For the first time in German history
3 Africans join the German parliament
Awet Tesfaisos is an Eritrean refugee who is a member of the Bundestag.
From the source
Armand Zorn.
From the source
Karamba Diaby.
From the source
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For the first time in German political history, there are three representatives of African origin in the Bundestag, so what do they want to achieve?
Armand Zorn was completely calm when he delivered his first speech in the Bundestag, the subject of which was "tax policy", which is his field of expertise.
"Yes, I have been a bit calm, because if I am nervous, I will not be able to present this issue in the way I want," says the 33-year-old management consultant, who was elected to parliament last September.
Struggle for social justice
Born in Cameroon, Zorn was 12 years old when he moved to Hallo, the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anheit, to live with his mother and her new partner, and from there he went to Paris, Constance, Bologna, Hong Kong and Oxford.
Zorn has lived in Frankfurt since 2015 and has been politically active since 2009. He joined the German Social Democratic Party in 2011, the party that won the most seats last year.
Zorn, who arrived in the Bundestag as a direct candidate, says he wants to fight for more social justice.
Defending asylum seekers Oet Tsivaisos has been a member of the Bundestag since the last elections. “It's a completely different world," she says.
People here are looking forward to talking and they are open,” she said, noting how different it was from the experience of a black woman, “the eyes watching her at the pharmacy, to see if she was going to steal something.”
However, she says she still suffers from daily racism: "When I go shopping, I still suffer from the ill will of the security personnel to look at me."
Tesfaisos was born in 1974 in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, which at that time was not separated from Ethiopia.
She and her family fled the Eritrean War of Independence for Germany, when she was ten years old, and settled in a refugee shelter, where many families from Eritrea live.
“It was difficult for my father, we lived in a small place with many Eritrean children, six in one room with the whole family,” Tesfaisos recalls. “But when you are a child you ignore that.”
The experience inspired her to study law, and she later opened a law firm specializing in asylum law, because she wants to help others who also come to Germany as refugees, but she is frustrated by the small number of refugees who are granted the right to stay in Germany.
Tesfaisos has been a member of the Green Party since 2009 and has been a city councillor in her home city of Kassel for five years.
She became a member of the Bundestag in October last year and is already a representative of her party in the Committee for Cultural Affairs.
Here, too, I set an ambitious goal: the looted cultural treasures must be returned to their countries of origin.
"When I walk around German museums and see art and cultural heritage from my region, it hurts," she says.
anti-racism
Karamba Diaby is the first African-American member of the German parliament.
He entered the Bundestag for the first time in 2013. “Many people thought I was an expert on African affairs or racism in everyday life, and ignored the fact that my field was education and research,” Diaby recalls.
But now it has been recognized in the Bundestag and by its electors.
In 2021 they elected him directly for the first time.
Diaby came to the former East Germany in the 1980s from his native Senegal on a scholarship, studying chemistry at Halo and eventually earning a Ph.D. in heavy metal pollution.
For someone who endures so much hate and harassment, Diaby is remarkably calm, likes to differentiate between right and wrong, and eschews categorical judgments and inflammatory rhetoric.
After nearly nine years in the Bundestag, Diaby obtained membership in the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Development Committee.
Oet Tesfaisos says she still suffers daily racism when she goes shopping, and suffers the ill will of security personnel.
Zorn, who arrived in the Bundestag as a direct candidate, says he wants to fight for more social justice.
Karamba Diaby is remarkably calm, likes to differentiate between right and wrong, and avoids categorical judgments and inflammatory rhetoric.
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