Armand Zorn was surprisingly relaxed when he gave his debut speech at the Bundestag. The topic, tax policy, is his area of expertise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit excited, I have to admit,\u201d said the 33-year-old management consultant who was elected to parliament last September. \u201cBut I like that. If you\u2019re nervous, you realize how important the issue is,\u201d he told Deutsche Welle in his Bundestag office the next day.<\/p>\n
If he was nervous, no one noticed. He sounded confident, knowledgeable and factual, and even managed a few digs at the far-right populist AfD.<\/p>\n
Armand Zorn has an unusual biography. Born in Cameroon, he was 12 when he moved to Halle, the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, to live with his mother and her new partner. From there, he went on to Paris, Constance, Bologna, Hong Kong, and Oxford.<\/p>\n
Zorn has lived in Frankfurt since 2015 and has been politically active since 2009. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 2011. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also a member of the SPD, the party that won the most seats in last year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
Zorn, who made it to the Bundestag as a direct candidate, said he\u2019s always wanted to fight for more social justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have had many experiences where I met young people who were very hardworking, competent, but never got the success they deserved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Zorn is a member of the Bundestag\u2019s powerful Finance Committee and the Committee for Digital Affairs. That\u2019s where he sees his strengths and competencies.<\/p>\n
He also remains connected to Africa. \u201cIn finance, for example, many issues are related to global financial stability,\u201d Zorn said, pointing to the debt ratios of African countries. \u201cIt\u2019s about providing funds also to improve the prospects of certain African countries and allow development,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Awet Tesfaiesus has also been a member of the Bundestag since the last election. She\u2019s still getting used to it. \u201cIt\u2019s a very different world. People are looking to talk and are open,\u201d Tesfaiesus told DW in a Skype interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can invite people for discussions. You\u2019re high up in the hierarchy,\u201d she said, stressing how different it is from the experience of a black woman \u201cwho gets stared at in the drugstore to see if she\u2019s stealing something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, she said she still experiences everyday racism. \u201cWhen I go shopping, I still get the usual looks from the security personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Racism has long overshadowed her life. Tesfaiesus was born in 1974 in Eritrea\u2019s capital, Asmara. At that time, Eritrea had not seceded from Ethiopia. She and her family fled the Eritrean war of independence to Germany when Tesfaiesus was 10 years old.<\/p>\n
Their new home was a refugee shelter, where many families from Eritrea lived.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor my parents, it was hard,\u201d Tesfaiesus recalled. \u201cWe lived in a cramped space with many Eritrean children. There were six of us in one room with the whole family. But when you\u2019re a kid, you ignore that. You\u2019re happy that there are so many great people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The experience inspired her to study law, and she later opened a law firm specializing in asylum law.<\/p>\n
She wants to help others who also come to Germany as refugees but is frustrated by how few refugees are granted residence status in Germany.<\/p>\n
The EU\u2019s Dublin rules are clear: Refugees must apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter. In the case of her clients, that is usually Italy or Spain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Italy, a lot of people are living on the streets, have been deemed eligible for asylum, but can\u2019t claim social benefits or take language courses,\u201d explained Tesfaiesus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was frustrating to go up against that system, but I felt like I needed to make a political change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tesfaiesus has been a member of the Green Party since 2009 and was a city councilor in her home city of Kassel for 5 years.<\/p>\n
She became a member of the Bundestag in October last year and is already her party\u2019s representative on the Committee on Cultural Affairs. And here, too, she has set an ambitious goal: Looted cultural treasures should be returned to the countries of origin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I walk through German museums and see art and cultural heritage from my region, it hurts my heart. These things are on display, but they mean nothing to the people who see them,\u201d she said. \u201cWhereas they mean a lot to the people in their countries of origin. They\u2019ve been robbed of their identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside the two newcomers, Karamba Diaby is something of an old hand in the Bundestag.<\/p>\n
In 2013, when he first entered the Bundestag even the New York Times reported on his achievement. Diaby was the first member of the German parliament with African roots.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people thought that I was an expert on Africa or racism in everyday life and ignored the fact that my area was education and research,\u201d Diaby recalled.<\/p>\n
Today, he is recognized in the Bundestag and by his voters. In 2021, they elected him directly for the first time.<\/p>\n
Diaby came to former East Germany (GDR) in the 1980s from his native Senegal on a scholarship. He studied chemistry in Halle and eventually earned his doctorate in heavy metal contamination.<\/p>\n
He has long called Halle home; something many right-wing extremists refuse to accept. Racist attacks on social media are part of his everyday life.<\/p>\n
For someone who has to endure so much hate and harrassment, Diaby is remarkably calm. He likes to differentiate, avoid sweeping judgments and inflammatory rhetoric.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeath threats and so on hurt me. But I\u2019ve also always been shown support and solidarity when anything unqualified, insulting or demeaning was posted,\u201d he told DW.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been sent letters from people expressing solidarity and from school classes that collected signatures.\u201d<\/p>\n
After almost 9 years in the Bundestag, Diaby currently sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Development Committee. Today\u2019s German parliament is very different from in 2013 \u2014 it\u2019s much more diverse.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Diaby continues to fight for greater diversity and inclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more diverse the parliament is, the more differentiated the perspectives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the first time in Germany\u2019s political history, the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, includes three lawmakers of African descent. So what do they want to achieve?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":11033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15],"tags":[7,26,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-11036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-politics","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"yoast_head":"\n