Back once again with another translation by yours truly for the A&N audience. You might've read the recent stepping down of the Green Party leadership, followed by the implosion of their even more radically left-wing youth organization. This is a follow-up and possible look into the future. Source [A]
The Green Party switch
Another article on a switch maneuver.
Or: Why Lang, Nouripour [the two chairpersons of the Green Party on the national level] and the Grüne Jugend [Green Party junior organization] had to make a quick exit.
The WELT: "I can no longer ignore my daughter's experiences" - Özdemir Demands New Direction in Immigration [Cem Özdemir is one of the most well-known Green Party politicians and also current Minister of Agriculture]
In a guest contribution at the FAZ, Cem Özdemir (Green Party) reports that his daughter is being sexually harassed by young immigrant men in Berlin. Her female friend, on the other hand, allegedly is a victim of racist attacks. The Minister of Agriculture demands a change in immigration policy.
Ah, yes.
If the East Germans complain about immigration, they're all shameful Nazis and fascists. But if your own daughter complains about getting harassed in Berlin, you need to act immediately.
Hilarious: Özdemir's daughter complains about young immigrant men. But this is a very frequently observed phenomenon, that first generation immigrants are the ones who complain the most about today's immigration. This seems to be the original article in the FAZ: Language, Work, and Adherence to the Law
A few years ago, my daughter, together with a female friend, spent a few days at a campsite in Mecklenburg [North East Germany] at the Baltic Sea. Her friend, same age, has got a father who's from Tanzania; you can tell by the color of her skin that she's not a descendant of bright-red-haired Vikings.
It's only been a short holiday trip. After 24 hours, the group from Berlin escaped because nasty stares were followed by vilification and insults; racist swears that I don't want to repeat in writing here. The perpetrators were especially youths, even kids, who, as a group, were so hurtful to her. My daughter doesn't want to drive back to the Baltic Sea anytime soon.
In Berlin, however, she's facing completely different struggles as a young woman. When she's out and about in the city, it happens frequently that she or her female friends get uncomfortably stared at or sexualized by immigrant men. And, yes, the retort that the risk of sexual harassment is allegedly much higher in partnerships and within the family is just as correct as the one that it's everywhere, and not just the Baltic Sea, that you can get racist insults. But statistics won't do as a retort for lived experience. Lectures won't win against experience. There is no reason to put up with this molestation, neither at the Baltic Sea nor in Berlin.
Against such offenses, she, like many women, built up the proverbial thick skin. But I can tell how it's bothering her. And how disappointed she is that the reason won't get talked about more directly: the patriarchal structures and the role of women in many Islamic countries. [highlighted by the author of the opinion piece, not in the source itself]
[...]
We used to have such exclusion clauses - and they greatly harmed the emancipatory movement in the Federal Republic of Germany. I'm talking about the discussions among the political left wing about human rights in the GDR, the older readers will probably remember. For the younger ones: In the 70s or 80s, if you as a left-winger complained about the authoritarian situation in East Germany, if you demanded freedom of speech and freedom of travel, you very likely got hit by the following sentence: "You mustn't say that, this is useful for the right wingers!"
I can't ignore the experiences of my daughter. As a father, I don't want to, as a politician, I mustn't. If we want to provide a response to what she experiences and what drives her in her daily life, we must first and foremost do one thing: real talk. See and name reality. And admit that we've made ourselves way too comfortable in the echo chamber of our own self-assurance - left wing as well as right wing.
Now you can read a lot of things from this, because there are many things in there.
What's in there is that the Green fetish for immigration has already taken on a life on its own and no longer rests on the matter itself, but solely on the fight "against the right". So they already are obliged to be in favor of immigration because admitting that it's become unstoppable is "useful for the right wingers".
But now, a turning point seems to have been reached.
Not only that the voters - especially badly: the young ones - are running away from them and that they're dying on a hill which isn't even their own hill, but a hill which was brought into the party by leftist orcs. But also because the realization is settling in that immigrants are worse than "the right wingers". The narrative isn't working any longer.
And, in principle, Özdemir only speaks of himself and his daughter as a token. It's a metaphor for the Green Party and the youth. They allegedly wanted to protect her from right wingers, but, in doing so, didn't notice that immigration is a much bigger burden and danger for the youth than "the right wingers" - and that is why the youth is voting right and not green.
Özdemir says that, as a politician, he needs to listen to his daughter. In reality, he means that the Greens need to listen to the youth.
And in doing so, he makes a statement and initiated a change of direction for the Green Party in the media: away from unconditional and unlimited immigration. It looks like they're not safe in Baden-Wuerttemberg either. [BW is one of the largest states of Germany, and the one in which the Green Party had the most electoral success in the past 20 years]
And that should be a main reason why Lang and Nouripour had to leave, and pretty sure also why the Grüne Jugend has left - in part they even said that they're leaving because of the changes in immigration polics.
Apparently, the Green Party are making a big change of direction which seems to be footed on three causes,
and thus, the ones who were in the way had to go.
- Uncontrollable immigration in the green state Baden-Wuerttemberg
- Exodus of young voters
- Compatibility with the CDU
It looks a lot like a big internal dispute between the left-wing caucus and the realist caucus.
But something else seems to play a role as well: Winfried Kretschmann is 76 years old and steps down for the next election. [minister-president of BW for 13 years now, one of the most well known Green politicians] The realist caucus wants the successor to be Özdemir, the left-wingers want Lang instead (which doesn't even work because, in Baden-Wuerttemberg, for the post of minister-president there is a minimum age and not a minimum weight, but Thuringia has just shown us how quickly such details can be changed when necessary). So it looks like Özdemir has entered election campaigning mode and is now trying to not repeat the Greens' mistakes in Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Saxony, or else the Greens are even in danger of ceasing to be in the position of strongest party in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
It seems as if the election results have internally boldened the realists and helped them change course against the left wingers.
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