ArchiveNovember-December 2010 Politics
On being a man
The radical transformation of society confuses African males – By Aernout Zevenbergen
The most enjoyable questions are, I have come to learn, those to which I have no answers. Or better: no ‘simple’ answers. “Where can I, as a man, in an era of security companies and laws, still vent my aggression? How can I surf the waves of my testosterone, and get away with it, without hurting anyone in the process? How can I be a man?”
These questions were raised during a recent presentation of my book, “Spots of a Leopard – on being a man” in the garden of the British High Commissioner in Nairobi. The event had been organized as a so-called teaser to the grand literary get-together of the StoryMoja/Hay Festival taking place in the Kenyan capital.
One Mesut to bind them all
Why Chancellor Merkel hurried to a football hero in his locker room – By Lutz Lichtenberger
As Germans keep arguing about integration, Angela Merkel tries to please everyone. In one and the same speech, she dismissed the notion of a multicultural society while affirming that Islam is part of Germany.
Germany’s political photo of the year shows a football player in the locker room. The reason that practically every newspaper in the country ran it was because national team player Mesut Özil had stripped off his jersey before shaking hands with Chancellor Angela Merkel. No one asked if it was appropriate. Merkel certainly didn’t care. She got the photo op she wanted.
A political train wreck?
The fight over Stuttgart’s main rail station could derail Angela Merkel’s chancellorship – By Heribert Prantl
If the CDU loses the Baden-Württemberg regional elections in March, it might spell the end of the Merkel era. On the other hand, such an outcome might make entirely new governing coalitions possible.
A carved wooden figure of Saint Florian adorns many churches and chapels in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, is often shown holding a small pitcher of water, which he is pouring over the roof of a burning building.
Heiner Geissler, now 80 and secretary general of the CDU during the 1980s, has been given the role of St. Florian. He has been summoned to put out the firestorm of protest that has erupted over a grandiose plan to completely revamp Stuttgart’s main station and with it, the entire downtown area called “Stuttgart 21.” At the same time, the CDU and Chancellor Merkel hope he will be able to ensure that the party retains power in Baden-Württemberg.
Ahead of the pack
The German economy is growing, consumer spending stirring – By Peter H. Koepf
Cut taxes, hike wages – that was what French Economics Minister Christine Lagarde and IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn called on the German government to do last spring. They urged Germany to stop relying so strongly on its exports and to put more money in people’s pockets instead. If Germans bought more goods – French ones perhaps? – it would help reduce trade imbalances, ran the argument. Recently, Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury, took the same line. In the run-up to the G-20 meeting in Korea, he proposed a limitation of export surpluses to four percent of GNP.
The Gadschos are the problem
Germany’s Gypsies are attentively following the debate on the East European Roma – By Ruediger Rossig
Italy and France deported some Roma to Bulgaria and Romania this year. After criticism from the EU, French President Sarkozy noted that Germany also deports Roma. Chancellor Merkel disputes that.
In the Wedding district of Berlin, multiculturalism is alive and kicking. The Turkish vegetable market is located next door to an Asian shop and a typical German pub. On the street, people speak Serbo-Croatian and Romani, the language of the Gypsies, who call themselves Sinti in Western Europe and Roma in the eastern regions.
“Every day, around 30 people come to us,” said Pavao Hudik, 58, a psychologist who came to Berlin as a war refugee from Croatia at the beginning of the 1990s and runs the Contact Center for Roma from the former Yugoslavia. “Of course Roma are deported from Germany but to Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo and not to EU countries.”
Construction site: democracy
The rejection of big infrastructure projects is a rebellion against politicians – By Wolfgang Mulke
The grassroots protest against a new rail station in Stuttgart was just the beginning. Resistance is forming against other big projects. Who’s running the country, anyway?
Germany is witnessing a phenomenon hardly seen in the past 20 years. Across the country, citizens’ initiatives are organizing, intent on stopping large and not-so-large infrastructure projects. The groups have names like “Headwind,” “Danger High Tension” and “Living in Stuttgart.” Their enemies are overhead power lines, a giant bridge across the Baltic or new commercial flight corridors.
The last time a wave of popular protest crashed over the country, in the 1970s, it left a strong mark. The Green Party was born, permanently changing the balance of power in the old West Germany by attracting voters from the Social Democratic constituency. This time, many of the activists come from the camp of the governing Christian Democrats. Opinion polls suggest that this party is facing a serious erosion of its base.
Ill-advised
Political consulting in Germany has been a fringe activity for the past 50 years – By Jochen Thies
Political consulting, a time-honored practice in the US, is considered a luxury in Germany. Not only is it unpopular – many politicians consider it superfluous.
When former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced his final “no” to German participation in the Iraq War on Jan. 21, 2003 in Goslar, a very small circle had helped him to make the decision. The Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Defense were left out of the process and external consultants didn’t play a role.
Let them in!
All EU countries need immigration – and the European Union urgently requires uniform immigration policies – By Daniel Bax
Germany is doing away with itself” is a claim that has caused much controversy in recent weeks. It’s the title of a book by former Bundesbank board member and SPD politician Thilo Sarrazin warning of the supposed dangers of immigration. It has sold more than 750,000 copies and triggered a sometimes-hysterical debate over integration and immigration.
A safety net for the euro
EU leaders have agreed to treaty change. But small member states are unhappy – By Daniela Weingärtner
The lawyers had a field day at the October summit of EU leaders in Brussels. Their job, as so often, was to find the right words for the final declaration that everyone would agree to.
Germany – a country of emigration
We don’t need more immigrants from alien cultures.” That statement from Horst Seehofer, Bavarian premier and leader of the Christian Social Union, speaks volumes about an ongoing debate in Germany.
It does at least imply that Germany needs some immigrants from somewhere, a view that conservative politicians have only recently adopted and one they don’t generally like to air in public. For years the mantra was “Germany is not a country of immigration.”
The “alien cultures” Seehofer was referring to are Turkish and Arab. His remarks echoed comments by the Social Democrat politician Thilo Sarrazin in his book “Germany is Doing Away With Itself.” Sarrazin was sacked from the board of Germany’s central bank following publication of the book, which also took aim at Muslims in Germany.
Gentle persuasion
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle wants to push the UN Security Council to “reflect the realities of our time,” he said after his country’s election to a non-permanent seat on the council. Latin America and Africa must receive permanent seats and the under-representation of Asia must come to an end, he added. Over the longer term, the European Union should also gain one of the permanent seats on the council currently reserved for the US, Russia, China, France and Britain.