The Greens met at the weekend for the party conference and invoked their value-based politics. Two completely different events at this party conference in Bonn are examples of what to think of it and how full of holes the Green facade is.
What do the Greens want to be? Are you a party that is guided through and through by values, for which symbolism is also important, that makes clear distinctions between good and bad, right and wrong, or are you an association that also finds answers in the gray area of politics, that sometimes let morality be morality?
The Greens were seriously concerned with this question when they were part of a federal government for the first time and supported the NATO mission in Kosovo under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. And it has been in this position again since Putin’s attack on Ukraine at the latest. Since then, their ministers have had to help deliver arms to Ukraine or let coal and nuclear power plants run longer than they wanted. Hard realpolitik.
And yet the Greens try to convey to their often ideology-driven base and above all their voters the image of a party that basically wants to be different from the others, that defends values in foreign and domestic policy and stands up for what is supposedly good . Just like now at the most recent party congress.
Two completely different events at this party conference in Bonn are examples of what to think of it and how full of holes the Green facade is.
There are the German parts and ammunition for the Eurofighter and Tornado fighter jets that are going to Saudi Arabia. The Federal Security Council, including Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, approved the deal as part of a European armaments cooperation. And that despite the fact that the Gulf state is waging a brutal war in Yemen and is taking harsh action against critics of the regime. Baerbock now faced the delicate task of selling this to the party delegates. Your argument is revealing.
Because, among other things, the Foreign Minister said that Germany is simply dependent on such European cooperation and would otherwise have to spend more money on the Bundeswehr. “And I don’t want us to save even more in the social sector and Lisa then no longer have any means for the children who urgently need them.” What was meant was Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus.
Amazing words and an admission that sensible politics is often not that easy and that reality is not based on the noble ideas of the Greens.
The other incident is far less serious, but still fits the picture.
The Greens held a party on Saturday evening. Videos of it quickly circulated on social media. That many guests there obviously didn’t wear masks – for free. Interesting is the song that was played just at the moment when party leader Omid Nouripour showed up at the DJ desk. Namely the song “Jump around” from “House of Pain”.
In this party classic from 1992 it says, among other things. Yo I bust him in the eye, and then I’ll take the punk’s hoe” or: “If your girl steps up , I’m smacking the hoe. Word to your moms, I came to drop bombs” which translates to “If your girl gets up I’ll hit that whore. Tell your mothers I’m here to drop bombs. And further “I never eat a pig, ’cause a pig is a cop” which means something like: “I never eat a pig, because a pig is a cop.”
These passages are misogynistic and glorify violence in general and against police officers in particular. As I said: The song has been going up and down at parties for many years and one can argue about whether it shouldn’t be played at any private party because of these few sentences. But it is strange that he is playing this song at an official party of the Federal Greens in 2022, that many are obviously enjoying it and even the party leader is enthusiastically dancing to it. Just a few hours earlier, at the party conference, Nouripour announced in a trembling voice: “Human rights are women’s rights.”
You have to agree with the Twitter users who ask: “Are you also on the side of the woman from the song you played yesterday?”, or: “Music as old as green ideals” or “I’m glad to see that Greens can also go off to sexist, anti-police and violence-glorifying songs. Double standards are fine.”
In fact: The Greens and morale – it wasn’t that far off at the weekend.
