Germany’s
far right is winning over the young
A dance
track and online video game hyping mass deportations are some of the ways
extreme-right groups are reaching the country’s youth.
October 6,
2024 2:14 am CET
By Nette
Nöstlinger
BERLIN —
“Daddy, tell me about the days when you were able to save Germany just in
time,” a young girl asks her father as the two sit on the veranda of their
idyllic home in an AI generated video by the youth wing of the far-right
Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
“It all
started with the great remigration,” replies the father, birds chirping as they
gaze out over their flowery garden. And then the dance beat kicks in.
This is the
beginning of the video for “Remigration Hit,” a far-right dance track which
imagines the deportation of migrants from Germany en masse. The widely shared
video for the song portrays mostly blond-haired, blue-eyed pilots and flight
attendants — embodying, it seems, delusive Nazi conceptions of “Aryan” racial
purity — dancing in celebration as they deport people of color in planes
decorated in the blue and red of the AfD.
“Now it’s
time to go,” the chorus goes to a pulsing beat. “We’ll deport you all.”
Online
campaigns like these have helped radicalize a broad swath of Germany’s youth,
making extreme-right ideas that were once relegated to the margins of German
political discourse increasingly mainstream. The Young Alternative, the AfD
youth organization that put out the dance video, has been classified by
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency as an extremist group since last year.
But that
hasn’t stopped them and other extreme-right groups from spreading their
ideology among Germany’s youth — with notable success.
In three
state elections in eastern Germany last month, the AfD saw a surge in support
among young voters, coming in first in all three states within that demographic
and garnering between 29 percent and 38 percent of the vote among younger
voters, according to exit polls.
“We are the
party of the youth,” Hans-Christoph Berndt, the AfD’s lead candidate in
Brandenburg, said on public television after the vote in that state. “The
future is on our side.”
The
phenomenon of young people gravitating toward the radical right is evident not
only in eastern Germany, but across the country and in much of Europe. In the
European election in June, the share of young people voting for the AfD in
Germany rose by 11 percentage points to 16 percent — far surpassing support for
the left-wing Greens, who once dominated in this demographic.
In France,
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party garnered about 30 percent of the youth
vote in the European election — a 10-point rise compared to 2019. And in the
Austrian national election last Sunday, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) came
in first not only in the general population — but also among voters aged 16 to
34.
Ahead of the
federal election in Germany scheduled a year from now, the AfD, now polling
second nationally, is hoping to emulate the FPÖ’s success in Austria, in part
by reaching Germany’s youth.
In Germany’s
last federal election in 2021, young voters flocked to the Greens and the
pro-business Free Democrats (FDP). But addressing climate change, the Greens’
core issue, has faded in importance for many younger voters while the FDP has
lost much of its image as a party that represents youth and innovation.
Far-right
groups are attempting to step into the void, and are growing increasingly adept
at appealing to younger voters online.
The AfD was
twice as successful at reaching first-time voters on TikTok in the run-up to
Germany’s three state elections in September as all other parties combined,
according to a study by researchers from the University of Potsdam. This group
received an average of one TikTok video a day featuring AfD content, found the
researchers, who analyzed over 75,000 videos on the social media platform in
the weeks leading up to the elections.
“The
discourse on social media is dominated by the right. That wasn’t always the
case and is the result of years of work by these political parties and
movements, who spent a lot of money to achieve this,” said Roland Verwiebe, one
of the study’s main authors. “They have basically created a parallel,
alternative media sphere that targets individuals very precisely.”
The far
right’s ‘remigration’ dreams
Earlier this
year, the revelation that AfD politicians took part in a clandestine meeting of
right-wing extremists near the city of Potsdam in which “remigration” plans to
deport foreigners and “unassimilated” citizens were discussed, sparked massive,
sustained protests against the far right in Germany.
But just
months later, “remigration” has become a commonplace talking point for the far
right. The “remigration” talk now fails to spark similar shock and outrage
“because the discourse in society as a whole has become so disinhibited and
radicalized when it comes to the topic of migration,” said Johannes Kieß, a
sociologist at the University of Leipzig.
That’s
partly due to efforts of far-right activists to normalize the concept to
Germany’s youth using unconventional means.
Another
example of those means is a deportation-themed online video game called
“Germany Rescuer,” which begins with a voice asking: “Can we still save
Germany?”
Modeled on
the well-known puzzle game Candy Crush Saga, “Germany Rescuer” urges players to
rescue the country from “chaos” and “mass immigration” by, for instance,
arranging an avatar of a black man to be put on a plane for deportation.
Successfully matched rainbow flags that connote gay pride convert to German
flags that yield national pride instead.
The game was
created by the AfD’s youth organization.
“Hardly any
young person would post a state election program in a WhatsApp group,” Anna
Leisten, one of the leaders of the AfD’s youth wing in Brandenburg, said in an
interview with a right-wing media outlet. “But a high score in a deportation
game is much easier to share.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário