When it comes to Afghanistan, Zahra Mohammadi can really get angry. The 19-year-old from Bad Neustadt an der Saale moves from the eventful history of the country to the status quo in just a few sentences. “The country is below zero again,” she says. In the past, when she herself was still living in the Middle East, she always said: One day I will become President of Afghanistan. Today she still has the urge to make a difference. “Co-decided, participate,” she says, looking resolutely into the camera on her laptop. It’s just easier said than done.
Every fifth person in Bavaria has a migration background, and it will be in 2024 according to forecasts be one in four. And yet the disadvantages run like a red thread through people’s lives. If Zahra Mohammadi fit the average, she would live in a smaller apartment, more likely than others to attend middle school and tend to be more likely to repeat the class. She’d rather leave school without a degree earn lesschoose less often go and yourself contribute less politically and charitably.
The diversity of the Bavarian population is not reflected in parliament. who through the List of deputies in the Bavarian state parliament scrolls, only finds a handful of foreign-sounding names. Six of the 205 MPs have a migration background – that is, every 34th or almost three percent. In contrast, nine MPs have the classic German first name Martin and six MPs are called Markus.
Arif Taşdelen’s parents were illiterate
“As far as equal opportunities are concerned, we’re still living in the Stone Age,” says Nuremberg’s Arif Taşdelen (SPD), one of the few MPs with a migration background. When he was eight years old, his mother came to Bavaria with him from Anatolia. His parents were illiterate. He became the first migrant from Middle Franconia to run for the state parliament. “There was great fear in the party that the German would not vote for someone with a foreign name,” he says. He then won his candidacy in a duel against another applicant.
So that more people like him get involved in politics, the Frankfurt-based “Start” foundation awards scholarships to schoolchildren with a migration background, and for several years now also to those from Bavaria. One of the recipients is Zahra Mohammadi. A 19-year-old with hair dyed light blonde, silver hoops and a penchant for Denglish. She grew up as a member of an Afghan minority in Iran, helped her mother with tailoring in the factory and was otherwise well advised to cover herself properly. In 2016, the family fled west and ended up in Bad Neustadt an der Saale in Lower Franconia.
There she quickly integrated with the help of volunteers, learned the language, got one of the best middle school degrees and became Bavarian runner-up in kickboxing. Just getting involved was not so easy in the city of 15,000. “I missed a community that inspires me,” she says. So she applied to the Start Foundation. Since last autumn she has been attending seminars on topics such as personal development, social entrepreneurship and democracy with her twelve Bavarian colleagues.
You and the other young people from countries like Hungary, Albania and Egypt should develop and network, become self-confident and later get involved in politics and civil society. In this way, the foundation wants to strengthen diversity at decision-making levels and thus social cohesion. A model alumnus is Kassem Taher Saleh, a native of Iraq who was elected to the Bundestag for the Greens. “When I see that these people have made it, I will definitely make it too,” says Mohammadi.
Children with a migration background usually attend middle school
So far, only a few people with a migration background have managed to get into the Bavarian state parliament, most of them belong to the Greens. For example, the spokesman for strategies against right-wing extremism, Cemal Bozoglu, who was born in Istanbul. Or Gülseren Demirel, born in Malatya, Turkey, and a member of the legal committee. The deputy for Munich-Moosach, Benjamin Adjei, was born in Tegernsee, his father is from Ghana. The family of Christoph Skutella (FDP) moved from Poland to the Upper Palatinate, two free voters have a Sudeten German background, but that doesn’t count in the statistics. Minister of Agriculture Michaela Kaniber (CSU) is the daughter of Croatian guest workers. And of course Arif Taşdelen (SPD) from Anatolia.
During a report from 2018 draws a fundamentally positive picture of Bavarian integration work, Taşdelen still sees many deficits, especially in education. On the phone, he grumbles about the extremely unequal transfer rate in his Nuremberg constituency, about too few surveys and the conditions at secondary schools. In fact, these are long Collection pool for young people with a migration background. Almost 60 percent of immigrant eighth graders attend middle school, compared to just 20 percent of those without. While every third person without an immigrant background makes it to high school, not even every fifth person makes it to the rest. “We need many more multi-professional teams,” says Taşdelen.
Zahra Mohammadi is also critical of the school system. “School is a place where grades are made,” she says. The topics often seem unreal to her. But the scholarship helped her see that there were other things out there. Topics worth fighting for. She is currently in the middle of her vocational diploma. Next year she would like to graduate with the regular Abitur, then study in a big city and network there. It’s important, she says, that it’s not just Germans who are up there in politics planning things: “The country is colorful.”