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I'm a simple emigrant, and in Germany there was a scandal

3/30/2024, 8:01:33 AM

There's a right-wing party here as well—the AfD (Alternative for Germany). Initially, in 2012 a group of economists, former politicians and scientists created the platform “Electoral Alternative.” There they criticized the idea of financial support for Greece and the idea of the euro currency and the EU in general. They believed that the EU is nonviable, and that such hardworking and responsible Germany should not waste itself on fixing other countries, apparently less responsible. Then they added a right-wing stance on the migration issue and nationalism. But at that time they were not taken seriously. Later they formed a full official party, changed its name to AfD, and in 2014 burst into the parliaments of three eastern states, i.e., they won more than 5% of the vote there. But they themselves were not ready for such a turn and nearly collapsed: the leaders behaved like a swan, a pike, and a crab. But they were lucky: in 2015 Germany faced a migration crisis. In these years the AfD was already openly saying that “white workaholics sweat in the brow, but have nothing,” and that the development of multiculturalism is bad. Waves of arriving migrants gave these ideas a new push. Thus AfD gained popularity and even entered the parliaments of wealthy western states, and in the east they actually surpassed the 25% threshold. And that means more representatives in the parliament, more funds and airtime. When Merkel again formed a coalition, AfD became the largest opposition party, and people projected onto it everything they disliked about the ruling parties, I think, not really delving into the details of its positions. Repeatedly AfD tried to probe their actions and slogans, like “we are victims of Nazism, and anyway it happened” or “Islam and Muslims do not belong to Germany and pose a great danger.” But there were never enough grounds, because they managed to stay strictly within the law. And now it has emerged that AfD met with well-known neo-Nazis, right-wing extremists and wealthy and powerful people at a far-right conference, where they discussed “remigration” of Muslims regardless of whether they have German passports and proposed to relocate them to an “exemplary state” in Africa. Doesn’t that remind you of anything? After publication in the media more than 900,000 people took to protests, and the government expressed its deep concerns and continued discussing what to do about it. Although something did happen: a couple of people lost their seats (classic), and the ultra-right activist who, according to the media, also proposed remigration, Sellner, was banned from entering Germany. I don’t know how this can be tracked, since he is in Austria, and the borders inside the EU can be said to be nonexistent. I often hear opinions that this party is “controlled evil,” that it’s better to let them express themselves within the law than to suppress them and get an “explosion” in the end. But, as you can see, things are getting worse, and I sincerely wonder how in its politics no one has found anything extremist yet. And what do you think?