1schaffner_christina_editor_analysing_political_speeches

At face value, the passage we discuss here thus seems to be a 'logical' part of the first part of her speech. On closer inspection, however, it appears that the first five paragraphs are worded in a descriptive way, as for tone and tenor. This is in accordance with whatto the Dutchis their Queen's normal behaviour.

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Hence, it may count as the normal expectation. The short sketch of the relationship between the Dutch and the Jews is in agreement with other historical narratives that the Queen has uttered on other occasions. The very fact of the development itself, the specific course and direction of this development are the Queen's contribution to the consensus regarding societal norms and values (see pp. 9-11). The description of Dutch historical developments and of the Jewish influence on the Dutch matches the character of a state visit to Israel, provided that one is prepared to go along with the indeterminate position the Queen chooses regarding 'the Jewish people' and 'the state of Israel', the 'Dutch Jews' and 'fellow-citizens' (see below).

The distanced tone of these paragraphs comes to an end when the Queen addresses the period of World War II. In the two paragraphs pertaining to this period, the tone is in accordance with expectations of agenus demonstrativum.This is another reason to consider Paragraphs 6 and 7 as rather special. The content of Paragraph 6 deviates from the pattern of the preceding paragraphs which is only resumed again in Paragraph 8. This deviation marks the relevance of the passage regarding the thematic development.

If we confine ourselves to the way in which the Dutch media covered the Queen's address, and pay attention to the way in which they quoted the Queen's words and embedded those words within their own reports, then we might hypothesise that the enabling or even 'provoking' of those media reactions have been the main purpose of this state visitof course in addition to the ritual performance of actions and the uttering of those words which warrant the representativeness of the state visit. The echoes in the Netherlands clearly suggest this hypothesis.

The Queen complies with the expectations and rules regarding a state visit. However, because she tries to direct Dutch media coverage to the image of the Netherlands in the context of the abominable situation of the Dutch Jews during World War II, she does more than just that. She violates a taboo, she intervenes in existing texts and discourses about this periodin the Netherlands, but in Israel as welland she tries to impose a new discoursal order. Her shift from 'many of our fellow-countrymen' (the Dutch) to 'the exceptional ones' (a few of the Dutch) is aimed at fundamentally changing an ideologically coloured way of talking about the events of the war. The role of 'hero' attributed to the Dutch in stories about the war, is reformulated as an exception. As the Dutch head of state, Queen Beatrix lends her voice to this ideological intervention.By virtue of her function, and on the basis of the pointedness of her words, this intervention amounts to the introduction into the discourse about World War II of an already known, but as yet not publicly and officially uttered, state of affairs. The Queen's formulation is a point of no return. The 'old fashion' of telling war-time stories is out of date, the 'new' story is presented as more complete, precise and honest.

This passage from the speech shows that Queen Beatrix tries to oppose 'emotional' stories and discourses. She acts contrary to the 'populism' which is characteristic of many discursive practices in which experiences about the War are fixed. Her intervention contributes to the

complexity of these discourses. This runs counter to what many ideological interventions aim at. Mostly, those interventions try to simplify a complex reality. The Queen's textespecially the

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passage oriented to media coverageappeals to the Dutch to abandon simplistic practices and to adopt and accept more complex practices.

Apparently the Queen prefers to symbolise the direct contact with her audience, at least as far as Holland is concerned, by considering the mass media as derived from the direct contact (cf. 12-13). In this way, Queen Beatrix contradicts the mass media's preferences for brevity, topicality and increasing frequency. Echoes, and the attempt to control the resounding of these echoes in the Netherlands, confirm the ideological nature of this intervention. At the same time, it gives her the authority to change or influence certain discursive practices in the future.

The weakness of philo-Semitism

Queen Beatrix' address to the Knesset has a peculiar point of departure. Time and again she returns to the topic of Jewishness. This approach has drawbacks as well as advantages. One advantage might be that, by continually referring to 'the Jewish people', she may leave open who in fact belongs to the Jewish people. In any case, her expression refers to Jews in general, Dutchmen,i.e. especially Jewish Dutchmen, but also Dutch Jews, and Israelis,who include the Israeli population, thousands of Dutchmen, the Jewish people, immigrants and the Palestinian population. In this mixture of general Jewish and political Israeli terms, she succeeds in inflating the Dutch part of the Jews and the Jewish part of the Dutch.

At the same time, it gives her the opportunity to formulate the Israeli-Dutch relationship in an uncomplicated way. She does so explicitly in the opening and in the ritualised parts of her address. She does so implicitly in the use of address forms and in descriptions referring to people. The very fact that some formulationssuch as 'Jewish Dutchmen'are opaque in their reference demonstrates the 'special relationship between our peoples' to which she refers at the end of the address.

The Queen's approach has drawbacks as well. Because she does not make a clear distinction between Jews, Dutch, and Israelis, she cannot prevent the term 'Jew' from becoming an instance of indeterminateness (see pp. 9-11). This may be expected for almost all concrete concepts in a representative address. The term 'Jew' becomes an instance of vagueness as well. Being vague, however, is not an asset to an orator. Several formulationsespecially those regarding the development of Israel as a nationare vague in such a way that they seem to make notions or concepts euphemisms:

over the years much has happened and much is changed (Paragraph 9); a new future (10); these developments (11); closer cooperation between you and your neighbours (12); difficult circumstances (13).

These seemingly vague formulations have a distinct function. They convey to the audience that the orator knows what moves the people she is addressing. Hence, the orator consciously decides not to use concrete formulations which might possibly contribute to a conflict of interests.

However, the use of the terms 'Jews' and 'Jewish' does contribute to a conflict of interests.

Clearly, these terms have been deliberately chosen; other possible terms have been rejected. The address shows a shift from potentially neutral

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terms (e.g. 'people', 'citizens', 'countrymen') to potentially partisan terms. This has two main sources: firstly, it results from the above-mentioned indeterminateness. The Queen avoids the use of concrete terms and shifts to the semantics of the audience. Secondly, it results from ideological considerations. Whenever bias has to do with ideology, an orator tries to adopt the dominant ideology which has the approval of the audience. This does not imply the orator's agreement with the ideology. It does imply, however, that it is not precluded that he agrees. At face value, the choice of these ideological formulations may be explained as a form of politeness: the orator uses words which are familiar and agreeable to the audience. 14 He seeks trust and tries to profit from it. Politeness implies the speaker's subjective intentions. But there may be more than just that, namely, ideological motives.

The ideology which in Queen Beatrix' speech determines the choice of appellations for people, is Zionism. There are even traces of a historic form of Zionism, namely references to biblical times and the promised land. (The comparison between the Dutch and the Jews is related to these references). More conspicuous, however, is modern Zionism, which has been the dominant ideology since the founding of the state of Israel. This ideology is characterised by a mixture of religious, racial and national presuppositions. The three pillars are: to adhere to the Jewish religion, to belong to the Jewish race, andafter World War IIto live in Israel. The Queen makes many references to these three pillars.

Zionism arose at the end of the 19th century, mainly because of growing anti-Semitism and was also influenced by general nationalist tendencies. Because every ideology fights a political struggle against competing ideologies, one may often find traces of these anti-ideologies and anti-perspectives. Within Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism have become the anti-ideologies to which Zionism itself is opposed. In her address, the Queen mentions other anti-ideologies, such as 'racism, discrimination and xenophobia' (Paragraph 7). She thus shows that she is sensitive to these forms of ideological struggle and their mechanisms.

Heads of state of those countries which have a friendly relationship with Israel or have a considerable number of Jewish citizens amongst their populations, should avoid taking a position 'on the wrong side' in this ideological struggle. Of course, it would cause outrage if a head of state of a Western European country formulated ideological points of view characteristic of racism or of fascism. On the other hand, in order to show oneself a friend of Israel it appears useful to adopt an anti-anti-Semitic point of view. And that is exactly what happens in this address. Queen Beatrix warns of 'new forms of racism' (Paragraph 7), and she praises Israel for its 'wide varieties of culture' and 'religious diversity' (Paragraph 9).

The address is not overtly Zionist. That would not be tolerated. But any person among the audience who considers himself a Zionist, is not confronted with any unacceptable utterance or point of viewwith one exception, the Queen's appeal for reconciliation (Paragraph 11). A Zionist might even accept this appeal, since it is related to the political future of the state of Israel, and, furthermore, is accepted by many Israelis.

The address may be characterised as philo-Semitic.The Queen uses terms referring to Jews at every possible instance. The term 'to be a Jew' becomes an

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umbrella term, at a higher level than 'to be Dutch' or 'to be Israeli'. The religious and racial meanings of being Jewish are not distinguished, but merged. The dominant picture is thus of a world divided into Jews and non-Jews. Second to this is the division between Dutch and Israeli.

The philo-Semitism thus shown has a catch. Where the real position of Jews is concerned, they are defended against their real or fictitious enemies. A fixed set of clichés is used in the address: Jews as artists, as scientists, as bankers, all contributing to the culture of the Netherlands.

However, two questions are neither formulated nor answered. Did these people make their contributions because they were Jewish or because they were Dutch? To which category did they consider themselves to belong? With a positive intention, a division is assumed which maybe did not exist. For that reason, I contend that the philo-Semitism in the Queen's address is weak.It does not consider distinctions which may be formulated in a different way, and it does not attempt to link Jews in the Netherlands and Jewish Dutchmen in any other way than their Jewishness. The language of the address does not offer the Jews any other perspective than their being Jewish, but this language is used by someone who evidently is not herself Jewish. Here, ideological transformations are at issue which cannot be controlled by the speaker herself.

Problems of perspectivisation

According to Sandig (1996: 37) perspective is defined as 'representing (or constructing) something (an object, a person, a fact, an event, an action, etc.) in aspects for somebody from a given situation, at a certain time'. This definition emphasises certain points. The first point is relevance. To utter some phrases from a certain perspective means that the speaker is ascribing one or more aspects to a thing (or to a matter), in order to give the addressee some (verbal and non-verbal) indications of the speaker's point of view. What is made relevant, then, is the fact that the addressee learns (or accepts) to 'look' in the same way as the speaker. The addressee is enabled to link the purpose of the communication to the aspects the speaker has selected and formulated. In this way, relevance is produced by connecting experiences and expectations to the spatial and temporal context in which the speaker performs his communicative act.

The second point is that perspective does not exist as an isolated principle. On the contrary, if someone produces a sentence bearing a certain perspective, he can do this only by choosing one prespective from many. Perspectivity, then, is always caused by a selection of one from among other perspectives. The condition for such a selection is the fact that objects, events, persons etc. may be seen differently, so that perspectivity is always potentially multiple perspectivity.In order to fit some object within a perspective at all, there must exist a choice among possible perspectives. One must have other perspectives at one's disposal. The term perspectivisation,then, is used in order to pay attention to the communicative procedure of the construction of a certain perspective.

The third point is the dependence of perspective upon the structure and lexicon of a certain language. Generally, there are several possibilities of constructing a perspective within a given

language. In English for instance, metaphors, idioms, verbal aspects, adverbs and other linguistic means form the arsenal a speaker

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might use. Therefore, when one analyses the perspectivisation devices of a text, it is necessary to bear in mind the battery of devices available in the language.

The last point concerns more complex realisations of perspectivisation, such as the change of perspective within a text passage, the doubling of perspective, explicit vs. implicit perspectivisation, and the dynamic of continuous perspectivisation shift. Furthermore, as far as the speaker as an individual is concerned, we may distinguish his point of view from someone else's point of view. Another distinction has to be made as to time: changes of perspective may occur as a now-perspective or a then-perspective.

In sum, perspectivisation is a functional-communicative procedure which can be used to realise complex observations and different point of view relations (Simpson, 1993). These procedures enable an orator to control the audience's attentionsubject to thematic developmentand to commit himself to the specific relevance of a part of the text. In general, perspectivisation belongs to the broad spectrum of pragmatically effective linguistic means an orator may selector, under certain circumstances, is coerced to selectin order to make his audience participate in processes which enable the hearers to (re)construct societal experiences. It is clear, then, that ideological purposes can also be achieved by applying perspectivisation strategies.

Let us now take a closer look at the commemorative paragraphs of Queen Beatrix' Knesset address (for convenience of reference, each sentence has a letter in brackets):

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(a)During the most difficult years of the twentieth century, which has been so filled with disaster, Mokum, alas, proved not to be the safe city its name suggested.

(b)It is not necessary to call to mind here, in this place, the horrors that the Nazi-occupation of 1940-45 brought our country's Jewish population.

(c)Most of our Dutch Jews were carried off to concentration camps where they would eventually meet their death.

(d)We know that many of our fellow-countrymen put up courageous and sometimes successfulresistance, and often, exposing themselves to mortal danger, stood by their threatened fellow men.

(e)During our visit to Yad Vashem yesterday we saw their names too among those remembered forever under the trees planted there.

(f)But we also know that they were the exceptional ones and that the people of the Netherlands could not prevent the destruction of their Jewish fellow-citizens.

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(g)Fifty years after the end of the war we cannot joyfully commemorate the restoration of our freedom without at the same time asking ourselves in bewilderment and dismay how this could have happened.

(h)The recent solemn celebrations at Auschwitz where you, Mr. Chairman, and we were present, evoked those events for us in all their horror.

(i)These atrocious memories are a permanent incitement to us all to