{"id":36693,"date":"2025-04-25T10:52:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T08:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=36693"},"modified":"2025-05-03T14:19:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T12:19:40","slug":"germanys-most-right-wing-parliament-since-wwii-liberals-panic-immigrants-roll-their-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/germanys-most-right-wing-parliament-since-wwii-liberals-panic-immigrants-roll-their-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Most Rightwing Parliament Since WWII\u2014Liberals Panic, Immigrants Roll Their Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"
February\u2019s snap federal election formalized what many already knew: Germany is lurching right. Mainstream discourse fixates on the far-right party, the <\/span>Alternative for Germany<\/span><\/a> (AfD), framing the resurgence of fascism merely as a looming threat \u2014 erasing those already crushed by the state\u2019s boot: immigrants from the global south and pro-Palestinian voices.<\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Laila Abdalla<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

A couple of weeks before election day, I visited a close friend in Hamburg. She\u2019s Egyptian, married to a German, and has more German friends than I do. I hadn\u2019t realized just how distant I\u2019d become from German social culture and political discourse until that trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

One day, we were sitting in a caf\u00e9 with some of her German friends. The lavish vibe and comforting scent of freshly brewed coffee triggered a wave of survivor\u2019s guilt in me. As we\u2019re confronted with apocalyptic images on a daily basis \u2014 from Gaza, the West Bank, Beirut, southern Lebanon, Syria, and Sudan \u2014 guilt has become a constant companion for hundreds of thousands of Arab* immigrants living here. But you learn to block out the melancholy and accept the simulation of safety you live in.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was able to quiet my mind, return to the caf\u00e9 and listen to the Germans discussing the upcoming election. They were worried; a far-right party was on the verge of a national breakthrough. They spoke of fascism\u2019s threat and the importance of defending democracy. All valid points. But as I listened, I felt a familiar disconnect \u2014 similar to the one I feel when I see headlines about massive \u201canti-fascist\u201d protests. My eyes involuntarily roll as I wonder: Are they aware that their liberal dread exists alongside a comfort I no longer share? That the democracy they\u2019re determined to preserve has already crumbled in my reality?<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just my overpriced cappuccino that was bitter \u2014 I was, too. A bitterness informed by personal experiences. I think back to the time a police officer in full riot gear pushed me aggressively when I was covering a pro-Palestine demo in Berlin. I was wearing a press card, and I turned around to show it to him, saying \u201cWhy are you pushing me? You can also ask me to move\u201d in German. He looked me dead in the eye, then pushed me again. Is that not fascism, happening in real-time under a \u201cdemocratic\u201d government?<\/span><\/p>\n

A guy named Johannes** chimed in, pulling me back into the caf\u00e9 conversation and away from that agitating memory. He said he could empathize, to an extent, with AfD voters \u2014 with their fear that Germany was becoming unrecognizable. \u201cI went on a world trip in 2013,\u201d he told me, \u201cand let me tell you, Germany changed 180 degrees after that. There was a clear before and after.\u201d I asked what he thought caused the shift. He didn\u2019t even blink. \u201cThe refugee crisis. 2015, 2016. That changed everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said it without malice, even clarified that he didn\u2019t personally feel the same as xenophobic Germans, yet he understood the distress some felt at what he called the \u201cdramatic transformation\u201d of the population.<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew exactly what he was referring to: Germany\u2019s \u201cWillkommenskultur,\u201d or welcome culture; when hundreds of thousands of refugees made their way into Europe in 2015, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel declared an open-door policy. As Europe\u2019s largest economy, she saw it as Germany\u2019s national duty, and her statement \u201cWir schaffen das\u201d or \u201cwe will manage\u201d became somewhat of a political symbol. By 2016, Germany received over a million asylum applications, most of them from Syrians fleeing the civil war.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Germany\u2019s Arab community grew significantly, though there was a notable <\/span>Arab presence in Berlin as early as the late 19th century<\/span><\/a>. The first wave of post-war Arab immigrants arrived in the 1980s \u2014 Moroccans and Algerians who came during the <\/span>guest-worker movement, along with Palestinian and Lebanese refugees fleeing Israeli aggression. Today, more than 1.5 million Arabs live in Germany, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The largest concentrations can be found in cities like Frankfurt, Munich, Hanover, Hamburg, and Berlin. I\u2019m one of the Arabs in the capital, and as a person who has lived in other German cities before, I can say that the community here is much more present than anywhere else I\u2019ve experienced. Neuk\u00f6lln, a neighborhood in <\/span>Berlin, is now basically an Arab district. So much so that \u201cSonnenallee,\u201d a street in Neuk\u00f6lln, is colloquially referred to as the \u201cArab Street\u201d\u2014 \u00a0\u0634\u0627\u0631\u0639 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628 \u2014It\u2019s where you will find the best food in Germany, products you know and love, shop signs and graffiti in your mother-tongue, a cocktail of Arabic dialects, a sense of belonging you don\u2019t have to fight for \u2014 it\u2019s the epicenter of the community. And more recently, the only refuge for many of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"In
In Berlin’s Arab quarter, Syrian and Palestinian immigrants frequent caf\u00e9s and schawarma shops on Sonnenallee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

I thought about the Arab Street a lot when I was in Hamburg. At one point, Johannes offered another nod of sympathy to AfD voters. \u201cThey probably feel like that\u2019s the only party that takes their concerns seriously \u2014 and I blame cancel culture,\u201d he said. I just looked at him silently, knowing he would keep talking.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhite men can\u2019t say anything anymore without being cancelled in liberal circles,\u201d he went on. \u201cEspecially about foreigners and immigrants; they instantly get labeled as racists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I told him I see it very differently. We are talked about all the time. The entire political spectrum has shifted against us, just at different volumes. The AfD is simply the loudest. The most openly racist. For many of us \u2014 third-world immigrants, Arabs, people of color\u2014the far right isn\u2019t an outlier. Anti-immigrant rhetoric echoes across the entire political spectrum. Look right, look left, you will find some version of xenophobia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, it\u2019s as crude as <\/span>a viral video from a party on the island of Sylt<\/span><\/a>, where young people danced and chanted, \u201cGermany for Germans, foreigners out.\u201d In the background, one person appeared to give the Hitler salute. As soon as a Nazi gesture enters the frame, politicians rush to condemn it. They perform public outrage, distance themselves from the image. \u201cThere must be no tolerance,\u201d said then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, commenting on the video.<\/span><\/p>\n

The same Scholz who, just months earlier, <\/span>appeared on the cover of Der Spiegel<\/span><\/a> with the quote: \u201cWe must start deporting en masse.\u201d He was referring to young, mostly Arab protesters in Berlin after October 7<\/span>th<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The common thread in both moments? Scholz\u2019s eagerness to condemn perceived antisemitism.***<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In Germany, it has become second nature, a national reflex, to demonstrate that you’ve \u201cfaced up\u201d to the Nazi past. That you\u2019ve <\/span>atoned<\/span><\/i>. I once came across a term that captures this mindset with eerie precision: <\/span>guilt pride<\/span><\/a>. Coined by Prof. Hans-Georg Moeller, it describes the paradox of accepting responsibility for the Holocaust, but doing so from a place of moral superiority.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guilt pride explains how, in today\u2019s Germany, <\/span>police can arrest Jews for antisemitism<\/span><\/a>. How the state can <\/span>routinely censor Jewish voices<\/span><\/a>. Germany believes it has learned from its history so well that it\u2019s now entitled to decide what antisemitism is \u2014 <\/span>even for Jews<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But \u201cguilt pride\u201d doesn\u2019t only affect the anti-Zionist Jewish voices. It\u2019s also what compelled Friedrich Merz, the man on course to become Germany\u2019s 10th chancellor, to say \u201cwe already have enough young antisemitic men in the country,\u201d <\/span>when asked<\/span><\/a> whether Gazan refugees should be welcomed here<\/span><\/a>. He made that statement while Germany was <\/span>generously supplying Israel with the weapons<\/span><\/a> it used to wage its war of extermination on Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, despite the fact that the majority of registered antisemitic offenses in 2023 were committed by German right-wing individuals, according to <\/span>a report<\/span><\/a> by the Federal Criminal Police Office, the narrative holds: antisemitism is no longer homegrown \u2014 it\u2019s <\/span>imported<\/span><\/i>, particularly by Arab Muslims. It\u2019s the perpetuation of that narrative by mainstream politicians and media that laid the ground for the animosity directed towards us today. I will never forget <\/span>that one cartoon video<\/span><\/a> published by Bavaria’s interior <\/span>ministry on X last year to warn against the Islamic Salafi \u201ctrap.\u201d It wasn\u2019t even the blatant Islamophobia that struck me, it was the machinery behind it. Having worked in German media, I know how many eyes signed off on that video before it went live. It was pitched, approved, scripted, animated, voiced-over, edited, revised, and then uploaded. Not one person thought to stop it? Only after users <\/span>compared it to Nazi-era propaganda<\/span><\/a> did the ministry take it down and apologize.<\/span><\/p>\n

From where I stand, the far-right AfD has already won. They\u2019ve dragged the conversation so far right that \u201cmainstream\u201d parties now parrot their talking points in a desperate attempt to reclaim voters. In their fixation on political victory, they lost the ideological war. And fascism \u2014 which Germans still like to imagine lives only in the AfD<\/span>\u2014 is an ideology before it\u2019s a political reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Berlin
Berlin police breaking up a pro-Palestinian protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza (courtesy dw.com).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

Deportations rose by nearly 20% last year. And if you\u2019re thinking they\u2019re only deporting the \u201cundocumented,\u201d think again. Just recently, the Intercept published <\/span>an<\/span><\/a> investigation into four foreign nationals<\/span><\/a>, three EU citizens, one American, all being targeted for deportation by the German authorities for their participation in pro- Palestinian protests. All of them are legal residents in Germany and none of them has been convicted of any crimes. It\u2019s a blatant crackdown on political dissent, masked as a fight against antisemitism. Palestine has exposed the fault lines in Germany\u2019s performative democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since October 7th, cultural and academic institutions across the country have cancelled countless events. Even Francesca Albanese \u2014 the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory \u2014 wasn\u2019t spared from Germany\u2019s climate of harassment and intimidation. She has been travelling the world, shedding light on Gaza from a legal lens and had a few talks scheduled in Germany. Two universities cancelled on her, and at events that did go ahead, the police maintained a heavy presence. In an <\/span>article she wrote after her trip<\/span><\/a>, Albanese described the reality in Germany as \u201cdystopian.\u201d She said she had \u201cnever felt such a sense of lacking oxygen\u201d \u2014 and this is someone with diplomatic status and immunity. Can you imagine what happens to the rest of us, especially Arabs?<\/span><\/p>\n

Excessive force, provocation and harassment at protests, <\/span>raids on the homes of<\/span><\/a> activists<\/span><\/a>, arrests, fear-mongering in the media, bans of chants and entire languages at demonstrations\u2026 \u201ca troubling shrinking landscape for freedom of expression and other fundamental rights,\u201d as Albanese put it \u2014 all happening under a supposedly democratic government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me be clear \u2014 I don\u2019t underestimate the AfD\u2019s venom. They are a blatant display of rotten ideologies. If they ever govern Germany, it will be worse for everyone, including us. After all, this is the party that <\/span>held a \u201csecret meeting\u201d<\/span><\/a> with neo-Nazis last year, mapping out a \u201cmaster plan\u201d for mass deportations. But when the supposed antidote to that is a government that also cracks down on me and my community, what choice do we really have? It\u2019s like we\u2019re living in parallel realities under the same sky. Germans march against a future they fear, while we live in a present they ignore.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember when I first moved to Germany in 2015. I actively distanced myself from my roots, my language, my culture. I wanted to integrate, be part of German social circles, <\/span>and prove that I belonged. I even used to criticize my Egyptian friends who only hung out with other Egyptians. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of living abroad,\u201d I\u2019d ask, \u201cif you don\u2019t step out of your bubble?\u201d But as the years passed, and Germany grew more openly hostile, I found myself running back to that very bubble, not out of fear, but out of necessity. Out of exhaustion. Now, I spend most of my time in Neuk\u00f6lln, where I\u2019m surrounded by Arabic conversations, food that tastes like home, and a kind of belonging I don\u2019t need to earn.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where I feel safe. Or at least, where I feel seen.<\/span><\/p>\n

But sitting in that caf\u00e9 in Hamburg, listening to Germans talk about their fears for this country? It made me fantasize about going back home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who knows, maybe I won\u2019t have a choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

* <\/span>“Arab” here refers to Arabic-speaking people who share a common language and cultural history, rather than an ethnic identity. It\u2019s used in its cultural-linguistic sense, especially in diaspora communities.
\n<\/span><\/span>** <\/span>Johannes is a pseudonym used to respect the individual’s privacy.
\n<\/span><\/span>*** <\/span>Germany defines antisemitism based on the working definition set out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which has been criticized for weaponizing the term “antisemitism” to dismiss legitimate criticism of the State of Israel.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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