Germany: don’t be afraid of politics” “

The national campaign of the BDKJ (League of German Catholic Youth, a national association with some 650,000 members) was presented by Wolfgang Thierse (SPD) in Berlin on 13 March. The campaign is aimed at the forthcoming elections for the renewal of the Bundestag and of the post of Chancellor, scheduled for 22 September this year. On that day a duel will be fought between the Bavarian prime minister, the Catholic Edmund Stoiber, candidate of the Cdu/Csu party, and Gerhard Schröder, the present Chancellor who is standing for re-election. The weak state of the economy and growing unemployment – the threshold of 4,000,000 unemployed is likely to be passed this month – are inevitably the focal points of the electoral campaign. The BDKJ’s campaign “wahl2002-wirbleibendran.de” (“elections2002.we’rehangingon.de”) consists in a kind of challenge with the President of the Bundestag, and reads as follows: “Do you bet that the Catholic youth associations will succeed in speaking with 5 candidates of each electoral district for the elections to Parliament and receiving their replies concerning the problems of the future of the young generations, by 22 September 2002?”. A similar initiative is being taken in France, where citizens will soon be voting in the presidential elections. Young Catholics have launched an appeal to those in their own age group, urging them to vote and not to be afraid of politics. “If political life – they write – seems to us dirty and inaccessible, that’s one more reason for changing it”. We put some questions to Gaby Hagmans , president of the BDKJ. How do you intend to conduct this campaign? “It’s not the first time that the BDKJ has proposed a campaign of this kind in Germany. The campaign will be national in character and will aim to promote the positions of young people and the issues of particular concern to them, such as ecology and the labour market”. What objective do you hope to achieve? “That of demonstrating that politics aren’t a one-way street that ends at the moment of casting one’s vote. That’s why we’ve prepared an ‘alternative manual of the Bundestag’ with the replies to our questions and the programmes of those deputies whom we could remind of the promises they have failed to keep…” To what areas are your questions addressed? “In a society like ours, the future is always full of unknown quantities for children and young people: education is being ignored, the public debt is massive, the economy is not sustainable… We think it’s only possible to improve things through a new social project. We want to encourage a high-profile political reflection. Pensions, for example: it’s not possible to go on with a series of small steps; the reason is demographic growth: the system needs to be reformed in a root-and-branch manner.” What questions are you posing to politicians? “The first question is this: ‘What radically new vision would you like to realize to improve the prospects of the young generations?’. Second, since it seems to us that our democracy offers young people few opportunities of taking part in the political decision-making process, we want to ask: ‘What forms of participation do you intend to develop to take on board the political commitment of the young generations?’. What we particularly want to emphasize is that politics aren’t a one-way street, that comes to an end at the moment of casting one’s vote. The third question is: ‘In the next legislature what contributions do you intend to make to the Bundestag for children and young people and what bills will you propose on their behalf?’. Lastly, we are planning a particular question for each individual group”. Patrizia Collesi