Europe

By Muhsin Ibrahim

German Chancellor Angela Merkel doesn’t need any introduction. Divorced and with a doctorate in Physics, Merkel, 67, has been a leader of Germany for sixteen years. She is the first woman to lead Europe’s economic powerhouse and the beacon of democracy.

Chancellor Merkel wanted to leave in 2016. However, many people, including world leaders, encouraged her to stay. With Donald Trump coming to power in the US, Brexit knocking on the door of the European Union and the smoke of refugee crises still smouldering, almost everyone knew that Merkel was the best in that crucial position. Thus, she re-contested in 2017 and, expectedly, won.

But, whatever has a beginning has an end. Germans go to poll tomorrow, Sunday 26, 2021, to elect Merkel’s successor. The electorates are practically voting for parties, not a particular candidate for the chancellery. The parties would, of course, want to have the majority to form a government, but it does not happen. Often if not always, a party will have to negotiate with another party – or even other parties – to have enough votes to appoint a chancellor in the Bundestag. The negotiations can take months.

There are three chief contestants from three major political parties. They are 60-year-old Armin Laschet (CDU/CSU), 40-year-old Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and 62-year-old Olaf Scholz (SPD). The first, Mr Laschet, is the current Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia (where Cologne is) and leader of Merkel’s party, CDU.

Despite Merkel’s endorsement of Mr Laschet, he is unlikely to win. It may surprise you to know that what may cause him this defeat is mere laughter. Deadly flooding killed people in Germany and some neighbouring countries in July. The President of Germany visited a town destroyed by the catastrophic flood. While the President was delivering a sombre speech, a camera caught Mr Laschet laughing behind him. Since that faux pas, many people have lost confidence in him.

Ms Baerbock is young, energetic and confident and started her campaign with a lot of optimism. Nonetheless, her party does not have enough clout to win nationally. But, that is not the real issue for their candidate. You may also find it astonishing to hear what has befallen Baerbock’s candidacy and tarnished her reputation. It was possible plagiarism and padding of her CV.

Olaf Scholz is Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Finance. So far, opinion polls favour his chances of succeeding Merkel. Unlike the two other leading contestants, he has almost no major ‘sin’ affecting his campaign. Moreover, his party, SPD, was in power until Merkel’s outstanding victory in 2005. Thus, they are thirsty for a win and are therefore doing everything possible to come back.

Frau Merkel will be greatly missed. People around the world will never forget her extraordinary benevolence during the 2015 refugee crisis. As a German resident with no right to vote yet, I wish for the best outcome in the elections. May we continue to live in peace and prosperity, amin.

Muhsin Ibrahim is a Nigerian. He studies and works at the Institute of African Studies and Egyptology of the University of Cologne. He can be reached via muhsin2008@gmail.com.

By Salisu Yusuf

Almost 20 years since the September 11 attacks in the U.S. and the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, the last Friday’s swift vacation of Bagram Airbase by the U.S forces, the situation in Afghanistan gets worst. The country is becoming more divided; social strife grows, and citizens become more disenchanted. Hostilities between the Hazara Shia minority and mainly Pashtun Sunni majority increases. All over the country, people feel less secure in groups and individually as each one is afraid that the rival militia may attack them. The hitherto communal Afghanistan is fast turning individualistic, especially as a result of Talibans’ follies, misrule, the failure of the sectarian/tribal leadership, the role of Ulama and by the Russian occupation in the 70’s and ’80s, as well as the U.S’s so-called war on terror.

I have never seen a religious sect that clings to power and unorthodoxly turns to folly like the Taliban. They have crossed religious, ethical lines. They ask their members to attack hospitals, with women under labour, children receiving natal care, and other defenceless people receiving treatment. In one instance in 2020, they struck a maternity hospital belonging to the international organisation Medicines Sans Frontiers in Kabul. They gruesomely murdered 24 victims, including impoverished women, children, and babies. A week-old baby was among the dead; another two-week-old baby survived though his mother could not. There has not been a worse unnatural disaster!

Moreover, coordinated, reciprocal attacks by both Sunni and Shia militants are on the rise. I have not seen thoughtless sects like the two groups in Afghanistan/Pakistan axis, where each group asks its members to attack the other while performing obligatory prayers in mosques! And when such attacks are carried out, while the victims’ relatives nurse them and mourn other fatalities, the attackers get euphoric as they believe that they have fulfilled a religious duty. Outrageously they think that should if they die in the process, they would directly go to paradise – as if it belongs to their fathers!

 In addition to such senseless attacks, the Taliban has stepped up on a campaign against girl-child education. As a result, hundreds of innocent girls have been killed on their way to schools because, to them, girls’ education is a deviation from the norm. 

In one such horrendous attack, the vocal Malala Yusafzai is lost to the West. The girl was 11 when she’s shot in the head on her way to school. The girl’s crime was pleading to the Taliban to let girls pursue their educational careers. As the saying goes, the rest is history. Malala is now an Oxford University graduate in philosophy, politics and economics. 

Malala is lost to the West with her two young brothers. Pakistanis could only watch her on T.V. addressing the U.N. Assembly, celebrating her birthday, or receiving Nobel Prizes. If she had not been shot, she would have been in Pakistan, and a practising Muslim, whose talent might have been used in teaching and aspiring young girls. Girls like Malala could have been used to heal the growing social division between Sunni and Shia; alas, she’s lost to Europe.

More painful is the list of Nadia Nadim. A more intelligent and talented girl who’s also lost to the West. Nadia’s father was also killed by the Taliban when she’s a child. Under a false identity, the girl fled Afghanistan on a truck at just 11 years. She’s currently living in Denmark, studying reconstructive surgery. Nadia, like Malala, is lost to the West. Her colossal talent would have been more beneficial to Afghanistan because she’s a prospective scientist. Nadia speaks 11 languages. She also plays football for the Danish National Team, scores 200 goals, making her a celebrity.

If Nadia’s father lived, she would have been left to pursue her career, would have been in Afghanistan practising Islam. She could have been a medical doctor, possibly assisting thousands of Afghan women in need of medical care. But, alas, she’s lost to football, playing a celebrity role, her beauty being explored, etc. 

The above are a few lessons to Nigerian youth who sympathise with terrorist groups like Boko Haram. Such groups are in for regression rather than progression.

While the so-called Doha Peace Conference between the Afghan government and Taliban is in progress, the country is hotly on the brink of another civil war. The Taliban is advancing towards Kabul, inciting more antagonism while the country suffers from brain drain; indeed, it’s Talibans’ folly, but Western gains.

Salisu Yusuf teaches at the Department of English, Federal College of Education, Katsina. He can be reached via salisuyusuf111@gmail.com.