From Hildburg Bruns
She changed and grabs the symbol of the rainbow. Hostess Iris Spranger (61, SPD) irritated some of her male ministerial colleagues at the three-day conference of interior ministers (IMK) in Berlin.
Peter Beuth (55, CDU), Hesse’s Minister of the Interior and spokesman for the Union-led interior ministries: “With gendering at the IMK, it’s like always with gendering: It distracts from the actual content and makes previously catchy and easily understandable words unnecessarily complicated and incomprehensible. The IMK in Berlin has made important decisions for the security of the citizens – that’s what counts.”
In January, Berlin’s Senator for the Interior, Spranger, took over the chair of the Bavarian Interior Ministers’ Conference. For a year. As the host of the three-day spring conference, she surprisingly had TV walls, blocks and pens printed with the new logo “Interior Minister: Conference of the Interior” and the Berlin bear in rainbow colors.
A give-away pen from Berlin with a gender imprint and a rainbow bear Photo: Private
Why Spranger changed? “I want to make our diversity visible. At the same time, it is a sign against hate and agitation, against currents that shake the foundations of our coexistence and try to shake or even overthrow our democracy.”
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (66, CSU) on the BZ: “The respective state that holds the IMK chairmanship decides on the logo and its color design. Nothing has changed in the official title, for example on the official documents: Standing Conference of the Interior Ministers and Senators of the Federal States. We also agreed on this at the conference of interior ministers. So there is no new ‘baptism’ of the IMK”.
On the other hand, Schleswig-Holstein’s Interior Minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack (65, CDU): “It’s not my job to evaluate this Berlin logo. Of course, I am very pleased that we are now represented by four women at the conference and that we were also able to welcome a female Federal Minister of the Interior to our group. It is a strong signal and a really encouraging development that we have made significant progress here in just a few years. We must consistently continue on this path.”