Of course, one can get upset now about alleged migrant quotas, a foreign politician as a peasant minister and the misery of the Greens. Shortly before the green yes to the traffic light government, a real bar fight broke out in the party. Faction leader Toni Hofreiter has fought with ex-party leader Cem Özdemir for the post of agriculture minister and the party left with the realos. The green harmony furniture of the past few years broke. And if so. The result was the right decision. Finally.
Sixty years after the recruitment agreement of the old Federal Republic of Germany, a son of Turkish guest workers will become Federal Minister in Germany for the first time in Cem Özdemir. This is not just a historic turning point, but an overdue step. The descendants of Muslim immigrants have long been the most important minority in the country, and it is growing steadily. In a number of major German cities, immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the population. At the same time, many of them, across all social classes, are fighting against everyday racism and the prejudice that they do not belong. It cannot and must not stay that way.
There is no democracy without representation of the many
If Germany wants to catch up with other western industrial nations, in which diversity in the state and higher administration has been part of everyday life for decades, Özdemir faces must become a matter of course in top positions. Because there is no democracy without representation of the many. For decades, the majority society fearfully barricaded itself behind the claim that Germany was not a country of immigration. It wasn’t just untruthful. As a result, serious and unmistakable educational disadvantages in migrant milieus were negligently neglected – and were able to grow all the faster.
Cem Özdemir is someone who made it out of a migrant-Swabian working-class youth. He now serves the next generation as a Sherpa. A Turkish name can accompany a person to the top of the state, even after serious professional defeats, is the message. She is important. Agriculture Minister Özdemir is therefore not incontestable – and unfortunately not an expert on farming either. We wish the Greens a lot of fun with this cross-head, which is gifted but often unforgiving. He will not only deal with angry women farmers, but also with party friends from the left wing. You’re pissed off. Understandably.
For Robert, Annalena, Toni, Steffi and Anne everything would have been perfect
The Green Party leaders screwed up the ministerial affair. Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, of all people, who have been talking about intercultural diversity for years, put this diversity aside when it came to securing their own government posts and those of the closest green leadership. The government departments were negotiated in such a way that it suited Robert, Annalena, Toni, Steffi and Anne. It would have been a team, white like the fifties, but not communicable in 2021. The noise shortly before the goal was self-inflicted by the Greens, the personnel planning amateurish. It robbed the qualified environmental politician Toni Hofreiter of an interesting job. But heart and soul must flow, also green, if this country wants to arrive in the present. It’s time.