As the ideal German immigrant, I saw how the supremacist integration system enables the far right

As Germany gets ready to vote on February 23, the right-wing extremist party Alternative Für Deutschland issued campaign posters designed as deportation tickets. It included words such as “remigration”, which was intended to mean deporting all migrants back to their countries of origin.

Even as support for the party seems to be growing, Germany is experiencing a dire labour crisis. It needs skilled and professional workers in several sectors. The largest shortage of professionals is in STEM and health-related occupations.

Among reasons for this labour shortage, ageing ranks high, if not the first. One-fifth of the German population is aged over 65.

An estimated 1.8 million more Germans will need long-term care until 2055 and the number of workers needed to provide these services will increase by 37%. This potential employment demand in the care sector may have to be filled exclusively by foreign workers due to the hesitance of Germans to take these poorly paid jobs.

How did Germany end up in this situation? On the one hand, there is rising anti-immigrant sentiment and on the other, a desperate need for more foreign workers.

Recently, I was invited by one of my liberal German friends to participate in a protest against right-wing extremism. Before declining, I had an uncomfortable conversation with her. She suggested that while it is outrageous that parties such the AfD have gained so much ground, many migrants have not shown much interest in learning German and integrating into German society.

She contended that the only thing immigrants need to do to be unfolded into German society is to learn German. She is not alone in thinking like this. She is among the elite, liberal Germans who benefit extensively from the labour of the immigrants but face no obligation to actively participate in creating an inclusive society for them.

Many such elite, liberal Germans are strong supporters of the German integration system, though it is reductionist, supremacist and underpinned by a white saviour complex.

Despite the reluctance to acknowledge it, Germany has a long history of migration. Between the 1950 and 1970s, when the Federal Republic of Germany experienced an economic boom, labour migrants known as Gastarbieters or guestworkers were recruited from Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia and the former Yugoslavia.

Germany entered into bilateral agreements with these countries to recruit temporary laborers. Gastarbieters contributed to the unskilled labour needed in industrial production and mining. Around 14 million workers were taken in as short-term labourers, of whom 11 million left when their contracts ended in 1973.

Although the number of foreign workers decreased, Germany’s foreign population increased from 3.97 million in 1973 to 4.9 million in 1989, as some Gastarbieters brought in their families.

A second wave of economic migration occurred during the turn of the millennium. Between 2000 and 2005, Germany started acknowledging its ageing demography and the need for more skilled or qualified migrants. This resulted in initiatives like the Green Card scheme, eventually paving the way for the first immigration law (Zuwanderungsgesetz) to come into effect in 2005.

Over the last few years, as the need for skilled labour has continued to increase, there has been a return of the bilateral agreements with countries. In 2023, for instance, Germany and India signed a formal bilateral mobility and migration agreement. Other formal memoranda of understanding have been signed with Kenya, Georgia and Uzbekistan.

One of the main differences in this new phase of bilateral agreements is a shift from only short-term recruitment of labour to a more long-term recruitment through initiatives like the Blue Card for skilled workers, expediting the citizenship process and even discussing dual citizenship.

While there is a shift towards more long-term migration policy by the German state, it seems that the core idea of integration has not changed. Integration continues to be specific to the labour market. It is seen as a need-based policy that is practical and efficient. It can be narrowed down to a to-do list, only for the immigrants.

It includes learning the language, completing an integration course and test, apart from having the qualifications for the specific job. Depending on where you stand in the immigrant chain, an elite migrant can get away with a basic fluency but an asylum seeker can only get a job after they complete an intermediate language course.

I came into this country as an elite migrant. I had funding to complete my studies and eventually found a well-paying job. For many privileged migrants like me, learning the language is not essential unless you want the permanent residence card or the passport.

I learnt the language, lived in an all-white German flat share where I got to show off some of my mediocre (Indian) cooking skills. I became the ideal integrated German migrant. On the website of the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees) it says, “If you live in Germany, you should speak German quickly. This is important if you want to meet new people, to make yourself understood in everyday life and to find work.”

I was testament to this. I ticked all the boxes. This was repeatedly upheld as an example of how it is possible to follow all the rules and succeed. Not just my white German friends, but also other Indians living in Germany and my own parents took pride in my ability to have learnt the language and “fit in” so well.

My story as the ideal German immigrant is just that – one story, probably an exception and definitely a reflection of my privilege. But this is also the story of Germany’s integration politics. Both the German state and elite liberal Germans want to believe that I am the norm.

But by cherry picking a favorite immigrant story or having that one immigrant friend, elite liberal German society has conveniently turned a blind eye to the alienating structure of German institutions, their policies and approach towards migration and integration.

As an Indian, it is unfathomable for me to think of India defined by one language, culture or religion. In India, I could easily pass as a tourist in a neighboring state. As a consequence, integration for me is a dynamic concept. It is my ability to live and accept a multicultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual society. But this is not what I observed in Germany.

The German integration story is reductionist.

The German integration system allows the possibility of categorising and classifying migrants as good versus bad. It imposes the narrow, individualistic understanding that learning a language or excelling at an integration test is the main barrier to being absorbed into German society. Once an immigrant overcomes that, there can be no stopping them: jobs, friends, the culture, a home will all just follow.

For elite liberal Germans, it is an easy narrative to support. It absolves them of any part in this process. The burden of integration solely rests on the individual or family that has decided to choose Germany as their home. As the immigrant embarks on this lonely and alienating journey, the only homework for the elite liberal German is to sit back and pick out their favorite immigrant.

One positive success story is enough to reaffirm their strong faith in the German integration system.

A German friend had once made a poignant observation that pretty much describes the consequence of this reductive nature of German integration politics. “There is a large Roma community living around me and I know nothing about them,” she said.

This is true. The country has a long, violent and racist history in which the German Roma or Sinti along with Jews were subjects of extermination by the Nazis. Today, despite a significant presence of a German Roma or Sinti population, they continue to face violent attacks and harassment and are completely segregated from German society.

The German integration story is white supremacist.

Germany’s integration policies do not require a German to actively participate and contribute in creating a free and safe space for migrants. They can volunteer in their own capacity, organise dinner parties or plan meetings in cafes with their immigrant friend, but nothing more is asked of them. They bear no institutionally binding responsibility in creating a secure, well-functioning and peaceful society.

During my work at one of the German research institutes, the organisation specialised in topics of exclusion, democracy and various economic, social and political issues in other countries. However, they did not have a proper mechanism to address racism against colleagues from non-European countries within their own institution. If this is the situation in some of the most elite progressive spaces, one can imagine the extent of everyday racism and discrimination.

According to a report by the German Center for Integration and Migration Research, more than half of Black people in Germany have experienced racism at least once, and one in five of this population group is a woman. Both Black and Muslim people have experienced racism when dealing with different groups such as the police, bureaucrats in public offices and doctors.

The narrow view of integration that stops at ticking the points off a checklist is a manifestation of the routine practices of white supremacy. The integration system puts White Germans in a dominant position. It prioritises their comfort over the safety of immigrants.

The German integration story indulges a white savior complex

“White savior complex” is often used in the context of international development, aid and charity by the global North to the global South. It describes the privilege of people from the global North who engage in one individual charitable action – which could range from sharing a social media post, donating a small amount to charity or volunteer tourism – without really caring or engaging in long-term structural change.

The white saviour complex overestimates the importance of the potential positive impact of small actions (while ignoring larger structural change). The German integration system, in its current form, also perpetuates a form of white saviour complex by enabling the elite liberal German to hold onto power and maintain a dominant position in German society.

It allows Germans the illusion that immigrants always need them, but that Germans do not necessarily need the immigrants. In this dynamic, the elite liberal German is considered the ideal reference point that the immigrant should aspire to reach.

The popularity of right-wing groups in Germany is a result of the country’s own politics. Elite, liberal Germans must acknowledge that they are not doing immigrants a favour by “allowing them” to come into this country. They cannot enjoy the benefits of access to cheap labour by the immigrants, but completely distance themselves from the process of integration.

By outsourcing the responsibility of integration to local state officials and the immigrants, elite, liberal Germans are blind to the reality of the struggles to survive in the country. Sadly, this attitude towards integration has trickled down to working-class AfD German voters, who might have more in common with immigrants in their struggle for survival.

How to move forward?

The elite, liberal Germans need to acknowledge that racism is deeply ingrained in their way of life and white supremacy has benefited them in the past. The only way to move forward is by actively engaging in self-reflection on their everyday actions of racism but also to demand larger structural changes, particularly in the German Police departments and the German healthcare systems where racism is both rampant and life threatening.

Germany must acknowledge that integration is a two-way street. A multicultural, multi-lingual German society is and has always been the reality. It is time for elite, liberal German and elite migrants to accept that Germany today is primarily supported by thousands of immigrants from Turkey, Eritrea, West Africa, East Africa, West Asia, East Asia, Latin America and South Asia.

These immigrants may have ticked all the boxes, followed the steps and learnt the language. But that is not what constitutes the success of the German integration story. It is the survival of these various cultures, despite Germany’s integration and migration politics that is the real story.

If Germany has to fight rising right-wing extremism, its policies related to migration and integration needs a drastic overhaul. In this, elite liberal Germans have to take the lead.

Pooja Balasubramanian is a social and feminist economist. She completed her doctoral studies in Germany and worked as a senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability.