The Alternative for Germany (FCA) obviously defines its perspectives on immigrants in its program: “The FCA sees the ideology of multiculturalism as a serious risk to the social peace and continued lifestyles of the country 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 defender of the excessive election of the right for Germany (AFD) since its base in 2013.
Var works as a force of delivery in the German capital, and its task directly affected through emerging fuel costs after the large -scale invasion of Russia of Ukraine in 2022. Now you cannot perceive why it “throws both effective “to the economy and the help of the army for Ukraine. His main concerns, he says, are that taxes are being lowered and that thin immigrants are being deported.
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 has too much tolerant with what he calls “strict Muslims. ” “I have nothing opposite to 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. Born near Kassel in 1990 of Vietnamese refugees, she is now a representative of AFD in the Parliament of the state of Hesse. But, he insists, they are not the Racist Germans towards her, they are basically other people who think about being Arabs.
“During Covid, it was other people with immigrant backgrounds, probably Arabs, who shouted ‘Corona, Corona’ after me and my Chinese friend,” she said. “It’s true that on the internet, I’m inundated with racist comments, but from the left, even if they say they’re anti-racist. “
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?” “
Voters with an immigrant background are a demographic reality in Germany: Official statistics from 2023 show that some 12% of the German electorate have a non-German background — some 7.1 million people. As recently as 2016, some 40% of voters of migrant background voted for the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), and another 28% for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). But those loyalties appear to have eroded.
According to the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), which is releasing a study on voting habits among migrants at the end of January, there is little difference between voting behavior with or without an immigration background. As late as the general election in 2017, 35% of German Turks voted for the SPD, while 0% voted for the AfD. Now, according DeZIM, immigrant voters don’t vote for the AfD any more or less than non-migrant Germans do.
Jannes Jacobsen de Dezim, co -author of the next report, said that the AFD is more horny for other people from other origins. Other people do not vote very well for other people who have no history of immigrants, “he told DW.
In 2023, Robert Lambrou, also a member of the AFD State Parliament in Hesse, founded an organization called “with a migration fund for Germany” for the supporters of the Immigrants of the AFD. The organization’s online page states that it has 137 members from more than 30 countries and is open to “who professes their confidence in German culture as the dominant culture and works for the country’s continuous lifestyles as a cultural entity. “
“My understanding with AFD is that it makes no difference if you are of immigrant origin or not,” said Lambrou, 55, whose Greek father, told DW. “I don’t see the party as xenophobe, we need a practical practice. Migration policy. “
But that is hard to square with statements like that of AfD Bundestag member René Springer, who, in the wake of revelations early last year that AfD politicians were part of a meeting planning mass “remigration” of immigrants and non-white Germans, who wrote on X: “We will send foreigners back to their home countries. By the million. That isn’t a secret plan. That is a promise.”
Lambrou agreed that some statements are not useful if they are not founded well on explicit facts or nuances. “When we realize the statements of the party members that we do not believe they are well, we consulted to seek the internal dialogue of the party,” said.
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However, to have more and more Videos of Tiktok Pro-FD made through non-white in recent months.
Özgür Özvatan, CEO of the political consultancy Transformakers, and author of an upcoming book on the political impact of Germans of immigration background, said that the AfD has been actively seeking out the attention of immigrant voters for at least the last year — particularly people with Russian and Turkish roots — mainly because those communities are more likely to have voting rights. According to Germany’s official statistics, there are over 2.9 million people of Turkish background in Germany, of whom nearly 1.6 million have German citizenship. The post-Soviet diaspora, meanwhile, also runs into the millions, and includes several nationalities and ethnicities — including German. Many of these are also likely to feel attracted to the AfD’s pro-Russia stance on the Ukraine war.
Özvatan argues that all this is a component of the broader strategy of the AFD to expand its voter base. “His possible electorate in the non -immigrant panorama, of course, ends,” he said. “They have a possible vote of around 20 to 25 % there.
“People who emigrated previously are not in favor of immigration,” Özvatan told DW. “They can be immigrants and take anti-immigrant positions. “
Nguyen insists that the immigrant electorate is not deterred through racism and contradictions “because they know who is destined through this, it is illegal immigrants, in the specific ones since 2015. These are the criminals, and other people in terms of Immigration suffers so much that anyone.
Özvatan thinks that many immigrant electorates are aware of racist statements, and even when they listen to manifest racism, they temporarily reject it as secondary to their main belief of AFD, which mean. “The main feeling is:” They are friendly to us, “he said,” and AFD tries to generate this feeling. “
Edited through Rina Goldenberg
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