Karamba Diaby played down racism factor as he said would not run for re-election in the next German Parliament election. Photo: AP
Karamba Diaby, Germany’s first African-born member of Parliament said this week that he would not run again in next year’s general elections.
Mr Diaby played down racism as a factor, he made the announcement a short time after his staff released the contents of a slew of hate mail and death threats that his office had received.
The 62-year-old lawmaker, a Senegal native who was first elected in 2013, said in a letter written to his colleagues that he wanted to make way for a new generation of politicians and that racism was “not the main reason” for his decision. But he has been outspoken about the abuse he has experienced, which has markedly increased in volume and tenor in recent years.
Bullets were fired through the window of his district office in 2020, and the office was a target of arson last year.
“I can’t wipe all this away,” Mr. Diaby was reported as saying in an interview, according to the Funke Media Group, a major German newspaper and magazine publisher. “These are not small things.”
The election over a decade ago of Mr. Diaby, who holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and emigrated to East Germany in 1985, was at the time hailed as a major win for equality. Mr Diaby, who belongs to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats party, cited a desire to spend more time with family as the main reason for his departure.
Yet the far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, has been far outpolling his centre-left party in his constituency.
Mr Diaby has blamed the rising AfD, whose populist platform won them second place in Germany in the recent European Union elections, for the spike in racism and threats.
“In the last few years, I’ve faced several murder threats,” he said in a podcast interview with Politico. EU this week. “This has now overstepped the mark.”
“The hatred that the AfD shows every day with its misanthropic narratives is reflected in concrete psychological and physical violence,” he added. “This endangers the cohesion of our society. We cannot simply accept this.”
The city of Halle, which Mr Diaby represents, is in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, one of the eastern states where the nationalist and anti-immigrant AfD dominates.
Just last year, Mr Diaby struck a very different tone against those who had threatened him.
“Over 42,000 people in Halle voted for me,” he said in an interview with Der Spiegel newsmagazine. “Quitting would mean giving their votes less weight than those of a hateful minority.”
“I would never allow that to happen,” he added.
他說，第一位非洲出生的德國國會議員將不會競選連任
德國首位非洲出生的議員卡蘭巴·迪亞比本週表示，他不會再次參加明年的大選。
迪亞比先生淡化了種族主義這一因素，在他的工作人員公佈了他的辦公室收到的大量仇恨郵件和死亡威脅的內容後不久，他就宣布了這一消息。
這位62歲的塞內加爾議員於2013年首次當選，他在寫給同事的信中表示，他想為新一代政客讓路，種族主義“不是他做出這一決定的主要原因” 。 但他對自己所經歷的虐待直言不諱，近年來虐待的數量和程度明顯增加。
2020 年，子彈穿過他所在地區辦公室的窗戶射出，該辦公室去年成為縱火目標。
據德國主要報紙和雜誌出版商馮克媒體集團報道，迪亞比先生在接受采訪時說道：“我無法抹去這一切。” “這些都不是小事。”
十多年前，擁有博士學位的迪亞比先生當選。 獲得化學博士學位並於 1985 年移居東德，在當時被譽為平等的重大勝利。 迪亞比屬於德國總理奧拉夫·舒爾茨領導的社會民主黨，他表示離開的主要原因是希望花更多時間陪伴家人。
然而，極右翼的德國選擇黨（AfD）在他的選區中的民意支持率遠遠超過了他的中左翼政黨。
迪亞比將種族主義和威脅的激增歸咎於不斷崛起的德國選擇黨，該黨的民粹主義綱領在最近的歐盟選舉中在德國贏得了第二名。
「在過去的幾年裡，我面臨過幾次謀殺威脅，」他在本週接受 Politico.eu 播客採訪時說道。 “現在這已經超越了標準。”
他補充說：“德國選擇黨每天透過其厭世的敘述散播仇恨，這反映在具體的心理和身體暴力上。” 「這危及我們社會的凝聚力。 我們不能簡單地接受這一點。
迪亞比先生所代表的哈勒市位於薩克森-安哈特州，該州是民族主義和反移民選擇黨占主導地位的東部州之一。
就在去年，迪亞比先生對那些威脅他的人採取了截然不同的語氣。
「哈雷有超過 42,000 人投票給我，」他在接受《明鏡周刊》新聞雜誌採訪時說道。 “退出意味著他們的選票比可恨的少數派的選票更不重要。”
「我永遠不會允許這種情況發生，」他補充道。
Source: NYT
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