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The CDU in the West avoids conflict with Wokists

Actually, "Wokeness" is something fine.

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The CDU in the West avoids conflict with Wokists

Actually, "Wokeness" is something fine. Derived from the English “woke” (“alert”), the term describes a pronounced sensitivity to discrimination and minority rights. Who would criticize that? This insight has now dawned on most Christian Democrats. Under the leadership of their federal chairman Friedrich Merz, they had initially beaten the exaggerations and mental narrowing of so-called wokists with great relish. But in this, Merz did not or hardly followed important CDU state princes such as Daniel Günther in Schleswig-Holstein and Hendrik Wüst in North Rhine-Westphalia. Consequently, criticism of the woken movement subsided.

That changed again in the past 14 days, after the CDU-affiliated think tank “Denkfabrik21” took on the topic as courageously and critically at a congress. The think tanks could be sure of the support of Merz. But what about the west of the party, especially the most important state association in North Rhine-Westphalia? Does he also dare to approach the sensitive topic?

This question has been the subject of controversy within the party and faction in the past few days, as WELT learned. Almost all Christian Democrats in North Rhine-Westphalia agree that implementing and enforcing woker's postulates is often problematic. For Greens, for example, an Indian costume at carnival is unreasonable discrimination against Native Americans, but not for CDU members. For woke multipliers, it is moral imperative (and, in the case of infringement, often proof of immorality) to decorate terms with asterisks, for example to show respect to those who do not identify themselves with a gender - not for CDU members. Above all, however, many in the CDU parliamentary group are concerned that the Wokists are threatening to restrict freedom of expression and cultural exchange, they are brutalizing the discourse - because they are often too quick to dismiss those who think differently as amoral.

Only: Should we talk about all this publicly? Dennis Radtke, NRW head of the CDU workers, warned his party against it. He tweeted that "a CDU that only deals with marginal issues is not needed." He explained to this newspaper that "in public discourse" it is primarily such fringe issues that "stick". You should think about it, because it's not helpful." Radtke worries that the CDU shouldn't be associated publicly too closely with heated arguments about the legitimacy of Indian costumes, for example, because then it would no longer be able to push through more important positions, such as energy supply and securing our prosperity in the crisis.

This was recently discussed in an internal CDU parliamentary group in North Rhine-Westphalia. Some CDU members therefore stick with Radtke, while others fear the woke movement, but did not want to comment publicly on a WELT request because they were "beatings in the media". Others openly contradict Radtke: CDU parliamentary group leader Gregor Golland told WELT that the Woke movement is “a threat to our democratic diversity of opinion”, that it wants “to dictate that citizens think and speak” and that it divides society. It takes courage to curb their influence. He demanded this of his party friends: "We must have the courage to oppose this freedom-hostile re-education rhetoric," said Golland.

It is unclear which of these positions will prevail in the long term. Prime Minister Wüst allows both sides to do so. He himself, however, usually draws a wide arc around the topic. And tries to dismiss it as a debate from the red-green cloud cuckoo land, in which down-to-earth, reasonable people don't take part at all - neither for nor against. He recently said at the Germany Day of the Junge Union that the CDU should "let the others change their gender", but that the Union itself would rather take care of practical equality policy. The CDU is now "not a party of theorists", but of "practitioners". He didn't dedicate more than this one sentence to Wokeness.

This doing instead of babbling course sounds like an elegant solution: Wüst makes it clear that he has nothing to do with gender, wokeness and the like. At the same time, however, he refrains from making a statement of his own and cannot burn his fingers. This in turn makes it easier for him to work with his green and extremely woken coalition partner in NRW. The only question is how long he can get away with this strategy of largely ducking away. At some point, decisions and specifications could also be demanded of him. For example, when gendering should have too much of an impact on the awarding of grades at NRW universities.

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