Tensions laid bare as Germans worry about immigration
BBC Berlin correspondent
BBC“I’m crying.” Alya saw news of last week’s Munich attack killed a child and her mother.
“Why should anyone do this? Why? I don’t understand.”
An Afghan man has been detained for the latest attacks in a series of attacks in a German city, where the suspect has been an asylum seeker.
Last Thursday, it was Munich’s mother and daughter. Last month, another child and an adult were killed in Aschafenburg.
Alya came here from Syria with her young son ten years ago. Now 10 years old, he and his mother welcome me into their home.
They were one of 1.2 million people applying for asylum in Germany in 2015-16, many of whom came from Syria and countries including Afghanistan and Iraq.
The attacks made security and migration situations and the center of the campaign were days before the Germans voted on their next government on February 23.
Alya is desperate for those who commit violence in a country that “gives us everything we give us.”
The BBC first heard their story ten years ago while filming at a refugee center in Oberhausen.
Rami has been looking at her photos since 2015. He was very young, wearing his mother’s life jacket from the war-torn Syria.
“How could I take a boat with him?” she asked herself, remembering how they crossed the Aegean Sea with 60 other 60 boats.
“I don’t know I’ve gone through it,” Rami said. Seeing it scares him now.
Ten years later, Alya was trained in elderly care and reborn. She is looking for a job, and Rami attends a local school and is a passionate football fan.
They both speak German: Rami grew up with language, and Alya studied it.
They thank their adoption state and plans to stay; Rami dreams of becoming a doctor, policeman or football player.
Not surprisingly, mother and son have changed over the past 10 years.
The same is true in Germany.
Back in 2015, some candy was sent to refugees who arrived at Munich’s railway station, an unparalleled number of people fled to Europe due to conflict, instability or poverty.
German Welcome culture, “We can manage this time, or a passionate culture,” then-Prime Minister Angela Merkel declared.
It was a pragmatic and compassionate reaction for her supporters. For her critics, this is one of her most unforgivable mistakes.
Ten years later, anyone I spoke to agreed that attitudes became strong socially and politically.
Alya said she had “many German friends” but found a bigger change in German sentiment and mentioned hearing this sentence Foreigners – Foreigners go out.
But she felt “very sad” about not learning from Germans or failing to integrate correctly.
“The key to this country is the language,” she said, adding: “There are also a lot of people who have learned the language and they have started working.”
George, 66, near Oberhausen’s main park, said he continued with people from all backgrounds but was concerned about “radicalization” cases.
He lived in the city most of his life, once a car mechanic and ceramic tiles. He mourns the overall decline in Oberhausen, due to aging infrastructure and a lack of investment.
Many in Germany also talked about the fantasy hopes of parties who have ruled the country since the reunification.
Germany’s outgoing government tried to reduce the number of asylum seekers, while the opposition wanted to develop further, so it reimposed border controls.
It’s a difficult question, George said, but thinks there needs to be a sense of security: “Whoever is responsible. Now is not like now. It has to change.”
Prior to the European immigration crisis, Oberhausen was already a multicultural city.
In 2010, 22% of Oberhausen people were either not born German citizens or were an immigrant parent, according to local government data.
By 2016, this figure has risen to 28%, while the latest figure (from 2023) has risen to 37%.
Through the center, the tension of the German immigration debate soon became apparent.
Near one corner, there is a demonstration against the far-right alternative to the German (AFD) party, which embraced the concept of “immigration”. In a sentence, it is widely understood as average quality deportation.
On the main street, an AFD party stall had been placed, but it quickly attracted the yelling of the “Nazis”.
Two people of color ended up having a heated debate with our openly filmed partisan activists.
We heard an AFD campaigner who we had been talking to before and he said, “Back to yours hometown (Land) If you don’t like this here. ”
When I challenged this man, Joelge Lange, he denied that the sentence was racist.
He told me that a councillor told me that voters were skeptical about their speeches and voices, and that one of the men grew up here, despite their fluent language.
“Will you say the same thing to white people?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” Mr. Lange replied-but again denies it’s racist.
“He attacked me personally,” Mr. Lange said. “He said ‘You’re a Nazi’. Then, of course you have to say, if something doesn’t work for you in Germany, you can go back. And let’s be alone.”
The police arrived and during that time I spoke to the two people involved in the argument, Kwame and Pratep, both in their thirties.
“He told us to go back!” Kwame said, when Pratep said “go back” it means “three streets away from here.”
They told me: “We go to school here, we grow up here…we have kids here.” “We pay taxes, we have to pay taxes!”
I asked the two if their role in the dispute increased the rise in political debate.
Kwame, who uses the term “Nazi” in the argument, said that the “derogatory” language he heard about people of color “triggered” him. “We think, wow, are we still in the same place now?”
He is a choreographer who told me that he came to Germany from Garner, 13, and Prathep describes how he was born in the city.
“I’m German,” Prep said. “I’m proud of this city,” Kwamei’s man tweeted. “Whether I am on the world (I say) I am from Oberhausen.”
Both sides believe that their community has become “rapid” in recent years.
The political climate includes a consistent vote on the AFD, which led to the language of some of Germany’s major political parties.
Conservative Christian Democrats leading the poll call for a “border ban” for anyone entering Germany, even if they are seeking protection.
Social Democrats have pledged to speed up asylum procedures and promote deportation.
The Ministry of Defense hopes to close Germany’s borders and leave a common European asylum policy.
Alya hopes Germany will open its doors for refugees: “There is war everywhere. People need this… Maybe there are good people who escape from the war.”
The future of German immigration policy will depend on the alliance after election and which parties they can agree to.
But, in fact, and the words are already in progress.
