Felix Banaszak, East Germany and the Safari-Greens

It was a few years ago, in Thuringia there was again a dramatic state election when the then chairman of the Greens, he was called Robert Habeck, published a hopeful Instagram video. He did not stroke any horses in it, but verbally cuddled with the East Germans. And he promised: “We try to do everything so that Thuringia becomes an open, free, liberal, democratic country, an ecological country.”

That was undoubtedly very great from Habeck. Before I accept my school appeal and “friendship!” Called, the SPD member of the Bundestag, who was born in Erfurt, called Carsten Schneider rhetorically through the network: “In which prison have I lived in recent years?”

Now it could be answered that today’s Environment Minister no longer lived in Erfurt, but near his place of work in Berlin. But we are traditionally not petty in this column.

Especially since it is about the Greens, who even shook the video, because Habeck, of course, was “misunderstood”. Of course and in general he didn’t want to deny the extremely valued Thuringia and his loving residents. Never! He meant that the country in which the Greens even coincided a little at that time should “simply become greener and more ecological”.

To prevent legitimate comments: Of course, this pedagogical paternalism is defined, which can be considered democratic, ecological and good – and above all: what not – a universal green phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is particularly pronounced in relation to East Germany.

This was recently very nice again based on the follow -up of Habeck. Felix Banaszak, it is called, was brave in those wild areas that joined the scope of the Basic Law almost 35 years ago. In two of them-Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt-the state parliament will be elected next year. The Greens are somewhere between three and five percent in the surveys there, with a falling trend.

The party leader was apparently aware of the risk of being a political Safari traveler during his eastern trip. The green pattern is too well known: once across the reserve, take a few solar and antifa and bioagrar projects with you, and then quickly back to the homely capital.

That is why Banaszak struggled to diversity visiting. In addition to visits to the socio -cultural center in Döbeln and the CSD in Neubrandenburg, he invited the natives to beer in Eisenach or in Halle an der Saale. And he even visited a small glass company on the Rennsteig, which suffers from high electricity prices.

In the Saxon Freiberg, according to the noisy Monday demonstrators, the chairman encountered this, documented by the attentive “taz” reporter:

And Zack: learned something again.

In fact, under Banaszak, the Greens are more eastern sensitive than ever. “Did we give up the east – or the east to us?” He asked in a recently published strategy paper. The defiant answer: “Neither nor.”

All sorts of requests followed themselves: more presence, representation and “politics at eye level”, and yes, even a bit of peace. The party should “resist the temptation to intervene to the freedom and self -determination of people too.”

It all sounded self -reflected and humble – but also a little helpless. This was one of the notoriously tortured sentences: “In the future, MPs and board members should be targeted by East German state and district associations and offer low-threshold formats to increase the presence.” For that it should be one Board Advisory Board “Alliance Green East” and a “Mentoring program East “.

The central recent proposal of the federal leadership is therefore an extended studio program for Safari-Grüne. Even in the party, subtle skepticism can be felt. The Green member of the Bundestag Paula Piechotta from Leipzig wrote: “More Wessis on a visit to the east may not be the best recipe for success.”

So it is. The fact that the Greens in East Germany are not available in places are not available that cannot be visited away. They are structural: lots of land, little city, hardly any educational bourgeoisie, less prosperity. And they are historical. Because in 1990 the FRG-Greens did not swallow a GDR block party with a large membership file, all sorts of branches and many opportunities, but the already marginalized but notoriously bulky civil rights activists from Bündnis 90.

As a result, they were mostly in the eastern Parliamentary Opposition, which led to the fact that they were underrepresented in the overall party in the overall party. The Greens became more western centers than most other parties. And they stayed it.

Back back to my democratic Thuringia. Madeleine Henfling competed there for the Greens for the state election last year. The party even belonged to the state government. But her own environmental minister had already fled the economy with singing false songs. After that, the head of the state had motored down the Minister of Justice in order to create space in the cabinet for himself.

So there was a certain proportion of the subsequent election defeat. Nevertheless, the crash had to do 3.2 percent primarily with the national trend, with the traffic lights, the heating law and the, let’s say it like this: general unpopularness of the Greens.

Henfling thought for a few months after the expulsion from the state parliament and then published a 23-page paper together with other East German politicians in which a “radical change of course” is required. And this change of course means: “More social justice, more economic perspectives, more closeness to people”. And: “Less moral superiority, less arrogance, less self -employment”.

There is nothing to add. Except: Please all over Germany!