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.
