“There are rules that everyone has to follow,” explains Friedrich Merz at Markus Lanz (ZDF) and plays the conservative card.
Hamburg – “You’re in a good mood tonight,” says Friedrich Merz (Federal Chairman of the CDU), when Markus Lanz (ZDF) ironically describes him as a women’s rights activist and wonders “whether he’s even allowed to gender” when the CDU Alpha – man sitting next to him. He complains about “German humor” and has to realize that it is no longer so easy to control what people do – even Robin Alexander (deputy editor-in-chief of the world ) and Karen Pittel (economist) are not so easy to let go of affect him.
If the women’s quota is a good idea, then the CDU is very late, because what they “decided now, the SPD implemented 34 years ago,” explains Robin Alexander to Markus Lanz (ZDF) objectively, as always. At this party conference, Friedrich Merz also ridiculed a children’s book by Robert Habeck: “We need people in the offices here who understand what the tasks are,” he said in the direction of the Economics Minister. But when Robin Alexander thinks about the last 16 years of the CDU government, then quite often there were people with little knowledge in the offices.
Markus Lanz (ZDF): Robin Alexander was there again
Robert Habeck wrote children’s books together with his wife when they both looked after their four children and their dissertations at the same time: “That’s not the worst workload for a couple” and if they are diligent and work, that “doesn’t speak against it yet the people”, says Robin Alexander at Markus Lanz (ZDF). Friedrich Merz also has three children with his wife and together they have four state exams, he throws himself into position: “Nevertheless, one can say something humorous.” That is “a piece of humorlessness in Germany”, he gets annoyed. But stepping aside and putting oneself above other people is a low form of humor (also in other countries). “Is that the new level of the CDU?” asks Markus Lanz, because the public broadcasters are also part of Friedrich Merz’s view from above.
Friedrich Merz at Markus Lanz (ZDF): That’s where the humor ends
“There are rules that everyone has to follow,” Friedrich Merz plays the conservative card and refers to the fees that “citizens are forced to pay.” That should make a difference in what is reported and how spoken – gendered or not gendered – will. After all, the rules have been “bindingly laid down for the use of the German language.” That’s where his humor obviously ends. In the private sector and with private television stations, “they can do what they want.” But if Markus Lanz is already being paid for by the broadcasting license fee on ZDF, “which everyone has to pay in Germany”, then “the television viewers should be entitled to it”. that “moderators stick to the rules.”
- Markus Lanz from September 13, 2022. The guests of the show:
- Friedrich Merz , CDU chairman
- Karen Pittel , economist
- Robin Alexander , journalist
Markus Lanz has a problem with this argument: Why should he be more restricted on ZDF than he would be on RTL, even if he hasn’t changed at all? The spectators stay the same. And “at private universities” they can then do whatever they want, Karen Pittel asks: without considering the losses? Friedrich Merz’s equation doesn’t add up. She doesn’t have a problem with non-gendering, but she does have a problem with gender being banned again. After all, there is also “a part of the population that reacts very sensitively to it”, which “images are passed on with language.” Nobody should be forced to use it: But nobody should be forced not to use it either! “Language is always something dynamic” and it “grows through the use of everyone.”
Friedrich Merz attacks public television
But even Robin Alexander is cautious about changing language: “People hate it”, that is his concrete experience with genders. Is it a generational issue, a generational conflict? His daughter doesn’t write her WhatsApp messages in gendered terms either, and “there are simply things in a society that cannot be changed,” he quotes the sociologist Armin Nassehi as saying. Sleeping, eating, repetitive patterns in everyday banality: “One would like one to feel at home in one’s language.” Especially when society is under enormous “pressure to change”, as is the case at the moment. There “is an increasing need for certain things to feel normal” and people “feel this even more strongly” when others want to impose an unfamiliar direction on them.
The rules of the language “make the office for the German language” and according to them “gendering is not compatible with the rules of the German language,” explains Friedrich Merz. “You’re not a public educational institution,” he accuses the moderators on public television of wanting to teach people – and yet he doesn’t do anything else in politics: “It’s also instructive when they then forbid it,” throws because Markus Lanz also immediately. “No” he shakes his head, looking completely innocent, he doesn’t want to and can’t forbid that at all. That’s what the Office for the German Language does. This is German humor! And when there are no more tangible arguments, Friedrich Merz tries to play off the CDU alpha man and formally instructs Markus Lanz in a harsh tone to change the subject, because people “have other concerns than the gender asterisk”. But this cannot be manipulated as easily as a CDU party conference in his ZDF talk show collectively with the group (and others). (Tina Waldeck)
