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Post by pieter on Jun 18, 2023 13:50:32 GMT -7
Sahra Wagenknecht
Our peace rally on February 25, 2023 in front of the Brandenburg Gate with an estimated 50,000 participants was a huge success. The great response shows the broad support for the demand for diplomacy instead of arms deliveries. What we put together was the largest peace rally in Germany for many years! This is our mutual success. Let's build on this and lead the peace movement to new strength! It is urgently needed in these times.
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Post by pieter on Jun 18, 2023 13:55:41 GMT -7
Sahra Wagenknecht Sahra Wagenknecht (born Sarah Wagenknecht; 16 July 1969) is a German politician, economist, author, and publicist. Since 2009, she has been a member of the Bundestag for The Left (Die Linke), a German leftist, Democratic socialist and Left-wing populist political party with roots in the East-German communist party, the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) . From 2015 to 2019, she served as the parliamentary co-chair of her party.
Wagenknecht became a prominent member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) from the early 1990s. After the foundation of The Left, she became a leading member of one of the party's most left-wing factions as leader of the Communist Platform. She has been a controversial figure throughout her career due to her hardline and populist stances, statements about East Germany, immigration and refugees, and her political movement Aufstehen. Aufstehen (German: Stand up) is a left-wing collective movement founded by Die Linke politician Sahra Wagenknecht in the summer of 2018. Its co-founders and participants include leading members of Germany's left-oriented parties as well as supporters from science and the arts. Their aim is to exert pressure on German political parties and to bring about a shift to the left in politics and society. This includes focusing on the issues concerning voters lost to new right-wing movements which have recently emerged in German politics. Inspirations for the movement include Jean-Luc Mélenchon's movement La France Insoumise and Momentum, the organisation founded in support of the former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.Early lifeWagenknecht was born on 16 July 1969 in the East German city of Jena. Her father is Iranian and her mother, who worked for a state-run art distributor, is German. Her father disappeared in Iran when she was a child. She was cared for primarily by her grandparents until 1976, when she and her mother moved to East Berlin. While in Berlin, she became a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ), the East-German communist Youth Organisation, the East-German version of the Soviet Komsomol, the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (Russian: Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ). She completed her Abitur exams in 1988 and joined the (then ruling) Socialist Unity Party (SED) in early 1989.
From 1990, Wagenknecht studied philosophy and New German Literature as an undergraduate in Jena and Berlin, completing mandatory coursework, but did not write a thesis as she "could not find support for her research aims at the East Berlin Humboldt University". She then enrolled as a philosophy student at the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, completing her studies and earning an MA in 1996 for a thesis on the young Karl Marx's interpretation of Hegel, supervised by Hans Heinz Holz and published as a book in 1997. From 2005 until 2012 she completed a PhD dissertation at the chair of Microeconomics at TU Chemnitz, on "The Limits of Choice: Saving Decisions and Basic Needs in Developed Countries", awarded with the grade magna cum laude in the German system and subsequently published by the Campus Verlag.Political careerAfter the fall of the Berlin Wall and the transformation of the East-German state communist party SED into the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), Wagenknecht was elected to the new party's National Committee in 1991. She also joined the PDS's Communist Platform, a Marxist-Leninist faction.
In the 1998 German federal election, Wagenknecht ran as the PDS candidate in a district of Dortmund, garnering 3.25% of the vote. Following the 2004 European elections, she was elected as a PDS representative to the European Parliament. Among her duties in the parliament is serving on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Delegation, as well as the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly.
Following the merger of the East-German PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) and the West-German WASG (Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative; in German; Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit – Die Wahlalternative, WASG) that formed the Left Party (Die Linke), Wagenknecht considered campaigning for the position of party vice-chair. However, party leaders such as Lothar Bisky and Gregor Gysi objected to the idea primarily because of her perceived sympathies for the former German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany). Following the controversy, she announced that she would not run for the post. Wagenknecht successfully contested a seat in the 2009 federal election in North Rhine-Westphalia.[10] She became the Left Party's spokesperson for economic politics in the Bundestag. On 15 May 2010, she was at last elected vice president of the Left Party with 75.3% of the vote.
Lothar Bisky (17 August 1941 – 13 August 2013) was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007 he became co-chairman of The Left (Die Linke) party, formed by a merger of the PDS and the much smaller Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative. From 2007 until 2010 he was the President of the Party of the European Left. Also, he was the Publisher of the socialist newspaper Neues Deutschland.
Gregor Florian Gysi (German pronunciation: [ˈɡʁeːɡoːɐ̯ ˈɡiːzi]; born 16 January 1948) is a German attorney, former president of the Party of the European Left and a prominent politician of The Left (Die Linke) political party. He belonged to the reformist wing of the governing Socialist Unity Party of Germany at the time of the pro-democracy transition inspired by then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He has strongly denied allegations that he used to assist the Stasi, the East German secret police. He was the last leader of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and led the effort that transformed it into the post-Communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), forerunner of The Left.
Early in 2012, the German press reported that Wagenknecht was one of 27 Left Party Bundestag members whose writings and speeches were being collected and analyzed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV, often Bundesverfassungsschutz).
She has been one of the main driving forces in the formation of Aufstehen, a left-wing political movement established in 2018, which exists outside of traditional political party structures and has been compared to the French movement La France Insoumise. In March 2019, Wagenknecht announced her withdrawal from her leadership role within Aufstehen, citing personal workload pressures and insisting that after a successful start-up phase, for which political experience was necessary, the time had come for the movement's own grass roots to assume control. She complained that the involvement of political parties at its heart had "walled in" ("sich eingemauert") the movement. She would nonetheless continue to make public appearances on its behalf.
Wagenknecht was elected co-leader of the Left's (Die Linke) Bundestag group in 2015 alongside Dietmar Bartsch succeeding long-time leader Gregor Gysi. Wagenknecht won 78.4% of votes cast. As the Left (Die Linke) was at the time the largest opposition party in the Bundestag, she became a prominent leader of the opposition for the remainder of the parliamentary term. Bartsch and Wagenknecht were the Left's lead candidates for the 2017 federal election.
Dietmar Gerhard Bartsch (born 31 March 1958) is a German politician who has served as co-chair of The Left parliamentary group in the Bundestag since 2015. Prior, he served as federal treasurer of The Left from 2006 to 2009 and federal managing officer from 2005 to 2010. He was a prominent member of The Left's predecessor party, the PDS, of which he served as treasurer from 1991 to 1997 and federal managing officer from 1997 to 2002. He has been a member of the Bundestag since 2005, and previously served from 1998 to 2002. In his capacity as Bundestag co-leader, he served with Sahra Wagenknecht from 2015 to 2019, and with Amira Mohamed Ali since 2019. Bartsch has served as federal co-lead candidate for his party on three occasions: 2002, 2017, and 2021.
Dietmar Bartsch and Sahra Wagenknecht at a the Left (Die Linke) party meeting
In November 2019, she announced her resignation as parliamentary leader, citing burnout.
Wagenknecht was again nominated as the lead candidate on the party's North Rhine-Westphalia list in the 2021 federal election. She was re-elected, but described the results as a "bitter defeat" for her party.Political viewsEconomic policyWagenknecht has argued that the Left Party must pursue radical and anti-capitalist goals, thereby remaining distinct from the more moderate Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen). She has criticized the Left Party's participation in coalition governments, especially the Berlin state government, which has made cuts to social spending and privatized some services.
On 14 February 2014, the German business and economics newspaper Handelsblatt put her on the cover of its weekend edition, wondering whether the left really was better at understanding economics: "Sind die Linken die besseren Wirtschaftsversteher?" The ambiguous headline made it unclear whether the question referred to left-wingers in general or to Wagenknecht's party, The Left, in particular. The newspaper had earlier interviewed her about her ideas about liberalism and socialism.Foreign policyIn 2017, Wagenknecht called for the dissolution of NATO and for a new security agreement that links Germany and Russia. Throughout her career, Wagenknecht has argued in favor of a closer relationship with Russia. In 1992, she had published an essay praising Stalinist Russia, a view she said in 2017 she no longer espoused.
Wagenknecht has expressed strong support for the rise of left-wing leaders in Latin America, such as Hugo Chávez, and for SYRIZA's 2015 electoral victory in Greece. She serves as a spokesperson for the Venezuela Avanza solidarity network, and as an alternate on the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Mercosur, The Southern Common Market, commonly known by Spanish abbreviation Mercosur, and Portuguese Mercosul, is a South American trade bloc established by the Treaty of Asunción in 1991 and Protocol of Ouro Preto in 1994. Its full members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Venezuela is a full member but has been suspended since 1 December 2016. Associate countries are Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname.
In 2010, she refused to join a standing ovation when former Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Laureate Shimon Peres gave a speech in the Bundestag on Holocaust Remembrance Day.Russian invasion of UkraineBefore Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Wagenknecht was a prominent defender of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin, arguing that while the United States were trying to "conjure up" an invasion of Ukraine, "Russia has in fact no interest to march into Ukraine". After Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Wagenknecht said that her judgment had been wrong. Wagenknecht opposed sanctions against Russia over the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and, in a speech in September 2022, accused the German government of "launching an unprecedented economic war against our most-important energy-supplier". Before the war, over half of Germany's gas was supplied by Russia. In May, The Left (Die Linke) had voted in favor of economic sanctions against Russia. Her speech was applauded by The Left party leadership and by the far-right Alternative for Germany. Her speech prompted the resignation of two high profile party members.
On February 10, 2023, Wagenknecht and feminist Alice Schwarzer had started collecting signatures for a "peace-manifesto", signed by more than 700,000 people at the end of the month, entitled Manifest für Frieden ("Manifest for Peace)" on Change.org, demanding negotiations with Russia and a stop of weapon-deliveries to Ukraine. A rally for peace with Wagenknecht and Schwarzer on February 25 received several critics, especially because several far-right groups attended it, with some critics accusing the rally to have resulted in an appeal to the Querfront.QuerfrontQuerfront ("cross-front") was the cooperation between conservative revolutionaries in Germany with the far-left during the Weimar Republic of the 1920s.
Ernst Niekisch and others tried to combine communist and anti-capitalist nationalist forces to overthrow the existing order of the Weimar Republic. He called this merger "National Bolshevism".
Germany's Chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher (in office 1932–33), attempted to induce the more left-wing Strasserist segment of the Nazi Party to merge with the trade unions as way of forcing Hitler to support his government, but his plan failed.
The term is also used today for mutual entryism or cooperation between left and right-wing groups. For example, at a Berlin peace rally on February 24, 2023 called by Sahra Wagenknecht leading figure of Germany's socialist Left Party, die Linke, and feminist Alice Schwarzer in support of their manifesto calling for negotiations and stop of military support of Ukraine, far-right factions and pro-Russian supporters were in attendance.Refugee-policyIn response to the 2015 Cologne sexual attacks, Wagenknecht stated "Whoever abuses his right to hospitality has forfeited his right to hospitality". This statement was almost unanimously criticized in her party and parliamentary group colleagues, but did receive praise from some in the Far right AfD (Alternative for Germany).
On May 28 2016, an activist from the anti-fascist group Torten für Menschenfeinde ("Cakes for Enemies of Humanity") pushed a chocolate cake in Wagenknecht's face at a Left Party meeting in Magdeburg in response to Wagenknecht's calls for limits on the number of refugees. Wagenknecht has criticized Angela Merkel's refugee policies, arguing that her government has not provided the levels of financial and infrastructural support required to avoid increasing pressure on local authorities and the labor-market, thereby exacerbating tensions in society. She has also claimed that Merkel's policies were partly to blame for the 2016 Berlin truck attack.
Partly in response to these experiences, in 2021, she published the book "Die Selbstgerechten" ("The Self-Righteous") in which she criticizes so-called "left-liberals" ("Linksliberale") for being neither left nor liberal but rather supporting the ruling classes' and, to some extent, their own interests. The book features, among several other topics, a discussion on immigration's alleged negative impacts on the domestic working class. It reached number one in the German non-fiction bestseller-list as published by Der Spiegel.COVID-19Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, Wagenknecht has opined that only the elderly and vulnerable groups need to be vaccinated against the disease, and agitated against the German government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wagenknecht has opposed proposals for COVID-19 vaccine mandates, arguing they should be a personal choice.
Wagenknecht's positions have been compared to those of the far-right Alternative for Germany. In November 2021, party colleagues such as Maximilian Becker, Martina Renner, and Niema Movassat suggested that Wagenknecht leave the party.Personal lifeWagenknecht married businessman Ralph-Thomas Niemeyer in May 1997. However, on 12 November 2011, politician Oskar Lafontaine stated publicly that he and Wagenknecht had become "close friends" (German: eng befreundet). At the time, Wagenknecht and Lafontaine had already separated from their respective spouses. Wagenknecht married Lafontaine, 26 years her senior, on 22 December 2014. She is an atheist. Sahra Wagenknechtand her former husband Ralph-Thomas Niemeyer/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/madsack/R4CI64YUGUCHLYKANU65A7VHBA.jpg) Sahra Wagenknecht and her husband Oskar Lafontaine, a former Social Democratic SPD prime minister of Bundesland (Union state) Saarland and minister of Finance in the cabinet
Gerhard Schröder.
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