Will Lützerath become a turning point for the Greens? What is the relationship between the green establishment and the activist climate movement? And what does, in view of the disloyalty of Green members of the Bundestag, mean loyalty to one’s own management staff?
The Greens now have a lot to clarify. Because wanting to be both government and opposition at the same time is unacceptable. Because it is unacceptable to accuse the police of “violence” in a drastic reversal of the perpetrator-victim logic, even though they exclusively enforce the law. And because it is also unacceptable to place subjective morality above the law, as self-proclaimed, sometimes violent “climate savers” do in Lützerath.
The question is already circulating as to whether “Lützerath” is the “Hartz IV moment” of the Greens. In other words, whether the same thing is happening to them in the Lower Rhine mud as the SPD, which alienated its own members over an overdue reorganization of a welfare state that can no longer be financed.
The alienation, of which a Green member of the Bundestag has already spoken, is palpable. In the case of the young, female members of parliament who were involved in Lützerath, however, it is first of all an estrangement from themselves. In the Bundestag they voted for the deal with RWE, which also provided for the demolition of the uninhabited village, and then against them on the spot decision to take a stand. It was an act of political schizophrenia and left-wing populism.
But that’s just not possible, you can’t say a few weeks later that you’ve suddenly become wiser because of new facts. All the facts were on the table with the RWE deal – earlier coal phase-out, rescue of five villages, demolition of Lützerath. Everyone who voted on this in the German Bundestag knew what they were doing.
And it is also not known that there was a “group coercion”. Ms. Slawik and Ms. Henneberger could have voted against the RWE deal in parliament without being penalized. You didn’t do it. And when they protested in Lützerath against their own decision, they opted for their own political irresponsibility. Because responsibility consists in standing by the decisions that you have made, even in the face of headwinds. And not to hit the bushes in front of rowdy crowds who hurl against a “betrayal”.
The leaders of the Greens, Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour, must now clarify what it means to be “green” in the face of this unprecedented process. Making democratic compromises in the interests of climate protection, or chasing climate absolutism whose business model is the conjured up apocalypse. And by the way, it’s also about loyalty – namely to your own top staff in federal and state ministries who are responsible for this policy. Lang can do it on “Anne Will” tonight. She is invited there, as are Neubauer and Greta Thunberg.
Also to be clarified is the relationship between the Greens and people like Thunberg, who just swam to the scene of the riots, condemned the Greens outright, put the police under general suspicion of violence and slavery to capitalists – as RWE bailiffs – and then to float away again. It was exactly right that and how the Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach – a Green – countered these impertinences. Ms. Thunberg primarily had her own role in the press in mind – true.
The Greens need to clarify what they want the representatives of their youth organization to get away with. Basically, Timon Dzienus, the federal spokesman for the Green Youth, seriously denied the political ability of the two climate ministers Robert Habeck and Mona Neubaur, who stand for the lignite phase-out deal. There was already a party exclusion procedure for the Greens for less – see Boris Palmer.
Hartz IV was able to damage the Social Democrats to such an extent for many years because it was a decision made out of a bad conscience. Because the SPD leadership never explained why “Challenging and promoting” was a good idea, but above all a social democratic one. The Greens now have it in their own hands whether the same thing happens to them with “Lützerath” as the Reds did with Hartz IV.
The Greens have good arguments to oppose this climate movement, which has now become dangerously out of control. Without the pressure that the climate movement has built up over the years, the decision to phase out lignite would have been so unthinkable. It was her success too.
Habeck and Neubaur saved five villages, and North Rhine-Westphalia is phasing out lignite eight years ahead of schedule. And Lützerath is long dead, the deal with RWE has not driven out a living village. The people who moved from here received a lot of money from RWE, which they could use to buy more modern and definitely more climate-friendly houses than the ones they lived in before.
In truth, the Greens must decide whether their craft is the art of the possible or empty slogans. The Greens have to decide whether they want to be politicians. Or symbolic politician.
