A Shaky Easel of German Colors

By Victor Grossman
Berlin Bulletin No. 33,
October 7, 2011
Published by Portside

Discussing German politics requires a broad canvas, for
small portraits of Berlin's mayor or big murals
depicting the euro crisis, high finance and "occupy Wall
Street" in Germany.

Big parties here have color symbols. Black is for
Merkel's two (clerically based) Christian parties.
Somehow her fading Free Democrat partners always use
yellow (with no bad connotations in German) and the
Social Democrats red, causing confusion since the
younger Left party is also Red - and calls the older
party "a paler pink". There's no color yet for the
suddenly successful Pirates party; its fifteen deputies
in Berlin (only one is female) have thus far failed to
display any political positions.

One party's color was always clear: the Greens. Green in
German stands not for jealousy or envy but for hope.
Here in Berlin, however, this hope rapidly switched to
envy after all.

Last spring, buoyed by big successes resulting from
atomic fears after the Fukushima disaster, Greens hoped
to win in Berlin's elections and gain the mayor's
office. But their main candidate, the once so
charismatic Renate Kuenast, rapidly lost favor and came
in third, while Mayor Klaus Wowereit's Social Democrats
again won first place. For ten years his party shared
rule with the Left as junior partners, who have a strong
base in East Berlin. But this coalition hurt the Left
far more than it helped them. Their meager results (11.7
percent), even with the Social Democrats' 28.3 percent,
did not add up to a needed majority.

The Greens shouted "Hurrah, the Red-Red coalition lands
in the ashcan". At last they would get into the cabinet,
if only as junior partners. They began to calculate
which of their leaders should get which cabinet post.

But alas. One of their election demands was ecological:
no new highway slicing through eastern Berlin, despite a
Federal offer of millions for its construction. But
Wowereit said, "We need such modern traffic routes". The
quarrel about 3 kilometers  of roadway went back and
forth in Berlin's red-brick City Hall, several
compromises were offered, but after a week Wowereit said
"This autobahn will be built!" and shut the door. He
never liked the wobbly Greens anyway. So even their
hoped-for junior share in city rule was wiped off the
canvas - with all those cabinet seats and perks.

Now Wowereit and his crew (many of them very
unwillingly) are negotiating a coalition with the
second-place party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). The
red and black result now seems certain. Many gains
achieved in the past ten years, often due to pressure
from the Left, may be weakened or go down the drain,
like the improving school system (with less tracking),
the integration of immigrant groups, job creation
measures and leniency towards the jobless.

The Left warned in its campaign that only more votes for
it could guarantee that the CDU stayed out of power. But
it could just not convince enough voters. Critics in the
party blamed this on its weak compromises on questions
like rising rents and gentrification.

This unexpected turn can sharply discolor national
politics. Wowereit, graying but still debonair and very
popular, was seen - till now - as a left-leaning Social
Democrat who might head a Green-SPD coalition after
national elections in 2013 and the expected downfall of
an eroding Merkel and the decease of her yellowed Free
Democrat partners. But if he now teams up with the
Christians in Berlin might he not do that again,
repeating the painful "grand coalition" of the two
biggest parties from 2005 to 2009?

That would again leave the Greens out in the cold. Some
critics would not shed many tears; once daringly
leftwing views have paled to what, to keep to the
metaphor, could be called wishy-washy aquamarine. As
members of the government from 1998 to 2005 they sent
bombers to Serbia and Afghanistan and joined in many
anti-social measures.

What happens in the coming months and years may be of
crucial importance not just to Germany or Europe but to
the world. By successfully pushing its cars, machines,
chemicals and other exports to all continents - and
weapons, too, from pistols and machineguns to tanks and
submarines - Germany managed to squeak through the
distress hitting so many countries. This also meant
keeping wages stagnant, pushing a few million into low-
paid, precarious jobs, cutting social benefits and thus
underselling rivals.

But with so many countries choosing "austerity" as a
quack snake oil cure, thus suffocating consumer demand,
this advantage is diminishing. And with banks heavily
involved in making profits in countries like Greece but
now threatened with losses or worse, German economists
are getting frightened. Merkel's hold is shaky, danger
signals fill the air. A main one is the growing fascist,
racist movements all over Europe, mostly against Muslims
and Roma (Gypsies). The Nazis, though still limited in
Germany, gather in the wings for a downturn.

And what about the Left? With 76 Bundestag delegates and
still polling over 20 percent in most of eastern Germany
it is the only party of any size with a clean record
against military adventures and anti-social measures.
But it is aging and has failed to gain new strength. The
media was always hostile, quick and clever. But it
offered too many self-made targets and quarrels. One
wing, stronger in the East, always hopes to join ruling
coalitions in the states or even at the top in 2013 in
case Greens and Social Democrats need more deputy votes
to gain a majority. This has become less likely, but
party "reformers" wish to avoid a total ban on
privatizing state-owned utilities or housing, rejection
of any foreign use of the military and overly loud calls
for socialism which might stymy chances to get invited
by the others.

The other wing demands sharp positions on such issues
and no compromises on basic principles. Its position was
improved by the Left's losses in the Berlin election
which prove, it is said, that not coalition but
opposition is needed. Only one state, Brandenburg, still
has a "red-red" coalition of Social Democrats and the
Left.

A central  figure in this debate is again Oskar
Lafontaine, whose cancer treatment dictated his
withdrawal to his own little West German state of
Saarland. Now, cured, he may reemerge as a nation-wide
leader, with a position generally against the
"reformers". Much depends on the program conference at
the end of October, which could lead to a united drive
to win back influence all over Germany, so damaged in
the past year, but also to a nasty split.

Meanwhile the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, mushrooming
in the USA, is sending spores across the ocean. There
will be an attempt to match it in German cities on at
least one day, October 15th. It too will attack the
banks and the whole ruling 1 percent and will surely
demand a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Lafontaine and
others have issued calls to support it. If it grows, it
can shake lots of boats or, to stick to my metaphor,
easels. It would seem crucially necessary for the Left
to support it and to grow with it.

___________________________________________

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