Because the Berlin left will no longer govern, Lederer is a thing of the past. The future could be a CDU man.
Der CDU-Politiker Joe ChialoChristoph Soeder/dpa
Now it is certain: Klaus Lederer will lose his position as Senator for Culture, and his party Die Linke will most likely no longer be part of the coalition that will govern Berlin in the future. Opportunity to look back and look ahead.
Lederer came into office at the end of 2016, after ten years in which the culture department had been managed by the governing mayors, von Wowereit, von Müller, and the respective State Secretary for Culture. Most recently it was Tim Renner, who left Klaus Lederer with the art manager Chris Dercon as theater director at the Volksbühne. In one of his first public statements, Lederer expressed his displeasure, but it was not long before Dercon plunged the house into a financial crisis and resigned. That was somehow also a Berlin solution, as long as it had a provincial tinge.
Berliners like that. They actually like to moan, especially about their political representatives. But Klaus Lederer, who is also Berlin’s mayor, is one of the most popular politicians in the capital. There are people who voted for Die Linke because of him, or at least considered it, because they would have liked to see him rule. This may also be due to the extreme commitment of the man with the eternally black T-shirt under his jacket and the two earrings, and the fact that he doesn’t shimmer. Instead, he comes across as quite believable and a little conflict-averse. This includes the fact that he quickly got rid of Klaus Dörr, the interim director of the Volksbühne, who he had appointed, after MeToo allegations were made against him, which then turned out to be quite questionable. This also includes the fact that he probably did not dare to approach Barenboim.
Joe Chialo in his music manager office on Alte Schönhauser Strasse. Benjamin Pritzkuleit
Most recently, Klaus Lederer gave young Berliners 50 euros
Lederer’s concept of culture is broad, his budget huge. It was last at 900 million. That’s a lot more than in London or Paris. In the difficult years of the pandemic, he not only campaigned for high culture, but also for the Berlin clubs. Devoted to the off-scene, he’s to be thanked for not letting Barrie Kosky go entirely. Lederer has a sense for detail, he also paid attention to the stepchild of cultural policy, literature, founded the publishing prize in 2018, which supports the many small Berlin publishers. And with the literary grants, he made sure that they also support Berlin authors who do not write in German.
Culture should be there for everyone. That is certainly one of Klaus Lederer’s dogma. Most recently, he gave all 18 to 23-year-old Berliners with the youth culture card 50 euros. You can use it in cinemas, clubs, theaters, museums. It turns out it was a parting gift.
Is there now a hint of class warfare in Berlin’s cultural policy? At least that’s how one could misunderstand a slogan that Joe Chialo, the hottest contender for Lederer’s successor, chose as the title of his political biography: “The fight goes on” (Murmann-Verlag).
Joe Chialo comes from a diplomatic family in Tanzania
That sounds like departure and revolt. In fact, for the son of a diplomatic family from Tanzania, born in Bonn in 1970, it is a reminder of his father, who had chosen the slogan “a luta continua” as a kind of motto for life. The name, which is based on the left-wing Italian movement, was once a slogan in Mozambique’s struggle for freedom against the Portuguese colonial rulers. “My path is a German CV, but different from most people born in the 1970s,” says Chialo, explaining his postcolonial perspective on German politics.
Joe Chialo sees himself as an Afro-Pean who thinks little of cultural and political commitments. With the label Afroforce 1, founded in 2018 in cooperation with the market giant Universal Music, he pursues the goal of promoting music from the African region. In the sister company Airforce 1 Records he sails with Santiano, Ben Zucker and the Kelly Family hard in the wind of the German hit business. He is considered an eloquent communicator in the industry. In 2019, Chialo, who had started out as a singer himself, was on the German jury for the preliminary decision on the Eurovision Song Contest.
Chialo has also retained the freedom from reservations that is obviously necessary in the music business in relation to his political ambitions. Fascinated by Joschka Fischer, whose run from the extra-parliamentary left eventually ended up in the Foreign Office, he first joined the Greens in the early 1990s. Not least because of Fischer’s attitude during the Yugoslav wars, however, he left the party again. The Catholic justifies his entry into the CDU in 2016 in a way that is almost suitable for a church day: “I want to get firmly involved in a party in which a chairwoman is guided by humanity and her Christian faith, in which there is a clear moral compass.”
Joe Chialo is the first Afro-German on the federal executive board of the CDU
As a supporter of Angela Merkel’s policy, the party leadership became aware of Chialo. Armin Laschet appointed him to his competence team for culture, and he has been the first Afro-German on the federal executive board of the CDU since 2022. There he advocates a change of perspective that puts an end to the paternalism of previous development policies. “Africa doesn’t need us, we need Africa,” is his motto.
It remains to be seen whether he speaks the same language in this respect as, for example, the association Decolonize Berlin or Bonaventure Ndikung, head of the House of World Cultures. The fact that the political field of postcolonialism, which is becoming increasingly important for Berlin culture, is now being occupied by a serious voice from the conservative spectrum promises at least friction. In any case, Joe Chialo seems to know something about vibrations.
Meanwhile, Klaus Lederer tries to combine melancholy with political pragmatism. “The diverse, radiant art and culture scene is what makes Berlin special and incomparable,” he told the Berliner Zeitung. “Hopefully my work reflects how much the culture in Berlin means to me. In any case, she deserves every engagement.”