Race, Islamophobia and the politics of citizenship in post-unification Germany

Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of German reunification, as in the wake of the recent humanitarian crisis, Germany experienced notable 'peaks' of racist agitation and violence. In the 1990s, as today, the post-Communist eastern regions of Germany tend to be perceived as the hub of such racism. In this article, Lewicki revisits both 'peaks' via an examination of numerical evidence for verbal and physical racist violence in the former East and West of Germany. Rather than conceiving of racism as 'cyclical' or a specific legacy of the Communist dictatorship, her analysis suggests that political projects in Germany's past and present have retained distinct structural incarnations of race. Far-right activists could thus successfully channel animosities resulting from the terms of unification into nationalist and racist resentment: momentarily more so in the East, but increasingly also in the West. The politics of citizenship, Lewicki argues, has provided a key means of perpetuating, reaffirming and cementing racialized hierarchies in the two postwar German states, but also in reunified Germany.

Building a new nation: anti-Muslim racism in post-unification Germany

“…As a result, the population in East Germany, 38 as well as post-immigration populations, including those self-describing or perceived as Muslims, 39 remain distinctly, yet systematically, economically and politically disadvantaged. Their experiences of disadvantage of course differ significantly, last but not least in a disproportionate likeliness to be exposed to racist violence (Lewicki 2018). The outward projection thus enables the fabrication of an egalitarian and post-racial self-image that stands in direct opposition to the discriminatory actions that it justifies.…”

“…In the 1990s, the main focus of such projections were asylum seekers and ethnic minorities. In the last two decades, attention has increasingly shifted to individuals who perceive themselves or self-describe as Muslims (see Lewicki 2018). 3. de Maziere, Thomas.…”

“…They are systematically under-represented in leadership positions, parliament, and public office (Foroutan and Kubiak 2018), and frequently become the target of everyday racist abuse. Online hate crimes and violent attacks against individuals, refugee shelters and mosques have disproportionately risen in the last years (Shooman 2016;Lewicki 2017Lewicki , 2018.…”

“…Popular tropes are animated by historic Orientalist repertoires and often include quasi-pedagogical rescue attempts of the Muslim woman through legal restrictions of her public appearance, depictions of Muslim man as hyper-sexed patriarchal savage, and narratives that ascribe a specific proclivity to violence, conflict, homophobia, or anti-Semitism to Islamic 'culture'. Research into Islamophobia has identified key tropes and ideas associated with this racist repertoire (Attia 2009;Meer 2014;Klug 2014;Shooman 2014), accounted for political parties, social movements and public figures who advance Islamophobic political agendas (Schneiders 2010;Hafez 2014;Shooman 2016), and offered insights into anti-Muslim racism's manifestation in public opinion, its institutional reproduction and eruption in violent hate crimes (Decker and Brähler 2018;Lewicki 2017Lewicki , 2018). While we have hence gained an understanding of the empirical facets of the phenomenon, we know less about how and why anti-Muslim racism is so virulent and persistent today.…”

“…The joining of two German states at the end of the cold war bore a range of asymmetries (see Lewicki 2018). The transition from the communist dictatorship to a capitalist democratic system evolved at great speed, and largely on the terms of West Germany.…”