Friday November 12th 2021
Party offspring with Markus Lanz
“Sarah deserves a second chance”
By Marko Schlichting
Shortly after her election as the new head of the Green Youth, Sarah-Lee Heinrich gets more attention than she would like because old, unflattering tweets from her come to the public. At Markus Lanz, the chairman of the JuLis jumps to the side. Even beforehand, the two of them show an unfamiliar culture of debate.
So far it has been like this: When politicians have an argument, then the tatters like to fly. Word battles are often fought with insults – even below the belt. That could change with the new traffic light coalition. At the beginning of the exploratory talks, politicians from the SPD, the Greens and the FDP expressed their desire to first find common ground and reach compromises. We will have to wait and see whether they will succeed. Anyone who watched the talk show with Markus Lanz on ZDF on Thursday evening was able to glimpse a possible future of the culture of debate. With the federal spokeswoman of the Green Youth and the federal chairman of the FDP youth organization Junge Liberale, Sarah-Lee Heinrich and Jens Teutrine, politicians from two long-divided parties were guests. On ZDF they showed how easy it can be to approach each other despite differing views. The friendly manner in which they are dealt with gives hope for a new understanding of politics. You could see two protagonists exchanging opinions with one another in a solution-oriented manner. Admittedly: A form of discussion that you have to get used to.
“Sarah deserves a second chance”
This was particularly evident at the end of the program, when Markus Lanz dealt with the racist tweets from Sarah-Lee Heinrich. What happened? Shortly before the 20-year-old was elected spokeswoman for the Green Youth, tweets that she had published six years earlier were made public. You can call them stupid, they could be understood as racist statements against “old white people”. “At some point I’ll take a broom and sweep all white people out of Africa,” she tweeted, for example. That was one of the more harmless tweets, she says at Lanz. At the time, she published tweets that were offensive, rap texts or English quotes from films. “Sometimes it was vulgar or misanthropic,” she describes. You tried to delete the tweets afterwards, years later. Vain.
She grew up with the Internet at a very young age, she says. When she was 15, she took part in a debate on racism. She wrote sentences like “Jews and Asians are not white people, I don’t know exactly about Slavs.” They were then published as screenshots, partially changed or with falsified data. The result: Shitstorm, insults, death threats. Sarah-Lee Heinrich withdrew briefly from the public, later apologized.
The fact is: Heinrich showed a lack of need that is not atypical for a child at fourteen or fifteen years of age. A naivety that has always existed – and which, for example, has tempted children in the past decades to call each other “Spasti” or to tell xenophobic jokes.
The JuLi chairman Jens Teutrine knows that too. “In the past, people said stupid things in the schoolyard, now it’s on the Internet,” he says. “It is a special sign of political strength to reflect and say that I think the point of view from that time is wrong,” said Teutrine. And further: “I have great respect.” Sarah-Lee Heinrich is very reflective and thinks about a lot. You deserve a second chance. “I think it’s good that we have a different culture of mistakes in politics.”
“Awkward in the media”
Politicians from different parties have rarely shown such great unity as Heinrich and Teutrine, even when criticizing colleagues like Winfried Hermann von den Grünen. The Transport Minister of Baden-Württemberg had predicted that there would be new elections in Germany if the traffic lights did not deal with climate protection.
“I don’t know the Lord,” says Teutrine. Maybe Hermann wasn’t speaking for the party at all. “This is a scenario that someone has quoted a little awkwardly in the media.” Sarah-Lee Heinrich succeeds, calling Winfried Hermann “a person from the party.”
And there are also many other things in common: Both see no future in nuclear energy, both are of the opinion that Germany must act as a role model when it comes to climate protection. And both exude the confidence that is probably needed to tackle the resolution of the current crises.