After what happened in the countries from Thuringia and Saxony to the coalition traffic light The German people are panicking. And not only them: the whole of German society is wondering how a party like the AfD can be so successful. Experts are constantly analysing what the reasons are that lead people to vote for this party. The short answer, supported by all the polls, can be summed up in two words: immigration. There are others, of course, but the one mentioned above wins by a landslide. In the German case, it is also associated with asylum applications, the attack in Solingen – there is another recent thwarted attack against members of the army – and a general feeling of insecurity derived from entering into what Scholz described as immigration. Times of the week,achange of era.The widespread acceptance of the mass admission of Syrians and other refugees facilitated by Merkel is now beginning to reverse. A vast majority of citizens now believe that there is an excess of immigrants and asylum seekers.
It could be said that this is ultimately the case in most European countries. For the Germans, however, it is a question of their very identity. The association of pacifism, democracy and anti-racism – or the unconditional defence of the State of Israel – has always been seen as the greatest stimulus against the ghosts of the past. The current debate on rearmament, like the mere presence of German soldiers in Afghanistan before it, the statements of racist content or semi-exculpatory content of the Nazi past made by some members of the AfD and, in general, the fear of the resurgence of anti-Semitism that the Gaza conflict may signify, touch a very sensitive nerve, and begin to cast doubt on their very self-understanding. What seemed to have been overcome may be rekindled.
I believe that in other countries we have much to learn from this same sensitivity so contrary to the threats of the extreme right. Let us remember that the defence of moral dignity is at the entrance of the German Constitution, and other human beings do not cease to have it just because they are not European. How can we reconcile the principles in which we claim to believe with the impulse to calm the fears that immigration arouses? This is the great question to which we are obliged to find an answer. For now, however, there is no thought, only reaction. Even in Germany. The governing coalition has sought to erect a firewall following the Hobbesian tic of calming fears by resorting to greater border control – Schengen is currently hanging by a thread – hot returns of presumed refugees to the European country of entry and others that continue to be handled. It will undoubtedly have an almost immediate effect on the application of the recently approved pact on immigration and asylum. And on the process of European integration itself. The worst thing about Scholz’s reaction is that it was unilateral, the EU has been left out for now, when we all know that it is essential for the solution.
This is the reaction typical of leaders who, as in other countries, limit themselves to following certain popular moods. In other words, they are not leaders. Here, it is also shown that, in a certain way, the discourse of the extreme right has already won. Instead of introducing a calm public debate on a complex issue such as migration, which has many dimensions – labour demand, demographic or climatic – and all of them are blurred under its simplest dimension, that of security, one of many. Fear rules.
