the speeches contain three types of speech act: directives (mainly warnings); commissives (mainly promises); and finally, expressives (mainly praises and condemnations). At the more global level of discourse, the dynamic style of the Qur’anic iltif¯at is found to be a common occurrence in Arabic public speaking. At the poetic dimension, the analysis reveals that the speeches include many metaphorical and metonymic expressions based on Qur’anic themes, such as fitna and na:r. This is especially so in Maliki’s and Sisi’s speeches. Moreover, the use of repetition and parallelism—stylistic techniques commonly found in the Qur’an—is also evident in significant measures across the corpus. More interestingly, however,

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is the common use of rhetorical questions, known to be a common feature of the Qur’anic text. At the identity dimension, like the Qur’anic text appellatives were used in the speeches, not only to address a specific audience but also to establish alignment and to construct clearly defined identities. The identity analysis also permits us to conclude that the speakers tended to use the strategies of generalization and collectivization, as opposed to individuation and identification, to construct social and political groups— confirming the general perception of Arab culture being a collective culture. The present study is an illustrative example of how language and culture can come together in public political discourse. In this study covering the speeches of six heads of state during their tenure at the helm, we see the ways through which political leaders can influence the masses via the use of linguistic elements as well as religious ones. We prefer to exercise caution and not make definitive claims, but nevertheless find it fair to state that manipulation through public discourse is always possible by any party and that it is also possible for the interpretation and articulation of ideas to go beyond the real meanings of the references used. The findings of this study also consonant with those of scholars in communication who have demonstrated that the chief image of the enemy in presidential discourse is the “savage other” and that this enemy can be grouped under “primitive” or “modern” (Viala-Gaudefroy, 2020); the former is often portrayed as a decentralized entity living in a society devoid of stability and civilization while the “modern” enemy, on the other hand, is portrayed as a centralized evil entity who is relatively civilized but is nonetheless still considered savage as their goal is to destroy order. It is worth emphasizing that these forms of public political discourse can be very dangerous because they can be construed as absolute truths and become catalysts of violence, as well as agents that perpetuate human suffering. For future studies, we recommend the use of an even larger corpus covering the rhetorical threads of more political leaders, state and non-state, from different nations and regions that will consequently enable richer comparisons to be made. We expect this study and its findings to be of worth to agencies tasked with the preservation of national security, and to scholars and students engaged in the study of linguaculture and political discourse.

References Abdel Haleem, M. (2011). Understanding the Qur’an: Themes and style. I.B. Tauris. Abdel Haleem, M. (2020). Rhetorical devices and stylistic features of Qur’anic grammar. In M. Shah & M. Abdel Haleem (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Qur’anic studies (pp. 327–345). Oxford University Press. Abdul-Latif, E. (2011). Interdiscursivity between political and religious discourses in a speech by Sadat. Journal of Language and Politics, 10(1), 50–67. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.10.1.03abd Agar, M. (1994). Language shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York: William Morrow. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Clarendon Press.

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Ayoub, M. M. (2013). Islam: Faith and history. Oneworld. Badawi, A. A. (2005). From the rhetoric of Qur’an. Ennahda (in Arabic). Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Critical metaphor analysis. In J. Charteris-Black (Ed.), Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis (pp. 243–253). Palgrave Macmillan. Dawood, N. (1990). The Koran (5th ed.). Penguin. Denny, F. M. (1989). Qur’an recitation: A tradition of oral performance and transmission. Oral Tradition, 4(1–2), 5–26. Available online https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/han dle/10355/65410/OralTradition4-1-2-Denny.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Esposito, J. L. (2004). The Oxford dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graham, W., & Kermani, N. (2006). Recitation and aesthetic reception. In J. D. McAuliffe (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Qur’an (pp. 115–141). Cambridge University Press. Hart, R. P., & Lind, C. J. (2011). The rhetoric of Islamic activism: A DICTION study. Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 4(2), 113–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/17467586.2011.627934 Hicks, S. T. W. (2005). Presidential rhetorical crisis leadership: The speeches of presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush on the events of 12-7-41 and 09-11-01. Ph.D. dissertation, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. Jackson, R. (2005). Writing the war on terrorism: Language, politics and counter-terrorism (new approaches to conflict analysis). Manchester University Press. Le Page, R. B., & Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge University Press. McAuliffe, J. D. (2001). Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (Vol. 1). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. McAuliffe, J. D. (2006). The Cambridge companion to the Qur’¯an. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, K. (2001). The art of reciting the Qur’an. American University Press. Neuwirth, A. (2006). Structural, linguistic and literary features. In J. D. McAuliffe (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Qur’an (pp. 97–113). Cambridge University Press. Nielsen, C. L. (2008). Pearl Harbor and 9/11: A comparison. Unpublished M.A. thesis, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee. Nuyts, J. (2016). Analyses of the modal meanings. In J. Nuyts & J. van der Auwera (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of modality and mood (pp. 31–49). Oxford University Press. Padwick, C. E. (1996). Muslim devotions: A study of prayer-manuals in common use. Oneworld. Quraishi, A. (2006). Interpreting the Qur’an and the constitution: Similarities in the use of text, tradition, and reason in Islamic and American jurisprudence. Cardozo Law Review, 28(1), 67–120. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.963142. Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (2001). Discourse and discrimination: The rhetoric of racism and antisemitism. Routledge. Risager, K. (2006). Language and culture: Global flows and local complexity. Multilingual Matters. Risager, K. (2012a). Linguaculture and transnationality: The cultural dimensions of language. In J. Jackson (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and intercultural communication (pp. 101– 115). Routledge. Risager, K. (2012b). Linguaculture. In C. Chapelle (Ed.), Encyclopedia of applied linguistics (pp. 3418–3421). Wiley. Roy, O. (2004). Globalized Islam: The search for a new ummah. Columbia University Press. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press. Shah, M., & Abdel Haleem, M. (2020). The Oxford handbook of Qur’anic studies. Oxford University Press. Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics: A resource book for students. Routledge. Stevanovic, M., & Perakyla, A. (2012). Deontic authority in interaction: The right to announce, propose, and decide. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(3), 297–321. https://doi. org/10.1080/08351813.2012.699260. van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. Sage. van Dijk, T. A. (2006). Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society, 17(3), 359–383. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0957926506060250.

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van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. Oxford University Press. Viala-Gaudefroy, J. (2020). The evil savage other as enemy in modern U.S. presidential discourse. Angles: New Perspectives on the Anglophone World, 10, 1–34. https://doi.org/10.4000/ang les.498. Wild, S. (2020). Politics and the Qur’an. In M. Shah & M. Abdel Haleem (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Qur’anic studies (pp. 555–565). Oxford University Press.

Ali Al-Rikaby is Lecturer and Researcher attached to the College of Arts in Mustansiriyah University, Iraq. He previously served as Assistant Director of the Studies Abroad Section (Iraqi MOHSR), Head of the Translation Centre of Mustansiriyah University, and Head of the English Language Department at Libya’s College of Education. His research interests include language and linguistics as well as translation and discourse analysis. Thulfiqar Hussein Altahmazi is Lecturer of English language and linguistics at the Department of English, College of Arts, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq. He received his Ph.D. from University of Leicester in 2016. His research interests include, Political Discourse Analysis, (Critical) Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, and (Intercultural) Computer-Mediated Communication. He has published several journal articles and two book chapters on these topics in both English and Arabic. Debbita Ai Lin Tan serves as Senior Lecturer at the School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Prior to academia, she was a feature writer with work published in various local and international publications. She is keen on interdisciplinary research and her areas of interest include media discourse, media psychology, and more recently, the relationship between linguistic nuances and human behaviour.

Chapter 4

The Role of Culture in Turkish Political Discourse: President Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan and The Justice and Development Party Ay¸se Deniz Ünan Göktan

4.1 Introduction The Justice and Development Party (JDP) has been the hallmark of Turkish politics over the last twenty years. Its populist discourse (Bulut & Hacıo˘glu, 2018; Elçi, 2019) still attracts the public. Its origins are based on the National Outlook Movement that gained prominence in the 1970s. Past bureaucratic restrictions and closures this Islamist political movement experienced, and resistance strategies it developed to overcome these restrictions, shaped the JDP’s current discourse. This chapter explores culture’s role in shaping the JDP’s political discourse in Turkey, through a qualitative research of President Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan’s public speeches. It first identifies the main components of Turkey’s cultural context by providing a general framework for what is referred to as culture. Thereafter, the social structural dynamics underlying the emergence of the Islamist political movement and the JDP are briefly explained. Then qualitative research findings are presented. The study demonstrates that JDP discourse is affected by two diverse levels of culture. First, the subculture of political Islam, emerging in the 1960s, the major driving force of JDP discourse. Second, to become the ruling party the JDP adjusted its rhetoric in accordance with mainstream cultural values, adopting a populist discourse emphasizing the party’s social services and projects. Erdo˘gan’s speeches demonstrate the levels of interaction, and at times, the extent of conflicts between these two cultures.

A. D. Ünan Göktan (B) Istanbul Gedik University, Istanbul, Turkey © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_4

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4.2 Setting the Context: Social Structure and Turkey’s Cultural Values 4.2.1 Modernity and Westernization Modernization has been a substantial topic of debate in Turkey. The term is defined in relation to the West and globalization, often understood as becoming like the West: how to modernize, which western features to adopt, and to what extent can an original, cultural synthesis be created. Nonetheless, modernization as a concept has become a cultural value on two levels. First, modernization manifested in a western style of living, evident in consumption patterns. This was criticized by traditionalists during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Toprak, 1999), as causing moral degeneration and the breakdown of the Ottoman order (Yıldız, 2003, p. 6). Second, modernization refers to achieving better life standards. Modernization theory assumes that different cultures would eventually converge, as modernity has universal psychological characteristics (Ka˘gıtçıba¸sı, 2005). A major criticism of this theory states that modernization is not the same as westernization and different cultures can experience different forms (Eisenstadt, 2000). For instance, research on the changing family structure in Turkey (Ka˘gıtçıba¸sı, 1996, 2005; Ka˘gıtçıba¸sı & Ataca, 2005) demonstrated that through modernization process people experience a transition from the collectivist, obedient self to the “autonomousrelated self”. Individuals become economically independent and autonomous but remain psychologically close to their family. Thus, modernization does not follow the commonplace assumption that relatedness decreases with modernization. From a political-historical context, modernization policies emerged in the Ottoman Empire when governing bodies started questioning the reasons for falling behind. At first, modernization policies were aimed at fixing ongoing technical dysfunctions. Later, Westernism emerged as an approach that saw the European social and intellectual composition as the goal (Mardin, 1983). Post-Ottoman Empire the modern Turkish Republic underwent an ideological and political revolution. Westernization and anti-imperialism were its main characteristics, the latter a precondition for westernization (Kongar, 2006, p. 329), requiring liberation from western economic, financial and political control and through financial and political independence. The young Republic stressed nurturing and empowering the middle class for economic development. A Turkish bourgeoisie emerged through cooperation between the bureaucracy and local gentry. As the transition to multiparty democracy took place, anti-imperialism was pushed into the background for westernization’s sake (Kongar, 2006).

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4.2.2 Features of Turkish Culture and Social Structure Mardin (1973) stated that in the Ottoman social structure the main tension took place between the center and the periphery. The center mainly consisted of state bureaucrats; the periphery included the peasants and gentry. The model referred not only to social classes but also represented a geographical division between urban and rural. A cultural disconnection between these two social classes existed for centuries, further sharpening with educational system reforms and continuing through Ottoman stagnation and regression. Receiving a modern education was more common for bureaucrats’ families. Eventually, as the periphery fell behind, refusing to adapt to social change or having been indirectly excluded from this new central culture, the masses identified more with religion and embraced tradition, thus identifying modernization with laicism (Berkes, 1998). This tension continued after the Independence War (1919–1923) and the establishment of the modern republic under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (its first president, 1923–1938) when Ottoman and Islamic components of social identity took a backseat (Filiz & Uluç, 2006). Not Islam per se, but Orthodox interpretations of Islam were seen as a symbol of backwardness (Çakır, 2017, p. 21); hence, religious elements were excluded from public life, emphasizing the secularization of education. The modern Turkish republic pushed laicism among its founding principles and introduced substantial reforms, e.g., abolished the caliphate, unified instruction by placing all educational institutions under state control, and adopted the Latin alphabet. The central bureaucracy adopted an equalizing role for local ethnic and religious groups, implementing policies to create a modern Turkish identity. For those reluctant to accept reforms, the periphery became the address for political opposition. Under single party rule, the emerging bourgeoisie formed the core of political opposition, establishing the Democrat Party (DP) that during its active years (1950–1960) reversed some policies. Nevertheless, the DP was tolerant towards social Islam but not political Islam (Yıldız, 2006, p. 43). Significant differentiation existed between urban and rural areas and populations. During the 1950s, agricultural mechanization through Marshall Plan Aid created surplus labor in the provinces. Migration from rural to urban areas and rapid urbanization led to many infrastructural problems; shanty towns soon emerged in major cities. Turkey went through, and partly still experiences, a transition from Gemeinschaft towards Gesellschaft. Although group loyalty, collectivism and relatedness remained important, the majority of society experienced social mobility and developed impersonal relations resulting from the changed environment. Islamist thinkersintellectuals’ were not aiming to go back to Gemeinschaft. On the contrary, exponents of Islamist ideas grew up in an urban culture, constituting the specific Turkish Gesellschaft experience (Filiz & Uluç, 2006; Meeker, 1991, p. 217). The latest research on Turkish social and political trends (Aydın et al., 2020) indicates that citizens view the economy (unemployment and stagnation) as the most important social problem. Another study on cultural values (Esmer, 2012) stated that nationalism is a predominant cultural value. The vast majority embraces democracy

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and wants to live under a democratic regime; yet around half would also like to have a strong leader not having to deal with parliament and elections. Moreover, people don’t have a standard understanding of democracy and don’t engage with actions of participatory democracy like joining a march, going on strike, signing petitions, or boycotting. Patriarchy and traditional family values (Esmer, 2012, pp. 114–115), loyalty to state (patriotism), and respect of authority (Ka˘gıtçıba¸sı, 1970), are predominant social norms. People in general consider themselves religious. However, demand for a religious political system or for Islamic policies at the state level is low (Çarko˘glu & Toprak, 2007; Esmer, 2012). Turkey’s identity is defined as Muslim and secular, challenging the claim that Islam is not compatible with secularism and democracy (Göl, 2009). Accordingly, Turkish society incorporates traditional, conservative, and modern values; people have internalized modern republican principles, defending the general separation of religion and state at the macro level.

4.2.3 The Rise of Islamism as a Political Movement ˙ Islamism (Islamcılık) emerged during the nineteenth century, reflecting “defensive modernization” to save the Ottoman State (Yıldız, 2006, p. 41). As the West’s power originated from its technology it could only be withstood by developing a stronger technology while holding genuine cultural values (Çakır, 2017, p. 25). Upon the establishment of the modern republic, emphasis was placed on forming a modern national identity. Islamism declined, since religion as an institution came under state control. Starting from the 1960s, Islamism as a political ideology regained momentum. The liberal spirit of the 1961 constitution (after the 1960 coup) played a role in the rise of Islamic organizations and political opposition (Narlı, 1999). In Turkey, the movement was intellectually influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other Islamist movements in India and Pakistan. The literary sources of political Islam were in general translations from these sources. The movement was presented as an alternative to all political models including democracy, criticizing the modern republic’s founding principles (Filiz & Uluç, 2006, p. 25). According to Yıldız (2006, p. 39), Islamism has been both political and religious. Politically, it aims to gain and restore state power by adopting Western science and technology; as a religious project it offers an interpretation of Islam, by “Islamizing the Western concepts of progress and development.” The movement was subjected to restrictive practices by the state because of its opposition to secularist principles. The threat of illegitimacy led this movement to develop more indirect language in its political discourse, articulating demands and opinions with reference to human rights, loyalty to the national- religious character of the nation, justice, or democracy (Yıldız, 2006, p. 40). Nonetheless, a distinctive feature has been the use of religious references in everyday language. Quranic and hadith concepts are part of the movement pioneers’ daily language, shaping a particular political culture (Deliba¸s, 2009). The Islamist parties were movement parties emphasizing grassroots activism.

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With party closures not uncommon, social issue policies were also important for a sustainable existence (Kirdi¸s, 2016). The movement also developed as a response to challenging socio-economic and political conditions (Deliba¸s, 2009). By the 1980s, migration and infrastructural problems, urban poverty, and unemployment deeply affected the periphery’s masses, creating “social rage” (Narlı, 1999, p. 42). The effects of globalization became more visible through neoliberal policies, with governments incapable of solving these problems. Islamism as a political movement incorporated principles of progress and development using the concepts of National Outlook (Milli Görü¸s) and Just Order (Adil Düzen) under the general frame of Islamic-nationalism (Yıldız, 2003). Just Order constituted the economic policies of the National Outlook. The movement also had a longing for the glorious days of the Ottoman Empire. Its recipe was adoption of western science and technology for progress but criticizing Western civilization for exploiting the rest of the world, and viewing Westernizers in Turkey as imitators (Calabrio, 2017). It opposed capitalism and socialism, offering an alternative political model for sovereignty, with practices such as developing diplomatic relations and economic collaborations with the Islamic world, realizing a Muslim common market, and prohibiting interest payments (Erbakan, 1991). The movement formed solidarity networks and aided the urban poor. Grassroots social work combined with political discourse and activism strengthened the movement (Deliba¸s, 2009). The National Outlook Movement established many political parties, eventually closed by the Turkish Constitutional Court: The National Order Party (NOP) (1970– 1971), National Salvation Party (NSP) (1972–1980) (banned along with the other political parties after the military coup in 1980), Welfare Party (WP) (1983–1998), Virtue Party (VP) (1998–2001; succeeded by the Felicity Party of today). To justify the bans the judiciary relied on public speeches of party members condemning laicism and implying a religious order. In 2001, a number of politicians coming from the National Outlook youth setup founded the JDP that also faced an unsuccessful closure case in 2008. Nevertheless, the court stated that the party had become the focus of anti-secular activities and restricted its state funding. The political parties mentioned above have had a loyal voter base and their public support increased through 1990’s; WP won the 1994 local elections including ˙Istanbul and Ankara, and the national elections in 1995. The leader of the National Outlook, Necmettin Erbakan, was the prime minister of Turkey for a short time, running the 1996 coalition government. Nonetheless, tensions regarding the WP violating the laicism principle caused a political crisis. Following the military memorandum in 1997 and the closure of the WP, Erbakan was banned from politics. The WP also faced endogenous political obstacles. Being a highly ideological organization made it harder to become a mass party. In addition, unquestionable loyalty to the leadership team limited its potential (Çakır, 2017). Arguably, the WP’s 1994 local elections success resulted inpart due to the active campaign strategy of Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan, who became the Istanbul Mayor in 1994. Erdo˘gan was born in one of the poorer districts of Istanbul Kasımpa¸sa, as a child of a politically moderate family that migrated from Rize. During his education in the

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˙ religious vocational high school (Imam Hatip Okulu), he joined the National Turkish Students’ Union, a conservative-Islamic student organization. Erdo˘gan started political life in the NSP youth branch, taking an active role in the NSP and later within the WP. He introduced a new organizational structure for the WP to increase the participation of women and young people in politics during this period (Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, 2021). Through the 1980s and 1990s he became one of the outstanding followers of Necmettin Erbakan. As Istanbul Mayor, Erdo˘gan focused on the infrastructural issues such as garbage, traffic, air pollution and water problems (Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, 2021). During his tenure, he was accused of provoking public hatred or hostility, receiving a four months’ prison sentence in 1999 because of a poem1 he read at a rally in 1997. The court banned him from politics. This decision created a backlash and increased public interest in him. Meanwhile the shuttered WP was re-established under the name of VP. The innovative wing within the party, Erdo˘gan included, advocated their movement coming to power alone, yet this could only be achieved by developing a more inclusive discourse. They eventually formed the JDP as a mass, center-right party, identifying it as a conservative-democratic entity.

4.2.4 The JDP’s Establishment Regarding Erdo˘gan’s prison sentence in 1999, as well as other party closures in the past, the JDP developed discourse on freedom of speech and democracy. This was also the result of divergence between traditionalists and the innovative wing, latter criticizing the NO’s traditional administrative dynamics. Soon after VP was closed by the Constitutional Court in June 2001, they established the JDP. The party promised to end the “leader’s domination” (Moralitas Web Television, n.d.), emphasizing inparty democracy. JDP positioned itself at the center-right. In a 2003 speech at a closed party meeting, Erdo˘gan stated that they “had taken off the shirt of NO,” and “the unrealistic political and ideological dreams have no place in the JDP,” criticizing NO principles (Milliyet, 2003). The JDP was formed in an environment where Turkey was struggling through an economic crisis and coalition governments were inefficient. The social conditions rendered a populist discourse strategically attractive (Bulut & Hacıo˘glu, 2018). Unlike the WP, the JDP was pro-EU membership. The party defended privatization policies and also aimed to open up to the world and attract foreign investment. JDP’s electoral statement (JDP Department of Publicity and Media, 2015) criticized the bureaucratic state authority for interfering in civil culture, defended individual freedoms, strong civil society, a plural, competitive media ownership structure, along with an emphasis on cultural authenticity and traditional family values. Nevertheless, through the years the party established its own pro-JDP media, and its populist ˙ The poem originally belonged to Cevat Örnek, “The Divine Army” (Ilahi Ordu), drawing an analogy of warfare on protecting and defending Islam (Bardakçı, 2002).

1

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approach and plebiscitary tendencies gradually shifted towards authoritarianism. The first referendum in 2007 that the JDP set forth was to elect the president by direct plebiscite. The second referendum (2010) amended the constitution, especially the structure of the Constitutional Court and the Council of Judges and Prosecutors. The last one took place in 2017, replacing parliamentary democracy with a presidential system. Today, as concerns increase regarding the deterioration of the separation of powers principle, JDP’s governing style is defined as competitive authoritarianism (Esen & Gümü¸sçü, 2016). Erdo˘gan is driven in party campaigns due to public interest and great popularity (Baykan, 2018, p. 119). His leadership is based on populism and personality, and on effective organizational and intense work to create a “resilient, loyal organization” for political survival (Baykan, 2018, p. 139). Erdo˘gan’s populism increased with the Gezi, Gülenist threat and terrorist attacks of PKK and ISIS (Elçi, 2019, p. 10). Leadership populism is a catalyst for the shift towards authoritarianism (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013). Thus, the current tendency in Turkey can be defined as the outcome of Erdo˘gan’s leadership style, and also resulting from external developments and threats in a wider context.

4.3 Method This research is based on Erdo˘gan’s public speeches, especially during his election campaign programs and rallies. As Erdo˘gan and some other party members evolved within the National Outlook, his speeches as a member of the WP were also included to obtain a broader view of Islamist political discourse. There have been major incidents during the nineteen years of JDP rule. In 2013 the government faced a major anti-government protest (Gezi Protests). The JDP was heavily criticized for excessive police force against peaceful protesters. Then in 2016 the government faced a coup attempt by the “peace at home council,” i.e., Gülenist agents within the military.2 Speeches made after these events were also included. 2

The Gülen organization was established by Fethullah Gülen, a cleric and cult leader in selfimposed U.S. exile since 1999. For years, the Gülen movement was promoted as a loose civil society organization, claiming to represent moderate Islam, support global dialogue between religions, and establish Turkish schools abroad. Gülenists had been an ally of the government until 2013. Constituting a global community, and in their words a service movement (hizmet hareketi), they established a large-scale network with numerous national and international business companies, TV channels, newspapers, NGOs, charity organizations and schools, run by Gülen followers. The organization gradually gained power by “infiltrating” state institutions, including the military and judiciary. Through the 2000s, the organization repeatedly attempted to destabilize the state and discredit the JDP (Kadem, 2017), eventually attempting to overthrow the government. The coup attempt failed as masses swamped the streets to stop it (Erdo˘gan made this connection in a TV live broadcast, calling the citizenry to stop the coup attempt). The government designated the organization as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization. The international community was blamed for backing the organization, as Gülen is a U.S. resident and has not been subjected to any legal investigation.

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Thirteen rallies, four victory speeches, one publicity meeting, one religious council meeting, three television programs, one introductory film, and one radio program between 2001 and 2018 period were included. In addition, ten WP period speeches and other two in 1999 (court and incarceration period) before 2001 were also analysed—in total, thirty-six public speeches. Qualitative discourse analysis was adopted for the research to reveal substantial features of the social structure through textual data (Ruiz, 2009). Speeches were accessed through video streaming websites. A convenience sampling method was adopted. The data collection process was ended after reaching data saturation. Each speech was transcribed and thematically categorized. Following that, internal references to culture and cultural values were identified.

4.4 Findings 4.4.1 Pre-2001 Period Through the 1980s and 1990s Erdo˘gan was a WP member. Calling its supporters “believers” (inananlar), the WP represented political Islam but declared itself not a religious school but a service party as a survival strategy (Yıldız, 2003, p. 3). During this period, Erdo˘gan’s speech themes were altruism, patience and struggle. The culture of political Islam was a major driving force. In the 1980s, the prominent slogans of the party were “Neither IMF nor EEC, National Consciousness, National Will” and “Believer Cadres Shoulder to Shoulder”, representing the idea of Islamicnationalist synthesis, underlining financial independence from western powers and institutions, and the importance of Muslim solidarity. During those years the party developed a strategy to widen its scope and target deprived masses, requiring intensive grassroots activism and public relations activity. Party members were asked to visit people “door by door,” give them symbolic presents like Turkish coffee (which has the cultural meaning of affinity) and invite them to join. This policy also included people not considered as potential voters. Women members played a major role in this practice. They were “women wearing chador, hijab, and stretch pants, three different compositions”, as a manifestation of the party’s mosaic structure (Özer, 2018b). Party members were reminded that they might be ridiculed or humiliated in their visits (due to their political view or their modest appearance), but they should never give up. These speeches constantly reminded the target audience and party members that they comprised the periphery, ignored, and should patiently struggle to gain political power (Özer, 2020): “Nothing can stand against such faith, not even the U.S.A. or the West” (Özer, 2018b). Warfare is another prominent theme. In the WP’s Istanbul Regional Meeting in 1986, Erdo˘gan was presented as the “Istanbul facade commander of the Welfare Army” and called “warrior” (mücahit) (Özer, 2020). Similarly, in 1993, in a meeting before the local elections, Erdo˘gan was called the “commander to conquer Istanbul”

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(Özer, 2019a). War was declared against the enemy but the antagonist remained unclear, whether the secular, westernized, urban lifestyle, non-religious people, western imperialism, or the central bureaucracy directly. Longing for the old, glorious days, when Turkish society was strong and had an international respectability, was also underlined. In a 1993 Women’s Branch Meeting, Erdo˘gan showed members a behavioral path for the campaign according to hadith: Being lovely (nefret ettirmeyin, sevdirin), showing people that their practice is not a hard one but an easy one (zorla¸stırmayın kolayla¸stırın), not intimidating the people (korkutucu olmayın, müjdeleyici olun), not being judgmental or discriminatory against other parties’ members (yargılayıcı olmayın, ba˘gı¸slayıcı olun), and greeting as many people as possible (selamı yaygınla¸stırın). The practice referred to religious practices that gain visibility through party members. As they set forth Muslim identity during a political campaign, some were concerned about the party imposing a religious life style over the masses if elected. Yet, the primary focus was to create a favorable impression: “If the person does not salute you back, say hi. Say, good day. Say, good morning. If the person does not exchange hellos with you still, maybe he is a foreigner? Say good morning (in English) (audience laughing) (…) We have to pull down these walls” (Özer, 2018a). A basic violation of order is explained with reference to religion: In a speech made in 1994, Erdo˘gan, as the Istanbul mayor, stated that throwing cigarette butts on the street is a violation of other people’s “rightful share” (kul hakkı), i.e., the right to live in a clean environment. Additionally, he had mentioned the ongoing drought in Istanbul and called for a rain prayer (Özer, 2019c). Thus, Islamic references and idioms were an important part of Erdo˘gan’s rhetoric. However, he used a cautious tone in taking Islam as a reference point for specific policies. Rigid statements are balanced with softer ones. In a speech that he delivered at the 1987 WP congress, Erdo˘gan stated: “I invite my people, who have been in the wrong tracks in coffeehouses and taverns, to join the ranks of the WP, the WP is the struggle for salvation” (Özer, 2019b). Alcohol consumption is negated as being forbidden by Islam, yet here it is articulated together with coffeehouses, blamed for making people lazy. So, at the end of the day, a pleasure-seeking, or a sluggish lifestyle was blamed. As laziness is not welcomed by the culture, the statement becomes more moderate. Similarly, in 1993 Erdo˘gan told the story of a lady with stretch pants who joined the WP because under WP rules her drunk husband couldn’t physically abuse her. This story indicates WP’s intention to form an inclusive discourse (not only veiled but also unveiled women prefer them). By linking alcohol consumption with domestic abuse, instead of directly using religious motives to ban alcohol, he positioned the party’s intent within a wider framework (Özer, 2018b). Erdo˘gan made a controversial speech in 1993 at the WP’s Ümraniye District Organization. The speech was disclosed to the press in 2001 during the establishment of the JDP. Here Erdo˘gan argued that a person cannot be simultaneously Muslim and secular, opposed laicism as it did not have a clear definition, and claimed that religion should intervene in the state. He adopted a contradictory stance against the national will, stating that “if the nation decides, we can of course give up laicism”, as sovereignty lies not only in the national will but in the hands of Allah. He accepted

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being Muslim as the shared identity rather than Turkishness (Hürriyet, 2001). These statements reflect the political Islamist culture in which Erdo˘gan was raised. The speech fueled suspicions about the newly established JDP having a hidden agenda to undermine the secular state. As a response, Erdo˘gan argued that not individuals but only institutions could be laic (Yeni Safak, ¸ 2008). He agreed with the definition of laicism as being equally distant to all religions; the JDP was not calling for a state based on religious principles (Ya¸sar, n.d.). Overall, Erdo˘gan’s pre-2001 speeches reflect political-Islamic culture; Islam is taken as the reference point, along with an ambivalent and indecisive discourse about specific political plans and policies. One can identify a longing for coming to rule, a call for patience and struggle, and hints of an agenda making changes in the social order according to the movement’s interpretation of Islam; but also, cautiousness. This was a result of the long-lasting legitimacy issues of the Islamist National Outlook. Erdo˘gan’s guidance to party members was intended to avoid potential legal restrictions but also to gain public appeal and receive more public support. Thus, mainstream, Turkish cultural values, including religiosity and secularism, affected the WP’s political discourse and public relations strategy.

4.4.2 The Period between 2001 and 2018 4.4.2.1

A General Outline of the Rallies

Since its foundation in 2001, Erdo˘gan valued JDP election rallies more than leaders’ TV debates. Especially after the 2002 victory, he also appeared on TV not with his political rivals but rather alone. Rallies have been important occasions where Erdo˘gan meets the party supporters. As the JDP’s media power and the number of pro-JDP TV channels increased, these rallies were also broadcast live through many channels and reached a large audience. JDP rallies are vigorous spectacles with an active use of campaign slogans and music. A review of these meetings reveals a recurring thematic pattern. This pattern, or formula, remained the same through the years. First, a long greeting, mentioning important historic figures (religious scholars, rulers, poets, heroes, e.g.) particular to that city, and saluting the districts one by one. For example, this extract from Erdo˘gan’s 2014 speech: “I sincerely greet you, Adıyaman, Besni, Çelikhan, Gerger, Gölba¸sı, Kahta, Samsat, Sincik, Tut! I greet you all with heart. What a sight this is. May Allah be pleased with you” (˙Istanbul Tanıtım Medya, 2014). Or in 2018: “Nev¸sehir, the heirloom of the Seljuk Dynasty! Nev¸sehir that raised Ottoman executives! Nev¸sehir, beautiful with its fairy chimneys …” (Tüfekyapan, 2018b). Thus, respect is shown to that area and an informal relationship is formed. Erdo˘gan is famously known as a poem reader, and even sings along with campaign songs, loved by enthusiastic audiences. The salutation is followed by evaluations of current politics. Although his speeches are prepared, this part is often carried out spontaneously. Erdo˘gan at times mocks or

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criticizes his rivals, mainly the opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (RPP). His discourse benefits from a sharp us (periphery) vs. them (center) dichotomy. During the 2014 presidential election campaign, he mocked the opposition’s candidate Ekmeleddin ˙Ihsano˘glu for his intellectual background and life abroad as an “imported mon¸ser” (western wannabe) (Haber Medya, 2014). Similarly, during the 2010 Constitutional Referendum Campaign, RPP voters were criticized for their insufficient involvement. Erdo˘gan mocked the RPP community for having a luxurious-lazy lifestyle, stating: “The party of the beaches is the RPP. And currently, they are on the beach now” (Kanal 7 Uplink, 2010). The referendum that raised concerns over judicial independence was framed as a step for democratization and ending the supremacy of elite bureaucrats in the judiciary: “The Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors will not be the backyard of some people; it will be the front yard of the nation!” (Kanal 7 Uplink, 2010). This part of the rally also included complaints with a more aggressive tone about injustice. The enemies and challenges to be faced and fought always exist but vary over time. The third part of the speech presents the JDP’s work heretofore for the local area—and then general policies and future plans are explained. A striking aspect here is the use of quantitative data, e.g., infrastructural investments illustrated by numbers. This consistent strategy underscores how much work has been done for the region. In addition, by proudly introducing these projects Erdo˘gan in a way owns them, declaring: “We established the Adıyaman University. Did they deem Adıyaman worthy of a university before?” (˙Istanbul Tanıtım Medya, 2014). The concluding part of the speech usually elicits promises about not leaving the party alone in the upcoming elections, and singing or repeating the party principles all together: We will be united, we will be strong, we will be youthful, we will be brothers/sisters, we will be Turkey, altogether (bir olaca˘gız, iri olaca˘gız, diri olaca˘gız, karde¸s olaca˘gız, hep birlikte Türkiye olaca˘gız)… …one nation, one flag, one state, one country (tek millet, tek bayrak, tek devlet, tek vatan).

These slogans state that Turkey’s strength lies in solidarity and brotherhood, viewing the JDP as a supra-ideological, mass-party, equated to Turkey, as well as an answer to the Kurdish issue and debates about political autonomy. Both are statements of patriotism. Erdo˘gan closed that speech (even though this has recently been abandoned) by repeating the lyrics of the song, “we have walked together through these ways” (beraber yürüdük biz bu yollarda). The song is one of the contemporary versions of the classical a-la-Turca music and has become the JDP’s trademark, referring to the long history of struggle for political power, solidarity and loyalty.

4.4.2.2

Prominent Cultural Themes

A specific construction of center and periphery is evident in the speeches. The core idea is to refer to the culture of the oppressed and announce their long-awaited political victory. Erdogan’s speeches tend to primarily identify himself and his party

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with the nation, i.e., the party is established by the nation, as in his speech from August 4, 2001: They (people) have given us an honorable duty. They said, what are you still waiting for? We answered, oh uncles, aunts, you are saying very nice things, but there are those, who are unable to stand me and my friends. They say that we are provincial…I asked, how should we answer back (to the criticisms)? Turkey is us, they said. Turkey has always been born from us”. (˙Ihlas News Agency, 2017)

Erdo˘gan almost neutralizes the party’s political stance by making it supraideological. JDP projects, such as building roads, bridges, or privatizing state-owned enterprises, are redefined as state policy. Coming from a strong state tradition (Heper, 1985), this narrows criticisms of the JDP. In addition, he argues that voting behavior should not be “ideological, and one should act considering the best interests of the nation” (GezegenTV, 2017; from a speech July 11, 2007). When the JDP won the election, ostensibly not only his supporters but everyone won, including other Muslim countries. JDP establishes connections with the global Islamic periphery and is willing to be its representative. When JDP came to power, the ban on wearing headscarves in the universities and public institutions existed, based on the idea that it violated the laicism principle. During the early years of the JDP rule this issue remained unsolved, yet the ban was lifted in 2008 with the support of the National Movement Party, and then a with a further regulation it was extended to state institutions. JDP approached the headscarf ban as a human rights violation rather than directly referring to Islam: “Nobody will be kicked out of school because of a beard and headscarf” (March 4, 2014) (˙Istanbul Tanıtım Medya, 2014). The root cause of the ban on headscarf is not tackled as a conflict between Islam and secularism; the discourse is constructed on a wider basis, the dichotomy between urban and rural, or the periphery’s masses and the bureaucratic elite (June 5, 2011): While a handful of elites, a handful of gangs, a handful of capital owners, were consuming all the resources of this country and using all their energy, they told the nation to stay away. They said you can’t go to school. They said you wear hijab. They said, “you just do the cleaning.” (…) They said you go sweep the floor, become a tea-lady. You can’t be a doctor. Who are you to get higher education and become a qualified lady. They said, do not interfere with the government. Who are you to ask for democracy and freedom. We have given you an efficient level (of democracy and freedom). They called us reactionary, ignorant, they called us workers, poor, peasants. They seemingly wanted to humiliate us”. (Mersin Gündem Videolar, 2011a)

The argument above is multidimensional. Along with the center-periphery dichotomy, Erdo˘gan also develops a progressive gender perspective. On the other hand, in a parliamentary group meeting in 2013 Erdo˘gan took a critical stand about male and female college students living in the same dorms. He stated that as a conservative democrat government they “cannot morally take such a responsibility”, and besides, single sex dorms would have a positive effect on academic performance (November 5, 2013) (Suba¸sı, 2013). Moreover, he stated that the government would even take charge of students renting private houses to regulate them (which did not happen). Here, diverse cultural norms regarding gender are traced. The first one is

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based on the idea that women deserve to have a successful career, a progressive stand. The second one, on the other hand, reflects the old-fashioned conservative-religiouspatriarchal codes, supported by an alternative, scientific finding about academic performance. Similar to the pre-2001 period, Islamic references and prayers used in the language constitute a substantial part of these speeches, such as saluting people with the name of Allah and giving examples from Islamic history. A prominent one is the constant reference to the Surah Al A’raf in the Qur’an, Ayah 179: “They have hearts they do not understand with, eyes they do not see with, and ears they do not hear with (…).” Erdo˘gan occasionally refers to this Ayah to accuse his political opponents, like the RPP officials who criticize JDP projects (March 16, 2014) (Gelincik4089, 2014). This Ayah was also used referring to the judiciary who prepared a closure case against the JDP in 2008 (Hürriyet, 2008a). During the presidential election campaign of 2014, Erdo˘gan read out Surah Al-Fatihah, referring to making a fresh start as a president (August 3, 2014) (Haber Medya, 2014). In addition, his famous saying which earlier adopted by Erbakan, is often repeated in rallies: “we love the created, for The Creator’s sake”. It stands for inclusiveness and tolerance based on the faith in Allah. During the early years of the JDP rule, the party took a pro-western and pro-EU stand, and actively pursued EU accession negotiations. This provided international validity and also aimed to strengthen the JDP’s hand domestically (Sim¸ ¸ sek, 2013). Nevertheless, a critical stance towards the West becomes prominent especially 2013 onwards. In his speech following the Gezi Protests, Erdo˘gan criticized the international community for being two-faced: “The EU parliament has taken a decision about us. Know your limits. Have you taken any decision regarding the G8 protests in Greece or in the UK?” (Gelincik2023, 2013). After the failed coup in 2016, Erdo˘gan again discredited the West for not being on their side but with the coup plotters. He stated that the West’s stand was not surprising because such manner of conduct was already stated in “the divine decree”. He underlined the power of faith against the West by a statement he heard from an elder: “If they have planes, tanks, guns, then my dear, we have Allah” (Artislamic.com, 2016)—a simplified codification of Islamic cultural values. Party programs regarding development and modernization are proudly emphasized in the rallies. JDP projects, such as “(at least) a university for each city” (Hürriyet, 2008b) policy, housing projects, building roads and airports or the construction of city hospitals, are introduced. Western technical equipment is embraced and presented as a reference point. For instance (June 5, 2011), on using smart boards and tablets in primary and secondary education, “Helga, Hans make use of them in Germany, so why shouldn’t my Mehmet, my Hatice benefit from it?” (Mersin Gündem Videolar, 2011b). Other political parties are described as organizations which would “turn the country into the stone age” (Tüfekyapan, 2018a). Erdo˘gan often compares early republican life standards and policies with the present, arguing that the RPP’s legacy is of the single party period, comparing 2001 to the present regarding policy efficacy. His party embraces the principles of a liberal economy and globalization, explicitly aiming for (July 11, 2007), the “enrichment

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of the country,” “improving its self-confidence,” and “integrating with the world” (GezegenTV, 2017). Contrary to boasting about infrastructural projects, Erdo˘gan adopts a modest tone in expressing his gratitude for being able to serve the nation. He refers to his old neighborhood, to emphasize the organic bond with the periphery’s masses. For example, he noted: “We are members of a culture that cares about where we come from rather than where we have come to. Today I’m here not as a deputy, as a prime minister, as a presidential candidate, but as Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan, from Kasımpa¸sa in the first place” (Haber Medya, 2014). Mostly in victory speeches, he states that the party would never be arrogant, and the message or concerns of the non-voters was clearly understood. Regarding criticisms about turning into a dictator, he argued that he was a servant of the nation. Thus, modesty and decency, cultural values with a religious connotation, are often underscored. While emphasizing national sovereignty and modernity, Erdo˘gan also refers to Atatürk’s famous sayings. However, party discourse regarding nationalism is ambivalent. Turkishness is often framed as an ethnic identity or a race, articulated along with other ethnic identities in Turkey. Here the JDP introduced novelty to centerright politics by rejecting the republican principle that Turkishness is an umbrella term. While incorporating patriotic discourse and slogans, the JDP has not been a nationalistic political party, but rather aims to put forward Islam as a shared identity (ummah).3 As stated by Erdo˘gan in a Gaziantep rally: “Our history is one, our future is one. Just as our Adhan, qibla, and the prayers are one, our destiny is one, as our future!” (Mersin Gündem Videolar, n.d.). Discourse regarding Syrian civil war refugees has a similar characteristic. In 2018 in Gaziantep, Erdo˘gan referred to them as “Syrian brothers” and “guests”, underlining the fact that they would not be settled permanently. On the other hand, he praised the people of Gaziantep for their hospitality (the city with the second most refugees) by using Islamic references such as ensar, highlighting the shared Muslim identity (Tüfekyapan, 2018c). Another salient pattern has been to address history and historical figures. The JDP urges returning the country to its “dignified days”, thus gaining respect and having a positive international reputation in the eyes of others become important goals: “We have returned this nation’s self-confidence. We reminded our nation that they are the grandchildren of Fatih” (Haber Medya, 2014). Lastly, Erdo˘gan frequently uses the concept of loyalty in his relationship with citizens: “Brothers and sisters, you have never left us alone. You have never abandoned us. I believe you will not abandon us this time as well” (Mersin Gündem Videolar, n.d.). After the coup attempt, Erdo˘gan used this trope by asking the nation and Allah for forgiveness, for being deceived by Gülenists, and expressing his accountability to God (Artislamic.com, 2016). This connotes an informal relationship, like a family bond, instead of a formal citizen-politician relationship of an institutionalized democracy. 3

However, in 2018 JDP established an electoral alliance with the National Movement Party. How the electoral alliance affected the JDP discourse on nationalism, will be investigated in a separate study.

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4.5 Conclusion This chapter examined the remarkable influence of culture in political discourse through President Erdo˘gan’s public speeches. Two diverse cultural roots are identified. First, Sunni-Islamic sub-culture that shapes political Islam. It is manifested ideologically through the longing for power, an urge to make regulations and foster social change based on Islamic principles, constant struggle, altruism, negation of laicism, and the emphasis on Islam as a shared identity rather than Turkish nationalism—all in a cautious tone. Statements that could violate the founding principles of the modern republic are articulated persistently along with alternative, tangible arguments to justify their cause. Prominent examples would be Erdo˘gan’s identification of alcohol consumption with domestic violence during the WP years, and more recently relating mixed-gender dorms with academic performance. Thus, longlasting legal restrictions and questions about illegitimacy push political Islam into developing such moderate language. The significance of religious culture is also observed through active use of religious idioms, hadiths and references to the Quran in public speeches as reflected in ordinary language. Second, one can identify more mainstream cultural themes and values. Islam and secularism are both among Turkey’s defining characteristics. As a culture that experiences rapid social-structural change, values co-exist: patriarchy, loyalty, religiosity, collectivity; and democracy, secularism and autonomy. Even though individuals define themselves as religious at a personal level, principles of the modern republic, such as democracy and secularism, are public values. As a result, the JDP founders realized that they had to develop a discourse embracing the mainstream cultural values to gain political power. The starting point was the progressive wing’s criticism of the traditionalists within NO, and demands for a more transparent administrative structure. The movement had to create a more inclusive frame, tone down its overtly Islamic discourse, and focus on the integration with the world, democracy and more important, social services. It eventually succeeded. Through the years, a similar pattern was repeated in the rallies: focusing on infrastructure projects, mocking the opposing party, articulating the limitations on religious practices as human rights violations in a wider center-periphery model. This pattern was also a result of the need to address the masses through mainstream cultural values, such as fueling the nation’s self-confidence, achieving higher living standards, drawing its strength from history. While the JDP values modernization, it is critical of the West and westernization, attacking it for its two-faced politics. This coincides with the intention to form a genuine, authentic, modernization model. In a similar vein, asking citizens not to leave the party reflects the desire to create loyal voters through an emotional tone, referring to an alternative, more informal citizen-politician relationship. This strategy’s success is based on the “relatedness” of the self. Erdo˘gan formed a very close relationship with his audience, often stating that he is in love with the nation. An emotional request for loyalty coming from an authoritative figure, in a cultural context with patriarchal ties, found a positive response. Asking for forgiveness in an informal tone also constitutes a contradiction

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in an institutionalized modern democracy as it damages the politicians’ accountability, where an organic division of labor and impersonal, formal relations supersede collectivism and strict moral enforcement of the Gemeinschaft. In the JDP’s earlier years, the party aspired to break the tradition of leadership dominance in Turkish politics. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Since 2002, every election period has been a point of social tension and polarization, resulting in important, structural changes. State institutions and the separation of powers principle have been undermined in the name of the periphery’s needs. Some reforms that were not initially demanded by the majority, like the presidential system, eventually gained public approval. This was partly the result of external factors and publicly perceived threats, as the failed coup of 2016—and also of a political discourse that framed these policies not as harmful to democracy or secularism, but as a challenge to (and a victory against) the authoritarian bureaucratic center. Given this study’s relatively long-time period providing a general overview, it is overly broad. Future studies focusing on a specific case or theme, such as the JDP’s political discourse on gender and the family, would provide further, in-depth insights.

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Meeker, M. (1991). The new Muslim intellectual in the republic of Turkey. In R. Tapper (Ed.), Islam in modern Turkey: Religion, politics and literature in a secular state (pp. 189–222). I.B. Tauris & Co. Mersin Gündem Videolar. (2011a, October 1). Sakarya rally of our prime minister Recep Tayip Erdo˘gan all 05.06.2011 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=174C2E8idVc (in Turkish). ˙ Mersin Gündem Videolar. (2011b, October 3). Our prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan Istanbul Kazlıçe¸sme rally all 05.06.2011 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llBDQv UnMOU (in Turkish). Mersin Gündem Videolar. (n.d.). Our prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan Gaziantep rally all 09.06.2011 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XugGzyh0rIY (in Turkish). Milliyet. (2003, May 17). They’ve left the national outlook. https://www.milliyet.com.tr/siyaset/ milli-gorusu-terk-ettiler-5179000 (in Turkish). Moralitas Web Television (n.d.). JDP’s first promotional film (2001) (Video). YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZrGqyKnIPY (in Turkish). Narlı, N. (1999). The rise of the Islamist movement in Turkey. Middle East Review of International Affairs, 3(3), 38–48. Özer Y. (2018a, February 5). Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan. “5 principles” (Video). YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cT4ON21vVs (in Turkish). Özer Y. (2018b, December 10). Mr. Tayyip’s speech that gave goosebumps: Sacrifices that are in the yeast of this struggle, 1993 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpNPvC PlTHU (in Turkish). Özer Y. (2019a, November 7). Istanbul night.1993 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rRbLbwrAVo0 (in Turkish). Özer Y. (2019b, November 19). Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan’s presentation of the activity report in the WP General Congress (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FxoD2TeA4 (in Turkish). Özer Y. (2019c, December 6). Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan: WP S¸ i¸sli Congress 1994 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7natXQW90Y (in Turkish). Özer Y. (2020, April 20). WP Istanbul regional meeting 1986 (Video). YouTube. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=nQ6X0Sz45ls (in Turkish). Presidency of the Republic of Turkey. (2021, April 8). Biography. https://www.tccb.gov.tr/en/rec eptayyiperdogan/biography/. Ruiz, R. J. (2009). Sociological discourse analysis: Methods and logic. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(2). Retrieved from https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/ 1298/2883. Suba¸sı, A. (2013, November 5). Prime minister Erdo˘gan. 05 November 2013 JDP GNAT group meeting speech (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKTzVfkZgzY (in Turkish). Sim¸ ¸ sek, S. (2013). Conservative democracy as a cosmetic image in Turkish politics: The semiology of AKP’s political identity. Turkish Studies, 14(3), 429–446. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849. 2013.831258. Tüfekyapan, A. K. (2018a, June 8). President Erdo˘gan’s Kayseri JDP meeting speech 08 June 2018 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fku5zPauvcA (in Turkish). Tüfekyapan, A. K. (2018b, June 8). President Erdo˘gan’s JDP Nev¸sehir meeting speech 08 June 2018 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sKhSZLc4YM (in Turkish). Tüfekyapan, A. K. (2018c, June 21). President Erdo˘gan’s Gaziantep meeting speech 21 June 2018 (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQjJOzBOD9o (in Turkish). Toprak, Z. (1999). Consumption patterns and Ottoman stores. Cogito, 5, 25–28. (in Turkish). Ya¸sar, B. (n.d.). What is going on—JDP Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan (11.09.2002) (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBHbluljCIg (in Turkish). Yeni Safak. ¸ (2008, January 26). Erdo˘gan: Individuals can’t be laic. https://www.yenisafak.com/pol itika/erdogan-kisiler-laik-olmaz-95786 (in Turkish).

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Yıldız, A. (2003). Politico-religious discourse of political Islam in Turkey: The parties of national outlook. The Muslim World, 93(2), 187–209. https://doi.org/10.1111/1478-1913.00020. Yıldız, A. (2006). Transformation of Islamic thought in Turkey since the 1950s. In I. Abu-Rabi’ (Ed.), The Blackwell companion to contemporary Islamic thought (pp. 39–54). Blackwell.

Ay¸se Deniz Ünan Göktan is an independent researcher of sociology. She holds a PhD from the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK. Her primary research interests include media studies, crime and deviance, social and political aspects of discourse, social movements and the sociology of consumption. She is the author of the book Hate Crime in Turkey: Implications of Collective Action, Media Representations and Policy Making.

Chapter 5

The Symbolic Construction of a Messiah: Jair Bolsonaro’s Public, Christian Discourse Eduardo Ryô Tamaki, Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça, and Matheus Gomes Mendonça Ferreira

5.1 Introduction On October 28, 2018, Jair Bolsonaro was elected to serve as the 38th President of Brazil. Having received 57.7 million votes, his election was part of the broader rise of radical, right-wing populism in many parts of the world. Bolsonaro was a former captain in the Brazilian army who worked as a Congress member for almost three decades, becoming famous for his aggressive and polemical speeches. Praising the Brazilian military dictatorship, arguing against so-called political correctness, and advocating conservative issues, Bolsonaro built a controversial career, often satirized by the media and by other politicians. In being elected, he benefited from several factors that constituted a perfect storm. Among these factors, we highlight: (1) deep and widespread indignation with political actors, nurtured by continuous corruption with profound implications; (2) economic recession; (3) the election of similar world-leaders, such as Donald Trump, Viktor Órban and Rodrigo Duterte; (4) a knife attack against then-candidate Bolsonaro, that strengthened his victimization discourse; (5) strategic use of digital media, and especially, of WhatsApp groups; and (6) support of a large majority of the Brazilian Christian community. This last element is at the heart of the argument developed in this chapter. A Catholic man, married to a Protestant woman, Jair Bolsonaro had become a leading spokesman for conservative agendas. He claimed to speak on behalf of the country’s silent majority against the wave of progressive changes, that according to him aimed at destroying the very notion of family. Targeting mainly policies devoted to sexual education and to address gender inequalities, Bolsonaro brought religiosity to the very center of politics, riding a wave that preceded his ascension to the presidency E. R. Tamaki (B) · R. F. Mendonça · M. G. M. Ferreira Political Science Department, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil R. F. Mendonça e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_5

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(Biroli, 2020; Vaggione, 2020). His campaign slogan said: “Brazil above everything, God above everyone.” After his election, Bolsonaro sustained and naturalized the use of religious symbols, speaking to a captivated audience that celebrated the erosion of the very idea of laicité. This development was only possible because of religion’s cultural centrality in Brazil’s everyday life. Christianity (in different traditions) is a central element of Brazilian culture, shaping practice, behavior, discourse and institutions. Taken-for-granted as part of the lifeworld, Christian religiosity has always been important to the comprehension of what can be said and, more importantly, of what shouldn’t be said in the public sphere. Combining Catholic symbols, Pentecostal narratives and deference to Judaism, Bolsonaro’s discourse moves in the direction of messianic promises of salvation, order and struggle against persecution. To shed light on this dimension of Bolsonaro’s discourse, the chapter analyzes his weekly live appearances on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/jbolsonaro), where he reinforces his achievements, attacks his adversaries, presents his intentions or simply complains about life and politics. Full of biblical references and religious symbols, his performances show the vagueness of the alleged secularism of the country, pointing to the acceptance of majoritarian beliefs against the constitutional laicity. The chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part, we discuss the relationship between culture, politics and language, focusing on the centrality of religious discourse in Brazilian politics. The second part presents our case study, drawing from the analysis of 35 YouTube live streams, broadcast between March 2019 and August 2020. The discourse analysis was structured according to Van Gorp’s (2007) framework, detailing the framing devices, the reasoning devices and the implicit sociocultural phenomena pervading Bolsonaro’s performances.

5.2 Culture, Politics, and Religion in Discourse Investigating the speeches of a political leader is a very promising way to understand political and cultural dimensions of a given context. This is so for two reasons. First, because speeches are socially inscribed constructions, pervaded by power struggles and entrenched cultural meanings. Second, because political leaders simultaneously address a multiplicity of interlocutors, showing different layers and nuances of culture and politics. Each of these factors requires further development. The first is derived from a basic assumption in linguistics. Language is not an arbitrary structure that carries meaning, but a social construction essentially marked by conflict (Charaudeau, 2006; Fairclough, 2003; Hall, 1980; van Dijk, 2009; Volosinov, 1986). Language has history and simultaneously hosts taken-for-granted standards of interpretation and counter-hegemonic attempts to change societies (Fairclough, 2014; Hall, 1980). Through language, power relations become manifest and reenact patterns of asymmetry, while also challenging some of these asymmetries. As the genealogical

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work of Foucault has shown, power is essentially discursive and discourse is essentially political, explaining why many battles are fought not only through language but over language (Mendonça et al., 2021). Focusing specifically on Latin America, the Colombian philosopher Jesús MartínBarbero (2003) argued that a proper understanding of language requires the investigation of mediations. Through this open concept he refers to the many factors pervading the relationship between culture, politics and communication. This interrelationship of factors mediating meanings marks not only the production of symbols but also their circulation and reception. More broadly, they mark the construction of social relations in which discourses are produced and interpreted. This is exactly why discourse analysis, in its various approaches, claims that speeches can only be understood within their specific contexts. They are not purely text, because text requires context and only makes sense in relation to it. Context is part of speech and creates the conditions for texts to make sense, while also nurturing these texts through complex networks of intertextuality. Speeches cannot, therefore, be read as mere disclosures of intentions and individual feelings. They are grounded in taken-for-granted meanings, naturalized patterns of interpretation and ongoing power relations that are updated in the actual embodiment of symbols in language use. If all these features are valid for understanding any type of discourse, there are particularities regarding the public discourse of political leaders (Charaudeau, 2006). Their discursive performances are particularly revealing, due to their ongoing need to manage their public image (Gomes, 2014), presenting a credible persona (Charaudeau, 2006). In order to do that, political leaders must often address a multiplicity of audiences simultaneously (Barreto & Mendonça, 2019), thus unpacking complex elements of the contexts in which their discourses are formulated and can make sense. Such utterances provide a particularly rich way to look at some of the deepest taken-for-granted elements of societies and also to the eventual changes happening on their surface. They simultaneously offer a view of the tectonic plates structuring our worlds and the consequences of their movement.

5.2.1 Christianity in Brazil In this article, we focus on the weekly lives conducted by Bolsonaro on his YouTube channel in order to investigate how a key element of Brazilian culture grounds his discourses. We refer, more specifically, to the role played by religious beliefs in the very fabric of the country’s sociability. Religion is at the core of political discourse not only when used strategically and purposefully but also operating more tacitly, due to its taken-for-granted centrality in ordinary life (Bosisio, 2018; Sanchis, 2018). To understand this point, we must briefly contextualize the historical importance of religiosity in the country.

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Christianity is at Brazil’s heart since the Portuguese colonization in the fifteenth century. The Catholic Church played a very important role since the inception of the colonization process through the Jesuit missions that focused on the evangelization of indigenous communities. Portugal’s official religion also contributed to justifying the slavery of Africans and in merging with other religions in a wide range of forms of syncretism. When Brazil became independent (in 1822), Catholicism remained its official religion, as declared in the 1824 Constitution. Through the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church remained a central force, exerting influence in the country’s destiny and conducting a series of administrative tasks, including the organization of electoral processes (Nicolau, 2012). It was only in 1889, when the Republic was proclaimed, that Brazil became formally secular, separating the state from the Church. However, religions of African origin remained marginalized and persecuted under the pretext of illegal practice of medicine and witchcraft (Capone, 2004).1 According to Dias (2019), Article 157 of the 1890 Penal Code condemned several spiritual practices including healing rituals and cartomancy. Catholicism remained not only influential, but also a central force in the Republic, framing habits, holidays, practices, values and politics. Notably among them was the role of Catholic groups as providers of social assistance and private education in the country and the mobilization of the “Tradition, Family and Property” (TFP) movement in support of the 1964 military coup (Codato & de Oliveira, 2004). Nevertheless, the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century witnessed the growth of Evangelicals who threatened, for the first time, the taken-for-granted ubiquity of Catholicism in the country. Since the 1980s, they started competing directly in what Smith (2019) calls the “gathering of souls,” contesting or at least advocating for a more prominent role in the exercise of power. Since then, Brazilian Christianity has faced deep changes. In the 2000 national census, approximately 89.2% of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholics, whereas data from 2010 showed this number plummeting to 64.6%. In the same period, evangelical identity grew nearly threefold, registering religious identification among 22.2% of the population, in contrast to its 6.6% in 2000 (Mariano, 2013). This change has nurtured a broader social shift towards a more conservative expression of Christianity, in Catholicism and Protestantism alike. There are, today, important overlaps cutting across different denominations, affecting the way they seek to influence values and policies. Evangelicals and Catholics share similar views on many social and moral subjects, such as abortion (Bohn, 2004; Smith, 2019). They have gradually become a more explicit and stronger political force, mobilizing voters and forming fronts in national, state and municipal parliaments, hence advancing Christianiity as a public religion2 (Burity, 2016, 2020; Zúquete, 2017). 1

In 2018, Rio de Janeiro’s Civil Police transferred to the Museu da República (Museum of the Republic) religious artifacts from religions of African origin that were confiscated in the previous century due to religious persecution conducted by the state. https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/bra sil-49377670. 2 Creating a public religion does not necessarily mean the overlap of one religion with others. Instead, it involves creating a new frame of reference that brings together and mobilizes actors with similar thoughts and values, even from various religious groups (Burity, 2016, p. 89). Thus,

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They act in united fashion on such issues as the defense of the traditional family structure, prohibition on taxing churches, opposition to the decriminalization of abortion, and gender related issues (Biroli, 2020). This religious traditionalism stands out for its activism against secular progressive values in the state and in the public sphere, thereby disclosing deeply rooted elements in the country’s culture. Achieving massive proportions, it has had success in shaping issues according to an allegedly culture war, regarded “as pervasive and prolonged democratic conflicts within polities, between social groups who perceive their worldviews as fundamentally mutually incompatible” (Smith, 2019, p. 4), against the threats to tradition and the family values. Bolsonaro has ridden this wave and emerged as the expression of a resistance against what was framed as the progressive left-wing attempt to diminish Christianity and to erode the values of tradition and family. As a Don Quixote who had been attacking windmills, he was involved in cultural war for at least the past 30 years. He was the far-right populist who successfully navigated the conservative wave, adopting a communication strategy heavily built on anti-elitist and anti-communist rhetoric, defending a traditional religious agenda, and spreading moral panic (Biroli, 2020; Mariano & Gerardi, 2020; Tamaki & Fuks, 2020). A self-proclaimed Catholic, he was baptized in the Jordan River by a Pentecostal pastor in 2016 and is married to a woman affiliated to an Evangelical church. In this way, Bolsonaro benefited from Catholic and Evangelical identities, both expressing ecumenical conservatism (Mariano & Gerardi, 2020). Explicit manifestations of religiosity (as well as of militarism) have always been part of his intense digital media activity. Investing and developing his image as a Christian, Bolsonaro launched his moral crusade, prioritizing conservative issues. Speaking directly to conservative Christians, Bolsonaro stood up against the socalled “gender ideology” (ideologia de gênero),3 the “Gay-Kit” (Kit Gay),4 and an alleged eroticization of children. In this sense, Bolsonaro gave voice to those who felt voiceless and left behind by fast-growing modernization. He led what he claimed to be a “silent majority” against the secularization of politics and the alleged dictatorship of progressive values. He fought for the Christian majority: “We are a Christian country. God above everything! This story […] of a secular state, does not exist! It is a Christian State! And whoever is against it should leave (move out). Let us make Brazil for the majority!” (Bolsonaro, 2017; Magalhães, 2018).

we agree with Burity (2020, p. 84), who views public religion as the result of a multidimensional process through a coordinated effort to maintain traditional influence on public culture, some other spheres of the state, or even to boost the profile of emerging religions. 3 “Gender Ideology” is a pejorative term coined by the Catholic Church to fight against gender issues and related subjects. Widely influential in Latin America, the term is often used by those who fear that discussing sexuality in school will induce homosexuality and erode the traditional family (Biroli, 2020). 4 “Gay-Kit” is a term used by Bolsonaro and conservative sectors of society, referring to an attempt to combat homophobia in schools through materials designed to address issues of sexuality.

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However, this image is not something created from nothing. It required an ability to use frames capable of resonating and speaking to audiences. To better understand this, we turn to Bolsonaro’s weekly, live-streamed speeches. The analysis of his communicative performance sheds light on how Christian symbols are part of his discourse within a culture war.

5.3 Research Design 5.3.1 Making a Messiah: Analyzing Bolsonaro’s Use of Christianity Bolsonaro’s discourse hints at messianic promises of salvation, order, and struggles against persecutions, thereby articulating conservative positions on social issues such as gender and sexuality. His discourse is full of biblical references and religious symbolism, from words and expressions to the underlying idea that dictates his narrative’s pace. In order to understand this religious dimension, we investigated his live streams as the elected President of Brazil. We opted for live streams due to Bolsonaro’s strategy of undermining the traditional media’s credibility by creating alternative sources of information, thus producing an illusion of a personal relationship with his followers (Burni & Tamaki, 2021). Bolsonaro’s live streams are broadcast every Thursday evening. Taking advantage of its freedom from constraints, he uses his livestreams to provide information and personal comments on the issues of the moment. Broadly speaking, he mainly highlights his own accomplishments and talks about the economy, infrastructure, or international relations. In total control of the message displayed, Bolsonaro also attacks his adversaries, vilifies the opposition, and presents a distorted version of politics and the world—often built around oversimplified metaphors.

5.3.2 Methodology In total, we analyzed 35 livestreams broadcast over an 18-month period (between March 2019 and August 2020). We focused on the two videos aired on the first and third Thursdays of each month. The exception was December 2020 when we had to focus on only one video, because fewer livestreams were broadcast. To analyze the material, we used qualitative content analysis (Mendonça, 2009), based on interpretative approaches to discourse (Marsh & Furlong, 2002; Yanow & Schwartz-Shea, 2014). We mainly used Van Gorp’s (2007) approach of frame analysis, which aims specifically at pointing out patterns of interpretation and communication, grounded in deeply rooted cultural meanings. Van Gorp claims that frames

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have often been reduced to strategic choices, as if they were not the result of broader social and political processes. He criticizes individualistic attempts to measure frame effects, advocating, instead, that frames shed light on the social world, revealing much more than individual intentions. As a methodological approach, Van Gorp (2007) advances a three-fold analytical framework to make sense of discourse. First, scholars must map framing devices that are the forms, structures, words, narratives, metaphors employed to shape a certain way to interpret reality and engage with it. The second step is devoted to reasoning devices, through which one discloses the connections and articulations between ideas, including how causes and effects are interpreted. Reasoning devices disclose the argumentative nature of discourse, unpacking the existing relations between concepts in a given discourse to make sense of reality. Last, the third step focuses on implicit socio-cultural phenomena, discussing sets of beliefs, norms, attitudes and power relations taken-for-granted in a given context that are necessary for a discourse to make sense. As linguistics has long shown, implicit phenomena are always at the heart of texts and the meanings they evoke (Grice, 1975). In what follows, we devote an analytical subsection to each of the categories proposed by Van Gorp (2007). By mapping the frame devices, the reasoning devices and the implicit socio-cultural phenomena in Bolsonaro’s performances, we seek to elucidate not only the centrality of religion in his discourse, but also its taken-forgrantedness in Brazil and its cultural ubiquity. As odd as Bolsonaro might look, his discourse tells a lot about Brazil and its social relations.

5.4 Findings 5.4.1 Framing Devices Framing devices point to the core forms of messages. Words, expressions, descriptions, examples, metaphors and visual images may activate specific sets of ideas found in a speech. In this sense, framing devices refer to meanings that can resonate in addressed audiences, bringing latent dispositions to the surface of social interactions. They evoke ideas in various degrees of intensity, through which the receiver attaches meaning on an issue (Van Gorp, 2007). Religious elements are an intrinsic part of what is perceived as the Brazilian Christian culture. References to God, saints, blessings, and faith are part of ordinary interactions. Some expressions, like “If God is willing it!” (Se deus quiser!), “Virgin Mary!” (Virgem Maria!), and “Thank God” (Graças a Deus!), are a naturalized part of everyday expressions. Despite not always referring intentionally to religion, they reveal the taken-for-grantedness of religiosity. And there are no restrictions to the use of these expressions in Portuguese, as there are in the Anglo-Saxon world, for instance; that shows the acceptance of using God’s name in public discourse to deal with all sorts of issues.

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By continually highlighting his faith and repeatedly mentioning God’s name, Bolsonaro resonates with everyday Brazilian language, emphasizing his own believing nature. The sacred is reinforced in explicit ways, presenting the image of a leader who is humble enough to always remember the centrality of God. Here are a few examples: “May God Bless our dear Brazil” (Bolsonaro, 2020b); “João Villas Boas, who has a health problem, right? We know that everything is possible for God. Therefore, we always ask God to do a miracle for João Villas Boas” (Bolsonaro, 2019e); “Good night, thank you all. Brazil above all, God above everyone” (Bolsonaro, 2019a). Public demonstrations of faith work to create a religious aura. During his June 20, 2019, livestream, Bolsonaro wore a T-shirt from 2019’s March for Jesus. On another occasion, June 25, 2019, he invited Gilson Machado, the president of Embratur, the Brazilian Tourist Board, to play Hail Mary on his accordion as a tribute to the Covid-19 victims (Estadão Conteúdo, 2020). In addition, Bolsonaro often mentions religious groups as well. In the video streamed on October 17, 2019, he highlighted his participation at a Gideons’ meeting (created to revive the evangelical church and is considered a massive meeting of missions that led participants from different parts of the world to evangelize Christianity; Estadão Conteúdo, 2020). During the event, he also listened to a prayer while hands were superimposed on the spot where he was stabbed (Spautz, 2020). On September 5, 2019, he praised the warm reception he received during his visit to Solomon’s Temple and manifested his happiness for the presence of Bishop Edir Macedo, the evangelical bishop and founder of the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God or UCKG), during the Independence Day festivities (Bolsonaro, 2019d). In a strategy to reinforce his message’s moral and religious significance, Bolsonaro often cites Bible verses and psalms that resonate broadly in Brazil. These passages reinforce the construction of a believer who not only knows his faith, but also uses it to guide his life and evangelize others. For example, “Because now they [the traditional media] are accusing me of spending 6 million [reais, BRL], 1 million a month. Let us break down this expense; if it is or isn’t in the [credit] card [sic]. We will know the truth; we will use John 8:32” (Bolsonaro, 2019b). John 8:32 [“Then you know the truth, and the truth will set you free”] has been a central part of Bolsonaro’s rhetoric ever since his presidential campaign in 2018 (UOL, 2018). Often accused of bombarding the public sphere with lies and fake news, he continually refers to the Bible to claim that the true truth is yet to be known and that it is freeing. Developing the idea of a culture war, Bolsonaro often relies on framing devices that evoke the idea of battle, a war his government is fighting and in which he is a survivor. On November 7, 2019, while publicly congratulating a priest on his birthday, Bolsonaro called him his “ally” (aliado) in the fight against “abortion,” “gender ideology,” and in favor of “family values:” Today is also Father Ricardo’s birthday. I met him a long time ago, and I follow his work. [An] exceptional person in the fight regarding family values, against abortion, against gender ideology. Way back there, with me in that story, way back, at the Chamber [of Deputies], we fought hard against the indoctrination in schools. So, Father Ricardo, happy birthday, I

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wish you happiness, and thank you very much for what you’ve done in the past, and what you do in the present for the Brazilian family. (Bolsonaro, 2019e)

Furthermore, in his U.N. speech in September 2020, Bolsonaro used terms like “religious liberty” (liberdade religiosa) and called for “the fight against Christophobia” (a luta contra cristofobia): “Liberty is the greatest good of humanity. I [make an] appeal to the entire international community for religious freedom and the fight against Christophobia” (Soares & Lara, 2020). These few examples make clear the centrality of religious framing devices in Bolsonaro’s discourse. With numerous references to faith and to God, often mobilizing the Bible and using an artillery of verbiage against the alleged war against Christianity and traditional values, Bolsonaro frames his political role as one of promoting the recognition and the valorization of values endorsed by the majority of the population.

5.4.2 Reasoning Devices While framing devices relate to words, metaphors, and images that may trigger specific ideas, reasoning devices are responsible for providing cues and articulations that aim at guiding understanding (Van Gorp, 2007). Reasoning devices can be explicit or more subtle, but they always offer pathways for interpretation. In this sense, the connection between framing devices and reasoning devices also happen during the interpretation. When the message is received, reasoning devices act as a chain of reasoning, giving meaning to ideas activated by framing devices. Since the receiver only perceives part of reality, reasoning devices offer them cues regarding (i) the subject’s definition, (ii) the causes of a given situation, (iii) moral assessments of it, and (iv) treatment recommendations (Van Gorp, 2007, pp. 64–65). Looking at Bolsonaro’s speeches, one may map how the words, examples and stories he mobilizes connect to each other in particular ways, so as to provide a broader framework to understand reality. Alone, words like “Christianity” (Cristianismo), “conservative” (conservador), and “traditionalism” (tradicionalismo) may not be enough to create the notion of “Cultural Christianity” (Cristianismo Cultural), nor the idea of “Christophobia” (Cristofobia) in a country mainly Christian. However, in Bolsonaro’s discourse, those words are articulated in webs of meaning that suggest that progressive policies are necessarily tied to corrupt left-wing actors, whose main purpose would be to destroy families and Christian values. According to him, this is why the (allegedly monolithic and essentially Christian) “Brazilian culture” (Cultura Brasileira) ought to be publicly defended. Jair “Messiah” (Messias) Bolsonaro would be the leader responsible to fight this battle and protect a majority that would be, also according to him, silenced by the persecution of Christianity. For example, “Brazil is a Christian and conservative country and [has] the family in its base” (Soares & Lara, 2020). And,

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E. R. Tamaki et al. We also had an event in the morning, [to] create the new [political] party Alliance for Brazil, so it was [just] an initial convention. The first step to create this party was taken today, right along the lines that the vast majority of the population always wanted: a conservative party, a party that respects all religions, a party that appreciates family values, a party that advocates self-defense, that is favorable to firearm possession too. (Bolsonaro, 2019f)

Discourse can be used to divide society, and most societies are discursively divided (Mouffe, 2019). With that in mind, conflict is inherent to politics. The constant clash between different perspectives and ideas permeates the creation of group identities that frame the world as “us” versus “them.” Those groups receive meaning from both the process of internal identity creation and external opposition to “others” (Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 2019). From the lens of political cleavages, it is possible to understand Bolsonaro’s effort to strengthen a “Brazilian Christian culture” running through the way he frames the opposition: an evil that threatens family traditionalism and Christian values. He stated: “A message to the Brazilian press: really, how I wanted you to follow John 8:32: [and] convey the truth at the end of the line, have [some] real newspaper headlines …Publish the truth” (Bolsonaro, 2020c). In his speeches, the idea of a Culture War comes into play by picturing a battle between virtuous people who value their families and Christianity, and immoral, disqualified and criminal elites. For example, “If the deputy is in favor of abortion, you must not vote for him [sic]” (Bolsonaro, 2020b). And: “Brazil is doing [okay]. We received Brazil down there, busted economically, morally, and ethically” (Bolsonaro, 2019e). In trying to legitimize his discourse and portray the idea that he is on the “right” side of this culture war, Bolsonaro strives to (i) further vilify his enemies at the same time that he (ii) reinforces his moral image, surrounding his persona with a mystic aura. Biblical references and religious elements play a significant role in activating those ideas, such as the very frequent references to John’s verse on truth. The left-wing government that preceded his term is often linked to a path of lies. The religious ideas of “resurrection” (ressurreição) and “miracle” (milagre) are often associated with the attack against his life on September 6, 2018. They help to surround Bolsonaro with a mystic aura, evoking the image of Jesus and contributing to his symbolic construction as a Messiah. For example, “I was there practically on the other side of life; my life was a miracle, my election was a greater miracle. Let’s build the future of Brazil together” (Bolsonaro, 2019d); “Miracles have happened in Brazil in these difficult times that the motherland is in” (Bolsonaro, 2019c); “I owe my life to Juiz de Fora’s Santa Casa… First, to God, of course” (Bolsonaro, 2019a); and, “Inside Santa Casa, I was born again” (Bolsonaro, 2020e). However, religion is also an element that removes his responsibility for specific events in Brazil, as was the case with the Covid-19 pandemic. In this particular scenario, Bolsonaro’s construction emptied the pandemic of its political aspect and framed it as a Biblical tragedy. Religious elements were used to create cues as to how to understand and to sympathize with the population: I am a Catholic [and] my wife is an evangelical. [Catholics and Evangelicals are] asking for a day of fasting for all Brazilian people who have faith. Together with clergymen, priests, religious people, etc.; we will announce [and] ask for a fasting day so that all Brazilian

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people, in the name of Brazil, [can] be freed from this evil [Covid-19] as soon as possible… Peace, tranquility to those who have faith; Heavenly Daddy is with us. I believe in God, and soon we will be [fasting], according to the decision of Evangelicals and Catholics. They have asked me to schedule a fasting day for all the Brazilian people, so that we can be free of this evil as soon as possible… Brazil is ours, and soon we will be free from that evil [Covid-19]. (Bolsonaro, 2020d)

When something is within his reach and capabilities, the strategy changes and Bolsonaro takes the spotlight, highlighting his alleged problem-solving qualities while keeping references to his religious beliefs and God. When talking about the possibility of the Federal Government’s intervention in the economy, Bolsonaro states that, “It must happen according to God’s will, because I always believed in God, but it should happen as the Brazilian people want” (Bolsonaro, 2020d). Picturing himself as someone who has been sent by God and faithful to God’s will, Bolsonaro systematically reinforces the idea that he was chosen to fight against the erosion of traditional values. When he is criticized or questioned, he suggests Christ was also considered nuts in his time, because the moral struggle runs deeper against established powers. Everything he does, according to him, simply fosters God’s will, which is, after all, what the people want.

5.4.3 Implicit (Socio-)Cultural Phenomena Whereas framing devices provide a vocabulary and reasoning devices supply meaning to them, an implicit cultural phenomenon works as the central structure or narrative that allows those two to make sense for a given audience, displaying the package as a whole (Van Gorp, 2007). It is the structure on top of which ideas receive meaning and resonate among the population. Bolsonaro did not create the notion of a Christian silent majority, nor his culture war in defense of traditional values. Those ideas have deep roots in an imaginary, sustained intersubjectively for a long time. Bolsonaro was responsible for successfully articulating taken-for-granted cultural elements (beliefs, codes, stereotypes, and values) in a narrative capable of resonating with Brazilian audiences. His performance made sense and was powerful enough to strengthen his leadership. The defense of Christian values, of life (how ironic), and of traditional family spoke directly to many, who could forget (or forgive) his history of praise for authoritarianism and torture. The “Messiah” is not a loving one, but one that came to correct things. His idea of “family” is the traditional heteronormative construction, and his defense of life accommodates the idea that “a good bandit is a dead one” (Putti, 2019). In the end, it is all about Bolsonaro’s rhetoric and narrative: the way he portrays the world and how he uses religion’s cultural centrality to highlight his alleged qualities, to justify the moral significance of his ideas and to create the symbolic image of a Messiah who came to fight evil threats. The ultimate evil of this sacred crusade is the Left. He holds it responsible for threatening conservative religious values and for religious persecution:

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E. R. Tamaki et al. We even had a Christmas Carol today. I’ll post on Facebook a little bit [of this] cantata, a wonderful Christian event there. [There] a Christmas tree was inaugurated. [On] the day before yesterday we had a Thanksgiving ritual; (...) the older people from the [Planalto] Palace (...) have never heard of anything religious [happening in there], quite the opposite: there was a lady who went ahead and took the floor and said that…[in] a previous government, [they] banned a celebration that used to happen in a room there in the presidency. People had to leave the [Planalto Palace] presidency and do the ritual under a tree outside. It was forbidden to come together and speak in God’s name, right?! Look, you have to respect everyone’s religion, and these people accuse you of being intolerant, of prejudiced, of racist, and homophobic all the time, but that’s okay. It has changed, people, it [things] has changed. Now there is a president who values the family, a president who respects the army, OK? A president who is loyal to his people and believes in God. What is the problem with that? Whoever doesn’t believe [in God], I have nothing to do with it and [they] will continue to be Brazilian in the same way that I am. (Bolsonaro, 2019g)

At the same time, he guided the audience towards an understanding that he and his government were uncompromising in battling this threat: When asked about why he said he would not attend a LGBT Pride Parade] he noted, “I said [that] because I believe in God, in the family, and in the good values [moral principles]” (Bolsonaro, 2020f). On another occasion he revealed: “Here, by my side, is Roberto Alvim, our Secretary of Culture. After decades, now we have a real secretary of culture, one who serves the interests of the majority of the Brazilian populace; a conservative and Christian population. Thank you very much for accepting this mission; you (Roberto Alvim) knew it wasn’t going to be easy… Let’s go, let’s go win this battle” (Bolsonaro, 2020a). Bolsonaro’s strategy reinforces the idea of cultural Christianity, better understood as a cluster of cultural traits shared by most people who define themselves as Christians (Borda, 2020). This concept draws from the nostalgia of a dreamt golden age of tradition and faith. Based on a Manichaean division, this cultural and religious approach plays a distinct yet prominent role in Bolsonaro’s symbolic construction. It envelops Bolsonaro in a holy and sacred aura, contributing to creating and cementing his popular image as “the Myth” (O mito). The next step emerges rather naturally: after “the Myth” comes “the Messiah.” Bolsonaro’s performance and strategy revolve around his attempt to create a metaphorical image of a Messiah, borrowing Christian elements along the way to ensure better representation. Messianism is quite natural to Brazilian culture. Waiting for the Messiah is the central element of Christianity; the return of Jesus is a common belief among Christian believers. Historically, Bolsonaro would not be the first to borrow this idea: Antônio Conselheiro, a Brazilian religious leader famous for his role in the Canudos’s War 1896–1897), acquired a messianic dimension when he stood against the Republic’s army in 1896 (Negrão, 2001). D. Pedro II (1831–1889), Getúlio Vargas (1951–1954), Emílio Garrastazu Médici (1969–1974), Fernando Affonso Collor (1990–1992), and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula (2003–2010), were all rulers who used the idea of saviors of the country and its people. Bolsonaro brings this recurrent trend to a new level, presenting himself as a warrior that has emerged from a broken society to save its values in a chaotic moment. On top of that,

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the idea of resurrection and miracle places Bolsonaro as sacred. As if this weren’t enough, his name is Jair Messias Bolsonaro; “Messias” is the word in Portuguese for “Messiah.” Religiosity permeates Bolsonaro’s strategy and rhetoric creating easy links to audiences. The ubiquitous Christianity of the country contributes to creating this background—a religious narrative that allows his discourse to make sense. In the end, Bolsonaro provides the public not only proposals or information about his government but also offers clues as to how to interpret the context and his role. By analyzing his discourse, it is possible to understand how he applies religious frames to various topics as implicit statements without specifying a causal relation. It all comes together in a broader schema that dictates how the world should be perceived and interpreted. Bolsonaro portrays himself as engulfed in a culture war where secular and progressive values threaten Brazil’s family traditionalism and religiosity. He claims that he can lead the country back to a less chaotic past, where things seemed clearer and easier to understand. In this religious and cultural crusade, Bolsonaro depicts himself as “the Messiah” guiding Brazil. He is a prophet of the past, offering the comfort in very uncertain times of return to a known environment.

5.5 Conclusion In 2017, Bolsonaro addressed the crowd at the state of Paraiba, shouting, “we are a Christian country!” (Nós somos um país católico), and “the State is Christian!” (O Estado é Cristão); Fast forward a year, and a series of events led to a perfect storm that elected Bolsonaro the 38th President of Brazil with a campaign motto of “Brazil above everything, God above everyone” (Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos). For the past 30 years creating and fighting a culture war, Bolsonaro learned how to present his aggressive speeches to Christian audiences. During his campaign and first years in power, Bolsonaro has sustained and naturalized the use of religious symbols, speaking to a captivated audience that coalesced against the secularization of politics and society. Combining Catholic symbols (at times also Pentecostal narratives, and deference to Judaism), Bolsonaro’s discourse blurred the boundaries between religiosity and politics, framing Christianity as a cultural phenomenon. Therefore, his defense of Christian values should not be understood as a fight against the secular state, but rather as a cultural backlash. Moving in the direction of messianic promises of salvation, order, and struggle against persecution, Bolsonaro established a political bond with his constituency that emerges from authoritarian imagery (Chauí, 1995). A key element of his performance and rhetoric, Christianity becomes the building block upon which Bolsonaro erects his sacred and mythic image—a Messiah that leads the people in this moral crusade against secular values threatening religious and conservative hegemonic. In this sense, Bolsonaro mobilizes culture war rhetoric against what he calls Christophobia. Within his messianism, flaws are often justified by circumstances outside his control or competence. In April 2020, amidst the rising number of Covid-19 deaths,

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when asked about them Bolsonaro reacted: “I am [a] Messiah but I can’t do miracles” (Sou Messias, mas não faço milagres) (UOL, 2020). Like some other contemporary populists, he articulates the idea of Christianity and national culture, relying on the vagueness of Christian values (Mudde, 2019) to create a frame package that guides his viewers on how to interpret reality. His strategy ranges from the use of simple religious elements such as words and images to a broader schema that provides complex narratives and causal structures about our current chaos. By doing so, he successfully navigated the conservative wave, adopting a communicative strategy that benefited from Catholic and Evangelical identities, expressing ecumenical conservatism (Mariano & Gerardi, 2020). This strategy and consequently his performance enabled him to emerge as the expression of resistance against what was framed as the progressive left-wing attempt to diminish Christianity and erode tradition and family values. As our analysis has shown, Christianity is at the heart of Bolsonaro’s discourse. It is tacitly constructed, and permeates every dimension and aspect of his speeches, even if implicitly. By appropriating Christian values and beliefs, Bolsonaro reaches out to different groups (Boas, 2014) who are eager to find order and stability in uncertain times.

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Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. Verso. Magalhães, M. (2018, September 26). The truth is hard: Whoever sits on the fence consents to the nazifascist ideas of Bolsonarism. The Intercept. Retrieved from: https://theintercept.com/2018/ 09/25/ideias-nazifascistas-bolsonarismo/. Mariano, R. (2013). Changes in the Brazilian religious field in the 2010 census. Debates do NER, 2(24), 119–137. https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-8136.43696 (in Portuguese). Mariano, R., & Gerardi, D. A. (2020). Evangelical support for Bolsonaro: Antipetism and sacralization of the right. In J. L. Pérez Guadalupe & B. Carranza (Eds.), Novo ativismo político no Brasil: os Evangélicos do Século XXI (pp. 329–350). Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (in Portuguese). Marsh, D., & Furlong, P. (2002). A skin, not a sweater: Ontology and epistemology in political science. In D. Marsh & G. Stoker (Eds.), Theory and methods in political science (pp. 17–41). Palgrave Macmillan. Mendonça, R. F. (2009). Recognition and deliberation: The struggles of people affected by leprosy in different interactional spheres. Doctoral dissertation, Federal University of Minas Gerais (in Portuguese). Mendonça, R. F., Abreu, M. S., & Sarmento, R. (2021). Discursive repertoires and contemporary political contention. Novos Estudos Cebrap, 40(1), 33–54. https://doi.org/10.25091/s01013300 202100010002. Mouffe, C. (2019). For a left populism. Autonomia Literária (in Portuguese). Mudde, C. (2019). The far right today. Polity Press. Negrão, L. N. (2001). Revisiting the messianism in Brazil and prophesying its future. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 16(46), 119–129. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-690920010002 00006 (in Portuguese). Nicolau, J. (2012). History of voting in Brazil. Zahar (in Portuguese). Putti, A. (2019, April 21). Ten Bolsonaro statements that go against what Easter represents. Carta Capital. Retrieved form: https://www.cartacapital.com.br/sociedade/10-afirmacoes-de-bol sonaro-que-vao-contra-o-que-a-pascoa-representa/ (in Portuguese). Sanchis, P. (2018). Religion, culture, and identities: Matrices and hues. Editora Vozes (in Portuguese). Smith, A. E. (2019). Religion and Brazilian democracy: Mobilizing the people of God. Cambridge University Press. Soares, J., & Lara, M. (2020, September 22). At the UN, Bolsonaro says fires are used in an international campaign against the Brazilian government. O Estado de São Paulo, Estadão. Retrieved from: https://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,na-onu-bolsonaro-diz-que-incendios-sao-usa dos-em-campanha-internacional-contra-o-governo-brasileiro,70003447712 (in Portuguese). Spautz, D. (2020, May 2). Bolsonaro received a prayer over his abdomen on his first visit to the Gideons in Santa Catarina. Carta NSC Total. Retrieved from: https://www.nsctotal.com.br/ colunistas/dagmara-spautz/bolsonaro-recebeu-prece-sobre-o-abdomen-na-primeira-passagempelos (in Portuguese). Tamaki, E. R., & Fuks, M. (2020). Populism in Brazil’s 2018 general elections: An analysis of Bolsonaro’s campaign speeches. Lua Nova, 109, 103–127. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-103 127/109. UOL. (2018, October 14). Bolsonaro quotes the Bible and says he makes a simple campaign, without “millions” of the PT. Retrieved from https://noticias.uol.com.br/politica/eleicoes/2018/noticias/ 2018/10/14/bolsonaro-cita-biblia-e-diz-que-faz-campanha-simples-sem-milhoes-do-pt.htm (in Portuguese). UOL. (2020, April 28). “I’m a Messiah, but I don’t do miracles,” says Bolsonaro about record deaths. Retrieved from https://noticias.uol.com.br/saude/ultimas-noticias/redacao/2020/04/28/sou-mes sias-mas-nao-faco-milagres-diz-bolsonaro-sobre-recorde-de-mortes.htm (in Portuguese). Vaggione, J. M. (2020). The Christian neoconservatism in Brazil and Colombia. In F. Biroli, M.D.C. Machado & J. M. Vaggione (Eds.), Gênero, neoconservadorismo e democracia: Disputas e retrocessos na américa latina (pp. 41–82). Boitempo (in Portuguese).

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van Dijk, T. A. (2009). Society and discourse: How social contexts influence text and talk. Cambridge University Press. Van Gorp, B. (2007). The constructionist approach to framing: Bringing culture back in. Journal of Communication, 57, 60–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-9916.2007.00329.x. Volosinov, V. N. (1986). Marxism and the philosophy of language (L. Matejka & I. R. Titunik, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Yanow, D., & Schwartz-Shea, P. (2014). Interpretation and method: Empirical research methods and the interpretive turn. M.E. Sharpe. Zúquete, J. P. (2017). Populism and religion. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of populism (pp. 445–466). Oxford University Press.

Eduardo Ryô Tamaki is a master’s student in the Political Science Department at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Minas Gerais, Brazil. Currently he is a researcher at the Center for Studies on Political Behavior (CECOMP-UFMG), focusing on political behavior. Specialist in populism, he is also a member of the Textual Analysis Team and of the Young Scholars Initiative on Populism at Team Populism (BYU), and serves as a researcher and collaborator at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça is Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, and a Fulbright/Capes Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California Irvine, USA. He is a researcher at Research Group on Democracy and Justice (MARGEM), and at the Brazilian National Institute for Digital Democracy (INCT.DD). He has published in several journals and serves as one of the editors of Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice (2018) and Democracia Digital (with M. Pereira and F. Filgueiras, Editora UFMG, 2016). Matheus Gomes Mendonça Ferreira is a Ph.D. student in the Political Science Department at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Minas Gerais, Brazil. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF). Currently he is a researcher at the Center for Studies on Political Behavior (CECOMP-UFMG), focusing on political behavior and public opinion, with emphasis on religion and electoral behavior.

Part II

History, Economy, Climate/Geography, and Majority/Minority Relations

Chapter 6

Rationality and Moderation: German Chancellors’ Post-War Rhetoric Melani Schröter

6.1 Introduction The analysis of political discourse has been a flourishing field of research in Germany since the 1970s (cf. Burkhardt, 1996, 1998), analyzing “semantic battles” in political discourse (Klein, 1989; Stötzel & Wengeler, 1995), as well as scandals and outrage provoked by some politicians’ speeches and utterances (Heringer, 1990). A formal association for the study of German political discourse (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sprache in der Politik e.V.) exists since 1991 (Language in Politics, n.d.), since 2005 regularly holding conferences to analyze the language in general election campaigns. Researchers have also investigated political discourse in different pre-1945 periods of German history, in particular Nazi language and rhetoric (Kämper, 2019 provides a bibliography). The keen interest in the shape and style of public discourse can be considered a consequence of dramatic historical events over a relatively short period of time. This provides a case study in how the same language, spoken by the same people in the same place, can be utilized differently in public discourse, changing according to political circumstances. In the twentieth century Germany started as a monarchy headed by an Emperor until the end of World War I, becoming a republic until 1933 when the Nazis took power and established a dictatorship. At the end of World War II it became occupied territory (1945–1949) and then divided into two states between 1949 and 1990. Its political culture changed substantially every time, with few elements worthwhile retaining, other than unification in 1990 that maintained the constitution, laws, and institutions of the Federal Republic when the former East German Democratic Republic was incorporated into the renewed German Federal Republic.

M. Schröter (B) Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Reading, Reading, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_6

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Even if prior to this few elements of previous German political instantiations were considered suitable to carry into the future, these developments still shaped today’s political culture, even if ex negativo: Imperial Germany’s militarism was seen as partly responsible for the First World War, leading to the initiation of a civilian army in the Federal Republic until it was replaced by a professional army in 2011. The weakness of the democratic Weimar Republic and extremism of some of its active parties were countered by the German constitution’s provisions to prevent destabilization of democratic governance. The resurgence of extreme nationalism and racism during the Third Reich is countered today by a comparatively extensive memorial culture. Human rights and civil liberty violations in the former German Democratic Republic are also comprehensively documented and memorialized. Such historical factors shape contemporary Germany’s political culture, in turn shaping the political discourse to be examined in this chapter. The chapter analyzes how post-war German political culture is reflected in eight speeches by German heads of government between 1952 and 2011. It starts with the observation that high-level public speech in post-war Germany remains remarkably unremarkable (Sect. 6.2), proceeding to discuss factors emerging from Germany’s past and shaping its political culture to-date—helping to explain the lack of grand rhetorical gestures in post-war Germany (Sect. 6.3). After this contextual exploration, the methodology will be explained (Sect. 6.4). The analysis (Sect. 6.5) traces recurrent rhetorical choices made by different German chancellors. These choices illustrate an orientation towards rationality and moderation, two characteristics that can be linked to the main determinants of political culture in post-war Germany. The political systems, culture and conditions for public speaking were very different in the two German states that existed between 1945 and 1990. Since it would not be possible to do justice to both in one chapter, I will focus exclusively on the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and not the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (for public discourse in the latter, cf. Dreesen, 2015; Fix & Barth, 1996; Pappert, 2003). As East Germany’s GDR was incorporated into the West German FRG, the latter’s political culture remained dominant after 1990.

6.2 On the Absence of Notable Speeches in Post-War Germany While public speeches by German chancellors after 1945 occasionally received attention as part of the lively field of political discourse, they generally remain notably inconspicuous. There are, of course, other high positions in German politics with a chance to widely disseminate rhetoric, such as the Federal President (a non-partisan office with largely ceremonial duties), the Speaker of the parliament (the Bundestag), federal ministers, and executive ministers within the federal states. The chancellors, however, are the head of the national executive, they hold the most political power, set the executive agenda, and chair the cabinet meetings with federal ministers. Their

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rhetoric is therefore highly relevant, but not often remarkable. While there are chancellors that stand out for the length of their tenure and/or the way in which they set the political agenda, arguably no German chancellor is remembered much by their rhetoric alone. Konrad Adenauer is remembered as the first German post-war chancellor (1949– 1963) and for prioritizing the “Westernization” of the Federal Republic, i.e., integration into emerging European institutions and NATO—over attempts at all costs to keep the country from disintegrating. The Eastern part was occupied by Soviet Russia between 1945 and 1949, seeking to implement socialism in their sphere of influence. Western parts were occupied by the U.S., the U.K. and France, seeking to implement Western style liberal democracy in their spheres of influence. This situation eventually led to the founding of two German states that existed between 1949 until unification in 1990. While Adenauer adhered to democratic procedures that he helped to establish, he had a somewhat autocratic style of leadership with a distrust in the Germans’ aptitude for democracy. He is not remembered for delivering rhetorically notable speeches. Willy Brandt’s relatively short tenure (1969–1974) is remembered for his policy of détente and rapprochement between East and West in the context of Germany divided along the frontlines of the Cold War. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for these policies in 1971. His most memorable gesture, however, was nonverbal—when apparently spontaneously weighed down by remorse he went down on his knees on the first state visit by a German chancellor to Poland in 1970 in front of a memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Helmut Kohl’s long tenure (1982–1998) is remembered for the unification of the FRG and GDR and his endeavor to intensify European integration. His style of public speaking, though, including his southwestern regional accent, was subject to ridicule more than anything else. Around the beginning of his chancellorship, Kohl repeatedly referred to his ambition to initiate a collective mental and moral re-orientation (geistig-moralische Wende) (cf. Hoeres, 2013), meant to sound inspirational and aspirational beyond day-to-day politics. However, it was undermined by a scandal involving lobbyist donations to his party, and Kohl infamously unable to recall relevant details during the investigation into the scandal (Leyendecker et al., 2000), thus undercutting trust in his own moral authority, and the political system more generally, only a short while after talking about invigorating values. Angela Merkel has been in office since 2005. She is the first woman to hold the office and the first chancellor to have grown up in the former GDR. She is renowned for her matter-of-factnes; at the beginning of her chancellorship commentators focused on her use of silence rather than speech (Schröter, 2013). During her predecessor Gerhard Schröder’s tenure (1998–2005), the media’s profound influence on political discourse became notable, in line with developments in other countries. Spin started to be discussed as the politicians’ way of dealing with the media’s agendasetting powers, and due to his readiness to accept airtime opportunities, Schröder was labelled “the media’s chancellor” (Medienkanzler) (Birkner, 2016). Merkel returned to a more serious and conventional style of political communication.

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In short, while post-1945 German history was by no means free from excitement, there were few speeches remembered for rhetorical craft; as far as political oratory is concerned, German post-war history is rather unremarkable (Klages, 2001). In the following section, I will discuss some of the factors underlying German political culture (König, 2010; Müller, 2003; Reichel, 1981) that explain rhetorical choices made by German public political speakers, including blandness, and the kind of rhetoric that might be most acceptable to as many citizens as possible, as well as internationally.

6.3 Determinants of Political Culture in Post-War Germany Political culture is influenced by, reflected in, and amenable to, a multitude of aspects. Here I wish to highlight key aspects which provide particularly strong points of reference to describing and comparing political cultures (Kranert, 2019). First and foremost, political culture is influenced by historical experience. For some countries, this might mean maintaining traditions while gradually adapting to new circumstances and requirements. Germany, however, was shaped by discontinuity. Since 1800, what is now the Federal Republic of Germany underwent eight iterations of different state formations, including the absence of a nation state between 1806 and 1871 (Kitchen, 2006). However, apart from the 1918–1945 period Germany maintained confederate structures. When the FRG came into being in 1949, federalism was considered by the Allied Forces as much as by the committee that drafted the FRG’s constitution to be worthwhile maintaining. It was also retained through unification in 1990, adding 5 new federal states to the previous 11 West German states. Presently, Germany’s 16 federal states help to encourage, maintain, and institutionally enshrine historically rooted regional identities, thus helping to moderate nationalism embodied by a centralized state. The FRG’s new 1949 constitution also incorporated provisions clearly based on lessons from the recent past (Görtemaker, 1999), such as proportional representation and the provision that parties need at least 5% of votes to even enter parliament. This is to avoid parliamentary overfactionalism, a problem in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) that made it easier for the National Socialists to undermine Weimar’s new democracy by grabbing power in 1933. The National Socialists maintained an emotionally charged public sphere and a rhetoric of collective endeavor where the value of the individual was seen in their contribution to the “Volksgemeinschaft,” the community of ethnic Germans. Not least also because collectivism was maintained in the socialist GDR, chancellor Adenauer often mentioned the emergence of mass society (Vermassung) as something to counteract. Wider ideological shifts in the post-war era not specific to Germany underpin increasing individualism after a sharp break with Nazi dictatorship collectivism. The Nazi dictatorship permeated and controlled public discourse, also triggering attention

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on language use in the post-1945 Germany’s public sphere by the Allies (Deissler, 2006); Germans also saw a need to re-learn constructive political debate (Kilian, 1997; Verheyen, 2010)—a lot of attention was paid to language criticism, highlighting how totalitarian ideologies were promulgated by ways of speaking. Viktor Klemperer’s Lingua Tertii Imperii, first published 1947, and Sternberger et al.’s (1957) dictionary of inhuman words (Wörterbuch des Unmenschen) were widely read in post-war Germany (Dodd, 2018). Another consequence of historical experience for the FRG was its orientation towards international structures and alliances as a means of protection but also of regaining trust and through this, power and scope for action. Hence, the FRG joined NATO in 1955 and promoted European integration, at various stages including the FRG’s relinquishing national decision-making to European institutions and policies (Thränhardt, 1996). Thus, political processes and institutions reflect and shape political culture. Proportional representation, combined with the 5% threshold, means that Germany has mostly been governed by a coalition of only one bigger and one smaller party. Even parties obtaining only around 8% of the total vote can take part in setting the legislative agenda. Separate elections are held for federal state parliaments (the same 5% threshold applies); federal state governments are also mostly sustained by coalitions. Further decreasing power centralization is the upper chamber Bundesrat consisting of the sixteen federal states’ First Ministers, with a rotating presidency. It can initiate legislation, needs to approve some of the new legislation that passed the Bundestag, can demand changes to legislation drafted by the lower chamber, or block legislation altogether. Power is thus shared between the national level and the state level, and also between parties in that two-party coalitions are the norm with some federal state governments run by other parties than those leading the national government. Moreover, there is a system for dealing with conflicts that can arise from this constellation to avoid a complete blockage of new legislation. Finally, affiliation with supranational institutions adds to the moderation of political positions and demands as German parties also send representatives and form factions with other EU countries’ sister parties in the European parliament. Organizations such as trade unions, interest- and issue-based associations as well as industry and business organizations can lobby political parties and representatives but are not part of the political system. The most effective way to set the political agenda in Germany is by way of a political party as reflected in the relative success of environmentalism along with the founding of the Green party in 1980. The FRG is a secular state; the church and church leaders are not part of the political system. Disaffiliation from religious belief is reflected in a Eurobarometer poll from 2018: 28.6% of Germans consider themselves Catholic, 25.8% protestant and 26.9% atheist or agnostic (Federal Agency for Citizenship Education, 2020). This is another indicator of increased individualism, but also in part a heritage from the socialist GDR where religious affiliation was discouraged—still reflected in a larger proportion of agnostics and atheists among the East German population.

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These are the most relevant, necessarily general parameters of political culture in Germany. They go some way to explaining why the rhetoric of German political leaders has remained somewhat unremarkable. Nationally, the power-sharing structures of German politics necessitate compromise and therefore moderation of adversity between political parties. Internationally, compromise and moderation are equally needed for building consensus within and maintaining scope for action by international organizations, especially important in the EU context with regulatory powers previously held nationally. While the FRG clearly aligned with Western countries in the Cold War context between 1949 and 1990, the most precarious and heavily guarded border during the Cold War ran between both German states and through Berlin, dividing many German families. Despite the obvious animosity between both German states, this situation also required moderation in the midst of Cold War tensions. In the German context, aggression was particularly risky if it could lead to another war, and complete antagonism and estrangement between people in East and West Germany would have endangered any long-term prospects of unification. The grip of national grand narratives was much reduced in post-1945 Germany. The division as well as the discrediting of nationalism post-Third Reich in the light of the atrocities driven by extreme nationalism in combination with racism contributed to this development. Especially since the 1990 unification, there is much ongoing internal conflict between those who want to position Germany as a diverse and multicultural society and a right-wing political movement that seeks to undermine such consensus. In other words, below the level of political leadership, there are different extreme views producing emotional rhetoric and promoting widely differing narratives regarding the state of the nation. Thus, this chapter focuses on the rhetoric of political leaders at different points in time. In addition to the generally reduced currency of grand narratives, individualism coupled with an historically-based wariness of an emotionally charged public sphere has led to a politics addressing and seeking to balance interests rather than promoting ideals, highlighting rational choices rather than emotionally-driven positions. The reduced salience of traditional, especially religious, values led to emphasizing secular values and individual stakeholders for maintaining democratic citizenship rather than taken-for-granted beliefs. Rationality and moderation can therefore be considered key characteristics of contemporary German political leaders’ political discourse. These elements of post-war German political culture will now be traced in and across speeches held by different post-WW2 German chancellors.

6.4 Methodology Two speeches have been selected from each of the more notable German chancellors (briefly introduced in Sect. 6.2) between 1952 and 2020. While Brandt’s tenure was relatively short (5 years as opposed to 14 in the case of Adenauer and 16 each in the cases of Kohl and Merkel), his chancellorship was notable because of profound

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social change following the generational unrest around 1968 and recalibration of the relationship between the FRG and the GDR. Different types of speeches are included here. According to Schröter (2006), chancellors give three major types of speeches. First, speeches in parliament, including their inaugural speeches (Korte, 2002), as well as at their own party conferences; second, lesser publicized speeches for a variety of stakeholders on various occasions (e.g., opening a new production plant or an anniversary assembly of the German association of journalists); and third, commemorative speeches (e.g., at a memorial site and related event or at an event celebrating notable anniversaries of historical personalities) and televised “addresses to the nation,” most notably every New Year’s Eve (Holly, 1996). The speeches in the second category will be disregarded here as they vary widely, given the degree to which they are tailored to the specific audience; thus, it’s impossible to offer a small representative sample. Regarding the type of speech and speech event, the ones analyzed below comprise four speeches of the first category by German chancellors in parliament: (1) a speech by Adenauer (1952) at the beginning of the debate about the General Treaty which restored sovereignty to the FRG and led to it joining the NATO in 1955, basically enshrining Adenauer’s approach of Westernization; (2) a speech held by Brandt (1973) about the treaty between the FRG and the GDR with a view to normalizing the relationship between the two German states. Both these speeches are about substantial political issues that were rather controversial at the time. Further to this, there is (3) one inaugural speech made by Kohl (1982), initiating his first term in October 1982; and (4) a speech by Merkel (2011), providing a rationale for phasing out the use of nuclear energy in Germany in response to the damage at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant following an earthquake and tsunami. Four additional speeches belong to the third category, three of which were televised addresses. One of these (1) the annual New Year’s Eve televised address given by Kohl (1989) when the Berlin Wall had just come down and before the process of unification had officially started; (2) a speech by Brandt from November 1970 (Brandt, 1970) at an event commemorating Friedrich Engels’ 150th birthday. Any position regarding the socialist intellectual heritage involved a balancing act for a West German chancellor in the face of the other, socialist German state. Two further televised addresses were given based on specific political issues seen as crises; (3) Adenauer (1961) addressed the nation in response to the GDR government’s building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961; and (4) Merkel (2020) addressed measures and policy changes in the wake of the spread of the Coronavirus. These speeches are notable in that they relate to deep controversy (1952 and 1973) and/or crisis events (1961 and 2020 and arguably the New Year’s Eve address 1989/1990 at a time of profound change). The commemoration of socialist intellectual heritage (Brandt’s 1970 speech), initiating substantial changes to energy provision with knock-on effects across the industry and infrastructure (Merkel’s 2011 speech), and handling transition of power after a vote of no confidence in the preceding government (Kohl’s 1982 inaugural speech), also tread on controversial territory. None are quite day-to-day business or routine stance-taking. Thus, it

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is especially interesting to see the extent to which rhetorical choices pertaining to rationality and moderation apply. These speeches are analyzed together, as a pool with shared features: they will not be presented one-by-one, nor analyzed with regard to changes over time. The general determinants of political culture leading to rationality and moderation as key characteristics of post-1945 German rhetoric described in Sect. 6.2 have remained largely stable over time. The aim is to link these to rhetorical choices; to this end, a qualitative rhetorical analysis was conducted. The speeches are analyzed synoptically for recurrent rhetorical features pertaining to rationality and moderation. Rationality comprises features that highlight analysis of facts, events or developments, argument and conclusion, as well as stylistic choices akin to rational or academic discourse. Moderation comprises features that lack uncompromising or extreme stances, instead appealing to realism and measured expectations or advocating patience and compromise. Attention will be given first to features of structure, including intertextual references and argumentation. Second, attention is paid to stylistic features, especially choice of vocabulary and metaphorical conceptualization. Particular attention is also paid to those features that pertain to, or possibly demonstrate lack of, rationality and moderation. If similar traits can be observed across different speakers at different points in time, this will be considered to support the argument that rationality and moderation resulting from the above corner stones of political culture have an impact on the rhetorical choices made by political leaders in Germany. All translations of quotes from the German speeches are by the author.

6.5 Analysis of Selected Speeches 6.5.1 Rationality 6.5.1.1

Structure

In light of the above, what is striking in the chancellors’ speeches is metacommunicative framing: speakers position their speeches at the onset in a context and explicate what they are about to do, including a rationale for their speech emphasizing democratic values of transparency and accountability. In his 1952 speech opening the parliamentary debate about the General Treaty, Adenauer (1952, p. 871) explained the aims of his speech by stating that “we owe the German people and the world a clear position regarding the basic principles of these contracts,” and that “this debate needs to give the people clarity about the basic problems so that they can form an opinion about the parliament’s and government’s statement.” In his inaugural speech, Kohl (1982, p. 853) opened his long account of planned measures by stating that “our people are entitled to the truth, the truth about what has been done and the truth about what needs to be done.” Two-thirds into his long speech, Kohl revisited this point:

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“our citizens are entitled to know about the aims and premises on which our politics for the future will be based” (Kohl, 1982, p. 863). Merkel opened her TV address in 2020 by explicating: “I chose to address you in this unusual manner because I want to tell you what guides me as chancellor…in this situation. This is part of an open democracy: that we make political decisions transparent and explain them. That we communicate as well as possible and give reasons for what we do, so that it becomes comprehensible.” Metacommunicative framing is used by the chancellors to position themselves as providing guidance and information to enable their audiences to draw conclusions and to form an opinion. Elements of rational discourse and ideals of democratic transparency are both evoked in such metacommunicative statements. Second, there are references in each speech to preceding texts, such as international agreements, draft legislation, data and figures, sequences of events, examples illustrating a point, academic texts, expert advice, or historical documents. I consider this a structural feature because it situates the speech as one textual event in a chain of texts. This is less the case in the speeches broadcast via radio and television, but even there Adenauer (1952, p. 1493), referred to international agreements, Kohl (1989, p. 2) to a document laying out a plan for unification that he had previously presented to the parliament, and Merkel (2020) twice to advice from experts. In his speech commemorating Engels’ 150th birthday, Brandt (1970) quoted academics and a range of historical documents written by Engels and his contemporaries to underpin the point Brandt was making about resisting a one-sided and one-dimensional appropriation of (Marx and) Engels by socialist countries. He stressed instead the context of their own time, the genesis and development of their works, and instances where they had positioned themselves not in radical tones but rather ones of compromise. In his speech about the General Treaty, Adenauer (1952) quoted several sections of the treaty and associated documents verbatim and referred to a series of historical events in order to contrast and illustrate the support and trust West Germany had received from the Western Allies with the repression of Eastern European countries and the lack of Soviet Union reliability, explicitly signaling a conclusion from these illustrative historical examples: “Juxtaposing the actions of both systems of power in relation to Germany yields the following results…” (Adenauer, 1952, p. 875). Merkel (2011) in her speech relating to nuclear power quoted a range of data and figures regarding energy provision in Germany, albeit without naming sources for the data. Likewise, Kohl (1982) referred to a multitude of figures—albeit unreferenced—such as numbers of unemployed people, youth unemployment, figures relating to taxation, investment, and public finances. Such references serve to legitimize the government’s position and potentially to discredit the opposition, and therefore need to be considered selective and persuasive. However, the main point is that persuasion is attempted through elements of rational discourse: evidence and references. Third, the speeches are structured in argumentation sequences. They don’t dramatically build up towards a climax, possibly followed by resolution of tension, but largely follow an analytical pattern of “what is the situation” and “what follows from this situation.” In parliamentary speeches, the second part tends to be sequenced along a range of specified measures and proposals that in the case of Kohl (1982),

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Brandt (1973) and Merkel (2011) are in parts blandly enumerated. Rhetorical flourishes of repetition and intensification are rare. TV addresses differ from this; they are shorter, hardly refer to proposed policy measures, and all initially refer to recent events: the building of the Berlin Wall (Adenauer, 1961), the fall of the Berlin Wall (Kohl, 1989), and the Coronavirus outbreak (Merkel, 2020). In each case, the situation was sketched and described in evaluative terms with reference to how the event is likely to make people feel, followed by an interpretation of its implications in terms of what needs to be done or avoided. In the first case, the conclusion was to not mistrust the continued support of the Western Allies, in the second case to work towards unification and further European integration, and in the third case for every citizen to be aware of their responsibility to curb the spread of the virus and to act accordingly. This means that while emotional implications of the events are initially acknowledged, it is not followed by amplification of such emotions but rather by translating the situation into political premises and measures going forward. The stated sentiments are moderated and contained rather than intensified. Fourth, these types of macro-structuring are underpinned by repeated microsequences where premises are explicated, followed by conclusions along the pattern “if X, then it follows that Y.” For example, in his inaugural speech Kohl (1982, p. 860) surveyed the new government’s approach to foreign policy and states at the onset: “The foundation of German foreign- and security policy is the North Atlantic alliance and the friendship and partnership with the United States of America…This leads to clear priorities for this government.” This is followed by an enumerated list of points pertaining to foreign policy in which a number of international agreements are referenced. In her speech upon phasing out nuclear power, Merkel (2011, p. 12960) declared at the onset: “In Fukushima we had to take note of the fact that even in a high-technology country like Japan, the risks of nuclear energy cannot be safely managed. If we realize this, then the necessary consequences need to be drawn. If we realize this, we need to re-evaluate.” Across the speeches, there are various instances where premises—in the examples; maintaining established alliances; re-evaluating limitations of risk management— are followed by conclusions pertaining to government action: to therefore engage with negotiations and adhere to agreements; to therefore work to avoid these risks completely.

6.5.1.2

Style

Chancellors use elements of academic terms through their use of analytical vocabulary. Adenauer (1952, p. 873) refers to “problems,” their “evaluation” in “context,” the need to “analyze” the present situation with a view on its “tendencies of development” and to “investigate” the “consequences” of rejecting the General Treaty. Brandt (1973, p. 158f.) referred to “factors” that cannot be considered “in isolation,” to “dimensions of this problem,” “questions” that “pose” themselves, “factors at play,” to “drawing conclusions,” “learning lessons,” and respecting “the given parameters.” There are also definitional sequences, such as: “We don’t understand

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the law as an instrument of rule, but as a negotiation of understanding between free citizens on the basis of shared values” (Kohl, 1982, p. 863). Here too, instances of such academic usage are suggestive of rational discourse. Across the speeches, there are first-person phrases that indicate the speakers’ own thought processes, positioning themselves as rational beings that analyze situations and draw conclusions on that basis. Thus, chancellors may emphasize that they themselves have established, and are defending, their positions. In a sequence that brought forward counter arguments to “some publicly voiced questions,” Adenauer stated (1952, p. 876): “I consider these claims to be wrong.” He went on to concede that a reunification of Germany could only take place in negotiations with all four Allied powers, and continued: “it is my conviction that it is wise to secure at least the help of three of these four to begin with” (Adenauer, 1952, p. 876) While stating that “I do believe that it will be possible to get to the negotiating table with Soviet Russia at the right moment,” he countered claims to take up Stalin’s offer of a unified, but neutral Germany with apprehensions about Soviet Russia’s willingness to relinquish East Germany without risk. In this context, he stated that “I cannot in any way understand” (Adenauer, 1952, p. 876) how anyone would take such a risk. Merkel (2011, p. 12960) described Fukushima as an instance providing evidence for the ultimate impossibility to contain the risks of nuclear power, the need to “draw consequences” and to “reevaluate” the situation, and to question the “reliability of probability analyses.” Remarkably, she then openly conceded her own change of mind on the issue, stating: “As much as I have…argued in favor of prolonging the running periods of nuclear power stations in Germany in the fall of last year, I unequivocally state today to this House: Fukushima has changed my position towards nuclear energy” (Merkel, 2011, p. 12960). While politicians often are confronted with evidence of changing positions as a sign of weakness and negatively-evaluated wavering, Merkel sought to establish that a change of attitude can be a consequence of rational evaluation of evidence in response to changing parameters. There are explicit appeals to reason and references to a harmful lack of rationality. Words pertaining to unascertained information (rumors, neurotic fright, nostalgia, utopia, dream, illusion), to rigid stances (dogma, blindness) or lack of consideration (mistrust, unreasonable), were used in contexts where these phenomena and dispositions were dismissed. In his TV address in response to the construction of the Berlin Wall, Adenauer (1961, p. 1494) stressed “in such a situation every step needs to be carefully considered”, the need to “negotiate” and to “wait for what follows with calm and determination” and to avoid “unjustified mistrust.” Brandt (1970, p. 1774) called for a balanced evaluation of Engels’ heritage, stating that the times were over “where something reasonable was rejected by the majority purely because the stamp ‘socialist’ was applied to it.” He argued for a balanced view on Marx’ and Engels’ intellectual heritage, to emphasize “without dogma, that it is necessary to humanize human society” (Brandt, 1970, p. 1772), whereby dogma indicates a lack of rational evaluation. He criticized conservatives for “having lost the historical thread,” “striking up antisocialist sentiment,” and “impressing their neurotic Marxist fright on others” (Brandt, 1970, p. 1773). That way he ascribed a lack of rationality to the opposition, as well as the intention to intensify emotional responses.

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Merkel (2020) appealed to rationality in her TV address, labelling it as “reasonable” household behavior to keep a certain stock of items, but as “unreasonable” to “hamster, as though goods would never be available again.” She appealed to “take seriously what the current situation is about” while warning against falling “into a panic.” At the end of her speech, she described the situation as “dynamic” with a need to “continue learning” so that the approach can be adjusted when necessary, to which she added the appeal to “not believe in rumors, but always only official statements” (Merkel, 2020). Believing in rumors would be the irrational response, whereas the government would provide reliable information based on a continuous evaluation of developments. Kohl (1982, p. 855) in his inaugural speech dismissed “nostalgia” and “utopias” and held “a sense of reality” and “self-responsibility” against them. He labelled unconditional pacifism as “an understandable desire, a beautiful dream, but most of all a dangerous illusion”, and unlimited armament “a lethal blindness” (Kohl, 1982, p. 860), suggesting gradual disarmament as the rational choice. While these examples also illustrate how references to (ir-)rationality were used for the purposes of persuasion, the observation remains that rationality per se was an important point of reference in German chancellors’ speeches. The indicators of rationality described so far do not entirely preclude elements of hyperbole and reference to emotions. Kohl (1982) painted a picture of deep economic crisis at the beginning, using intensifying language to sketch the situation in which his new government was taking over as drastic and requiring urgent action. He then, however, embarked on a long litany—the speech comprised roughly 11,000 words—of proposed policy measures and approaches, economic and labor market policy, social policies, foreign and security policy, environmental protection, German federalism, youth and family policy, German-German relations, the status of Berlin, and basic principles for the new legislature. At the onset of the Coronavirus outbreak Merkel (2020) expressed empathy with the audience’s worries and apprehensions. These sequences are followed up with reassurance and appeasement, rather than attempts at intensifying those sentiments. Therefore, acknowledged emotions become a background or basis for legitimizing government action in response to such sentiments with the aim to contain them—rather than a springboard for amplifying them. Here, the structure of the speeches as a whole offsetted the initial intensification or references to emotions.

6.5.2 Moderation 6.5.2.1

Structure

As I have described elsewhere (Schröter, 2006, 2014), elements of dialogue with imaginary addressees are characteristic of chancellor’s speeches, and this also applies to this chapter’s example speeches. Of particular interest are the high frequency and variety of micro-sequencing “yes – but” patterns, where potentially differing opinions are drawn on in the “yes” part and then followed and countered by the “but” move as

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a way of drawing in and dissipating dissent in monological speech. For example, in his inaugural speech, Kohl (1982, p. 859) stated: “Integration does not mean loss of one’s own identity, but foreigners and Germans living together with as few tensions as possible.” In the first part of the statement, Kohl pre-empted criticism that foreigners might be asked to assimilate and in the second part argued against this the need for easing social tensions. Further in the same speech Kohl (1982, p. 866) sought to pre-empt criticism regarding the distribution of wealth: “We do not ask those on low incomes to make these necessary sacrifices, but instead we turn to those who can cope better with making such sacrifices.” This pattern allows implicit acknowledgement of possible criticism and differing positions without explicit finger-pointing towards stakeholders who are skeptical or in disagreement. Again, while this pattern also backgrounds possible dissent and foregrounds the “but”-movement aiming to persuade addressees to accept the speaker’s point of view, this relatively restrained treatment of dissent can be considered a feature of moderation.

6.5.2.2

Style

Moderation is inherent in appeals to patience, going along with the metaphorical conceptualization of politics as a path or journey; there are “steps” to take, so as to “progress” along a “road” towards the goal. Speakers use the path-metaphor to suggest that large gains cannot be expected in short timeframes and that slow progress is acceptable as long as it is clearly directed towards an aim. For example, Brandt (1973, p. 157) described the process of rapprochement between Eastern and Western Europe as “a long and stony road,” and as a process of “arduously laboring out of positions that have become regrettably negative” (Brandt, 1973, p. 161). Kohl (1982, p. 863) described the program detailed in his inaugural speech as “beginning a politics of renewal, first steps on the way out of the crisis.” In response to strong concerns over the construction of the Berlin Wall, Adenauer (1961, p. 1494) emphasized that “every step in a situation like this needs to be carefully considered,” and pushed demands for action into a longer-term perspective in which “the right to self-determination and freedom will be victorious if we persist in our efforts.” The scope for action on part of the FRG government was limited, and thus Adenauer avoided dramatizing the situation. Each chancellor mentioned stakeholders in decision-making, at times explicitly acknowledging different points of view, complexity of processes, and range of interests to be considered, as well as the need to strike compromises. Again, this is often embedded in metaphorical conceptualizations of different “sides” with different “views” and the need for “balance.” For example, in the debate about the agreement for peaceful cooperation between the two Germanies, Brandt (1973, p. 159) stressed that the agreement “did not allow either side to achieve their maximal aims. Of course, it could only result in a compromise.” He also referred to “multiple levels” of policy making and their interrelatedness, positioning the agreement as part of a “fabric of negotiations, agreements and contracts” (Brandt, 1973, p. 160) and labelling the government’s policy as a “policy of balance,” as “real balancing of

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interests,” and stressing the overlap between “our German interests and the interests of our Allies” (Brandt, 1973, p. 161). Adenauer (1952, p. 871) labelled the General Treaty a “compromise,” noting that it “is the nature of compromise that nobody’s views get accounted for one hundred percent,” especially given “international agreements of such substance and with the multitude of involved parties.” Towards the end of his speech, he reiterated “that no country involved in this agreement was able to have their positions accepted in every point. I shall be allowed to point out that in each country government and parliament needed to pay tribute to public opinion in their countries and that this public opinion differs in each country” (Adenauer, 1952, p. 876). Notably, of the speeches analyzed here, these are the two speeches pertaining to the most crucial and most controversially debated issues. They are also the ones in which the chancellors appeal most to moderation by acknowledging the need for balancing interests and finding compromise. While such management of expectations also pre-empts criticism, stressing multilateral balancing of interest avoids blaming the involved parties for setbacks.

6.6 Conclusion German chancellors’ speeches comprise a range of rhetorical choices that pertain to a decidedly rational discourse as well as to moderation of adversarial and extreme positions. This is not to say that they are not politically controversial or don’t attempt to persuade. However, the rhetorical means reflect a political culture in which German chancellors consider a rhetoric that highlights measured reason and that contains emotion to be effective. While the chancellors frame problems in line with their own intentions and priorities, never undisputed, the way in which German chancellors try to persuade their audiences reflects rhetorical practices that are widely acceptable. It should, however, be noted that this chapter studied the public rhetoric of highlevel, elected political leaders. Contexts such as election campaigns temporarily bring up more adversarial discourse styles; and the rhetorical choices of lower-level political actors might be different. However, the “style at the top” can reflect more widely shared ideal norms, thus relevant for an exploration of political culture. Rationality and moderation are functioning and applicable norms of political culture in Germany. This is not to say that this could not change. In the light of German history, the stability of post-war German democracy and political culture is remarkable, but perhaps more than ever before there are now groups and forces at work that threaten to undermine it from within. Social friction and disenfranchisement do exist, and the neoliberal narrative of no alternative to capitalism after the historical discreditation of socialism leaves little prospect of substantial change despite a still broadly functioning social welfare system and free access to education. Educational attainment and social mobility of working-class citizens, including most of Germany’s immigrant population—in 2019, 26% of Germany’s residents have a

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migration background (Federal Office for Statistics, 2021)—lag behind the rest of the population. Moreover, there are still notable differences in attitudes and political orientation between East Germans socialized in the GDR and West Germans socialized in the FRG, especially since the absorption of the former into the latter. Political culture and identities pertaining to the GDR were devalued and wiped out in a very short time span, privileging those who grew up in the Western parts. A growing New Right movement is currently undermining the post-war consensus, promoting an ethnically homogeneous population, campaigning especially against Muslim immigrants, and trying to contain gender diversity. There are also attempts from the New Right to re-evaluate post-war German history and to roll back the memorialization of the Holocaust. They reframe Allied re-education and memory culture as supposedly silencing German victimhood and instilling into all Germans a feeling of perpetual collective guilt about the Nazi atrocities to prevent Germans from developing a positive national identity and pursuing their own interests by preventing any future German assertiveness. The discourse of the New Right is not geared towards rationality and moderation; it is aimed at scandalization, uses hyperbole, links to conspiracy theories of the “great exchange”—the belief that political leaders conspire to replace the ethnic German population with (Muslim) immigrants, thereby re-introducing Nazi tropes such as “Lügenpresse” (“mainstream media” spreading lies). Such nationalistic and racist discourses have grown louder since 1990 and are now partly represented in a new political party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, founded in 2013). In the general election of 2017, the AfD obtained 12.6% of the vote, so that for the first time in post-war German history a party with a decidedly right-wing program and a number of extreme right activists passed the 5% threshold, forming the third-largest party in the Bundestag. The continuing frictions in German society are also illustrated by the fact that these discourses—and the AfD—find more resonance in East Germany, among former GDR citizens. To what extent the rationality and moderation traced in previous Chancellors’ rhetoric, reflective of post-war German political culture, will hold out against these competing discourses remains to be seen.

References Adenauer, K. (1952, July 9). Rede im Deutschen Bundestag. Bulletin 87, Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, pp. 871–877 (in German). Adenauer, K. (1961, August 19). TV address. Bulletin 155, Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, pp. 1493–1494 (in German). Birkner, T. (Ed.). (2016). Media chancellors: Political communication in the chancellor democracy. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft (in German). Brandt, W. (1970, November 27). Speech on the occasion of Friedrich Engels’ 150th birthday. Bulletin 166, Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, pp. 1765–1774 (in German). Brandt, W. (1973, February 16). Speech in the German parliament. Bulletin 18, Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, pp. 157–161 (in German).

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Burkhardt, A. (1996). Localising polito-linguistics. In J. Klein & H.-J. Diekmannshenke (Eds.), Language strategies and dialogue blockade: Linguistic and political science studies of political communication (pp. 75–100). de Gruyter (in German). Burkhardt, A. (1998). German language history and political history. In W. Besch, A. Betten, O. Reichmann, & S. Sonderegger (Eds.), Language history: A handbook of the history of the German language and language historical research (2nd ed., pp. 98–122). de Gruyter (in German). Deissler, D. (2006). The denazified language: Language politics and language regulation during the occupation period. Peter Lang (in German). Dreesen, P. (2015). Discourse borders: Types and functions of linguistic resistance on the streets of the GDR. de Gruyter (in German). Dodd, W. J. (2018). National Socialism and German discourse: Unquiet voices. Palgrave Macmillan. Federal Agency for Citizenship Education. (2020). Religion (in German). Retrieved from: https:// www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/145148/religion. Federal Office for Statistics. (2021). Population with migration background grew by 2.1% in 2019; the lowest increase since 2011 (in German). Retrieved from: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/ Pressemitteilungen/2020/07/PD20_279_12511.html. Fix, U., & Barth, D. (1996). Language biographies: Language and language use before and after the turn of 1989 in the memory and experience witnessed by GDR citizens. Contents and analyses of narrative-discursive interviews. Peter Lang (in German). Görtemaker, M. (1999): History of the Federal Republic of Germany: From its foundation to the present. Beck (in German). Heringer, H. J. (1990). “I give you my word of honor:” Politics, language, and morals. Beck (in German). Hoeres, P. (2013). From the “turn in tendency” to the “mental and moral turn”: Construction and criticism of conservative signature phrases in the 1970s and 1980s. Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 61(1), 93–119 (in German). https://doi.org/10.1524/vfzg.2013.0004. Holly, W. (1996). The social democratic chancellors to the people: The new year addresses of Brandt and Schmidt. In K. Böke, M. Jung, & M. Wengeler (Eds.), Public discourse: Practical, theoretical and historical perspectives (pp. 315–329). Westdeutscher Verlag (in German). Kämper, H. (2019). Language use in National Socialism. Heidelberg: Winter. Open access, retrievable from: https://www.winter-verlag.de/en/detail/978-3-8253-7864-6/Kaemper_Sprachg ebrauch_Nationalsozialismus_PDF/ (in German). Kilian, J. (1997). Democratic language between tradition and new beginning: The example of the basic rights discourse 1848/49. Niemeyer (in German). Kitchen, M. (2006). A history of modern Germany 1800–2000. Blackwell. Klages, W. (2001). Pouring emotions into words: The continuing power of political speech. Deutscher Wissenschaftsverlag (in German). Klein, J. (Ed.). (1989). Political semantics: Semantic analyses and language criticism of political language use. Westdeutscher Verlag (in German). Klemperer, V. (1975 [1947]). Lingua tertii imperii: A philologist’s notebook. Aufbau (in German). Kohl, H. (1982, October 13). Speech in the German parliament. Bulletin 93, Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, pp. 853–868 (in German). Kohl, H. (1989, December 31). TV address. Bulletin 1, Presse und Informationamt der Bundesregierung, pp. 1–2 (in German). König, J. C. (2010). Political culture in the U.S.A. and Germany: National identity at the beginning of the 21st century. Logos (in German). Korte, K. R. (2002). ‘The chancellor has the floor’: An analysis of inaugural speeches from Adenauer to Schröder. Westdeutscher Verlag (in German). Kranert, M. (2019). Discourse and political culture: The language of the third way in Germany and the UK. John Benjamins. Language in Politics (n.d.) Retrieved from www.sprache-politik.de. Leyendecker, H., Prantl, H., & Stiller, M. (2000). Kohl, power, and money. Göttingen: Steidl (in German).

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Merkel, A (2011, June 9). Speech in the German parliament. 17th legislature (WP), 114th sitting, pp. 12960–12964 (in German). Merkel, A. (2020, March 18). TV address. Retrieved from: https://www.bundesregierung.de/res ource/blob/975232/1732182/d4af29ba76f62f61f1320c32d39a7383/fernsehansprache-von-bun deskanzlerin-angela-merkel-data.pdf (in German). Müller, J. W. (Ed.). (2003). German ideologies since 1945. Studies in the political thought and culture of the Bonn Republic. Palgrave Macmillan. Pappert, S. (2003). Political language games in the GDR. Communicative convergences and their effects on public discourse. Peter Lang (in German). Reichel, P. (1981). Political culture in the Federal Republic. Leske & Budrich (in German). Schröter, M. (2006). Addressee orientation in public political speeches by German chancellors 1951–2001. A qualitative-pragmatic corpus analysis. Peter Lang (in German). Schröter, M. (2013). Silence and concealment in political discourse. John Benjamins. Schröter, M. (2014). Addressee orientation in political speeches: Tracing the dialogical “other” in argumentative monologue. Journal of Language and Politics, 13(2), 289–312. https://doi.org/10. 1075/jlp.13.2.05sch. Sternberger, D., Storz, G., & Süskind, W. E. (1970 [1957]). The dictionary of inhumane words. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag (in German). Stötzel, G., & Wengeler, M. (Eds.). (1995). Words of controversy. A history of language use in public discourse in the Federal Republic of Germany. de Gruyter (in German). Thränhardt, D. (1996). History of the Federal Republic of Germany. Suhrkamp (in German). Verheyen, N. (2010). A lust for discussion: A cultural history of the “better argument” in West Germany. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht (in German).

Melani Schröter is Associate Professor in German Linguistics at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. She has published numerous articles, book chapters and handbook contributions on German public and political discourse. She specialises on silence and metadiscourses about public discourse as well as comparative, corpus-assisted research on political key words and loan words. Her published monographs and co-edited volumes include Addressee Orientation in Public Political Speeches by German Chancellors 1951–2001 (in German, 2005), Silence and Concealment in Political Discourse (2013), and Exploring Silence and Absence in Discourse (2018, with Charlotte Taylor).

Chapter 7

Talking Politics: The Influence of Historical and Cultural Transformations on Polish Political Rhetoric Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska and Agnieszka Kampka

7.1 Introduction Polish political rhetoric has been shaped by a series of critical historical moments. Over the course of the nineteenth century, Poland was controlled politically and economically by its neighbors. Its nationalistic movements and resistance against the hegemons were often suppressed or self-defeated in a conflict between romantic calls to fight the invaders and positivist ideas to build the modern nation-state. 1918 brought sovereignty, but also revealed deep internal conflicts that led to rising workers’ revolutionary rhetoric. This was counterbalanced by the popularity of conservative nationalistic movements whose ideas are being revisited even today. With the Nazi occupation and Soviet invasion (1939–1945) the country was again brought to its knees and its political establishment almost completely exterminated. For example, the 1940 Katy´n massacre of 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia was carried out in secret by the NKVD. The 1944 Warsaw Uprising, which led to the demise of a generation of patriots who desperately wanted to save the capital from the encroaching Red Army, continues to be a defining moment shaping Polish history (Davies, 2004). The postwar inclusion into the Soviet sphere of influence with the Warsaw Pact sealed Poland’s political fate for the next half a century. It also introduced socio-realist aesthetics and communist rhetoric designed to justify a totalitarian regime, until a peaceful transformation occurred in 1989. After years of economic crisis, persecution K. Molek-Kozakowska (B) Institute of Linguistics, University of Opole, Opole, Poland e-mail: [email protected] Department of Creative Communication, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius, Lithuania A. Kampka Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_7

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of dissidents and priests, and cultural censorship, the grass-roots Solidarity movement brought new hope for democratic self-government (Ash, 2002). Yet the transition to a market economy was turbulent and alienating with political rhetoric growing in brutality rather than harmony. The cultural wars between post-communists, liberals and conservatives were briefly reconciled in the consensus to join NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004. Nevertheless, EU integration now faces opposition in the form of populist nationalistic ideologies that challenge the pragmatic, liberal and centrist policies of the previous decade.1 This chapter explores selected features of political style and identifies dominant, yet intricately intertwined, rhetorical devices that reflect Poland’s turbulent history (resistance rhetoric), economic instability (crisis rhetoric), national heritage (traditionalism and religiosity), and social changes (mediatization). It traces the common expressions of Polish victimization, solidarity and national resilience. It also explains some characteristic historical references that are revisited in public discourse today and inform domestic debates, sometimes to inspire pride, and at other times to discredit opponents. Strategic references to historical figures, as well as to erstwhile enemies, help contemporary politicians appeal to an imagined community that shares common experiences and sentiments. Rhetorical devices also allow Polish politicians to garner political capital at election times or excel as leaders. That is why the exemplifications below include specimens of both executive rhetoric of prime ministers (PMs) and celebratory rhetoric of Presidents. The tropes to be spotlighted concern cultural dimensions of identification, particularly the dichotomy between “us” and “them,” the ways of referring to time, metaphors for political activity, and forms of interpolating the society as a “nation.” The examples revisited here testify to the rhetorical projection of cultural identity that permeates political talk.

7.2 Main Trends in Polish Political Rhetoric—Overview and Contextualization In a televised address in October 2020, PM Mateusz Morawiecki explained the nationwide lockdown restrictions in wake of the second Covid-19 wave. Having outlined the dire conditions of the pandemic in Poland and across Europe, he listed the legal and technocratic measures to be instituted in containing it, justifying them with an appeal to scientific authority and strategic thinking. The PM was adamant 1

Unlike many mature democracies Poland’s party system is fluid, as new parties and coalitions are formed around charismatic leaders before almost each major election. Currently, the Polish political scene is dominated by (1) conservative right-wing parties that have a strong nationalistic and populist focus, followed by (2) centrist liberal parties, with (3) established parties (with pre1989 history) and (4) progressive parties closing the ranks of political support. It is important to recognize the legacy of post-communist and post-solidarity political orientations, coupled with transient anti-establishment political organizations either on the right or on the left (Kucharczyk & Zbieranek, 2010).

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in pushing for a middle-of-the-road solution that protected public health without destroying the economy, appealing to the Poles’ sense of responsibility. Interestingly, the last quarter of the speech was devoted to the notion of Polish solidarity in the face of the collective threat. Morawiecki used the pronoun my [literally: “we”] and directive verbs to call for more acts of kindness, especially to vulnerable seniors. He even implied that opposition politicians who had been pointing to government mistakes over the preceding months were not acting in a patriotic manner. He ended on a highly emotional note: “We have to fight this epidemic. As a Nation we have always been able to muster courage and sacrifice. When we are solidary—we win!”2 (October 23, 2020). This short speech encapsulates a typical way some conservative Polish politicians are now likely to appeal to the public—by turning a policy proposal or an administrative decision into a national crusade.3 Such escalation of rhetoric often goes hand in hand with emotive references to some heroic moments in Polish history, e.g., resistance to Nazi occupation or the Stalinist regime (Napiórkowski, 2019; Wasilewski, 2012). As a result, it is implied that those who dissent or criticize the policy can be accused not so much of breaching the social contract, or acting in contempt of the elected government, but rather of betraying the Nation or compromising the interests of the Polish state. Indeed, in early 2021, citizens demonstrating in the streets, or going on strike, have rarely been presented as exercising constitutional freedoms, but rather as “undercutting national solidarity,” purportedly embodied by the ruling party. This is but the latest chapter in the populist strand of Polish political rhetoric, in which the cultural significance of the notion of solidarity inherited from the 1980s Solidarity movement, and the ethnocentric conception of Polishness, have been increasingly exploited. To understand such a rhetorical transformation, one has to look back to the nineteenth century, when Poland was controlled politically and economically by its neighbors—Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The series of local insurgencies (in 1794, 1830, 1863) brought little but repression from the occupying forces. Admittedly, Polish leaders were conflicted in how to mobilize resistance, which has been mapped onto political rhetoric ever since. For example, impulsive emotional reactions and statements of value sometimes override systematic hard work and pragmatic negotiations (Kłosi´nska, 2012). The interwar period (1918–1939) also revealed deep ideological conflicts: some leaders embraced revolutionary rhetoric while others turned to traditional values, Christian faith and the Nation as the foundations of the new state. The heroic 1920 battle of Warsaw halted the communist attempt to create pro-Soviet regimes closer to western Europe. A persistent myth born then and reinforced later (particularly during WWII and in the Stalinist era) is related to Polish exceptional strength and 2

The word “Nation” is capitalized in the official text, e.g., https://twitter.com/PremierRP/status/ 1319703417422565376. 3 In likewise manner, 2020 saw a tumultuous public debate over further restrictions to abortion access, rife with pro-choicers’ being accused of the intent to destroy the country as we know it, and pro-lifers presented as guardians of the Polish national interest, according to conservative outlets.

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resilience. Apparently, Poles have the ability to overcome the most difficult conditions thanks to their deep trust in three values—God, Honor and Fatherland4 (Fras, 2001; Wasilewski, 2012). With secure borders, the Polish Second Republic (1918– 1939) started rebuilding its nationhood and prospering economically. The underlying assumption that united Poles was that even 123 years of suppression and a Red Army attack could be confronted, if the right person—such as Marshall Józef Piłsudski—took the lead (Davies, 2001). Nostalgia for strong leadership is somewhat palpable in Polish rhetoric even today. In fact, political debates still tend to focus on persons rather than issues, while consensus and coalition building may be seen as a sign of weakness. For example, when the Polish government was criticized for not applying the rule of law and separation of powers by EU institutions, some politicians, including Poland’s Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro, called on the PM to be tough: “In negotiations, one cannot be a softie; one needs to stand up and take care of Polish national interests. Poland is not worse than other states. We do not have to ask Berlin for permission to use the veto if our interests are threatened” (November 25, 2020). Meanwhile, member of European Parliament Patryk Jaki proclaimed: “Veto or death! Every time the lack of the ‘rule of law’ is raised [through an EU resolution] we need to veto it. We must not allow Poland to be incapacitated in its ability to self-govern” (July 2020). Admittedly, when current leaders declare openness to cooperation and bipartisanship, this might well be a gesture, a cliché or a rhetorical maneuver. Another historical basis of Polish political rhetoric can be traced to the propagandaoperations of communist Polish People’s Republic (1945–1989). Novel terms of address (e.g., “comrade,” “collective,” “party leader”), and the appeals to the sovereignty of the “working classes,” pervaded public discourse, despite evidence of blatant oppression, censorship and crawling economic crisis (Głowi´nski, 1991). New heroes were found in idealized Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, all-powerful President Bolesław Bierut (in office 1947–1952), and, after the office was dismantled, in Communist Party Secretaries (Kami´nska-Szmaj, 2017). Meanwhile, the blame for the increasing social alienation was pinned on “Western imperialists,” and, regrettably, “Jews.” Such a maneuver allowed the Communist Party to channel negative sentiment. On June 19, 1967, Communist Party Secretary Wiesław Gomułka used the Arab–Israeli conflict to brand Poles of Jewish origin by saying: Given that Zionist groups in Poland applauded the invasion, even organized drunken parties to celebrate it, I will remind you that Polish citizens of Jewish origin are free to migrate to Israel, if that is what they wish. We insist that each Polish citizen should have only one fatherland—Polish People’s Republic…We cannot have it that in this dangerous world…and with all that painstaking rebuilding of the Polish nation, there are people here that side with the aggressors and imperialists.

4

The word could well be translated as “Motherland” as in the Polish language this noun has a feminine ending. Works of art and literature often personify Poland as a female figure. Also, there is a long-standing stereotype of “Mother-Pole” as in many families the mothers were expected to take care of children’s religious education and shape their patriotic identity.

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This resulted in expulsions of Poles of Jewish origin from positions of power and, after anti-Semitic resentment was whipped up, in forced emigrations of thousands of Polish Jews, some of whom were prominent scholars, intellectuals, and writers, such as Zygmunt Bauman or Leszek Kołakowski. No wonder that the propaganda that largely defied reality brought long-lasting distrust of public figures and their manipulative rhetoric, and dismantled civic society by pushing resistance deep underground until the 1980s. Traces of communist “newspeak” can be found in today’s use of blame and conspiratorial motifs, bureaucratic jargon, unsubstantiated overgeneralizations, terminological imprecision and stylistic kitsch (Głowi´nski, 1991). In 1981 a state of martial law was declared in Poland in response to workers’ strikes in a range of industrial sectors, including shipbuilding. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who ordered the curfew and deployed the state militias to contain unrest, tried to discredit anti-communist activists with blame-laden rhetoric: “Gda´nsk [a major shipyard] negotiations have exposed the real motives of opposition leaders. Their true intentions are confirmed in everyday practices of encouraging aggressive extremism and in their open ambition to undo the Polish socialist state. How long does one need to wait for the truth to prevail? How long is one’s open hand to meet a clenched fist?” (December 13, 1981). However, it was not until 1989 that the workers’ Solidarity movement became strong enough as a political force (Ash, 2002). Political dissidents of democratic and liberal persuasions united with labor unions mobilized by Lech Wał˛esa to challenge the communists. The toppling of the communist regime was relatively peaceful, with a “Round Table” summit organized to ensure that the transition was bloodless, with sound legal and administrative structures being installed. Initially lauded as a great achievement, today the “Round Table” is re-evaluated as not being strict enough with communist apparatchiks and secret service agents who had surveilled and persecuted democratic dissidents. Interestingly, the way current politicians refer to the early 1990s is indicative of their ideological and rhetorical stance—either dogmatic and value-laden, or pragmatic and action-oriented (Kłosi´nska, 2012). For example, the first free election in 1989 is remembered as a contentious event. President Lech Kaczy´nski (2005–2010) used to say that “after 1989, we built the Third Polish Republic…Although it is independent, it is not without flaws, which need to be addressed…as not all evil has been eradicated, even though the country is developing well” (November 11, 2008). Meanwhile President Bronisław Komorowski (2010–2015), lavished praise on the event: “In 1989, thanks to the victory of Solidarity, thanks to the wisdom of dialogue and the courage to fight and seek understanding, Poland regained sovereignty” (November 11, 2010), and reminisced that “…in 1989 Poles could sit together to talk and make joint decisions, which changed the face of our country and finally of the whole Europe. This success could not have been possible without our Polish trait of seeking understanding and dialogue” (November 11, 2011). More recently, President Andrzej Duda (2015–present) extolled 1989 as a year when “Poles consigned the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall to oblivion. Poles started this! Poles have to commemorate it and be proud of it” (November 11, 2015). Despite the shifting political landscape, the legacy

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of polarization between post-communist and post-Solidarity orientations is still valid, even as the political scene became populated with centrist and anti-establishment parties. While mid-20th Polish rhetoric marked the “era of the working class,” the transformation also brought trust among Polish land-owning farmers by using the alarmist rhetoric of protecting Polish property from foreign investor purchases. This is based on a particular attachment to nature and cultivation of crops present in canonical Polish art and literature, reintroduced to public schooling in the 1990s. Another major political force was embodied by the Polish Catholic Church, whose traditionally recognized authority, and its new “social teaching” that responded to modern challenges, became a prominent discourse in the democratizing public sphere (Borutka et al., 1999)—for example, regarding legal access to abortion or in-vitro fertilization (Molek-Kozakowska, 2017). Historically, the Church had been the mainstay of nationhood and patriotic values during times of crisis, and its legitimacy was further entrenched by the popular appeal of Polish Pope John Paul II (Zieli´nska, 2018).5 To give a recent example, PM Morawiecki’s (2017–present) inaugural speech made reference to Pope John Paul II and his belief that “freedom is not granted; it is a task that requires granting,” ending with an unusual invocation that his government’s policies “will be a testament to God’s glory” (December 12, 2017). Together with the widespread trend justifying “transformations,” political rhetoric of the 2000s included the appraisal of the Polish “nation” taking precedence over “society,” especially in naming and renaming social welfare programs and state institutions. Leaders have often rhetorically conflated the scope of “Polish” or “national” aspirations with their own party’s platform, especially regarding the economy, security and health, or culture and memory. A rhetorical device that allows this consists in using the pronouns “we/us/our” to superimpose the interests of the ruling party on the interests of the whole society. For example, while progressive PM Ewa Kopacz (2014–2015) spoke neutrally about “our country,” “our economy,” or “our life,” conservative PM Beata Szydło (2015–2017) took to speaking about “our government,” “our programs,” “our opponents” (i.e., political opposition not external antagonists). The infighting and divisions characterizing the early years of Polish democratic transformations left a persistent trace in current rhetoric. For example, the need to garner political capital often leads aspiring politicians to ridiculing, discrediting and dismissing their opponents, rather than offering original policy proposals and solutions to Poles’ problems (Kampka, 2009). This suggests that even after three decades of transformations, Poland’s public sphere is not yet characterized by a culture of deliberation that evolved in some other countries. Amidst the range of newly created parties, interest groups and coalitions, the best strategy to win an election (be it local, national, or European) has often involved populist measures: to promise welfare solutions, to appeal to a sense of national interest, to polarize society, and to stir fear by 5

For example, Liga Polskich Rodzin (the League of Polish Families), a minor, far-right and Eurosceptic party, used the icon of the pope in its political advertising in the first election campaign to the European Parliament in 2004, gaining 10 out of 54 seats assigned to Poland.

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demonizing minorities (e.g., ethnic Germans, refugees, or LGBTQ + communities) (Bralczyk & Mosiołek-Kłosi´nska, 2001; Kłosi´nska & Rusinek, 2019). The growth of tabloid outlets and infotainment further fragmented the public sphere (Kampka, 2012). Political soundbites, emotional appeals, visual communication, and network dissemination influence the current context of Polish political rhetoric (Kampka & Molek-Kozakowska, 2020). At the same time, social activism, urban movements, and NGOs have started exerting their influence on political agendas regarding both content and forms of rhetoric, such as adopting certain norms of political correctness. One additional point relates to the cosmopolitan orientation that to some extent counterbalances nationalistic rhetoric. Ever since Poland’s membership in NATO (1999) and European Union (2004), and the gradual integration of Polish corporations into the global economy, official discourse has included statements of principle, mission and action that are reminiscent of strategic planning and technocratic solutions typical of international cooperation (Molek-Kozakowska, 2011). This is not to say that these new discourses were embraced smoothly. Critics saw them as threats to newly regained sovereignty and alluded to the return of foreign domination and control. Europe’s problems in the 2010s, notably the economic crisis, “refugee crisis” and climate crisis, made the “European threat” seem to be less economic and political, and more legal and moral imposition of values alien to Polish culture (Chovanec & Molek-Kozakowska, 2017). For example, Beata Szydło, the PM who fought against the quota system for relocating Middle Eastern refugees, used tough moralistic rhetoric: “Poland will not partake of the blackmail…in the madness of Brussels’ elites,” while highlighting the terrorist threat that the European bureaucracy was apparently ignoring: “Where is Europe headed? You had better wake up, unless you want to mourn your children every day from now on” (May 25, 2017). As can be seen, even in relatively prosperous times Polish political rhetoric focuses on constructing threats and crises (both real and imagined) as a means of mobilizing voters or citizens6 (Polkowska, 2015).

7.3 Main Tropes and Rhetorical Devices—Exemplification 7.3.1 Historical References in Presidential Rhetoric This section summarizes the results of a case study on Polish presidential rhetoric from a comparative perspective. Each May 3rd Polish people celebrate Constitution Day, a national holiday devoted to the Republic of Poland’s first ever constitution adopted on May 3, 1791. The document was ratified by the Grand Assembly 6

In the summer of 2015, “Poland is in ruins” was the election campaign slogan used by the challenging party PiS (Law and Justice) and its presidential contender Andrzej Duda. The negativity of the slogan was immediately countered by internet users with memes and snapshots of prospering neighborhoods and companies, but nonetheless it seemed to appeal to many working-class and rural voters.

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(Sejm Wielki) and was one of the most progressive democratic documents of the day. However, it was a tragic moment at the same time; soon after the ratification, tsarist Russia’s army moved to quash the Polish national spirit (Davies, 2001). The anniversary became officially recognized when Poland regained its independence in 1918, although during communist times it was banned, and overshadowed by International Labor Day that was celebrated proximately with typical socialist pomp on May 1st. Today, the holiday can be compared in significance to America’s July 4th Independence Day. The day is a fundamental marker of contemporary Polish political culture and an occasion to use Poland’s turbulent history to rearticulate current sentiments and reassert national identity. Looking at addresses given by subsequent Polish presidents,7 we can compare the typical rhetorical devices used in such an epideictic genre and elucidate the uses of historical references as arguments to justify a particular version of Polish identity. It is worth noting that the office of the president is more ceremonial and symbolic than the executive office of the prime minister and the government, employed to convey unifying national sentiments. The president is elected by popular election in Poland and nominated as Head of State. Presidents enjoy public trust to sign or veto legislation and to represent the country abroad. While presidents are not formal members of any political party, they usually have strong leanings that result from their (usually life-long) political careers (Nał˛ecz, 2017). When elected, they assume a “rhetorical presidency” in the sense of having a mandate to embody and articulate the Polish national interest, identity and policy. However, it is not uncommon for presidents to use the office to entrench specific ideologies or to ensure their own legacy. For example, President Aleksander Kwa´sniewski (1995–2005), who had been a leader of the Social Democrats (considered to be post-communists), often treated history as a loose reference point, a lesson to be remembered, or an inspiration for the future. He mostly focused on Polish uniqueness in overcoming obstacles and advocated pragmatic policies. He used to say: “There were too many ‘lost generations’ and ‘moral victories’ in our history. Now is time to succeed at real politics: the last fifteen years [since transition in 1989] proved that Poland can be prosperous, modern and well organized. We have good news from the economy, we export more to Europe, we consume more. We can share the profits and distribute the benefits” (May 3, 2004). Two years later, he mobilized the same energy to ask Poles to “create, work hard for the country…to cooperate together…to mobilize good will and positive feelings, new ideas and energy to build a good legal system and a good country” (May 3, 2006). Not surprisingly, he would dwell on the future of the country rather than the past, in order to avoid reviving the memories of communist oppression in the minds of Poles. President Kaczy´nski was a member of the anti-communist opposition and a jurist. He would dissect the Constitution and its implications to anchor his points, but was also fond of making it clear who was the protagonist and who was the antagonist in the grand narrative of Polish history: “The Constitution was a great legal endeavor by 7

Primary sources available from the online archives of the presidential office.

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our best minds” (May 3, 2006). “It aimed to limit the aristocracy who were beyond the law and whose interests were not compatible with the state’s… These people wanted a weak and powerless state that would not threaten their interests” (May 3, 2008). President Komorowski, who was trained as a historian and is known to have illegally supported celebrating the banned national celebrations under communism, treated history as a source of pride, but also of warnings and examples from which to take courage: “The Constitution is not a dead document, but an everlasting source of strength and wisdom for Poles…a proof of our capacity for self-determination, a lever to uplift the country and rid it of chaos and anarchy” (May 3, 2011). President Duda has been using a set of symbols that appeal to conservative national mindsets, as well as the positive rhetoric of national solidarity, strength and resilience (Nał˛ecz, 2017). It is noteworthy how presidents tend to rhetorically use the historical context of the constitution: while Kwa´sniewski stresses that Poland has always been and should continue to be an important political entity in Europe (to strengthen his arguments for Poland’s joining the EU), President Kaczy´nski points to Russia as a historical antagonist and possibly a continued threat to the region’s peace. Another example is the divergent interpretation of Targowica (an infamous confederacy of Polish aristocrats who opposed the constitution and facilitated the destructive Russian invasion). Whereas for President Kaczy´nski the members of the confederacy were only self-interested traitors who ended up aiding the enemy “out of greed” and “out of fascination with the might of the imperial court” (May 3, 2008), for President Komorowski, they were individuals who were not capable of envisioning new ways and “saw reforms as only threats” (May 3, 2011). They believed that “the traditional system is the best for Poland” and “forgot to ask questions about their patriotic duty, preferring narrow-minded cynicism” (May 3, 2012). Importantly, presidents (and other mostly conservative speakers) use the Targowica motif rhetorically to position themselves in current political disputes and to demonize opposition parties. One more rhetorical aspect worth noting here in these speeches is connected to self-identification and the projection of the essence of Polishness. Some presidents (Kwa´sniewski, Komorowski) use “we” inclusively in order to encompass all Poles, who are called to take responsibility for Polish prosperity and their political future. This is characteristic of the presidential office that aims to represent the whole nation’s common interests and diverse sentiments. However, for others (Kaczy´nski, Duda), the nation seems to be divided into “us”—the real Poles who are already working to reform and rebuild the country, and “them”—the Poles who still need convincing to accept “the right patriotic values.” In a rhetorical maneuver, these Poles are subsequently invited to join in and to cooperate with the state administration rather than criticize it. It is significant that Polish political rhetoric would often use historical analogies to divide people into those on the right and wrong side of history (Kampka, 2017; Wasilewski, 2012). To conclude this comparative case study, one might point to the most common rhetorical applications of historical motifs in epideictic presidential addresses:

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• for mobilization: Poles should draw strength from their ancestors’ accomplishments and avoid mistakes they committed. • for unity: Poles are a nation united through the ancestral blood and spiritual bonds (tradition), but also a community that shares common experiences, values and dreams for the future. • for legitimacy: history repeats itself in some way, which is why today Poles should take decisive action, as the exceptional sacrifices of the ancestors give them certain insights and privileges. • for division: history shows that Poles are exceptional among other nations, but also that there have always been opponents of reform even today.

7.3.2 Metaphors and Tropes in PMs’ Inaugurals and Parliamentary Debates This section reports on a study of Polish parliamentary discourse from the perspective of metaphorical patterns used by party and government leaders. Speakers choose metaphors and tropes that are based on cultural associations to present their political objectives in more resonant ways. After each parliamentary election in Poland, a newly appointed PM is expected to give an inaugural address during the parliament’s first session and answer questions from opposition party leaders following a challenging debate. These inaugurals are not only important policy statements but also rhetorical performances that involve strategic, argumentative and figurative choices. A review of inaugurals also reveals the preferred conceptualizations of political reality and Poland’s future (Kampka, 2009). The prime minister’s office8 makes all inaugurals available, but here we look at the ones by PMs designated after the five recent parliamentary elections: Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz (in office 2005–2006), Jarosław Kaczy´nski (2006–2007), Donald Tusk (2007–2014), Ewa Kopacz (2014–2015), Beata Szydło (2015–2017), and Mateusz Morawiecki (2017–present). Each PM’s inaugural can be summarized through a handful of key words or slogans that encapsulate the administration’s essence: Marcinkiewicz focuses on “mending the state,” Kaczy´nski promotes new “opportunities for Poland,” Tusk wants to rebuild “trust,” Kopacz foregrounds “stability and security,” while Szydło promises “welfare and skillful management,” and Morawiecki champions “financial soundness.” Admittedly, even though not free from ideology and “nation-cementing” rhetoric, inaugurals usually name concrete challenges and solutions. The problem is that they sometimes exaggerate policy proposals through fancy labels (e.g., a new law regulating higher education institutions is called “Constitution for Science,” and a meager child benefit is called “500 +”). While traditional conceptions of political activity used to draw on serious cultural tropes encompassing patriotic duty, or responsibility and sacrifice, contemporary

8

https://www.premier.gov.pl.

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parliamentary party discourse invokes antagonistic metaphors of war and competitive sports. Polish leaders also present politics through metaphors of theatre, game, gambling and entertainment. Even though this is shared with other cultures, this representation of political activity as a Manichean struggle between competing forces sometimes involves domains of Polish history and mythology. For example, Polish politicians invoke history-based conflicts between forces of order and chaos, or progress and decline. Apart from a handful of well-known metaphors for the country—such as a building or common home, a machine that should function well, or an organism whose health and well-being need supporting—there are also metaphors of force and of journey, whose provenance dates to Poland’s communist legacy that saw “progress” as “collectivist marching” (Kaczmarek, 2001–2005). Last but not least, it is not uncommon for PMs to resort to biblical analogies, with which Poles, mostly raised as Catholics, are well acquainted, for example to refer to threats as “riders of apocalypse” (Morawiecki), or to hate and division as “plagues” (Kopacz). The tropes comparing politics to theater tend to be used strategically in parliamentary debates to discredit opponents who are positioned as if they were marionettes operated by more powerful regimes, or as poor actors who fake reality and lie to voters, rather than authentic political decision-makers (Kaczy´nski). Alternatively, theatrical references add humor to debate with motifs drawn from well-known plays, e.g., about marriage and divorce attributed to political coalition-building (Marcinkiewicz). Another characteristic trope is that of a “new opening,” or a new act, that allows a sense of renewal and inheres a promise of reform. Each new government asserts the validity of its “fresh approach” to the problems faced by the country. PMs who are descendants of the Solidarity movement also rely on notions related to social cohesion and “building agreement” in the atmosphere of trust and “good faith” (Tusk), and enhancing the “spirit of the community” (Morawiecki), or the “will to cooperate” (Kopacz). The game analogy allows PMs to advertise their cabinets as competent and versatile teams of players, which they captain or coach. Alternatively, they project the whole society as a national sports team couched in “white-and-red” (colors of the flag) (Szydło). More attention should be paid to the polysemy of the trope solidarno´sc´ [solidarity], used with reference to various aspects of political reality (Fras, 2001; Wasilewski, 2012), notably as a marker of Polish identity, tradition and uniqueness, due to the historic role of the 1980s Polish Solidarity movement that helped spark anticommunist transformations across Eastern Europe, and a gift that the Polish offered to the world. As Morawiecki put it: “Poland is a proud country of a magnificent heritage that did not yield to tyranny…, resisted the holocaust, did not engage in religious wars…organized help for the persecuted, for the Jews and for the workers under Solidarity” (December 12, 2017). Thus, “solidarity” is a fundamental pillar of the modern Polish state (along with liberty), manifested in many ways depending on historical circumstances. For Tusk: “there are two grand dreams that Poles have had since August 1980, namely of liberty and solidarity, to be again practiced here at home” (November 23, 2007). Moreover, solidarity is a value to build a more coherent and egalitarian society by eliminating economic disadvantages, reaching out to neighbors and oppositional parties for Marcinkiewicz, Kopacz, or Tusk: “our government

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has a recipe for success – economic freedom, without which prosperity cannot come, and social solidarity, without which prosperity is meaningless” (November 23, 2007). Solidarity is thus referenced in unusual collocations, including “revolution of solidarity” to denote Szydło’s welfare plan, “intergenerational solidarity” to sensitize the younger Poles to pay back to the older generation, or “solidarity-based redistribution of resources” to announce aid from EU institutions. One more trope in the context of parliamentary discourses are party-specific representations of past, present and future. As regards historical processes that have shaped contemporary Polish identity and politics, the conservative centrist parties representing rural Poles often hark back to nostalgic representations of community life and idealized traditional values of “God, Honor and Fatherland.” This can be evidenced by President Duda’s recent reification of tradition as an ancient tree: “We, Poles, have grown from the grand tradition that has lasted over one thousand and fifty years, which has its roots in this very land…which has a common trunk of culture, which may have been shaped by various trends, but was nevertheless defended with zeal by each generation of Poles who would not give it up” (November 11, 2019). The right-wing parties look to transformation as their “myth of origin” and mix nationalistic rhetoric with the post-solidarity ethos of democracy. They see themselves as “true representatives” of the silent majority’s economic interests and religious values of hard-working Poles. Meanwhile, left-wing parties overlook their post-communist legacy and focus on progressive reforms and aspirations of future generations (Kampka, 2012). As a result, recent history is often used in party politics to attack opponents—for example, as “communist collaborators,” “servants to Brussels,” or as “supporters of appeasement,” rather than accountability. The present is pictured either as a string of successes by incumbent or continuation governments (Kopacz, Morawiecki), or as a total failure and betrayal of Polish interests9 by opposition parties (Szydło, Marcinkiewicz10 ). Other paradoxes include contradictory visions for Poland’s future: to catch up with the West, but to simultaneously preserve a unique identity; to be a major player in the region while remaining a member of a club of equals (Visegrad group); to be a bulwark against “Islamization,” but to be able to integrate minorities; to preserve traditional values and morality, but to build a progressive, technology-based society. As shown above, until recently the future of Poland used to be conceptualized in relation to the European Union, and with regard to Europe’s institutional, political and economic priorities. However, by scrutinizing parliamentary debates related to the Eurozone currency crisis in 2012 (Kampka, 2013), and concurrent EU metaphors, one can observe how Europe-related tropes have been evolving. While at the time of accession, the EU was lauded as “a dream,” “an adventure,” “a common house,” or 9

For example, expressions such as “a cardboard state” or “a theoretical state” were common insulting ways of assessing the consequences of the Tusk government’s liberal policies by his right-wing opponents from PiS (Law and Justice), and conservative pundits and media. 10 For example, Marcinkiewicz used an elaborate metaphor of the state as a bridge table to attack his post-communist predecessors implying that cards were being dealt by four elite interest groups: politicians, big businesses, secret services, and organized crime.

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“a strong and healthy body” (with Poland at its “heart” in Central Europe), with time it became apparent that not all “walls” were dismantled and not too many “bridges” were built to ensure full equality and cohesion between “old” and “new” member states (Chovanec & Molek-Kozakowska, 2017). The controversy whether Poland should even consider adopting the Euro under the circumstances was metaphorized in terms of EU as a “faulty building,” “a boat on a rough sea,” and with some member states being “ill and in need of treatment,” or not really invited to a “common table.” The Eurosceptic parties have put forth the metaphors of “an applicant” who is only petitioning for money and foregrounded the “bondage” to EU laws and directives. Meanwhile, the progressive and liberal parties criticized the Polish government’s lack of negotiating flexibility, and constant threats of vetoing European policies as “slowing down,” and “applying the brakes” to the common European project.

7.3.3 Populist Streaks in Polish Political Rhetoric This section explores some features of current party discourses, specifically the mediatized and increasingly prominent populist propagandas that exploit elements of Polish culture and identity. With the coming to power of the conservative party PiS (Law and Justice, 2005–2007, 2015–present) and its taking control over a range of media outlets and institutions, public discourse in Poland has taken on more populist rhetoric characteristics. The main feature of populism is juxtaposing the virtuous populace with corrupt elites. This enables populists to claim to represent “the people,” in Poland mostly conceived as “the nation.” Such rhetoric is by definition anti-pluralist, because it essentializes nationhood and homogenizes cultural values. In a dialectical maneuver, Polish populists argue that only their party—Law and Justice—speaks for the Polish nation and the silent majority’s interests (O˙zóg, 2013). In Poland, populists rhetorically conjure particular figures of “the enemy” to rally support, which is not difficult given the antagonisms that shaped Polish history. Recently, even democratically elected opposition parties have been put in the category of the enemy. Populists try to discredit and vilify their opponents, for example, by implying that they act in service of evil ideologies (communism), or advance the interests of international institutions (EU, IMF), privileged elites (business, academia), and morally dubious minorities that “pollute” the nation (Muslims, LGBTQ + ). By creating an “enemy” and whipping up hate and fear of that (imagined) enemy, it is possible to channel negative sentiments and capitalize on outrage during elections. Through propaganda materials, PR and media stunts, party supporters are rallied in defense of the “Polish national interest,” “tradition and culture,” “the Church and family,” or in the name of their patriotic duty (Bukowska & Markowska, 2013). Głowi´nski (2006), who extensively studied Polish communist rhetoric and even used the Orwellian term “newspeak” to describe its semantic expressions, notices stark resemblances between erstwhile communist propaganda and recent populist discourse. The following rhetorical mechanisms have been identified: dichotomous

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representation of political reality, divided only into “us” and “them,” and mapped onto axiological binaries “good” vs. “evil,” reflected in increasingly dogmatic and assertive statements; uses of spiteful and arrogant labels to address antagonists, even in parliamentary debates, with the sole aim to attack the opponent rather than to refute the argument; conspiracy theorizing in explaining one’s own policy failure, and attributing ill motives and destructive intentions to whoever questions the party priorities; and repetitive use of talking points, keywords and slogans that do not deviate from official party lines (Kłosi´nska & Rusinek, 2019). In order to consolidate control over public discourse, populists have tried restricting the semantic scope of some terms. For example, korupcja [corruption] is never attributed to the acts of ruling party members, and zmiana [change] when implemented by the party is always dobra [for the good]. By the same token, the opposition’s critique is perceived as “disturbing or hampering the political process,” or dismissed as lacking substance, and as malicious acts of betrayal done out of selfinterest. The ruling party has also introduced arbitrary changes in the axiological load of some terms, e.g., “post-communists” or “leftists” become floating signifiers used as terms of abuse and the modifier “national” is added to names of policy programs to make them harder to criticize (Napiórkowski, 2019). Populist rhetoric is much more fine-tuned to the colloquial (even vulgar) registers of mediated popular culture than to erstwhile formulaic communist propaganda. Saturation with emotion (be that fear and resentment—or hope and pride) often completes the estheticized schematic patterns of PR communications. The simplistic constructions and false dichotomies are cognitively and rhetorically attractive, as they reduce the increasing complexity of political reality. Unlike communist propaganda, current Polish populist rhetoric is also much more inclusive (with little or no projected distance between the ruling and the ruled), playful (with irony and sarcasm), and spectacular (with patriotic grandiosity and mass appeal) (Kami´nska-Szmaj, 2008).

7.4 Conclusion Rhetoric is an important entry point to understanding political communication in the context of a particular cultural construct. Acknowledging the limitations of an essentializing “national-culture” approach adopted in this chapter, we nevertheless believe that by attending to political rhetoric one can map ongoing reaffirmations of cultural values and national identifications as they are being performed by political leaders. Even given changing political ideologies and historical rewriting, one can grasp patterned “ways of feeling, thinking and acting” manifested in political discourse and articulated in argumentative and epideictic genres, especially speeches and addresses (Finlayson & Martin, 2008). This chapter has provided an overview and contextualization of Polish political rhetoric in terms of the critical historical processes that shaped it, and with special attention to how cultural references feature in political speeches today. It reported on three cases of political discourse—presidential addresses that aim to articulate

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Polish collective identity, PMs’ inaugurals and parliamentary debates and their figurative resources for representing politics and policy, and populist political propaganda emanating from the ruling party’s election discourse. The objective was to use multiple comparative diachronic perspectives to elucidate the origin and evolution of current patterns of political rhetoric in Poland. It was based on a selection of empirical studies published by Polish linguists and sociologists, either regarding the stable patters in Polish rhetoric, or on critical moments (such as elections) that sparked politicians’ rhetorical excesses. As the above review demonstrates, it is possible to identify various influences on current Polish political speech that can be traced to historically contextualized political mindsets and ideological positions. This chapter showcases expressions typical of governmental discourse that are primarily aimed at activating emotions of national pride, or generalizations that have little new ideological content. Such expressions are highly manipulative as they cannot be concretely verified or falsified because they often operate metaphorically or through associated motifs, tropes and myths. President Duda is known for such emotion-infused rhetoric and exaggerations, as for example in his second inaugural: I believe in Poland. We are a proud and great nation. I believe in Poles, in our wisdom and hard work. I believe that we are capable of facing challenges in the present…[in reference to 1920 Battle of Warsaw] We are celebrating one of our great national triumphs, our victory over tyranny…Let the memory of the fathers of our independence and the defenders of our reborn freedom be the examples to follow. (August 6, 2020)

One aspect that was cursorily mentioned throughout the chapter is the way in which religious references (often mediated through artistic or folk tradition) are present in Polish political rhetoric, either as the expression of individual leaders’ ethical orientations, or as a cultural formulation underpinning Poland’s sociopolitical system. However, it would be an overstatement to imply that Polish rhetoric is now infused with Catholicism; on the contrary, it has become secularized and brutalized, even if the moral and value-centered discourse is prominent. The acknowledgement of religious references as rhetorical schemas in Polish political talk enables integration of our argument’s two faces—the historical and the cultural. This chapter also illustrates how relatively fluid patterns of institutional rhetoric, even those within parliamentary genres and presidential rhetoric, make Polish political discourse dependent on charismatic speakers rather than institutionalized rules (Budzy´nska-Daca, 2015). In addition, the fragmentation of public opinion and farranging polarization leading to the inability to engage in deliberation threatens Polish democracy. Although confrontation, even aggression, are occasionally resorted to by some political actors, mediatized symbolic violence and verbal abuse may soon reach a level at which dialogue is no longer viable, with large citizen segments “silenced” due to fear or disgust. If the dominant representations of political rhetoric are associated only with self-interested spin and manipulation, or hypocrisy and disregard for public good, democracy can no longer flourish.

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References Ash, T. G. (2002). Solidarity. The Polish revolution. Yale University Press. Borutka, T., Mazur, J., & Zwoli´nski, A. (Eds.). (1999). Catholic social teaching. Paulinianum. (in Polish). Bralczyk, J., & Mosiołek-Kłosi´nska, K. (Eds.). (2001). Changes in public linguistic habits. Rada J˛ezyka Polskiego. (in Polish). Budzy´nska-Daca, A. (2015). The rhetoric of debates: Polish grand election debates 1995–2010. Pa´nstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. (in Polish). Bukowska, X., & Markowska, B. (2013). They are to blame… The language of enmity in Polish public discourse. Wydawnictwo Trio. (in Polish). Chovanec, J., & Molek-Kozakowska, K. (2017). Representing the other in European media discourses. John Benjamins. Davies, N. (2001). Heart of Europe: The past in Poland’s present. Oxford University Press. Davies, N. (2004). Rising ’44: The battle for Warsaw. Pan Books. Finlayson, A., & Martin, J. (2008). “It ain’t what you say…”: British political studies and the analysis of speech and rhetoric. British Politics, 3, 445–464. https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2008.21. Fras, J. (2001). Language of politics. In S. Gajda (Ed.), The latest history of Slavic languages: Polish (pp. 318–350). Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego. (in Polish). Głowi´nski, M. (1991). Newspeak in Polish. Wydawnictwo PEN. (in Polish). Głowi´nski, M. (2006). The linguistic drama: Remarks on public speaking in the Fourth Polish Republic. Przegl˛ad Polityczny, 78, 26–31. (in Polish). Kaczmarek, B. (Ed.). (2001–2005). Metaphors of politics, vol. 1 (2001), vol. 2 (2003), vol. 3 (2005). Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa. (in Polish). Kami´nska-Szmaj, I. (2008). The language of politics in the context of cultural transformation. J˛ezyk a Kultura, 20, 253–265. (in Polish). Kami´nska-Szmaj, I. (2017). The language of the Polish left-wing parties: From Great Proletariat to the end of Polish People’s Republic. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. (in Polish). Kampka, A. (2009). Persuasion in political language. Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. (in Polish). Kampka, A. (2012). Rhetorical value of temporal categories in the construction of political identities. In M. Zał˛eska (Ed.), Rhetoric and politics: Central/Eastern European perspectives (pp. 66–86). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kampka, A. (2013). Rhetoric of the crisis: Polish parliamentarian debates on the future of the EU. In G. Kišiˇcek & I. Žagar (Eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives (pp. 178–203). Open Monograph Press. Kampka, A. (2017). Memory and action: Elements of national and civic identity in contemporary Poland. Conference paper at Linguistic Representation of Identity in Ancient and Modern Rhetoric, Kraków. Kampka, A., & Molek-Kozakowska, K. (2020). Instagram in political self-presentation: A visual analysis of candidates’ posts in the 2019 European Parliament election campaign in Poland. Polityka i Społecze´nstwo, 1(18), 41–62. https://doi.org/10.15584/polispol.2020.1.3. (in Polish). Kłosi´nska, K. (2012). Ethical and pragmatic: Polish political discourse after 1989. Narodowe Centrum Kultury. (in Polish). Kłosi´nska, K., & Rusinek, M. (2019). Good change: How to govern with words. Znak. (in Polish). Kucharczyk, J., & Zbieranek, J. (Eds.). (2010). Democracy in Poland 1989–2009: Challenges for the future. Institute of Public Affairs. Molek-Kozakowska, K. (2011). Territorialization in political discourse: A pragma-linguistic study of Jerzy Buzek’s inaugural speeches. In M. Pawlak & J. Bielak (Eds.), New perspectives in language, discourse and translation studies (pp. 177–188). Springer. Molek-Kozakowska, K. (2017). A civilization of death: Argumentative and rhetorical strategies in the Catholic Church’s position on biotechnology. In A. R. Knapik, K. Buczek, P. P. Chruszczewski, R. L. Lanigan, & J. R. Rickford (Eds.), Ways to religion (pp. 129–143). International Communicology Institute.

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Nał˛ecz, T. (2017). The guardians of the republic: Presidents 1989–2015. Polityka. (in Polish). Napiórkowski, M. (2019). Turbopatriotism. Wydawnictwo Czarne. (in Polish). O˙zóg, K. (2013). About some rhetorical mechanisms in political populism. Poradnik J˛ezykowy, 6, 35–43. (in Polish). Polkowska, L. (2015). The language of the right. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszy´nskiego. (in Polish). Wasilewski, J. (2012). Polish stories: Narrative rhetoric. Studio headmade. (in Polish). Zieli´nska, K. (2018). Fighting for hegemony? Religion in the Polish public sphere through examples of parliamentary debates. Wydawnictwo UJ. (in Polish).

Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska is Associate Professor and Head of Department of English at Institute of Linguistics, University of Opole, Poland, and Senior Research Fellow at Department of Creative Communication, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania. With over 80 published articles and chapters, and 7 authored or co-edited monographs, she specializes in political discourse, journalism and mediated communication, rhetoric and critical literacy. She co-edits the journal Res Rhetorica (https://resrhetorica.com). Agnieszka Kampka is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at Institute of Sociological Sciences and Pedagogy, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland. She is the author of journal articles and book chapters in the fields of political and visual rhetoric, and the author, editor, and co-editor of 10 books and monographs, including Persuasion in political language [in Polish] 2009; Public debate. Changes in social communication standards [in Polish] 2014, Rhetoric, Knowledge and the Public Sphere 2016. She is the chief editor of the journal Res Rhetorica (https://resrhetorica.com).

Chapter 8

A Tale of Two Prime Ministers: The Influence of Greek Culture in Post-Crises Political Speech Christos Kostopoulos

8.1 Introduction The relationship between a nation’s culture and political speech has generated research that focuses on different loci of examination. Researchers explore how different national cultures impact the reception of political speeches and the levels of participation by the audience in the context of Japan (Bull & Feldman, 2011), and of South Korea (Choi et al., 2016). Furthermore, Feldman et al. (2015) consider how national culture and norms of Japanese politics affect the tendency of politicians to equivocate, demonstrating the links between cultural factors and political speech. However, there has been less research so far in the process under which a nation’s culture can influence the content of political speeches and no research so far that investigates how Greek political culture is employed in the political speeches of the country’s leaders. This past decade has been one of the most politically significant periods in modern Greek history, marked by a succession of crises. The beginning of the decade coincided with the eruption of the debt crisis spanning a period of nine years. In 2015, Greece became one of the hotspots of the European Migrant Crisis. During this decade Greece experienced cataclysmic shifts on every level, including the liquidation of a political landscape that was stable for more than thirty years (Lyrintzis, 2005). This political landscape was coined the metapoliteysi era, appearing after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974 (Voulgaris, 2002), characterized as a ‘two-party system’ dominated by the center-left PASOK and the right-wing Nea Dimokratia (ND) (Pappas, 2003). The debt crisis acted as a catalyst for the end of the dominance of these two parties at the beginning of the past decade, giving way to a new equilibrium in Greek politics in the second half of the decade. C. Kostopoulos (B) Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University Malaysia, Miri, Malaysia

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This new equilibrium continued to involve the ND as the dominant right-wing party, but now within the metapolitefsi the new opposite pole of the system is Syriza, a party of the left. Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras was Prime Minister of Greece from February 2015 until June 2019 and ND’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the incumbent from July 2019 onwards. This chapter addresses the gap in political speech research by investigating the contribution of culture to the frames of the last two prime ministers of Greece, Tsipras and Mitsotakis, evaluating how these frames fit within the overall context of Greek political culture. To achieve that goal a qualitative frame analysis has been performed on their political speeches as prime ministers, addressing a twofold research question: what cultural devices have the last two Greek prime ministers employed in the frames found in their political speeches, and how do these frames fit in the overall context of Greek political culture?

8.2 Greek Political Culture Charalambis and Demertzis (1993) argue that Greek political culture differs considerably from mainstream West European political cultures. The understanding of Greek political culture has largely been influenced by the ‘cultural dualism’ thesis that has been explicated by Nikiforos Diamandouros (1994). This thesis sees Greek political culture as one divided between modernizing and traditionalist camps, and it has become a widely accepted theoretical framework for the interpretation of the modern Greek political culture (Triandafyllidou et al., 2013, p. 3). Diamandouros (1994, p. 8) argues that the introduction of Western institutions during the construction of the Greek state came with “their grafting onto traditional and precapitalist, indigenous structures”, that ultimately led to “intense social, political, and cultural struggles in which potential beneficiaries and potential losers in the redefinition of power relations within Greece played the central role.” Out of those struggles came distinct cultures for the two main camps. The first, labelled the “underdog culture”, belongs to the traditionalist camp, that Diamandouros (1994, p. 15) argues belongs to “very extensive, traditional, more introverted, and least competitive strata and sectors of Greek society.” This cultural predisposition stresses tradition, influenced by the country’s Byzantine and Ottoman history, and is seen as one of the main ideological sources of resistance towards modernization and Europeanization (Diamandouros, 1994). Mouzelis (1994) further specifies the underdog culture, arguing that it contains two distinct types: the clientelist and populist versions, with the latter placing the people as an oppressed underdog. On the other hand, the culture of the modernizing camp is influenced by ideas from the Enlightenment and seeks social, political, and economic reforms that will place Greece firmly in the international and European systems. However, the political identities of Greek citizens cannot be understood in an either/or manner, when it comes to this “cultural dualism.” Stavrakakis (2002, p. 47) argues: “In Greece, it is not unusual for social subjects and institutions to behave in a ‘modernizing’ way on one occasion and in a ‘traditionalist’ way in the next.”

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Mouzelis (1994) further points to the ambiguities of Greek identity that make everything coming from Europe an object of simultaneous admiration and hate. Herzfeld (2002, p. 25) describes this ambivalent relation as “crypto-colonialism.” Malakos (2013) argues that the recent debt crisis has revitalized the populist and Eurosceptic elements of the underdog political culture, whereas Vasilopoulou and her colleagues (2013) identified an exploitation of populist underdog narratives by both left and right political parties in Greece. However, Ntampoudi (2014) challenges the notion that the underdog political culture is necessarily antithetical to Greece’s position in the European framework. Instead, she argues that “the kind of Euroscepticism met in Greece is not a radicalized one, but rather what we could call a ‘conditional’ one, based on a support that means to be granted only if certain conditions are met” (Ntampoudi, 2014, p. 3). Ultimately, Ntampoudi’s (2014) research problematizes the Eurosceptic character of the Greek underdog political culture, demonstrating the nuances of subjectivity and political identity and the possibility of the Greek underdog culture existing as a compatible part of European political culture. The Orthodox religion and church have been another important element of Greek political culture. Stavrakakis (2002, p. 35) explains the forms of Greek Church politicization during the twentieth century: During the First World War National Schism, the Church sided with the King against the reformer Prime Minister, Venizelos, who was excommunicated and anathematized by the Archbishop in 1916. The Church played an active role in the ideological aspect of the struggle against communism during the Civil War (1946-49). It was also largely obedient to the quasireligious ideology (‘a Greece of Christian Greeks’) introduced by the Colonels’ dictatorship (1967-74).

Further, exploring the links between Orthodoxy and nationalism in Greece, Chrysoloras (2004, p. 52) identified a hegemonic form of national discourse, a ‘Heleno-Christian nationalism’ with four main nodal propositions: a) There is a unified history of one Greek nation starting from the pre-Homeric era, through to Classical Greece, the Hellenistic epoch, Byzantium, and continuing in modern Greece; b) The nation is bound together by geography, history, language, and religion; c) being Orthodox Christian is an almost necessary pre-condition for being Greek; d) The Greek nation is superior to almost any other nation in the world since Greeks are the heirs of almost all the great civilizations of the West.

Additionally, Greece is often seen and described as a populist democracy with a deeply polarized political culture (Pappas, 2014). A crucial element of Greek history that influences political culture is the legacy of the Greek Civil War (1945–1949) that has influenced party polarization and ideological antagonisms ever since (Andreadis & Stavrakakis, 2019). Furthermore, the legacy of PASOK and Andreas Papandreou, the founder of PASOK who dominated Greek politics in the 1980s left a mark on Greek political culture. PASOK “adopted an openly and consistently confrontational political strategy” (Kalyvas, 1997, p. 84), whereas their main opponent, Nea Dimokratia, used “discourse which presented the social and political space as divided into two opposed fields” (Lyrintzis, 1987, p. 671). The divisions of the Greek civil

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war could still be identified in this era, in the words of Pridham and Verney (1991, p. 46) as “the Right was depicted as one and indivisible from the collaborationist Security Battalions of the Second World War through the Civil War, the subsequent repressive parliamentary regime and then the military dictatorship, up to its most recent reincarnation as New Democracy.” On the other hand, ND framed PASOK as an agent of subversion of Greek democracy (Kalyvas, 1997, p. 88). Andreadis and Stavrakakis (2019) demonstrate that this polarization subsided during the 1990s and 2000s due to the convergence of the policies of the two parties, up until the eruption of the debt crisis in 2009. With the electoral liquidation of PASOK and the elevation of Syriza in its place, party polarization grew again due to the party of the Left stepping in as a representative of those hit by the austerity policies of the establishment (Andreadis & Stavrakakis, 2019). Syriza’s discourse set a new blend of “anti-colonial patriotism often stressing the ‘pride’ and ‘dignity’ of the impoverished Greek people, as opposed to oppressing power-elites within and outside the debt-ridden country” (Katsambekis & Stavrakakis, 2017, p. 401). However, Syriza’s agreement to a third memorandum, signals yet another turning point for Greek politics with seemingly lower levels of party polarization. This new era has a heightened focus on the personalization of political leaders and an increasing depoliticization (Poulakidakos & Giannouli, 2019), focusing more on the personas of the party leaders who are also the main focus of this chapter.

8.2.1 Cultural Frames in Political Communication Framing theory is optimally placed for an investigation of culture’s contributions to political speech, as politicians need to make use of frames that exist within a given culture in order to promote their preferred interpretations of social reality. Framing was introduced as a concept in sociology by Goffman (1974) who understood frames as interpretative schemas that individuals employ in order to make sense of the world they inhabit. These interpretative schemas help individuals to classify information and form logical connections between said information. Entman (1993) explained that the framing involves a process of selecting some aspects of reality and making them more noticeable in a communication text. Framing is a significant concept in the field of political communication, as political and social realities are complex matters that political actors are trying to intentionally express in simpler terms that bring forward their preferred positions and mental connections on a given issue. Matthes (2012, p. 249) has eloquently described the process of framing in political communication by arguing that: The key idea is that strategic actors, journalists, and audiences do not simply reflect or transport the political and social realities. In contrast, politics, issues and events are subject to different patterns of selections and interpretations. These interpretations of issues are negotiated, contested, and modified over time. In light of this, frames are selective views on issues, views that construct reality in a certain way leading to different evaluations and recommendations.

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Therefore, political actors, such as the ones investigated in this chapter, actively try to frame social reality in the hopes that their preferred framing of a political issue will dominate alternative framings in the media battlefield and guide how the audience thinks about the issue at hand. Van Gorp (2007) viewed frames as situated within culture, and argues that the repertoire of frames is found externally of individuals who only make use of these cultural phenomena, applying and magnifying them in their communication texts. Matthes (2012, pp. 248–249) explained that frames “are part of culture, they guide how the elite construct information, they affect journalists’ information selection, they are manifest in media texts, and they influence cognitions and attitudes of audience members.” Therefore, frames are cultural repositories from which elite political actors draw in order to construct or interpret information, and ultimately make an impact on the individual schemata of their audiences. Political actors can be understood as sponsors of particular frames with the ultimate goal of influencing the media, in order to push their preferred framings of reality by strategic decision making in the process of announcing their viewpoints (Van Gorp, 2007). The frames used by these sponsors are persuasive instruments that Tewksbury and his colleagues (2000, p. 806) called “advocate frames.” Van Gorp (2007) argued that frames in culture get embedded in media content when journalists construct a news message in such a way that many elements refer to that frame. In the same manner, frames in culture can be reconstructed through an analysis of the content of political speeches, where they get embedded when politicians construct their messages in such a way that many elements refer to that frame. Then the frame can be represented as a “frame package” (Van Gorp, 2007, p. 64), composed by manifest framing devices, manifest or latent reasoning devices, and an implicit cultural phenomenon that displays the package as a whole. The frame is held together under a central organizing theme that usually is reflected through a cultural phenomenon such as an archetype, a mythical figure, a value, or a narrative. The framing devices manifest in the text can be word choices, metaphors, exemplars, descriptions, arguments, and visual images that point to the same core idea. Finally, the frame package is completed by the reasoning devices that define and understand an issue (Van Gorp, 2007). These reasoning devices consist of Entman’s (1993, p. 52) definition of frames: “Frames, then, define problems—determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits… diagnose causes—identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgments—evaluate causal agents and their effects; and suggest remedies—offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects. Such an analysis of frames in culture as they are embedded in political speeches can shed light on the influence that a national political culture has on the content of political talk by bringing forward the cultural devices employed by politicians to frame their speeches. But at the same time, the investigation of these frames and their devices can shed light on what the frames themselves reflect about the country’s wider political culture during a specific time frame.

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8.3 Methodology To answer the research question, political speeches from Alexis Tsipras, who served two terms as prime minister (2015–2019), and the incumbent Kyriakos Mitsotakis, are analyzed. Their political speeches were collected from the official website primem inister.gr, with a time frame between January 2015 until February 2021. Speeches from specific events were selected, including: the inauguration speeches of both prime ministers, annual budget speeches, the annual speech of the prime minister at the International Expo in Thessaloniki, the addresses of the prime ministers in the U.N. and the European Parliament, and addresses to international forums such as the Greek-Arab forum. In total, twenty-two speeches of Tsipras were analyzed and seventeen of Mitsotakis. The unit of analysis was the complete speech, but there was a consideration for multiple frames coexisting within a unit. A qualitative frame analysis was conducted on the dataset in order to reconstruct advocacy frames that included cultural and reasoning devices. The cultural devices are of particular interest in this research as they indicate the contribution of the national culture to the speeches’ contents. This approach is inductive, allowing the researcher to tackle political speeches without a particular set of pre-defined frames, so that the reconstructed frames emerge from meticulous analysis. Such an approach has been criticized for relying on small samples and for being difficult to reproduce; however, it can offer deep insights and a more focused level of analysis (De Vreese, 2005), thus shedding light on the finer details of culture’s contribution to the content of the speeches. Furthermore, the qualitative approach “tends to give greater emphasis to the cultural and political content of news frames and how they draw upon a shared store of social meanings” (Reese, 2010, p. 18). Therefore, the qualitative approach is more suitable for bringing to the fore the cultural significance of the frames. To reconstruct the frame packages, Van Gorp’s (2007) approach was preferred as it allows the dissection of political and cultural meanings attached to the frames, therefore enabling the researcher to understand the contribution of culture to the construction of the frame. To identify the reasoning devices of the frame, Entman’s (1993) definition of frame functions was employed as a template. Various framing devices were also uncovered that pointed to the same core idea, and each frame was bound together under the heading of a central organizing cultural theme. The frames were then analyzed with a microanalysis process that investigates their constituent elements, focusing especially on the cultural devices that point to the contribution of culture in the construction of the frame. This analysis of the frames answers the research question, for by looking at the cultural devices of each frame the contribution of Greece’s culture to the content of the political speeches is revealed.

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8.4 Findings 8.4.1 The Contribution of Culture to the Frames of Mitsotakis The analysis of the speeches of Kyriakos Mitsotakis yields six frames (Table 8.1), that address specific high-profile issues such as the aftermath of the Prespes agreement with the Republic of North Macedonia (reached on June 12, 2018, resolving a long-standing dispute over the latter’s name), the pandemic of COVID-19, and the tensions with Turkey over the economic zones of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and migration, as well as the overall political positions of the government. Starting with the ‘Modernization’ frame that reflects the modernizing camp mentioned in the duality thesis of Diamandouros (1994), there is evidence of the contribution of Greek culture to the speeches of Mitsotakis through the employment of several cultural devices. Mitsotakis employs the words of Eleftherios Venizelos— a major, historical, political figure in Greece with a legacy as a great reformer and modernizer and also a relative through marriage to the Mitsotakis family—to emphasize his point about modernizing Greece. He mentions in a speech given on September 7, 2019 during the International Expo of Thessaloniki: In this line we will move on, guided by the words – consignment of Venizelos. Our struggle will be again “difficult” [dyscherís], but our persistence will remain “indomitable” [akatávlitos]. But the prizes of the struggle, such as then, are now “high” [ypsilá] : United the Greeks will bring back our homeland in the way of progress!

Historical references appear to be important in this frame, with Mitsotakis further employing cultural devices from ancient and modern Greek history, driving forward the message of modernizing and reintroducing Greece to the global stage after the economic crisis. Mitsotakis mentioned in his address to the U.N. on September 25, 2020: “Aristotle wrote that ‘Nature never does anything needlessly.’ In other words, nature compels us to innovate. We do not have a choice,” whereas in another speech he uses the cultural device of the Acropolis (the ancient citadel located above the city of Athens, containing the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historic significance) by saying: “By lighting the fortress of the Acropolis, we send a signal of standard defense to anything that endangers our course towards progress.” The cultural device of the Greek revolution is all the more prominent given that in 2021 Greece celebrates 200 years since the eruption of the struggle. In his inauguration speech on July 20, 2019 in the Greek Parliament Mitsotakis employs this historical reference in order to call for a new “revolution” for a better, modern Greece: On the way for the Greece that we deserve, let’s make our first station of progress the anniversary of 200 years from the Revolution of 1821. And as Kipling says, in one of my favorite poems “If”: “let’s trust ourselves when the world does not believe in us… and let us dream without becoming slaves to our dreams.” Let’s start our own Revolution for the bright Greece of the 21st century. United, we can do it! [enoménoi, to boroúme!]

Cultural devices

‘Titanic’ simile, Venizelos, Acropolis, Aristotle ‘Modernization’ narrative, ‘Black Sheep of Europe’ narrative, ‘Ankylosis’ simile, ‘Reintroduce Greece’ narrative, ‘Revolution narrative’

Venizelos, Alexander the Great, ‘Authentic Hellenic Macedonia’ narrative, ‘Macedonia as a brand’ narrative

‘Borders of Europe’ narrative, Water similes, Battle of Salamis, Paradise simile, invasion simile, shield simile

Frames

‘Modernization’ Frame

‘Macedonia as a Brand’ Frame

‘Defend Europe’ Frame

Table 8.1 Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ frames

Populism, Syriza, fear of reforms

Causal attribution

Uncontrollable migration, mass immigration, threat to national security

Erdogan, War, poverty, Turkey

North Macedonia falsely Trade antagonists, uses the brand name, The Syriza Prespes agreement has problems

Bureaucracy, Labor Market lacks flexibility, Lack of growth plan, Last in technology and innovation

Problem definition

Respect human rights, solidarity, humanitarianism

Unlawful business practices, Responsible patriotism

Society embraces entrepreneurship and innovation, History of innovation, Rejection of false promises

Moral evaluation

(continued)

Border controls, European co-operation, Share the burden, EU-Turkey deal

Growth, Communicative campaign for the Macedonia brand

Change governance, digitalization, growth, foreign investment, flexibility

Treatment recommendation

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Bomb simile, Attack simile, Siege simile, Plague of Athens

Bridge simile, Promised Land, Historical ties

‘Pandemic as an Attack’ Frame

‘Mediterranean Neighbourhood of Co-operation’ Frame

Years of suspicion, refugee crisis

Growth slows down, the weaker suffer more, National Health System on the bring

Invasion simile, ‘Greece Threats to peace is a peaceful country’ narrative, Pericles, ‘Our position in the map’ narrative

‘Our Position in the Map’ Frame

Problem definition

Cultural devices

Frames

Table 8.1 (continued)

Policies of previous governments

Covid 19 pandemic

Turkey

Causal attribution Diplomacy, Reinforce Armed Forces, International Court of Hague

Treatment recommendation

Welcome foreign investment

Co-operate with the Arab world, foreign investments

Technological revolution, Individual responsibility, solidarity Faster reform, Innovations

National Unity, International Law values

Moral evaluation

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Historical references are also important cultural devices for the “Macedonia as a brand” frame, which is concerned with the Macedonian question, one of the main electoral issues in 2019 after the signing of the Prespes agreement between Greece and the Republic of North Macedonia. Mitsotakis once again employs Venizelos in his speech on the Thessaloniki Summit conference attended by the prime ministers of North Macedonia and Bulgaria on November 14, 2019, to describe his vision for the relationship of Greece with its northern neighboring countries: Because I believe – and I will end on that – in a conclusion that comes from the past: “With the Balkan people, whether we want it or not, we will live in the future as neighbors. The common interest compels the elementary duty, through mutual concessions, to establish good relations.” These words are written – it was November again – but of 1909, by Eleftherios Venizelos in the “Kirikas of Chania” newspaper, with their publisher-director, Kyriakos son of Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

However, given that one of the important issues regarding the Macedonian question was the safeguarding of the Macedonian heritage as a part of Hellenic history, Mitsotakis in the same speech employs Alexander the Great to connect history with a commercial brand for Macedonian products in the international markets: “An international indicator that will signify the origin of all goods from the Hellenic Macedonia, the great Macedonia of Alexander the Great.” The “Defend Europe” and “Pandemic as an attack” frames respond to the crises caused by migration and the pandemic. Mitsotakis once again makes use of historical cultural devices to drive forward his framing of the crises by framing migrants as invaders that threaten European civilization. In his speech at the presentation of new floodlights at the Acropolis in Athens on September 30, 2020 Mitsotakis also employs the historical reference to the battle of Salamis (a naval battle fought between an alliance of Greek city-states and the Persian Empire in 480 BCE, resulting in a decisive victory for the Greeks): “At the same time, the floodlights turn towards the walls of the Acropolis, that started being built after the battle of Salamis. Today, 2500 years after this victory, history seems to complement itself. Because if the Greeks did not push back the invaders from the East, classical philosophy and Democracy would not follow after.” In the same speech, Mitsotakis refers once more to the classical past by making a simile between the pandemic and the plague of Athens in order to underline the importance of science and public action: In the great plague of ancient Athens, the citizens turned desperately to Pallas Athena to banish evil. In the pandemic that has put the whole world under siege, our refuge and weapon are the values of solidarity and equality that the democratic state teaches. Those carved on the temple of Athena by Phidias, Iktinos, and Kallikratis. And those that were transmuted to the medical advice of Hippocrates, but also the political insight of Pericles. In the combination of science with public action.

Historical references are important cultural devices in the “Mediterranean Neighborhood of Co-operation” frame, which addresses the relations between Greece and the Arab world. Mitsotakis mentions in his address to the Arab Greek Economic Forum on February 12, 2021 in Athens that “Greeks and Arabs have old bonds,

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a rich past that is lost in the depths of history. This past promises an even better future.” Whereas the “Mediterranean Neighborhood of Co-operation” frame sees the geographical position of Greece on the map as an advantage, the “Our position in the map frame” that addresses the tensions in the relationship with Turkey regarding naval zones in the Eastern Mediterranean that flared up in 2019 and 2020, views geography as a problem and once again uses a reference from Greece’s classical past to drive forward the point that the government needs to spend on defense contracts and on the reinforcement of the armed forces. Mitsotakis in his speech addressed to the Greek Parliament during the discussion of the budget on December 18, 2019 uses a phrase of Pericles, an influential Greek statesman and orator who led Athens roughly from 461 to 429 B.C., in the original ancient Greek: “But the biggest issue they will face will be the lack of money [tí ton chrimáton spánei kolýsontai], says Pericles for the Spartans, addressing the Ecclesia right before the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Exactly to underline that the bad economic situation of the city hinders its armor and diminishes its range.

8.4.2 The Contribution of Culture to the Frames of Tsipras The leader of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, applies five frames in the political speeches that he gave as the prime minister of Greece (Table 8.2), addressing issues such as the European migrant crisis, and the deal with the troika for a new memorandum in 2015, but also reflecting the overall political stance promoted by his government. Tsipras also makes use of a number of cultural devices in his speeches. For instance, during his speech in the Greek Parliament on the 2016 budget on December 6, 2015, he starts with the “modernization” frame, reminiscent of the modernizing camp in Diamandouros’ (1994) cultural duality thesis. Here Tsipras makes use of Kapodistrias, who was the first Governor of the Republic of Greece, to point out that reforms in Greece have stagnated for ages: “Lastly an announcement repeated since the time of Kapodistrias is finally turned into action.” Tsipras also makes use of an ancient Greek myth by mentioning the cleaning of Avgeias’ stables by Hercules to point out during his speech in the 82nd International Expo of Thessaloniki on September 11, 2017 that his government will “clean out” corruption from the public transportation system of Thessaloniki: “And of course in OASTH we will also be judged from cleaning the Avgeas’ stables [tin ekkathárisi tis Kóprou tou Avgeía].” It is remarkable that whereas Syriza was accused of being a populist power that threatened Greece’s position in the EU, the modernization frame is prominent, and Tsipras makes use of a number of narratives that turn the accusation on its head. Tsipras mentions on a number of occasions that Greece is seen as “the black sheep of Europe” because of the previous administrations, and that Greece is lagging in many key areas behind European countries. Therefore, although Syriza is thought of as a political force of the “underdog culture” (Diamandouros, 1994), the prime minister’s speeches convey modernizing devices. For example, Tsipras says during his speech in the Greek Parliament’s discussion on the 2018 budget on December 20,

Cultural devices

“Radical Transformation” narrative, “Lagging behind Europe” narrative, Black Sheep simile, patient simile, Kapodistrias, Avgeias’ Stables

“Greece is a node country” narrative, Water similes, fortress similes, Berlin Wall, WWII, “Progressive Europe” narrative

Frames

“Modernization” Frame

“Greece as a Node Country” Frame

Table 8.2 Alexis Tsipras’ frames

Crisis, old political establishment

Causal attribution

Refugee flows, racism and Conservative parties, xenophobia, destabilized racist and xenophobic area voices in Europe

The Greek economy is lacking competitiveness, tax evasion, unemployment, corruption, clientelism, Public administration is not digitized

Problem definition

Humanitarianism, solidarity, humanitarian EU

Political Stability, patriotic duty, trust

Moral evaluation

(continued)

EU-Turkey deal, Sharing the burden

Attract foreign investments, innovation, growth, a different productive model, reforms

Treatment recommendation

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Ruins simile, “Old vs New narrative”, Greek revolution, “For the many” narrative, Religious metaphors

Greek revolution, Poverty, unemployment, Kassandra, Ifigenia, crisis, austerity Holy Alliance, Zeus and Europa myth, Antigoni, bomb simile, Middle ages

“For the Many” Frame

“Change Europe” Frame

Social injustice, corruption, clientelism, mismanagement, entanglement of interests

Clientelism, bankruptcy, ND destroyed the welfare state, neoliberalism, populism

War similes, Civil War, Ethnikofrosini, Junta, Armaggedon simile, Cast simile

“ND as a Villain” Frame

Problem definition

Cultural devices

Frames

Table 8.2 (continued)

ND does not believe in European ideals

Moral evaluation

Markets, memoranda, technocrats, elites

Pride and dignity, Europe of Democracy, European solidarity

Neoliberal policies, Democratic reforms, oligarchy, conservatives social justice, power to the people

ND, crisis, Mitsotakis

Causal attribution

A new contract, debt reduction

Redistribution of wealth, support the welfare state, protect the weak

Syriza will repair the damage

Treatment recommendation

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2017: “We received a country with empty coffers, the ‘black sheep’ [mávro próvato] of Europe”, a metaphor that arguably demonstrates Herzfeld’s (2002) description of the ambivalent relationship between Greece and Europe in the Greek culture. Moving on to the “Greece as a node” frame, Tsipras addresses the migrant crisis, calling upon the humanitarian values of Europe in opposition to xenophobia and racism. To do that, Tsipras employs cultural devices from European history, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and World War I & II. Tsipras comments during his first cabinet address on September 25, 2015: “If the vision of a unified Europe is the one that came after the fall of the Berlin Wall, today we have a Europe that once again is erecting walls.” In another speech given on the island of Psara for the celebrations of the anniversary of the Greek Revolution on March 25, 2018, Tsipras mentions: “In the course of the years gone by since then, when oblivion allowed to the old to return, meaning every time it allowed to obscurantism, to retrogression, to nationalisms to come forward, we had great tragedies, in the First and the Second World War.” Although the references that Tsipras employs here are not related to Greek culture, it is nonetheless interesting that a political leader who was initially seen as a threat to the European position of Greece summons examples from European history as a function of the Greek parliament, arguably echoing the sentiments of Herzfeld (2002) about the ambivalent relationship of the Greek identity with Europe. The third frame, “ND as a villain”, is a polarizing frame employed to directly frame ND as a continuation of the repressive right-wing state that occurred after the Greek Civil War and the Colonel’s junta. This tactic is reminiscent of Andreas Papandreou’s PASOK polarizing tactics in the 1980s as described by Pridham and Verney (1991). A number of historical references are employed as cultural devices. Addressing the leader of opposition Mitsotakis, Tsipras brings up the history of exile of the Left in Greece during the parliamentary discussions for the 2019 budget on December 19, 2018: “You know, Mister Mitsotakis, the last time that some in this land decided to be done with the Left for what it believes in was when they opened up the barren islets and the prisons and Greeks were split up and divided to nationalists [ethnikófrones] and national traitors!”. Another historical reference is employed in the parliamentary discussion for the 2018 budget on December 20, 2017, by using the metaphor of a “cast”, which is reminiscent of Georgios Papadopoulos, prime minister of the junta regime (1967– 1974), who proclaimed that Greece was a patient that needed to be set in a cast: “This is the country that we received, the one that you set in the cast [gýpso] of depression and repression.” An historical reference to the Greek Civil War is also employed in the parliamentary discussion for the 2019 budget speech on December 19, 2018 to accuse ND of reproducing the slogans of the convicted neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn: “After Mr. Samaras, who was reminded of the era of the Civil War and reproduced the slogans of the Golden Dawn, in relation to Aris Velouchiotis and caviar and all the other nice and cute things written by Golden Dawners on their website.” Although the references made here concern rather recent events, these events are defining moments in modern Greek history that have given rise to the division of Greek political culture along a Left–Right axis, and have given birth to

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two distinct political cultures, Leftist and Rightist, that have very different readings of Greece’s history and culture. The Greek revolution of 1821 is an important historical reference for Tsipras, as it is for Mitsotakis, albeit in a rather different light. Given the overall framing of Syriza as the new political power that is struggling against the old establishment of Greece, Tsipras brings up important places of sacrifice of the Greek revolutionaries and conflates the Greek revolution as a fight between the new and the old, bringing up a famous Gramsci quote, in his speech from the island of Psara on the commemoration of the Greek revolution in March 25, 2018: “Psara, Mesologgi, Alamana and the other places of sacrifice were at the time the last bloody actions of the old, at a time that the old was dying and the new struggled to be born.” Additionally, Tsipras also employs a religious reference in the form of a parable used by Jesus, when addressing a religious figurehead during his speech in the Thessaloniki International Expo on September 11, 2017, to stress the importance of redistribution of wealth: “If we produce ten chitons, your Holiness, you that are familiar with parables I believe you will agree, it’s not financially efficient, neither socially functional, nor morally just, that the few will enjoy the nine, and all the many will freeze in the rags of the one chiton.” The final frame employed by Tsipras addresses the negotiations between the Greek government and the EU regarding the new lending agreement and is rife with references to the classical past and the Greek revolutionary war. Speaking about the possibility of a Greek exit from the Eurozone, Tsipras summons the myth of Iphigenia (Iphigenia was offered as a human sacrifice by her father Agamemnon, king of Mycenae to appease the goddess Artemis that was punishing Agamemnon by acting upon the winds), making a simile with Greece being sacrificed for the sake of the Union, in his inaugural speech in the Greek Parliament on February 10, 2015: “Many speak about the myth of Iphigenia. But which myth of Iphigenia? Iphigenia was sacrificed so good winds would come. Is there any serious person that believes that a rupture between Greece and the Eurozone would release good winds and positive energy in the Eurozone?” Another myth is employed as a cultural device by Tsipras while addressing the main demonstration of the supporters of the NO campaign for Greece’s referendum on the proposal of a new lending agreement by the European Commission on 4 July 2015 in Syntagma Square (Constitution Square) in central Athens. Tsipras summons the myth of the snatching of Europe by Zeus: “From this land the technocrats of austerity want now to snatch Europe once again.” Finally, in a simile between Syriza’s struggle for a new deal with the troika and the Greek revolutionary war, Tsipras refers to the Holy Alliance in a speech made in the National and Kapodestrian University of Athens in a conference under the title “The Greek revolution as a European Event” on 26 March 2015: Therefore, against the Europe of Revolutions, after the Napoleonic Wars comes forth the Holy Alliance that wants Europe founded not on principles, but on rules, protected by a kind of interstate agreement, by the subversive values that were spreading rapidly. In the framework of this hegemony, the Great Powers, that for reasons of balance thought that the old Ottoman order needed to be protected under any circumstances, they dealt with the Greek Revolution as an unpredictable and dangerous subversion and in a sense as an “anti-European event” [anti-Evropaïkó gegonós].

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In this simile, Syriza is perceived as an anti-European force compared to the Greek Revolution being seen as an “anti-European event”, and the reluctance of European countries to accede to Syriza’s positions is compared with the Holy Alliance.

8.5 Discussion Having established the cultural devices employed in the speeches of the two prime ministers, this section will discuss how the frames fit in the wider context of Greek political culture. Starting with the frames of Mitsotakis, it is apparent that some of the facets of Greek political culture are still relevant in the post-crisis context. The “modernization” frame clearly fits into the “cultural dualism” thesis put forward by Diamandouros (1994), and that makes sense given that ND sees itself as a proEuropean reformist party. The frame itself echoes these ideals as it speaks of the need of modernization of the country through reform and digitalization, in order to catch up to Europe and of populism as an adversary. However, at the same time the devices employed in this frame, as well as the other frames applied by Mitsotakis, point to a more ambivalent picture and the more fluid identity that Stavrakakis (2002) mentions. The classical past references in the “modernization” frame, and more importantly the “Macedonia as a brand” frame, present a juggling between modernizing language on one occasion and a more “traditionalist” one in another. The references to classical Greece echo Chrysoloras’ (2004) “Heleno-Christian nationalism” and especially the nodal proposition of the Greek nation’s unified history starting from the pre-Homeric era and running all the way through to modern Greece. Indeed, historical references to classical Greece and the revolutionary struggle of 1821 run through all the frames employed by Mitsotakis. This can arguably be attributed to the diverse audience that votes for ND, which contains voters coming from the moderate Center, the populist Right, the liberal Right, and even includes elements of the nationalist Right. On the other hand, political polarization seems to have subsided in the post-crisis context. Although Syriza is still mentioned in the causal attribution dimension of Mitsotakis’ frames, there is no specific frame against Syriza, such as the ones found in the previous era (Kostopoulos, 2020). The inclusion of Syriza as an adversary is of course to be expected, given that Syriza is the party of the opposition and ND still employs a discourse that presents the political space as divided into two opposed fields as in the 1980s (Lyrintzis, 1987). However, in general political passions seem to be running lower, confirming Andreadis and Stavrakakis (2019), who view the signing of the third memorandum as yet another turning point for Greek politics given that the two parties have less polarized stances on matters of significance, at least during the specific periods under investigation. The frames of Tsipras also reflect Greek political culture. Despite Syriza being perceived as a part of the “underdog” culture (Diamandouros, 1994), especially in a distinct populist version (Mouzelis, 1994), the “modernization” frame paints a more complicated picture due to the leftist party acting as a representative of those struck

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by the economic crisis (Katsambekis & Stavrakakis, 2017). Tsipras argues in favor of the same modernization policies as Mitsotakis, and indeed returns the accusation on ND as a party that sustains the resistance towards modernization. To be sure, there are a number of populist devices used in this frame, as well as on the “For the many” frame, which would sustain that Tsipras’ speeches are at least addressing the underdog culture. The picture becomes even more complex if the “Change Europe” frame is considered. Although elements of the frame can be considered Eurosceptic and populist, the frame echoes Ntampoudi’s (2014) findings that the underdog political culture does not necessarily mean a rejection of Greece’s position in the European framework. Instead, Tsipras’ Euroscepticism is not a radical position but a nuanced and conditional one, putting forward a different vision of the EU with Greece being in rather than out. It is indeed interesting that in the “ND as a villain” frame ND is framed as being opposed to European values, in an attempt to turn the accusations on their head. It is plausible to think, however, that this is due to radicalized Euroscepticism still being a rather marginal position in Greek society, despite the economic crisis. The historical references in Tsipras’ speeches also reflect traditionalist elements of “Heleno-Christian nationalism” as there are a number of references to classical Greece and the revolutionary struggle of 1821—but interestingly enough, these are linked to different values than when employed by Mitsotakis. This can arguably be attributed to the divergent political stances of the two leaders. Tsipras also makes use of references to Greece’s more recent history and specifically to the Greek Civil War and the colonel’s regime, and this could be attributed to his party’s legacy as a party of the Left and as an attempt to differentiate itself from ND on a cultural level. Finally, the frames employed by Tsirpas point to the heightened polarization during the period under his tenure, which can be understood as the aftermath of the polarization observed by Andreadis and Stavrakakis (2019) after the debt crisis. However, it is an interesting finding that the causal attribution of Tsipras’ speeches refers mostly to systemic issues instead of ND, but at the same time there is a specific frame referring to ND in the archetype of the villain. The strategy of Tsipras is reminiscent of Andreas Papandreou “confrontational political strategy” (Kalyvas, 1997, p. 84). It is in the “ND as a villain” frame that the references to Greece’s recent past and the legacy of the Greek Civil War are made with the Right being depicted as indivisible from the Civil War onwards, once again reminding of PASOK’s communicative strategy (Pridham & Verney, 1991). In conclusion, this chapter analyzed speeches of the two last Greek prime ministers to assess their cultural devices and how the frames fit in the overall framework of the Greek political culture. A number of similar cultural devices are used by both prime ministers, especially those referring to Greece’s ancient past and revolutionary struggle, but at the same time these are connected with different values based on the political delineation of each prime minister. In the overall framework of Greek political culture both prime ministers appear to be in the modernizing camp, based on the cultural duality thesis, but as with the identities of Greek citizens it is difficult to classify the speeches safely in an either/or manner. Finally, regarding the polarization of Greek politics, it seems that from a start of heightened political passions in 2015

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when Tsipras became prime minister, 2021 is witness to a reduction in polarization, at least in the speeches of the prime ministers. However, with a new economic crisis exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic looming, further examination of polarization is merited.

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Ntampoudi, I. (2014). The Greek ‘underdog’ political culture: An anti-European political identity. Paper presented at the The Third Euroacademia International Conference: The European Union and the Politicization of Europe, Lisbon. Retrieved from http://euroacademia.eu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ioanna_Ntampoudi_The_ Greek_Underdog_Political_Culture_-_-An_Anti-European_Political_Identity.Pdf. Pappas, T. S. (2003). The transformation of the Greek party system since 1951. West European Politics, 26(2), 90–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402380512331341121. Pappas, T. S. (2014). Populism and crisis politics in Greece. Palgrave Pivot. Poulakidakos, S., & Giannouli, I. (2019). Greek political leaders on Instagram: Between “soft” and “hard” personalization. In A. Veneti, D. Jackson, & D. G. Lilleker (Eds.), Visual political communication (pp. 187–206). Palgrave Pivot. Pridham, G., & Verney, S. (1991). The coalitions of 1989–90 in Greece: Inter-party relations and democratic consolidation. West European Politics, 14(4), 42–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/014023 89108424876. Reese, S. (2010). Finding frames in a web of culture: The case of the war on terror. In P. D’Angelo & J. A. Kuypers (Eds.), Doing news framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives (pp. 17–42). Routledge. Stavrakakis, Y. (2002). Religious populism and political culture: The Greek case. South European Society and Politics, 7(3), 29–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608740708539632. Tewksbury, D., Jones, J., Peske, M. W., Raymond, A., & Vig, W. (2000). The interaction of news and advocate frames: Manipulating audience perceptions of a local public policy issue. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(4), 804–829. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900 007700406. Triandafyllidou, A., Gropas, R., & Kouki, H. (2013). Introduction: Is Greece a modern European country? In R. Gropas (Ed.), The Greek crisis and European modernity (pp. 1–24). Palgrave Pivot. Van Gorp, B. (2007). The constructionist approach to framing: Bringing culture back in. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 60–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00329_3.x. Vasilopoulou, S., Halikiopoulou, D., & Exadaktylos, T. (2013). Greece in crisis: Austerity, populism and the politics of blame. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 52(2), 388–402. https:// doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12093. Voulgaris, J. (2002). Greece in metapolitesfsi 1974–1990. Athens: Themelio (in Greek).

Christos Kostopoulos is Lecturer of Mass Communication at Curtin University, Sarawak Campus, Malaysia. He is the author of Journalism and Austerity: Digitization and Crisis During the Greek Memoranda (2020) and has also published journal articles and book chapters in the field of Media and Communication. His research focuses on media framing, journalism, and media systems analysis.

Chapter 9

Rhetoric, Culture, and Climate Wars: A Discursive Analysis of Australian Political Leaders’ Responses to the Black Summer Bushfire Crisis Nicholas Bromfield, Alexander Page, and Kurt Sengul

9.1 Introduction The ground can be parched, the trees desiccated and the atmospheric temperature soaring, but the flame itself goes from nothing to all-consuming in a matter of moments. (Celermajer, 2021, p. 177)

Over the spring and summer of 2019–2020, Australians watched as immense infernos tore across the continent with extraordinary scale. In its destruction, the Black Summer Bushfires took the lives of 33 people, razed 3000 homes, burned over 10.2 million hectares of land—“nearly double the area of any previous major bushfires in a [recorded Australian] fire season” (Davey & Sarre, 2020, p. 47)—and killed over three billion animals (van Eeden et al., 2020). An ecological and existential angst rattled the population, with 80% of Australians exposed to often hazardous levels of bushfire smoke, likely contributing to a further 429 premature deaths (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020a, p. 313). For many, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s decision to take a holiday in Hawaii during this destruction (Remeikis, 2019) while volunteer Australian and international personnel were battling the bushfires, symbolised his lack of political responsibility, leadership, and responsiveness to climate change insecurity and risk. In December 2019, Morrison would not be ‘panicked’ into new climate change policy as the fires raged, doubling down upon return from Hawaii N. Bromfield (B) Department of Government and International Relations, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] A. Page Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] K. Sengul Faculty of Education and Arts, The University of Newcastle, North Gosford, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_9

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when he stated on public radio: “I don’t hold a hose, mate, and I don’t sit in a control room” (Rowland, 2021, p. 21). This ecological and political crisis, and the absence of federal leadership, pierced an Australian policy environment in stasis. It focused the policy agenda on the effects of anthropogenic climate change for its own population and for the world following a decade of Australia’s climate policy wars (Flanagan, 2020) and drew attention squarely to parliamentary representatives and their failure to prepare for climate disaster, their response to the fallout, and the inevitable bushfire seasons to come. We use the Black Summer Bushfires as a case study to show how Australian party representatives both interact with, and instrumentally employ, Australian cultural discourses to orient their party and political practices toward the broader existential threat of climate change and its necessary policy response. To do this, we use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to evaluate and explain how each of these actors—Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Liberal Party of Australia, LPA), Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese (Australian Labor Party, ALP), Senator Richard Di Natale (The Australian Greens, GRN) and Senator Malcolm Roberts (Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, PHON)—used, navigated, and reproduced core tenets of Australian culture in subsequent media events and condolence speeches. We demonstrate how each actor also sought to capitalize upon the bushfire crisis by strategically positioning themselves, and their party, relative to the management of this event and imagined future calamity. The discourses and practices surrounding the Black Summer Bushfires acted as a proxy battle in Australia’s climate wars and ‘lost decade’ of climate policy inaction. From this we argue that Australian culture and its political results can be understood as an interaction between material practice and discursive rhetoric, utilizing this case study to demonstrate this theoretical point. To make this argument, we first introduce our theoretical framework of Australian culture and its nationalism and how this context situates discussions of climate change policy. Second, we describe the utility of critical discourse analysis as an approach, particularly in its assessment of media events and political speeches as politically constituted and constituting. Third, in evaluating these media events and condolences speeches, we show how the interaction of culture and rhetoric appear in response to the Black Summer Bushfire crisis relative to political strategy and framing enmeshed in uniquely Australian cultural motifs and mythology. In our final move, we explain how the political rhetoric assessed here discursively constitutes and contests the facts of climate change, within a context of ongoing colonialism in Australia, and interacts intersubjectively with material practice, as it extends into policy, institutions, and political behavior.

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9.2 Theoretical Framework: The Materiality and Discursivity of Australian Culture, Rhetoric, and Its Climate Wars This section outlines our understanding of Australian culture, how that helps us understand both its political language and climate wars, and finally, our theoretical understanding of the connection between political rhetoric and culture. We understand the meaning of the political, and thus political culture, broadly: encompassing the institutions, practices and processes of the state, but also as enmeshed in wider relationships of culture and power that permeate social practice and discourse (Smith, 2001, p. 5). Following Welch (2013), we understand political culture to exhibit tendencies of adaptive inertia: the ability to extend political culture practice into new settings, which can account for its persistence and resistance to change; and discursive fluidity: whereby discourses, if successful, create new ‘facts’ that we are obliged to incorporate into our ‘skill-set’ of practice. This intersubjective and dialectical relationship is echoed in our understanding of CDA (see below). What, then, is Australian culture and how is it central to understanding its political discourses? We point to four dominant conceptions of Australian culture and identity as foundational to our assessments: settler-colonialism, the frontier bushman myth, the martial nationalism of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), and multiculturalism. First, Australia is a racial state (Goldberg, 2002) where the colonizing process has not ceased. This is frequently termed settler-colonialism (Wolfe, 2006). The foundation of Australian political life is the theft of land originally occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and nations, justified through the legal myth of terra nullius: “a land empty of peoples, laws, and systems of governance” (Watson, 2015, p. 5). The establishment of white sovereignty, attempted erasure of First Nations sovereignties, and the ongoing exclusion/conditional inclusion of Indigenous peoples into Australian national identity, reproduces white material and discursive possessiveness over First Nations people, the state, and political culture (MoretonRobinson, 2015). However, settler-colonial sovereignty and its legitimacy can never be fully achieved in Australia due to the ongoing survival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, polities, and sovereignties (Page, 2020; Strakosch, 2015). This results in the Australian state making decisions largely without Indigenous peoples unless it serves the interests of (colonial) governance and its authority. Second is the Australian bush myth, a discursive pioneer myth closely connected to settler-colonialism, masculinity, and whiteness. The harsh environment and life on the frontier inspired a particular imaginary of Australian nationalism (Piccini, 2020). The bushman typifies unique Australian tropes: “the ‘typical Australian’ is a practical man [note the masculine nature of the bush myth], rough and ready in his manners and quick to decry any appearance of affection in others” (Ward, 1977, pp. 1–2). The frontier myth is closely intertwined with Australian material practices of developmentalism too, as “colonial forces violently displaced Indigenous populations in the process of ‘opening up’ land for more dense forms of production

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such as agriculture, forestry and mining. Trade in new commodities… underwrote settler population growth” (Pearse, 2018, p. 43). The Australian characteristics of practicality and “larrikin” irreverence, mischievousness and disrespect of authority (see Seal, 2004, p. 3) that evolved on the frontier were thus characteristics necessary to the conquest (and destruction) of the environment. Thirdly, these bush man attributes are celebrated in the martial nationalism of ANZAC and Australia’s war remembrance (Holbrook, 2020). This central and militarized national myth sees the nation ‘born’ in battle at Gallipoli, in the failed 1915/16 Dardanelles campaign during the First World War. In Australia, ANZAC has come to represent “a complex of masculine folk- and state-orientated Australian values: mateship, antiauthoritarianism, irreverence, and sardonicism, but also honour, duty, bravery, and selfless sacrifice. Women were maternal, and marginal, figures, selflessly offering their sons for sacrifice” (Bromfield, 2019, p. 1702). As such, the rough and ready bushman myth is synthesised with state-oriented values of duty and sacrifice (Seal, 2004), realized in discursive and material remembrance practice on the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing on April 25 each year. These accounts of Australian culture and identity all center whiteness, reflecting the racialized conceptions of nationhood embedded in settler-colonialism and enacted in policy with the White Australia policy, which effectively excluded non-European migration until the 1960s. In the 1970s, multiculturalism and equitable migration and settlement programs reshaped what Australianness meant, both discursively and materially. Multiculturalism in Australia has experienced varying levels of popular support over time (Elias et al., 2020; Smith, 2001) but is currently widely accepted. Nonetheless, the white complex of settler-colonialism, bush myth and ANZAC discourse and practice remains centered as an exemplar of typical ‘Australianness’ under multiculturalism (Elder, 2007, p. 137), and official discourses of national identity “remain predominantly classless, heteronormative and masculine, and Anglocentric” (Bromfield & Page, 2020, p. 204). Contestation over these cultural discourses and practices in Australia have taken the form of a culture war, or the intense, existentially framed, binary conflict between two value systems (Hunter, 1991). The culture wars in the Australian context begin to emerge in the 1980s, and in contrast to the religious moralism of American culture wars has a stronger connection to the forces of capital and neoliberalism (Abjorensen, 2009, pp. 65–67; Davis, 2014, p. 32; Ferguson, 2009). In Australia, culture wars are sustained by a loose network of like-minded, right-wing actors: politicians in the Liberal-National coalition and One Nation; think tanks like the Institute of Public Affairs; conservative media like Sky News, the News Corp newspapers, and Quadrant magazine; and business interests, especially the mining industry and energy sector. These actors target government funded institutions that purportedly represent the ‘elite’ and their leftist values. The culture wars over climate in Australia are a fight over meaning, mobilized across networks, policies, and sites of practice. The Australian ‘climate wars’ have been sustained by the same broad protagonist networks and targets as the Australian

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Table 9.1 Primary Australian climate and culture war discourses and signs Delegitimating discourses

Purpose and effect

Un-Australian/elitist/politically correct

Delegitimization and othering of political identity

Dogmatic/crazed

A delegitimating frame of irrationality/emotion/mental illness

Human vs environment binary

A false dichotomy that delegitimates environmental action by posing it as harmful to humans (humans come before the environment)

Communist/totalitarian/terrorist tendencies

Environmentalists possess transgressive ideologies and have anti-democratic/fringe/extreme views

Populist

A populist framing of ALP carbon pricing policy as unfair/technocratic/divorced from people’s lived experience

Contested or co-opted signs

Purpose and effect

Sustainability

Conflation of environmental sustainability with sustainability of forces of capital and profit

Conservation

‘Developmentalist’ conservation as management of natural environment for sustainable extraction vs environmental preservation that ‘locks-up’ resources and creates fire hazards

Environmentalism

A ‘greenwashing’ subversion of environmentalism’s challenge to capitalism by incorporating environmentalist discourses into economic discourses and economic discourse into environmentalist discourses

culture wars outlined above and are enabled and extended by discourse (Ferguson, 2009; Pearse, 2018). Climate war protagonists have therefore established and mobilized delegitimating discourses and have contested and co-opted environmental signs (see Table 9.1). This is a rhetorical move by climate war protagonists, extending into polarized public opinion and political behavior regarding climate policy in Australia (Kousser & Tranter, 2018; Pietsch & McAllister, 2010). A synthesis of Australian culture and culture war theory directs our attention to the dual discursive and material dynamics of culture during intense political and policy contestation. In other words, rhetoric and discourse constitutes, and contests, the public facts of climate change in Australia. These rhetorical practices, when successful, interact intersubjectively with the material world by extending the logic of these facts into practice. This materiality adapts, extends, and reproduces dominant forms of Australian culture in climate policy, political institutions and political behavior, as reflected in our data analysis below.

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9.3 Research Approach We employ critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine the relationship between culture and political rhetoric in Australia because of its capacity to “expose strategies that appear normal or neutral on the surface, but which may in fact be ideological and seek to shape the representation of events and persons for particular ends” (Machin & Mayr, 2012, p. 5). CDA analyzes the relationship between language and power and can broadly be defined as “discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social-power abuse and inequality are enacted, reproduced, legitimated, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context” (van Dijk, 2015, p. 466). Furthermore, CDA views discourse as socially constitutive as well as socially shaped; a dialectical relationship between a discursive event and all the elements of the situation(s), institution(s), and social structure(s) which frame it (Fairclough et al., 2011, p. 358). Therefore, CDA requires us “to consider the immediate and wider contexts which define the text. This includes the co-text, situational context as well as sociocultural and historical context” (Filardo-Llamas & Boyd, 2017, pp. 312–313). It is argued here that CDA’s focus on the intertextual and interdiscursive antecedents of a text will help us understand the intersubjective and dialectical relationship between adaptive material inertia and discursive fluidity as identified by Welch (2013). We sample two different moments during the Black Summer Bushfires: Four media statements, one by each actor, given during the first week of January 2020; and four condolence speeches, one by each actor, made from the Australian House of Representatives and the Senate on February 4, 2020. The sample size is consistent with CDA that privileges the in-depth study of a small number of texts (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The actors were selected to represent the broad ideological spectrum in Australia: the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison (LPA, Centre-Right); The Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese (ALP, Centre-Left); The Australian Greens Leader, Richard Di Natale (GRN, Environmental-Left); and One Nation Senator, Malcolm Roberts (PHON, Far-Right/Nativist). The media and speech transcripts used in this analysis are publicly available and were accessed from Hansard or via the Australian Parliamentary website (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, 2020c). The Hansard is the report of the proceedings of the Australian parliament and includes the Senate and House of Representatives. Importantly, Hansard transcripts are not verbatim transcriptions as they undergo a process of correction whereby minimal alterations can be made. As such, the analysis that follows focuses on the meso and macro level analysis of the text.

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9.4 Findings 9.4.1 Results Part I: Media Analysis, January 1–7, 2020 This section briefly analyzes four media statements by our actors, given in the first week of January 2020. This was arguably the height of the crisis, as several fire fronts joined and spread massively through the populous south eastern states of New South Wales and Victoria (Davey & Sarre, 2020). The actor’s statements here, while not intended to be exhaustive, are indicative exemplars of the climate war discourses, and key cultural motifs, surrounding the fires and each actor. Prime Minister Morrison, having faced widespread criticism over the Black Summer Bushfires, attempted to assuage its horror with the normalcy of sport and its ritual consumption. Sport is intimately connected to Australian culture (Elder, 2007, p. 289; Smith, 2001, p. 32) and Australian prime ministers have frequently supported national sports teams. Morrison (2020) gave remarks at a reception for Australian cricketers involved in the annual Sydney cricket test match, between Australia and New Zealand: Australians will be gathered whether it’s at the SCG [Sydney Cricket Ground] or around television sets all around the country… I think they’ll be encouraged by the spirit shown by Australians and the way that people have gone about remembering the terrible things that other Australians are dealing with at the moment.

Morrison’s rhetoric connects the temporality of cricket’s rhythms in the summer holiday calendar to frame the public narrative: despite crisis, life continues its regular rhythms. This strategic frame was controversial, as demonstrated by the hostile and heckling reception Morrison received the following day from locals in fire-affected New South Wales (NSW) village Cobargo, and viral footage of Nelligen, NSW, firefighter Paul Parker staring into the center of a TV camera and yelling “Tell the prime minister to go and get fucked from Nelligen” (Wahlquist, 2020). Leader of the Opposition Albanese held a press conference on January 3, with Morrison’s absence and resulting legitimacy damage in December a key opportunity to seize the agenda. Albanese (2020) made connecting allusions to the martial values of firefighters, a cultural touchstone that would echo with any Australian familiar with ANZAC, citing “their courage, commitment and dedication to each other and to their fellow Australians” and “the farewell of someone who’d made the ultimate sacrifice.” But without an explicit connection to ANZAC heroism nor overt references to political culture, Albanese subsequently filled his speech with criticism of government failure to conform to established bureaucratic processes via The Council of Australian Governments and the National Security Committee, echoing the ALP’s technocratic approach to climate policy (Pearse, 2018). Greens leader Di Natale (2020) released one media statement during that week, only briefly referencing Australian cultural motifs of the bush and the destruction of native wildlife. Instead, Di Natale emphasized framings that securitized the fires and the climate crisis: “This is a moment of truth for Prime Minister Scott

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Morrison, who is failing in his basic duty to keep our citizens safe from harm.” This rhetorical move shifted the locus of security from nation-states within an international system, to broader multispecies concerns regarding, humans, animals, and ecosystems (McDonald, 2021). PHON leader Pauline Hanson did not appear in mainstream media during this week, but was active on Facebook, a forum where she has significant reach (Sengul, 2021). A post on January 6 headed “BEWARE OF POLITICIANS EXPLOITING TRAGIC BUSHFIRES TO PUSH CLIMATE ALARMISM” (Hanson, 2020) exhibited many local and transnational far-right culture war signifiers: populist delegitimization of ‘globalist talkfests’, ‘virtue signalling’ politicians at the United Nations, and local conspiracies about the cause of fires “lit by arsonists and made worse by states failing to perform adequate hazard reduction burns!” This populist framing positioned politicians as out-of-touch elites, ignorant of the ‘reality’ faced by firefighters and local communities on the ground. This section has briefly outlined some exemplar media statements during the height of the Black Summer Bushfires to demonstrate each actor’s position in the climate war, and thus how culture comes to influence political rhetoric. Morrison, as prime minister, leaned on Australian culture to signal normalcy and avoid blame during the crisis, with limited success. The other actors made fewer explicit references to Australian culture, though latent references can be read into their statements. Instead, Albanese, Di Natale and Hanson all expounded versions of their parties’ ideological and climate policy positions: ALP technocracy; Greens environmental securitization; and One Nation far-right populism and climate denial.

9.4.2 Results Part II: The Day of Condolences Speeches, February 4, 2020 In this section, we examine the condolence speeches given to parliament as the Black Summer Bushfire crisis began to dissipate (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, 2020c). We shift our analytical focus to a deeper analysis of how each actor’s rhetoric interacted with, and wove together, their discursive climate war positions with the Black Summer Bushfires and adapted Australian cultural signs, symbols, and practices to the new, climate change induced, circumstance. Importantly, the genre of condolence speech is culturally specific and contingent, as the way of expressing condolence differs from one location and time to another. The primary function of a condolence speech is to “commiserate with those who have experienced the death of a loved one” and yet, “finding the right condolence phrases to say at the right time can be a challenging task” (Moghaddam, 2013, p. 109). Thus, in the context of the Black Summer Bushfire crisis, the condolence speeches embed cultural signifiers while also acting as political speeches that aim to achieve instrumental goals.

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Prime Minister Morrison, LPA: Recognition, Sacrifice, and Obscured State Responsibility

Prime Minister Morrison’s condolence speech emphasized civil society and volunteerism in response to crisis. Morrison’s speech developed what the Black Summer Bushfires meant for the Australian nation; a scene of civil society, citizens, and volunteers, rather than state-backed response: “…remarkable Australians standing by each other… tens of thousands of volunteers—all of them doing things that were extraordinary, although they would consider themselves ordinary…” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 4). Notable was the silence about the Morrison government’s leadership absences and failures during the crisis. Morrison’s speech instead focused on civil society recognition, with personalized stories of the 33 victims of the fires and of the volunteer firefighter force: Thousands upon thousands have stood together to fight fires and protect communities. While our hearts are heavy for the loss of 33 people and the destruction of over 3,000 homes, we know our emergency services, ADF [Australian Defence Force] personnel, and firefighters have undertaken a mighty effort to save so many more homes, so many more communities and so many more lives…. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 2)

For Morrison, the bushfires demonstrated Australian exceptionalism and had “proven our national character and resolve” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 2) as evidenced by its volunteerism, duty, and sacrifice during a time of great duress. But Morrison’s focus on victims and volunteers positioned his own authority and political capacity into the background. Morrison also employed the contested environmentalism sign to adapt his government’s material policy response to the crisis and continue to prosecute the climate war. The Prime Minister proposed a Royal Commission to look into the crisis (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020a), shifting accountability to a new institutional venue and temporally into the future. Morrison also announced new posthumous awards and additional firefighting funding, but even these announcements were sublimated with the employment of contrastive semantic relations between the clauses about policy and subsequent statements: “However, today is not the day to speak in detail of these initiatives. Today is the day for memorial and commemoration” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 6). Morrison went on to conflate the environmentalism sign with climate war signifiers—acknowledgement of climate change conflated with unscientific fuel load claims and emphasis upon climate change adaptation and silence about climate change mitigation: These fires have been fuelled by one of the worst droughts on record, changes in our climate and a build-up in fuel, amongst other factors. Our summers are getting longer, drier and hotter. That’s what climate change does, and that requires a new responsiveness, resilience and a reinvigorated focus on adaptation. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 6)

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Morrison concluded the speech with the bush myth, which positioned his response within the Australian cultural motif of firefighting. Here, Australians are a nation of ‘overcomers’ that will ultimately survive this fire season: Over a century ago, Henry Lawson wrote a poem about a bushfire…: It is daylight again, and the fire is past, and the black scrub silent and grim, Except for the blaze of an old dead tree, or the crash of a falling limb… When they’re wanted again in the Dingo Scrubs, they’ll be there to do the work. And that’s what we’ll all do here in this House and across Australia… Australians are overcomers…. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 6)

Morrison’s bush myth conclusion does three things: It presents the fires as a ‘natural’ occurrence; portrays Australians as being exceptionally equipped to overcome fire; and emphasizes civil society action over state assistance. These frames minimize Morrison’s culpability for the crisis.

9.4.2.2

Leader of the Opposition Albanese, ALP: Technocratic Solutions to Crisis

Leader of the Opposition Albanese’s speech attempted to practically cooperate with the government to mitigate the crisis. But Albanese also used the genre of condolences to criticize the government’s climate inaction whilst positioning himself as a prime-minister-in-waiting. Conveying a sense of the community’s mood, Albanese implicitly juxtaposed his presence during the crisis with Morrison’s own Hawaiian holiday absence, criticizing through condolence: …it has been an honour, and very humbling, to engage directly with people in these affected communities… I’ve listened to their stories and heard their practical suggestions. Throughout this crisis, Labor has been constructive in forwarding proposals for national coordination, for resources and support for our firefighters, including our volunteers in affected communities. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 8)

Albanese’s ‘proposals’ and ‘resources’ framing echoed the technocratic, good governance approach to ALP climate policy, a framing that has been successfully opposed and politicized by the opposing network of right-leaning actors in the climate wars (Pearse, 2018). Albanese’s biggest differentiation from Morrison was unambiguously linking climate change and natural disasters, framing the crisis as ‘anything but business as usual’: “It was the impact of our changing climate tragically played out before us…we do need to, in any assessment, look at what the changing climate and the changing expectations of future events mean for the way we structure our response” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 8). In a crucial moment, Albanese then repeats this line while projecting ahead through his use of the ‘turning point’ metaphor. Importantly for our discussion, Albanese both draws upon, and attempts to discard, the Australian bush myth in the construction of this ‘harsh new reality’:

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Yes, fire is part of who we are; our recorded history is heavy with its grim poetry: Ash Wednesday, Black Friday, Red Tuesday, Black Saturday. But we are at a turning point. This is not business as usual. This is not even fire as usual. We can no longer fall back on the poetry of Dorothea Mackellar and comfort ourselves with the thought that it’s always been like this, that this is the price we pay for living on a beautiful but sometimes harsh and unforgiving continent, nor can we soften reality with the fiction that we had no way of predicting this. We have no choice but to turn to face the harsh new reality. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020b, p. 10)

Albanese draws upon the symbolic resources of bush mythology to make a point about how different these fires were. By depicting the Black Summer Bushfires as both historical occurrence and new crisis, Albanese mobilized and reformulated Australian culture discursively to argue for real-world policy action. But Albanese’s conformity to condolence speech conventions and desire to be seen as a prime-minister-in-waiting diminished the potential of his speech to directly place responsibility for the outcomes of Australia’s ongoing climate wars.

9.4.2.3

Senator Di Natale, GRN: Angry Environmentalism and Securitization

Senator Di Natale, then-outgoing leader of the Australian Greens, adopted an environmentalist, cosmopolitan, and anti-corporate frame that criticized government inaction, but did not employ Australian cultural tropes in his condolences in doing so. Di Natale opened his speech with anger at the frequency of previous bushfires condolence motions made by the Senate, setting the tone for his critique of government inaction on climate change and latest crisis: Tragically, what we have today is the third condolence motion on bushfires that the Senate has done in four months. These bushfires have been burning along the eastern half of this country the whole time, right through the period of condolence motion after condolence motion, and they continue to burn still. That’s because these fires have no precedent. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 73)

Di Natale emphasized that the bushfires were not ‘normal’. He instead argued the intensity of the crisis was unprecedented, invoked fear, warned of worsening conditions in the future, and directly challenged Morrison’s position: …despite what the Prime Minister says, this is not the new normal, because we don’t know what the new normal looks like. Things may indeed get worse than we are experiencing right now. These fires are simply the beginning of what a climate disaster looks like if we continue on the path that we’re on, if we continue with the mining and burning of coal, oil and gas. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 73)

However, unlike his counterparts, Di Natale did not employ bush myths or martial heroism, and spent little time on recognition of victims, firefighters, volunteers, and affected communities, breaking from the norms of the condolence motion genre established by his peers. Instead, while expressing anger, frustration, blame attribution, and forewarnings, Di Natale employed an anti-capital environmentalism discursive frame of impending existential crises in Australia:

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It is absolutely critical now that, if we are to avert the trajectory we are on and if we’re going to restrict the rise in temperatures to 1.5 degrees or less, we have to stand up to the coal, oil and gas industries—industries that continue to bankroll our political parties and saturate our social media feeds. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 73)

Di Natale was explicit in connecting the ‘megafires’ and the resulting ‘ecological catastrophe’ to ongoing political inaction of both major political parties (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c). His speech was a call to action, with crisis his justification for a necessary shift in Australian climate policy: I don’t want to see another condolence motion delivered in a few months’ time. I don’t want to see us grieving after another summer where people have died. I want us to take advantage of the opportunities that come with transitioning away from polluting energy sources like coal, oil and gas and to embrace the billions of dollars of investment and the hundreds of thousands of new jobs that will come with the renewable energy revolution. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 73)

Di Natale’s speech contrasted starkly with Roberts’ speech, below, and to lesser extent, Morrison’s and Albanese’s, in its silence regarding Australian bush myths and martial nationalism. Di Natale’s departure from the widely accepted norms of a condolence motion strategically broke those conventions to emphasize his sense of the scale and urgency of the crisis.

9.4.2.4

Senator Roberts, PHON: The ‘Eternal’ Battle Against Mother Nature and the Critic

Representing PHON on the Day of Condolences, Senator Malcolm Roberts explicitly employed delegitimizing and populist climate war binaries. Roberts centred the doers ‘in the arena’ throughout his speech—the victims of the Black Summer Bushfires, affected communities, and firefighters: “Many of us can never know what it is like in the arena of firestorms, which have been a relentless presence in many Australian summers” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 43). However, Roberts avoided engaging in the specifics of the debates surrounding the Black Summer Bushfire crisis. Rather, he continually, and vaguely, employed a populist framing, alluding to an unfeeling, non-understanding ‘critic’ and evoking tropes of the city-dweller, the politician, or the elite not understanding the reality of the bushfires faced by the people: These people faced walls of flames soaring hundreds of meters high, which threatened to engulf the firefighters, neighbours, children, property, much-loved farm animals, our treasured native bush and human communities. Only the people in the arena can know. Only they know the desperation to protect their property, community and kin while others choose to be the critics from the comfort of the stands. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 43)

In addition to condemning these ‘critics’, Roberts also highlighted the ferocity of the bushfires, emphasizing the martial nationalism of the firefighters. Roberts’ frequent references to ‘the arena’ constructed a gladiatorial, good-versus-evil, David and Goliath struggle between the bushfires, firefighters, and threatened communities, rooted in Australian settler folklore:

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Please pause to appreciate the huge reserves of courage, strength and tenacity. We are in awe of humanity’s mettle. These wretched fires, as with many catastrophes, show us the depth and breadth of humanity, some of which we marvel at and some of which leaves us in despair. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 73)

The good-versus-evil frame depoliticized the response to the crisis by presenting bushfires as a perpetual and inevitable struggle to conquer ‘Mother Nature’, rather than a result of human induced climate change. This frame also presented bushfires as a uniquely Australian issue, of which Australians are uniquely equipped to handle, and romanticized the ongoing struggle between Mother Nature and the vulnerable but brave white, settler Australian, as ‘the Australian bush breeds and trains firefighters like nowhere else in the world.’ In the latter half of his speech, Roberts continued to emphasize that fires are an ancient and inevitable phenomenon. He employed the contested conservation sign, arguing that fires serve an important ecological function – to rejuvenate and heal the land as it has done ‘many times over millennia:’ The loss of wildlife has been devastating, and, as they have done many times over millennia, our fauna and unique ecosystems will regenerate alongside the rejuvenating bushland, because this is Australia, and it has a long history of natural weather extremes and devastating bushfires. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020c, p. 45)

Roberts thus presented the Black Summer Bushfires as both devastating and ordinary. This allowed him to strategically celebrate the uniqueness and bravery of the Australian people without acknowledging the contribution they have made in the changing of their own climate. In admonishing the so-called ‘critic’, Roberts attacked those who would explain the Black Summer Bushfire crisis as anything other than a natural and inevitable feature of the Australian experience for brave bushman engaged in eternal struggle, promoting Australian exceptionalism and climate change denial in the process. The analysis of the four political speeches above shows distinct similarities and differences in how party representatives responded to this crisis. Whilst the actors differed in their employment of Australian culture depending upon their strategic political aims, they all employed several core frames that have characterised Australia’s climate wars. Next, we develop this analysis to explain the influence and reproduction of culture and the speeches of these four chosen political actors.

9.5 Discussion, Implications, and Conclusions We have argued that culture and its relationship with discourse can be understood as an interaction between material practice and discursive rhetoric and have demonstrated this point with a critical discourse analysis of the rhetoric of Australian political leaders’ during the Black Summer Bushfires of 2019–2020. We examined this through the triangulated lenses of media addresses and condolence speeches with a representative ideological range of Australian political actors. We also noted the

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intense political conflict over climate policy in Australia, in the form of a climate war. Political rhetoric has discursively constituted and contested the facts of climate change in Australia, interacting in an intersubjective and dialectical manner with material political practices in the areas of policy, institutions, and political behavior. Our research identified three key findings: 1.

2. 3.

The rhetoric of condolences surrounding the Black Summer Bushfires and resulting crisis acted in proxy for debates in the ongoing Australian climate wars; White settler-colonial mythologies were strongly invoked in response to the crisis, whilst assimilating signifiers of Indigeneity to support its legitimation; The relationship between elite political rhetoric and Australian culture can be understood when we consider and synthesise Welch’s (2013) dynamics of discursive fluidity and adaptive inertia with culture war dynamics of intense, binary contestation.

9.5.1 Ongoing Proxy Climate Wars We found that the rhetoric surrounding Black Summer Bushfire crisis served as a proxy battle in the climate wars. The climate wars represent the intense and existentially framed contestation over values and climate change policy, and the increasing frequency and intensity of bushfires have been central moments in this contest. The actors’ speeches contested the need for action on climate change, as well as for their ostensible purpose of communicating during the crisis and commiserating with bushfire victims. The political actors on the progressive side of politics were found to draw far stronger connections between climate change and the Black Summer Bushfires. Senator Di Natale employed environmentalist and existential frames, eschewing the norms and conventions of a condolence speech in favor of a call-to-action on climate change policy. Di Natale highlighted the role of capital in fostering carbon emissions, the unprecedented nature of the fires and warned of future climate destruction. Leader of the Opposition Albanese also highlighted the role of climate change in the severity of the Black Summer Bushfires and the need for greater action, though the existential and environmentalist frames were less prominent than in the speech of Di Natale. Conversely, the condolence speech of Senator Roberts did not address the connection between the fires and climate change. Rather, he sought to minimize this link by arguing that while the fires were horrible and devastating, they were also normal. Roberts positioned the fires as both ordinary and extraordinary, celebrating the bravery of Australia’s first responders while also minimizing the role of climate change by maintaining the argument that fires are a natural and eternal part of the Australian experience. This is consistent with Robert’s own denial of climate change and the stance of the far-right populist party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (Sengul, 2019). While Prime Minister Morrison did reference climate change twice in his speech, this was not given prominence and did not serve as a call to action for

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policy change beyond an institutional venue change to a Royal Commission. Instead, Australia’s cultural stories were used by right-leaning actors to uphold a conservative status quo: to remind the public that the fires will happen again, and that they will be overcome, as Australians and their white settler forbearers have always done. This proxy battle in the climate wars can be connected to Australia’s wider culture wars, involving similar mobilization of binary tropes of elite progressives versus ordinary people, cheered on by similar networks of right-leaning actors and forces of capital.

9.5.2 Legitimating Settler-Colonialism in Crisis Settler-colonial mythos also played a large part in how each actor framed their response to the Black Summer Bushfires. Cultural tropes of the bush myth, including the constant battle with a harsh climate, and the heroics of martial nationalism were found to be particularly prominent. We assert that culture does more than situate a climate in crisis; the reproduction of these motifs do heavy ideological lifting. The myth of ‘the pastoralist’s struggle against wild nature’ through the stereotype of ‘the ‘bushman” (Piccini, 2020) was used to promote the notion of Australian exceptionalism whereby Australians are uniquely equipped to fight a uniquely Australian threat of overwhelming blaze. Roberts drew most heavily on settler-colonial folklore, celebrating the bravery of firefighters and communities and invoking the trope of an eternal struggle with a wild and unruly ‘Mother Nature.’ Similarly, the leaders of Australia’s two major political parties, Morrison and Albanese, also drew on Australia’s cultural stories throughout their speeches. Even as Albanese attempted to disentangle himself from such rhetorical paths in his criticism of the government, he used the symbolic resources of such imagery to ground his legitimacy within the uniquely-Australian context. Di Natale, on the other hand, in eschewing the norms and conventions of a condolence speech and Australian nationalism in favor of a call to action on climate change policy, was found to draw on the bush myth the least in his speech, instead globalizing and securitizing his focus. In this context, we can see cultural symbols and prose providing comfort and condolence here, but also reinforcing the ideological positions of each actor in their use, and even in their absence. Moreover, our analysis demonstrated the ongoing dominance of white settlercolonial nationalism and its power relations. Importantly, in the shadows of the white bush myth were only a few short mentions of Indigenous peoples’ sovereignties and implicit recognition of their connection to Country and Land in pre-existing and continuing ways, in line with Australia’s ongoing colonialism. Three of our four actors here addressed Indigenous peoples within their speech—all with a single sentence, and all within the possessive form (Moreton-Robinson, 2015). Morrison described Indigenous leaders as co-possessors of the continent, as “loving our land so much”; Di Natale positioned Indigenous peoples in the possessive, whilst emphasizing religious/spiritual connections to Country but not claims of ongoing sovereignty, where the “climate emergency… touches the meaningful and sacred

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sites of our First Nations peoples”; Roberts constructed a hierarchy of ‘real’ land owners and pastoralists, preferencing who has legitimate knowledge of the land during this crisis: “We must recognize that our landowners, our farmers, and our Indigenous communities have the most knowledge of our country and its weather;” while Albanese, surprisingly, did not recognize Indigenous peoples at all in his speech. These strategies attempted to assimilate and assume the symbol of Indigeneity as in support of each actor’s response to and authority in this crisis, regardless of their political persuasion, as per dominant racial rule in Australia (Goldberg, 2002). In sidelining the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander existence, agency, and sovereignties, each actor here thus utilizes, and normalizes, Australia’s culture of settler-colonial hegemony at the expense of First Nations’ knowledge and existence (Page, 2020).

9.5.3 Theoretical Implications: Symbiotic Relations of Political Culture and Rhetoric We conclude by pointing to several interconnected theoretical implications that emerge from our analysis that will be useful for future researchers. The intensity and intractability of Australia’s seemingly endless contest over climate policy can be understood when we connect theory regarding rhetoric, culture, and climate wars. We have pointed to the iterative dynamics of discursive fluidity and adaptive materialism of political culture (Welch, 2013) and connected these concepts to the concrete moment of Australia’s Black Summer Bushfires. Doing so has demonstrated how culture war dynamics of intense, binary, political and policy contestation come to shape politicians’ rhetoric in response to an ecological and existential crisis. The discursive fluidity of Australian culture allows for the adaptation of the tropes that culture war actors are deeply committed to in light of the new facts that emerge during crisis—where dozens have died, whole swathes of land scorched, and multiple species led to extinction—and new ‘facts’ and new realities of political life are created through their motives, symbols, and signs. Simultaneously, this rhetoric is able to materially adapt, extend, and reproduce dominant forms of culture, re-establishing culture war battlelines in new areas of public policy, political institutions, and political behavior that crisis produces. Culture here works to shape and influence political rhetoric, but not in of itself—it is also shaped by the agency, relations, and resources of political actors. This case study has shown that through rhetoric the political elite adapt, reinforce, and reproduce dominant understandings of Australian culture and perpetuate the central dynamics of a decades old culture wars, even when presented with the most extraordinary bushfires in Australia’s recorded history.

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McDonald, M. (2021). After the fires? Climate change and security in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science, 56(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2020.1776680. Moghaddam, M. M. (2013). Discourse structures of condolence speech act. Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning, 4(10), 105–125. Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015). The white possessive: Property, power, and indigenous sovereignty. University of Minnesota Press. Morrison, S. (2020, January 2). Remarks, New Year’s Day Cricket Australia: The Mcgrath Foundation reception [Press Conference Transcript]. https://www.pm.gov.au/media/remarks-new-yearsday-cricket-australia-mcgrath-foundation-reception. Page, A. (2020). Surviving ‘advancement’: Aboriginal community organisations negotiating settlercolonial neoliberal governance in western Sydney. Doctoral dissertation, University of Sydney. Pearse, R. (2018). Pricing carbon in Australia: Contestation, the state and market failure. Routledge. Piccini, J. (2020). Myth and myth-making. In J. M. Lewis & A. Tiernan (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Australian politics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/978019 8805465.013.3. Pietsch, J., & McAllister, I. (2010). ‘A diabolical challenge’: Public opinion and climate change policy in Australia. Environmental Politics, 19(2), 217–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/096440109 03574509. Remeikis, A. (2019, December 21). Scott Morrison’s Hawaii horror show: How a PR disaster unfolded. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/21/scott-mor rison-hawaii-horror-show-pr-disaster-unfolded. Rowland, M. (2021). Black summer: Stories of loss, courage and community from the 2019–2020 bushfires. HarperCollins Australia. Seal, G. (2004). Inventing ANZAC: The digger and national mythology. University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network and Curtin University of Technology. Sengul, K. (2019). Critical discourse analysis in political communication research: A case study of right-wing populist discourse in Australia. Communication Research and Practice, 5(4), 376–392. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2019.1695082. Sengul, K. (2021). Never let a good crisis go to waste: Pauline Hanson’s exploitation of COVID-19 on Facebook. Media International Australia, 178(1), 101–105. https://doi.org/10.1177/132987 8X20953521. Smith, R. (2001). Australian political culture. Longman, Pearson Education. Strakosch, E. (2015). Neoliberal Indigenous policy: Settler colonialism and the ‘post-welfare’ state. Palgrave Macmillan. van Dijk, T. A. (2015). Critical discourse analysis. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis (2nd ed., pp. 352–371). Wiley Blackwell. van Eeden, L. M., Nimmo, D., Mahony, M., Herman, K., Ehmke, G., Driessen, J., O’Connor, J., Bino, G., Taylor, M., & Dickman, C. (2020). Impacts of the unprecedented 2019–2020 bushfires on Australian animals: Report prepared for WWF-Australia. https://www.wwf.org.au/Articl eDocuments/353/WWF_Impacts-of-the-unprecedented-2019-2020-bushfires-on-Australian-ani mals.pdf.aspx. Wahlquist, C. (2020, February 17). RFS denies sacking volunteer firefighter Paul Parker, who swore at Scott Morrison. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/ 17/volunteer-firefighter-paul-parker-who-swore-at-scott-morrison-says-he-has-been-sacked. Ward, R. (1977). The Australian legend (repr.). Oxford University Press. Watson, I. M. (2015). Aboriginal peoples, colonialism and international law: Raw law. Routledge. Welch, S. (2013). The theory of political culture. Oxford University Press. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240.

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Nicholas Bromfield is a lecturer with the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He takes a research interest in political science, public policy, nationalism, and Australian and comparative politics and has particularly focused on how nationalism and culture interact with discourse, rhetoric and public policy agendas. He has published on these topics in journals and book chapters like International Review of Administrative Sciences, Australian Journal of Political Science and Australian Journal of Politics and History. Alexander Page is Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy and Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies at the University of Sydney. Alex focuses on the sociology of both race and health, with a particular interest in racial states, settler-colonialism, critical Indigenous studies, and of practice and agency. He is currently working on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on targeted therapies and precision medicine in cancer care using in-depth qualitative research methodologies. Kurt Sengul is a Ph.D. Candidate in the School of Creative Industries at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His doctoral research focuses on the political communication of Senator Pauline Hanson and has published in the area of critical discourse analysis, populist communication and political public relations.

Chapter 10

The Core Socio-Cultural Building Blocks Underlying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speeches to the United Nations General Assembly Yuval Benziman

10.1 Introduction and Background The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) General Debate (GD) is an event in which leaders present their points of view on current events in the international arena. It is an opportunity for them to frame their understanding and declare their position on what they see as the major international issues (Smith, 2006). In about 30– 40 min, September of each year, leaders get a chance to address what they see as most important and relevant to their country. Moreover, “The lack of external constraints on member states in delivering GD statements means that they can use their address to indicate the issues considered most important by devoting more attention to these topics” (Baturo et al., 2017, p. 3). Therefore, a look at GD speeches can provide a glimpse of how the leader of a society declares its place in the world of nations. Academic research has therefore followed the idea of looking at leaders’ GD speeches at the UNGA to understand which values are salient and which are marginalized; to understand how leaders position their place in the world, how they want to approach others and relations between states (e.g., Ali et al., 2020; Hecht, 2016; Sharififar & Rahimi, 2015). In Israel, the U.N. has always been considered a hostile institution. The most notable reference in Israeli discourse regarding the U.N. is the Hebrew dismissive term oom-shmoom (the worth-nothing-U.N.), a term coined by Prime Minister [PM] David Ben Gurion (1948–1953 and 1955–1963) during a cabinet meeting in March 1955 when he served as Israel’s Defense Minister (Caplan, 2020). This animosity would prove to be reciprocal over the coming decades, not least when the U.N., among other resolutions, decisions and statements, declared in 1975 that “Zionism is Racism.” It also has a disproportionate voting record against Israel; for example, in Y. Benziman (B) The Swiss Center for Conflict Research, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_10

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2016–2017 approximately 78% of the condemnations in the UNGA were exclusively Israel-oriented (a slight improvement on 86% in the years 2012–2015). This pattern is also evident in its Human Rights Council (UNHRC) where from 2006 to 2016 more than 50% of the decisions went against Israel (Mandler & Lutmar, 2020). While some scholars tend to see the U.N. approach towards Israel as antiSemitism, hatred and racism (Troy, 2020), others do show a change—towards better relations—throughout the years (Geronik, 2020). Regardless of the supposed change, the U.N. is still seen in Israeli society as a hostile, untruthful body. Nevertheless, Israeli leaders do attach great importance to it, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister (1997–1999, and 2009–2021), is no exception: during his second tenure in office, lasting thirteen consecutive years, he missed only two General Assembly GDs (in 2010 and 2019), and has always invested effort to ensure that his speeches get broad coverage and attention in the Israeli and global media. Since these events in the U.N. are of great importance, this chapter looks at the way socio-cultural factors of Israeli society affect the Israeli prime minister’s UNGA discourse during the years 2009–2020. Different component of Israeli culture, influencing Israeli society in general and any speech given by any Israeli leader, are granted greater importance and more influence when the speeches are given by the prime minister, presenting to the world what Israel believes and thinks, even more so in front of an international institution that he and his people regard as hostile. In the following second section, I first characterize three key characteristics of Israeli-Jewish culture. The third section explains the methodology used in this research, and the fourth section shows how these characteristics are manifested in PM Netanyahu’s speeches in the U.N., offering his specific interpretation. I conclude by analyzing how such characteristics and speeches tell the story of Israeli-Jewish culture.

10.2 Characteristics of Israeli-Jewish Culture Trying to understand “Israeli culture” is an almost impossible task. Societies are heterogeneous and complex and such an attempt can never be complete. This is particularly true of Israeli society that is often characterized as a conflicted society full of contradictions (Shafir & Peled, 2002): a society which grouped together people from all over the world with one thing in common—being Jewish—but with a significant minority of 25% non-Jews, including 20% Palestinian-Israelis; in which there is a clear distinction between Israeli-Jews and Israeli-non-Jews; a social order already labeled at the beginning of the twenty-first century as “becoming a loose federation of identities” (Kimmerling, 2001, p. 237); a society that was described by its own President, Reuven Rivlin (2015), in the following way: …the ‘new Israeli order’ is not an apocalyptic prophecy. It is the reality… A reality in which Israeli society is comprised of… four principal ‘tribes’, essentially different from each other… not only do they not meet each other, but they are educated toward a totally different outlook regarding the basic values and desired character of the State of Israel.

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Attempts to define Israeli society and culture have been made in the past. Most of them mainly focus on the Jewish-Israeli majority, excluding the Arab minority, and specifically on the secular and national-religious components of Jewish-Israeli society and not on the ultra-orthodox sector (about 15% of the population). Therefore, most such attempts relate only to 65% of the population (Israeli-Jewish-non-ultraorthodox) or to 80% of the population (Israeli-Jews) and not to all its citizens. Of the numerous definitions offered by scholars studying Israeli-Jewish society, three characteristics are most prominent: 1. 2.

3.

The Jewish religion and heritage heavily influence Israel’s current perceptions and actions. Jews in the past and Israel at present were isolated from other nations, countries, cultures and religions—partly because of anti-Semitism and partly because of a self-desire to be separated. Currently, as in the past, the story of a minority Jewish Israeli state in a majority Arab-Muslim Middle East remains, although Israel is a regional super-power directly or indirectly ruling over five million Palestinians. The belief that against all odds (although rational logic might lead to other conclusions), dreams can become a reality.

I will present below each of these characteristics with the intention of analyzing how each affected the speeches of Netanyahu during his U.N. GA presentations, offering his interpretation of them when addressing the international body that Israel sees as hostile.

10.2.1 Jewish Heritage and Religion The Zionist campaign that started in the late nineteenth century and led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was a national-secular movement. Nevertheless, although secular in nature the common denominator that characterized all its participants was their religion. Since then and until this very day, Judaism has been the cornerstone of Israeliness. At times it is the biblical Jewish texts themselves, at times the Jewish religion, and at times the Jewish heritage; sometimes it is an ultra-religious perception of Judaism and other times it is secular—but in all cases Judaism is a prominent factor in Israel’s character. The justification for the existence of the state, the way it acts, its laws and norms, are connected to religion. This could be seen, among other things, in the symbols of the state which are connected to Judaism: the Star of David on Israel’s flag, the Jewish Menorah as the official symbol of the state, the words of the national anthem that include the line “As long as in the heart within / The Jewish soul yearns,” and more. It can be seen in the way the Israeli calendar is structured with great emphasis on the Jewish (lunar) calendar over the Georgian (solar) one (Shoham, 2017); in the self-definition of Jewish Israelis who see themselves as Jewish more than any other characteristic (Herman et al., 2017); in the fact that although the establishment of

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Israel was accompanied by an anti-diaspora mentality and a wish to create a “New Man,” the Jewish component was very prominent so that the wish was actually to create a “New Jew” (Almog, 2000); in Israel’s Law of Return declaring that any Jew from anywhere in the world can automatically become an Israeli citizen upon entering Israel if proven that at least one of their parents or grandparents was Jewish (even according to local civil law and not necessarily as defined by halachic Jewish law); and in many more aspects. Therefore, Jewish religion, history, heritage and customs play a very significant role in the way society defines itself. Religion is also very important in understanding the relations between Israel and neighboring nations, and between citizens within Israel: a Jewish state surrounded by Arab-Muslim countries, a state that by definition prefers the 75% Jews living within it although ostensibly being a liberal, western state with equality for all its citizens—in short, a modern state basing its existence on a more than 3,000 years-old history.

10.2.2 Isolation The overall feeling of the Jewish people in the past and of Israel at present is one of isolation. The Jewish people, at least as they tell their story, were almost never welcomed in the places in which they lived. This is also true for the establishment of the State of Israel that was opposed by all Arab people and countries in the Middle East. The Jews constantly felt themselves to be a distinct sub-group in the places they lived, partly because of the anti-Semitism, hatred and hostility they experienced, and in the desire of other nations and religions to eliminate them (Bar-Tal & Antebi, 1992a; Oren, 2009; Podeh, 2000). Additionally and unsurprisingly, therefore, Jews aspired to maintain their unique and different culture and society: the Jewish people and Israel’s self-belief is that the Jews are the “chosen people.” This concept originates in Deuteronomy 14:2: “The Lord has chosen you to be a people of his own possession, out of all the nations that are on the face of the earth,” and the Jewish interpretation of this is that they are the chosen people of God. This was always the Jewish perception and after establishing the State of Israel the feeling of isolation remained as the state saw itself as fundamentally different from all other countries in the region, experiencing their hostility but also seeing itself as unique, different and better than them (Bar-Tal, 2013). Therefore, the State of Israel that ingathered Jews from various countries all around the world speaking numerous languages and who saw themselves as isolated in the countries they came from, created a country that continues to feel isolated. Israel’s ability to accept Jewish people from around the world, with strong feelings of collectivism and unity (Senor & Singer, 2011; Yair, 2011), is accompanied by a feeling of isolation and even a siege mentality (Bar-Tal & Antebi, 1992b). Thus, the geographic and demographic situation created after Israel’s establishment in 1948 and intensifying after the 1967 war, is one in which Jewish-Israelis feel and act as an isolated minority (in the Middle East) while a majority (in Israel). After

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winning the 1967 war in which Arab countries who didn’t accept Israel’s existence tried to eliminate it, Israel occupied more land, taking over the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt. This created a situation in which Israel, the isolated country perceiving itself an unwanted minority, became in practice a regional power. While in 1979 it gave back the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Israel still holds the Golan Heights, it controls the West Bank with its three million Palestinians (who have different degrees of self-autonomy depending on their place of living), has annexed East Jerusalem which currently includes about 400,000 Palestinians (only about 5% of them are Israeli citizens), and unilaterally left Gaza in 2004, although still controlling the entries to it (in collaboration with Egypt also bordering Gaza). The outcome of these developments is that currently, differing from the traditional way of understanding the place of Jews and Israel, relations between Israel and the Palestinians is now considered to be an asymmetric conflict in which Israel is the much-stronger side (Rouhana, 2004), an established state in conflict with non-state rivals (Ben-Eliezer, 2012; Benziman, 2018). Throughout the years, the Israeli mentality has held these two opposing concepts: on the one hand an isolated minority, while on the other hand a regional superpower, ruling over the Palestinians—far stronger than its neighboring countries and the Palestinian population who oppose its control. Therefore, although having an independent state since 1948 and although being very strong, modern Israeliness is still defined as comprising existential anxiety, a strong resentment of being a “freier” (a sucker, a weak Jew that can be easily fooled), outright defiance, not relying on others and in a state of constant alert (Yair, 2011). Furthermore, contending with an ongoing, protracted, violent conflict with its neighboring states and people since its establishment in 1948 for over 70 years, Israeli culture is saturated with a black-andwhite narrative, an ethos in which Israel is right and its rivals are wrong, with a clear distinction between “us” and “them”, between the ingroup and the outgroup, and in which there are very big differences between the rival sides (Bar-Tal, 2013).

10.2.3 Believing That Dreams Can Become Real Jewish and Israeli history is full of stories regarding how the Jewish people and Israel prevailed time after time. The main theme in the Israeli collective memory is that the Jewish people have always suffered from hatred, anti-Semitism, terrorism, and attempts at annihilation, but they have prevailed. The outcome of this perception of reality, among other things, is that fear for the Jewish people’s very existence and that of Israel is ever present, accompanied by ongoing distrust of others. Theodor Herzl, regarded as the father of modern Zionism, coined the expression “If you will it, it is not a dream” [im tirtsu ein zo agada] in his book Altneuland (The Old New Land). Ever since, it has been used to define Israel’s ethos. It tells a story of believing in big ideas and the ability to overcome huge obstacles. It is a slogan that captures a very essential element in what Israel is about: even when others don’t believe something

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is possible, even if all odds are against you, even when the isolated few fight the many, one’s goal can still be accomplished. This was true in the past, but is also very evident in the story of the State of Israel that has been able to stand strong, defend itself, prevail and get bigger and more powerful despite fighting against much bigger forces when all odds seemed to be against it. For example, when the partition plan was decided upon in the U.N. in 1947, splitting the British Mandate between a Jewish state and an Arab state, the Jews constituted a third of the population of Mandate Palestine and the Arabs comprised two-thirds. Notwithstanding this ratio and although surrounding Arab countries opposed Israel’s establishment and attacked it—the state was eventually established, and on a larger portion of land than was offered in the original partition plan. Then in 1967, when all surrounding countries planned on destroying Israel, the war ended in a huge victory for Israel in only six days. Not surprisingly, the Israeli military’s unofficial slogan in Hebrew slang became: “It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you don’t want to” [ein lo yachol, yesh lo rotze], meaning that there is nothing that cannot be achieved; it’s only a matter of will, a continuation of “if you will it, it is not a dream”. This notion is based upon, and simultaneously leads to, a very particular kind of mindset. It means that “miracles” can happen and believing in them is logical and necessary. It means that rational thought or having a clear strategy fall short of explaining reality, as acting against all odds and having utopian dreams have always paved the way of the Jewish people and Israel. It also means that thinking outside of the box, not believing in clear hierarchy (Yair, 2011) and thinking creatively, has enabled Israel to exist and even become a so-called start-up nation (Senor & Singer, 2011). These Israeli cultural characteristics influence, comprise and build the Israeli mentality. In what follows, I will look at their expression in the speeches of Netanyahu in the U.N., and what they lead him to say.

10.3 Methodology This research is based on the grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) in which close acquaintance with the data leads the researcher to identify the main themes emerging from it. This methodology is useful for the present study as the data chosen is a very clear corpus—all of Netanyahu’s speeches at one venue. Although characteristics of Israeli-Jewish culture were, of course, in mind when analyzing the data, looking at all the speeches in one venue throughout the years precludes criticism about “picking and choosing” statements that fit a pre-existing agenda, as all speeches have been selected and weighted similarly. The research process included numerous viewings, readings and listening to the transcripts of Netanyahu’s ten GD speeches at the UNGA in the years 2009–2020 (excluding the years 2010 and 2019 when he did not attend). The transcripts of

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the speeches were retrieved from the official websites of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.mfa.gov.il) and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office (www. gov.il). I viewed the speeches on YouTube in the official channel of the Israeli Prime Minister’s office (IsraliPM). After close study of the data, I grouped the findings by the common topics found. As often done when using grounded theory methodology, I moved back and forth as I collated the data, grouping the themes of the speeches and re-categorizing them as appropriate. Since such qualitative methodology, commonly used when analyzing leaders’ statements (e.g., Benziman, 2020; Rosler, 2016), looks at what they share, Netanyahu’s speeches were eventually read again in order to ensure that the themes did not overlook important aspects and topics that appeared in his talks.

10.4 Findings and Discussion—Themes of Israeliness in the Prime Minister’s Speeches The speeches of PM Netanyahu to the UNGA GD are very similar to one another. With the exception of his speech in 2020 that was only 10-min long and conducted by video (because of COVID-19) and a relatively short, 25-min speech in 2017, all his other speeches were of 30–40 min duration. The speeches analyzed here do have variations, as Netanyahu refers specifically to current events (such as the cycles of violence between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza in 2012 and 2014, changes in implementing and lifting sanctions on Iran, etc.); but large sections can be copy-pasted from one year to another. The order of topics changes, but the ideas, motifs and content throughout the years are very similar. The themes that capture the main issues and topics that appear in all his speeches are arranged in three groups with direct quotes from each.

10.4.1 From “I Have Made You a Light Unto the Nations” to “Israel is the Innovation Nation” In his speeches to the GD, Netanyahu quotes the bible time and again, and refers to Jewish history, tradition and heritage. The connection between Israel and Jewish history, and between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, is a central part of his speeches. Furthermore, the story that Netanyahu tells connects the past and the present, emphasizing that the Jewish tradition is embedded in modern Israel, and that this tight connection has two main outcomes: The State of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, and the Jewish people have always had—and Israel has today—a role in leading the world and showing other nations the right way, the light. Netanyahu emphasizes this notion by mentioning biblical verses that supposedly prove these

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historical rights and the role of the Jewish people, and by presenting modern Israel as a leading contributor to the world in current times. Regarding the bible as justifying Israel’s existence, Netanyahu mentions this time and again. For example, in 2018 he stated: Ever since Abraham and Sarah made their journey to the Promised Land nearly 4,000 years ago, the Land of Israel has been our homeland. It’s the place where Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel carried on their eternal covenant with God. It is where Joshua made us a sovereign nation, where David ruled and Isaiah preached, where the Maccabees fought and where Masada fell. It is the place from which we were exiled and to which we returned, rebuilding our ancient and eternal capital Jerusalem. The nation state of Israel is the only place where the Jewish people proudly exercise our collective right of self-determination.

Netanyahu claimed that this is the right and only way to understand history and that what the bible says about the past should dictate the present. This, for example, is his response in 2017 to a decision by UNESCO that declared the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron a Palestinian World Heritage site; while the U.N. body has a different interpretation than his about the connection between the past and the present, his response is: …in July, UNESCO declared the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron a Palestinian World Heritage site. That’s worse than fake news. That’s fake history. Mind you, it’s true that Abraham, the father of both Ishmael and Isaac, is buried there, but so too are Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca – Sarah is a Jewish name, by the way – and Leah, who just happen to be patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people. You won’t read about that in the latest UNESCO report.

Furthermore, as mentioned, this connection between the past and the present gives a very specific role to the Jewish people, “the chosen people.” In the same 2017 speech, he further stated: “As the prophet Isaiah said… ‘I have made you a light unto the nations, bringing salvation to the ends of the earth.’ Today, 2700 years after Isaiah spoke those prophetic words, Israel is becoming a rising power among the nations. And at long last, its light is shining across the continents, bringing hope and salvation to the ends of the earth.” The immediate connection between the past and the future in this speech comes after explaining that countries around the world see that “Israel is the innovation nation—the place for cutting-edge technology in agriculture, in water, in cyber security, in medicine, in autonomous vehicles—you name it, we’ve got it,” and that Israel is to be credited for. … the medicines you take, the cars you drive, the cell phones you use, and in so many other ways that are transforming our world…You see it in the eyes of an Arab child, who was flown to Israel to undergo a life-saving heart operation. And you see it in the faces of the people in earthquake-stricken Haiti and Nepal who were rescued from the rubble and given new life by Israeli doctors.

This is true not only when dealing with science or technology, but also in the values that the world should follow—connected to the Jewish past, and to the role the Jewish people and Israel supposedly have in the world today. As he said in his speech during the 2012 GD:

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The traditions of the Jewish people go back thousands of years. They are the source of our collective values and the foundation of our national strength... Throughout history, we have been at the forefront of efforts to expand liberty, promote equality, and advance human rights... These are the timeless values of my people and these are the Jewish people’s greatest gift to mankind.

Therefore, Jewish history, the biblical text and the Jewish heritage connect the past to the present. The role that was supposedly given to the Jewish people and the supposed promise they received thousands of years ago justify Israel’s claims in the present. The State of Israel, according to the Netanyahu’s speeches, belongs to the Jews because their ancestors were promised this land according to the bible. Leading the way for others is the role of the Jewish people and believing in their uniqueness and superiority over others starts from the Jewish tradition and interpretation of the bible. These beliefs continue today and justify Israel’s actions, policies and attitudes. The connection between past and present, between religion and the heritage running from thousands of years ago to the twenty-first century, is so obvious to the prime minister that quotes from biblical prophets are his way of explaining modern Israel’s place in the world and the role assigned to it.

10.4.2 “The People of Israel Pray for Peace” but are Faced with “The Same Old Antisemitism with a Brand-New Face” While Netanyahu tells a story in which Israel is a “light unto the nations,” the U.N. condemns its actions, passes resolutions expressing this condemnation, and votes against the country. This gap between what Israel supposedly is and how it is perceived in the U.N. can only be explained by anti-Semitism, he proposes. The feeling of being an isolated minority remains—not welcomed anywhere, suffering from unfair hostility and being chased after for no reason. According to Netanyahu, the U.N.’s approach towards Israel is unreasonable. In 2011 Netanyahu declared: “Here in the U.N., automatic majorities can decide anything. They can decide that the sun rises in the west.” The implication was that anything to do with Israel will not be judged fairly, and despite being a rightful, moral and just country helping the world, Israel keeps on being condemned. In 2016, for example, he declared: And the UN deserved every scathing word – for the disgrace of the General Assembly that last year passed 20 resolutions against the democratic State of Israel and a grand total of three resolutions against all the other countries on the planet. Israel – twenty; rest of the world – three. And what about the joke called the U.N. Human Rights Council, which each year condemns Israel more than all the countries of the world combined.

But more than in any other speech, in 2018 he made a very telling remark when talking about U.N. accusations against Israel: “It’s the same old antisemitism with a brand-new face. That’s all it is. Once, it was the Jewish people that were slandered and held to a different standard. Today, it’s the Jewish state that is slandered and held

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to a different standard.” In other words, as in the Jewish past, the situation of Israel and its Jewish population today remains the same: under attack. Nevertheless, according to Netanyahu the world is gradually learning that Israel is in the right. In all his speeches, he has allocated much of the time to emphasizing the need to act against “militant Islam” in general and against Iran in particular. This tends to be the most important part of his presentations. For the sake of the current analysis, the importance is not Iran or “militant Islam” per se, but the way his discourse is framed: Israel wants peace, but its enemies want to destroy Israel and the world; they are evil and we are peace-seekers. Countries of the world, and even the U.N. and Arab and Muslim countries, are slowly changing their attitudes towards Israel and understanding that Israel truly wants peace. Therefore, the isolation that the Jewish people have traditionally suffered from is gradually changing as the world learns to appreciate Israel’s positions. In terms of the first part of the above equation, Netanyahu has claimed repeatedly that Israel wants peace. He noted not only that “The people of Israel pray for peace” (2014), but also emphasized that Israel achieved peace agreements with two Arab countries (Egypt and Jordan)—thus, Israel has already proven that seeking peace is part of its DNA. This is, according to the prime minister, no surprise. According to him, he brings to the UN “greetings from Jerusalem. The city in which the Jewish People’s hopes and prayers for peace for all of humanity have echoed throughout the ages” (2015); Israel is a country in which “We educate our children for peace” (2016); and this always was part of the Jewish culture, as he mentions in his 2009 speech: “Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great biblical vision of peace: ‘Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more.’ These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.” But Netanyahu goes a step further, throughout the years declaring that the Israeli wish for peace will become a reality because Arab countries understand that this is the right path. For example, in his 2018 speech the prime minister noted that the fear of Iran and militant Islam is leading moderate Arab countries closer to Israel and therefore Israel’s peace-loving character is eventually answered: “… it has brought Israel and many Arab states closer together than ever before… in an intimacy and friendship that I’ve not seen in my lifetime and would have been unimaginable a few years ago.” This approach was followed in 2020 when two peace agreements were signed between Israel and two Gulf State countries. Netanyahu promised that: “Israel signed historic agreements with the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain… These new agreements will bring our peoples the blessings of peace and the enormous benefits… I also have no doubt that more Arab and Muslim countries will be joining the circle of peace, soon, very soon.” The second half of the equation, as mentioned, is that Israel’s enemies and rivals do not want peace. They are terrorists, extremists and illogical entities. Netanyahu focuses most of these accusations on Iran, but also says that other extreme Islamists share the same ideology. These include the more immediate enemies of Israel: Hamas

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in Gaza and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. At times, Netanyahu also groups Palestinians as those who do not want peace, also blaming the international community for backing them up. Israel’s enemies are portrayed as extremely evil; Netanyahu dehumanizes, delegitimizes and labels them in the worst possible way. For example, in his 2014 speech, when talking about what he labels as “militant Islamist,” he explains: “…that threat might seem exaggerated to some, since it starts out small, like a cancer that attacks a particular part of the body. But left unchecked, the cancer grows, metastasizing over wider and wider areas.” In the same speech, he not only compared it to cancer but made a clear connection to the Nazis: “Militant Islam’s ambition to dominate the world seems mad. But so too did the global ambitions of another fanatic ideology that swept to power eight decades ago. The Nazis believed in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith.” This comparison between militant Islam, the Iranian leadership, and the Nazis, connects Jewish history and current events; the explicit mentioning of the Holocaust appears in his speeches time and again. Specifically, this connection is designed to reinforce the currency of the phenomenon, with the prime minister mentioning that Israel’s enemies are also Holocaust-deniers who lie about the Holocaust, the most important event in the twentieth century shaping Israeli society and culture. For example, in his 2014 speech, he said: “Well, I suppose it’s the same moral universe where a man who wrote a dissertation of lies about the Holocaust, and who insists on a Palestine free of Jews, Judenrein, can stand at this podium and shamelessly accuse Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing.” Netanyahu makes clear that this distinction between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” does not include anyone who is not on the Israeli side, and does not include all the Palestinians. As mentioned, he even points to the improving relations between Israel and its former enemies. But this notion of understanding the world on the basis of who is with us and who against us, is an important key in understanding how as the leader of Israel he defines the world. Regarding the Palestinians as a whole, and although making the distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people, he also says on a number of occasions (as in his 2020 speech) things like: “For far too long, the Palestinians effectively wielded a veto on peace between Israel and the broader Arab world.” Likewise, in 2015 he explained how all Israeli leaders tried time and again to reach agreements with the Palestinians, but they refused: “…despite the best efforts of six Israeli prime ministers…the Palestinians have consistently refused to end the conflict and make a final peace with Israel… How can Israel make peace with a Palestinian partner who refuses to even sit at the negotiating table?”. In short, being constantly on alert against others, wariness vis-a-vis the surroundings, and the self-perception of being isolated—characteristics of Israeli culture—are apparent in his speeches: the world is anti-Semitic; Israel wants peace but its neighbors do not; no matter how many efforts are undertaken, Israel still does not get fair treatment. This has always been the story of the Jewish people. But simultaneously, Netanyahu’s speeches tell a story about an ongoing change which connects the isolated Jewish-Israeli minority to the whole world and even to Arab and Muslim

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countries. Netanyahu emphasizes that Israel did not change its attitude or positions; he stresses time and again that Israel still suffers from unreasonable anti-Semitism, and that the hostility from the world is changing because countries changed their attitudes to fit the Israeli one.

10.4.3 “We Faced Inquisition and Expulsion… Pogroms and the Holocaust. Yet the Jewish People Persevered” Because “We Have a Record of Making the Impossible Possible” The deep belief that Israel’s actions are right and justified by the Jewish religion and heritage, and the perception that it is faced with hatred driven by anti-Semitism, is accompanied by a belief that against all odds and despite all the hostility, the Jewish people and Israel will prevail. This component of the discourse that Netanyahu projects stands on three legs. First, Israel and the Jewish people have suffered huge persecutions in the past, but have always prevailed. Second, Israel and the Jewish people have showed in the past that against all odds, even when no one believed them, they miraculously fulfill their wishes and dreams. And third, Israel can only rely on itself and if needed it will act in any way it thinks appropriate, even if the world opposes such actions. Therefore, even if the world does not accept Israel’s policies, the Jewish State will not change its beliefs. On the contrary, that would induce Israel to act alone since Israel on its own made the dream become a reality against all odds, as was proven in the past. First and foremost, Netanyahu emphasizes that the Jewish people have suffered in their past but were able to prevail and overcome all obstacles. He mentions the Holocaust numerous times. This reference reminds the world what the Jewish people have gone through, justifying the need for a secure Jewish state and clarifying that the world was wrong in its actions in WWII and therefore might be wrong today if the warnings of Israel are not taken seriously. This, for example, is the way Netanyahu framed the story in his 2015 speech: Seventy years after the murder of six million Jews, Iran’s rulers promise to destroy my country. Murder my people. And the response from this body, the response from nearly every one of the governments represented here has been absolutely nothing! Utter silence! Deafening silence... The days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies – those days are over. In antiquity, we faced destruction from the ancient empires of Babylon and Rome. In the Middle Ages, we faced inquisition and expulsion. And in modern times, we faced pogroms and the Holocaust. Yet the Jewish people persevered... I stand here today representing Israel, a country 67 years young, but the nation-state of a people nearly 4,000 years old. Yet the empires of Babylon and Rome are not represented in this hall of nations. Neither is the Thousand Year Reich... But Israel lives. The people of Israel live.

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A similar notion can be seen, for example, in his 2013 speech: “The Jewish people’s odyssey through time has taught us two things: Never give up hope, always remain vigilant. Hope charts the future. Vigilance protects it.” The end result, as he said in his 2012 speech, is that “The people of Israel live on. We say in Hebrew Am Yisrael Chai, and the Jewish state will live forever” because Israel is on constant alert. Secondly, according to Netanyahu, the Jewish people always prevailed against all odds. In his 2015 speech he claimed that “The establishment of Israel made realizing that dream possible”; in 2012 he remarked that “…Defying the laws of history, we did just that. We ingathered the exiles, restored our independence and rebuilt our national life;” and in 2014: “In Israel, we have a record of making the impossible possible. We’ve made a desolate land flourish. And with very few natural resources, we have used the fertile minds of our people to turn Israel into a global center of technology and innovation.” This mindset is not only part of Israel’s past, it also dictates the present and leads Israel to the future. This connection can be seen, for example, in his 2016 speech when he tied them together: I am hopeful about what Israel can accomplish because I’ve seen what Israel has accomplished. In 1948, the year of Israel’s independence, our population was 800,000… People said then we were too small, too weak, too isolated, too demographically outnumbered to survive, let alone thrive. The skeptics were wrong about Israel then; the skeptics are wrong about Israel now. …

Third, since Israel overcame huge obstacles and succeeded against all odds, its history supposedly teaches that Israel can only rely on itself. This notion is repeated time and again in Netanyahu’s speeches at the U.N. For example, in 2015 he declared: “And here’s my message to all the countries represented here: Whatever resolutions you may adopt in this building, whatever decisions you may take in your capitals, Israel will do whatever it must do to defend our state and to defend our people.” This mindset is mostly apparent when he discusses the need to act against Iran and what he defines as “militant Islam.” For him, this is the classic example of how the world misunderstands reality, a reality that eventually will hurt everyone, but mostly Israel. As in the past, according to Netanyahu, the world misconstrues the situation, and in his 2013 speech he commented that: I know that some in the international community think I’m exaggerating this threat… Have these people learned nothing from history?... The world may have forgotten this lesson. The Jewish people have not… Against such a threat, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself... If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone. Yet in standing alone, Israel will know that we will be defending many, many others.

In other words, not only is everyone wrong and Israel right, but it is also the case that Israel will act alone if necessary. As in the past, it will prevail. As throughout its history, the dream will come true. As always, against all odds it will make the impossible possible. And eventually the world will understand that Israel’s actions are right and bring prosperity to everyone.

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10.5 Conclusion Societies in conflict construct a narrative, an ethos, which is meant to be very clear. It makes a distinction between the ingroup and the outgroup, and ensures that the members of society have a positive self-image about themselves and are socialized to believe that their goals are just, while portraying their rivals in a negative way (Bar-Tal, 2013). It leads to a black-and-white picture in which the ingroup is “right” and the outgroup is “wrong.” Israel, a society entrenched in a protracted conflict since its creation, is a classic example of that (Bar-Tal et al., 2009; Oren, 2009). The Israeli prime minister’s speeches in the U.N. portray such a picture. However, they also tell a very concrete and specific story about how Israel perceives reality and creates a story that is a mixture of past and present, religion and nationalism, dreams and fact, of being part of the world but also isolated and standing alone. It is one in which dreams become a reality and a commitment to what you believe in results in it happening; it is a story of feeling that no one can be trusted and that everyone is a potential danger; in which Israel brings good to all the world; and in which Israel strongly believes in itself and is suspicious of others. This self-told story, as reflected in Netanyahu’s speeches, is one in which Jewish religion, heritage and history have a huge impact on Israel’s actions today, in the justification of its actions, in the very existence of Israel, in the way it sees its role in the world, and in its self-image. It is a story in which this isolated minority—the Jewish people in the past and Israel at present—want to live quietly and peacefully, but their rivals attack them and try to destroy them because of hatred and racism. This narrative does not touch upon Israel as a regional super-power, on Arab citizens of Israel feeling mistreated, on Israel occupying the West Bank and Gaza, considered by most of the world as violating international law. Instead, it tells a story in which the whole world, and especially the U.N., is hostile towards Israel because of antiSemitism. But in Netanyahu’s estimation, slowly and surely all the world—and even Arab-Muslim countries—are coming around to understand that Israel is right, and will establish relations with it. This is, according to the Israel psyche as reflected in the prime minister’s speeches, only natural since the role assigned to the Jewish people is to live in the Land of Israel and to be a model of “Light Unto the Nations”. This thread runs from the bible through the Jewish tradition and into the geo-political situation in the Middle East today. Eventually, as proven in the past, even against all odds Israel will prevail and the world will understand that it is right. Israeli PM Netanyahu’s speeches do not reflect everything that Israel stands for, but they do represent core socio-cultural building blocks of what Israel is about. The fact that Netanyahu has been leading Israel for more than a decade and throughout all this time has repeated the same themes in his speeches, is an indication of how Israel perceives itself and what it is about: a people that have experienced “inquisition and expulsion” but “persevered,” who now face “the same old antisemitism with a brand-new face,” although they “pray for peace.” If forced, Israel “will stand alone,”

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but when doing so it will help the whole world and will “bring salvation to the ends of the earth,” and this will happen because Israel can make “the impossible possible.”

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Yuval Benziman is a Senior Faculty Lecturer in the Conflict Research, Management and Resolution Program of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and the holder of the Katia & Hans Guth-Dreyfus Lectureship for Conflict Resolution and the Law. His research focuses on the relations between culture, discourse and conflict research.

Part III

Social Structure, Values, Popular and New-Culture Elements

Chapter 11

The President as Macho: Machismo, Misogyny, and the Language of Toxic Masculinity in Philippine Presidential Discourse Gene Segarra Navera

11.1 Introduction To say that the Philippines’ Rodrigo Roa Duterte is a misogynist president is no longer a novel claim. News media sites, both national and international, almost always feature headline-grabbing stories of Duterte’s “rape jokes” and “unpresidential” use of language, particularly those that objectify women. Stories of Duterte making light of acts of rape and of him issuing misogynistic comments that consequently incite public condemnation always rivet attention (Agence France-Press, 2017; Corrales, 2016; Ramos, 2016; Ranada, 2018; The Straits Times, 2016). These stories are sensational, they generate public talk, and they invite polarizing reactions from President Duterte’s fans and foes alike that consequently fuel public interest. Meanwhile, Duterte’s sexist rhetoric has also generated incisive and sustained critical commentary from women’s groups and active netizens (Arguillas, 2018; Gabriela’s Party, 2017). These groups have called out Duterte for his insensitive and incendiary remarks and have made it clear that such remarks should not be tolerated. One might think that Duterte’s misogynistic rhetoric is particularly unique to his presidency. I contend otherwise, arguing that his rhetoric is merely an extension, or a recontextualization, of a discourse that had existed prior to his ascension to presidential power. By doing so, I reaffirm the view of speech, or utterance for that matter, as a product of an historical process. My argument is anchored in the premise that a speech is a recontextualization of previous utterances (Blackledge, 2005; Fairclough, 2003). While a speech is necessarily an outcome of a particular moment, it could also be an iteration of the past; while it departs from previous utterances, it could also be their point of return.

G. S. Navera (B) National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_11

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In the section that follows, I review relevant scholarship that locates the notion of manhood within the sociopolitical and cultural dynamics of the Philippines. Subsequently, I clarify the terms machismo, misogyny, and toxic masculinity in order to establish the theoretical and conceptual bases of the paper. Theoretically, I view machismo as an ideology that is produced, reproduced, circulated, and reflected through discourse (van Dijk, 1998, 2006). In the analytical sections, I demonstrate this dialectical relationship by identifying conceptualizations of women, men, and the presidency in selected speeches of President Duterte and his predecessors. These conceptualizations constitute a schema (Navera, 2012, 2018a, 2018b), an overarching narrative, that renders the president as primarily macho. Specifically, I examine his “unsettling language” in selected speeches in order to unravel how he discursively constructs machismo. This is followed by an analysis of selected speeches or utterances by his predecessors, particularly those that touch on women’s role in society and women’s issues at large. This analysis is carried out in order to reproduce the genealogy of machismo in Philippine presidential rhetoric and to establish how Duterte’s much criticized rhetoric is an extension or a reaffirmation of long-standing presidential discourse on women.

11.2 Machismo, Misogyny, and Toxic Masculinity The socio-politics of manhood in the Philippines may be understood through the conceptual lenses of bossism (Sidel, 1997, 2001), militarism (Hilsdon, 1995; McCoy, 1999), and strongmen (Abinales, 2000; Hau, 2002). Studies that have mobilized these lenses are particularly useful in describing how maleness in the Philippines has been shaped by social, political, and historical forces. Consequently, these forces have had a significant bearing on the rhetoric of machismo in the Philippine presidency. Sidel’s (1997, 2001) notion of bossism explains how male-dominated local politics manipulates scarcity in order to gain power to the extent of subordinating the state. Bossism, with its American colonial roots, is a political phenomenon that makes it possible for warlords and political clans to monopolize the control of both coercive and economic resources. Bossism, based on Sidel’s exposition, could be treated as a useful frame in characterizing the Filipino male in power: he is well-networked, violent, exploitative, and ruthless towards his rivals. These characteristics tend to imply a dominant, if not abusive, attitude towards women. It may be inferred, then, that the Filipino bosses whose presence pervade the archipelago treat women as conquests, as ancillaries to their wealth and power, or at best, as extensions of their political clout (Coronel, 2004). Meanwhile, McCoy’s (1999) study of militarism in the Philippines brings to the fore the idea that the male-dominated nationalist movement of the Philippines was steeped in the rhetoric of militarism and male empowerment, which, the author suggests, might have actually impeded women’s liberation in the country. This idea is evidenced by the fact that for more than half a century, the military had been associated with maleness. McCoy notes that from 1936 to 1993, the Philippine Military

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Academy only admitted male cadets to its fold. For the longest time, then, the Filipino soldier—considered the defender and protector of the people—was synonymous with being male. At the intersection of bossism and militarism, ideological expressions that both glorify male power and domination, is the Philippine presidency that carries the capacity to exploit military strength, establish interest-laden bonds with provincial and municipal bosses, and turn the state predatory as the incumbent leadership asserts its political legitimacy. What emerges then is the strongman that, while predatory, finds ways to demonstrate a semblance of competence in governance (Abinales, 2000; Hau, 2002). Historians like McCoy, Sidel, and others have noted that the realization of the strongman persona is most pronounced in the cases of Emilio Aguinaldo, the president of the Philippine Revolutionary Government in the intersections of the Spanish and American colonial regimes (1899–1901); Manuel L. Quezon, the inaugural president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 until his death in 1944; and Ferdinand Marcoswho was legally elected from 1965 to 1972 and ruled with an iron fist from 1972 until his ouster in 1986. These men acted like bosses, mobilized the military to assert their power, and exercised various levels of authoritarian leadership during their respective terms of office. It is through the foregoing theorizations that machismo in the Philippines may be better understood. From a socio-cultural perspective, however, the concept of machismo is not forthrightly anti-women. In fact, Hispanic cultures like that of Mexico that share cultural affinity with the Philippines consider machismo to have two expressions (Arciniega et al., 2008). On the one hand, machismo is expressed in caballerismo or chivalry. It is a kind of machismo that takes a positive spin. In Philippine popular culture, it is probably best represented by the cinematic characters of the King of Philippine Movies, the late Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ), whose larger than life image has become the popular standard for male strength and chivalry in the Filipino public mind. FPJ’s cinematic persona is one that is humble and unassuming, expressly respectful towards women, an ideal partner, a champion of the destitute and downtrodden, and a fighter against abuse of power and wrongdoing. Using the frames of militarism and bossism, one can reimagine this persona as the benevolent military man or the good boss. FPJ’s cinematic persona is projected as the ideal man—never meant to hurt women, only there to offer protection for them and to rescue them in times of trouble. In a sense, this character presupposes male strength and superiority as compared to women; but to the adoring public, that is acceptable because such a stature is consistent with the traditional metaphorical notions of the father as the pillar of the family [haligi ng tahanan], the breadwinner, and ultimately the key decision-maker of the family. The other expression of machismo is traditionally aggressive and anti-social. Unlike the chivalrous version of machismo, traditional machismo is expressly misogynistic. It is violent, belligerent, and variously anti-women. In popular culture, traditional machismo would be represented by the nemeses of FPJ’s cinematic persona. They include abusive characters: criminals, corrupt men who take advantage of the weak, power-hungry politicians and exploitative law enforcers, and domestic partners who subject their wives and kids to physical and psychological violence. They

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could also be reimagined as the abusive military man or the predatory boss. Unlike its benevolent counterpart, traditional machismo outrightly expresses disdain towards women. It is easy to distinguish this kind of machismo from the chivalrous kind, as the traditional kind brings forth fear and derision in the public mind. However, it is important to take into consideration that while the chivalrous version of machismo is rendered acceptable and even benevolent in comparison to traditional machismo, both versions can be variously toxic. By toxic masculinity, I refer to a masculinity that expresses behaviour that subjugates women (Kimmel & Wade, 2018). As Arciniega and his colleagues (2008) suggest, those who tend to lean towards chivalrous machismo could still show characteristics of toxic masculinity. As such, the performance of machismo, whether the chivalrous or misogynistic kind, is likely to sustain the ideology that men are superior to women, that women should remain relegated to specific social roles excluding leadership, and that women are better off if they see themselves as complementing men. Such an ideology is toxic because it limits women’s capabilities, downplays their potential, and renders them inadequate in the absence of men. It is toxic because it glorifies the macho as the centre and gravity of social life—the core that holds society together upon whom women and various other genders and sexualities depend. In this chapter, I demonstrate how machismo is perpetuated through discourse, specifically through presidential public addresses. I demonstrate how speeches and public utterances throughout the rhetorical history of the Philippine presidency have sustained machismo through the language of toxic masculinity. Upon close reading, these speeches reveal expressions that point towards specific ways of conceptualizing or metaphorizing women, men, and the Philippine presidency. These conceptualizations, I argue, manifest an overarching schema (Navera, 2012, 2018a, 2018b) that explains how machismo is deeply embedded in the Philippine presidency. That schema, which speaks so much about how political power constitutes and is constituted by particular notions of gender and sexuality, essentially renders the Philippine president as macho. I first examine Duterte’s rhetoric of machismo and then trace its roots in earlier expressions and iterations of machismo in the Philippine presidency’s rhetorical history.

11.3 Duterte and His Toxic Masculinity Duterte’s rhetoric is a prime example of how machismo is ingrained in political power. His toxic masculinity is evident in how he talks about women and projects himself as a man in several of his well circulated political speeches. In this section, I cite a couple of examples of his machismo-laden statements from his presidential campaign and his term as president and discuss how toxic masculinity is realized in his presidential talk. In general, Duterte’s talk regards women as objects of male lust and pleasure. Women are reduced to their faces or body parts that attract the male gaze. This metonymic strategy is driven by the male fantasy that women are prizes to be won,

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possessed, and taken control by men. In Duterte’s rhetoric, women’s body parts are primarily meant to serve men. Men can ogle at them, take pleasure in them, possess them, and even destroy them if they wish to render women useless. This rhetoric is particularly manifest in several of his speeches. In the discussion that follows, I briefly describe each of these speeches and sustain each brief description with an explication of the speech’s latent or explicit display of toxic masculinity. Duterte has long gained notoriety for his macho stance coupled with his devil-maycare attitude in his public pronouncements, but it was his campaign speech in May 2016 when he joked about the rape of an Australian missionary in the late 1980s that his blatant misogyny, and therefore, toxic masculinity, gained public prominence. He recounted that when he was mayor of Davao City, he found himself resolving a hostage crisis in the prisons involving foreign missionaries. One of the fatalities was an Australian female missionary, who according to his account “looked like a beautiful actress in the United States” (Corrales, 2016). He then quipped that “dapat si Mayor ang mauna [the Mayor should have been first],” suggesting that being the top leader of the city, he could have been given priority in sexually exploiting the fallen missionary. When Duterte made a joke on the dead body of the Australian missionary, he was not merely making light of a harrowing event; he was reminding the audience who the boss is, who has primacy, who is in control. Dapat si Mayor ang mauna is an expression of male hierarchy over women—in this case, a lifeless woman who could no longer contest and resist his intended act of violence. That rape is reduced to a joke speaks so much about how it has become normal or natural for men to possess women’s bodies and violate them. It also normalizes women’s resignation to such a schema—they are always subjugated, silenced, and never allowed to get angry at the turn of events. When women get angry, they are deemed to be hysterical, incapable of humor, and defiant of what is touted as normal or even natural. Another speech that gained prominence because of Duterte’s explicit disregard for women was his public address before more than 200 former communist insurgents in the presidential palace in February 2018. In the speech, Duterte made a stern and controversial warning particularly to women communist rebels: “There’s a new order coming from the mayor, ‘We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina’” (Ellis-Peterson, 2018). “Shooting the vagina” is Duterte’s way depicting the power of militarization while justifying women’s subjugation under such power. By shooting the vagina, Duterte justifies the use of violence as a means to silence women, to defeat them, and to render them incapacitated in resisting or fighting against policy. Duterte is particularly clear why the shooting of the female reproductive organ needs to be done—it would render women “useless.” In other words, Duterte uses women’s reproductive organ as a metonymy of women’s value in society. To destroy it would mean to make women incapable not only of reproduction, but also, and more importantly, of offering pleasure to men. The same rhetoric of women’s subjugation through military power is revealed when Duterte casually talks about absolving the military for their excesses, particularly the possibility of committing rape under martial law in Mindanao. In a speech he delivered before soldiers on May 26, 2017, following his declaration of martial law

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in Mindanao, Duterte made another rape joke that stirred media attention. In reassuring the military of his utmost support, he expressed the following controversial statements: Sasamahan ko kayo. [I’ll be with you all the way]. If you go down, I go down. But for this martial law and the consequences of martial law, and the ramifications of martial law, I and I alone would be responsible. Trabaho lang. Ako na bahala. Ako na magpakulong sa inyo. ’Pag naka-rape ka ng 3, aminin ko na akin ’yun. [Just do your job. You have my back. I’ll take your place in prison. If you rape three, I’ll take the blame]. (RTV Malacanang, 2017; also Rappler, 2017)

That military rape can be exonerated under martial law reveals Duterte’s tendency to cut corners to get things done. This is the same rhetorical disposition he carries when justifying thousands of deaths under his drug war policy. As long as action is carried out and his policy gets implemented, Duterte does not seem to care about violating human rights including the right of women to their own bodies. In 2020, the U.N. Human Rights Council reported the “widespread, systematic and ongoing” extrajudicial killings in the Philippines under Duterte’s drug war (Santos, 2020). Duterte’s belligerent policy against narcotics has seen more than 27,000 suspected drug peddlers killed from a mix of police operations and vigilante killings (Santos, 2020). Interestingly, it is Duterte’s belligerent rhetoric that has given shape and direction to the violent drug war policy (Navera, 2020) and it could very well be traced to his toxic masculinity. His lack of respect toward women and his general disregard for due process and human rights, especially of the poor and the economically disadvantaged, make it easy for Duterte to produce violent remarks as well as sanctioning vigilante killings at the same time. One could argue that, in turn, his belligerent rhetoric feeds into his machismo and the macho image it brings forth, making his appeal as a boss, as the leader of the military and as a national icon of Filipino maleness, all the more potent and formidable. Such is the power of his rhetoric that Duterte’s notorious comments against some world leaders, the European Union, and human rights advocates have not lowered his public approval ratings. For instance, months before he announced his bid for the presidency, Duterte made headlines when he cursed the Pope for causing traffic in Manila (Ranada, 2015). That did not stop his supporters from pushing his presidential candidacy; he eventually won by a wide margin against his closest rival despite clearly offending Catholic Church leaders who remain to hold a strong grip on the socio-political landscape in the Philippines. During his presidency, Duterte publicly castigated critics of his drug war policy. He called former U.S. President Barack Obama a “son of a whore” (South China Morning Post, 2016), cursed the European Union (The Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2017), and on various occasions, publicly ridiculed journalists, activists, and opposition leaders who strongly expressed disagreement to his approach towards the drug problem. In his weekly public addresses meant to update Filipinos of the national situation under a public health crisis, Duterte would lump his critics with corrupt politicians, insurgents, and less desirable elements of society. Yet, his “unpresidential” (Chandran, 2017) pronouncements have not really significantly dented his popularity. In fact, his presidency has been likened to “Teflon” (Chanco,

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2020) for its tenacity against expressions of dissent and criticism without paying a political price. In October 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, Duterte’s approval rating was reported at a record high 91% (Reuters Staff, 2020), proving yet again that the power of his machismo remains enduring and undisturbed. Meanwhile, Duterte’s propensity for “rape jokes” also extends to jokes about his female cabinet members as potential sexual partners and Filipino women as tourist attractions. For instance, in a speech delivered before survivors on the Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (Haiyan) in Tacloban City, he admitted that he ogled at the legs of his Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo during cabinet meetings (Ramos, 2016) and justified his joke by saying: “What’s so special about the body of a woman?… Do not exact-standard me. I will do what I say and I say what I do. Jokes like that are nothing” (The Straits Times, 2016). At a press conference on the public health crisis brought about by COVID-19, Duterte joked that amidst the crisis he would be compelled to visit the popular beaches of Boracay if his Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat would swim with him (Tomacruz, 2019). In at least two separate public speaking events, Duterte talked of women as tourist attractions for men. When speaking at a business forum in India on January 26, 2018, he made the following joke to lure Indian businessmen to invest and visit the Philippines: “The come-on is that if you die a martyr, you go to heaven with 42 virgins waiting for you. If I could just make it a come-on also for those who’d like to go to my country” (Ranada, 2018). He made a similar joke in his State of the Nation Address in 2019 when he quipped that sunbathing girls in Boracay are waiting for men (Ranada, 2019). In such jokes, Duterte intensifies his objectification of women by treating them casually as sources of male pleasure, diminishing whatever distance is left between his presidency and desire for sexual exploitation. Female cabinet members are reduced to sexual ornaments or toys meant to gratify the presidential sexual appetite while Filipino women in general are rendered as “come-ons” for tourists and foreign investors. Duterte’s machismo rhetoric can be thus summarized as follows: Women and their bodies are owned by powerful men. Such ownership of women’s bodies entails deriving pleasure from them, taking control of them, and destroying them when necessary. Women and their bodies are dispensable and can be used and abused at men’s disposal. Their violation by the military is inevitable as the military serves at the behest of those in power. This schema shows Duterte’s rhetoric to be an exemplar of toxic masculinity. It denigrates women while glorifying male power. More importantly, it equates presidential power with misogyny in its most despicable form: rape.

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11.4 The Language of Toxic Masculinity in the Philippine Presidency Duterte’s toxic masculinity is actually not unique. Toxic masculinity has long been ingrained in Philippine presidential discourse. I turn to selected presidential speeches and statements throughout Philippine history that discuss a woman’s place in society. These utterances reflect how toxic masculinity has been sustained and reproduced through presidential utterances. Presidential rhetoric before Duterte may not have been as blatantly misogynistic, but its expressions tended to be just as contemptuous towards women, pronounced in its veneration of men and overall characterization of the presidency as a quintessentially masculine enterprise.

11.4.1 Estrada, the Marcoses, and Anti-Women Rhetoric The case that is perhaps closest to that of Duterte would be Joseph Ejercito Estrada who was elected president by a huge margin in 1998 until his ouster following a failed impeachment trial in 2001. Estrada was known for his philandering ways, a characteristic trait that he shares with Duterte who himself considers adultery a “nonissue” (Agence France-Press, 2017). Like Duterte, Estrada was very public about having several mistresses while he was in power. His toxic masculinity manifested itself by justifying his actions involving women. When news broke that he had an illegitimate daughter who was an aspiring beauty queen, Estrada denied the allegation (Wallerstein, 1999). Hesitating to go through a DNA test to belie the allegations, Estrada was quoted saying: “If she’s my daughter, that’s okay, because after all many women want to have my baby” (Wallerstein, 1999). Women’s groups naturally protested against the sexism displayed by Estrada.1 The statement clearly manifested misogyny. Estrada’s toxic masculinity emanated from his bravado, a characteristic sense of self-confidence that propelled him to declare that women sought him. He was after all a first-rate actor before he ventured into national politics. He was good looking, linked to many of his female lead stars. That a president can claim to be wanted or desired by women by having his baby resonates with Duterte’s portrayal of the female pudendum as dependent on male power. In such discourse, because it is owned by men the female reproductive organ submits to both the provisions and punishments afforded by male power. Long before Estrada’s macho discourse, the most prominent statement that manifested misogyny and toxic masculinity was that of Ferdinand Marcos. At the height of snap elections in 1986, Marcos dismissed his presidential opponent, Corazon C. Aquino, widow of the assassinated opposition leader Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., for being a woman. He was quoted as saying that “a woman’s place is in the bedroom.” 1

Women’s groups in the Philippines, especially those associated with the progressive movement, have been consistent in calling out blatant misogynistic comments from Philippine presidents including Joseph Estrada, Rodrigo Duterte, and Ferdinand Marcos.

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Marcos consequently received flak for his sexist remark, but as reported by Francis Clines for The New York Times (1986), Marcos recontextualized the statement by saying: “‘Of course they belong in the bedroom,’ [Marcos] said today, but in the sense of a woman’s being discreet ‘if she had something to say to her husband which might humiliate him’” (Clines, 1986). Marcos’s explanation manifesting misogyny was that a woman’s place in society is to be relegated to the private space. A woman cannot speak in public as she “might humiliate her husband.” By relegating women to the bedroom, Marcos conceptualized women as servants of men in the intimate marital space where they supposedly belong, and at the same time constrained to exercise sexual agency, give their opinion or enact whatever marital roles are expected of them (Tope, 2018). By insisting that women “belong” to the bedroom, Marcos obliterated women’s capacity to engage in public life. He reinforced the traditional role of women as a housewife and primary caretaker of children (Alampay, 2014), which incidentally was also how Aquino represented herself in the public campaign in order to distinguish herself from the traditional politics embodied by the dictator. The other half of the conjugal dictatorship (Mijares, 2017) represented by Marcos’s wife, Imelda, reaffirmed Marcos’s conceptualization of women. In her public rhetoric, Imelda openly declared that women’s place is in the home, and that more than anything else they are political ornaments by fostering the transcendent values of “beauty, inspiration, love.” In an interview with American journalists in the midst of her husband’s campaign during the snap election, Imelda was quoted as saying: “I’m very aware of my place as a woman… Women have their place somehow at home” (Fineman, 1986). Moreover, the following words quoted from Imelda in Mark Fineman’s article on LA Times on January 23, 1986, betray Mrs. Marcos’s conceptualization of women as an embellishment to male power and strength: Power is always the man. Power and strength is man. Beauty, inspiration, love is woman… Beauty is love made real, and the spirit of love is God. And the state of beauty, love and God is happiness. A transcendent state of beauty, love and God is peace. Peace and God is a state of beauty, love and God. Peace and happiness is a state of beauty, love and God … This is what we women have to bring about – to bring peace, bring order, bring harmony, bring discipline.

Visual rhetoric, in fact, reinforced this conceptualization. In a Marcoscommissioned artwork by Evan Cosayo (Sumayao, 2018), the mythic characters of Malakas at Maganda [The Strong and The Beautiful] were painted in the likeness of Ferdinand and Imelda. Resolute in establishing their significant roles in the New Society launched following the imposition of martial law in 1972, Marcos the strong, and Imelda the beautiful, could not have strayed far from the misogynist schema where men are primarily society’s source of strength, energy, and power, whereas women provided the embellishment or the ornamentation that such a masculine vision needed. While serving as the Governor of Manila, Imelda’s conceptualization of women was founded on the idea that women’s place in society are ancillary to men. In her case, power rests on her husband Ferdinand. What she did was to complement him at best, but she could not have veered from his decisions because he, a male

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leader and a macho one at that, remained the core of decision-making, national leadership, and society at large. Her romanticized notion of male–female complementarity can be traced to the historical subjugation of women’s place in society while men’s achievements—as bosses and military heroes—are unquestioningly glorified. It may be easy to establish links and parallels between Duterte and Estrada as well as Duterte and Marcos because of the stark similarities in these men’s public personae and leadership styles. Duterte’s philandering persona resonates well with Estrada’s persona as a ladies’ man. Besides, Duterte himself has admitted to idolizing Marcos (Cardinoza, 2016; Mendez, 2019). However, traces of toxic masculinity can also be gleaned from the rhetoric of earlier presidents—considered more benign and definitely not as blatantly misogynistic in their rhetoric compared to that of the aforementioned leaders. I turn to Manuel L. Quezon and Carlos P. Garcia, who both delivered speeches extolling the virtues of women, and in fact, reinforced their significant roles in Philippine society.

11.4.2 Toxic Masculinity in Pre-Marcos Presidencies Carlos P. Garcia, who was Philippine President from 1957 to 1961, delivered a speech before the Civil Assembly of Women in the Philippines (CAWP) in the Malacañang Social Hall on July 3, 1959 where he reminded the audience of his national policies while emphasizing women’s role in society: To be sure, certain factors do contribute to the decay of the people’s moral fiber. The women are, therefore, called upon to start the early training and discipline of our children to ensure the wholesome growth of a good citizenry. It is a truism that men in the country are as strong as the women make them. Conscious of this great responsibility, we believe in stepping up the promotion of cultural activities and the ever vigilant observance and enforcement of legislations that affect the morality of our people. (Emphasis mine)

The words actually reaffirm the important role of women in “the early training and discipline of our children.” Women are acknowledged as responsible for “the people’s moral fiber” and “a good citizenry.” Delegating such a responsibility to women, however, downplays the state’s responsibility in crafting public morality and men’s share in such an endeavour. Garcia’s speech assigns the burden of cultivating a good citizenry, including strong men, to women. In doing so, a sign of weakness in men is, therefore, attributed to women’s failure in carrying out their responsibility. This perspective is definitely patriarchal. It reflects machismo, as men are absolved in situations where they manifest weakness; it is the women who take the blame instead. Manuel L. Quezon could not conceal his patriarchal persona either. Quezon, who was first President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, delivered a speech upon signing the Woman’s Suffrage Plebiscite Bill at Malacañang Palace, Manila, September 30, 1936. In that speech, he reiterated his support for the plebiscite and encouraged the male provincial governors to lend their support as well. This he did while emphasizing that women were not taking up more political roles—like

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“meddling in politics every day, attending meetings, and making noise”—as they were “unbecoming to ladies”: My advice to men, especially when they are provincial governors who, whether they like it or not, will have something to do with the President of the Philippines, is that they better lay off the plebiscite and allow the women a free and untrammelled expression of their will on whether or not there is to be woman’s suffrage in the Philippines. To women, this is their opportunity to secure all the rights and privileges that the women of other countries have. This is not their opportunity to be meddling in politics every day, attending meetings, and making noise which is unbecoming to ladies. What I mean is that this is their opportunity to wield a very important weapon to defend their right to secure for themselves and those to follow them their well-being and happiness. (Emphasis mine)

That women should not get into political affairs is a belief that Quezon quite successfully passed on to his successors, particularly to Marcos, who as pointed out earlier, believed that women’s place is in the bedroom. Quezon was undeniably a champion of women’s right to vote, but he was also clearly a misogynist for limiting women’s capacity to participate in the political arena. In supporting the suffragettes while defining how women should behave when it came to public affairs, Quezon cast women as instrumental to the careers of male politicians. After all, they constituted votes that male politicians needed to win if they wanted to stay in power. In the relatively benign speeches of Quezon and Garcia, women, while extolled for their contributions to society, were rendered as tributaries of the establishment. These presidents produced rhetoric that resonated in the rhetoric of their successors; both emphatically reminded women of their proper place in society. In what sounded like a subtle admonition, these presidents reminded women of their proper conduct, what they should avoid, and how they can best contribute to society. Women, then, were conceptualized as perpetually beholden to their male leaders. Not only did these male leaders use their power to validate the women’s social movement, they also determined how women should move forward, as if warning them of the forbidden territory they should avoid. The representations of women in positions of servitude, as political ornaments, and as tributaries of the establishment perpetually cast men, and male leaders in particular, as the core of society or the model for how the rest of society should conduct themselves. As the social core, they are necessarily the arbiter of good behavior. They determine what is best for women by validating their actions, recognizing their good behavior, and admonishing women whenever they deviate from the standard crafted by men. As the embodiment of the mythical Malakas, men are also the primary source of strength. To deviate from the male standard would therefore translate into weakness. It is through these assumptions that the male presidents cited in this essay and the rest of those who have occupied the presidential position have constituted the Philippine presidency as a man’s domain or as inherently masculine. This should help explain why even if the Philippines has produced two female presidents, some have not really taken them seriously or have only celebrated their successes insofar as they approximate male strength and character (cf. Carlin et al., 2020).

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11.4.3 Women Presidents as Extensions of Macho Discourse Incidentally, the two female Philippine presidents, Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, rose to power partly because they carried the social capital accorded by the men in their lives. Aquino became a public woman after the assassination of her husband, a staunch critic of the Marcos dictatorship. Arroyo, on the other hand, was the daughter of President Diosdado Macapagal, President of the Republic from 1961 to 1965. Both women arguably carved their names and contributed significantly to presidential leadership during their respective terms of office, but their ascension to power was based on the powerful men to whom they were related. One could even argue that both women had, in their respective terms, acted with, or exhibited, masculine characteristics in order to be taken seriously. Aquino’s public address before businessmen on October 20, 1987, in the Manila Hotel, is considered a defining moment of her presidency. Reviewing her speech, T. D. Allman (1988) of Vanity Fair described her as “tough” which, to the author, also meant necessarily leaving behind her feminine persona that had been instrumental in her ascension to power. “It was time for the Madonna of People Power to come down from her pedestal. Time too for people to stop blaming Our Lady of Democracy every time their prayers didn’t come true. Time in short, to put a great moment in Philippine history behind them.” Meanwhile, Arroyo’s recontextualization of the war on terror in her public addresses during her initial, successor term contributed to her assertion of political legitimacy (Navera, 2011). Arroyo legitimized her perennially challenged successor term (2001–2004) and full presidential term (2004–2010) by taking a militaristic stance in rhetoric and in policy. She cast her political enemies as “termites” that need to be expunged from the strong republic (Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 2002). While projecting strength through her “working president” persona, she associated herself closely with the military and with retired military men in her cabinet. This reliance on men in speech and performance may have ensured the completion of her full term to 2010. The foregoing examples drawn from the rhetorical history of the Philippine presidency suggest a long-standing discourse of machismo. This discourse has been expressed in varying degrees—from benign expressions of patriarchy to blatant misogyny. It is a discourse most pronounced in the presidential rhetoric of Marcos, Estrada, and more recently, Duterte. Even prominent women leaders, including Imelda, the other half of the Marcos conjugal dictatorship, contributed to its sustenance either by reinforcing the male centrism of presidential leadership or by adopting tough male militarist rhetoric, as in the case of the two female presidents. This study, however, might have only scratched the surface. A more extensive and systematic investigation would be useful to excavate rhetorical fragments of machismo in the history of Philippine presidential talk and text. It might be worthwhile for current and future scholars to examine more closely how the rhetoric of the American colonial government reinforced Filipino machismo and enabled its toxic incarnation. Scholars could also investigate more systematically the rhetoric of the

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Commonwealth government (1935–1946) and the post-Second World War presidencies before the imposition of martial law in 1972 and how they were instrumental in the construction of the president as macho. I note that the macho discourse might have been expressed more explicitly in the rhetoric of some presidents, but I wish to point out that other leaders not mentioned in this study are not necessarily less guilty of perpetuating the macho discourse. The long-standing policy of militarization in the countryside, the continuous dominance of male members in the presidential cabinet, and their intentional or unintentional reinforcement of gender stereotypes through their behavior while in public office, arguably contribute to the pervasiveness of macho discourse in the national leadership. In other words, various acts of commission and omission inevitably reproduce or circulate a long-standing social belief system like machismo. It can be argued, then, that Duterte’s rhetoric is both an extension and recontextualization of this enduring machismo discourse.

11.5 Conclusion This study theoretically reaffirms the idea that speech can both be a point of departure and return. In this case it is a return and a reaffirmation of long-standing discourse. If there is one thing that Rodrigo Duterte should be credited for, it is that he has heightened and intensified toxic masculinity in his presidential discourse. I wish to contend, however, that the language of toxic masculinity is not unique to his rhetoric. As demonstrated through the above analysis, his rhetoric is a recontextualization and an extension of a long-standing discourse that renders women as servants of men, as political ornaments, and as tributaries of the establishment. It is also a discourse that regards men as the core, the primary source of strength, and the arbiter of good behavior in society. Finally, it is a discourse that views the presidency as the domain of men and as inherently masculine, rendering female presidents as blips or aberrations in the long-standing presidential narrative, if not its mere extension. While Duterte’s language on the presidential podium may seem unsettling to many of us who have access to critical frameworks, it may not necessarily be the case for his teeming supporters. I attribute this reality to the machismo discourse in the Philippines that makes such unpresidential language possible. It is a discourse that has been so pervasive, persistent, and powerful, that a vast number of people including those who have taken the presidential seat have found themselves being resigned to it, rendering it as a normality. This enduring discourse of machismo is what needs to be unsettled if Philippine presidential rhetoric in particular, and the country’s political rhetoric at large, is to move past gendered social practices that treat women unjustly and unfairly. This means that we need to understand the rhetorical instantiations of machismo within their broader context. Moreover, we need to work more aggressively towards unsettling both discursive and social practices of machismo as much as calling out individuals whenever they express toxic masculinity. Part of that initiative

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would be to trace and lay bare the genealogy of our contemporary practices even if it means unsettling the language of those revered in our history.

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rielaWomensParty/posts/statement-on-pres-dutertes-martial-law-rape-joke-before-soldiers-iniligan-city-/644511599092174/. Garcia, C. P. (1959, July 3). Speech of President Garcia before the CAWP at the Malacañang Social Hall. Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 55(27), 5003–5005. Retrieved from https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1959/07/03/speech-of-president-garcia-before-the-cawp/. Hau, C. (2002). Of strongmen and the state. Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, 1. Retrieved from https://kyotoreview.org/issue-1/of-strongmen-and-the-state/. Hilsdon, A.-M. (1995). Madonnas and martyrs: Militarism and violence in the Philippines. Ateneo de Manila Press. Kimmel, M., & Wade, L. (2018). Ask a feminist: Michael Kimmel and Lisa Wade discuss toxic masculinity. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 44(1), 233–254. McCoy, A. W. (1999). Closer than brothers: Manhood at the Philippine military academy. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. Mendez, C. (2019, May 12). Duterte praises Marcos anew. The Philippine Star. Retrieved from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/05/12/1917147/duterte-praises-marcos-anew. Mijares, P. (2017). The conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Bughaw. Navera, G. S. (2011). “War on terror” Is a curative: Recontextualization and political mythmaking in gloria macapagal arroyo’s State of the Nation addresses (2002–2004). Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 8(4), 313–343. Navera, G. S. (2012). Metaphorizing the Philippine presidency: Schemas of presidential leadership in the State of the Nation Addresses (1987–2009). Doctoral thesis, National University of Singapore. Navera, G. S. (2018a). The rhetoric of PNoy: Image, myth and rhetorical citizenship in Philippine presidential speeches. In Frontiers in Political Communication (Vol. 32). New York: Peter Lang. Navera, G. S. (2018b). Metaphorizing martial law: Constitutional authoritarianism in Marcos’s rhetoric (1972–1985). Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 66(4), 417– 452. Navera, G. S. (2020). Belligerence as argument: The allure of the war metaphor in Philippine presidential speeches. Kairos: A Journal of Critical Symposium, 5(1), 67–82. Retrieved from http://kairostext.in/index.php/kairostext/article/view/98. Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. (2002, July 10). The President’s Day. Retrieved from https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2002/07/10/the-presidents-day-july-10-2002/. Quezon, M. L. (1936, September 30). Speech of President Quezon on woman’s suffrage. Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. Retrieved from https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/ 1936/09/30/speech-of-president-quezon-on-woman-suffrage-september-30-1936/. Ramos, M. (2016, November 8). Duterte admits ogling at Robredo’s legs during cabinet meeting. Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved from https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/842295/duterte-admitsogling-at-robredos-legs-during-cabinet-meeting. Ranada, P. (2015, November 30). Duterte curses Pope Francis over traffic during his visit. Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2016/114481-rodrigo-dutertecurses-pope-francis. Ranada, P. (2018, January 26). Duterte jokes about ‘42 virgins’ as tourism ‘come-on.’ Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/nation/194576-duterte-jokes-virgins-come-on-tourism. Ranada, P. (2019, July 22). ‘Boracay girls wait for you’: Duterte’s sexist remarks at SONA 2019. Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/nation/236051-duterte-sexist-remarks-sona2019. Rappler. (2017, May 28). Duterte: ‘I alone’ responsible for martial law aftermath. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/nation/171019-duterte-responsible-martial-law-aftermath. Reuters Staff. (2020, October 5). Philippines’ Duterte scores record high ratings, despite virus crisis. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-duterte-idUSKBN26Q0YK. RTVMalacanang. (2017, May 26). Talk to men (Speech) 5/26/2017. YouTube Video, 18:95. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0yT0Pb8bJM.

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Santos, A. P. (2020, July 7). Duterte’s four years in power—Extrajudicial killings, rights abuses and terror. DW News. Retrieved from https://www.dw.com/en/dutertes-four-years-in-power-extrajudi cial-killings-rights-abuses-and-terror/a-54082293. Sidel, J. (1997). Politics in town, district, province: Bossism in Cavite and Cebu. The Journal of Asian Studies, 56(4), 947–966. Sidel, J. (2001). Coercion, capital, and crime: Bossism in the Philippines. Stanford University Press. South China Morning Post. (2016, September 7). Did Rodrigo Duterte really call Obama a son of a whore or was he a victim of his own reputation? Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/news/ asia/southeast-asia/article/2017245/did-rodrigo-duterte-really-call-obama-son-whore-or-he. Sumayao, M. (2018, September 24). Painting the Marcos myth with Ferdinand as Malakas, Imelda as Maganda. Esquire. Retrieved from https://www.esquiremag.ph/culture/lifestyle/marcos-mal akas-maganda-a2239-20180924-lfrm. The Philippine Daily Inquirer. (2017, October 13). Duterte curses EU anew, threatens to expel envoys. Retrieved from https://globalnation.inquirer.net/160862/duterte-curses-eu-anew-threat ens-expel-envoys. The Straits Times. (2016, November 10). Duterte admits ogling vice-president’s legs. The Straits Times. Retrieved from https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/duterte-admits-ogling-vice-pre sidents-legs. Tomacruz, S. (2019, March 11). ‘Ligo tayo’: Amid coronavirus, Duterte jokes he’ll swim in Boracay with Puyat. Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/inside-track/253922duterte-joke-boracay-puyat-brush-psg-no-touch-policy. Tope, L. R. (2018). Women and the authoritarian state: The Southeast Asian experience. In D. V. S. Chin & D. K. Mohd (Eds.), The Southeast Asian woman writes back. Asia in Transition (Vol. 6, pp. 71–88). Springer. Retrieved from https://doi-org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/10.1007/978-981-107065-5_5. van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. Sage. van Dijk, T. A. (2006). Ideology and discourse analysis. Journal of Politics and Ideology, 11(2), 115–140. Wallerstein, C. (1999, March 4). Beauty queen a paternity case too many for Philippines leader. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/mar/04/philippines.

Gene Segarra Navera is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication of the National University of Singapore. He holds a Ph.D. in English Language Studies (NUS) and writes in the areas of rhetoric and public address, critical discourse studies, and writing and speech communication pedagogies. He is the author of the book The Rhetoric of PNoy: Image, Myth and Rhetorical Citizenship in Philippine Presidential Speeches (2018).

Chapter 12

Decoding Japanese Politicians’ Rhetoric: Socio-Cultural Features of Public Speaking Ofer Feldman

12.1 The Dual Nature of Language Democratic society is ipso facto advanced by free, open, and honest “political talk.” In Japan, however, such talk is more “flexible.” The discourse of Japanese politicians (and often of government officials as well) generally fits into one of two categories: Honne, or the genuine intent, relates to the watakushi (I) or the in-group (uchi) and represents private, non-ceremonial, and informal thoughts. It sometimes also means the hidden side (ura) of a subject, whereas tatemae is the “surface pretense,” or the face (omote) of a subject. It is the presented truth, that is, the easily visible side of a given issue. It relates to the ôyake (public) or out-group (soto) and represents the formal and ceremonial. The dual concepts of honne and tatemae reflect the different attitudes of a person conversing on a particular issue. When a speaker discloses genuine thoughts, opinions, and judgments, regardless of the expected reception they will receive, that is honne. In contrast, when statements are carefully worded to restrict the conversation to official positions–or when the speaker sticks to euphemisms, ambiguous expressions and generalities, avoiding direct statements, without revealing honest opinions or displaying personal feelings–that is tatemae. In Japan, tatemae is the most common form of public speaking, because as discussed below, it is not socially acceptable to articulate personal feelings or opinions in a public forum, nor is it considered appropriate to interject personal opinions into public affairs. It is therefore important to clearly distinguish between public obligation and private matters. For members of the national parliament (the Diet), The original version of this chapter was revised: A minor grammatical error in the chapter title has been corrected. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-163579-3_17 O. Feldman (B) Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021, corrected publication 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_12

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leaders of political groups, and government bureaucrats involved in the decisionmaking processes, honne and tatemae are the two sides of the Japanese political coin that signify the difference between public disclosure (i.e., what is politically correct to espouse publicly) and private discretion. Consequently, decision-makers present their views with varying degrees of directness (honne) or fuzziness (tatemae), and they directly address or shy away from talking about certain subjects depending on the circumstances in which they find themselves. When speaking before large public gatherings, politicians and officials almost always employ tatemae, speaking in general terms and using buzzwords to present only the official line of their administration or political group. These speeches can usually be interpreted in a variety of ways because the speakers avoid using vocabulary that indicates any specific judgment or commitment to any position. Such speakers hedge their comments with words like tabun (literally “probably”), osoraku (“perhaps”), or hyotto shitara (“could be”). They frequently use terms like maemuki ni (“positively” or “constructively”) to give a vague impression that they intend to move on an issue at some unspecified time in the future, eii (“diligently” or “earnestly”) to convey a sense of effort when prospects for accomplishment are poor, jûbun ni1 (“adequately,” “sufficiently,” or “thoroughly”) when stalling for time, and tsutomeru (“to endeavor” or “work hard”) when they intend to take no personal responsibility. Some of these terms are at the center of Japanese political clichés (kimari monku). Public officials often phrase comments in ways that make it impossible even for veteran political reporters who have covered politics for many years to determine where the speaker stands on a particular issue. Conversely, Diet members speak more concretely, in greater detail, and are more apt to disclose their true intentions when talking, for example, to smaller groups of reporters in their private offices or residences, or when meeting with supporters in their home districts. They also reveal what is on their minds when associating with party colleagues in gathering at party headquarters, in exclusive restaurants, or in “study sessions” organized in a resort areas far from Tôkyô for frank discussions of matters of common concern.

12.1.1 Prime Minister’s Speeches and Press Conference Typical examples of tatemae are the speeches politicians make at party conventions, political fundraisers, or other events attended by thousands of people with televisions cameras everywhere. On these occasions, politicians generally express little beyond the official, broadly accepted views, nor do they utter more than the vaguest of opinions, thus avoiding taking any stand (with a few exceptions, see below). The policy speeches that Japanese prime ministers regularly deliver to both houses of the Diet are also good examples. The administrative policy speech (shisei hôshin enzetsu) and the policy speech (shoshin hyômei enzetsu) are delivered at the opening of the regular, extraordinary, or special sessions of the Diet or upon establishing a new administration. In these speeches, the prime minister eloquently outlines his political 1 In Japanese, vowels can either be short or long; a diacritical mark, for example, ô or û over the vowel indicates that it is a long vowel.

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objectives vis-à-vis the major problems that confront Japan at the moment, as well as the key national and international issues he sees as priority challenges to deal with in his administration. The prime minister uses strong-sounding words, slogans, and sound bites in reference to such issues as maintaining health and social welfare, environmental protection, economic and fiscal policy, and international cooperation. Yet, each of these speeches seems as if it is a carbon copy of the preceding prime minister’s speech, with only a few modifications here and there to reflect the changing historical and social events of the time. Each of the speeches starts with the same greeting phrases (“I have been recently appointed as Prime Minister of Japan…”) and ends with similar concluding remarks (“I humbly ask for the support and cooperation of the people of Japan and the members of the Diet”). Each of the speeches consists of the same set of sentences, identical keywords and ideas, and words or activities that are repeated again and again, such as heiwa (peace), antei (assurance, stability), anshin (complacency, ease of mind), kyôryoku (cooperation), doryoku (effort), torikumu (engagement, challenging), susumeru (carry forward, advance), and suishin (move ahead on [a given issue], promote). In fact, these speeches are the tatemae of each new administration, and politicians and media pundits alike take them with a good deal of salt because they fail to identify any specific strategies or reveal any explicit policies or timeframes for tackling pending issues. The same is true for the frequent (at least weekly) press conferences that highechelon politicians, including Cabinet ministers and the vice ministers, organize for reporters to share their views concerning important issues related to their ministries. These include the regular press briefings that the Chief Cabinet Secretary, who serves as top spokesperson for the Cabinet, holds at least twice a day—in the morning and in the afternoon—for media representatives. The Chief Cabinet Secretary briefs reporters first and foremost on issues dealt with during Cabinet meetings, as well as on matters ranging from domestic politics to foreign policy that have been discussed during the day in the prime minister’s office with ministers, leaders of political parties and regional representatives, government officials, and visiting foreign delegations (Feldman, 2011). Tatemae also characterizes the special press conferences that the prime minister holds at his official residence every two or three months to address any political, economic, or international issues on the agenda, including the dissolution of the Diet, the inauguration of a new Cabinet, and before leaving for important meetings with world leaders. Because of their significance, television and radio stations broadcast these conferences live. These news conferences are usually carefully staged events. They are primarily occasions for the leaders of the nation to expound the Cabinet or official party lines. They represent useful channels to explain the formal positions of officials, rather than disclose the officials’ true opinions about any issue, let alone bring up any delicate and divisive matter that might agitate the electorate. In many such press conferences, especially those which are broadcast live on television, reporters have to pool their questions beforehand, sometimes even a day before, and let the prime minister, other ministers, and other high-echelon Diet members (and officials) know in advance the precise questions that they are going to ask. Reporters are often asked to omit sensitive questions or to change the wording of others, or they will not be given the

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opportunity to ask a question. Key Diet members try to keep the press focused on a defined set of issues. Because they are able to anticipate the questions and prepare their replies, they limit the risk of being drawn into uncharted waters and making their inner feelings or thoughts known.

12.1.2 Parliament Committees Discourse Diet deliberations and Diet committee meetings that are often aired live, are also dominated by tatemae. Here, the prime minister and members of his Cabinet are supposed to be “interrogated” by members of the opposition parties on the working of the administration. Yet, similar to the practices in the above-mentioned press conferences, opposition party members submit their precise questions a day or two before they present their questions in a given committee meeting. The prime ministers and members of the Cabinet have sufficient time to ask officials from the various ministries to prepare replies for them and then respond to each question they are asked while reading from their well-prepared notes. By closely following their prepared replies, they can avoid expressing spontaneous or clear-cut positions on any issue. If they are asked a follow-up question for which they don’t know or have a prepared answer, they often turn to such statements as nokomento (“no comment”), kantan na kotae wa arimasen (“there are no easy answers”), and samazama na teian ga arimasu (“there is a whole range of proposals” [so we have to examine them]). Echoing this general circumstance, Justice Minister Yanagida Minoru2 of the Democratic Party of Japan disclosed to his supporters at a private party in his home district on November 14, 2010, how easy his job was by saying: “If there were any questions in the Diet’s committee that I did not recognize, I needed to memorize only two phrases [to answer the question]: ‘I will refrain from commenting on individual cases’ [kobetsu no jian ni tsuite wa kotae wo sashihikaeru] and ‘[The ministry is] properly dealing with the matter based on the law and evidence’ [hô to shôko ni motodzuite tekisetsu ni yatte iru].” Interestingly, Yanagida’s frank comments were widely criticized by the Japanese media and opposition parties as an insult to the legislature; in light of a censure motion against him, Yanagida submitted his resignation a few days later, on November 22. While replying to questions during Diet committee meetings in particular, in their attempt to refrain from revealing any personal views that might annoy or provoke anger from any politician or official, the prime minister and the other ministers often utilize a sort of code that is difficult to precisely define. For example, they will use ôkiki suru (“respectfully listen”) when they will listen but probably do nothing; shinchô ni (“cautiously”) if they intend to do nothing, for example, when a situation is virtually hopeless, but they do not want to say so; hairyo suru (“consider”) when something is meant to stay tabled indefinitely; zensho suru (“deal with appropriately”) and kentô suru (“look into” or “study”) to avoid saying anything concrete; 2

Personal names are given in the Japanese order, i.e., family name first.

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and jikkuri kangaeru (“think carefully”) or sumiyaka na soriyu-shun wa arimasen (“there is no quick solution”), when what they mean is to kick around an idea without actually acting on it. They often refer to a specific situation and react by pledging teinei ni setsumei shimasu (“to give a detailed [careful] explanation”) when they plan to give only the most general explanation. Or, reply to a question by stating jinji ni kansuru koto de okotae wo sashihikaeru (“I will refrain from answering because it is related to personnel affairs”) (e.g., Azuma, 2020), when they know they can’t provide a logic and persuasive reply but just don’t want to further deal with the issue. One has to understand the hidden meaning of these terms in order to grasp the true intentions of high-echelon Japanese politicians.

12.2 Historical Manifestations, Socio-Cultural Norms, and Values Rationales There are three plausible explanations for the common tendency of politicians to avoid revealing their real feelings or expressing any kind of commitment, as well as to disclose only the official view, often in an ambiguous manner. These explanations are embedded in historical events that affected the communication modes in Japan, in cultural practices that affect decision-making processes, and in the cultural norms and values related to the society and its structure.

12.2.1 Historical Effects on Communicational Modes The historical experience of oppression in the long feudal era (1185–1868), during which Japanese were subjected to restraint and regulation of speech under a totalitarian system, has now become a Japanese tradition. There is a preference for vagueness, indirectness, and hesitation in language choice and for the usage of non-verbal communication in the highly contextualized Japanese culture. Notably, precision, clarity, and forthrightness are not necessarily seen as virtues in the Japanese communication style, even in many situations where those qualities are valued in the West. Japanese, in general, limit themselves to implicit language, avoid taking extreme positions, and even regard an ambiguous speaking style as acceptable. They avoid direct, plain statements in favor of more suggestive, indirect comments, showing a preference for understatement rather than overstatements. To avoid leaving an assertive impression, Japanese tend to depend more frequently on qualifiers such as “maybe” and “somewhat,” and to frequently signal caution or probability in such terms as to omou kedo… (I think so, but…) to convey hesitancy and uncertainty rather than certainty. Because Japanese syntax does not require the use of a subject in a sentence, the “qualifier-predicate” is the dominant form of sentence construction. The omission of the subject often creates a great deal of ambiguity, reflected, for

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example, in the use of linguistic expressions such as are and kore (“that” and “this”) in place of the explicit topic (e.g., Akasu & Asao, 1993; Feldman, Kinoshita, & Bull, 2015; Matsumoto & Boyè Lafayette, 2000; Sasagawa, 1996). Furthermore, the communicative mode of Japanese culture emphasizes silence, and the art of communicating without the use of direct assertions between individuals. This mode aims to sense the kûki (literally, the “air”), refers to the mood or atmosphere of a situation, and includes the spiritual aspects of haragei (“stomach art”) and ishin-denshin (“what the mind thinks, the heart transmits”), or a type of heart-toheart communication or empathetic understanding (Feldman, 2000). Similarly, sasshi (“guess”), refers to the ability to implicitly deduce the meaning of subtle messages, and sontaku3 (“following unspoken orders”) means to conjecture, surmise, guess, and understand someone else’s thoughts, feelings or desires, that is, the ability to “read between the lines” (gyôkan wo yomu), and “be perfectly in unison” (aun no kokyû). This style of interaction between individuals dictates communication of thoughts from one mind to another without anything actually being verbalized. Hence, verbal interaction sometimes seems like no more than a “mind-reading” game, with the expectation of mutual understanding without the need for explicit expressions of personal assertions, needs, and ideas, and maintaining this style is the product of a linguistically and racially homogeneous society (Miyamoto-Tanaka & Bell, 1996). Of course, this affects the nature and content of communication in the political context.

12.2.2 Decision-Making and Negotiation Style Traditions The second reason for the common tendency among high-echelon Diet members (as well as government officials) to avoid revealing real feelings and to disclose only the official view, often in an ambiguous manner, is related to cultural routines that affect the decision-making processes in Japan, that is, the way Japanese traditionally negotiate to resolve pending issues and reach decisions in social, educational, and political organizations. For the most part, the two concepts of honne and tatemae reflect the bifurcated quality of Japanese society, in which everything has a front and a back. The front is the public arena, but the action is in the backrooms, where the 3

During 2017, sontaku took on a very specific political meaning, when it was interpreted as the ability to please one’s superiors by conjecturing their wishes without any actual indication of those wishes. Sontaku grew from two political scandals involving former Prime Minister Abe Shinzô and his wife. The first was in regard to the Osaka-based educational institution Moritomo Gakuen, which had purchased a piece of public land at an extreme discount. The officials in charge of the transaction reportedly practiced sontaku to accommodate what they believed were the wishes of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Prime Minister’s wife, who was named honorary principal of the elementary school to be built on the site. The second scandal broke out months later when Abe and his aides were alleged to have helped the president of Kake Gakuen Education Institution, a long-time friend of Abe, obtain permission to run a veterinary school despite public consensus that it was not needed. As the two scandals became known, the sontaku concept became headline material and public support for Abe dropped sharply.

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real deal-making process is conducted. Although discrepancies between the façade and the substance are also found in other politically organized societies, it is more pronounced in Japan. Consider, for example, the Japanese government’s stances and policies on both the domestic and foreign fronts. Since 2014, the policy of Prime Minister Abe Shinzô’s government toward the female labor force has been characterized by discrepancies between the initiative to promote women’s active social and economic participation (womenomics, the tatemae) and the actual state of women’s labor in Japan (honne) (Inagaki & Harding, 2018; Takeda, 2018). In another example, Japan’s nuclear energy policy on the local level is also divided between the local communities’ anxiety about living close to the nuclear-power plants and their concerns over the dismantling of currently unused nuclear-power plants (tatemae), and the fact that plant owner/operators employ local people and contribute money to communities and incumbent local governments (honne) (Flanagan, 2013). On the international level, tatemae dominated the debates of the Abe administration on foreign policy and diplomacy, especially versus the U.S., Russia, China, South Korea, and North Korea (Korean Times, 2013; Rozman, 2018). The same administration’s attitudes toward the constitution, the right of “self-defense,” and the possible extension and restriction of the Self-Defense Force’s functions and capabilities also reflected differences between the façade and substance (Harner, 2014). Last, both honne and tatemae motivated Japan’s foreign economic policy, affecting the Official Development Assistance (ODA) funds Japan offer to poorer eight ASEAN countries (Furuoka & Kato, 2008). Japan has a bicameral legislature, and the Diet’s proceedings constitute the face of the political process. This is where speeches on social and political issues are made, and procedures concerning the routine work of both chambers are usually decided on by a vote in the plenary session. In many cases, however, such votes merely endorse decisions that have already been reached in negotiations between the rank and file of the political parties before the session began. These negotiations, known as misshitsu seiji (“political decisions made behind closed doors”) or machiai seiji (“behind-thescene politics”), are conducted far from the public’s eye, and representatives of all the political parties (or from the coalition and opposition camps) who are members of the Diet Affairs Committee (kokkai taisaku iinkai) meet to discuss their positions on a variety of issues. They negotiate about how each party will be represented in leadership positions in the Diet, the duration of extraordinary or special Diet sessions, and how to facilitate the working of Diet committees. To deter an open clash of opinions in front of television cameras and the public, these representatives conduct the traditional Japanese process of nemawashi (literally, “trimming of a tree’s roots prior to its being transplanted”). That is, through careful personal interactions that involved informal bargaining, they try to enhance cooperation between all the members of the diverse groups before the formal public process takes place. Likewise, Diet members and government bureaucrats also have regular, confidential. backroom meetings. To ensure smooth passage of bills, preliminary negotiations about their content and objectives take place between senior bureaucrats of various ministries and influential Diet members, especially those from the coalition of ruling

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parties. To win support for certain bills, Diet members and government officials often conduct informal discussions on the manner of and date for the introduction of a bill. These closed-doors negotiations and lengthy lobbying sessions are often complicated and sensitive. Because of the concern that even a casual comment may affect the deal-making process and impact cooperation, Diet members from the parties involved refrain from making all but the most vague comments on pending, negotiated issues until a final decision has been achieved.

12.2.3 Harmony in a Group-Oriented Society The third reason why Japanese politicians tend to avoid making clear-cut public statements on various issues is no less important than the first two. In a collectivistic and group-oriented (shûdan shugi) society such as Japan, the striving for–and preservation of–social harmony (wa), that requires conformity and loyalty to group causes, consensus decisions, and especially the avoidance of overt expression of conflict among group members, is a major objective in both public and private behavior (Feldman, 2000). Arguably, anything controversial–basically anything that irritates the harmony of Japanese society or culture–should be carefully filtered before it is conveyed to the public. Political leaders, especially those in high positions, must always consider the possible effect of their words because their words must maintain the calm and not evoke any confusion or an adverse reaction from any segment of the public, foreign countries, or opposition parties. Unexpectedly candid utterances or spontaneous and emotional reactions in public can invite criticism or even cause political chaos, as detailed below. Of importance in this regard is maintaining smooth interpersonal relationships and avoiding direct confrontation that might instigate someone’s “loss of face” and public embarrassment. “Face management,” in this sense, becomes a particularly delicate matter during Diet deliberations where Diet members of the ruling parties are especially careful to choose their words not only to evade stirring up opposition parties and public opinion, but also to avoid offending the status of one of their colleagues. Even if a high-echelon Diet member, such as the prime minister, knows that a member in his Cabinet has done something wrong (e.g., received illicit money), he would never suggest publicly to the minister to take responsibility and resign. Instead, the prime minister will say ikan ni omou (“I feel sorry” or “I deplore”). These words are most often used to express personal feelings about a political scandal, unsatisfactory responses to accusations, or “slips of the tongue” made by Diet members. But ikan ni omou contains no accusation, or personal apology by the speaker, nor does it imply any recognition that the speaker should share any part of the blame. This expression merely indicates that the speaker understands that he or she is expected to “feel sorry” about a particular incident, nothing more. Face management is also a sensitive issue during televised political interviews in Japan, where avoiding confrontation or embarrassing an interviewee affects the tone and content of the questions the interviewers ask, as well as their reactions to the interviewees’ replies. Rather than

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making assertions and being persistent in their questioning by challenging interviewees’ stated positions to provoke debate, interviewers allow interviewees to flexibly present their opinions on political activities and issues, trying to create a gentle and amiable interview environment, particularly by frequently using less formal questions and endorsing a tolerant and relaxed attitude toward interviewees (Feldman, 2020). In sum, tatemae allows Diet members a degree of flexibility in handling situations where they are asked, for example, to publicly share their opinion on a controversial issue or on an issue negotiated in the backrooms of the Diet. Tatemae-related statements are verbal devices that aim to guarantee the speakers not being pinned down and revealing something that might negatively affect an issue under negotiation or the harmony in society. Talking in tatemae euphemisms enables politicians to protect their own feelings, thoughts, and opinions from public scrutiny and criticism. As high-echelon politicians become experts in the legislative process, they also become adept manipulators who have cultivated techniques for burying opinions, commitments, and emotions, as well as presenting only official and widely accepted views. This is perhaps the safest way for Diet members (and government officials) to express themselves while still getting along within the political labyrinth and remaining politically viable.

12.3 Words as a “Double-Edged Sword” When Diet members speak too frankly about what is in their hearts or when they fail to conceal their feelings or hide their thoughts about the “backroom” side of politics, they may find themselves under fire from voters or other segments of the public in Japan, political opponents, and even from fellow politicians from their own political groups who see them as baka shôjiki (“stupidly honest”). In some instances, public figures have been criticized for their frank utterances by leaders or citizens of other countries, in particular neighboring countries such as China and South Korea, which sometimes causes diplomatic tension. Some of the terms used to criticize politicians who talk too much in the “front” side of politics and who reveal their “real” thoughts and feelings are hôgen (indiscreet remark), bôgen (violent or abusive language), or kuchi wo suberaseru or shitsugen (a slip of the tongue or misstatement). The post-war era in Japan witnessed numerous cases of controversial, indiscreet remarks made by Japanese politicians, including Prime Ministers Yoshida Shigeru (1946–1947, 1948–1954), Mori Yoshirô (2000–2001), and Koizumi Junichirô (2001– 2006), as well as other political leaders. Time and again these top political leaders outraged voters and political colleagues for their insensitive remarks regarding divisive issues. They became the focus of public condemnation for evoking emotions through symbol-laden, opinionated statements claiming, for example, that only women who bear children should be eligible for pension payments in their old age; that Japan’s occupation of Korea (1910–1945) should not be considered as colonialism; and that China’s assertion that 300,000 people died at the hands of Japanese

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troops in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre was “a pure fabrication.” In each case, the problem was not only with the substance of what they said, but often the style in which they said it (Feldman, 2004). High-profile politicians, including Cabinet ministers, have placed their careers in jeopardy after publicly revealing their frank opinions and emotions in public. On many occasions, opposition parties have utilized the “political honne” of Cabinet members as ammunition for attacks on the ruling parties; common techniques have been to boycott Diet sessions, propose no-confidence resolutions against the prime minister and the government, and demand the resignation of the minister concerned. Numerous Diet members who made a “verbal misstep” have been forced to “take responsibility” by either publicly explaining their comments, apologizing, or submitting their resignation. Some ministers who failed to do so were forced to resign from their ministerial positions (and were never reappointed to a Cabinet post). In a few cases, Diet members, such as Maruyama Hodaka, have even been expelled from their political parties for making abusive statements. Maruyama was expelled from the Japan Innovation Party following his comments on May 11, 2019, when (after becoming inebriated) he suggested that war was the only realistic solution to the territorial issue over the four northern Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands off Hokkaidô, saying “Do you think there is any alternative to war to recover the islands?” A month later, the Lower House of the Diet unanimously adopted a resolution effectively urging Maruyama to step down because his remarks ran contrary to Japan’s pacifist constitution. A few months later, on August 31, 2019, Maruyama expressed similar ideas of waging war against South Korea over the Takeshima islets in the Sea of Japan claimed by Tôkyô and Seoul. In another example, imprudent speech affected the election results at the party level. Prime Minister Mori made a series of gaffes just before the national election of June 2000. His verbal indiscretions soured voters on the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the point that several prominent party members, including former ministers, failed to win their seats and blamed Mori and his mouth for their defeat.

12.3.1 Personality Factors Affecting Careless Talk What motivates Diet members to publicly express their ideas and feelings rather than follow cultural codes and restrain themselves in situations where it is “common sense” to confine controversial thoughts and emotions to the “backroom” world of politics? In some cases, it is probably a matter of personality. In others, it is the circumstances politicians find themselves in. These two explanations–personality and circumstances–are not mutually exclusive, but rather they complement each other as reasons why public figures “put their foot in their mouth.” Obviously, some politicians are more prone to explicitly express their “honne” without considering the possible repercussions of doing so. Such politicians not only address issues that others avoid, they seem to wade right in and publicly reveal their private views. Even the most inexperienced reporters know that attending a public speech given by such

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a politician can result in an interesting headline for the following day’s news. Some of these politicians are also the most influential decision-makers in Japan, including prime ministers and ministers. Former Prime Minister Mori is a perfect example because he was famous for his gaffes. During 2000, he so regularly embarrassed the government and his political party (the ruling LDP) with a series of indiscreet statements on the Imperial system, the postwar constitution, and the democratic process in Japan that his advisors often wrote him memos and instructed him to stick to the script during public appearances. More recently, as the president of the organizing committee of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Mori made sexist remarks that meetings with many women tend to “drag on” for longer than necessary. Speaking at an extraordinary meeting of the Japanese Olympic Committee councilors on February 3, 2021, Mori referred to the education ministry demand to increase the number of female directors. He noted: “A board meeting with plenty of women will make it drag on…Women have a strong sense of rivalry. If one [female] member raises her hand to speak, all the others feel the need to speak too. Everyone ends up saying something. I am told that if we increase the number of women [on the board], we have to also restrict their speaking time to an extent. Otherwise they’ll never stop, which is problematic.” (Mori’s remarks sparked anger and criticism in Japan and abroad. The result: Mori was forced to resign from his position.) Former Prime Minister (2008–2009) Asô Tarô, who also served in various ministerial positions, is another example. Known for a loose speaking style, Asô has been able to survive multiple verbal blunders during his political career when he offended key electoral groups, young and old, and has repeatedly come under fire for controversial statements. These included his remarks to the Foreign Press Club of Japan that, “the best country to live in is the one where rich Jews prefer to live” (April 20, 2001), and in a Diet committee, where he said that Japan’s success against the coronavirus without enforcing a strict lockdown (due to civil liberties enshrined in the postwar constitution) is because “our country’s cultural standard levels are different to [others]” (June 4, 2020). As Foreign Minister, Asô referred to Japan as “one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race–it is nowhere else in other nations” (indicating it was the only such country in the world) (October 18, 2005). In a more recent example, as Deputy Prime Minister, Asô mentioned during a lecture to his supporters in his home constituency that, “No country but this one has lasted 2000 years with one language, one ethnic group, and one dynasty” (January 13, 2020). A day later, however, he apologized publicly for making this remark because it ignored Japan’s ethnic minorities, including the Ainu, descendants of an indigenous people who now number about 240,000 and are struggling to preserve their cultural traditions and ethnic identity. Responding to a Diet committee, Asô mentioned that Japan and Taiwan shared democracy and a market economy, and that Taiwan “is a law-abiding country…In various ways, it is a country that shares a sense of values with Japan” (March 10, 2006). His implication that Taiwan is an independent nation drew strong protest from Beijing, which considers the island to be part of China. It also contradicted the agreement made between Japan and China in 1972, which states that the government in Beijing rather than that of Taipei is considered the sole legal government of China

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and that Taiwan is considered “an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China.” As secretary general of the ruling LDP, Asô triggered protest from the main opposition party after he likened it to the Nazis by commenting that, “If you look at history, there is an example of regimes like the Nazis taking power as a result of people leaving the ruling party” (August 6, 2008). Five years later, as Finance Minister, Asô lectured in Tôkyô and addressed Japan’s efforts to revise its constitution by noting, “Doing it quietly, just as they changed the Weimar constitution to the Nazi constitution in one day, without anyone realizing it, why don’t we learn from that sort of technique?” (August 1, 2013), implying Japan should learn from how the Nazi party quietly rewrote Germany’s constitution. Faced with criticism in Japan and abroad, Asô publicly retracted his comment, and said that he had never meant to praise the Nazis and only hoped to promote debate within Japan over whether to change its current pacifist constitution to allow a full-fledged military, as many conservatives now seek. Serving also as the Deputy Prime Minister, Asô insulted Japan’s elderly (people over 60 years of age make up more than a quarter of Japan’s population), calling those who can no longer feed themselves “tube people” and claiming that treatment for just one patient close to death can cost the government “tens of millions of yen” a month. Lecturing in a meeting of the national council on social security reforms, he further added that, “I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [my treatment] was being paid for by the government. Even if they wanted to die, the [elderly] are being encouraged to live on. They should be allowed to hurry up and die” (January 23, 2013). In related remark in a speech during an LDP rally, while urging wealthy elderly citizens to spend more to spur on the economy, Asô said, “I recently saw someone as old as 90 on television, and they were saying how the person was worried about the future. I wondered, ‘How much longer do you intend to keep living?’” (June 19, 2016). His comments drew immediate fire from leaders of the opposition parties and the public as an insult to the nation’s elderly. Asô made yet another faux pas during a session of the Diet budget committee when he displayed a belittling attitude toward sexual harassment. Referring to the resignation of the Finance Ministry’s Administrative Vice Minister for alleged sexual harassment of a female journalist, Asô appeared to attempt to blame the victim. He hinted that this reporter had intentionally trapped his ministry’s top bureaucrat into making sexual advances, adding she “could have left the scene if she hated” the official’s attention so much or that the media “should only assign male reporters to the Finance Ministry” in the future to prevent a recurrence (May 11, 2018). Another politician known for his reckless statements is Sakurada Yoshitaka, an influential LDP politician. At a meeting with LDP officials Sakurada discussed the socalled “comfort women”—a euphemistic expression used in Japan and South Korea to describe women who were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese wartime troops. This is an extremely emotional dispute that has affected the relationship between Seoul and Tôkyô for decades. Sakurada referred to the “comfort women” as “professional prostitutes,” saying, “The military comfort women…were prostitutes (shôfu) by occupation. It was a business. We are misled too much by propaganda treating them as if they were victims. They performed work. There is no need to hold

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back from saying they were prostitutes by profession. Surely, it’s because people hold back that mistakes are cited in both Japan and South Korea” (January 14, 2016). Sakurada was criticized in and outside of Japan for his remarks, even by leading members of his own political party. On another occasion, during a Diet committee Sakurada admitted, as Cybersecurity and Olympics Minister in Prime Minister Abe’s government, that he “never touched my computer myself” and divulged he’s not that familiar with the whole cybersecurity field either (November 14, 2018). At another event, he told reporters he was “really disappointed” over swimming Olympic gold medal hopeful Rikako Ikee’s diagnosis of leukemia, adding “I’m worried that the swell [for the Olympic Games] might go down a bit” (February 12, 2019). This comment on the potential absence of the star from the Tôkyô Games elicited a huge backlash among the public. Finally, while attending a fundraising party in Tôkyô for a fellow Diet member from the Tôhoku region, Sakurada said this member “is more important than the restoration [of the country’s northeastern region devastated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or remain unaccounted for and over 200,000 people evacuated from a 20 km area around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant]. Please extend your assistance” (April 10, 2019). Sakurada apologized and resigned from his ministerial position the following day after coming under increasing pressure for his comment. Soon after, in an exceptional move, Prime Minister Abe apologized to the people in the disaster-stricken area for “having appointed him.”

12.3.2 Situational Factors Affecting Careless Talk Personality factors may explain the tendency of particular politicians toward talking in a particular manner. Certain public figures do appear to be more inclined than others to publicly reveal their inner thoughts and emotions. The circumstances and the intended visibility of events also often affect politicians’ rhetoric, however. While many Diet members are able to restrain themselves during Diet committee deliberations, there are two situations in which they are more prone to loosen their tongues and openly reveal what is on their minds and hearts in public, often finding themselves in trouble for what they said. First are the closed, informal meetings politicians hold with small groups of colleagues, government officials, or reporters. Sometimes they will make “intimate” comments without paying much attention to the content or wording in the belief that these remarks will be kept off the record. Such comments may find their way to the public, and it is often the speakers themselves who are most surprised, not only because what they thought was a private comment ended up becoming public, but also because of the resulting negative public attention. There are several good examples of “private” talk becoming public. In a closed meeting of the LDP’s Health, Labor, and Welfare Division, Ônishi Hideo responded to a party comrade who was highlighting the risks of passive smoking by saying that cancer patients “should not work” if they are “concerned about secondhand smoke

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in their workplaces” (May 15, 2017). His comment ignited outrage among cancer patient associations who lambasted his comment as discriminatory. A few days later, Ônishi apologized for “hurting the feelings of current and recovering cancer patients,” clarifying what he had meant to say was that “cancer patients don’t have to force themselves to work in places where smoking is allowed.” In another example, Imamura Masahiro, the Minister for Disaster Reconstruction, revealed during an LDP’s fundraising party in Tôkyô that “it was better” that the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit the Tôhoku region and not near Tôkyô, because the disaster would have caused an “enormous amount” of financial damage to the country (April 25, 2017). His remark immediately caused a public stir because it was interpreted as suggesting he attached far less importance to the lives of people in the Tôhoku region. Imamura was forced to step down the following day and Prime Minister Abe rushed to limit political damage by immediately apologizing for the remark, and appointed a Tôhoku Diet member to replace Imamura. To further illustrate with another example, Katô Kanji, former Vice Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, was astonished by the public reaction to his comment at a relaxed venue during an LDP meeting where he disclosed that when he gives wedding speeches, he always says: “We need three or more children from these people to make up for couples who cannot bear a child no matter what they do.” He added that when he meets young women at wedding receptions, he tells them that if they don’t get married, they won’t have children, meaning “they would have to enter a nursing home using tax money paid by someone else’s offspring [to support them]” (May 11, 2018). Following protests at which he was accused of being sexist, Katô apologized and retracted his remarks. Finally, in a behind closed-doors meeting of his political faction, Finance Minister Asô said, “I don’t question your motives [to be a politician]. But the results are important. Hitler, who killed millions of people, was no good, even if his motives were right” (August 30, 2017). His words were interpreted as a defense of Adolf Hitler’s motive for genocide during World War II. Following criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish organization based in the US, Asô apologized and retracted his comment. The second situation in which Diet members dispense information more openly and reveal their personal thoughts in public is when addressing supporters in their constituencies or when appealing to voters during election campaigns. In the first venue, rather than limiting themselves to the dry facts of current political affairs, politicians often entertain supporters with anecdotes and details about unpublicized aspects of the political process. They tend to divulge their personal assessments and intimate observations on a wide range of subjects, including their political groups, colleagues, and opponents. Not a few Diet members tend to wax eloquent as they are surrounded by supporters whom they regard as “family.” The more relaxed and closer to their audience they feel, the more their excitement leads them to talk in a direct manner. The same thing happens during election campaign speeches. Diet members tailor their speeches to the audience, but they try to go beyond just reporting on the sometimes boring details of politics and disclose their private views on issues and personnel. This tendency can be reinforced by enthusiastic reactions from the crowd,

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such as frequent applause, laughter, or encouraging shouts. Under these circumstances, it is relatively common for Diet members to “spice up” their performance with jokes, gossip, or rumors, and perhaps utter a harsh word or two regarding other people or political groups, with the goal of entertaining the listeners at hand. Examples of this type of speech include the following remarks: “Politics is impossible for women” (Horinouchi Hisao, former Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, July 11, 1989); “I hope voters who are still undecided remain uninterested in the election and stay asleep [and would not participate in the upcoming general election]” (Prime Minister Mori, in a campaign speech, June 20, 2000, referring to public opinion polls showing that 30–50% of voters remained undecided); “Regularquality [Japanese] rice is sold at about 16,000 yen per (60-kg) bag here. But it can sell for 78,000 yen in China. Which, 16,000 yen [or] 78,000 yen, is more expensive? Even people with Alzheimer’s disease could understand [the differences]” (Asô, Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaking to party supporters in Toyama prefecture, July 20, 2007); and, “I would like to ask for your support on behalf of the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces, as the Defense Minister, and on behalf of the LDP” (Inada Tomomi, Defense Minister, June 27, 2017, in a campaign speech for the LDP candidate for the Tôkyô Metropolitan Assembly election). Even though their audiences seemed to accept these comments initially, they drew attention as soon as they were reported in the local media. News organizations turned these comments into headline material, causing political ripples. Women’s groups sharply criticized Horinouchi’s remarks; scholars and commentators condemned Mori’s remarks for implying that the prime minister was hoping for low voter turnout; Asô’s utterances provoked anger among groups supporting those with Alzheimer’s and their families; and Inada came under fire for suggesting that the Self-Defense Forces support a candidate of the ruling LDP in the election (indeed, critics pointed out that her statement constitutes a violation of the Public Offices Election Law). In this way, casual remarks made by politicians during political meetings drew massive media attention that resulted in embarrassment to the speakers and their political groups. Eventually they had to retract their remarks and apologize.

12.4 Gaffe Prevention Manual and Political Information Obviously, Japanese Diet members have to pay a great deal of attention to what they say on the “front” side of politics. Conventional wisdom in Japan dictates that sociocultural elements and norms should be followed. Genuine feelings and opinions about sensitive and divisive social issues, about matters that are on the political agenda but being handled in on-going secret political negotiations, and about rival groups and colleagues are to be kept within closed circles. Personal views and judgements, along with insensitive, indiscreet, and abusive remarks, cannot be part of the public sphere, where the political tone must always be calm, restrained, and controlled. With a finger on the political pulse, political parties in Japan are ready to educate their members on the use of language in their work. Following an increasing number

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of embarrassing comments that have sparked outrage and led to the resignations of several Cabinet ministers in the administration of Prime Minister Abe, the ruling LDP issued a code of conduct for its politicians in April–May 2019. The code was entitled “How to Prevent ‘Gaffes’ and ‘Misunderstandings’,” and it contained a list of imprudent remarks to avoid when speaking in public (Nakanishi, 2019). This was sent electronically, along with other documents and information regarding campaign activities, to LDP Diet members and candidates for the subsequent Upper House election, warning them to exercise caution when speaking in public and to choose their words carefully to prevent blunders from affecting their political careers. The code touched on issues that need extra care, many of which have been highlighted as examples in this chapter, including comments about illness and old age; remarks related to accidents and disasters; personal views on gender and sexual orientation; personal views on historical interpretations and political ideology; and “banter-type” expressions that are simple, easy to understand, and “could draw laughs from those close to oneself, as if one were talking to their relatives who know each other well.” To prevent embarrassment, public debate, and criticism over what they say, highlevel Diet members (and public officials) try to conceal their real thoughts and opinions, preferring instead to comment publicly in a formal manner or to speak vaguely. They screen the information they disseminate to the public through informal, mostly off-the-record, background briefings they often hold with a small, selected group of 10–15 media representatives who cover their activities exclusively. Whereas these privileged reporters are able to chat with influential decision-makers, ask questions, and hear their honne, they are not supposed to share this information with the general public (Feldman, 2011). As a result, political stories in the national media are dominated by coverage of the routine activities of high-echelon Diet members, especially the prime minister. Political coverage focuses on where these people went, who they met with, and what was the nature of their talk. This is the formal, tatemae side of Japanese politics. Such stories are safe for politicians because they rarely involve personal opinions, evaluations, or direct statements. The public thus lacks essential related information and is left to try to read between the lines and decode what slips through the cracks in order to fathom the real dynamics of the political process and the intentions of its leaders. Acknowledgements Financial support during the writing of this chapter came through a Grantin-Aid for Scientific Research by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2019–2021). Thanks to Sussex Academic Press for permission to reproduce ideas from my book Talking Politics in Japan Today (2004).

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Ofer Feldman is Professor of Political Psychology and Behavior at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. His research centers on the psychological underpinnings of mass and elite political behavior in Japan, and he has published extensively journal articles and book chapters on issues related to political communication and persuasion, political leadership, and political culture. His books include Talking Politics in Japan Today (2004), Seiji shinrigaku

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[Political Psychology] (in Japanese, 2006), Politische Psychologie: Handbuch f¨ur Studium und Wissenschaft [Political Psychology: Handbook for Study and Science] (in German, 2015, edited with Sonja Zmerli), The Psychology of Political Communicators (2019, edited with Sonja Zmerli), and The Rhetoric of Political Leadership (2020, edited). He was elected (2021) Honorary Chair of the Research Committee on Political Psychology, International Political Science Association.

Chapter 13

Culture and Politics in Contemporary China: A Cultural-Rhetorical Analysis of Xi Jinping’s Three Speeches in 2019 Xing Lu

13.1 Introduction A map or web of a culture offers a framework for us to understand human thought, use of language, and behavior within that culture. From an anthropological/sociological perspective, the meanings of culture are interpreted largely based on the construction and expression of social discourse and human behavior. From a rhetorical perspective, political speeches reveal the underlying values and premises of a culture that are rooted in history and experience as well as providing an enthymematic rationale for political persuasion. Drawing from the Aristotelian tradition of rhetoric, Fitch (2012, p. 115) argues that “…persuasion is fundamentally shaped by culture.” Fitch specified three ways in which culture influences persuasion: subject matter, cultural appeals, and rhetorical strategies. Fitch explains that culture provides certain value premises as given and persuasive appeals need to take these premises into consideration. Applying this notion to the political context, political persuasion is based on a good understanding of the audience’s collective values and cultural identity. Cultural values and political persuasion are closely interrelated and reflective of each other. For example, in ancient Greece, texts like Homer’s epic poems reveal clearly the Greek culture’s values of duty, honor, pride, grit, loyalty, love and friendship; and despise cowardice, betrayal, deception, and incompetency. These cultural values are evident in the speeches delivered by various characters in the Iliad and Odyssey, becoming rhetorical appeals in the political context of the Assembly in the Polis in which speakers presented their arguments. Likewise, the earliest Chinese text The Book of Odes (Sh¯ıj¯ıng, dating from the eleventh to seventh centuries BCE), emphasizes moral character, the harmony between humans and nature, and admiration for wise kings. Many lines from the book

X. Lu (B) College of Communication, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_13

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referenced by Confucius (551–479 BCE) during his time are used in his teachings on governing and individual moral cultivation. Cultures also differ in the way people communicate. When Arthur Smith came to China as a missionary in the late nineteenth century, he observed that the Chinese people do not speak as directly as the Anglo-Saxons do. Their communication is more indirect and circular (Smith, 2001). A number of intercultural communication scholars have agreed that East Asians’ communication is marked by indirectness and implicitness. For example, June Ock Yum (1997, p. 85) states: “The use of the indirect mode of communication in East Asia is pervasive and often deliberate.” More specifically, William Gudykunst (2001, p. 23) notes that “Chinese do not spell everything out for the people with whom they are communicating. Rather, they leave the ‘unspoken’ for the listeners to figure out.” In other words, East Asians tend to be indirect and implicit in communication compared with Western Europeans and U.S. Americans. This communication style is also applicable to the political context. Chinese political leaders often appeal to traditional cultural values without mentioning specific names of the ancients or directly quoting from them. Edward Hall (1976) calls this communication phenomenon high-context and names China as a high-context culture in which contextual information is shared by the speaker and the audience so that no elaboration and details are needed. There is also a political reason that Chinese politicians do not mention ancients by specific names. For example, while he appropriated the Confucian notion of putting people first, Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), did not want to associate himself with traditional Chinese culture that is predominantly represented by Confucian teachings. Mao’s China is a communist state with a socialistic, state-owned economy. His communist ideology that he claims to be the most advanced, forced him to break away from Confucianism—considered backward feudalism—in order for Mao to establish his moral legitimacy. Therefore, in his rhetoric Mao deliberately does not mention Confucius and Mencius (390–305 BCE) by name. Ironically, he has to build his rhetorical appeals on the Confucian value of putting people first in order to persuade the Chinese people by inventing the slogan “Serve the People, Heart and Soul” [Quánx¯ın quányì wéi rénmín fúwù]. Moreover, Mao’s nationalistic rhetoric is also characterized by a new set of slogans in response to historical oppression and humiliation. Similarly, Xi Jinping, China’s current President, uses the same rhetorical strategy in his speeches. He does not mention Confucius and Mencius by name, but his rhetoric of lifting the Chinese people out of poverty is equivalent to Confucian teachings of putting people first. Neither does Xi mention Mao by name because the Chinese people have mixed feelings about Mao for the damage done to China during his regime. However, Xi invoked Mao’s rhetoric of national pride and the promise of a better future by employing similar political discourse. Confucian teachings are rich and comprehensive, but both Mao and Xi only selectively choose the parts that put people first, to serve their rhetorical and political purposes. Culture is a major factor influencing Chinese politics and Chinese leaders’ rhetoric. A study on how Chinese culture affects Chinese political discourse will provide the world’s nations with a better historical understanding of China in their

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respective foreign affairs and policies toward China. In this chapter, I analyze three speeches delivered by President Xi connecting culture and politics, in four parts. First, I review the influence of classical Confucianism on Chinese politics. Second, I survey the rhetorical legacy of Mao. Third, I then analyze three of Xi’s speeches delivered in 2019 that embraced Confucian values as well as Mao’s legacy. I conclude the chapter by discussing the relationship between culture and politics and the implications derived from the analysis of Xi’s speeches.

13.2 Confucian Influence on Chinese Politics Confucianism was one of the “Hundred Schools of Thought” during the Spring– Autumn, and the Warring States periods (771–221 BCE). It became institutionalized by Emperor Han Wu (156–87 BCE) as a state philosophy and cultural ideology for governing imperial China for thousands of years. Seminal Confucian texts such as Confucius’ The Analects and Mencius’ Mencius written in the fourth century BCE were reinterpreted by Neo-Confucianists during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE) to include some elements of Buddhism and Daoism. Nevertheless, over Chinese history, classical Confucianism significantly influenced the formation of Chinese thinking, political culture, and ways of living. Even though Confucianism was under attack by Western-educated elites in the early twentieth century and subsequently condemned in public discourse in Mao’s China (1949–1976), there has been a revival of Confucianism in today’s China among academics and in popular culture.

13.2.1 Confucius Confucius and Mencius shared a similar view of governing through Rénzhèng or benevolent governing. Being a Yóushuì (traveling persuader) himself, Confucius advised a number of state kings and attracted large crowds of students when China was divided into vassal states (771–221 BCE). This is the period characterized by competitive philosophical and political views on governance, also marked by states warring for land and power dominance. The Analects recorded some of the political dialogues between Confucius and state kings, as well as between Confucius and his students. Yang et al. (2008, p. 34) state that “The philosophical foundation of Confucian thoughts on leadership is the central concept of benevolence.” Confucius expected the ruler of a state to be virtuous, benevolent, and to be well-versed in Chinese classics. Moreover, rulers should live a simple life, be self-restrained, filial to their parents, and loving their siblings in order to gain trust from the people and serve as a moral example: “He who rules by virtue is like the polestar, which remains unmoving in its mansion while all the other stars revolve respectfully around it” (Confucius, 2:1, p. 6). When Lord Ji Kang (?–468 BCE), an official from the State of Lu, asked

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Confucius about government, Confucius replied: “To govern is to be straight. If you steer straight, who would dare not to go straight?” (Confucius, 12:17, p. 58). The Chinese character zhèng (translated as “straight”) means being forthright, justiceseeking, and honest. Confucius uses the term zheng repeatedly in The Analects and considers it as the ruler’s most important virtue. It is Confucian moral logic that if “He is straight, things work out by themselves, without his having to issue orders” (Confucius, 13:6, p. 61). In other words, only when rulers are straight can they win the trust of their people and help them in turn to become straight. In a consulting session, when Duke Ai (508–468 BCE), the head of the State of Lu, asks “What should I do to win the hearts of the people?” Confucius replies: “Raise the straight and set them above the crooked, and you will win the hearts of the people” (Confucius, 2:19, p. 8). Confucius’ political view is also rooted in his insistence on practicing lˇı (ritual) of the Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BCE). When his student Zilu asked him how to govern, Confucius replied: “Lead them [people] by virtue, restrain them with ritual; they will develop a sense of shame and a sense of participation” (Confucius, 2:3, p. 6). For Confucius, practicing li is the manifestation of rén (benevolence, loving). Lˇı does not just mean having ceremonies such as ancestor worship, but also directly manifests in high respect for and adherence to the hierarchical nature of human relationships in that everyone in society must know their position; everyone in society must speak and act according to their positional roles. That means “Let the lord be a lord; the subject a subject; the father a father; the son a son” (Confucius, 12:11, p. 57). People at different hierarchical levels are expected to help each other and work harmoniously. The cultural premise is that only through the existence of social hierarchy in human relationships can society remain stable. Contemporary Chinese scholar Li Zehou calls it “primitive humanitarianism” (Li, 1986, p. 23). Chinese political speeches, especially in many of Mao and Xi’s speeches, strongly emphasize moral character for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member in order to serve the people, to sacrifice for the nation, to be selfless, to live a simple life, to avoid corruption—while exercising authoritarian rule. Confucius’s notion of benevolence also included economic equality between the state’s king and ordinary people as a means to sustain social stability, population growth, and peace. He said: “What worries the head of a state or the chief of a clan is not poverty but inequality, not the lack of population, but the lack of peace. For if there is equality, there will be no poverty, and where there is peace, there is no lack of population” (Confucius, 16:1, pp. 80–81). Moreover, rulers and the people should share wealth equally. “If the people have enough, how could their lord not have enough? If the people do not have enough, how could their lord have enough?” (Confucius, 12:9, p. 57). Here Confucius painted a utopian vision of society and expressed his ideal views on how to govern. His political teachings influenced many Chinese rulers and educated elites in the centuries to come.

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13.2.2 Mencius If Confucius’ place in the Chinese tradition is comparable to that of Socrates in the West, the reputation of Mencius (372–289 BC) is often likened to that of Plato in his political views (Fung, 1952; Richards, 1991). Mencius lived about 150 years after Confucius. He was the student of Confucius’s grandson Zi Si and an ardent defender of the Confucian doctrine of loving [rén] and benevolent governing [rénzhèng]. During his lifetime, Mencius travelled to many states in an effort to persuade kings to practice benevolent governing. Mencius advocated governing with virtue, compassion, and equitable policies. His theory of benevolent governing is predicated on the ruler’s ability to put people first [mín bˇen] and have a compassionate heart [cèyˇın zh¯ı x¯ın]. The word Mencius used most often in his book (titled Mencius) is mín or people. In his visit to King Hui of Liang (369–319 BCE), the King expressed his joy at having a terrace and pond. Mencius reminded the king that it is the people who built the terrace and the pond for him. Referring to past sages Mencius said, “It was by sharing their enjoyments with the people that men of antiquity were able to enjoy themselves” (Mencius, 1970, Book IA, p. 50), suggesting to the king that the peoples’ enjoyment or happiness is more important, if not equal to that of the king. Further in their conversation, Mencius advised the king to make sure that people have enough material wealth: “When the people have more grains, more fish and turtles than they can eat, and more timber than they can use, then in the support of their parents when alive and in the mourning of them when dead, they will be able to have no regrets over anything left undone” (Mencius, 1970, Book IA, p. 51). For Mencius, the essence of benevolent governing is the economic security for the common people through equal distribution of wealth. As their conversation continued, King Hui of Liang complained how bad he felt to be defeated by two other more powerful states, Chu and Qin. He asked Mencius what he should do to take revenge. Mencius (1970, Book IA, p. 53) replied: If Your Majesty practices benevolent government towards the people, reduces punishment and taxation, gets the people to plough deeply and weed promptly, and if the able-bodied men learn, in their spare time, to be good sons and good younger brothers, loyal to their prince and true to their words, so that they will, in the family, serve their fathers and elder brothers, and outside the family, serve their elders and superiors, then they can be made to inflict defeat on the strong armor and sharp weapons of Ch’in [qin] and Ch’u, armed with nothing but staves.

Mencius gave similar advice to Duke Mu of Tsou (382–330 BCE) who was worried that his people did not want to sacrifice their lives in battle. Mencius told him to listen to the people and understand their suffering due to famine. In his words, “Practice benevolent government and the people will be sure to love their superiors and die for them” (Mencius, 1970, Book IB, p. 71). When Duke Wen of T’eng asked about governance, Mencius replied: “The business of the people must be attended to without delay” (Mencius, 1970, Book IIIA, p. 96). Similar to Confucius, for Mencius benevolent government depended on economic equality. For example, Mencius told

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Pi Chan, a minister of the State of T’eng, that “Benevolent government must begin with land demarcation” (Mencius, 1970, p. 99). He suggested that they must start by drawing clear and equal land boundaries between common people and officials so that grain yield for payment is equitable. Moreover, Mencius believed that a true king who practices benevolent government has the persuasive power to influence and transform his people (Mencius, 1970, Book IIA, p. 80). Drawing from history, Mencius (1970, Book IVA, pp. 121–122) emphasized: “It was through losing the people that Chieh and Tchou lost Empire, and through losing the people’s hearts that they lost people.” Mencius insisted that “You can never gain the Empire without the heart-felt admiration of the people in it” (Mencius, 1970, Book IVB, p. 130). For Mencius, the people’s well-being was the top agenda for a ruler to win trust and admiration, i.e., putting the people first and then the state, with the state’s ruler the least important (Mencius, 1970, Book VIIB, p. 196). Both Confucius and Mencius were idealists as revealed in their political discourse of governance. Unfortunately, the state kings they advised in their lifetime did not adopt their benevolent governing approach. China was eventually unified by the state of Qin through the use of force and by following the School of Legalism’s doctrine, represented by Han Feizi (280–233 BCE). However, as mentioned above, Confucianism was resurrected during the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) as the central pillar of Chinese political culture for the rest of Chinese history.

13.3 Rhetorical Legacy of Mao Zedong Chinese culture and politics took a dramatic turn after the founding of the PRC in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Zedong (1893–1976). During his twenty-sevenyear rule Mao radically transformed Chinese culture and the Chinese people from a Confucian society into a communist state (Lu, 2017). Mao was worshipped as the nation’s savior for bringing equality, unity, independence, and a better life to the Chinese people. Even though today’s China has taken the road of what Ian Bremmer (2010) calls “state capitalism,” a huge divergence from the society Mao envisioned, Mao remains a colossal rhetorical influence in contemporary China. As Terrill (1980, p. 434) said vividly, “The real Mao has melded with China’s body, like yeast in a loaf already baked.” Because of the influence of Mao’s rhetoric through his writings and speeches, one can still hear Mao’s sayings repeated in everyday conversation and online communication among Chinese people today. It should come as no surprise, then, that post-Mao CCP’s leaders have invoked Mao’s discourse in their justification of the CCP’s legitimacy while rhetorically addressing challenges facing the nation. Three of Mao’s rhetorical legacies have been invoked in Xi Jinping’s speeches: serving the people, nationalism, and the promise of a better life. These rhetorical features have been used as a powerful means of political persuasion.

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13.3.1 Mao’s Rhetoric of Serving the People Mao strongly believed that the CCP’s mission is to serve the people. In his words, “We have very close ties with the broadest mass of the people. Our point of departure is to serve the people whole-heartedly and never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses (Mao, 1945/1967, Vol. III, p. 265). For Mao, to serve the people meant to understand their needs and improve their lives. Mao’s call for serving the people was genuine and patriotic, but it could also be interpreted as a rhetorical strategy to win the continued support of the Chinese people in order to maintain the legitimacy of one-party rule. Mao’s tenet of serving the people shares similarities with Confucian values of benevolent governing and putting people first. Throughout his life, Mao emphasized the Party’s necessary integration with the masses. To serve the people, he insisted, every comrade must “love the people and listen attentively to the voices of the masses; to identify himself with the masses wherever he goes and, instead of standing above them, to immerse himself among them” (Mao, 1945/1967, pp. 265–266). During Mao’s era, many party members and intellectuals were sent to the countryside to labor with the peasants to cleanse any of their so-called “bourgeois thoughts and behaviors.” Mao set a high standard for party members, a standard similar to the far-reaching standards of a Confucian moral character. Mao (1941/1967, Vol. III, pp. 33–34) pointed out that “the Communist Party is a political party that works in the nation’s and people’s interest and that has absolutely no private ends to pursue. It should be supervised by the people and must never go against their will.” Mao’s requirements for party members were reminiscent of Confucian teachings of putting people first, modesty, and living a simple life that gained him support and sympathy for his revolution. Confucius taught his students to put family duties first, be considerate of others, and sacrifice for the collective. Mao turned these traditional values of personhood into a secular dogma of serving the people and sacrificing for the Party and state. Here, Mao appropriated Confucian moral teachings that are deeply rooted in the Chinese culture and turned them into communist values in order to grant Mao’s regime moral legitimacy. This is how political rhetoric works—by referencing cultural values. Confucius was not a revolutionary, but his teachings shared some of the same values that Mao espoused and employed to promote communist ideology. As renowned sinologist John Fairbank (1976, p. 59) said: “There are Confucian overtones in the Marxist-Maoist orchestration.” This is a prime example of how cultural premises underly and advance political goals.

13.3.2 Mao’s Rhetoric of Nationalism Mao was born on December 26, 1893, a time when China was weak, having suffered multiple foreign invasions and chaotic periods of infighting. Mao’s nationalistic rhetoric is based on China’s humiliating history of victimization by Japan and the

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West. Throughout his writings, Mao blamed Western imperialism for China’s backwardness. Mao was not historically inaccurate in this analysis, as foreign powers such as Russia, Portugal, France, Britain, Germany, the U.S., Italy, and Japan had pillaged Chinese cultural treasures and natural resources, exploited Chinese labor, killed Chinese people, and taken over Chinese land as residential and business concessions at the end of nineteenth century (Lu, 2017). As early as 1935, Mao (1935/1967, Vol. I, p. 153) reminded his comrades of the history of foreign invasion and unequal treaties imposed on China from the West and Japanese domination of China. By citing historical facts to construct the national narrative of foreign invasion and humiliation during the past 100 years, Mao made a rhetorical appeal that the Chinese people must fight against Japanese and western imperialism in order to gain China’s independence from colonization and foreign powers. Ultimately, Mao took advantage of these historical events and contexts to portray the Chinese people as victims of imperialism while simultaneously promoting his own Party’s ideological agenda. Mao’s narrative was persuasive, bringing the Chinese people together by addressing the common problems that concerned the imagined national community. As Zhao (2004, p. 4) points out, “This process had the effect of removing differences within the political community and replacing them with a common hegemonic order of signs, symbols, and values.” Mao’s narrative on China’s “century of humiliation” [bˇainián chˇırˇu] is a way of talking among Chinese leaders and people to this day, as they recount Mao’s rhetorical references to prompt Chinese nationalism. Chinese nationalism as constructed by Mao’s rhetoric did not only offer the people faith in their sovereign government, but also reflected how the Chinese people viewed themselves as a nation. Rhetoric of “strong state complex” is the source of Chinese nationalism, evident in Mao’s early writings, his “Great Leaps Forward” [dà yuèjìn] campaigns, and his investment in national defense and nuclear programs. Even today, the discourse of a “great country” [dàguó] and a “strong nation” [qiángguó] is prevalent in official and intellectual discourse. As Ogden (2001, p. 160) states, “Chinese nationalism has been a collective seeking of recognition and face.” Mao’s heroic legacy and anti-colonial, nationalist appeal has mobilized a new generation of Chinese citizens eager to see their nation rid of their image as the “sick man of Asia” and becoming strong, prosperous, and powerful.

13.3.3 A Vision of a Strong and Powerful China By praising the greatness of the Chinese people and blaming foreigners for China’s problems, Mao won the support of the Chinese people. Then Mao began to shift his rhetoric from national victimization to glorification of Chinese culture and China’s economic rejuvenation. Mao (1949/1967, Vol. IV, p. 458) claimed that “The great, victorious Chinese People’s War of Liberation and the great people’s revolution have rejuvenated and are rejuvenating the great culture of the Chinese people. In its

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spiritual aspects, this culture of the Chinese people already stands higher than any in the capitalist world.” Mao (1949/1977, Vol. V, p. 18) also anticipated that “An upsurge in economic construction is bound to be followed by an upsurge of construction in the cultural sphere. The era in which the Chinese people were regarded as uncivilized is now ended. We shall emerge in the world as a nation with an advanced culture.” No Chinese leaders before Mao had encouraged Chinese people to be proud of their culture and country, and few had offered them hope for a better life as he did. Nevertheless, Mao was not referring to traditional Chinese culture, but rather a new national, politicized culture under the leadership of the CCP. In many respects, Mao successfully transformed Chinese culture into a Party bureaucratic culture characterized by authoritarian rule. In the name of building a socialist ruling structure, Mao purposefully destroyed traditional Chinese culture by removing any traces of the “four olds:” old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. During Mao’s era, people were not allowed to read Confucian works and practice traditional rituals such as ancestor worship. Any thought and behavior coming from the traditional Chinese culture were considered old and condemned. This is an example of how culture is transmuted and politicized to promote certain ideologies. Mao’s new national culture united the nation under a fresh brand of self-respect, self-reliance, and national pride. His rhetoric made Chinese people feel entitled to gain great power status in the world and to be optimistic about their future. This optimism was invigorated by Mao’s prediction that “Given fifty or sixty years, we certainly ought to overtake the United States” (Mao, 1949/1977, Vol. V, p. 315). Mao was determined to build a strong, powerful, and prosperous China. He also wanted to prove that China’s socialist system was indeed superior to a capitalistic system. In his speech commemorating Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), the provisional first President of the Republic of China (1912–1949) on November 12, 1956, Mao (1956/1977, Vol. V, p. 330) made a claim that when the world entered 2001, China would become a “powerful industrial, socialist country.” Despite providing no backing for such a bold statement, his promises were rhetorically powerful because they boosted the morale of the Chinese people, motivated them to engage in the socialist economy, and painted a hopeful picture for their future. The Chinese people had been longing to be rid of foreign invasion, to live a better life, to regain their dignity, and to catch up with the industralized countries. Incidentally, Mao’s prediction proved true—China indeed became stronger, more powerful and prosperous by 2001.

13.4 Rhetorical Analysis of Xi Jinping’s Speeches Since he took office as China’s President in November 2012, Xi has delivered numerous speeches to domestic and international audiences in various contexts. Xi grew up in Mao’s era and was sent to a poverty-stricken village to labor for seven years when he was a teenager. Although China still faced problems of rampant corruption,

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inequality, moral decline, social injustice in the aftermath of the economic reform at the time when he became China’s leader, Xi has proved himself to be courageous and capable of cracking down on corruption and tackling inequality despite his authoritarian leadership style. Among the three speeches I analyze, one (Xi, 2019a) was delivered on the evening of September 30, 2019, the day before celebrating the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s founding. The second (Xi, 2019b) was delivered the following day, October 1, 2019, during daytime on the rostrum of Tiananmen Square right before the military parade. The third (Xi, 2019c) was his 2020 New Year Eve Speech delivered on December 31, 2019. Xi’s audiences are largely Chinese, but foreign guests and overseas Chinese also attend the reception. All the speeches were televised and circulated on Chinese media and social media platforms. Thus, they’re intended for international audiences as well. Having read the Chinese scripts of the speeches, I see some themes emerging that echo Confucian and Mao’s teaching of “putting people first” [yˇırén wéibˇen] in governing. Moreover, Xi’s speeches have demonstrable traces of Mao’s rhetorical legacy in promoting nationalism and rejuvenating China.

13.4.1 Putting People First Although China is currently the second largest economy in the world and the living standard of the Chinese people improved tremendously since China launched the Economic Reform and Opening Door policy in the early 1980s, the improvement was largely seen in urban and suburban areas. Many rural and ethnic minority areas are still living in poverty, lacking resources for nutrition, education, and medication. Lifting these people out of poverty has been the hallmark of the CCP’s agenda over the past few decades. One report on the People’s Daily of October 10 announced that “800 million people living in the rural areas have been lifted out of poverty since the 1980s” (Special Investigative Report, 2020, p. 1). In his 2020 New Year Eve speech, Xi (2019c) announced that 2019 saw “about 340 impoverished counties and more than 10 million people lifted out of poverty,” along with other achievements. In the same speech, Xi declared: “Extreme poverty, which has haunted the Chinese nation for thousands of years, will soon become a thing of the past. This will be a great miracle in human history.” Moreover, Xi told the Chinese people and the world that over the past year, “Many types of commonly-used medicines have seen their prices drop, while cheaper and faster internet connection has enabled the fast flow of information. Garbage sorting is leading the new trend of a low-carbon lifestyle” (Xi, 2019c). All these achievements indicate that Xi’s government has put people first by improving their lives by getting them out of poverty. The poverty line in China has been raised over the years. “In 2011, it was set at an annual per capita income of RMB 2,300. Rural households living below the thresshold were identified as impoverished households and would get government support. In 2019, the standard was RMB 3, 218. And at the end of this year [2020], the poverty line will be around RMB 4,000.” (Lu, 2020, p. 21–22). A report in the

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People’s Daily stated that “Every year about 10 million people move out of poverty and the poverty income line has increased from RMB 3416 in 2015 to RMB 9808 in 2019” (Pan, 2020, p. 1). Despite these two reports’ conflicting numbers regarding the current monetary minimum for poverty, a determined effort to root out poverty seems to be taking place. According to Lu’s (2020, p. 21) account, “Leaders of poverty-stricken counties signed letters of commitment to the central government, and promised to root out poverty by the end of 2020.” In his New Year Eve speech for 2020, Xi set himself as an exemplar of putting people first, saying “As usual, no matter how busy I was, I spent time visiting people in the countryside. People shared many of their innermost thoughts with me, and I always keep them in mind” (Xi, 2019c). A book titled Stories of Xi Jinping in Rooting out Poverty was published in September 2020. It is a collection of sixty-seven stories of Xi going to different provinces in China, praising him for putting people first, being concerned about people’s well-being, and leading the nation-wide campaign of rooting out poverty (Xinhua, 2020, p. 1). Looking forward to the year of 2020, Xi asserted with confidence that “2020 will be a year of milestone significance. We will finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and realize the first centenary goal. 2020 will also be a year of decisive victory for the elimination of poverty” (Xi, 2019c). He also used a few metaphors to describe the poverty issue. For example, he compared the elimination of poverty as “the hard battle” [g¯ongji¯an zhàn], and “the bugle” [ch¯ongf¯eng hào], for the battle “has sounded.” He used “add oil,” [ji¯ayóu] and “laying more solid foundation” [j¯ıchˇu dˇa dé zài láokào y¯ıxi¯e], in order to “win the battle” [dˇa yíng g¯ongji¯anzhàn] and to “lift all impoverished rural residents and counties out of poverty” [Shíxiàn nóngc¯un pínkùn rénkˇou quánbù tu¯opín, pínkùn xiàn quánbù zh¯ai mào]. Metaphors carry values and induce action. Studies have demonstrated that one important feature of Chinese rhetoric is its frequent use of metaphors and analogies as sources of proof and argumentation (Jensen, 1992; Lu, 1998; Oliver, 1971). Moreover, the use of war metaphors was prevalent in Mao’s rhetoric. Every political campaign was a battle for Mao. For example, the ideological differences between Mao and anti-Maoists were labeled a “battle” between true and fake revolutionaries (Tan & Zhao, 1996, p. 330). To win each battle, Mao always called on party members to fight for the end goal of winning the battle. Xi’s use of battle metaphors in describing the anti-poverty campaign echoes Mao’s rhetoric and serves to boost the Chinese people’s fighting spirit. Despite the pandemic in 2020, in his New Year Eve address for 2021 Xi announced that China achieved significant success in eliminating poverty, stating without any statistical evidence that: We launched the final assault on the fortress of entrenched rural poverty, and cracked this ‘hardest nut.’ Through 8 years, under the current standard, China has eradicated extreme poverty for the nearly 100 million rural people affected, and all the 832 impoverished counties have shaken off poverty. Over these years, I have visited fourteen contiguous areas of dire poverty. The unremitting efforts of the folks and the wholehearted contribution of the povertyeradication cadres often come to my mind. (Xi, 2020)

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Xi’s discourse of eliminating poverty in China consolidated his image as the people’s president and also helped reinforce his authoritarian rule. This echoes the Confucian rule that while the leader takes care of his people, the people, in return, must respect and obey the ruler who maintains absolute authority. The problem is that Xi Jinping is the foremost authoritative voice in China. Publications that reported the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty are all from the government-controlled media. There are no alternative channels to check on or verify the numbers.

13.4.2 Boosting Nationalism Given both Mao’s history of authoritarian rule and the rising tide of “Mao fever” in China, it appears that Xi has rhetorically appropriated Mao’s rhetoric on nationalism, raising it to a new level. In his Tiananmen speech (2019b), Xi reminded his audience that Seventy years ago on this day, Comrade Mao Zedong solemnly declared here to the world that the PRC was founded and the Chinese people had stood up. The founding of the PRC completely changed China’s miserable fate of being poor, weak, bullied, and humiliated for over 100 years since the advent of modern times. The Chinese nation has since then embarked on the path of realizing national rejuvenation.

Xi warned the western audience, especially the U.S., that starting a trade war with China could not stop China from economic development. In his words, “No force can ever shake the status of China, or stop the Chinese people and nation from marching forward” (Xi, 2019b). In his reception speech, Xi called for the Chinese people to be more united as “Unity is iron and unity is steel; unity is a source of strength. It is what has enabled the Chinese people and the Chinese nation to move forward against all risks and challenges, from one victory to another” (2019a). The phrase “Unity is iron, and unity is steel” [tuánjié jiùshì tiˇe, tuánjié jiùshì g¯ang] is the lyric of a popular song during Mao’s era in promoting collectivism and national identity that was sung in many public rallies and celebrations. To reinforce his message of national unity, Xi painted a glowing picture of China’s transformation in the past seventy years to boost national pride by saying: Seventy years are but a fleeting moment in human history. But for the Chinese people, for our nation, these have been 70 years of epoch-making changes. Our nation has gone through a tremendous transformation: it has stood up, grown rich and is becoming stronger; it has come to embrace the brilliant prospects of national renewal. This phenomenal transformation brings infinite pride to every son and daughter of the Chinese nation! (Xi, 2019a)

In these three speeches Xi repeatedly use the phrases “Chinese people” [zh¯ongguó rénmín] and “Chinese culture” [zh¯ongguó wénhuà], ending his reception speech with “the Chinese people are great people, the Chinese nation is a great nation, and Chinese civilization is a great civilization” [zh¯ongguó rénmín shì wˇeidà de rénmín, zh¯onghuá mínzú shì wˇeidà de mínzú, zh¯onghuá wénmíng shì wˇeidà de wénmíng].

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Here, nationalism is linked with a sense of pride for Chinese culture and civilization, a pride that China and the Chinese people had been deprived of because of past foreign invasion and colonization. To restore pride from the “humiliation of the century” is a collective desire to be recognized and validated. In this sense, Xi is using an enthymeme to appeal to the cultural premise shared by the Chinese people.

13.4.3 Envisioning a Bright Future In all three speeches, Xi mentioned “the Two Centenary Goals and the Chinese Dream of great national renewal.” Xi marked his epoch with the slogan of “the Chinese Dream” [zh¯ongguó mèng]. Xi first used the slogan domestically when he defined the Chinese dream as “achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” [shíxiàn zh¯onghuá mínzú de wˇeidà fùx¯ıng]. He further explained: “This dream embodies the long-cherished hope of several generations of the Chinese people, gives expression to the overall interests of the Chinese nation and the Chinese people, and represents the shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation” (Xi, 2014, p. 38). “The Two Centenary Goals” [liˇang gè y¯ıbˇai nián] refers to the two goals the PRC will achieve. The first goal is that by 2021, when the CCP celebrates its centennial birthday, China will become a moderately well-off nation and Chinese people will live a middle-class life. The second goal is that by the time the PRC celebrates its 100th birthday in 2049, China will become a strong and modernized socialist country, realizing its dream of national rejuvenation. These two goals have been enshrined in the 2018 CCP Constitution. Xi expressed great confidence in the realization of China’s glory and referred to 5000 years of Chinese civilization as the backbone for the realization of these two centenary goals. In his Reception Speech (Xi, 2019a), Xi said: “We are convinced that the Chinese people and the Chinese nation, with a proud civilization spanning over five millennia and great accomplishments during the past 70-year history of New China, will write a more brilliant chapter in our new journey toward the realization of the Two Centenary Goals and the Chinese Dream of great national renewal.” Evidently, Xi projected an optimistic vision for China’s future, showing confidence to the Chinese people and the world that China’s rise as a global power is inevitable. As Xi was delivering his speeches, protests in Hong Kong were escalating for months, confronting the mainland government with demands against plans to allow extradition to Mainland China. In response to this rhetorical threat Xi said: “We will continue to fully and faithfully implement the principles of ‘One Country, Two Systems’” [y¯ıguó liˇangzhì]. He also made it clear to the people and government in Taiwan that the mainland government will “deepen cross-Strait economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation to the benefit of people on both sides. However, the complete reunification of the motherland is an inevitable trend; it is what the greater national interests entail and what all Chinese people aspire to. No one and no force can ever stop it!” (Xi, 2019a). This sends a signal to Taiwan that Mainland

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China will not allow the island to declare independence. It is also a message to the U.S. that any interference on the issue of Taiwan will be in vain. China’s unification with Taiwan is bound to happen. This message has been consistent in all his speeches, setting up sovereignty issue as the bottom line as well as a warning that Taiwan’s independence will not be tolerated. Chinese culture has a tradition of revering leaders. During imperial China, the emperor of every dynasty had absolute authority. Those emperors who practiced benevolent governance were highly admired and venerated. If they left any writings, these would be seriously studied as guidance for good governance. Through Chinese official propaganda Xi has been portrayed as such a benevolent leader. Recently, a book titled The Third Volume of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China was published in September 2020. It is a collection of Xi Jinping’s speeches from 2017 to 2020. According to a book review, the book provides “basic strategies while clarifying plans to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and move on to all-out efforts to build a great modern socialist country” (Zheng, 2020, p. 21). Through publication of such books, not only Xi’s image as a national leader is elevated, but it also reinforces his legitimacy to rule China indefinitely, having removed the tenure system established by his predecessors, while ensuring that the Chinese people continue holding on to the dream of a bright future.

13.5 Discussion and Conclusion Guo (2002, p. 18) notes: “In modern Chinese political thought, the notion of benevolent government is related to at least three central components: social equality, wealth of the people, and national greatness.” In this chapter, I have traced the political thoughts of benevolent governance from the teachings of Confucius and Mencius that have become an indispensable part of Chinese cultural values for moral leadership and an equitable economic system. I have also identified three aspects of Mao Zedong’s rhetorical legacy that is appropriated from the classical rhetorical tradition of putting people first. Mao’s rhetoric of nationalism is derived from the modern Chinese history of humiliation and the desire to eradicate the shame by becoming a powerful new nation. Without mentioning the names and direct quotations from Confucius, Mencius, and Mao, Xi’s speeches invoke Confucian values of putting the people first as well as Mao’s rhetoric of nationalism and China’s rejuvenation in the twenty-first century. The analysis of Xi’s three speeches in 2019 indicates a close link between culture and politics, demonstrating the power of political language to create identification, and the power of culture as premise for political persuasion. I draw three implications from this study. First, culture is an enduring force and source for political discourse and political change. Even though China has been transformed from a Confucian society to a communist state, and Mao almost severed the nation from the Confucian tradition, Confucian teachings still resonate in the Chinese value system. Even a person as radicalized as Mao had to appropriate Confucian values of putting people first to

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legitimize communist rule in modern China. For example, Mao used a different phrase: “Serve the people” which is fundamentally the same as “putting people first.” This is how rhetoric works; it’s based on a cultural premise, appropriating the cultural themes by creating a new set of terms without mentioning the source. Further, Chinese cultural longings to eradicate shame has become the motivation for Chinese nationalism. According to Creighton (2012, p. 198), “Shame involves the awareness of inadequacy, or failure to achieve a wished-for self-image.” China’s humiliation by Japan and the West has brought enormous shame to its national psyche. When such shame is invoked, it unleashes tremendous powers to repair the self-image. When this is pushed to the collective level through Mao and Xi’s rhetoric, it triggers great motivation to achieve economic success. Actually, both Mao and Xi explicitly spotlighted China’s most humiliating moments as a rhetorical strategy of national solidarity. Furthermore, although Chinese culture is not rooted in a specific religion, mythmaking is prevalent and well accepted in the Chinese tradition. In this sense, both Mao and Xi are mythmakers in their rhetorical portrayal of an optimistic vision and bright future for China. The Chinese people are also made to be proud of their own country and civilization through their national leaders’ rhetoric. Second, political discourse rooted in cultural values and norms can create a strong identification with the audience. According to Burke (1969, p. 55), “You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his.” Identification is created by defining a situation and presenting a strategy. Individuals form identities through various contents. People choose to identify with those who share the same or similar ideas. Persuasion takes place because of such identification. Both Mao and Xi appealed to the Chinese audience through what they are familiar with, such as the phrases “putting people first,” “serving the people” [wéi rénmín fúwù], “our great nation” [wˇomen wˇeidà de mínzú], and “national rejuvenation” [mínzú fùx¯ıng]. The use of these tropes are like a “terministic screen” (Burke, 1966, p. 45) or symbolic blinds through which a particular worldview is revealed and constructed. Such use of words also provides a positive foundation for the government and individual leaders to navigate through internal and external challenges as well as mitigating any budding conflict. For the Chinese audience, it is a comfort to hear these words being repeated by their leaders to boost national pride. They are brought to believe that President Xi really cares about them. Based on a number of studies he has done on Chinese political communication, Heisey (1997, p. 14) observed that “National leaders use their own cultural backgrounds and cultural arguments unique to their histories and national identities in the construction of their political messages.” For example, as China’s President, Xi frequently refers in his speeches to his own background of labor in a poverty-stricken village and talks about his many trips to these villages. Third, this study has confirmed Fitch’s theory of cultural persuasion. That is, persuasion based on drawing from cultural premises what is desirable and what is not desirable according to cultural norms. For example, Mao and Xi’s rhetoric used words and phrases as cultural premises to appeal to the Chinese desire for a better life. Themes and ways of talking about putting people first, having a strong national identity, and building a powerful nation meet the desire of generations of Chinese

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people. Even though Xi’s speeches analyzed here did not mention Confucius and Mao by name, to the Chinese audience this is very obvious because slogans such as “putting people first” or “serving the people” are cultural premises rooted in history and cultural values. All Xi needs to do is to evoke them. When political leaders draw symbolic resources from their native culture, their rhetoric is more likely to be persuasive. On the other hand, because Chinese political leaders like Mao and Xi have the ultimate power of controlling the media and have a cult-like authoritarian persona, their rhetoric can also be seen as manipulative. Poverty rate reduction and elimination, and the projected picture of economic achievement that they cited in their rhetoric of nationalism and national rejuvenation, are often not checked or verified by alternative sources. The audience has little chance to dispute them or express dissent.

References Bremmer, I. (2010). The end of the free market: Who wins the war between states and corporations. Portfolio, the Penguin Group. Burke, K. (1966). Language as symbolic action. Cambridge University Press. Burke, K. (1969). A rhetoric of motives. The University of California Press. Confucius. (1997). The analects of Confucius (S. Leys, Trans.). W. W. Norton. Creighton, M. (2012). Revisiting shame and guilt cultures: A forty-year pilgrimage. In L. Chen (Ed.), Culture, cultures and intercultural communication: A cross disciplinary reader (pp. 192–221). Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Fairbank, J. (1976). The Chinese patters. In G. Bertsch & T. W. Ganschow (Eds.), Comparative communism: The Soviet, Chinese, and Yugoslav models (pp. 55–64). W. H. Freeman. Fitch, L. K. (2012). Cultural persuadables. In L. Chen (Ed.), Culture, cultures and intercultural communication: A cross disciplinary reader (pp. 115–141). Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Fung, Y.-L. (1952). A history of Chinese philosophy (Vol. 1, D. Bodde, Trans.). Princeton University Press. Gudykunst, W. B. (2001). Asian American ethnicity and communication. Sage. Guo, X. (2002). The ideal Chinese political leader: A historical and cultural perspective. Prager. Hall, E. (1976). Beyond culture. Doubleday & Company. Heisey, D. R. (1997). Cultural influences in political communication. In A. Gonzales & D. V. Tanno (Eds.), Politics, communication, and culture (pp. 9–26). Sage. Jensen, V. (1992). Values and practices in Asian argumentation. Argumentation and Advocacy, 28(4), 154–166. Lau, D. C. (2003). Mencius. Penguin Books. Li, Z. (1986). On ancient Chinese thoughts. The People’s Press (in Chinese). Lu, R. (2020, October). The final race against extreme poverty. China Today, 69(10), 18–23. Lu, X. (1998). Rhetoric in ancient China, fifth to third century BCE: A comparison with classical Greek rhetoric. The University of South Carolina Press. Lu, X. (2017). The rhetoric of Mao Zedong: Transforming China and its people. The University of South Carolina Press. Mao, Z. (1935/1967). Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung (Vol. I). Foreign Language Press. Mao, Z. (1941/1967). Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung (Vol. III). Foreign Language Press. Mao, Z. (1945/1967). Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung (Vol. III). Foreign Language Press. Mao, Z. (1949/1967). Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung (Vol. IV). Foreign Language Press.

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Mao, Z. (1949/1977). Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung(Vol. V). Foreign Language Press. Mao, Z. (1956/1977). Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung (Vol. V). Foreign Language Press. Mencius. (1970). Mencius (D. C. Lau, Trans.). Penguin Books. Ogden, S. (2001). Chinese nationalism: Chinese precedence of community and identity over individual rights. Asian Perspective, 25(4), 157–185. Oliver, R. (1971). Communication and culture in ancient India and China. Syracuse University Press. Pan, X. T. (2020, October 17). China created miracles in reducing human poverty. The People’s Daily. Retrieved from http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2020-10/17/content_2013496. htm (in Chinese). Richards, I. A. (1991). Mencius through the looking-glass. In A. Berthoff (Ed.), Richards on rhetoric: I. A. Richards’ selected essays 1929–1974. Oxford University Press. Smith, A. (2001). Chinese characteristics (Y. Qin, Trans.). Xuelin Press (in Chinese). Special Investigative Report. (2020, October 10). Sonorous music of the era. The People’s Daily. Retrieved from http://dangjian.people.com.cn/n1/2020/1010/c117092-31886241.html (in Chinese). Tan, F., & Zhao, W. (1996). Highlights of da-zi-bao during the cultural revolution. Mirror Books. Terrill, R. (1980). A biography of Mao. Harper & Row Publishers. Xi, J. (2014). The governance of China. Foreign Language Press. Xi, J. (2019a, September 30). Speech at the reception in celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Retrieved from https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1704400.shtml. Xi, J. (2019b, October 1). Speech Marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China at Tiananmen. Retrieved from https://www.en84.com/7860.html (in Chinese and English). Xi, J. (2019c, December 31). Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2020 New Year speech. Retrieved from https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-31/Full-text-Chinese-President-Xi-Jinping-s-2020New-Year-speech--MSnhLaJmIE/index.html. Xi, J. (2020, December 31). Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2021 New Year speech. Retrieved from http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202012/31/WS5fedde5ba31024ad0ba9feb3.html (in Chinese) Xinhua News Agency. (2020, September 29). Xi Jinping’s book on lifting people out of poverty is officially published. The People’s Daily. Retrieved from http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/ 2020-09/29/nw.D110000renmrb_202009293-01.htm (in Chinese). Yang, X.-H., Peng, Y.-Q., & Lee, Y.-T. (2008). The Confucian and Mencian philosophy of benevolent leadership. In C.-C. Chen & Y.-T. Lee (Eds.), Leadership and management in China: Philosophies, theories, and practices (pp. 31–50). Cambridge University Press. Yum, J. O. (1997). The impact of Confucianism on interpersonal relationships and communication patterns of East Asia. In L. A. Samovar & R. Porter (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (8th ed., pp. 75–86). Wadsworth. Zhao, S. (2004). A nation-state by construction: Dynamics of modern Chinese nationalism. Stanford University Press. Zheng, C. (2020, August 20). A blueprint for tomorrow’s China. Beijing Review, 63(34), 20–21.

Xing Lu is Professor Emeritus in the College of Communication at DePaul University, Chicago, USA. She is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on the topics of comparative rhetoric, Chinese political rhetoric, and intercultural communication. She is also the sole author of three English books titled Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century B. C. E.: A Comparison with Greek Rhetoric (1998); Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: Impacts on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication (2004); and The Rhetoric of Mao Zedong: Transforming China and Its People (2017).

Chapter 14

Popular Culture in the Service of Populist Politics in Spain: Pablo Iglesias’ Parliamentary Speech as Leader of the Podemos Party Francisco José Sánchez-García

14.1 Introduction In recent years, Spanish politics has been renewed with the arrival of new political parties on the parliamentary scene on the left (Podemos, founded in January 2014), the center (Ciudadanos, founded in July 2006), and the right (Vox, founded in December 2013), which have substantially altered traditional political discursive dynamics. Recent studies confirm the progressive “de-ideologization” of political language in Spain over the last decades (Sánchez-García, 2012) since the alternation in power between the social-democratic Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, or PSOE) and the conservative and Christian-Democratic People’s Party (Partido Popular, or PP) did not reflect significant differences at the rhetorical and lexical levels. This situation changed radically due to the 2009 economic crisis and the subsequent discontent among the population that resulted in the establishment of Podemos, a left-wing party that often resorts to polarization in the parliamentary arena. Their leaders started coining and using very successfully ideologically marked lexical frameworks such as clase (class), casta (caste), la gente (the people), los de abajo (those below) or las cloacas del estado (the State’s sewers). Their speeches are characterized by the claim that the cultural values of the traditional Spanish left are represented in the desire for a republican government, such as the one just before the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975) and the ulterior reinstatement of the monarchy. Among these identity signs are the defense of public health care and education, secularism, and respect for both cultural and political diversity (i.e., endorsement of federalism)—all underpinned by intellectual references to Antonio Machado, Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca, and Miguel Hernández among others. F. J. Sánchez-García (B) Department of Spanish Linguistics, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_14

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Since he rose to the leadership of Podemos in 2014, Pablo Iglesias-Turrión has been careful about how his media speeches should look. This is observable in measured speeches, that have been used as a model (not only in substance, but also in the form) for the rest of the Podemos’ leaders. Pablo Iglesias’ rhetorical skills are undoubtedly a key factor explaining the party’s rapid rise. Therefore, my analysis focuses on Pablo Iglesias (i.e., the founder and the solidly established leader within the party), and I will try to verify the following: (1) to what extent ideological polarization, based on the traditional confrontation between the “two Spains”—the anticlerical and progressive Spain of the left versus the ultraCatholic Spain and right-wing centralist—has been reactivated by the new Spanish populist parties; where appropriate, (2) what are the discursive mechanisms that make it possible; and (3) what cultural factors shape the language of Pablo Iglesias as well as his construal of twenty-first century Spain. It has been noted that Iglesias constructs his speeches like a rap artist “spitting bars” (slang for “rap lines”); that is, they are equivalent in their content (slogans), use of pauses, intonation and rhythm. I will contend that the Pablo Iglesias’ rhetoric fed back from the conceptual frames of hiphop or rap groups, as well as other instances of popular culture or intellectuals of the Spanish left, to connect with his potential voters. To demonstrate this, I will analyze the conceptual frameworks and the most frequent metaphors (Sánchez-García, 2012) in a selection of parliamentary speeches by Pablo Iglesias, that also can illustrate the evolution of his discourse from the dawn of Podemos to his arrival to the Government of Spain.

14.2 Podemos: Texts and Contexts Beyond the Borders of Populism Language is perhaps one of the most striking features of the emergence of Podemos on the Spanish political scene. From its origins, the party sought to differentiate itself from others by communication that was groundbreaking in its form and radically ideological at its core: it presented itself to the public as a new political party, founded to combat the disaffection of Spanish citizens towards traditional politicians, but at the same time it recovered historical ideological values of the left. Spain’s grassroots protest movement, “los indignados,” also known as 15-M or “Spanish Revolution,” that began around the local and regional elections of 2011 and 2012, was the public manifestation of many Spaniards’ protest during the last global economic crisis. Especially the youngest, who were hopeless and with an uncertain future ahead, demanded a shift to a more participatory democracy, not concerned solely with business or banking interests and the privilege of the powerful. At first, the demonstrations were coordinated through citizen platforms such as Democracia Real Ya! (Real Democracy Now), Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform for those Affected by Mortgage) and Juventud sin Futuro (Youth without a Future) (Abellán-López, 2015. p.7).

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Until then, the electoral support and expectations of Spanish radical left-wing parties were a minority, with little possibility of expanding their voter base. In this context, Podemos was born as a revolutionary electoral brand that knew how to connect with that growing social discontent. Its origin and rapid rise were possible precisely thanks to the novelty of its approach that did not conform to the logic of the historical bipartisan alternation: ideologically it was located to the left of the Socialist Party, but without being directly comparable to the Communist Party, because it targeted a much more transversal core of voters. Its founders, Pablo Iglesias, Íñigo Errejón and Juan Carlos Monedero, lecturers of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid, were able to take advantage of the broadcast media (especially the participation in TV-programs) to publicize their messages and to prepare the ground for the emergence of Podemos as its own electoral brand, participating for the first time in the 2015 European elections. The five seats they obtained in the European Parliament would be decisive for their jump into the Spanish parliament in the 2016 elections.

14.2.1 The “Two Spains”: Cultural Factors Behind the Us/Them Polarization Underlying the background of most of Spanish ideological debates is an idea with a long tradition, very widespread especially among the left-wing: the existence of “two Spains” confronting each other—the anticlerical, diverse, and progressive Spain of the left, against the centralist right-wing and ultra-Catholic Spain. Otto von Bismarck’s phrase is well known: “Spain is the strongest country in the world: the Spaniards have tried to destroy it for centuries and have not succeeded.” This Spanish “Cain” spirit, its most famous artistic representation found in Francisco de Goya’s “Cudgel duel,” is perfectly summed up in Machado’s (LIII, Proverbios y Cantares) verses: There is a Spaniard today, who wants/ to live and is starting to live, / between one Spain dying / and another Spain yawning. / Little Spaniard just now coming/ into the world, may God keep you. / One of those two Spains/ will freeze your heart. Thus, for the leaders of Podemos, the country had not yet shed its totalitarian and repressive past. According to this, an us/them (nosotros/ellos) polarization is articulated, in which “the others” are conceptualized as a retrograde and authoritarian political elite, heir to the Régimen del 78 (the radical left has implicitly renounced the political agreement that led to the Spanish Transition of dictatorship to democracy). Therefore, it is also known as Santa Transición (thanks to authors such as Francisco Umbral), which enabled left-wing intellectuals to ridicule those who believed that the Spanish Transition had put an end to the confrontation between Spaniards (Candela, 2020).

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If we label Podemos as a populist party (Arroyas-Langa & Pérez-Díaz, 2016; Casado-Velarde, 2019; Ferrada-Stoehrel, 2017; Sánchez-García, 2019; Sola & Rendueles, 2017), it should not be surprising that one of its most prolific conceptual frameworks has to do precisely with the invocation of the people (el pueblo/ la gente) (Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 2000, 2007). For Charaudeau (2009), populisms emerge at momentous points in the political life of a country, functioning as “savior” movements that reconfigure the rules on the political board. Normally, they coincide with a crisis (be it economic or moral), leading to the “victimization” of the people and makes it necessary to attribute the cause of evil to those responsible, exalting ethical and citizen values that will only be vindicated by a leader who claims to represent the people and speaks on their behalf. Not surprisingly, for Iglesias, the historical left–right dichotomy is meaningless, since it no longer responds to the reality of contemporary societies: populism is about understanding this dichotomy as a struggle between political and economic elites facing the needs of civil society (the people) (Sánchez-García, 2019). From the outset, Podemos defined itself as “the People’s Party,” understood as working people, impoverished during the financial crisis. The opposition between “those above / those below” emerges here, materializing in the coining of the term caste (la casta) to refer to the elite that manages power through institutions, serving the interests of corrupt politicians, businessmen or financiers (the establishment). In this regard, it must be remembered that the term is not new: the leaders of Podemos limit themselves to rescuing a concept already used by Antonio Francesco Gramsci to refer to the ruling class in other socio-historical contexts, such as the feudal, and more recently also by Ernesto Laclau (Martínez de Carnero, 2019). In any case, “the term caste was often used by Podemos as the beginning of its establishment. However, since 2016 the party has greatly reduced its use. Nowadays they try to include the term monarchical block (bloque monárquico) as a less successful substitute for caste” (García-Marín & García-Luengo, 2019, p. 98). Indeed, it is common to build new concepts or reuse old concepts with different meanings, since these analogies will be reproduced by all leaders and most of the followers to take the discursive initiative and thus mark the key issues of the communicative agenda, incidentally guaranteeing the media treatment of their statements by the main national media outlets. Just as widely used frames are employed, so too others are avoided. Thus, for example, Podemos does not agree on the centralist and imperial conception of a united Spain defended by the right-wing and those nostalgic for the dictatorship. Historically, left-wing ideology has defended the diversity of the Spanish state and its different national sensibilities. The republican poet Miguel Hernández, who died after the Civil War (1936–1939) in an internment center, described this variety of characters in his poem “Winds of the people” (set to music by Victor Jara, Joan Manuel Serrat o Jarcha, among others): Asturians of bravery, Basques made of armored stone, Valencians of joy and Castilians of soul… Andalusians of lightning, born between guitars…Galicians of rain and calm, Catalans of fierceness, Aragonese of caste, Murcian of dynamite…Leonese, Navarrese, owners of hunger, sweat and ax.

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Another similar concept associated with the right, homeland (patria), has been reformulated by Podemos, in such a way that what was previously a taboo for the left is no longer so, through a process of ideological “appropriation” of the concept, possible thanks to the emptying of its signifier to give it new meaning: now, “the homeland is the people” (La patria es la gente). This is applicable to many other terms, that in the words of Laclau (2005, p. 31) are neither left nor right since they are “floating signifiers” whose meaning adapts to the specific uses of each ideology: democracy, future, youth, order, equality, freedom. On the rhetorical plane, the use of metaphor and other tropes (metonymy, synecdoche, and catachresis) is especially useful for the nodal connection of these floating signifiers in an organized and homogeneous set of messages (Žižek, 1989), resulting in argumentation adjusted to the communicative strategy of the political party.

14.2.2 Podemos and the Cultural Referents of Left-Wing Politics: From the “Gauche Divine” to “Los Chikos del Maíz” Undoubtedly, the ideals of any political party are causally linked not only to an ideological but also to a cultural tradition that largely conditions and determines the form and background of their leaders’ messages. For this reason, it is not possible to understand Podemos discourse without considering culture. In the first place, the hallmarks of Podemos are not quite different from those of other older left parties, such as Izquierda Unida (United Left or IU), a political coalition that was organized in 1986, bringing together several left-wing political organizations, claiming the cultural values of the Spanish Republic, abruptly ruined by the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s subsequent dictatorship. Indeed, in general, all Spanish left-wing parties connect with the political paradigm of republican tradition, as opposed to the dominant liberal path in the West. They demand a more participatory democracy in which citizens must be the true protagonists of political decisionmaking in the postmodern context. In the words of Abellán-López (2015, p. 2), in the face of a liberal democracy discouraging participation, “these collective modalities of participation have been making their way and have gained a space occupied by conventional political actors, in such a way that they have become a social force that represents a more plural, open and participatory democracy.” This active role of the people contrasts with the vision of representative politics typical of liberalism, and in the case of Podemos, it connects directly with the popular discontent of 15-M. This argument reveals that Podemos was founded precisely with the purpose of being the mouthpiece of a citizenry outraged by institutions. This “neorepublicanism” of the party means that the New Social Movements (Nuevos Movimientos Sociales) recognize a prime importance in the construction of their discourse, to be seen both in the content and in the form of the political messages. For this reason, the cultural references chosen by Iglesias are not accidental but rather

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a way to connect with potential voters and strengthen collective ties. Unlike the parties of the left and traditional Spanish social democracy, heirs of the so-called “gauche divine” (Villamandos, 2011) that encompassed the openly progressive intellectuals of the last two decades of Francoism, Iglesias renounced the elitism represented by the spirit of the left of the Spanish Transition, to opt for cultural references typical of the youth. For example, several speeches mention controversial iconoclastic artist Javier Krahe, in addition to historical singer-songwriters such as Paco Ibáñez—ne of his songs, España en marcha (Spain on the move), became an anthem for them—or Catalan-born Lluis Llach—whose song L’estaca (The Stake) is a classic for Podemos. Additionally, some leaders of Podemos declare themselves followers of contemporary singer-songwriters like Ismael Serrano or indie pop-rock group Vetusta Morla (Tones, 2015). Music has played an important role in the public events of Podemos. As Iglesias himself declared, for its rallies he has personally chosen Chilean group Quilapayún’s protest song “The united people will never be defeated” or “Gallop (until burying them in the sea)!”—a musicalized poem with clear republican connotations by Rafael Alberti, a contemporary of García Lorca who went into exile during Francoism. But without a doubt, the subversive and rebellious music of hip-hop group Los Chikos del Maíz deserves special mention. Iglesias has declared himself a loyal follower of the group, and as he points out in a 2019 tweet: “Los Chikos del Maíz and Riot Propaganda are insubordinate gangs that excite many young people and unsettle many leaders on the right.” It makes sense for the party to sympathize with such a politically committed band, since it somehow translates the party’s ideology and program into songs, being a clear exponent of feedback between politics and culture. Thus, for example, the album Comanchería deals with issues such as precariousness, rural Spain, evictions, the fight against climate change; for Iglesias (tweet October 4, 2019) “it is more than an album, it represents the cultural battle.” Its leader, Nega, author of songs like “You to the gulag and me to California” (a reference of the Spanish translation of the film “The Parent Trap”), “They shall not pass!” (clear reference to the slogan of the Republican front in Madrid during the Civil War), or “Cayetana, that neck is asking for a guillotine” (addressed to the former spokesperson of the People’s Party), has also dedicated lyrics to prominent leaders of Podemos, and Iglesias himself has participated in a concert rapping with them. The connection between Iglesias and Nega is so close that they have published a book together, Down with the regime! (2013). Popular culture is very present in the public speeches of the leaders, with common references not only to music or cinema but also to successful TV series such as The Wire, and particularly Game of Thrones, whose plots and issues seem to have influenced the leader’s rhetoric. Iglesias tries to show himself close to his followers, as one of them, with whom he shares not only political ideals, but also cultural models and even consumer habits. For this reason, he does not hesitate to take advantage of any act or interview to recommend music, TV series or movies. Even the lullabies he sings to his young children contain ideological messages, as Juan Goytisolo’s poem (with music by Paco Ibáñez) “The good little wolf”: “Once upon a time there was a

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good little wolf who was abused by all the lambs. And there was also a bad prince, a beautiful witch, and an honest pirate. All these things there was a time. When I dreamed of a world turned upside down.” Finally, the staging, clothing, and presentation of the leader are also relevant: Iglesias neither usually wear a tie nor dress too formally, and his ponytail has become iconic. These aspects are not strictly textual, but they certainly contribute to completing and reinforcing the message.

14.3 Methodology and Corpus Analyzing populist discourse requires starting from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) methodology, for which we will rely on the empirical perspective of Wilson, Fairclough’s (1992) approach to political discourse—as part of a text, discursive practice, and social practice—and especially, van Dijk (1999) with his approach to ideology and its discursive reproduction. Our corpus is made up of a selection of speeches by Pablo Iglesias in the Congress of Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados, the lower house of the Spain’s legislative branch), from December 2015, when he won a seat in the European Parliament, until his rise to power in 2019. Although we have previously probed the language of the meetings and official congresses of the Podemos (Sánchez-García, 2019), we consider it especially relevant to examine his discursive strategies in a purely institutional context such as the Parliament, in which leaders are forced to confront ideas with political adversaries—no longer addressing a convinced and militant public, but rather aspiring to broaden their base of supporters by making known the signs of their own identity that can reach the undecided electorate. The contrast resulting from such communicative exchanges is a key issue, insofar as in these parliamentary speeches the fundamental ideological frameworks emerge that are the backbone of the set of features with which the party seeks to make itself known. It is precisely the concepts and their discursive manifestation that reveal the ideological essence of any political party, and more specifically, its cultural roots. For this reason, we have chosen for the present chapter to study four additional speeches, corresponding to four key moments in the history of the party and of Iglesias’ own leadership: his arrival at the Congress of Deputies on March 2, 2016; his participation in the failed motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy in June 13, 2017; his rejection of the first inauguration of PM Pedro Sánchez in June 22, 2019, forcing an electoral repetition; and his speech in support of the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in January 4, 2020.

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14.4 “Taking the Heaven by Storm”: Chronological Analysis of Pablo Iglesias’ Speeches from 15-M to the Vice-Presidency of the Government If we compare the journey of Iglesias with those of other populist party leaders, his meteoric rise is striking—from his origins as the founder of a radical left party in 2014 to his appointment as second Vice-PM of Spain, thanks to the coalition agreement between Podemos with the Socialist Party in 2020. As Franzé (2017) points out, the political trajectory of Podemos has adapted to socio-historical (and electoral) circumstances, moving from an initial utopian political vision to another one much more pragmatic and tolerant (although critical) of the established system, so that two clearly recognizable stages in his speech can be distinguished. First, “antagonistic speech”: This first stage, which corresponds to the origins of the party, is characterized by a speech of frontal opposition to the established democratic order and a clear questioning of the legitimacy of the Spanish Transition, the so-called “Regime of 78.” The key: To dismantle this mutual implication between democracy and transition to affirm that authentic democracy can only emerge by freeing it from its “kidnapping” by the Regime of 78. The Constitution, the consensus, the spirit of harmony and democracy as an avoidance of the Civil War will be redefined: now they will appear as oligarchic politics far from popular sovereignty (Franzé, 2017, p. 228). Second, “agonist speech”: As of 2015, the party moved towards a discourse that, despite raising serious objections to its legitimacy, recognized the institutions of 1978. By then, the political allies of Iglesias already had representation in the European Parliament and in the Spanish autonomous parliaments. Its leaders ceased to clearly consider themselves communists and claimed their place in the space of social democracy, with their recognition of the Transition leading them to demand its renewal in a “second Transition”, legitimized not by the bourgeois elites, but by the popular clamor of 15-M (Franzé, 2017, pp. 231–237). In practice, this evolution implied the recognition of a moderation in the discourse of Podemos (Arroyas-Langa & Pérez-Diaz, 2016; Ferrada-Stoehrel, 2017; Sola & Rendueles, 2017). Nevertheless, in Franzé’s words (2017, p. 224), it was not only about acclimatization of the party to institutions (materialized in the discourse) or a decrease in its populism: the key is to analyze the people-elite opposition as a step from antagonism (relation to the political order in terms of challenge) to agonism (regeneration). Given the above, to illustrate this evolution it is essential to describe the discursive keys that have made it possible. Therefore, it is convenient to identify the most relevant conceptual frameworks of each of these periods to show the cultural traces that are found in the background of all discursive manifestations (Lakoff, 2007). In general terms, as I have already explained (Sánchez-García, 2019, pp. 280– 281), the dichotomous construction based on antagonism displayed by Iglesias and other leaders of Podemos revolves around a few outstanding conceptual frameworks: (1) The caste/the decent people (La casta/la gente decente); (2) Those above/below

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(Los de arriba/los de abajo); (3) The plot—or the mafia—/the people (La trama -mafia-/la gente); (4) The old politics/the new politics (La vieja política/la nueva política); and (5) They/us (Ellos/Nosotros). Iglesias’ concrete use of metaphor and conceptual frameworks has evolved throughout his political career, as we will show below in a selection of parliamentary speeches.

14.4.1 The Parliamentary Speeches of Pablo Iglesias: Context, Culture and Conceptual Frameworks 14.4.1.1

The Voice of the People is Finally Being Heard: The First Speech in the Congress of Deputies (2016)

Iglesias debuted as a deputy on March 2, 2016 at the investiture session of PM Mariano Rajoy, with a speech dedicated to the leader of the Socialist Party and not the leader of the People’s Party as would have been expected. He began by greeting the audience in the three co-official languages (Catalan, Galician, and Basque), and claiming the figure of Salvador Puig Antich (a Catalan militant anarchist executed by the dictatorship). He also named some referents of the political left, such as Gerardo Iglesias, Julio Anguita or José Antonio Labordeta, and finally invoked the figure of another Pablo Iglesias, Pablo Iglesias Posse, the founder of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) in 1879. This apparent disconnection from its most immediate context is deliberate, since it expresses Iglesias’ desire to reveal the identity signs of his party: for this reason, at the beginning he defines politics as “the art of transforming reality” in the face of deception or the typical simulation of the “old politics” aligned with the power elites. Thus, he was laying the foundation of the inherent polarization of any populist party, posing to the leader of the PSOE the fallacy of the false dilemma (Weston, 1985) for which one can only choose between the corruption represented by the leader of the right who ended up being invested as prime minister, or a coalition of the PSOE with Podemos and other minority political forces on the left that truly governs for the people (a term used to refer to “the Spanish” or “the citizens”). The most relevant conceptual frameworks of his speech are the following: 1.

The chain of power:

“Politics is the art of transforming reality and consists of finding the most important link in the chain of power, the one that ensures control of the entire chain. For a long time, that link was the government.” It is a structural metaphor, designed to illustrate “The State Government is the determining link in the chain of power,” so that “the powers that be” or “the oligarchies” (elite) control the political class. This frame is present in the lyrics of a song by Boikot “The streets will speak” (“We have nothing left to lose, / only the chains that bind us to power”) and in song by the Ska-p band, “The bastard children of globalization” (“I am just a link, one more piece of a macabre puzzle.”).

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The architecture of globalization:

“We know that the architecture of globalization humiliates popular sovereignty daily and restricts the development of the ideological bases of modernity: equality, fraternity, and freedom.” Through this structural metaphor, Iglesias established an analogy of neoliberalism with a building constructed by elites to subdue the people. The term is considered inherently negative for the left-wing, and we see this in many raps from Chikos del maíz, such as the lyrics for “Hidden Theme” in which the lack of scruples and morals of the powerful is harshly criticized: “Bourgeois globalization is that businessmen without morals fuck Thai girls.” 3.

The stone of David against Goliath:

“We came to this Parliament driven by the dream that broke through like the stone that David threw at Goliath with his sling, turning into a political project a simple message that people launched in the squares: ‘Yes, we can’.” Iglesias construes himself as David, the biblical character, capable just like him of defeating the powerful thanks to his audacity and bravery (politics, in this case). If Iglesias is David, the stone is the collective action of citizens fed up with corruption and inequality. This conceptual framework connects with the song “Yes we can!” dedicated to Podemos by Lülu in collaboration with other singers, among them Juankar (from the group Boikot) and Nega (from Los Chikos del Maíz): “Jump into the streets and scream like a madman if this democracy is not enough for you. Join us, there are many more of us!” 4.

The weak/the powerful:

“You (People’s Party) have always been arrogant with the weak, and subservient to the powerful, and you are responsible for the fact that corruption and injustice have become the greatest shame in Spain.” The people appear characterized as a civic mass that lacks effective power to change their lives. The “powerful” encompass the economic oligarchs and the traditional political class (them) in front of an “us” that designates “the people,” whose main champion is Iglesias himself. Taking up the lullaby of “the good little wolf” that Iglesias sings to his children, citizens will be those lambs that in a world turned upside down make the wolf tremble. For example, this frame is a constant in the lyrics of Chicos del maíz: “seeing how the whole world burns, how the rich are robbed by the hungry, how at last there is justice and my mother smiles again.” 5.

The verdict of the polls:

“For this reason, Mr. Sánchez, we will always demand guarantees so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. His party received the harshest verdict from the polls on the 20th.” According to the metaphor, and linked to the previous one, voters are the magistrate who judge the injustices committed by the “regime” of power. Again, Iglesias turned to a simile related to the realm of justice (divine or human), semantically reworded to “empower” the oppressed.

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Lose to Win: The No-Confidence Motion Speech (2017)

A year later, on June 13, 2017, Iglesias undertook a daring strategy with the presentation of a no-confidence motion against then-president Mariano Rajoy. The leader of Podemos knew that he was going to lose, because he did not have enough support to be appointed president; all in all, for a newcomer leader like him, a face-to-face confrontation with the president was a particularly important advertising platform to disseminate his ideas through the media. From that standpoint, his sure defeat was perfectly acceptable. Ultimately, in that quest for parliamentary leadership, he sought to position himself as the true leader of the opposition to the Government, as the following frames reveal: 1.

Hope will defeat fear:

“Thank you for being the best endorsement of political change and thank you for being the palpable demonstration that hope can defeat fear.” This frame again insists on the us/them dichotomy. In accordance with this structural warlike metaphor, typical of the TV series Game of Thrones, Iglesias predicts the imminent triumph of “the people” that his party leads in the face of fear inspired by the powerful. 2.

Institutions, at the service of the people:

“Thanks to you, more than seven million people already know that they can be governed in another, more efficient, more modern way, putting public institutions at the service of the people and showing that when politicians do not steal, ladies and gentlemen of the PP (People’s Party), we govern better.” Once in Parliament, Iglesias moderated his anti-system slogans, revising his speech in relation to the institutional role of Podemos. In practice, this meant assuming that it is not possible to dismantle institutions, but it is possible to aspire to change them from within. Iglesias now represented a political actor capable of improving Spain with his criticism of the central government; his most important goal was to restore power to the people, just as Prometheus stole fire from the Greek gods to give it to humans. The people are the only protagonist, and the true recipient of political action: as stated in the famous poem “Winds of the People” by Miguel Hernandez: “Winds of people take me, winds from the people drag me, scatter my heart and winnow my throat.” 3.

Past/future:

“You, Mr. Rajoy, will go down in history as the president of corruption. Today we judge here a time that must be part of the past, and for this it is essential to get you out of the institutions.” According to this, the People’s Party “represents history and that is why they have to go down in history.” It is the past, and to move towards the future, a radical change is essential; the latter can only come from the hand of the so-called “new politics.” As Antonio Machado says in his poem The Ephemeral Tomorrow: “The vain yesterday will engender a tomorrow.”

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Black Spain/ Decent Spain:

“What is Spain, ladies and gentlemen? Is Spain a brand? Is Spain the box of a soccer field where there are gentlemen with accounts in Switzerland? Spain is not that, ladies and gentlemen, Spain is the working people who strive to raise their family.” According to Iglesias, power has corrupted the political elites, represented in this speech by the Popular Party (“a drag on Spain”). Theirs is a black Spain, opaque like dirty money (dinero negro), a dark stage that must be left “in the past.” In similar terms, there is a song by Boikot (“The streets will speak”) that defines Spain as “a joke country full of black cards.” Faced with that corrupt Spain of the past, Iglesias contrasts a different vision of the country. We also find here the echoes of the poem by Antonio Machado, The Ephemeral Tomorrow: “But another Spain is born, the Spain of the chisel and the mace, with that eternal youth that is made from the solid past of the race. An implacable and redeeming Spain, Spain that dawns with an ax in its avenging hand, Spain of rage and idea.” 5.

The Spain that gets up early/the Spain of Rajoy:

“Spain is the working people who get up early. Spain is a maid with back pain who distributes a handout; Spain is a taxi driver who drives many hours a day and faces Uber; Spain is a young woman with a degree who had to go to USA or Germany.” Here again polarization is used in the form of an ontological metaphor. For Iglesias, the country is its people, the “working” people, not the oligarchs. In short, Spain equates to “us” versus “them,” or in Antonio Machado’s terms, “between one Spain dying / and another Spain yawning (very tired).”

14.4.1.3

Power Quotas: The Speech of Rejection of the Investiture of Pedro Sánchez (2019)

In the 2019 elections, PM Pedro Sánchez (Socialist Party) broadly won the elections, but he needed the positive vote of Iglesias’ deputies to govern; the leader of Podemos did not settle for the positions offered by the PSOE in the coalition government in exchange for their support. In a harsh speech against Sánchez, Iglesias vindicated his role as a relevant actor in Spanish politics, demanding a co-leadership role in government management, without which agreement would not be possible, framing his argument in the following terms: 1.

Spaniards want an agreement, Spaniards deserve respect:

“We are asking for respect and reciprocity, respect for 3.7 million voters who have the same right to be respected as citizens who have voted for other parties.” Iglesias argued that if the voters had wanted a one-party government, the PSOE would have obtained an absolute majority; in his opinion, this meant that the people were asking him to enter the government as Vice-Prime Minister (to which Pedro Sánchez refused). For example, the frame “Respect for the people who demand

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dignity and social justice” is a key issue in the lyrics of Boikot. This is the opposite of politicians (PSOE) who follow “their rhythm and beat instead of being a people who speak, fight and show their dignity.” 2.

In 1975 we did not end the dictatorship, Franco died in bed:

“You have affirmed: in 1975 we left the dictatorship. No, Mr. Sánchez, in 1975 a dictator died in bed, and I want to ask you, out of respect for the dignity of the anti-fascists and the democrats, to rectify those words.” Iglesias recovers here his classic slogan, according to which totalitarianism did not end with the death of the dictator Franco, and still survives in some outdated and not very democratic institutions. This is a “commonplace” for the cultural left; as singer-writer Nega explains, “it is necessary to remove sociological fascism from the institutions.” 3.

Breaking the agreement is spoiling the political heritage:

“Mr. Sánchez, you mustn’t spoil our political heritage. We have the opportunity to run a left-wing government with respect for an ally, from the proportionality of the votes obtained.” The left’s set of values is much more than a compromise: it is a “legacy” (a keyword for Chikos del maíz, as in the rap “Secondary actor”). Naturally, the attribution of responsibility for this conceptual framework falls directly on Pedro Sánchez, the only one guilty of not reaching the agreement, according to Iglesias. 4.

The spirit of the Constitution:

“It is a legitimate proposal, but it goes against the spirit of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 establishing that our political system is parliamentary, not presidential.” The vindication of some establishment totems is consummated in this speech, such as the appeal to the spirit of the Constitution, which Podemos had always aspired to reform, considering it out of date. The taboo of defending the sacralized term “Holy Transition” is thus broken; although for Podemos it will no longer be “Holy” (for its critical mistakes), it is now seen as a starting point on which to build the “true transition to democracy.”

14.4.1.4

Change Institutions from Within: The Speech in Support of the Investiture of Pedro Sánchez (2020)

The lack of agreement in the short previous legislature led to a repetition of the elections won by Pedro Sánchez again. Podemos lost a lot of representation in Congress, explained that time on the grounds of his lack of support for the socialist party on the first occasion. Nevertheless, there was no other option than to reach an agreement and finally, Iglesias achieved his goal of entering the Government of Spain. We highlight several frameworks: 1.

Recover the rights taken:

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“This (government program) is a program for the reconstruction of the rights and freedoms taken from citizens in recent times…We are leaving a lost decade, a decade of corruption, a decade of social cuts and cuts in civil liberties and rights.” Podemos entered the Government to change the system from within and, ostensibly, to return lost rights to the people. Culture not only influences the construction of political conceptual frameworks, but explicitly reproduces them. Singer-writer Ismael Serrano celebrated enthusiastically the arrival of Podemos to the Government: “It is difficult to believe. The 15 M came to the Government. Now it is time to legislate and enforce the agenda to change people’s lives” (January 7, 2020). For intellectuals close to Podemos, not only had the party entered the government, but so too the entire social mass that inspired its foundation, that only Pablo Iglesias could represent. 2.

Spain (normal)/anti-Spain:

“You have recovered the worst discourse in the political traditions of our country, the political discourse of anti-Spain. It is the political speech of the dictatorship that murdered thousands of compatriots, the political speech that sent a division to fight alongside Hitler. The political discourse that destroyed our democracy.” According to Iglesias, due to the rise of the far-right party (Vox), endorsing values that in his opinion go against real Spain and evoking the past dictatorship, democracy is in danger. Again, here clearly emerges the vision of “the two opposing Spains.” 3.

Defenders of the homeland/traitors to the homeland:

“Let’s talk about what it means to betray Spain. Betraying Spain means attacking the rights of workers; treason to Spain is to privatize public services; treason against Spain is to steal and finance itself illegally…This is what the new legislature is about, to repair its betrayals to the homeland.” This perspective of the two opposing Spains leads Iglesias to explain what he means by homeland: “Let me finish with a reflection by Antonio Machado: ‘The homeland is in Spain a simply popular sentiment that the young men usually boast about.’ In the hardest times, the rich young men invoke it and sell it; the people buy it with their blood.” Cleverly, Iglesias redefines the concept of homeland (patria), emptied of its conservative meaning of “single and indivisible nation” (relying directly on a quote from Machado), to attack the traditional right-wing parties, that in his opinion are traitors to the homeland because they have failed the people. Thus, a concept that was a taboo for the left becomes a renewed framework. 4.

Yes, we can!:

“Pedro, you will be at the forefront of a historic progressive coalition. It is an honor for us to walk with you. Yes, we can! Go ahead, president!” As in the song by Lülu (lyrics by Nega) composed for Podemos, the main slogan of Podemos is recovered to close the speech in support of the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. It is the finishing touch that synthesizes the realization that it was possible

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to turn the tables. It reminds us of the “world upside down” of the good little wolf lullaby. 5.

A fresh start:

“The next government will bring a fresh start for this country…The social movements told us, yes, we can! And the next government has the obligation to convert that ‘yes, we can’ into concrete policies that serve to improve people’s lives.” Indeed, “another Spain is born, / the Spain of the chisel and the mace, / with that eternal youth that is made / of the solid past of the race” (Machado). Now, with Podemos in the Government (a party that considered itself to be the only valid representative of the popular clamor in Parliament), hope is making its way towards the achievement of truly democratic institutions. According to this, the authentic Spanish Transition is only possible thanks to its coming to power.

14.5 Conclusions Because of the transition from antagonism to political agonism, Iglesias’ discourse evolved in his first five years as the leader of Podemos and, in some way, he detached himself from voices or expressions that are very ideologically marked as he gained prominence and weight within the institutions, thus evidencing the transition from initial antagonism (total rejection of the “regime”) to a much more pragmatic and tolerant agonism with the system (Franzé, 2017). As argued elsewhere (Sánchez-García, 2012), the great discursive differences between political leaders are not established on the left / right axis, but up / down, in what we have called the “vertical approach to political discourse analysis.” In fact, since the foundation of the party, Pablo Iglesias dismantled this traditional vision, recognizing that “the politics between left and right is a scam…it is up and down” and set a priority: the symbolic assault on Heaven (i.e., to be part of the ruling elite). But once the goal is reached, it is difficult to justify the lack of significant progress in health, education, or employment. Indeed, on the first anniversary of the coalition government, Iglesias lamented the “lack of democratic normality” in the country, and the excessive power accumulated by the media. To a certain extent, we are gradually witnessing a return to the antagonism of the beginning, although in this case it is an antagonism from within the government itself, because little by little, Vice-PM Iglesias is turning into an opposition to PM Sánchez. Finally, throughout the period we have studied, cultural influences (from poetry, music or religion) that shape the rhetorical devices of Pablo Iglesias’ speeches are evident. From the examples described above, several relevant aspects regarding the effect of culture on the language of the Podemos leader can be discerned. There is a clear connection between the conceptual frameworks used by Pablo Iglesias in his parliamentary speeches with those by well-known Spanish rap groups (Chikos del Maíz or Riot Propaganda), reproducing the ideas of the party through their lyrics and reinforcing the message addressed to a sector of youth who share ideology and

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musical affinities. Purposefully, Iglesias also reemploys relevant sentences—some of them in the form of direct quotations, but in most cases underlying his own specific line of thought—from great poets such as Juan Goytisolo, Miguel Hernández, or Antonio Machado, who reconnect his discourse with the values and feelings of the long Spanish Republican tradition representing “one of those two Spains that will freeze your heart.”

References Abellán-López, M. A. (2015). Republicanism and postmodernism in new social movements: An approach to the “indignados” movement. ABRA, 35(51), 1–11 (in Spanish). https://doi.org/10. 15359/abra.35-51.7. Arroyas-Langa, E., & Pérez-Díaz, P. L. (2016). The new identity narrative of populism: An analysis of the speech of Pablo Iglesias (Podemos) on Twitter. Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación, 15, 51–63 (in Spanish). Candela, V. (2020). Between the “holy Transition” and the Regime of 78. In M. A. Abellán-López & I. Belmonte-Martín (Eds.), Spanish political system (pp. 59–72). Tirant (in Spanish). Casado-Velarde, M. (2019). The political discourse of Podemos: The construction of an identity. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación, 80, 177–190 (in Spanish). http://dx.doi.org/ 10.5209/CLAC.66606. Charaudeau, P. (2009). Reflections for the analysis of populist discourse. Discurso and Sociedad, 3(2), 253–279 (in Spanish). Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Blackwell. Ferrada-Stoehrel, R. (2017). The regime’s worst nightmare: The mobilization of citizen democracy, A study of Podemos’ (aesthetic) populism and the production of affect in political discourse. Cultural Studies, 31(4), 543–579. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2016.1264004. Franzé, J. (2017). Podemos’ discourse trajectory: From antagonism to agonism. Revista Española De Ciencia Política, 44, 219–246 (in Spanish). García-Marín, J., & García-Luengo, O. (2019). Populist discourse in the 21st century: The definition of otherness on Twitter in the cases of Spain, Bolivia and Venezuela. In E. Hidalgo-Tenorio, M. A. Benítez-Castro, & F. De Cesare (Eds.), Populist discourse: Critical approaches to contemporary politics (pp. 81–99). Routledge. Hernández, M. (1982). Complete poetry. Alianza (in Spanish). Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. Verso Books. Lakoff, G. (2007). Don’t think of an elephant: Know your values and frame the debate. Chelsea Green. Machado, A. (2014). Complete poetry. Espasa (in Spanish). Martínez de Carnero, F. (2019). Political games of signifiers: The languages of Podemos. In M. Anquetil, A. Barchiesi, A. Cancellier, & A. Francesconi (Eds.), The languages of political communication: Between globalization and linguistic frontiers (pp. 185–206). LEUP (in Spanish/Italian). Mouffe, C. (2000). The democratic paradox. Verso Books. Mouffe, C. (2007). Around politics. Fondo de cultura económica (in Spanish). Sánchez-García, F. J. (2012). Spanish parliamentary rhetoric. Síntesis (in Spanish). Sánchez-García, F. J. (2019). New politics and the voice of the people. In E. Hidalgo-Tenorio, M. A. Benítez-Castro, & F. De Cesare (Eds.), Populist discourse: Critical approaches to contemporary politics (pp. 275–291). Routledge.

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Sola, J., & Rendueles, C. (2017). Podemos, the upheaval of Spanish politics and the challenge of populism. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 26(1), 99–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14782804.2017.1304899. Tones, J. (2015, July 8). From “Amanece que no es poco” to Vetusta Morla: The cultural references of Podemos. El País. Retrieved from https://verne.elpais.com/verne/2015/07/06/articulo/143619 2205_917174.html (in Spanish). van Dijk, T. A. (1999). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. Gedisa (in Spanish). Villamandos, A. (2011). The discreet charm of subversion. Laetoli (in Spanish). Weston, A. (1985). A rulebook for arguments. Hackett. Žižek, S. (1989). The sublime object of ideology. Verso Books.

Francisco José Sánchez-García is Professor of Political Discourse at the Department of Spanish Language, University of Granada, Spain. He is a specialist in political discourse analysis (populism, rhetoric, euphemisms, argumentative strategies) and journalistic discourse. His most recent publications include the books Eufemismos del discurso político (2018), and Retórica parlamentaria española (2012), as well as more than 50 articles in scientific journals and book chapters. Currently, he is the main researcher (together with Antonio Manjón) of the R&D research project “Agenda 2050: The Spanish of Granada, processes of spatial and social variation.”

Chapter 15

Donald Trump: Dividing America Through New-Culture Speech Michael Alan Krasner

15.1 Introduction This chapter aims to answer two questions: First, how did U.S. President Donald Trump’s political rhetoric combine traditional American culture, including materialism, individualism, and meritocracy, with new-culture elements drawn from Reality TV—blatant aggression (including bullying, especially of women); voluminous, hyperbolic lying; and the call to violence? Second, how and why was this rhetoric so effective? The author’s concept of Invited Behavior, which for present purposes simply means considering political rhetoric as an invitation to action or allegiance, will be used to answer the second question. The approach of this chapter differs from that taken in the rest of this volume because President Donald Trump attempted (with dramatically mixed results) to create a new culture for American politics. As the questions above suggest, Trump’s rhetoric did reflect traditional culture in some ways, but fundamentally he was using those elements as weapons to subvert the very culture of which they were a part. As in George Orwell’s fictional world, 1984, where “War is Peace,” or in the real world of the concentration camp where “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work will set you free), Trump used language to justify and promote a reality opposite to the meaning of the words he spoke. Answering the two questions also requires analyzing the historical context, which takes place in the chapter’s second section. Section 15.3 examines the first stage of Trump’s rhetoric in which traditional cultural elements seemed to make Trump the epitome of the traditional American dream—the man who exemplified the virtues of individualism, materialism, and meritocracy because of his supposed triumphs as an entrepreneur.

M. A. Krasner (B) Taft Institute for Government and Civic Education, Queens College, City University of New York, New York City, NY, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_15

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Ironically, however, this persona and the accompanying rhetoric were validated not by Trump’s real world business accomplishments (mixed at best) but by his starring in a Reality TV: The Apprentice. Even more ironically, the show’s producers and editors had to engage in strenuous editing to produce a false image of a decisive, commanding leader. Section 15.4 discusses the second stage of Trump’s rhetorical development, including his campaigns for the Republican nomination and presidency, and his first three years as president. Here Trump’s rhetoric drew heavily upon three new cultural elements from Reality TV: naked aggression; voluminous, hyperbolic lying; and the call to violence. The fifth section analyzes stage three of the process, Trump’s last year as president, during which he carried these new, cultural-rhetorical elements to an extreme, and again combined them with traditional elements to foment a violent attack on the United States Capitol. The attack nearly succeeded in preventing the peaceful transfer of power essential to democracy. A concluding section reviews the pattern described and considers the paradox of a rhetoric that uses new-culture elements such as lying to make possible the invocation of traditional American cultural elements such as patriotism.

15.2 The Context—Legitimacy Crisis, Culture War, and Populism The context of Trump’s campaign—a full blown legitimacy crisis (Habermas, 1975)—provided a unique opportunity for demagoguery (Mercieca, 2020). Most Americans lacked confidence in the media, the Presidency, Congress, Supreme Court and big business (Gallup, 2017). A 2015 Pew Research poll found that “only 19% of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right” (Pew Research Center, 2019). This legitimacy crisis reflected and was reinforced by a culture war (Gitlin, 1995; Norris & Inglehart, 2019), intensified by the Roe V. Wade 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing limited abortion access. Conservative Catholics, fundamentalist Christians, and Orthodox Jews responded vehemently to what they perceived as the destruction of God-given human life (Hunter, 1991). Sexual liberation; women’s liberation; the gay, lesbian, and transgender movement for equal rights; and the issue of gun control—all provided emotionally charged issues exploited for political purposes that moved the Republican Party ever further to the right (Hacker & Pierson, 2010, 2016, 2020; Mayer, 2017). Trump was the first presidential candidate to demonstrate that this context made attacking previously respected institutions effective politics. Inviting supporters to denounce established politicians, the media, and Congress, worked well in a time of disillusion and alienation. Being a political outsider was an asset; having no governmental or military experience no longer disqualified a candidate, but rather made him more attractive.

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When elites and major American political institutions enjoyed support and esteem, a candidate had to respect them, but now a candidate who was crude, aggressive, and bullying could be seen as authentic and honest. These characteristics and patterns of behavior established Trump as no ordinary politician. He was not careful or “politically correct.” Seventy-one percent of Republican voters believed that Trump “told it like it was” (MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist Poll, 2015). This created a basis for the second stage of his rhetoric, in which Trump could shift to using new cultural elements that transformed American electoral politics (Krasner, 2019). As Oliver and Rahn (2016, p. 199) note, Trump’s style echoed previous populists in being “simple, direct, emotional, and frequently indelicate.” In his crudeness, then, Trump was not historically unique, but part of an insurgent cultural tradition in American politics. His main theme—the vilification of corrupt elites who exploit the deserving masses—was likewise standard populist fare (Kazin, 2017; Norris & Inglehart, 2019). In addition to these traditional elements of right-wing populist culture, Trump drew on elements of mainstream American culture—notably individualism, materialism, and meritocracy.

15.3 Stage One: Trump’s Rhetoric Affected by Traditional Culture Long before he evinced any interest in public office, Trump had been working to promote his image as a self-made giant of business. In the early 1980s he went to great lengths, including lying, to ensure his place on the Forbes 400 (a listing of the wealthiest Americans). He even posed as a public relations man named Charles Barron, supposedly representing Trump, to lobby the journalist responsible for the list. At a time when his net worth was probably five million dollars, Trump as Barron claimed successfully to be worth two hundred million (Greenberg, 2018). Inclusion on these lists helped to secure the multi-billionaire label that he carried into the 2015–2016 campaign, though this, too was almost certainly a vast exaggeration. Trump thus relied on a traditional cultural value—the veneration of businessmen, as represented in President Calvin Coolidge’s adage, “The business of the United States is business.” In American culture, the successful businessman is not only admired, but is seen to be universally capable, hence the oft-heard mantra that the government should be run like a business (Newport & Saad, 2016). Venerating successful businessmen derives from the bedrock fundamentals of traditional (white, masculine) American culture—individualism, materialism, and meritocracy. If the historically revolutionary attribute of American society is social equality, then each person has the opportunity to rise as far as his determination and abilities will allow. Success is, of course, measured by material wealth. Whoever achieves a great fortune represents the epitome of the American dream— the successful, self-made entrepreneur—the person who has achieved by hard work

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and intelligence outstanding levels of material success (de Tocqueville, 1960; Hartz, 1991). In popular culture the classic tale, associated with the author Horatio Alger, is of the youth who by sheer pluck and hard work rises from poverty to wealth (though in the stories a happy accident often paves the way). In his speech announcing his presidential run, Trump tried mightily to present himself in those terms. He downplayed the role of his very successful father, who financed son Donald initially and rescued him financially repeatedly thereafter (Barstow et al., 2018), as the following quotations demonstrate (Trump, 2015a, from 34:48 through 38: 45 minutes): …I’m proud of my net worth. I’ve done an amazing job. I started off…I started off in a small office with my father in Brooklyn and Queens, and my father said – and I love my father – learned so much. He was a great negotiator. I learned so much just sitting at his feet playing with blocks listening to him negotiate with subcontractors. But he used to say, “Donald, don’t go into Manhattan. That’s the big leagues. We don’t know anything about that. Don’t do it.” I said, “I gotta go into Manhattan. I gotta build those big buildings. I gotta do it, Dad. I’ve gotta do it.” And after four or five years in Brooklyn, I ventured into Manhattan and did a lot of great deals— the Grand Hyatt Hotel. I was responsible for the convention center on the west side. I did a lot of great deals, and I did them early and young. and now I’m building all over the world, and I love what I’m doing…I made it the old-fashioned way. But here, a total net worth of—the greatest assets…Trump tower, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Bank of America Building in San Francisco …many other places all over the world. So the total is $8,737,540,000.

In these quotations Trump asserts not only his success as measured by wealth, thus showing the influence of materialism, but also his independence from his father because he (Donald) dared to compete in the more challenging realm of Manhattan that his father eschewed. In this, Trump’s rhetoric reflects the influence of individualism and meritocracy—his intelligence and hard work brought success at the highest level, at the pinnacle of American capitalism: Manhattan. He was truly deserving—he was a prime example of meritocracy.

15.3.1 But Traditional Culture Was Validated by Reality TV Ironically, these claims based on traditional culture were made credible by a new cultural genre—Reality TV. Beginning in 2004, Trump starred for fourteen years on The Apprentice, in which aspiring businessmen and women vied to become his apprentice, competing to perform tasks assigned by the show’s producers and judged by Trump, aided by his adult children. The line that concluded each show, “You’re fired,” by which Trump would eliminate a contestant, became a watchword in American popular culture. In this way and many others, the show presented Trump as a titan of business, pictured in the montages introducing each segment emerging from a helicopter or corporate jet with “TRUMP” lettered on the side, dressed immaculately in expensive clothing, and deferred to consistently by the contestants, who all addressed him, as “Sir.” He frequently interrupted or talked over the other participants, put them on the spot, and pitted them against each other. For example, in the

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tenth season’s final episode, he asked a contestant who had worked on one finalist’s team if she would choose him or the rival finalist as the ultimate winner (author’s observation). In general, Trump’s questions and judgments portrayed a decisive, consistent, well informed leader. However, the actual reality was quite different, as the show’s editors and producers reported (Catoline, 2016). The editors reported that the producers would offer their observations about who did well and deserved to stay, and who was not pulling his or her weight and deserved to go. But invariably, Trump would ignore factual information and instead go with his gut. As a result, one editor said (Catoline, 2016): “We’d often be shocked at whomever Trump chose to fire,” Braun explained. “Our first priority on every episode like that was to reverse-engineer the show to make it look like his judgment had some basis in reality. Sometimes it would be very hard to do, because the person he chose did nothing.” Kranish and Fisher (2016) show that the image created by The Apprentice rescued Trump from the public disdain generated by his repeated business reversals—the failure of his airline, The Trump Shuttle, and the bankruptcies of several of his Atlantic City, New Jersey casinos and his flagship property, the Plaza Hotel in New York City, as well as his crumbling marriages. They conclude (Kranish & Fisher, 2016, p. 218): “The Apprentice turned Trump from a blowhard Richie Rich…[to a] symbol of straight talk, an evangelist for the American gospel of success …supremely competent and confident, dispensing his authority and getting immediate results.”

15.4 Stage Two: Trump Brings to Politics New-Culture Elements Drawn from Reality TV With the advent of the show Survivor in 2000, Reality TV began an extraordinarily rapid rise to become the dominant genre on American television (Edwards, 2013), the dominant medium at the time. The authoritative Nielsen rankings (Nielsen, 2011) showed that 77% of the audience for the top ten primetime TV programs in 2007 were watching Reality TV, and for the decade 2001–2011 Reality TV averaged over 50% of the audience. It also created extraordinary ties to audiences, attracted by the apparent openness of the characters and opportunities for interaction. Thus, viewers developed strong emotional connections to leading figures (Parashar, 2015; Rose & Wood, 2005; Russell & Puto, 1999). As described below, this genre also generated its own new culture that Trump used heavily.

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15.4.1 Blatant, Unapologetic Aggression As Deery (2015) points out, Reality TV normalized previously unacceptable behavior such as aggression and norm breaking. For example, on the highly popular show Survivor, Russell Hands, one of the most successful contestants, famously burned the socks and poured out the drinking water of his own teammates. Similarly, Trump opted for aggression while campaigning for the Republican nomination. He broke the traditional norms of restraint, courtesy, deference, and loyalty by denigrating even party leaders, including the former presidential candidate and war hero, Senator John McCain. He also attacked a disabled reporter and a female journalist, and mocked rival candidates with demeaning nicknames. In the first instance, in July 2015, shortly after his announcement, Trump offered this opinion about McCain (Schreckinger, 2015): “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” In the second, Trump misrepresented a story by Serge Kovaleski (then a Washington Post reporter). Responding to Kovaleski’s rebuttal, Trump imitated the disjointed movements caused by Kovaleski’s arthogryposis, while saying, pretending to quote Kovaleski (BBC News, 2015), “Uhh I don’t know what I said. Uhh I don’t remember. He’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.’” The third instance involved Megyn Kelly, a journalist who challenged Trump on his verbal abuse of women during the first televised Republican primary debate of 2015. Trump (2015b) responded with mocking humor, followed by threats and misogynistic slurs: Kelly: Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” (laughter) Your Twitter account... Trump: Only Rosie O’Donnell (laughter) (and prolonged applause and hooting in support of Trump, which Kelly struggles to overcome – author’s observation) Kelly: Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, … [and are] you part of the war on women? Trump: I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct (applause) …and honestly Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me.

The next day Trump commented: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base” (Rucker, 2015). Trump also successfully bullied other candidates by giving them nicknames reminiscent of the schoolyard language of twelve-year-olds. Thus, Jeb Bush, the early Republican leader, became “Low energy Jeb.” Marco Rubio, the Republican Senator from Florida was “Little Marco,” and Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas, was “Lyin’

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Ted.” In the general election, “Crooked Hillary,” evoked chants of “Lock Her Up” during Trump’s rallies (Woodall, 2016). While those so belittled struggled to respond effectively, Trump’s base seemed delighted with the spectacle.

15.4.2 Reasons for Success: Invitations That Attracted Supporters The rhetoric analyzed in the two preceding sections includes the following invitations: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Won’t you please join forces with the winner of the ongoing American contest to succeed materially? The man who has lived the American dream? Won’t you please join forces with the winner of the contest against the uppity female journalist? (And all aggressive, self-confident women?) Won’t you support the man willing to defy elites, including the leaders of his own party, and to defy political correctness by mocking the disabled? Won’t you support the authentic leader, the non-politician who successfully bullied his despised politician rivals? And who will bully all our enemies and make us great again?

Many Americans who felt themselves to be ignored or disdained by contemptuous, politically correct, urban, coastal elites (Cramer, 2016; Hochschild, 2016) could find symbolic satisfaction by accepting these invitations to join the winning, manly, truly American side. Trump appealed to this longing by proclaiming over and over again, “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore’” (Trump, 2016, as quoted by Lutey, 2016). Even if Trump did not win, by expressing the sentiments of those who considered themselves ignored and disrespected, by calling out the corrupt politicians who made promises they never kept and favored their rich friends, immigrants, minorities, and uppity women, he would give his followers a symbolic victory. When Trump gained the Republican nomination and then the presidency itself, despite losing the popular vote, these expectations were satisfied a thousand-fold (Denby, 2015).

15.4.3 Voluminous, Hyperbolic Mendacity Lying is likewise a favored tactic on Reality TV, another of the formerly proscribed behaviors the genre normalizes (Deery, 2015). One Apprentice contestant, Omarosa Manigault, an African-American woman who went on to join Trump’s white house staff (Haberman & Alcindor, 2017), falsely accused rival contestants of racist acts. Dr. Will Kirby, the contestant widely considered the most successful in the pathbreaking Reality TV show Big Brother, first announced his intentions to deceive and

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betray his fellow contestants, and then followed these announcements through to the letter (Patrick, 2016; author’s observations). Of course, all politicians lie. All American presidents, beginning with Washington, have lied (tellingly, his one lie as president concerned slavery), but they did so discretely, selectively, and strategically. Trump was different. The baldness, scale, and frequency of his mendacity eclipsed anything his predecessors could have imagined (Alterman, 2004, 2020). Thus, the normalized mendacity of Reality TV was brought to the highest levels of American politics by Donald Trump. Having learned that he could say pretty much anything in his Reality TV role, Trump proceeded to do the same as president. Instead of editors and producers rescuing him, his besotted supporters ignored, rationalized, and forgave his contradictions and falsehoods (Hedges, 2019). Trump’s rhetorical use of lies began during his very first full day as president in claims that it had not rained during his inaugural address, when it obviously had, and that he had the largest inaugural crowd in American history, when he clearly had a comparatively sparse gathering. According to the Washington Post journalist assigned (with a team) the Herculean task of fact-checking Trump, there were ten lies or misleading statements on his first day and five during the second. The numbers continued to increase throughout his presidency; indeed, the four-year total was an astronomical 30,573 lies or misleading statements (Kessler, 2021). As discussed in Sect. 15.5, more than 2500 of those claims concerned Covid19, including the infamous assertion made in August 2020 at a time when 1000 Americans were dying each day, that it was “under control” (Breuninger, 2020). Among other highly exaggerated claims was Trump’s assertion during the second presidential debate of 2020 that: “Nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump. And if you look, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln – possible exception, but the exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has done what I’ve done” (Trump, 2020). In similar fashion, he claimed to have made the greatest tax cut in American history and to have presided over the greatest economy in American history, neither of which was true (Kessler, 2021). Applying well-known categories of propaganda, Trump used both the big lie and the multiple untruth, lying about matters large and small, political and personal, at a frantic pace. What accounts for this pattern? Psychologists and psychiatrists have published hundreds of pages analyzing Trump’s personality (Lee, 2019), but for us, the political effect is what matters. The first political effect of Trump’s new-culture method of unrestrained lying was media domination, and through media domination, domination of public discourse and public consciousness. Whenever a person speaks, they are issuing an invitation— “Please pay attention to me.” In American politics, the mainstream media’s standard operating procedures mandate accepting that invitation whenever a president speaks (Wolfsfeld, 2011). By making constant public statements via Twitter, by calling in to Fox News programs, and by speaking directly to reporters, Trump issued this invitation so often that he massively dominated media coverage throughout his time as president (Manjoo, 2017).

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The sheer volume of his (inherently controversial) lies made him the center of attention, fulfilling one of the first rules of success in Reality TV (Patrick, 2016). One might call this achieving “degraded legitimacy,” meaning Trump forced people to accept him as a leader even if he wasn’t doing anything substantive or constructive, because in terms of public discourse and consciousness he was unmistakably dominant (Warren, 2017). In this new culture influenced by Reality TV, being ubiquitous took the place of being competent or effective. Second, the media’s fact checking and opponents’ denunciations of his dishonesty actually served to bolster Trump’s support. In the terms of Invited Behavior, Trump engaged the mainstream media and his political opponents through the use of a trap invitation. He issued and they accepted an invitation that resulted in benefits to him and harm to them, even though his opponents thought the opposite would happen. The invitation implicit in all those lies and misleading statements was: “Please attack me from a position of moral superiority because you have caught me in a lie.” The mainstream media felt obliged to accept this invitation, dutifully researching, refuting, and cataloguing Trump’s lies and misleading statements, producing a database that ran to millions of words (Kessler, 2021). After all, that is what media are supposed to do—hold politicians accountable and catch them in lies. Political rivals likewise rose to the bait, calling Trump a “pathological liar,” denouncing him as a disgrace to his office (Edelman, 2020). But consider the context. As discussed above (Sect. 15.2), the politicians and media institutions attacking Trump were despised by his supporters. Their assaults only served to underscore his virtues and to reinforce his credentials as the authentic, embattled champion of “real Americans.” Trump’s core supporters—about 40% of the U.S. population—remained loyal despite the media attacks and despite Trump’s lying and incompetence (Gallup, 2020).

15.4.4 The Call to Violence As O’Toole (2021) has pointed out, the rhetoric of the Republican party in general and Trump in particular aroused rage, manifested in armed white men “turning up outside Obama’s public meetings on his health care plan,” that Trump’s predecessors as presidential candidates and his contemporaries as leaders of the party had tried to tame and confine. O’Toole invokes a telling image: “The GOP became a political lap-dance club: the lust for insurrection would be incited but not consummated.” Of course, Reality TV privileged violence, notably in the long-running Jerry Springer show that brought feuding siblings, cuckolded husbands, and other injured parties into close proximity to their enemies and let the ensuing on-camera hair pulling and fisticuffs draw large audiences (Heritage, 2018)—thus normalizing previously proscribed (and usually private) behavior (Deery, 2015). During his 2015–2016 campaign Trump himself went to the next level by regularly calling for violence against protestors at his rallies. Here are some examples: At a rally in Iowa Trump offered to pay the legal fees of anyone who would beat up

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hecklers: “If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them… I’ll pay the legal fees” (Daily Mail, 2016). Regarding a protestor at a rally in Las Vegas on February 22, 2016, Trump said, “I’d like to punch him in the face,” and added, “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks” (Trump, 2016). At a rally on the March 9, 2016, a black protestor being escorted out of the hall by police was punched without warning by a white Trump supporter. Interviewed two days later, Trump said that attacks on protestors, whom he mischaracterized as violent, were “very, very appropriate” and the sort of thing “we need a little bit more of” (Cineas, 2021). But protestors were not the only targets of Trump’s incitements at rallies. He regularly singled out reporters and camera crews, and pointed out their location to his followers, bringing the crowds to the edge of violence. Here is a first-hand description of a 2016 Trump rally in Colorado (Hessler, 2017): Last October, three weeks before the election, Donald Trump visited Grand Junction for a rally in an airport hangar. Along with other members of the press, I was escorted into a pen near the back, where a metal fence separated us from the crowd… During the rally he said, “There’s a voter fraud also with the media, because they so poison the minds of the people by writing false stories.” He pointed in our direction, describing us as “criminals,” among other things: “They’re lying, they’re cheating, they’re stealing! They’re doing everything, these people right back here!” …Such behavior is out of character for residents of rural Colorado, where politeness and public decency are highly valued. Erin McIntyre, a Grand Junction native who works for the Daily Sentinel, the local paper, stood in the crowd, where the people around her screamed at the journalists: “Lock them up!” “Hang them all!” “Electric chair!” The attacks came every few minutes, and they served as a kind of tether to the speech. The material could have drifted off into abstraction—e-mails, Benghazi, the Washington swamp. But every time Trump pointed at the media, the crowd turned, and by the end people were screaming and cursing at us. One man tried to climb over the barrier, and security guards had to drag him away.

15.5 Stage Three: Going to Extremes—The Last Year of Trump’s Presidency 15.5.1 Lying 15.5.1.1

The Coronavirus

President Trump’s lies and misleading statements rose to 39 daily during his last presidential year, and over 2500 or about 18% of those lies or misleading statements concerned the deadly Covid-19 pandemic that had taken over 400,000 American lives when Trump left office.

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Instead of urging and implementing measures that would have saved those lives, Trump brought forth a cascade of misinformation that may have caused death and injury directly, as his followers took up his suggestions to try hydroxychloroquine or other unapproved chemicals such as household bleach (The Guardian, 2020). More importantly, Trump over and over again denied or downplayed the power of the virus, despite having described its lethality and infectiousness accurately to the journalist Bob Woodward in February, 2020 (Bump, 2020). Here is a partial compendium of Trump’s statements (Doggett, 2021; Gilson et al., 2020): January 24, 2020: In a tweet, Trump says, “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well.” February 7: Trump told journalist Bob Woodward in a recorded, private interview (BBC, 2020): “It goes through the air. That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” February 27: At a Black History Month Event: “It’s going to disappear. One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.” March 10: Asked about the economic impact of the coronavirus: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” March 17: “I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic…I’ve always viewed it as very serious.” April 29: On Fox and Friends: “It [the virus] is gonna leave. It’s gonna be gone. It’s gonna be eradicated.” May 16 (after the death toll passed 80,000): “We’ve done a great job on Covid response….” June 18: “It’s fading away. It’s going to fade away.” July 7 (with regard to the coronavirus): “I think we are in a good place.” August 3: “I think we are doing very well and I think…as well as any nation.” September 10: “I think that we’ve probably done the best job of any country.” October 22 (After the official death toll passed 220,000): “We have made tremendous progress with the China [sic] Virus, but the Fake News refuses to talk about it this close to the Election. COVID, COVID, COVID is being used by them, in total coordination, in order to change our great, early election numbers. Should be an election law violation!”. December 22: “Distribution of both vaccines is going very smoothly. Amazing how many people are being vaccinated, record numbers.” (The administration failed to meet its own goal of vaccinating 20 million people by year’s end. The CDC showed only 2 million vaccinated on December 30.) January 3, 2021: “The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus [sic] is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination…”.

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This torrent of misinformation along with the failure to respond promptly and competently gave the United States the largest absolute number of Covid deaths and the highest per capita rate. Nonetheless, over 40% of Americans approved Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis in January 2021 (Realclearpolitics, 2021), thus confirming the power of the new-culture rhetorical device—the bold, unflinching, endlessly repeated lie that reinforces the faith of a cult-like following (Hedges, 2019), especially when augmented by a media ensnared by rigid standard operating procedures. By continuing to rely on the old-culture American belief that a leader in business will also be a good leader politically (Newport & Saad, 2016), Trump combined old cultural norms with new ones to dominate the airwaves and distract from the fact that America was in desperate shape. The invitation implicit in Trump’s denials and in his frontal attacks on revered figures like Dr. Anthony Fauci, was to reject science, to reject experts, to reject elites, and instead to trust the leader (Groopman, 2021). This invitation included rejecting the calls to wear masks, observe social distancing, and shut down business as usual, all of which were construed as the overbearing, uncaring elites’ attempt to take freedom and prosperity away from hard working Americans. Adhering to this new-culture rhetoric created public signs of group identity that reinforced group solidarity and Trump’s leadership.

15.5.1.2

The Biggest Lie—the Rigged Election

In May 2020, President Trump began an intense rhetorical campaign that included tweets, statements at press briefings, and rally speeches, all contending that any outcome other than Trump’s winning the November election would signal widespread, deliberate fraud. In the examples that follow, the otherwise unattributed items are tweets reproduced in the Washington Post database (Washington Post, 2021). May 24: “The Democrats are trying to Rig the 2020 Election, plain and simple!”. June 22: “Rigged 2020 election: millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries, and others. It will be the scandal of our times!” (Rev, 2020). July 2: “Mail-In Ballots will lead to massive electoral fraud and a rigged 2020 Election. Look at all of the cases and examples that are out there right now, with the Patterson, N.J., being the most recent example. Republicans, in particular, cannot let this happen!”. November 30: “The 2020 election was rigged. It was a scam, and the whole world is watching and they’re laughing at our country. They’re laughing at us. They know who won, and we won by a lot…this is the greatest scam ever perpetrated upon our country.” December 19: “Peter Navarro releases 36-page report alleging election fraud ‘more than sufficient’ to swing victory to Trump. A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”.

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As with Covid-19, President Trump’s election lies convinced his supporters. A poll in early February, 2021 found that 76% of Republicans and 39% of those polled believed there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election (Cilliza, 2021). Notice that these lies also contain a traditional element—they claim to support free and fair elections, the heart of American democracy. Trump’s lies served two functions: They further bound his supporters to him, setting the stage for a third presidential race in 2024 or positioning him to dominate the Republican Party. The lies also further solidified the alternate view of reality promoted by Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, and other right wing media outlets, in which only fraud could defeat the candidate so self-evidently supported by the majority of Americans.

15.5.2 The Call to Violence The last tweet above, with the tag line, “…[w]ill be wild!”, combines mendacity with an implicit call to violence. The circumstances of that rally confirm Trump’s responsibility. At his behest, a “Stop the Steal,” rally, planned for another day, was rescheduled for the day and time when the Congress would certify the electoral-vote count to make Joe Biden and Kamala Harris President and Vice President. The people who arranged and staffed the rally were former Trump campaign aides (Lardner & Smith, 2021). Trump (2021) in his speech to the rally paid lip service to the idea of peaceful protest, while making clear that his intent was the opposite, “All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing. And stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.” He went on to say: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” And added: “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.” He directed the crowd to go to the Capitol and promised, “I’ll be with you”—but quietly returned to the White House. The crowd proceeded to the Capitol, overwhelmed the Capitol police, stormed the building, ransacked senators’ desks, chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” after Trump tweeted that Pence had failed to do as Trump demanded, and erected a gallows, a short distance from the steps. The electoral vote count was not completed until the next morning, with a majority of the Republican members of the House of Representatives and eight Republican Senators still voting in opposition to certifying the results. The violence that Trump had so long encouraged erupted into a full-scale attempt at insurrection. Inspired by his biggest lie, Trump’s supporters accepted Trump’s invitation to direct violence against the very heart of the American political system. Prominent among them were far-right groups Trump had previously legitimized, such as neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia who chanted, “Jews will not replace

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us.” Trump’s response (Trump, 2017): “There were very fine people on both sides.” Four years later, the Capitol insurrectionists carried Confederate battle flags and wore T-shirts reading, “Camp Auschwitz” and “6MWNE” (“Six Million Was Not Enough”), invoking racism and anti-Semitism, two elements from the dark side of traditional American settler culture. Extreme new-cultural rhetoric combined with a traditional appeal to patriotic xenophobia and, most ironically, with a call to protect democracy, threatened to overturn a free and fair election.

15.6 Conclusion “If fascism comes to the United States, it will come wrapped in the American Flag…”. Sinclair Lewis This chapter has demonstrated that Donald Trump’s rhetoric combined elements from traditional American culture with new-culture elements drawn from Reality TV to create compelling invitations that stirred millions of Americans to support Trump’s campaigns, to believe his lies, and to defy democratic norms. Taken to their extreme, these elements produced a serious attempt at insurrection. The key to Trump’s success, as the analysis has demonstrated, was his ability to use new cultural elements to create the impression that he served or represented traditional American values. Thus, The Apprentice, a leading example of the false-image creating genre Reality TV, made Trump appear to be a genuinely successful entrepreneur, the embodiment of bedrock American values—individualism, materialism, and meritocracy—hence a strong, decisive, well-qualified leader. Rendered “credible”, Trump proceeded to use devices from Reality TV including aggression, deceit, and the call to violence, to forge a rhetoric that befuddled his opponents and inspired his followers. All the while, he promised to “Make America Great Again,” to return the United States to some imagined golden age dominated by white, nativist, nationalist, male Americans. Confronted by the coronavirus crisis, Trump resorted to extremes of mendacity, a new-culture tactic, supported by faith in the universal abilities of the successful businessman—a traditional American cultural element—and by his ability to generate controversy and media attention, the very consequential benefits of lying. Trump used the biggest lie of election fraud to justify violence in the name of defending democracy and nation. The new-cultural element of lying enabled him to invoke traditional cultural elements of patriotism and nationalism to justify yet another new-cultural element—the call to violence—that would have done away with the democracy he claimed to be defending. In the hands of a more disciplined would-be autocrat (Tufekci, 2020), this combination of traditional and new-culture rhetoric in the future might well spell the end to America’s deeply flawed, yet hopeful experiment, in social and political equality.

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Michael Alan Krasner is Associate Professor of Political Science at Queens College, CUNY, USA, and also co-directs the Taft Institute, which promotes political participation. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Peace Research, New German Critique, Social Policy, New York Affairs, and Urban Education, and he is the co-editor of and a contributor to Immigrant Crossroads: Globalization, Incorporation, and Placemaking in Queens NY (2021).

Part IV

Cultural Convergence and Discourse Divergence

Chapter 16

Commentary: Choice and Innovation in the Interaction of Political Discourse with Culture Richard Anderson

16.1 Introduction The project that has produced this volume began, as the editor Ofer Feldman recounts in Chapter 1, by giving the contributors “a free hand in choosing their cultural perspective, as well as their theoretical, conceptual, methodological approaches.” While the opening conception of culture was amorphous and encompassing, the editor tasked each contributor to examine its effect on political discourse defined narrowly and specifically: what politicians say, although the form of “saying” examined might be heard as speech, seen as sign language or as writing, print, painting with a brush, or illumination of pixels, or even touched as braille. By comparing the resulting chapters, I want to examine two topics here: the range of conceptions of culture available to the contributors and the commonality or variety in their visions of how culture affects political discourse. From that examination a third topic emerges. In many contributions explicitly, and I detect in others implicitly, culture and political discourse interact, mutually shaping and reshaping each other. The mutual reshaping happens in two ways. Politicians make choices among existing options presented by the particular, richly diversified culture within which each of them speaks. They may also innovate relative to their predecessors. Innovations may recombine elements from options chosen previously, may exploit the ability of each language to reject previous expressions, may draw on new cultural forms that have recently developed within a politician’s own culture, or may adopt from other cultures with which a politician’s own is in contact. As politicians’ choices can accumulate, accumulation can gradually reshape the relative popularity of the options available within a culture, even to the extent that former options disappear entirely or become disfavored and exert no further noticeable impact unless they somehow revive. R. Anderson (B) Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_16

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16.2 Approaches to Culture Any effect of culture on political discourse can only be a subset of the impact of culture on discourse in general. Significantly subtitling his proposal “Bringing Culture Back In,” a scholar active in the Netherlands and now in Belgium and much published in multiple languages, Baldwin Van Gorp (2007), proposes that framing links culture to discourse. Since several chapters of this volume cite him, Van Gorp’s ideas offer a place to start a discussion of what culture might be. A culture, Van Gorp (2007, p. 61) argues, is a “repertoire of frames” familiar both to the originator and to any recipient of a linguistic communication, without which no text can be interpreted or even compiled. A frame combines two kinds of elements: “framing devices,” or elements of the text that draw the attention of the hearer or reader to some frame in the cultural repertoire, and “reasoning devices,” or passages that accomplish “problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” (Van Gorp, 2007, p. 64). Being “an organized set of beliefs, codes, myths, stereotypes, values, norms, frames, and so forth that are shared in the collective memory of a group or society” (Van Gorp, 2007, p. 61) a culture supplies partners in discourse with both framing devices and reasoning devices, allowing the originator’s cognition to anticipate and satisfy the cognitive needs of recipients seeking to attain a satisfactory interpretation. A scholar in communications, Van Gorp does not cite the late Michael Silverstein, active in a different discipline as a linguistic anthropologist. Still a subtitle implying that culture has somehow been left out and needs reinserting, together with an argument that only frames supplied by culture can make communication possible, contrasts quite sharply with Silverstein (2004), which builds on and reconsiders Silverstein (1976). In his more recent paper, Silverstein (2004, p. 621) sets himself the task of explaining “how linguistic anthropologists ‘listen to’ language analytically…in order to ‘hear’ culture.” Silverstein (2004, pp. 625–626) accomplishes his self-assigned task by listening to various verbal exchanges, among them a practice and a ritual. Two new graduate students take turns asking about each other’s experience in graduate school and comparing it to their individual undergraduate experiences. In their conversation, he hears an American cultural practice called “getting to know you.” Then he attends an occasion during which a priest and congregation exchange gestures and speech. The congregation speaks infrequently and in prescribed formulas; the priest does most of the talking and mostly selects fixed formulas from a prescribed menu with few options, although he or occasionally a substitute does pronounce one lengthy free-form utterance, the homily, and in the United States pastoral discretion allows him to insert brief comments of his own at his option. In this exchange, Silverstein hears “the Mass,” a Catholic ritual deeply embedded in and adapted to American culture but deliberately designed for universal integration into all cultures. Both the informal practice “getting to know you” and the adapted version of the ritual “the Mass” point at—“index” is Silverstein’s (2004) term—a particular community. As a practice, “getting to know you” is particularly important in a mobile

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society like the United States. In a small community where everyone knew each other from birth or even in a larger community where residents did not move much, “getting to know you” would be superfluous or even avoided and would not be part of the culture. In Moscow in 1993, one Russian linguist flatly refused to become acquainted with two other linguists on the grounds that he did not know their patronymics, the suffixed forms of their fathers’ names then still required for polite address to persons recently met. Russian has a set question for acquiring that information, “How are you summoned?” but he would not use it. Of course, some unknown rivalry may lie hidden behind his refusal, but Americans would neither offer his excuse nor, ordinarily, need it. Not only do “getting to know you” and “the Mass,” as adapted, point at the community of mobile North Americans whose political manifestation is “the United States,” the particular conversation listened to by Silverstein points at a sub-community consisting of those two graduate students, while “the Mass” points at a sub-community of Catholics and, on a given occasion, of a particular parish. To Silverstein (2004), therefore, culture is a set of abstractions of particular discursive encounters with either more or less fixed descriptions (“getting to know you”) or names (“the Mass”) that point at communities. But that is where culture does its disappearing act that might be motivating Van Gorp (2007) to think it needs reinsertion. For any description or any name is itself a discursive act. If so, culture is simply discourse about discourse or meta-discourse, which Van Gorp (2007, p. 65) calls “metacommunication.” In contrast to Van Gorp (2007, p. 70), who declares his frames to be “tied in with culture as a macrosocietal structure,” Silverstein (2004, p. 650) declares culture’s “nonexistence except as a perspective on orders of abstraction.” He “categorically rejects any terms of analysis that would see discursive process in the first, micro, box and nondiscursive structure in the second, the macro”—“macro” and “structure” being terms of analysis that the quotation from Van Gorp specifically affirms. Of course, Silverstein’s “nonexistence except” does not mean that culture does not exist, since he allows the exception. But Silverstein’s exception does mean that culture is discourse about discourse, describing or naming abstractions from concrete instances of discourse. It is not something separate. No wonder Van Gorp wants to reinsert it. Two chapters in this volume invoke an intermediate alternative between Van Gorp’s “macrosocietal structure” and Silverstein’s “nonexistence.” For the originator of the term “linguaculture,” this fusion promises “to get rid of the decades-long balancing act between ‘language and culture’” (Risager, 2015, p. 89). A recent extension of the concept assigns “culture” both to the cognition conceived as occurring inside each individual and to manifestations in language and other behaviors seen, heard, felt, smelled or tasted by others conceived as outside any individual. This extension would seem to reject both Silverstein’s “nonexistence” of culture and Van Gorp’s “macrosocietal structure.” For Karen Risager (2015, p. 92) a linguaculture manifests in three components: “semantics and pragmatics…in discourse…the poetics of language and the identity dimension of language.” I confess to preferring the stark either/or presented by juxtaposition of Van Gorp against Silverstein. Pragmatic variation is well known to make translations awkward. English “there is” translates es gibt “it gives” in German and il y a “he there has” in

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French. These expressions do have common attributes. All three employ a verb in its third person conjugation that emphasizes, by reiterating, the distal deixis (“pointing away”) explicit in English “there” and French y and buried in the semantics of German gibt. Maybe compared to some non-European language unknown to me, emphatic distal deixis expresses a European culture’s concept of objectivity. Even if the difference among these expressions seems uninformative about variation across English, German and French cultures, other differences in the three languages might be more informative. At one stage, lines of poetry composed in southern England rhymed while lines of poetry composed in northern England were alliterative. Rhyming adopted from nearby Gallo-Romance in the south ultimately displaced alliteration reinforced by the presence of Norse in the north, perhaps because the royal court located in the south was a principal employer of poets. Certainly this example exhibits change in poetics, but English in either location continued to offer the opportunity to rhyme or to alliterate, and poets did and do both. Communities described as pointed at by discourse or said to exhibit macrosocietal structure certainly bear identities, but experiment shows identity changing in response to variation in discourse, and does so within an unchanging macrosocietal structure. For the research community in which Risager is a leader and for the study of that community’s topic, a concept “linguaculture” that diverts scholarly attention away from any contrast between language and culture is plausibly promising and productive. While I offer no objection to Risager or her concept, still the choices it hides matter to my own project.

16.3 Comparing Contributors’ Concepts of Culture The stark either/or defines a dimension along which contributors to this volume arrange themselves. Van Gorp’s (2007) pole is occupied by editor Feldman, whose Introduction elaborates Van Gorp’s “organized set of beliefs…and so forth,” quoted in full above, to “norms, values, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and artefacts…symbols, practices, rituals, value orientations and worldviews, nationality, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, educational systems and socialization processes, the role of the individual or of the family, and employment.” Near Feldman is Sam Lehman-Wilzig (Chapter 2) who describes a “deep culture” of great antiquity consisting of “two main elements…collective historical memory” and “victimization.” He does call it a “linguaculture,” citing Risager, and specifies that it does change over time, but the deep culture “has something to say (command) about every aspect of Jewish life” even to Jewish Israelis who have secularized. Perhaps not much further along is Yuval Benzamin (Chapter 10) who presents Israeli culture as combining the same great antiquity emphasized by Lehman-Wilzig with isolation resulting in vulnerability (resembling “victimization”) but coupled with optimism that seemingly infeasible aspirations are instead achievable. With him I would rank Xing Lu (Chapter 13), who finds a very antique benevolence embedded in Chinese culture and continuing to influence contemporary political discourse. Ay¸se Deniz Ünan Göktan (Chapter 4) and Eduardo Ryô Tamaki, Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça,

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and Matheus Gomes Mendonça Ferreira (Chapter 5) report cultures in Turkey and Brazil, respectively, presenting alternatives of laicity and religiosity. When Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska and Agnieszka Kampka (Chapter 7) feel the need to justify, as a reasonable approximation, “an essentializing ‘national-culture’ approach adopted in” their study of Polish political discourse, they express the most ambivalence of anyone in this sector. Somewhere in the middle are the Arabists Ali Badeen Mohammed Al-Rikaby, Thulfiqar Hussein Altahmazi, and Debbita Ai Lin Tan (Chapter 3), who espouse “linguaculture” but to whose chapter no substantive qualities pertain that are comparable to those listed by Van Gorp (2007), Feldman, Lehman-Wilzig, Benzamin or the two Poles. Perhaps also near the middle I might incline to place Melani Schröter (Chapter 6). She uses terminology reminiscent of Van Gorp, but her “metacommunicative framing” happens when a chancellor tells an audience something about what he or she will say or why—Angela Merkel saying, “I want to tell you what guides me as chancellor.” It is one of Silverstein’s abstractions from concrete examples of discourse, not a cultural frame. Christos Kostopolous (Chapter 8) even adopts Van Gorp’s methodology but discovers that framing disconnects from substantive expression as Greek politicians recommend opposite programs with the same frames, the same reasoning devices and even cultural allusions drawn from the same list and therefore alluding to each other. Nearer the other end is Gene Segarra Navera (Chapter 11), one of several contributors citing Norman Fairclough or his various colleagues active in Critical Discourse Analysis. Navera properly credits Fairclough with a correct observation that Fairclough would be the first to deny is original with him: “a speech is a recontextualization of previous utterances.” If any discourse can only recontextualize past discourse, all discourse must be discourse about discourse, and we seem to be left with Silverstein’s culture as no more than a perspective on discourse. Here too I would tentatively place Michael Alan Krasner, whose Chapter 15 “hears” American culture in Donald Trump’s distinctive adoption of a very recent cultural phenomenon, and also Francisco Jose Sánchez García, whose Chapter 14 similarly perceives recent Spanish culture in the discourse of the new political party Podemos. Also at this end are Nicholas Bromfield, Alexander Page, and Kurt Sengul, who in Chapter 9 “reveal how culture can be negotiated” in Australian political discourse even when a community faces natural disaster. And of course, I occupy the far pole from Van Gorp and Feldman. My friend the editor merits not merely everyone’s respect for an intellectual openness that would persistently recruit someone, who from the very start owned up to skepticism about culture as a concept, nevertheless to join a project about culture’s effect on political discourse, and would even offer the skeptic the privilege of composing the final synthesis. Feldman also deserves my gratitude for provoking me to discover Silverstein (2004) who specifies precise ideas that in my own mind were never more than inchoate suspicions, and from there to find convergent works composed by my ever thoughtful UCLA colleagues Alessandro Duranti (2004) and Elinor Ochs (1992) and recommended to me by the former.

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16.4 Political Discourse as Selection Among Cultural Options One reason to advocate caution about culture’s effect on political discourse is the choice among alternative abstractions presented by each culture, a choice described in every chapter. Feldman (Chapter 12) finds the workings of Japanese democracy obstructed by a culture distinguishing between the abstractions tatemae and honne. Tatemae is “the ‘surface pretense’…the presented truth, that is, the easily visible side of a given issue.” Honne consists of “private, non-ceremonial, informal thoughts.” Feldman gives compelling evidence that tatemae prevails and that it restricts open discussion of policy alternatives. Each address to parliament by a new prime minister reads like “a carbon copy of the preceding prime minister’s speech.” The single party that has chosen every prime minister since 1955, with the exception of two short intervals, stage-manages both press conferences and even committee hearings in the Diet by requiring advance clearance of all questions. When a politician does allow honne to intrude momentarily into the public record, denunciations even by political allies restore tatemae by compelling that politician to resign from office. But the enforcement mechanisms of stage-management and denunciation themselves bear witness to a choice between two cultural alternatives, tatemae and honne, usually but not invariably in favor of the former. Recent politics in Turkey and Brazil reveal another pair of abstractions, laicity and religiosity, from which politicians choose. In both countries, as Ünan Göktan reports in Chapter 4 and Tamaki, Mendonça, and Ferreira do in Chapter 5, laicity has been the program of urban economic elites while religion has been espoused by “peripheral” populations. Neither they nor I would even contemplate classifying predominantly Muslim Turkey with its Ottoman heritage and historically Catholic Brazil with its Bragança heritage as one single culture, even though all are well aware of Muhammad’s “seal of the prophets” that affirms a common origin of Islam and Christianity and of a cultural background featuring sixteenth-century sea battles in the Mediterranean and Red Seas that linked Portuguese with Ottomans as rival sub-communities competing to wrest control over a shared theocratic thalassocracy. Even within the religious alternative, these colleagues report choices. In challenging laicity, both Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan and Jair Messias Bolsonaro recontextualize passages from The Recitation and the Bible, respectively. Bolsonaro’s own Christianity is Catholic. But the Brazilian contributors notice Bolsonaro having allowed himself to be baptized twice. When at nearly every Mass every Catholic (including myself) recites in some language the equivalent of “I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” Bolsonaro is at least a profoundly unorthodox, even syncretic Catholic. Erdo˘gan’s attempt to personify the community of all Muslims provokes his fellow Muslim, the military dictator of Egypt, to be quoted by the Arabists in Chapter 3 as singling out Erdo˘gan, not by name, for endangering the Egyptian state: “Will they leave us alone?” Within his own country Erdo˘gan uses imprisonment and impoverishment to repress an alternative vision of political Islam espoused by a movement that styles itself hizmet, “service,” distantly echoing Lu’s

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(Chapter 13) recognition of “serving the people” in Chinese discourse. Despite religious alternatives valid in each culture, many Brazilians or Turks choose to recognize religious authenticity in Bolsonaro or Erdo˘gan. Israeli politicians make choices, too. If ever any text could inspire admiration for a culture or command respect for the community it points at, it would be this injunction, translated word for word: “As one born among you, shall be to you the stranger who dwells among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for strangers you were in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). The injunction from Leviticus satisfies all of Lehman-Wilzig’s criteria to resound in Israeli political discourse. It is translated from the Mosaic Torah, “no source more ‘authoritative.’” It alludes to victimization of Jews as slaves in Egypt and therefore to the original “ingathering of the exiles” that recurs in the State of Israel’s continuing recruitment of Jews to make the “ascent” to their postulated homeland. It is admirable precisely because of its intense moral force. It “plays on collective sentiment.” It exemplifies Torah’s relevance that “touches on almost all issue areas that concern the contemporary Israeli audience”—in this case, perhaps that audience’s most pressing concern, how the State of Israel should conduct itself toward some five million Palestinian Arabs “born among” Israel’s Jewish immigrants. Yet the injunction appears nowhere in either chapter about Israel. Now someone may sometime have cited or alluded to it, but the quotation is impolitic. Political discourse affirms each individual’s obligation to the individual’s own community, at which the political discourse points: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” (Kennedy, 1961). The injunction in Torah obligates Jewish individuals not to their own but to the other community in Palestine, and Israeli politicians choose against quoting it. Here again one sees the selectivity of political discourse in its employment of the cultural past: politicians succeed if they cherry-pick the tropes that do the most to advance their immediate political prospects. Arab politicians analyzed by Al-Rikaby, Altahmazi, and Tan (Chapter 3) make choices between two “deep” cultures, if Lehman-Wilzig will lend me his metaphor. They address Arab publics by speaking Modern Standard Arabic when interpersonal conversations among all Arabs, politicians or not, proceed in colloquial Arabic varying both by location and by social standing. But both of these are “deep culture” with very long traditions. “Modern Standard Arabic” is a term devised by and pointing at a community of professional linguists counting among its ranks the three Arabists themselves. It takes into account effects of European colonialists’ languages on the lexicon and syntax of educated Arabic. Arabs who are not professional linguists, though, lump it together with the discourse of The Recitation under the single label fus.h.a, “most eloquent,” that identifies a variant tracing back to before the seventh century, when the angel addressed Muhammad in an already archaic, poetic Arabic. Meanwhile local Arabic dialects, already having discarded some features of early fus.h.a, spread by conquest across and beyond the modern expanse of Arabic speech, resulting in the emergence no later than 800 C.E. of a New Arabic that has developed into the diverse modern colloquial varieties (Holes, 2004). Since politicians are among Arabs not belonging to the community of linguists, both The Recitation and

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the innovations introduced from the colonizers’ English and French are noticeable in politicians’ discourse, as my colleagues amply demonstrate. Greek politicians make the opposite choice. Greek culture antecedes even the 3200-year-old vintage that Lehman-Wilzig assigns to Jewish culture, since conflagrations burned the earliest Greek sites called “Mycenaean” about 1200 B.C.E., baking surviving records incised on clay in Greek, that must be older to have baked then. Like Arabic, Greek exists in two variants labeled with names, katharevousa archaized to resemble fus.h.a and dhimotiki, “demotic” or colloquial Greek. Until 1974, when Greeks finally ousted the last of an intermittent string of military dictators, the constitution compelled use of katharevousa for politics, even though ruling colonels were often insufficiently educated to produce it in their speeches. Today politicians address the public in mikte, a journalist’s language occasionally inserting bits of katharevousa into demotic. It should be said, though, that unlike fus.h.a, katharevousa is an inauthentic “deep” Greek, having been codified only towards the end of the nineteenth century by artificially antiquing the demotic of the time (Mackridge, 1985, pp. 6–12). Not only does Kostopoulos (Chapter 8) justifiably omit any mention of katharevousa, now largely rendered irrelevant by its association with dictatorship that the very names of both Greek parties suffice to reject as unacceptable to Greeks. The conservative party calls itself “New Democracy,” and the left party adopts the label “Syriza,” a neologism deliberately punning on an adjective meaning “rooted” used as a metaphor pointing downward at people low in society rather than high in military rank or social status. Instead of the choice of language, Kostopolous presents another choice. Both sides in modern Greek politics, confronting the same contrast encountered in neighboring Turkey and distant Brazil between a modernizing center and a traditional periphery, choose instead to contend in politics by espousing different variants of modernizing discourse. That modernizing discourse points at an ongoing Greek community by mobilizing allusions to classical and Hellenistic Greek, some of which even allude back to Mycenaean times, and by alluding to champions of more recent Greek rebirth, including independent Greece’s revolutionary “Governor” Ioannis Kapodistrias and its great democratizer, the Cypriot Eleutherios Venizelos, whose given name translates “Freedom.” That the modernizing center, Athens, holds half of Greece’s population may be pertinent to Greek politicians’ choice to subordinate “deep” allusions within a modernizing “frame.” In Chapter 7 Molek-Kozakowska and Kampka report politicians’ speeches choosing to celebrate Poles’ resilience in adversity. Those speeches echo a cultural artefact, a lyric composed two years after a final partition eliminated the Polish state: “Poland has not yet died, so long as we live.” The lyric was chosen as a national anthem, later slightly revised, when a Poland restored after World War I defeated an invasion by Russian communists. But while resilience may be a positive quality, not every resilient quality is positive. Any law is the collective political discourse of some assembly of politicians. A Polish assembly has recently chosen to prohibit even discussion of some Poles’ indubitably established complicity in the wartime extermination of Jews. The politicians enacting this law have chosen in favor of a cultural option of anti-Semitism ground into the deep culture not only of Poland but of all Europe and of its settler communities, including my own. The law may exemplify

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an instance or a consequence of “mediatized symbolic violence and verbal abuse” in Poland that Molek-Kozakowska and Kampka suspect “may soon…[leave] large citizen segments ‘silenced’ due to fear or disgust.” But a Polish tradition of solidary fearlessness may also arise to counteract the abusive trend. “For your freedom and ours!” Jan Sobieski shouted to Austrians whom he rescued as he led against the mighty Ottomans. Lech Walesa led against a mighty Soviet Union under a banner spelling out the name of a movement in red letters on a white background, the colors of the national flag drawn on the banner flying from its vertical letter “l,” with each letter leaning against an adjacent one in mutual support picturing the movement’s name “Solidarity.” Both mediatized symbolic abuse and solidary fearlessness even in the face of overwhelming power are cultural options open to Poles. Navera situates Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “insensitive and incendiary” sexist misogyny in a long string of male supremacist utterances by various occupants of the Philippine presidency, including both women who have held the post. Women presidents have contributed to it “by adopting tough male militarist rhetoric” that imitates their male counterparts. And not only chief executives practice misogyny in their public utterances. Bossism and militarism, construed as masculine, penetrate far down into the political organization of Philippine society. Catholicism contributes too by restricting to males the ordination into the diaconate, priesthood and episcopate that control a prevalent form of Philippine religious practice. But Duterte makes a choice between abstractions. Machismo in the Philippines exists in two variants. One is Duterte’s brutal and violent misogyny. The other is “caballerismo…expressly respectful toward women.” The implications of either kind of machismo extend beyond relations between the sexes to interactions within the sexes. Militarist bossism implies exploitation in general and Duterte’s campaign of violence toward persons arbitrarily deemed drug dealers or communist rebels, while a man choosing caballerismo would be “a champion of the destitute and downtrodden, and a fighter against abuse of power and wrongdoing.” Still neither option allows latitude for Philippine women to exercise full equality. And as Philippine presidents repeatedly choose the violent brand of machismo, its dynamism reaches an extreme in Duterte.

16.5 Cultural Innovation in Political Discourse Chapters not discussed in the preceding section about choices among cultural alternatives, as well as several chapters that have been, reveal political discourse innovating culture. Of course, in some sense innovation is just another choice built of existing options. Every language includes expressions with negative, privative or attenuative force: English “deny, deprive, attenuate” and many, many more. Therefore every linguaculture can express every opposite of any of its supposed traits. Japanese choosing between tatemae or honne can choose to express themselves by originating some third option that is neither “the surface pretense” nor their “private thoughts.” The options made available by any culture are trivially infinite. But there remains

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a difference between options for political discourse previously chosen from within Van Gorp’s (2007) repertoire and options innovated by expanding that repertoire. An uncontroversial place to start is Schröter’s Germany (Chapter 6). She examines speeches of four long-serving chancellors in the postwar Federal Republic. All four give deliberately undramatic speeches that avoid oratorical flights of fancy. Despite being divided between opposing parties, all are rationalistic and deliberative. The speeches cite legal precedent, proceed to discuss the situation facing each chancellor together with German voters, and conclude by recommending what to do about it. Of course both situation definition and action prescription are politicized, varying in their specifics with the speaking chancellor’s party and with immediate circumstances. Nor does moderation “entirely preclude elements of hyperbole and reference to emotions.” But passionate appeals remain subordinated in a political discourse that Schröter perceptively calls “remarkably unremarkable.” Schröter presents postwar German political discourse as a rejection of one cultural alternative motivated by the twin catastrophes of warfare in 1914–1918 resumed in 1939–1945. Surely the contrast between “Triumph of the Will” and post-1945 resolute avoidance of drama, between militarism and consistent “soft power” in German leadership of the European Union, confirms her interpretation. But this choice also reveals political innovation transforming culture. First, the new discourse points at a different community. The victorious allies transferred the eastern territory of pre-war Germany to a Poland shifted westward and cleaved the remnant between a Soviet-dominated east and what became the Federal Republic in the west. This division excluded the Prussia that had unified pre-war Germany in 1871 from the postwar Federal Republic. That changed the German electorate. Even in Germany, admirably committed to taking responsibility for the twin catastrophes, it tends to go unremarked that not even suppression of rival candidacies combined with intimidation of tolerated campaigners ever enabled Adolf Hitler to win a majority of German votes in any election. His electoral support was concentrated in the northeast excluded from the original Federal Republic. Since any election is a rejection of the loser’s campaign discourse by most voters, all four chancellors were addressing an electorate that had always preferred to hear something other than Nazi dramatics. Second, the new discourse used different language to address speakers of a language in the process of changing. In postwar Germany mainly women and children had been evacuated for safety from cities bombed by the Allies to rural villages. Already during the war and increasingly afterwards, evacuees were joined by refugees from the east fleeing Soviet occupation (Nicholls, 1997, pp. 9–10). Villagers still often spoke the declining local dialects belonging, from north to south, to Low German, Middle German, or Upper German varieties. Neither evacuees nor refugees could speak the dialect particular to the village where they landed, and the village or small town might even be located in one of the two dialect areas other than the area that the evacuees or refugees had fled (Schoenfeld, 1990, pp. 127–128). In order to talk to each other at all, villagers, evacuees and refugees all needed to employ their often imperfect knowledge of Hochdeutsch “High German,” the variant taught in schools that the effects of warfare closed or disrupted. The result was the emergence of a

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language regionalized into different variants each called Umgangssprache, “walking around language” (Russ, 1990, pp. 343–344). This result presented the first postwar chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, with a choice. He could have resumed the older practice of speaking about politics in Hochsprache, “high language,” a specialized kind of High German. And indeed one German scholar (Pelster, 1966, pp. 78–79) has found bits of the most elaborate variety of “high language,” kirchliche Sondersprache “ecclesiastical special language,” in printed speeches by Adenauer, a devout Catholic from the Catholic Rhineland. But the highly educated Adenauer canceled such traces of historical eloquence by choosing to pronounce his speeches, widely heard on radio, in his own regional variant Familienkölsch that even its own speakers mock as “standard German with lumps in it” (Newton, 1990, p. 144). Each of Schröter’s chancellors has repeated Adenauer’s choice to speak a variant of German that sounds odd, even funny, to most of the country. She reports Helmuth Kohl, who presided over the unification of the west with the formerly Sovietdominated east, speaking with a “southwestern regional accent…subject to ridicule more than anything else.” Willy Brandt’s German cannot have remained unaffected by thirteen formative years in early adulthood spent in Scandinavian exile becoming fluent in Norwegian. Angela Merkel grew up in the Soviet-dominated east, where the conditions that produced “walking around language” elsewhere never happened and where political discourse imitated the Soviet Union’s unnatural Russian. Given the deliberate choice not to speak eloquent German, how could any speech couched in some variant of “walking around language” avoid the everyday practicality that hearers speaking any variant themselves expect to hear? Adenauer’s innovation of rejecting “high language” in favor of one variant of “walking around language” encouraged acceptance of all the variants throughout Germany. German culture changed, gradually eliminating the former “high language” and increasingly leveling the formerly steep social hierarchy. Here the innovation in political discourse concerns not what terminology to choose or what substantive meaning to express, but how prestigious to sound. Still politicians’ renunciation of sounding prestigious also has consequences for who feels spoken to by the politicians, who is recruited into their coalitions, what the politicians feel is worth saying to them, and therefore what substantive meanings politicians communicate and what policies they enact. Sánchez García (Chapter 14) and Krasner (Chapter 15) examine what may be incipient cultural change in progress as Spain’s Vice-Premier Iglesias and President Trump recapitulate Adenauer’s innovation of adapting a cultural practice not previously evident in political discourse with the effect, not necessarily advertent, of pointing at a community composing a new electoral coalition. Sánchez García describes Iglesias recruiting youthful adherents by integrating the left’s tradition of “Republicanism”—startling as that may be to an American eye—with “the subversive and rebellious music of hip-hop”—not only an innovation, but foreign. Leading a confrontational new left in Spain, even the choice of name for the party led by Iglesias links his discourse with Trump’s. Podemos translates “We Can.” A translation that reminds of Barack Obama’s “Yes we can!” also resonates with Trump’s

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imperative “Make America Great Again!” English imperatives demanding that the hearer do something impractical or impossible are sarcastic or insulting: “Go jump in the lake!” “Go fly over the moon!” All English imperatives imply an unspoken second-person pronoun that can be made overt without changing the meaning: “You go jump in the lake!” Trump is neither insulting, nor exercising his vaunted sarcasm on, the audience for his imperative. Therefore the imperative says to his adherents that together with Trump, “we can” restore the America that they think is great. Yet Iglesias and Trump are political opposites with Obama between them. Krasner insightfully attributes special importance to the rather misnamed “Reality TV” emerging over the last three decades. In Reality TV producers and camera operators pretend simply to record amateur contestants as they compete, but in fact, as the chapter documents for “The Apprentice” in which Trump starred, producers intervene off-camera at every stage in the program and carefully select which segments of the recording make it past the cutting room. In Reality TV non-professionals replace what Americans know from long experience to be a very few highly trained and professional dramatic actors surviving an unseen contest for rich rewards. Generalization of this new norm to politics lets a man without political or government experience of any kind contend even for the most important elective office. Reality TV matters because it induces “Invited Behaviors” from Americans that lead them to support a candidate lacking the experience to perform the duties of president or even to know what they might be. Staged wins of non-professionals encourage viewers to think themselves the equal or even superior to experienced professionals deliberating politics and policy issues. Reality TV discourages selfrestraint. Upstaging and scene-stealing might trigger disharmony in a professional cast that would interfere with the success of a program but are positively incited by the producers of Reality TV. Exposure to Reality TV prepared Americans to welcome the aggression, norm-breaking and rudeness that Trump turned into earmarks of his presidency. Behaviors invited by Reality TV are remarkably reminiscent of the “mediatized symbolic violence and verbal abuse” that Molek-Kozakowska and Kampka (Chapter 7) notice threatening to silence many Poles. From the 2019 primaries onward, Joe Biden resists by reviving an American cultural tradition of solidary fearlessness once expressed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933): “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” John F. Kennedy (1961) repeats it: “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans…tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage…we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe.” Though muffing his lines, fifty-one years after Roosevelt Ronald Reagan (1984), another Irishman, although Protestant this time, and an outright adversary of Roosevelt’s New Deal, voices the tradition again above a cliff in Normandy: “The Americans who fought here knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought—or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.” Of course, Biden appealing for solidary fearlessness today is another Irish Catholic whose hometown Scranton, Pa., has also been home to countless

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Catholic Poles. I can only hope that in Poland and the United States, solidary fearlessness will overwhelm mediatized symbolic violence, and the incipient innovation will fail to change culture in either country. In Chapter 13, Lu finds cultural continuity from the benevolent government advocated in Classical Chinese by Confucius and Mencius in the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.E to the “serving the people” characterizing the political discourse in Modern Chinese of the communist dictators Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping, especially the latter’s promises to end poverty and to strengthen China against a recurrence of the aggression by foreign powers still prominent today. One crucial, consequential, unavoidable difficulty of tracing political discourse to culture, especially “deep culture,” is disagreement about how to read either. Lu joins many other specialists on Chinese in translating one ancient and modern character, now romanized as rén, as “benevolence.” Yet a specialist in Classical Chinese, Robert Gassman (2000, p. 359) writes about this same character’s ancient meaning, “It had no affinity to… ‘benevolence,’ and all attempts to read such meanings into the pre-Qin [sc. before the end of the third century B.C.E] texts are highly questionable and misleading.” I lack the necessary knowledge of Chinese and record of scholarship on China to express an opinion about the disagreement. At the same time, if the criticism is correct, Lu’s chapter is inadvertent testimony to innovation in political discourse changing culture, as in ancient times the character appeared in political discourse and even Gassman agrees that it has since begun to translate “benevolence.” Remarkably, though, even if Lu’s reading is correct, she still provides documentation of a different innovation in political discourse that changes Chinese culture even if preserving her own claim about continuity. She and Gassman disagree about how to translate a complex character rén with two sides. One side is the reduced combining form of a simplex character, confusingly also romanized as rén, that lends its pronunciation, though she implies not its meaning, to the whole complex character. The other side is the reduced combining form of another character translated “two,” a vertical pair of horizontal brush strokes. In modern Chinese the simplex character rén translates “person.” It accompanies another simplex character also translated “person” in Modern Chinese, mín. Again Lu and Gassmann disagree about the ancient meanings of these two characters. She says simplex rén were rulers advised by Confucius and Mencius to show benevolence to the ruled represented by mín. Gassmann (2000) says simplex rén and mín both belonged to the ruling group using violence to oppress the rest of a population divided by Confucians into three other categories mentioned rarely. Since, to Gassman, an ancient Chinese ruling group was a coalition of rén and mín led by a simplex rén, the complex character rén meant an advisable conduct promoting coalition maintenance. Again, unqualified to opine, I only record disagreement. But Lu reports innovation in these political terms. Classical Chinese sometimes, although rarely, paired two adjacent characters into a two-character compound, not a single complex character like rén that she translates, but a sequence of two independent characters read as a compound like English “peanut.” What distinguishes such two-character compounds in visible representation of Chinese from an English compound in writing or print is the English convention of separating “pea” and “nut”

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with a blank space when they are separate words but deleting the blank when the two elements spell the compound “peanut.” All Chinese characters appear in sequence without blanks. The Classical Chinese two-character sequence rén mín continues to be read rén and mín. But in modern Chinese, in which two-character compounds have proliferated to become the norm even though single characters persist, any reader of Modern Chinese now reads the identical character sequence as a two-character compound rénmín, in a standard romanization that copies the English practice of signaling a compound by deleting the blank. Thus the same two-character sequence in Classical Chinese that Lu translates, not wholly uncontroversially, as “the rulers and the ruled,” she and all others read in Modern Chinese as a compound translated “the population.” Since both are terms in political discourse, an alteration of political discourse has at least introduced a major change. As Gassman and Lu concur (although he thinks other terms represent the ruled), Classical Chinese separates rulers from ruled. Modern Chinese combines them into a single entity, a population. Valid or deceptive as that combination may be, it is still a major development whose long-range potential may be likened to Adenauer’s humbling himself by abandoning “high language” for a regional argot. In emphasizing Xi’s promises to end poverty, Lu points at one implication. Lu’s cultural continuity nevertheless persists along Risager’s (2015) identity dimension. Sequences of painted characters at least 3500 years old, for approximately a millennium sometimes printed and today often pixelated, still point at a community of Chinese. Even in Japan, where a few thousand of the characters remain in regular use, they are called kanji, “Chinese signs.” Lehman-Wilzig (Chapter 2) and Benziman (Chapter 10) also reveal political discourse shaping culture in Israel. Lehman-Wilzig reports Israeli politicians explicitly advocating cultural change. Israel’s founding prime minister says that ancient stories in the Hebrew scriptures “are closer to us than the words of” more recent rabbis active in the diaspora. A future deputy prime minister conspicuously omits virtuously the entire diaspora when he advocates balancing “our enthusiasm and nostalgia for the glory of Israel long ago” with “a place to honor the recent past—the Zionist revolutionaries” who founded the modern State of Israel. A former president says “The one thing that changes very radically in Israel is the past.” One way to reshape culture is to describe it as older. Lehman-Wilzig himself says Jewish culture is “over 3000 years old.” The founding prime minister and the current prime minister quoted by Benziman agree on 4000 years old and that former president says “200 generations”—if averaging twenty years each, 4000 years again. Yet scholarship cannot securely date any Hebrew script before 2800–3000 years ago (Rollston, 2006, pp. 51–52; University of Haifa, 2010).1 Although no one doubts that Torah existed in some form long before its earliest fragmentary remnants, since “no solid facts are known about the textual condition of the Torah prior to 250 B.C.E…whatever happened before that time is mere speculation” (Tov, 2016, p. 238). Why exaggerate what is already provably millennia old? Although one explanation is merely a hypothesis not their own, Lehman-Wilzig and Benziman both surface a relevant concern 1

I thank Sam Lehman-Wilzig for this information.

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that faces the Israeli audience and that exaggeration might address. That audience is intensely fragmented, consisting of multiple cultures described by one politician, whom Benziman quotes, as “essentially different from each other…educated toward a totally different outlook regarding the basic values and desired character of the State of Israel.” An original unity described as older appears more enduring, therefore implicitly stronger and implicitly more capable of unifying Israelis today. Lehman-Wilzig and Benziman both reveal the cultural consequences of political discourse in their own descriptions of Israel’s wars: “the young country’s already numerous wars of survival”; “Arab countries who didn’t accept Israel’s existence tried to eliminate it”; “the first days of the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was in dire danger.” An observer exposed to a different political discourse might instead describe the State of Israel using force to clear space for Jewish settlement and then repeatedly destroying the military equipment painstakingly accumulated by Muslim neighbors to protect against further clearance. Benziman affirms that Israel has become “a regional superpower…far stronger than its neighboring countries and the Palestinian population.” In this dispute, former employment as an analyst of military intelligence authorized to review the full record does claim for me the necessary expertise to express a qualified opinion. But here is neither the place, nor do I have space. The conclusive argument that innovative political discourse does transform culture must be Chapter 9, where Bromfield, Page and Sengul describe Australian politicians responding to a physical firestorm. The incumbent prime minister reacts by recalling past fires subdued by the frontier bushman, a combative white male supremacist symbolic of Australia’s European settlement. Deploying an old poem about a wildfire that threatened an early settler, the prime minister tries to shift blame for his own inaction by reducing modern fires spreading across much of a continent to the poet’s “blaze of an old dead tree.” The prime minister’s principal political rival heading the main opposition party alludes to “the grim poetry” of past fires, only to exploit the potential of recontextualization with a drumbeat of negations: “not business as usual…not even fire as usual…no longer fall back on the poetry” of a different poet, now female, “nor can we soften reality…no choice but to turn to face the harsh new reality.” The leader of a third party, also in opposition, replaces the prime minister’s “old dead tree” with “burning along the eastern half of the country” and again deploys negation to reject comparison to the past: “these fires have no precedent.” Instead of Australian culture, he invokes a discourse discussed worldwide: “These fires are simply the beginning of what a climate disaster looks like.” A fourth politician leading a Trumpian challenge to all parties agrees with the prime minister that fires are a permanent feature of Australia’s geography but then changes the subject to his own party’s themes condemning mutual sniping among partisan politicians and contrasting good Australians, now bravely enduring and fighting the firestorm, to bad ones, now committing arson or keeping the fires lit by political squabbling. Bromfield, Page and Sengul describe with precision the mutual impact of culture and political discourse through the interaction of choice with innovation. This interaction is an “intersubjective and dialectical relationship” displaying “tendencies of adaptive inertia: the ability to extend…into new settings, which can account for its

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persistence and resistance to change; and discursive fluidity: whereby discourses, if successful, create new ‘facts’ that we are obliged to incorporate into our ‘skill-set’ of practice.”

16.6 Coda Many edited volumes assemble authors who all agree, at least more or less. This volume’s welcome to a variety of approaches does the reader a considerable service. There are contending opinions on the relationship of culture to political discourse and especially on what culture might be, and instead of being exposed to only one, the reader of this volume can sample a range of informed opinion en route to deciding the reader’s own.

References Duranti, A. (2004). Agency in language. In A. Duranti (Ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology (pp. 451–473). Blackwell. Gassmann, R. H. (2000). Understanding ancient Chinese society: Approaches to rén 人 and mín 民. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 120(3), 348–359. https://doi.org/10.2307/606007. Holes, C. (2004). Modern Arabic: Structures, functions, and varieties. Georgetown University Press. Kennedy, J. F. (1961, January 20). John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. www.ushistory.org/doc uments/ask-not.htm. Leviticus. https://biblehub.com/interlinear/leviticus/19-34.htm. Mackridge, P. A. (1985). The modern Greek language: A descriptive analysis of standard modern Greek. Clarendon Press. Newton, G. (1990). Central Franconian. In C. V. J. Russ (Ed.), The dialects of modern German: A linguistic survey (pp. 136–209). Routledge. Nicholls, A. J. (1997). The Bonn republic: West German democracy 1945–1990. Addison Wesley Longman. Ochs, E. (1992). Indexing gender. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 335–358). Cambridge University Press. Pelster, T. (1966). The political speech in West and East Germany: Comparative stylistic investigation with accompanying texts. Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann. (in German). Reagan, R. (1984, June 6). Address at the Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-day at Point-du-Hoc. https://auburnpub.com/news/top-news/watchpresident-ronald-reagan-recalls-d-day-in-memorable-speech/article_4ae4a701-eb3f-5ab2-9ed52c3e35ffa2cc.html. Risager, K. (2015). The language-culture nexus in transnational perspective. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and culture (pp. 87–99). Routledge. Rollston, C. A. (2006). Scribal education in ancient Israel: The old Hebrew epigraphic evidence. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 344, 47–74. Roosevelt, F. D. (1933, March 4). Franklin D. Roosevelt, inaugural address. http://historymatters. gmu.edu/d/5057. Russ, C. V. J. (1990). Swabian. In C. V. J. Russ (Ed.), The dialects of modern German: A linguistic survey (pp. 337–363). Routledge.

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Schoenfeld, H. (1990). East low German. In C. V. J. Russ (Ed.), The dialects of modern German: A linguistic survey (pp. 91–135). Routledge. Silverstein, M. (1976). Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In K. H. Basso & H. A. Selby (Eds.), Meaning in anthropology (pp. 11–55). University of New Mexico. Silverstein, M. (2004). “Cultural” concepts and the language-culture nexus. Current Anthropology, 45(5), 621–652. https://doi.org/10.1086/423971. Tov, E. (2016). The development of the text of the Torah in two major text blocks. Textus, 26(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1163/2589255X-02601003. University of Haifa. (2010, January 7). Most ancient Hebrew biblical inscription deciphered. Physorg. https://phys.org/news/2010-01-ancient-hebrew-biblical-inscription-deciphered.html. Van Gorp, B. (2007). The constructionist approach to framing: Bringing culture back in. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 60–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00329.x.

Richard Anderson is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written about political discourse in Discourse, Dictators and Democrats (2014), Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (2001, coauthored), and Public Politics in an Authoritarian State (1993), and in more than forty shorter publications. Before his doctorate, he also composed political discourse for the Executive Branch and the Congress.

Correction to: When Politicians Talk Ofer Feldman

Correction to: O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3 The original version of the book was inadvertently published with spell errors in Chapters 1 and 12 in chapter title and running text. The book has been updated with the changes.

The updated versions of these chapters can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_1 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_12

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_17

C1

Index

A Abe, Shinzô, 208, 209, 215, 216, 218 Acropolis, 135, 136, 138 Adenauer, Konrad, 10, 95, 96, 98–103, 105, 106, 287, 290 Against all odds, 11, 171, 174, 180–182 Aggression, 4, 12, 44, 98, 125, 257, 258, 262, 270, 288, 289 Agonistic speech. See Antagonistic speech Albanese, Anthony, 150, 154–156, 158–160, 162–164 Al-Maliki, Nouri Kamil, 40, 41, 44 Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), 107 Am Yisrael Chai (The people of Israel live on), 181 Antagonistic speech, 246 Anti-Semitism, 31, 170–173, 177, 180, 182, 270, 284 Appellatives, 47, 49 The Apprentice (TV show), 258, 260, 261, 270, 288 Aquino, Corazon C., 194, 195, 198 Arroyo, Gloria Macapagal, 198 Asô, Tarô, 213, 214, 216, 217 Australia, 1, 2, 4, 149–164, 291 Liberal Party of, 150, 154 Australian culture, 11, 150–153, 155, 156, 158, 159, 161, 162, 164, 291 Greens, 150, 154, 159 Labor Party, 150, 153–156, 158

B Begin, Menachem, 24, 28, 31 Belligerent rhetoric, 192

Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 40, 42, 45, 46 Benevolent government, 225, 226, 234, 289 Ben-Gurion, David, 18, 24, 27, 30, 31 Bible characters Abraham, 18, 24, 26, 28, 31, 176 King David, 18 Moses, 17, 18, 21, 22 Hebrew, 8, 17, 22, 30, 31 influence on Israel, 18 Old Testament, 30 Torah, 8, 22, 283, 290 Biblical biblical-based oratory, 29 quotes, 22, 25, 31, 177 references, 9, 74, 78, 82 terminology, 25, 281, 287 tradition, 17, 20–22, 30 verse, 27–31, 175 Biden, Joe, 269, 288 Black Summer Bushfires, 11, 149, 150, 154– 157, 159–164 Bolesław, Bierut, 114 Bolsonaro, Jair, 7, 9, 73–75, 77–86, 282, 283 The Book of Odes, 221 Bossism, 11, 188, 189, 285 Brandt, Willy, 10, 95, 98, 99, 101–103, 105, 287 Bullying, 12, 257, 259

C Capitol (U.S.), 13, 258, 269, 270 Caste, 239, 242, 246. See also Monarchical block Catholic, Church, 73, 76, 77, 116, 192

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 O. Feldman (ed.), When Politicians Talk, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3

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296 Catholicism, 76, 125, 285 Chancellor. See German, chancellors Chief Cabinet Secretary, 205 Chikos del Maíz, 243, 244, 248, 251, 253 China, 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 32, 211, 213, 217, 222, 223, 226–235, 289 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 224, 226, 227, 229, 230, 233 dream, 233, 234 Christianity, 8, 9, 20, 32, 74, 76, 77, 80–82, 84–86, 282 Climate change, 149, 150, 153, 156–159, 161– 163, 244 and discourse, 9, 11, 150, 153, 155 wars, 11, 150–153, 155–164 Cold War, 3, 95, 98 Collectivism, 55, 68, 96, 172, 232 Colonialism, 150, 152, 163, 211 and settler society, 151, 152, 162–164 “Comfort women”, 214 Communist newspeak, 115, 123 propaganda, 10, 114, 123, 124 rhetoric, 10, 77, 111, 115, 123, 124, 226, 227 Conceptual frameworks, 240, 242, 246–248, 251–253 Condolence speeches, 150, 154, 156, 157, 159, 161–163 Confucian values, 12, 222, 223, 227, 234 Confucius, 12, 222–225, 227, 234, 236, 289 Conjugal dictatorship, 195, 198 Marcos, Ferdinand E., 189, 194, 195 Marcos, Imelda R., 195, 198 Conservative, 7, 10, 56, 64, 73, 76, 77, 82– 85, 103, 111–113, 116, 119, 122, 123, 140, 141, 152, 163, 214, 239, 252, 258, 284 issues, 73, 77, 78 wave, 73, 77, 86 Constitution Day, 117 Covid-19, 80, 82, 83, 85, 112, 135, 146, 175, 193, 264, 266, 269 Critical discourse analysis (CDA), 150, 151, 154, 161, 245, 281. See also Discourse analysis; van Dijk, Teun A. Cultural dualism, 130, 144 premise, 224, 233, 235

Index values, 7, 9, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 62, 65–67, 77, 82, 83, 85, 123, 124, 142, 145, 155, 207, 221, 222, 227, 234–236, 239, 243 Culture New American, 4, 258, 259, 268, 270, 278, 281, 288 traditional America, 4, 12, 257, 258, 270 war, 77, 112. See also Popular culture; Populist culture; Underdog culture D Dayan, Moshe, 23, 27 Degraded legitimacy, 265 Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), 206 Diet (Japan’s national parliament) committees, 206, 209, 213–215, 282 deliberations, 206, 210, 215 discourse, 78 members gaffes, 218 indiscreet remarks, 211 slip of the tongues, 211 verbal blunders, 213 violent or abusive language, 211 Di Natale, Richard, 150, 154–156, 159, 160, 162, 163 Discourse crisis, 11, 58, 114, 150 political, 2–4 religious, 3, 9, 35, 49, 60, 74, 75, 78, 85, 125, 283 Discourse analysis, 10, 60, 74, 75, 253 Discursive performances, 75 Drug war, 192 Duda, Andrzej, 115, 117, 119, 122, 125 Duterte, Rodrigo R., 7, 8, 11, 73, 187, 188, 190–194, 196, 198, 199, 285 E Eban, Abba, 23, 24, 31 Egypt, 1, 3, 4, 9, 18, 23, 24, 27, 31, 37, 40, 41, 43, 56, 173, 178, 282, 283 El-Sadat, Muhammad Anwar, 40, 41, 44 El-Sisi, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil, 40, 41, 44 Environment, 8, 55, 58, 61, 85, 104, 150– 153, 211 and environmentalism, 97, 153, 157, 159 Erbakan, Necmettin, 57, 58, 65 Erdo˘gan, Recep Tayyip, 7, 9, 53, 57–67, 282, 283 Eshkol, Levi, 27

Index Essebsi, Mohamed Beji Caid, 40–42, 45, 47 Estrada, Joseph Ejercito, 194, 196, 198 European Union (EU), 58, 65, 97, 98, 112, 114, 117, 119, 122, 123, 139, 140, 143, 145, 192, 286 vis-a-vis Poland, 179 Evangelicals, 76, 77, 80, 82, 83, 86

F Family values, 56, 58, 77, 80, 82, 86 “Floating signifiers”, 124, 243 Frame, 10–12, 57, 67, 78, 79, 81, 82, 85, 106, 130, 133, 134, 136–145, 153– 155, 158, 159, 161, 162, 169, 188, 189, 240, 242, 247–250, 278, 279, 281, 284 “modernization”, 54, 135, 136, 139, 140, 144, 145 packages, 86, 133, 134 Framing, 74, 76, 79–81, 83, 85, 100, 101, 132–134, 138, 143, 150, 153, 156, 158, 160, 250, 278, 281 Fukushima, 99, 102, 103, 215

G Garcia, Carlos P., 196, 197 German chancellors, 10, 94, 95, 98, 99, 104, 106 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 93– 97, 99, 107 Germany chancellors, 2, 6, 10, 94, 95, 98, 99, 104, 106 constitution, 94, 96, 214 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), 94–99, 105, 107 occupied/occupation, 3 Great Leaps Forward, 228 Greece, 1, 4, 10, 65, 129–131, 134–140, 142–145, 221, 284 Greek civil war, 131, 132, 142, 145 parliament, 132, 135, 139, 142, 143 political culture, 11, 129–131, 142, 144, 145 revolutionary war, 143

H Heleno-Christian nationalism, 131, 144, 145 Herzl, Theodore, 20, 23, 24, 173 Herzog, Chaim, 23, 27

297 Homeland, 20, 26, 27, 135, 176, 243, 252, 283 Honne (genuine intent), 203, 208, 209, 212, 218, 282, 285. See also Tatemae (surface pretense) Hussein, Saddam, 40–42, 44 I Identification, 12, 48, 49, 67, 76, 112, 119, 124, 234, 235 Identity construction, 40, 41, 47, 48 Ideology, 56, 77, 80, 120, 131, 178, 179, 188, 190, 218, 222, 223, 227, 242–245, 253 Iglesias, Pablo, 8, 12, 240–254, 287, 288 Iltif¯at, 43, 48 Indigenous, 76, 130, 151, 213 knowledges, 164 peoples, 151, 163, 164 Insurrection, 265, 269 Invited Behavior, 257, 265, 288 Iraq, 1, 3, 4, 9, 27, 37, 40–42, 44–48 Islamism, 56, 57. See also Political Islam Israel isolation, 172, 178 and Jewish heritage, 171, 177 and Jewish history, 11, 17–19, 25, 27, 28, 30, 175, 177, 179 and Jewish religion, 7, 171, 172, 180, 182 relations with the United Nations, 182 Israeliness, 171, 173 J Japan harmony, 210 national parliament. See Diet (Japan’s national parliament) negotiation style, 208 Japanese politicians members. See Diet (Japan’s national parliament) prime ministers administrative policy speech, 204 policy speech, 204 Jewish historical memory, 22, 23, 280 Holocaust, 18, 26–28, 179, 180 political culture, 17, 18 prayer, 22, 29, 178 Prophets, 18, 21, 24 Talmud, 18, 21, 22, 25

298 victimization and anti-Semitic rhetoric, 179 Jews, 9, 17, 18, 20–27, 29, 38, 114, 115, 121, 170–174, 177, 179, 180, 213, 258, 269, 283, 284 John Paul II, 116 Judaism, 8, 17, 18, 21, 22, 74, 85, 171 influence on Israel, 18 Junichirô, Koizumi, 211 Justice and Development Party (JDP), 9, 53, 57–59, 61–68

K Kaczy´nski, Jarosław, 120, 121 Kaczy´nski, Lech, 115, 118, 119 Kapodistrias, 139, 140, 284 Kazimierz, Marcinkiewicz, 120 Kelly, Megyn, 262 Kohl, Helmut, 10, 95, 98–105, 287 Komorowski, Bronisław, 115, 119 Kopacz, Ewa, 116, 120–122 Kwa´sniewski, Aleksander, 118, 119

L Laicism, 55, 57, 61, 62, 64, 67 Language, 1, 3, 4, 6–8, 11, 12, 17, 19, 29, 32, 35, 39–41, 43, 47, 49, 56, 65, 67, 74, 75, 80, 93, 97, 104, 131, 144, 151, 154, 172, 187, 188, 190, 199, 200, 207, 213, 217, 221, 234, 235, 239, 240, 245, 247, 253, 257, 262, 277–280, 282–287, 290 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), 212–218 Linguaculture, 17, 35, 39–41, 48, 49, 279– 281, 285 Lying, 3, 4, 12, 257–259, 263–266, 270

M Macedonia, 135, 136, 138, 144 Machismo, 11, 188–190, 192, 193, 196, 198, 199, 285 caballerismo, 189, 285 discourse, 8, 199 Make America Great Again, 6, 270, 288 Marcos, Ferdinand E., 189, 194–198 Mardin, Serif, ¸ 54, 55 Media, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 20, 22, 28, 29, 58, 62, 73, 77, 78, 80, 95, 107, 122, 123, 133, 150, 152, 154–156, 160, 161, 187, 205, 206, 214, 217, 218, 230,

Index 232, 236, 240–242, 249, 253, 258, 264–266, 269, 270 American, 258, 268, 270. See also Television; Twitter Mencius, 12, 222, 223, 225, 226, 234, 289 Meritocracy, 12, 257, 259, 260, 270 Merkel, Angela, 10, 95, 98, 99, 101–104, 281, 287 Metaphor, 38, 45, 122, 142, 158, 243, 247– 250, 283, 284 Militarism, 11, 77, 94, 188, 189, 285, 286 Militarization, 191, 199 Misogyny, 11, 188, 191, 193–195, 198, 285 Mitsotakis, Kyriakos, 10, 130, 134–136, 138, 139, 141–145 Modality, 41, 42, 48 Monarchical block, 242 Moral crusade, 7, 77, 85 Morawiecki, Mateusz, 112, 113, 116, 120– 122 Morrison, Scott, 149, 150, 154–160, 162, 163

N Nation, 10, 12, 17, 18, 23–25, 27, 28, 30, 48, 56, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 96, 98, 99, 112, 113, 116, 119, 120, 123, 129, 131, 144, 152, 156–158, 176, 178, 205, 213, 214, 224, 226–230, 232–235, 252, 270 Nationalism, 7, 12, 20, 55, 57, 66, 67, 94, 96, 98, 131, 142, 150–152, 160, 163, 182, 226–228, 230, 232–236, 270 Nationalistic rhetoric, 117, 122, 222, 227 National Outlook Movement, 53, 57 Natural disaster, 158, 281 Nazis, 3, 26, 93, 179, 214 neo-Nazis, 269 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 7, 11, 19, 25, 26, 30, 170, 171, 174–182 New Democracy, 96, 132, 284 North Korea, 209

O Obama, Barack, 192, 265, 287, 288 Olmert, Ehud, 19, 25 One Country, Two Systems, 233

P Parliament, 1, 11, 41, 42, 45, 56, 65, 76, 94, 96, 97, 99, 101, 106, 116, 120, 134,

Index 154, 156, 203, 241, 245, 246, 248, 249, 253 Parliamentary, 10, 12, 43, 59, 64, 96, 120– 122, 125, 132, 142, 150, 154, 239, 240, 245, 247, 249, 251, 253 debates, 1, 2, 10, 100, 120–122, 124, 125 inaugurals, 10, 99, 120, 125 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHON), 150, 154, 156, 160, 162 Peres, Shimon, 18, 24, 25, 29 Personality factors (affecting talk), 212, 215 Philippine presidents, 190, 194, 196, 198, 285 Podemos, 12, 239–253, 281, 287 Poe, Fernando Jr., 189 Polarization, 68, 116, 125, 131, 132, 144– 146, 240, 241, 247, 250 Political Islam, 9, 53, 55, 56, 60, 67, 282 Political persuasion, 12, 164, 221, 226, 234 Political speeches, 3, 4, 9, 10, 29, 31, 39, 40, 47, 124, 129, 130, 133, 134, 139, 150, 156, 161, 190, 221, 224 Popular culture, 12, 124, 189, 223, 240, 244, 260 Populism, 35, 59, 73, 123, 136, 141, 144, 242, 246 Populist culture, 259 Presidential, 7, 11, 12, 41, 49, 59, 63, 65, 66, 68, 80, 117–119, 187, 190–194, 197– 199, 251, 258, 260, 262, 264–266, 269 address, 119, 124 rhetoric, 117, 125, 188, 194, 198, 199 Press conferences, 1, 155, 193, 205, 206, 282 Progressive (left-wing), 12, 64, 65, 67, 73, 77, 81, 85, 86, 112, 116, 118, 122, 123, 140, 162, 163, 194, 239–241, 244, 252 Propaganda, 3, 30, 114, 115, 123, 125, 214, 234, 244, 264 Public speech, 9, 10, 40, 53, 57, 59, 60, 67, 94, 212, 244 Putting People First, 6, 12, 222, 227, 230, 231, 234–236

Q Qualitative content analysis, 78 Quezon, Manuel L., 189, 196, 197 Qur’an, 36–39, 43, 45, 46, 48, 65 Qur’anic rhetoric, 9, 35, 36, 39–41, 46, 48, 49 text, 39, 41, 42, 45–49

299 themes, 9, 35, 40, 41, 45, 48 verses, 37–39, 46, 47

R Rabin, Yitzhak, 21, 25, 26, 28–31 Rational discourse, 101, 103, 106 Reality TV, 4, 12, 257, 258, 260–265, 270, 288 Religiosity, 9, 62, 67, 73–75, 77, 79, 85, 112, 281, 282 Religious rhetoric, 9 beliefs, 39 traditionalism, 112 Rhetoric of nationalism, 12, 167, 226–228, 230, 232, 234, 236 strategy, 77, 85, 222, 227, 235 structure, 1, 98 style, 10, 11, 40, 41, 48, 106, 112 Roberts, Malcolm, 150, 154, 160–164 Russia, 95, 103, 113, 118, 119, 209, 228

S Secularism, 7, 9, 56, 62, 64, 67, 68, 74, 239 Secularization, 10, 55, 77, 85 Serve the People, Heart and Soul, 222, 224, 227, 235 Sexism, 194 Shamir, Yitzhak, 28 Sharett, Moshe, 27 Siege mentality, 172 Silverstein, Michael, 278, 279, 281 Situational factors (affecting talk), 215 Slogans, 6, 60, 62, 63, 66, 74, 117, 120, 124, 142, 173, 174, 205, 222, 233, 236, 240, 244, 249, 251, 252 Solidarity movement, 112, 113, 115, 121 Sound bites, 205 South Korea, 129, 209, 211, 212, 214, 215 Spain, 1, 4, 8, 12, 239–242, 244, 246, 248– 254, 287 Congress of Deputies, 245, 247 Spanish Revolution, 240 Speech acts, 41–44, 47, 48 Start-up nation, 174 Syriza, 130, 132, 136, 139, 141, 143, 144, 284 Szydło, Beata, 116, 117, 120–122

T Taiwan, 213, 214, 233, 234

300 Tatemae (surface pretense), 203, 204–206, 208, 209, 211, 218, 282, 285. See also Honne (genuine intent) Television, 5, 58, 60, 101, 155, 204, 205, 209, 214, 261 Toxic masculinity, 7, 11, 188, 190–194, 196, 199 Trap invitation, 265 Trump, Donald J., 4, 6, 7, 12, 73, 257–270, 281, 287, 288 Tsipras, Alexis, 10, 130, 134, 139, 140, 142–146 Tunisia, 1, 3, 4, 9, 40, 41, 45 Turkey, 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 46, 53–59, 63, 66, 67, 135–137, 139, 140, 281, 282, 284 Tusk, Donald, 120–122 Twitter, 264 “Two Spains”, 240, 241, 254

U Underdog culture, 130, 131, 139, 145 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), 11, 169, 170, 174, 175 and speeches, 174 U.S., 1, 4, 6, 7, 19, 25, 59, 60, 95, 192, 222, 228, 232, 234, 257, 265

V Van Dijk, Teun A., 36, 74, 154, 188, 245

Index Van Gorp, Baldwin, 74, 78, 79, 81, 83, 133, 134, 278–281, 286 Violence, 4, 12, 29, 31, 36, 49, 67, 125, 175, 189, 191, 257, 258, 265, 266, 269, 270, 285, 288, 289 Vocative, 41, 46, 47, 48. See also Appellative

W Weizman, Ezer, 18, 19, 21, 28 Weizmann, Chaim, 29 Welfare Party (WP), 57–62, 67 Westernization, 54, 67, 95, 99

X Xenophobia, 140, 142, 270 Xi, Jinping, 6, 12, 222–224, 226, 229–236, 289, 290

Y Yoshida, Shigeru, 211 Yoshirô, Mori, 211–213, 217

Z Zedong, Mao, 12, 222–224, 226–232, 234– 236, 289 Zionism, 18, 20, 24, 27, 28, 30, 31, 169, 173 Zionist campaign, 171