So what if Barack Obama was member of the Bundestag? I don't think he wouldn't stand a chance of being nominated as the chancellor candidate of a party like SPD just due to being half black. If somebody is competent & charismatic, he'll be nominated ... and I'm sure that he'd get the votes of many people (especially the younger ones)! I don't think the fact that there's no well-known black politicians in Europe yet, has something to do with racial discrimination! That would be against the national Constitution and also against EU law. Concerning Germany, I can tell you a lot of politicians with a "minority heritage" both on European, national and communal level! Yep, the Social Democrats are very conservative ... therefore did they send THIS person to Strasbourg.
What in the constitution requires Europeans to vote for minority candidates? I'll believe it when there's more than a few token minority representatives to be found in national parliaments all over Europe. If we're really so tolerant, we certainly don't display it in our voting behavior.
Actually, I think in Germany at least, due to having not that many minorities, we have quite a few politicians representing those (the PM of Saxony is part of the Sorbian minority, for example). It may not be totally 1 to 1 to how it looks in the population, but you have to keep in mind that there are less people coming from a minority in germany than in say Benelux, France or the US, and a fair amount of them is from Russia or Poland, therefore, at least from the look, blend better with the rest of the population than migrants from Moroco or Nigeria.
And how does this indicate that Obama would do well as a candidate in Germany? It seems to me that it would suggest the opposite, that the Germans are only willing to vote for candidates with a foreign background only if they look exactly like them.
I am on your page on that discussion. I am just saying that I think in Germany it is not as bad as it looks to someone who is used to a different composition of their population (from the US for example).
Well, here's a few examples: http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/A/akguela0.html http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/alvaro_alexander?p=6 (Portuguese father) http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/A/aydinhu0.html http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/cohnbendit_danielmarc?p=6 (German/French Jew) http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/chatzimarkakis_georgios?p=6 http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/D/dagdese0.html http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/D/deligek0.html http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/uca_feleknas?p=6 http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/gomolka_alfred?p=6 (born in Poland) http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/horacek_milan?p=6 (born in Czech Rep.) http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/J/juratjo0.html http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/K/keskiha0.html http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/M/montaje0.html (born in Poland) http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/N/noll_mi0.html (Iranian father) http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/N/nouriom0.html http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/oezdemir_cem?p=6 http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/oeger_vural?p=6 http://www.europarl.de/parlament/abgeordnete/biografien/quisthoudt_rowohl_godelieve?p=6 (born in Belgium) http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/R/rzepkpe0.html (born in Poland) http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/W/winkljo0.html (Indian mother) http://www.bundestag.de/mdb/bio/E/edathse0.html (Indian father) And there's a lot more in the federal states' parliaments and city councils... Yep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaw_Tillich Have a nice day all.
I'm half Portuguese, I'm so glad to find out that wouldn't prevent me from gaining a seat in the Bundestag.