At Berlin parties, there is a new hot topic of conversation. Over the wine spritzers and cigarettes and along with the small talk, someone will ask: “So where do we go?” And even if those in the conversation barely know each other, everyone knows exactly what that question implies. The next federal elections in Germany take place in less than two years’ time, and there’s a chance that the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) could be part of the government.
Not only is the AfD currently polling in second place nationally, it has more potential voters than any of the three parties in the governing coalition (Social Democrats, Greens and the economically liberal Free Democrats). The surge in the far right’s popularity is fuelling a mood swing in nearly every political camp. Outright anti-immigrant rhetoric is seeping into our everyday lives. Some Germans were, it seems, only waiting for an opportunity to scapegoat minorities for modern ills.
“Go, die in the Mediterranean Sea!” someone screamed at a friend who bumped into them by mistake at a crowded metro station. “Foreigners out of our beautiful Germany, you slut!” read a handwritten letter in the mailbox of another friend, signed anonymously by “a neighbour”. But being casually asked at a party where I will migrate to “when the Nazis take over” makes my blood boil.
That is probably because the social fabric at parties where this question is asked consists mainly of young creatives who are privileged enough to be able to move abroad at a moment’s notice. What about our friends and families and comrades who are not able to leave? What about those who have already left everything behind once to be here and alive? “I’m not doing that shit again,” said one guest whose family had to flee Iran at a recent gathering, and suddenly the room went quiet.
I get it: it’s frightening. The first openly far-right government in Germany since the second world war would be a nightmare for minorities and the descendants of immigrants like me.
But frankly, for the more vulnerable among us without German citizenship or even a secure residency status, this nightmare may have already begun. Whoever thought the optimism of Angela Merkel’s phrase “We can do this”, about the 2015 refugee crisis still held sway in Germany will have had their illusions crushed by Der Spiegel’s October cover, which featured the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, and the quote from him: “We have to start deporting on a grand scale.”
A new bill designed to tackle “irregular migration” by speeding up deportations is the governing coalition’s latest attempt to win back voters from the right. On close inspection the bill seems inhumane, but also rather symbolic, since it will have barely any effect on the number of deportations. Instead, deportations that are already happening will be more brutal, with expanded powers for the police.
To get an impression of the sensitivity of the German police’s treatment of immigrants, one only has to stroll around Neukölln, a gentrified Berlin neighbourhood traditionally inhabited by working-class immigrants from the Middle East. What began as a mission to dissolve prohibited Palestine solidarity demonstrations has become a systematic racial profiling campaign. Hundreds of arrests and incidents of physical violence against protesters have been recorded since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. Undoubtedly, some pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Germany warmly welcome fascists and antisemites, but so did the countless protest marches against refugees or Covid policies, and those were not banned or violently broken up by the police.
Protecting Jewish life should be a duty for the German state, not an instrument to enforce racist policies. But framing antisemitism as an imported problem from the Middle East has become a very comfortable strategy for racist politicians, and absurd, in Germany of all places. So it’s no wonder the justice ministry announced last month that criminal records involving antisemitic agitation will be a trigger for deportation and a bar to naturalisation after upcoming reforms.
But what about the antisemites who are already German citizens? Where will Bavaria’s deputy premier Hubert Aiwanger be deported to? Over the summer, Aiwanger downplayed a scandal around an Auschwitz-mocking Nazi propaganda pamphlet he is alleged to have distributed in his youth. He has denied having written the pamphlet, although he admits having possessed copies. Either way, he was rewarded for the scandal with a record number of votes for his rightwing populist party Freie Wähler (Free Voters) in the Bavarian state elections. So much for the German remembrance slogan “Never again”.
This country is a depressing mess right now. Packing up and leaving may be a comprehensible impulse, especially for Jewish people, for people of colour, and for those who oppose antisemitism and racism alike. Yes, it is a bad time to live here, but it’s a worse time to leave. If only because they want us out, we should stay and be a pain in their ass.
Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian columnist
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