“Multikulti”, an uphill battle in Germany
Germany’s complex migratory history since WWII has encompassed both success and failures, warm embraces and right-wing extremism, steps toward a “Multikulti” society and steps backward.
Germany’s role in history led to the birth of Erinnerungskultur, a culture of remembrance, and Vergangenheitsbewältigung, coping with the past. Such concepts encapsulate Germany’s process of coming to terms with the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust. The active integration of these concepts within German society started off with the occupying Allied powers in Germany “de-Nazifying” the country through instances such as the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials that prosecuted Nazi war criminals. The integration of these concepts into German society had led to the hope that Germany was immune to the resurgence of such racial, religious, and ethnic hatred. However, certain reactions to the migration of foreigners into Germany prompted the realization that they are just as susceptible to hatred as anywhere else, as migration became a particular pressure point within the country.
In 2015, the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, recorded the world’s displaced population to be sixty million and just the following year, the war in Syria had displaced around thirteen million citizens. Around half of the Syrian migrants fled to Lebanon, Jordan, and Europe, with Germany being a prominent country to take in Syrian refugees. This was due to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s swift decision to allow refugees into Germany in 2015 with no prior European partner coordination or parliamentary approval.
As John Kampfner expresses in Why the Germans Do it Better, this was Germany at its best. Hundreds of people gathered at Munich station to applaud and welcome incoming refugees with flowers, gifts, and food. There was the establishment of non-profit organizations such as Freeartus, a gallery, cultural forum, and restaurant all in one where most of the staff are war refugees. Such places bring people of all backgrounds together as Freeartus has an equal distribution of German, Middle Eastern, and global visitors. Freeartus has become so fashionable that people like to be seen there. Creating these inclusive spaces that are proactive in the work they do is imperative for “Multikulti” in Germany. Through the numerical and geographic expansion of such organizations, Germany could develop a nation where “Multikulti” not only exists but also thrives.
The motive behind Chancellor Merkel’s desire to see Germany as a more heterogeneous and open country is debated. It may have been partly driven by necessity with the fall of the working-age population. In fact, newly passed labor immigration laws in Germany allowed for the prospect of permanent residency to asylum seekers who found employment and spoke adequate German. The result? Since 2015, a third of migrants who came in the great wave of migration have found work. Merkel’s decision was also viewed as a moral reparation for Germany’s war guilt. In agreement with Kampfner, no matter the reason for Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders, she did it and it transformed Germany. Now, every fourth person living in Germany, around twenty million people, has a ‘migrant background’ and at least one non-German parent. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Germany is the second most popular destination for immigration. Although there have been efforts to push for the development of a thriving “Multikulti” society, there is pushback from certain individuals, organizations, political groups, and countries who contribute to the rise in extremist ideology and violence in society.
According to Kampfner, Germany has offered much more opportunities for refugees compared to other countries. Specifically, Hungary had erected fences made of razor wire that were guarded by dogs and enforced with tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannon. The refugees were described as an “invading horde” by the nationalist right-wing government of Viktor Orbán who was praised for their stance by former President Trump of the United States. Britain had taken in virtually none of the 2.8 million migrants that applied for asylum to the EU between 2014 and 2019, building high fences at French and Belgian ports. As Kampfner demonstrated, no other country had seemed to come close to the generosity and swiftness of Germany’s aid. However, such successes did not make Germany immune to failures. Months after arriving, refugees found themselves stagnant in temporary dormitories, homesick, and struggling to adjust to life in Germany while locals had expected continuous gratitude from refugees. A wedge was exacerbated between some Germans and migrants with the rise of the AfD party. Kampfner explains that the refugee crisis, in fact, saved the AfD from dissolving as it catalyzed the curated narrative that the AfD would address a range of migrant-related grievances including economic and identity that most concerned “hard-working white folk”, the elderly, and even younger generation supporters in the East. Although recently established in September 2012, the AfD had already succeeded in entering the parliament in the September 2017 general election with a 12 percent national vote, giving them ninety-four members of the parliament. Although the AfD claims not to be formally associated with right-wing street organizations, they remain close to them, as the AfD has far-right views that are expressed with terms such as biodeutsch, biologically German, to signify “true” Germans. Such organizations include Pediga (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) which organizes crowds of 25,000 people shouting, “Down with asylum tourists”, amongst other anti-migrant rhetoric. Such far-right groups even encouraged citizens to report the whereabouts of new migrant centers in towns under a “no refugee camps in my backyard” campaign. Additionally, a domestic intelligence report found at least 24,000 people in Germany to be right-wing extremists where half are believed to be willing to use force. All the while this is occurring, local police forces, particularly in the East, were initially reluctant to deal with such right-wing intimidation, leading to the speculation of the AfD infiltrating police ranks. The Trump effect heightened the self-belief of Germany’s alt-right.
Unfortunately, future refugee crises revealed a stark disparity in the European treatment of different refugee populations that is fueled by the otherization of migrants from the Middle East and Africa. Most recently, the Russia-Ukraine war that began in 2022 prompted a wave of Ukranian refugees throughout the European Union. Extensive and progressive efforts to support the Ukranian refugees came from many counties in the EU while that same effort was used to keep Syrian refugees out. For instance, Ukrainian refugees currently benefit from the implementation of the Temporary Protection Directive that automatically allows Ukrainians to reside, seek employment, and attend school in the EU for three years with no official asylum approval necessary in addition to the provision of free public transportation and phone services. Notably, Ukrainian refugees can enter Slovakia and Poland without papers, two countries that expressed anti-refugee sentiments during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, who referred to Syrian migrants as a “poison” and “invading horde” recently expressed that Ukrainians are “welcomed by friends in Hungary”. Bulgarian Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov, justified this differential treatment by fostering a sense of Ukrainian exceptionalism:
“These are not the refugees we are used to…These people are Europeans…These people are intelligent, they are educated people…This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.”
Syrians now living in Germany were interviewed by Al Jazeera to provide their perspective on the differential treatment between Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian refugees in Germany. They expressed that they were treated like criminals by the government and media rather than people fleeing war in their home country. The media was particularly divisive, with reporters emphasizing their similarity to Ukranians, ultimately posing the most valuable currency for empathy — alikeness. Otherness in this case poses no value. Reporters have blatantly said, “they drive like us, look like us, even read the same newspaper as us” as solidarity is automatically granted to Ukrainian refugees, something Syrian refugees did not largely experience.
