Migrants in Germany
“Can I really live here in peace?”
A toilet lid smeared with “Turks out” from the House of History in Bonn. photo
© Jan Woitas/dpa
People with a migration background feel increasingly hostile and belittled in Germany. From the point of view of those affected, solidarity rallies alone are not enough.
For the majority of society, it is primarily a political question of how to deal with this AfD bypasses. A party whose MP Roger Beckamp defames immigrants in the Bundestag as “replacement migrants with a foreign culture”. For those who are perceived as having an immigrant background at school, at work, and on the subway, there is much more at stake.
Reports of a meeting between politicians and well-known actors of the so-called New Right unsettle many people with foreign roots. Inquiries are increasing among politicians and advice centers that look after their concerns. According to participants, the meeting discussed which people – including those outside the group of foreigners who are legally obliged to leave the country – should leave Germany and how this could be done.
“This is shameful for our country”
“People who grew up in Germany as children of immigrants ask themselves whether there is still a future for them here,” reports State Minister Reem Alabali-Radovan, who deals with issues of integration and anti-racism in the federal government. “This is shameful for our country, especially with our history.” And Green Party domestic politician Misbah Khan says that people with a migrant background have to fight every day to be an equal part of our society. “The AfD’s inhumane expulsion plans are an additional psychological burden for those affected.”
From the perspective of those affected, the negative spiral did not just begin when a report from the media company Correctiv brought the networking of right-wing extremist activists and certain politicians into greater public view last week. Especially since the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been reporting on such efforts for a long time.
Increase in everyday racism
According to its spokeswoman, Carmen Colinas, the people who have come together in the Association of Binational Families and Partnerships have felt increasingly degraded, discriminated against and threatened since last year. She says: “Everyday racism has increased dramatically.” This is also because migration is discussed primarily negatively – and not just by the AfD.
Colinas says many people who live in binational families feel that they are “becoming more and more of a target” as a result. One example of many is the discussion about “imported anti-Semitism” and the idea raised in this context to create additional requirements for naturalization. Many foreigners find such a general suspicion, which ultimately comes from “Germans with a Nazi background,” remarkable.
“Where are we actually going?”
The association’s spokeswoman says it’s nice that many people have taken to the streets in the past few days to demonstrate against racism and right-wing expulsion plans. Overall, however, the social climate has recently developed in an unfavorable direction, so that questions such as “Where are we actually going?” have arisen more and more frequently in binational families. and “Can I really live in peace here?”.
Zeynep Yanasmayan says she perceives that there are political attempts to “make Germany unattractive” so that fewer people seek refuge here. The social scientist has lived in Germany for ten years and works as a department head at the German Center for Integration and Migration Research in Berlin. At the same time, actors in the right-wing scene tried to hijack terms from migration research such as “remigration” in order to cover up plans to expel immigrants. The fact that softer terms such as “repatriations” are used for harsh measures such as deportations is a phenomenon that can also be observed in the middle of the political spectrum.
State Minister Alabali-Radovan also warns against believing that problems with racism only exist on the right-wing fringe. The fact that people were present at the meeting revealed by Correctiv who could “give real power options for their vision of a Germany ‘cleansed’ according to ethnic-racist criteria” in the upcoming elections, a new dimension of the threat has been reached, finds the SPD politician. But racist thought patterns, ideologies and structures also exist elsewhere.
“The inhumane idea that some people are worth more than others runs deep,” says the anti-racism officer. And adds: “In politics, too, we have closed our eyes to this for far too long and have not put a stop to right-wing narratives consistently enough.”