"This is not the generation of the apathetic"
Why aren't the voices of the young generation better heard by decisionmakers determining their future? YG speaks with Jacob Schrot, winner of the TV show “Ich kann Kanzler” (I can be chancellor) about his civic and political engagement from Germany to Uganda.
Jacob Schrot teaching in Uganda, Photo courtesy of J. Schrot
Could you tell YG about how you first became engaged in civic and political affairs?
Schrot: Well, it started when I was sixteen, at school. There were many people who were engaged, but they were not really doing things on their own to improve things. I wanted to change this and to show that the young generation is capable of political thoughts and also of changing things to improve our living conditions. So I founded a youth parliament where children and young people can voice their concerns. We were meeting people from the government and NGOs and trying to change something. For example, if there was a broken down playground, we’d work to renew it. There were many great projects about democracy or against racism. We also tried to improve political education and inform young people about the political and economic system. There really was a huge need for this and I felt that somebody had to do it. I also started to engage myself in other institutions, especially those advocating for the rights of young people and children. That’s been my last five years.
How did you get involved with the TV program “Ich kann Kanzler”?
Schrot: This is a funny story. I was Googling information for a presentation about former German Chancellor Willy Brandt and somehow I arrived at the ZDF website and “Ich kann Kanzler.” I really liked the idea because I thought it was important to show that this is not the generation of apathetic people. Actually a majority of us want to change something. This was an opportunity to show that. More than 2,700 people said they wanted to share their political thoughts and interests by participating in this competition. It was such a good experience, not just because there’s one guy who wins a show, but because 2,700 people said that they wanted to contribute to the future of the country in some way. We wanted to share our plans for the future because we’re the young generation and we should be considered in the decisionmaking process because if we’re working for the future, we have to take into account the people who will be living in the future. And that's us.
You received more than 70 percent of the votes cast by the 200,000+ audience. How did it happen that you won the show?
Schrot: It was a long process. There were two shows; the first was a qualifying and then six people were in the final where Günther Jauch was the quiz moderator and there were some former mayors from major German cities. It was a broad group of people. We had the opportunity to set the agenda with our own topics. There was one guy talking about university fees, another girl spoke about childcare and work-life balance. I was talking about the general problem I find here in Germany, that from time to time I don’t feel what connects me with other people. When I’m standing at the bus station, I ask myself, what’s the connection with a man there and myself besides that we might have the same symbol on our passports? In our very individualized and pluralized society, what is the thing which connects us and 
makes a community? Of course, it’s good we have an individualized world where everyone can pursue his or her own happiness, but there must be something which connects us, a kind of common ground. And I really miss this. I guess the TV viewers appreciated what I said because they voted for me.
So then what’s your answer, what connects us in today’s society?
Schrot: Well, that’s the problem. I don’t think there really is any common ground anymore. It’s not the Christian foundation; our society is too secular today to say that Christian values are our foundation. What else do we have? Human rights? We aren’t really sharing common values anymore, but common conditions. I analyzed this situation and said that we need to have a greater concern for our common ground. In my opinion, it’s not only about the social politics, that the state has to do this or that, but that people should also show charity towards one another.
Could you tell us about the civic actions Der Tag des Ehrenamts and Arbeiterkind.de?
Schrot: Der Tage des Ehrenamts is about political and social engagement. It’s a day in my former school each year where members of the European Parliament come together for a podium discussion which I led where social service in the European Union was discussed. The main question we looked at was how to connect the work of the European Parliament with normal people and students. People think the European Union is full of bureaucrats, but the number of people managing the European Union, 30,000, is exactly the same number managing the Munich bureaucracy. Arbeiterkind.de is a brilliant initiative started by a friend of mine. The idea is that even if your parents are not academics, but blue collar workers for example, you still should have the opportunity to go to university. Arbeiterkind.de informs these young people about their academic and financial opportunities. They’re mentored with their university applications by university students. This initiative has had a lot of success and people are in university today who never would have believed they could be there.
You’re not just civically engaged in Germany, but also in Africa. Could you tell our readers a little about that?
Schrot: Two years ago I went to Uganda and worked in a school in a refugee camp. Since then, we’ve been collecting donations and books to send to a school there where we’re building up a library in the capital Kampala.
What do you think hinders young people’s civic and political engagement? Is it that we can’t find our voice or that the structures are not in place?
Schrot: This is very complicated. First of all, there’s a huge difference in interest for politics and for party politics. Because there’s such a distance between the parties and young people, they feel there’s nothing for them there. But they’re interested in politics and what’s going on in their hometowns. The second thing is that there really is no infrastructure for this. If we want to have young, active democrats then more than school lessons are needed. We have to experience democracy, have the opportunity to debate, argue and loose a vote. Young people have to feel democracy and not just talk about it. There’s also another problem. We don’t interact and communicate enough with the people making decisions. For example, there are always discussions about what to do with the education system, and I always say why don’t you go to the schools and ask the young people, rather than sit in a room with people who haven’t visited a school in the last twenty years. I mean young people are really, really interested, they know what the problems are and have ideas to improve them. Finally, I would say that we’re not clear enough about what politics is. I mean politics is our daily lives. When you wake up in the morning and take a shower, it’s politics because the state makes rules about the quality of the water. If I go to university by bus, it’s politics because the public transport is managed by the state. In schools, politics chooses the books. If we make clear that everything is politics, we’ll have a different conscience.
Do you feel there are certain issues important to the young generation not reaching decisionmakers?
Schrot: It starts with simple things, like asking young people how a building should be restored. When I’m in the German Parliament and start talking about renovating the floors in a university, they look at me really strangely. But it starts with this, rather than the big politics. We need to know that the everyday reality of people’s lives is far more important than talk shows.
YG’s readers are worldwide and some of them come to Germany to work or study. How can the international young generation living here become civically engaged?
Schrot: This is a problem, particularly if you’re not an EU citizen, because then you’re not able to vote. You have people living in Germany for ten years, having studied here and who are working, but they’re not able to vote. That’s a rule we have to change. If you’re living for some time in a city, you’ve an interest in how that city is developing. There’s a huge need for people to be engaged who come from other countries. In my university here in Dresden, we’ve so many students from abroad, but we’ve to make better connections between these people and Germans. Another problem is that at the universities you have elected representatives for every group except international students, so they don’t have a lobby and are outside the system. We’ve to change this. We always say here in Germany that the people who come here have to learn more about our culture, but what do we want to learn about their culture? Both sides have to be interested. I think Germany is a wonderful country to work and study. I really think that we’ve a lot to offer here, but Germans have to make the first step and be interested in other cultures.
Interview conducted by Angela Boskovitch
