Latest news with #GermanCentreforIntegrationandMigrationResearch
Muscat Daily
23-03-2025
- General
- Muscat Daily
Racism in Germany is the norm, not the exception
Berlin, Germany – Fatma, who works as a nursery school teacher in Berlin, said it begins first thing in the morning on her way to work. 'The other drivers give me a look,' she said. She dresses in stylish clothing, and wears a headscarf. 'The instructor in my nursery teacher training programme once said to me that she thinks the headscarf is unhygienic.' Fatma said she graduated from her training course with 'very good' grades, and yet it still wasn't easy for her to get a job. What's more, nursery school teachers are urgently needed in Berlin and throughout Germany. But she feels that the headscarf puts her at a disadvantage. 'It really upsets me,' she said. Hanna also lives in Berlin. 'I don't dare go into certain neighbourhoods,' she said. She's regularly targeted by 'stupid comments', as she puts it, whenever she takes the subway with her kids – because of her children and her dark hair. 'People say I should go back to my country.' Nothing random about racism 'Experiences of discrimination do not happen randomly,' said Aylin Mengi, who is co-author of the Racism Monitor, published by the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research. In one of the most comprehensive data surveys on racism and discrimination in Germany, researchers surveyed almost 10,000 people across the country. The results of the latest report from March 2025 show that those who are seen by others as being immigrants or Muslims are most affected – regardless of whether they actually are or not. Some because they wear a headscarf, like Fatma. Or, because of their skin colour, or because, like Hanna, they have dark hair. More than half of people who are singled out in this way reported everyday experiences of discrimination at least once a month. 'Racism is becoming more subtle' Muslim women and Black people are most affected. According to the report's findings, over 60% regularly experience discrimination in their everyday lives. 'We see that experiences of discrimination are unevenly distributed in German society,' Cihan Sinanoglu, the head of the Racism Monitor, told DW. 'And we see that racism in Germany is becoming more subtle and adapting to social norms.' Sinanoglu summarised the results of the study by saying that there is a widespread belief in mainstream society that ethnic and religious minorities are demanding too many political rights. 'This shows that certain social groups are still being denied political rights.' In Germany, people who have experienced discrimination are coming up against a mainstream in which racism remains firmly entrenched. 'More than a fifth of the German population has entrenched racist attitudes,' said Sinanoglu. Racism causes psychological suffering According to Sinanoglu, prejudice and exclusion can have far-reaching consequences. 'Anxiety and depression increase the more discrimination and racism I encounter. And trust in social institutions declines the more discrimination I experience,' he said. The authors of the study criticised the fact that political parties too often brush aside racism in Germany as a minority issue. 'Every third family in Germany is linked to a history of migration,' said Naika Foroutan, head of the research centre, at the presentation of the data monitor. 'Discriminatory experiences affect a large segment of society.' Foroutan believes that one insight that is all too often lost in the discussion about racism in Germany is that 'a broad majority is against racism in Germany. People want to learn, and they want to be informed about racism'. Ferda Ataman, the federal commissioner for anti-discrimination, sees the results of the study as a clear task for politicians. 'Germany has some of the weakest anti-discrimination laws. The study clearly shows that people need to be better protected,' Ataman told DW. Ataman's demand was directed above all at the future German government, which the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) are currently working to form in Berlin. DW
Local Germany
20-03-2025
- Local Germany
Levels of racism and discrimination in Germany revealed in new survey
Some 54 percent of people living in Germany who identify as belonging to ethnic or religious minorities experience racial discrimination on a regular basis, according to a recent survey by the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor . More than 60 percent of black men and women reported experiencing discrimination at least once a month in the past year. Of these instances, skin colour was suggested to be the reason for the discrimination in roughly four out of five incidents, Tagesschau reported . Similarly, just over 60 percent of Muslim women reported being discriminated against at least once a month during the survey period. In comparison, among those who said they do not appear to belong to an ethnic or religious minority, 32 percent reported experiencing discrimination at least once per month - due to gender, age or other characteristics. The survey covered the period from August 2024 to January 2025 and had 9,500 respondents between the ages of 18 and 73. Advertisement The study also found that 23 percent of the German population believed ethnic and religious minorities make too many demands for equality. Twenty-two percent of respondents believed that minority groups had economically benefited more than they were entitled to in recent years. The racism monitor is a long-term ongoing project to identify social developments in racism and discrimination in Germany based on quantitative evidence. The project is compiled by the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), and funded by a federal programme.
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Our neighbours are daring to choose fascism again': Germany's election leaves many fearing what lies ahead
Flanked by market stalls selling everything from Turkish borëk pastries to bedazzled iPhone cases, Lina, 53, confessed that she was racked with worry about what may lie ahead for her three children once Sunday night's election is over. She has lived in Germany for decades, carving out a life for herself and her family after moving from Lebanon. Now – after a frenzied election campaign in which most politicians have scrambled to ward off the rise of the far right with tough talk on migrants – she wondered what the consequences would be for the lives they had painstakingly built. 'It's scary,' she said. Worse still, the torrent of anti-migrant rhetoric had seemingly done little to stem the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD), with polls suggesting that the far-right party is poised to vault into an unprecedented second place in Sunday's election. 'They are against Islam, against Arabs,' she added. 'Who knows if they will bring in laws against us? It's really upsetting.' Her words were a hint of the high stakes at play as Germany heads to the ballot box. Migration has loomed large in the lead-up to the election, cast repeatedly as a problem to be solved; from Olaf Scholz's promise to 'deport people more often and faster' to the proposals by the conservative opposition leader, Friedrich Merz, to turn away asylum seekers at Germany's borders and revoke the citizenship of dual nationals who commit a crime. Both have seemingly sought to keep pace with the AfD, who have peddled promises of remigration and repeatedly tied migration to crime, falsely tarring the millions of Germans who hail from around the world and live peacefully in and contribute to the country. 'It's the first time, I would say, that I really feel like a foreigner in my own country,' said Cihan Sinanoğlu, a social scientist who works with the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research. 'Racialised people and groups understand that the whole debate about migration is also a debate about us, about what it means to be German and who's in and who's out.' The myopic focus on migration had also allowed most politicians to skirt around the many challenges facing Germany, from soaring housing costs to the climate crisis and widening inequality. 'Nobody wants to talk about structural problems,' said Sinanoğlu. 'So all of the bad things in the world are projected on to this figure of the migrant or asylum seeker; rents, economy systems, poverty. That's crazy.' The result was an election that had left many reeling. 'I'm super scared and many of my friends are scared,' said one 28-year-old, who asked not to be named. She had arrived in Germany from Syria in 2015, as a wave of 'welcome culture' swept across the country, transforming Germany into a safe place for more than a million people fleeing conflict and persecution. Now she wondered how many people she knew were gearing up to embrace a far-right party whose ranks include neo-Nazis. 'They are our neighbours, they are parents. And they are daring to again choose fascism,' she said. The campaign had laid bare politicians' stunning failure to tell a different story about Germany, one capable of capturing how the country's diversity – from those with migration backgrounds to LGBTQ+ people – could be harnessed to tackle challenges such as ageing infrastructure and an ailing economy, said Tyron Ricketts, a film-maker and storyteller. 'Even before the election, the political climate was hijacked by the right-wing party,' he said. 'And that comes with the tragic terrorist attacks being politicised rather than talking about the other real problems.' The absence of any kind of inclusive model has helped to fuel scapegoating, said Ricketts. 'I know that has worked before and especially in Germany, but it's just a super dangerous game,' he said. 'And I think it's quite shameful for the parties that call themselves democratic and centre, or centre-right, to adopt those kinds of techniques.' This week, the Munich-based Ifo Institute published a study that found there was 'no correlation' between migration and higher crime rates. 'The same applies in particular to refugees,' a researcher, Jean-Victor Alipour, said in a statement. In central Berlin, surrounded by shops staffed by migrants, Samira, 25, lamented how politicians had chosen to depict those who come from abroad. 'Migrants are a big part of Berlin and Germany in general,' she said, pointing to her father's roots in the African country of Chad. 'Without migrants, we wouldn't have a lot of things that we currently have … I don't really see why we should push them out.' It was a point that has been highlighted throughout the campaign by trade unions, economists and thinktanks. After the fall of the Assad regime led some politicians to call for Syrians to return to their home country, the German Economic Institute swiftly said that about 80,000 Syrians were working in sectors experiencing deep labour shortages, from the auto industry to dentistry and childcare. More than 5,000 Syrian doctors were also fully employed in the country, meaning returns could result in 'critical shortages' in medical services, it noted. The country's reliance on migration to sustain its economy, however, has rarely been addressed by politicians during the campaign. Instead, many have leaned on a one-sided narrative, emboldening the far right in a way that could have dire impacts on people of colour, said Olivia, 23, whose father hails from Nigeria. 'You can feel it already,' she added. 'It's shifting already but it will probably get worse. I'm scared of seeing that in the future.' In September, Germany's federal anti-discrimination commissioner, Ferda Ataman, linked the rise of the far right to a 'discrimination crisis', citing the more than 20,000 cases that had poured into her office between 2021 and 2023. 'Millions of people are afraid for their future,' Ataman said at the time. 'In view of the electoral successes of right-wing extremists, it is more important than ever to protect people effectively from hatred and exclusion.' In Germany's eastern states, where nearly a third of voters cast their ballots for the far right in last autumn's state elections, migrant groups have warned of a spike in attacks as people report being spat on, sworn at, attacked, and punched in the face. With days left until the vote, far-right actors like the AfD have already had success in that they have managed to usher in new divisions across Germany, said Markus Beeko as he crossed through one of the city boroughs formerly divided between East and West Berlin. 'You don't see that there's enough sensitivity around the fact that this is a debate where everyone should stand up. Like if you're in a workplace, you want people to say 'OK, we understand that this is an attack on you as a colleague and we are standing with you.'' While some had taken to the streets to protest against the shifting political climate, many others in media and beyond had not clearly rejected far-right views, added the 57-year-old. 'And I think for many people who feel attacked – be it that you are female, transgender, or have a different cultural background – for many people it really stresses the feeling that they don't belong,' he said. 'And I think this is something which would be hard to heal and reconcile with because it has a lasting effect.'
