After the Hanau terror attack, Germany is debating about racism. Does this debate miss the point? Our Europe Editor, Nick Alipour, investigates.

A few weeks ago, one of my friends was thinking out loud about moving to Germany for his postgraduate studies. As a German native, my recommendation was: “Don’t do it.” Why? Because my friend is Portuguese.

“[In Germany, they] deeply don’t like foreigners“, Chinese activist Ai Weiwei recently said in an interview after spending some of his exile in Berlin. Indeed, it seems like Germany is currently experiencing a resurgence of racism. Most prominently, the Hanau terror attacks spring to mind, whereby a gunman shot nine people of foreign origin. But it is not this blatantly racist ideology that I was concerned about when talking to my friend.

“The monster wakes up and Germany scares us again.” This post-Hanau quote from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica made it to various headlines across German media to illustrate the global shock over resurfacing racism in Germany. But in its abridged version, this judgement seems just as unfair as Weiwei’s statement. 

It is unfair to the majority of German civil society who again and again show ad-hoc reactions that are clearly opposed to racism. It is unfair to the Germans who voluntarily organised aid for Syrian refugees during and after the summer of 2015. It is unfair to the thousands who turn out for counterdemonstrations when far-right parties are holding rallies and to those who report racially-tinged signs on the bus and racist abuse in football stadiums. Not to mention the impressive social consensus of voices across the political spectrum that spoke up after the Thuringia election that saw a government being elected through the votes of right-wing populist party AfD. I have rarely seen a country where racism is ostracised as consistently as in Germany.

But if there is so much anti-racist spirit – what is rotten in the state of Deutschland? Why do cosmopolitans like Ai Weiwei not feel welcome? Why is it a bold step for a Portuguese person to study in Germany?

Surprisingly, it was Julian Reichelt, the editor of the conservative paper Bild, who got to the heart of the issue in a thoughtful comment after the Hanau attacks. “Yes, there are demonstrations, rallies in support, moments of silence. But does the country really experience the same feeling of depression as after the [Islamist terror] attacks on Breitscheidtplatz? … Unfortunately, I have my doubts.” 

This points to the fundamental problem that people with an immigration background are wrestling with. It isn’t racism in the strong sense, that is, open disapproval of other cultures and ethnicities. The problem is that immigrants, foreigners, and ethnic minorities – basically everyone who is not your average, white, dark blond German with average language skills – are still “othered” in Germany. They are always highlighted as different from the rest of the population. And this triggers feelings of exclusion and alienation.

Only a small (though perceivable) minority of Germans translate othering into blatant xenophobia, whereby everything different is viewed with disproportional suspicion and impatience. Take the time when a US-Asian friend visited me in my hometown and the bus driver got grumpy way too quickly over my friend’s understandable confusion about the payment system. Take the current health minister who denounced “Arabic muscle machos” for showering in underwear at his gym, although every other white boy in my village football club used to do the same. And whenever I fly back to Germany I’m being asked one or two questions more at customs than my fellow passengers with a non-foreign last name. There are countless examples like this.

But even the part of society that opposes racism treats citizens with foreign roots differently. It starts with sports coverage that dubs football player Mesut Özil, born to Turkish parents, as a “German Turk”. It continues with the Bambi media awards that bestowed a “Prize for Integration” into German society on rapper Bushido just because his father is Tunisian – disregarding his German mother and the fact that he has lived in Germany all his life. And there are the demonstrations after racist incidents that use slogans like “Deutschland ist bunt” – Germany is colourful, literally translated. The intentions are well-meaning. But people with an immigration background are still singled out as different from the rest: as non-Germans who need to be integrated, as exotic colour spots. 

As Reichelt accordingly pointed out: an attack on citizens with an immigration background still mainly affects them and not Germany as a whole. Having an immigration background still seems to exclude people from the societal mainstream and hence from deeply-felt solidarity. 

The fact that visual or genetic differences give rise to certain types of differential treatment may be seen as a weaker form of racism. But it must be noted that this doesn’t make Germany a country of foreigner-hating bigots. And this is not to downplay the obvious surge in racial violence.

German society has for a long time been ethnically and linguistically homogeneous; and it has been in denial over being a target of immigration. Only slowly are Germans coming to terms with the fact that more and more citizens with different roots are living among them. And with these so-called “new fellow citizens” only slowly arriving in societal mainstream, they are still seen as a novelty factor. Bonds are still weak. Their perspective is underrepresented. Yet the tireless civil engagement and the extent of self-reflection in the face of racist incidents suggest that most Germans are trying to respond appropriately. 

Of course, social exclusion would make things difficult for a Portuguese student in Germany. But thinking about it again, I realised my advice may have been wrong. Maybe Germany needs more people like my friend to make being different a normal thing.