American Politics and The Ripple Affect
Two-weeks after the historic presidential election in the U.S., in which President-Elect Barack Obama became the first man of African descent to be elected to the office, Germany had a historic moment of its own. Derek Scally became the first ethnic Turk to be elected to the head of a political party. As leader of Germany’s Greens Party, he is a beacon of hope and symbolic change for the largest ethnic group in Germany, where Turks make up 3.3% of the nation’s population. Scally contends that he wants a society in which people of all ethnic backgrounds are working together for one Germany. After the election, party officials were said to be distributing “Yes We Cem” badges to the nation’s citizens. Scally was born to two immigrant Turkish parents in southern Germany.
Barack Obama said, “There is something happening in America…” and if people are following global politics, there seems to be a political, social and economic shift taking place all over the world. This is not an assertion that America began a global movement for justice, but the fact that America was, and many would argue still is, a racially obsessed society, and was able to elected a president of African descent democratically, suggests that there is hope for all marginalized people across the globe. America and Germany made history in 2008 and it will be interesting to watch which other countries follow suit.
Olorunbunmi Hambolu
