The German left seeks rescue with “captain” Carola Rackete

2023-11-18 19:31:29

The decimated party of the German left, Die Linke, seeks its European rescue with Carola Racketethe captain of the ship “Sea Watch 3” who in 2019 disobeyed the ban on ultraderechista Matteo Salvini to dock in Lampedusa with 40 refugees. A few weeks after consummating the party split of its most media figure, Sarah Wagenknechtthe delegates of the left concentrated on Augsburg (southern Germany) for a three-day congress, whose objective is to close ranks before the 2024 European elections. “The left needs to renew itself,” said Rackete, 35 years old and politically independent, appointed by the leadership to head the party list along with its president. Martin Schiderwan. The head of the left is a face barely known to many Germans – he has been in office since 2019 and represents the umpteenth attempt to revive it. Rackete’s is related to the challenge carried out that same year against Salvini, then Italian Minister of the Interior. The images of “Sea Watch 3” went around the world, as an example of the dramatic rescues carried out by NGOs operating in the sea. Mediterranean.

Today’s Europe is even more closed to these bailouts than five years ago. The extreme right leads governments such as that of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, while pressure grows among centrism to reduce the arrival of irregular immigration. The German left wants to represent exactly the opposite of the anti-asylum currents and thus distance itself, in the process, from Wagenknecht’s line. The split carried out by this representative maintains positions on immigration matters close to those of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Wagenknecht’s commitment, more present in television gatherings than in parliamentary plenary sessions, is close to right-wing extremist populism. According to some analysts, he could recruit voters among the so-called anti-immigration “protest vote”, to the detriment of the AfD, the second force in voting intention according to the polls.

Rackete does not have the political weight of Wagenknecht, a founding member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the post-communist formation from which The Left was born. The presentation of the captain and activist at the Augsburg congress actually included a first setback: she had to qualify some statements in which she advocated changing the name of the party and separating it from its past as a formation that inherited the regime of communist Germany. Something that raised criticism from the most traditionalist sector of her, who in themselves do not view favorably the commitment to a candidate who is not a member of the party.

Their survival depends on Die Linke’s success in the European Championships. In the 2021 general elections, it fell below the 5% bar, the minimum to obtain seats – although it finally obtained parliamentary representation thanks to its victories in several districts in the east of the country. The split between Wagenknecht and nine other deputies will be followed by the loss of their parliamentary group status, with the financial and representative consequences that this entails.

From caution before Israel to the outlawed Greta

The position of the German Left in immigration matter fits with that of its European sister parties. But it differs with regard to the positioning of the European leftist family vis-à-vis Gaza, clearly leaning in favor of Palestine. The bulk of the German parliamentary spectrum adheres to a firm commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself. The left shares this principle, although it does allow some criticism of the massive bombings on the Gazan civilian population.

Any statement from the leftist leadership regarding Gaza is preceded by a resounding condemnation of Hamas terrorism. It is thus part of the caution of the German political class against statements or attitudes that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic.

An exponent of this German prevention are the reactions to cases such as Greta Thunberg, whom the weekly “Der Spiegel” delegitimizes on its latest cover for having campaigned for “Free Palestine.” The German arm of the “Fridays for Future” movement has publicly distanced itself from the Swedish activist, who has gone from being an idol of environmentalism and on the left to being treated as “persona non grata.”