The Alternative for Germany (AfD) sets out its views on immigrants clearly in its program: “The AfD views the ideology of multiculturalism as a serious threat to social peace and to the continued existence of the nation as a cultural entity.”
And yet multiculturalism doesn’t appear to be a serious threat to the AfD itself: In the past few months, more and more of the far-right’s messaging has been aimed at voters from Germany’s many immigrant communities — with some success.
Born in Turkey, Ismet Var, 55, has lived in Germany since childhood, has been a German citizen since 1994, and an advocate of the far-right election for Germany (AFD) since its founding in 2013.
VAR paintings as a motor delivery force in the German capital, and their paintings were directly affected by the accumulation of fuel costs after the large -scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now, you cannot understand why you “Tira” so much money in financial and military aid for Ukraine. His greatest concern, he says, is that taxes are lowered and that corrupt immigrants are expelled.
The latter is already there: the most recent statistics show that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left government has higher deportations for beyond the year. “Now, people are exulting!” Var said at a café in Berlin’s Kreuzberg International District. “But they didn’t. ” He believes that it took the AFD’s intervention in the German political scene to get the government to act.
As I live, he also believes that Germany is too tolerant with what he calls “strict Muslims. ” “I have nothing to oppose them when they pray at home, but when they propaganda, so I oppose them,” he said.
Var experienced racism as a newcomer in Germany in the 1970s: he remembers a janitor in the construction of his apartment telling him that he and his circle of relatives would not be here if Hitler is still in power: “But he did not bother me. “He says.
Anna Nguyen has also experienced a lot of racism in Germany. Girl near Kassel in 1990 to Vietnamese refugees, she is now the AFD representative in the Parliament of the state of HESSIA. But she insists, it is not the Germans who are racist towards her. More commonly other people who believe they are Arab.
“During COVID, it was always people with an immigrant background, presumably Arabs, who shouted ‘corona, corona’ after me and my Chinese friend,” she said. “It’s true that on the internet I get flooded with racist comments — but from the left, even though they call themselves anti-racists.”
Nguyen insists that his party, on the other hand, separates from the race and does not strategically electorally as her. “These are not the history of immigrants,” he said. “This is the fact that all other practical people for this country need to save this green ideological madness. It is: can I a smart life? Is it safe? Do we have a certain supply of electric power?” “
Immigrant history voters are a demographic truth in Germany: the official statistics of 2023 show that about 12 % of the German electorate have a non-German education: about 7. 1 million the background voted for the social democrats of the center-left (SPD) and 28 % for the Christian Definition Center (CDU) Union. But loyalties seem to have eroded.
According to the German Integration and Migration Research Center (Dezim), which publishes an exam on the vote habit between migrants at the end of January, there is little difference between the habit of voting with or without delighting in immigrationarry until the end of the general The elections in 2017, 35% of the German Turks voted for the SPD, while 0% voted for AFD. Now, according to Dezim, the immigrants electorate is not more or less voted than non -migrant Germans.
Jannes Jacobsen de Dezim, who co -written the next report, said AFD is more horny for other people from other origins. He also pointed out that these electorates are German citizens, and they themselves. “Therefore, it would not be a great wonder that these other people do not vote in a very alternative way for other people who have no history of immigrants,” he told DW.
In 2023, Robert Lambrou, also deputy of the State of the AFD in Hesse, founded an organization appointed “with migratory history for Germany” for the supporters of the Immigrants of the AFD. The online page of the organization states that it has 137 members of more than 30 countries and that is open to “who professes their confidence in German culture as a dominant culture and paints for the uninterrupted lifestyles of the country as a cultural entity. “
“My AFD delights is that there is no difference if you are an immigrant or not of origin,” said Lambrou, 55, whose Greek father, told DW. “I don’t see the party as xenophobe, we need a practical migration policy. “
But it’s hard to compete with statements like that of Bundestag AFD member René Springer, who, after revelations early last year in X: “We will originally send foreigners to your country from your country.
Lambrou agreed that some statements are not useful if they are not well grounded in facts or explicit nuances. “When we become aware of statements from party members that we don’t think are right, we consult to seek internal party dialogue,” he said.
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However, to be more and more pro-AFD Tiktok videos made through non-whites in recent months.
Özgür Özvatan, CEO of political consultancy Transformakers, and the writer of an upcoming e-book on politics having an effect on Germans with an immigrant background, said the AFD has been actively seeking the attention of the immigrant electorate for at least the past year. namely, other people with Russian and Turkish roots, basically because those communities are more likely to have the right to vote. According to Germany’s official statistics, there are more than 2. 9 million people of Turkish origin in Germany, of which almost 1. 6 million have German German citizenship. The post-Soviet diaspora, meanwhile, also opposes millions and includes various nationalities and ethnicities, adding German. Many of them are also attracted to AFD’s pro-Russian stance on the war in Ukraine.
Özvatan argues that all this is a component of AFD’s broader strategy to grow its voter base. “Their potential constituency in the nonimmigrant landscape, of course, are finished,” he said. “They would possibly have a possible vote of around 20 to 25% there, however, if they need to be successful at 30 to 35%, then they will have to enlarge their portfolio, which will mean creating promising content and policies for immigrants in the communities.
“People who immigrated earlier are not automatically in favor of immigration,” Özvatan told DW. “They can be immigrants and hold anti-immigration positions.”
Nguyen insists that the immigrant electorate is not deterred through racism and contradictions “because they know who is destined through it, they are illegal immigrants, especially those who have been forced to do so since 2015. These are the criminals, and other people on immigration issues suffer just as much as they do. “
Özvatan believes that many immigrant electorates are simply unaware of racist statements, and even when they hear overt racism, they temporarily dismiss it as secondary to their main belief of the AFD: that they don’t mean them. “”It’s friendly to us,” he said, “and the AFD is looking to engender that feeling. “
Edited through Rina Goldenberg
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