While the people were out on the streets yelling “We are the people”, I was asking myself whether I belonged to this “people”. Later, before and after the Wall came down, gradually the country that had invited me to be there as a student disappeared. Since all foreign students lived in halls of residence, we had little contact with the locals. Part of my Chemistry study programme was taught from Halle (Saale) – meaning what was then East Germany. Because when I arrived as a student from Senegal in East Berlin in 1985, Germany was still divided. It was a justified question and I answered ‘Yes’. “I was once asked in an interview whether I had to arrive twice in Germany. He told us all about his path in Germany and how he believes integration can succeed. Today, he is the first African-born person to sit in the German Federal Parliament.

Karamba Diaby arrived in East Germany from Senegal in 1985 with a scholarship in his pocket. The election of the Senegalese-born holder of a doctorate degree in chemistry and that of the Afro-German Charles Huber (CDU) as the Bundestag’s first members of African descent in 2013 marked a watershed in the history of this country. Karamba Diaby (57) represents the eastern city of Halle in the German Federal Parliament on the platform of the Social Democrats, the SPD.

Karamba diaby ute