Fascinating Woman: Gesine Schwan

The office of federal president in Germany is largely ceremonial and Horst Kohler has done a good job over the past four years.  This week the Social Democrats broke an unwritten rule by putting forth the candidacy of one of their own - Gesine Schwan - to run against their coalition partner.  I was vaguely aware of Schwan, since she had already run and lost against Köhler; I assumed she was just a party loyalist.  But Gesine Schwan is not just a politician.  It turns out she is that rarest of individuals in politics: an original thinker. 

Claus Mahlzahn has a piece in Der Spiegel on "Why Germany Needs Gesine Schwan":

Gesine Schwan ist vor allem eine brillante Denkerin. Sie braucht das höchste Staatsamt nach ihrer akademischen Karriere nicht; das Amt aber braucht Menschen wie sie. (Above all Gesine Schwan is a brilliant thinker.  She doesn't need this top  government job after her academic career; but the job needs her.)

Back in the 1980s, Gesine Schwan ruffled feathers in the SPD when she criticized the party's Ostpolitik for being to cozy with communist regimes and not engaging with dissidents.  She was rewarded for her intransigence by being removed from her position of the SPD "Commission on Basic Values".

Schwan has a good relationship and understanding of the United States, having held research positions at Princeton and the New School in New York.  In 1999 - well before George W. Bush - she published a book on anti-Americanism: Antikommunismus und Antiamerikanismus in Deutschland. Kontinuität und Wandel nach 1945.

For the past several years she has been running the European University Viadrina, a small, privately endowed university in eastern Germany, where one third of the students are Polish.  Schwan speaks fluent Polish.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung has published some notable quotes of Gesine Schwan.  I translate two:

«In Ostdeutschland steigt die Gefahr, dass die Demokratie selbst infrage gestellt wird. Ich beobachte eine forcierte DDR-Nostalgie. Man glaubt, viele Regelungen - vor allem im sozialen Bereich - seien dort besser gewesen.» (There is a growing danger in eastern Germany that Democracy itself is under attack. I can see a growing nostalgia for the GDR. Many feel that the regulations - above all with respect to social programs - were better back then.)

«Für mich sind die Menschen in ihrer Würde gleich, aber nicht in ihren Lebenschancen. Da gibt es furchtbare Diskrepanzen. Die Politik ist dazu da, diese so weit es geht auszugleichen.» ( I believe that all human beings are equal in their dignity, but not in opportunities.  There are terrible discrepancies.  The purpose of politics is to create a level playing field as much as possible).

I don't know whether Gesine Schwan has enough support to beat the popular Horst Köhler.  If she loses, I hope she will continue to play an active role in German politics. 

 

Comments

[Mr. Joseph Marquez]

"Obama the Great Illusion"

Senator Obama is an entelligent figure to be sure, and the smart money is on Obama because in American politics, that's the way the great sharade is played.
However, in becoming the next President of the United States does not fix the problem of American Colonialism as it affects the Native American population.

In fact many Native people are desiring to annex themselves from the United States. It is going on as I write this article. Who can blame them after being called illegal aliens as the Mexicans and 398 treaties were never honored by the colonial government.

Therefore, Obama's election to the highest colonial office will not change anything but induce further basic reforms.

"Education illuminates the darkness created by ignorance"
President Benito Juarez, Mexicana Indiana.