Yes, We Cem - Is German Green party leader Cem Ozdemir Europe's Obama?

Rare is the politician who cites Ali G to explain a touchy situation. Cem Ozdemir, co-chairperson of Germany's Green Party, was detained by security personnel upon his stateside arrival at Washington's Dulles International Airport recently. No official explanation has been given concerning Ozdemir's holdup, but the assumption can be made that a non-Germanic name on the passenger manifest raised concerns. "I was ready to joke 'is it because I'm black?' but knew it wouldn't help circumstances."

Ozdemir's lack of indignation about this incident reflects why he is being called the European Obama. His political resume is noteworthy. He was the first person of Germany's sizeable ethnic Turkish population to serve in the Bundestag from 1994-2002. Questions about mishandling travel vouchers propelled Ozdemir into a different environment, the European Parliament in Brussels. Over the past seven years he has represented the Green Party's interests there. His November 2008 appointment to lead the Greens is deemed a breakthrough in Europe's cultural politics. Despite changing demographics caused by a half century of migration, European legislatures have minimal ethnic or racial representation.

Ozdemir prefers de-emphasizing his minority background however. "I don't want to be involved in a discussion of where you came from," he stated at a recent luncheon in New York. "A message shouldn't be predetermined by whether my name is Hans, Claus or Ali." "He's a young, smart guy who won't be defined by the ethnic issue," a German political analyst observed. "If Obama symbolizes a post-racial political sensibility, then Ozdemir's is post-ethnic."

The actual “Obama” in Germany....is Guido Westerwelle...a center to right political figure and chief of the FDP party (number three in German politics). The German woke up six months ago and realized that he’s the only national figure with charasma. Ever since then...the Democrats of Germany and the Greens....have slide a couple of points.

The curious thing about Guido...is that he’s gay but his primary agenda is tax reform, help for business operations, and cutting government cost. If you had all of the top figures of each party up on a platform...this is the only person who’d get real applause and keep the crowd focused.

AFAIK he IS a Muslim, but married to a German-Argentinian journalist who is a Catholic. In his defense to what SolidWood said, he was for making Turkish available as a secondary/tertiary language choice instead of English, French or Italian. It still begs the question why Polish shouldn't come first, seeing that there are probably nearly as many Poles in Germany as there are Turkish people.

The Greens are struggling anyway at the moment. They have lost most of their noticeable faces, or those faces have had to do some real governing, had to compromise and are now considered unelectable by the more radical fractions because they supported stuff like the Kosovo war when they were in power. Additionally, their main agenda, green issues, which they introduced into the everyday politics (and that is on the whole probably more a good thing than a bad thing even though there are now excesses in pushing that agenda), that main agenda has been accepted and integrated by most other parties to some degree. Everyone supports searching for alternative energy sources (although still split about stopping to use nuclear power). And while not everyone is a radical environmentalist (environment ueber alles etc.), the environment is a factor to be considered by everyone now.

These developments can be considered huge successes of the Green movement, and on the whole I would rather congratulate than condem them for that. However, after the issue has been introduced into mainstream politics, that led to a strong loss of profile for the Greens. Additionally, their administration supported the Kosovo war, which contradicted their pacifist agenda, resulting in another profile loss.

The Green party is not strong at the moment. While Cem Özdemir has foot-in-mouth diesase sometimes (see the Turkish as language choice thing), he is still one of the more profiled Green politicians and a more realistic choice as a future leader than the batshit crazy Claudia Roth or the weedsmoking radical Ströbele.

The Green party will never supply the Chancellor though, it is a small party and aims to push their issues through coalition rule with a bigger party, until now only the SPD, as it is usually done in Germany.

Guido Westerwelle is definitely an interesting figure. The FDP is what would be called a liberal party in Germany, meaning a liberty-oriented party, that supports a free market, small state solutions, government intrusion into the space of the individual, stem cell research, and so on.

The FDP are going strong at the moment, and they may even improve their lead over the Greens and come closer to the Linke, which would probably mean a decline in votes for the CDU though. I still wish them all the best, they have rarely allowed their agenda to become watered down and while I do not agree with all they say, I am honestly thinking about voting for them next time.

I know, but I am unfortunately not kidding. I have always had a fondness for Seehofer on a personal level, call me crazy, but he is typical Bavarian and often reminds me of my father. Of course, his little extracurricular romantic activity in Berlin put me off, but I still had confidence that he would be better than he has.

However, his actions since taking over CSU has turned me away from him. I do not like his pursuits relating with executive pay and his flip-flop on health care angered me. I didn't care for Huber, so I was hoping that Seehofer would be an improvement. However, he has only been an unpredictable cannon, so now I will not be voting CSU for the first time in my life. I think driving whatever free-marketers are left into the arms of FDP will be his legacy.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.