Demonising migrants, fortifying borders: Germany’s downward asylum spiral

By Hannah El-Hitami

One of the protesters at Prinzenbad held up a sign that read: “Public baths = dangerous? War zones = safe countries of origin? No to borders and security controls.” The sign sums up concisely the issues activists have with the mainstream discourse on migration in Germany over the past years.

In their book Behind Walls, researchers Frank Wolff and Volker M. Heins analyse what effect borders have on those who build them. They claim that borders change society on the inside by creating fear and even paranoia of the outside, which ultimately leads to people’s brutalisation.

The fear of outsiders, Wolff and Heins claim, is not a natural feeling, but “a cultural fact that has to be established to then be instrumentalised politically.” To mobilise more and more resources for border management, unarmed civilians need to be seen as a threat. “Racism becomes a method of governance,” the authors continue.

Someone like Ekhlas Al-Mwaed, a 55-year-old Syrian who has been living in Berlin for five years. She organises programs to empower women from the Middle East and beyond. “We do not fear our neighbours,” Ekhlas says. “We fear the parties. Racism is just a game in the hands of politicians.”

Demonising migrants, fortifying borders: Germany’s downward asylum spiral

By Hannah El-Hitami