2023-04-24 13:36:37
No party has ever had one like this. Especially not the CDU. Joe Chialo, Bonn-born black man, trained cutting machine operator, band singer, bouncer, heavy metal fan, music manager, to name just a few biographical sections. Better fits the CDU standard: Joe used to be called Joseph, is a devout Christian and family man, although his wife doesn’t “cover his back” for him, but has her own professional ambitions.
Now Joe Chialo becomes Berlin’s Senator for Culture. A cool, urban, cheerful man from the creative scene, with a talent for communication. A completely different type comes into this area of life, which is constitutive for Berlin, than the leftist Klaus Lederer, who was allowed to pour plenty of money over the various “scenes” in the past fat years.
What will change under a black culture senator? Anyone who campaigned for diversity on the left-green side for years should actually be happy like Bolle instead of hastily lamenting a black-red “regression coalition”. Joe Chialo is a career changer, politically a blank slate. When he was fighting for a direct mandate for the Bundestag in Spandau in 2021, he mentioned his priorities in conversations with the Berliner Zeitung: “I want to promote the modern creative and cultural industries”, i.e. club culture, copyrights in the digital space, film industry, gaming.
He demanded: “The clubs must be recognized as cultural sites, clubs are talent factories, make an important cultural contribution, they make inner cities more attractive, attract audiences and make the location more attractive.” At federal level, he has not (yet) met with enthusiasm in his own party for this issue.
When he says, “Culture is disruption. Disco is disruption – you can feel strength there, young people are on the move”, you can see that Chialo has different priorities than his solid party colleague Monika Grütters, who was also Berlin CDU chairwoman and Minister of State for Culture with a preference for the classic. Joe Chialo wants unrest for the city – the club noise will be manageable: “It’s not like it’s rattling around seven days a week, 24 hours a day.” And: “Even where it’s hardcore, culture is created. “Culture is not an elitist event and not just for Berlin-Mitte, other districts also have a center – Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Kreuzberg, Schöneberg: “There have to be clubs everywhere too.”
So Berlin’s club culture can look forward to a committed advocate – and the young people to a “more emphatic, fresher, younger line of communication”, as Chialo puts it. The plan: to “inspire” young people.
The view of various niches will certainly change: the Decoloniale groups, who were poured millions of euros by Lederer, who complained loudly and with little effect because they were out and about exclusively – more concerned with masturbating their bladder than with the concern of a really big one To make the German colonial era and its consequences clear to the audience. The “independent scene” in Berlin, which numbers in the tens of thousands, may also get a critical look: were more individual lifestyles financed there, or did the paying society also benefit? Chialo speaks, initially in general terms, of creating the framework for artistic development. You have to open doors – you have to go through them yourself. Which also signals: make an effort!
For the CDU in their uninspiring search for a younger, urban, more diverse appearance, Joe Chialo promises the big gold find. The leaders understood that very quickly. In the election to the federal executive board, no one got more votes than he did. And that’s not just because of his most disarming weapon: When he puts on his beaming smile at almost 1.90 height, hearts leap.
living in two worlds
Chialo’s book Der Kampf geht weiter. My life between two worlds”. The title refers to the slogan of the anti-colonial freedom movement in Mozambique “A luta continua”; the Frelimo operated from southern Tanzania against the Portuguese colonial power. Chialo’s father, whose homeland is in southern Tanzania, sympathized with the freedom fighters.
The son has written his own unusual life story (written it himself!) – grounded, deflated, authentic. And he has much more to describe than the short path from high school to studying political science with a foreign segment in politics. He packs his political messages – separated from the narrative text – into written speeches. Of course, the book is also practical: Chialo answers the questions that he, who climbed into the political sphere out of nowhere, is sure to be asked again and again.
The 52-year-old reports on the child’s pain at the early separation from the parents, who were constantly being transferred elsewhere as diplomats and left two sons in a Salesian boarding school. You also learn about violence in upbringing. Chialo talks about learning German in front of the telly, about his socialization in changing weekend foster families in Germany in the 1980s between Udo Jürgens and Hans-Joachim Kuhlenkampff, about his mentor, the Salesian Father Karl Oerder. Out of the irritating experience of being passed around, he and his brother develop a strategy of ostentatiously being nice: always approaching new people so that they feel like there are happy, grateful boys in the house.
There is the following story about the exciting question of how Joseph became Joe: In the 1980s, people in Germany cultivated the image of Africa as a continent of hunger: “If I had made an African impression, I would have booked the permanent subscription in the loser role. That would have been my downfall in boarding school,” Chialo recalls, doing what many Africans did back then: “I Americanized myself and largely gave up the African language.” bit of basketball and I was in the game. Joseph became Joe.” At 15, it worked.
Racism and the victim narrative
In football, the dream of a brilliant career fell through, but one character trait emerged: “I wanted to be the motor of the team.” The fact that he could run fast was explained by sports teachers as “quite unwoke”, as Chialo writes: “Of course he’s so fast runs when he always has to catch the zebras at home in Africa.” Everyday racism moved on this level: “It has to be a little fun.”
He has tons of experience in this regard, and here too a strategy with the main point: Chialo does not accept the victim role. This could also result in a different view of the decolonizer groups that base their strategy on the victim narrative. Chialo represents an image of Africa full of strength and pride, and speaks enthusiastically about the potential that lies on the neighboring continent. That could be a way to open society, bored by the topic of colonialism, to the topic instead of repelling it – as has been the case up to now. With the culture senator Chialo, the inspiring side of Africa could flood Berlin.
His interlude in the Green Party was short. In 2016 he joined the CDU with the goal: “I want to make a difference. Don’t wait until I’m moved.” The belief: “Culture is the glue we need to close the permanent cracks in our society.” The method: “Bend over” and “convince with words”. A mistake to be avoided: “Constant outrage doesn’t get us anywhere – we can’t cancel each other out.” Which is out of the question: “This sleepiness and the constant whining, this Mimimi-doesn’t work!”
What the future brings
The many hard breaks in life, the view beyond Germany brought the insight that a new world order is emerging: “What we still think is unthinkable today can be reality tomorrow.” And: “Tomorrow it can really hurt – if we not change.” Or: “There are no blueprints for what lies ahead.” Short sentences, clear statements. Sometimes their structure resembles the mottos he heard under German roofs, such as “Nothing comes from nothing”. In the face of the changing times, generations of prosperity plagued by fear of loss have recently been complaining that the best is over. Chialo counters: “The best is yet to come.” A waste of resources doesn’t have to be the definition of wealth. If that’s the definition of “the best”.
Incidentally, pretty much the entire CDU leadership appeared on the bel étage of the celebrity restaurant Borchardt for the book premiere: including Friedrich Merz, Armin Laschet, Carsten Linnemann, Julia Klöckner. Of course also musicians, colleagues, artists, family, an extensive circle of friends. Children scurried between dark pant legs and high heels, people were already dancing in one room when the author was still signing. That was in October 2022, long before the new elections in Berlin and everything spoke in favor of a career at the federal level. So now Berlin – practical government experience and the need to deal with a number of snake pits. The mix of resilience and unshakably friendly optimism acquired over decades will help. The motto “A luta continua” applies.
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