Cem Özdemir, a member of the Alliance 90/Greens who represents the city of Stuttgart in the German Bundestag, and who holds the position of Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, responded via a tweet on December 23, 2022, to a shooting that day at the Kurdish Cultural Center in Paris, France. As a first-generation German citizen of Turkish ethnicity, having been born in Germany to ‘guest worker’ Turkish immigrants, Özdemir, despite his successful political career, must certainly be sensitive to prejudice based on ethnic bias. In his tweet, Özdemir draws attention to right-wing extremism (literally: “extremism of the right”) as the probable reason for the attack. It had been reported that a 69-year-old “white man,” with a history of violence toward the immigrant community, was in custody. [https://www.france24.com/en/france/20221223-clashes-erupt-in-paris-after-deadly-shooting-at-kurdish-cultural-centre]

Traditionally, the country of Turkiye has been hostile to the Kurds, the largest ethnic group without its own state. This history of bad blood is certainly the reason for Kurdish protests against Turkiye and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in wake of the December 23 shooting [as reported in the above-noted france24.com article]. Of course, Özdemir did not grow up in that environment, yet there is a mutual animosity on the part of Turks and Kurds residing in Germany. Without a doubt, Özdemir intended his tweet to identify with the Kurdish community in Germany and to quell a possible chain reaction in Berlin to the events in Paris.

His tweet follows:

Cem Özdemir @cem_oezdemir

Rassismus tötet. Meine Gedanken sind bei [French flag emoticon] & ganz besonders bei der kurdischen Gemeinde. Trauere um die Opfer eines mutmaßlich rechtsextremistischen Anschlags in #Paris. Zeigt einmal mehr, dass Rechtsextreme mehr mit Islamisten gemein haben, als sie gerne hätten.

[Translation by LOC]

Racism kills. My thoughts are with France and especially with the Kurdish community. I am saddened by the victims of a suspected right-extremist attack in Paris. It shows yet again that right extremists have more in common with Islamists than they would like.