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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Democracy |
|---|---|
| located: | United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, India |
| editor: | Gurmeet Singh |
Being the son of immigrants, I’m aware that the ‘good immigrant’ is simply a media trope. It doesn’t really exist in real life. For nationalists, the good immigrant might be quiet, subservient and a supporter of the troops. For more liberal types, the good immigrant is someone who comes over to support the liberty they never had back home. The truth is always much messier.
That’s why it doesn’t really come as a shock to learn that the AfD, Germany’s leading far-right party, is popular among Russian immigrants and Russo-German communities. ForeignPolicy reports:
“The AfD is generally seen as a xenophobic, nativist force in German politics, and yet one of its key constituencies is foreign-born. The party claims that one-third of its voters are Russian Germans, and a recent study has shown that although this figure is probably exaggerated, support for the party among Russian Germans is above the national average. While the AfD has a reputation for anti-Semitism, its voters also include a small but growing number of Russian Jews. ”
The paper goes on to clarify: “Because the German government does not publish statistics on ethnicity, it is unknown precisely how many Russian speakers live in Germany. A conservative estimate from Osnabrück University suggests that about 3 million of the country’s 83 million residents were born in the former Soviet Union.”
How could a party that advocates for a ‘Germany first’ approach to politics be popular among this migrant group? Looking momentarily to the UK, the referendum of 2016 can offer some deeper insights.
The support for Brexit was widely assumed to be racist in nature – a vote against foreigners and migrants. Although ‘the racist vote’ certainly backed Brexit, this isn’t sufficient to describe what the overall vote for Brexit meant. Indeed, support for Brexit was popular among ethnic minorities, particularly British Indians.
Eviane Leidig of the University of Oslo, recently blogged for King’s College London, and broke down some of this data: “Further research on [the Brexit vote among ethnic minorities] has highlighted that although levels of support for Remain were high amongst Black Caribbeans and Black Africans, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis, of all ethnic minorities, Indians are particularly noteworthy. Indeed, British Indians ‘are between 1.6 and 2 times more likely to support Leave when compared to other minority groups’.”
Why should Indian immigrants to the UK be more supportive of Brexit than other ethnic minorities? Leidig goes on to explore several reasons, based on her research. Namely, belief in a competing history, economic security and fear. The competing history in this case is the history of the British Empire and the Commonwealth; the idea that Britain’s relationship with its former colonies is more important than its relationship with current EU members. Secondly, British Indian communities rely on goods which come from outside the EU, and would benefit from smoother trade relations between the UK and India in this respect. Finally, communities did not want to be stigmatised with ‘thwarting Brexit’.
In other words, there is no easy way to characterise ‘the immigrant voter’. Different communities vote in different ways, and it is not easy to predict just how a vote will turn out among a particular community. It may seem like voters voting against their interests, but this takes a very narrow conception of what their interests actually are, or what they perceive their interests to be. In the case of Russian-Germans, their interests go beyond supporting a ‘xenophobic party’. Rather, this community is highly socially-conservative, has a different view of immigration, and is influenced by “Russian state media”, as ForeignPolicy argues. What’s more, they are not well-represented in the German media, and perhaps feel aligned to a party that has apparent ties to Russia.
On a personal note, I now feel somewhat ‘multiplied’ in my immigration status: the British son of Indian immigrants, living in Germany. I suppose that makes it easier for me to understand just how social attitudes among different ethnic communities can, on the face of it, seem to contradict their interests. But the truth is, not only are ideas of the ‘good immigrant’ false; ethnic communities are themselves open to exploitation.
There’s no such thing as the ‘good immigrant’; the freedom to hold whatever views you like, no matter how unpalatable, extends even to immigrant communities. Secondly, it should now be clear that far-right forces are not only concerned with skin-colour; they can identify pressure points and intercommunal tensions, and exploit them. For example, in the recent UK election, ethnic and reigious minority communities engaged in a very clear ‘racism competition’.
Making different communities compete against one another is an age-old tactic. It worked in India in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and helped divide the country into two. It’s now subtly being used to Racid German politics.
There are no easy answers, but I can recommend two nuggets for thought: destroy the image of the good immigrant, and build solidarity, particularly class solidarity, among different ethnic communities. This is how, in my view, people will see more clearly how their interests lie in each other, not against one another.
