Germany’s ‘Jamaica coalition’ provides plenty of material for media – but is the use of Caribbean stereotypes racist?
Chancellor Amgela Merkel is seeking to form government with two other parties – their colours of black, yellow and green match the Jamaican flag
A German news weekly illustrated the outcome of September’s election with a picture of Chancellor Angela Merkel wearing a Rastafarian hat and passing a joint to stoned fellow leaders sporting dreadlocks.
The drawing on the cover of Frankfurter Allgemeine Woche was one of the least subtle comic sallies in a post-election period fixated on “Jamaica” – as politics and media have dubbed a prospective coalition between Merkel’s conservatives, the liberal Free Democrats and the ecologist Greens.
The fact that the three parties’ colours of black, yellow and green match the Caribbean nation’s flag has proven irresistible for politicians and journalists hunting for questionable jokes.
Many have been harmless, like leaders noting the roughly 8,500km that separate Berlin from Kingston as a metaphor for the distance all sides must go in the arduous negotiations.
This is just reproduction of racist views and perspectives and images. People should stop doing it
Sceptics have also cracked wise about the “Curse of the Caribbean” – the German title of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie – when predicting that the talks will fail.