Migration as an enemy: “This agenda has a long tradition”

taz: Mr. Pichl, how are migration policy and democracy related?

Maximilian Pichl: Around the world, we are observing how authoritarian actors are trying to redefine democracy: as enforcing the will of the majority. What democracy actually means is of course constantly being renegotiated. But it's not completely divorced from history either. And in Germany we have a specific, rule-based form of democracy that differs from the Nazi regime. German democracy not only favors a supposed majority, but also provides structural protection mechanisms for minorities. In this respect, the defense of refugee rights is also a defense of our democracy.

Maximilian Pichl is a law professor at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. In August, an article by him appeared in the book “Re-creating Europe. How we protect refugees and maintain democracy”.

This conversation is part of the series “Human rights as the last utopia?” in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Berlin. You can find the full-length interview and all the others at jmberlin.de. The next conversation is with Miriam Rürup on the topic of statelessness, on September 29th at 7 p.m.

taz: But isn't democracy the "rule of the majority", as CDU politician Philipp Amthor said after the Saxony-Anhalt election?

Pichl: The question is: Who is the majority? In Germany, ten million adults were not allowed to vote in the last federal election because they did not have German citizenship...

taz: … so around 14 percent of adults.

Pichl: Exactly. The gap between the population and those eligible to vote in Germany is drifting ever further apart. The fact that citizenship is still the key to democratic participation does not fit into a post-migrant society. So there are actual deficits in our democratic model - but the extreme right completely reinterprets them.

Pichl: The transformation of democracy from a system that guarantees minority rights to one that affirms the persecution of minorities as the right of a privileged majority. And in which every attempt to protect these rights is seen as an attack on the majority. This agenda has a long tradition.

taz: But why does this work even where migration doesn't play a big role? Only just under 8 percent of foreigners live in Saxony-Anhalt.

Pichl: That works because it's also about group identification. In his posthumously published book “Retrotopia,” Zygmunt Bauman described how people, faced with fear of an uncertain future and increasing globalization, take refuge in a false nostalgia for an idealized past. The AfD has constantly promised to bring back the 1990s - even though that was an economically devastating time for the eastern German states. But she charged it with hope for a better future. A future that relies on exclusion. I think the task for Democrats is to counter this with a vision of a society of inclusion and solidarity.

taz: The right to asylum was severely restricted in 1993. Since then, it has been almost impossible for refugees to invoke this fundamental right.

Pichl: The debate about the right to asylum started even earlier. In the 1970s, socialists fled the fascist takeover in Chile. Should this be included here, in the confrontation with the Soviet Union? The question of how far the universal right to political asylum should extend was discussed for the first time. In the 1980s, more people from the Global South came to Germany, and racism entered the discussion. And then came the so-called baseball bat years in the 1990s. Neo-Nazi groups attacked political opponents, migrants, refugees - and attacks on the right to asylum were normalized, including across the German Bundestag. In 1992, right-wingers attacked accommodation for refugees in Rostock-Lichtenhagen - and politicians responded by massively restricting the right to asylum.

taz: People tried to counter right-wing parties and right-wing violence - like today. Did it work then?

Pichl: Absolutely clear: no. The NPD became increasingly stronger and entered state parliaments, especially in eastern Germany. The right-wing extremists did not disappear. Instead, they carried out deadly arson attacks like the one in Solingen. The NSU was founded and murdered ten people. I would say this was an intrinsic moment for the connection between democracy, solidarity and the rights of refugees.

Pichl: In Rostock-Lichtenhagen, German society has withdrawn solidarity from the refugees who were attacked. But Michel Friedman and Ignatz Bubis, then president of the Central Council of Jews, drove to the site of the pogrom. Many people couldn't understand that. The two were asked: What did you do there? It wasn't Jews who were affected, but refugees and Vietnamese contract workers. But for them it was about solidarity. Friedman and Bubis understood what many others still do not understand today: that an attack on the right to protection is a fundamental attack on democracy and the human rights of all.

This text first appeared in wochentaz, our weekly newspaper from the left!

Every week, wochentaz is about the world as it is – and as it could be. A left-wing weekly newspaper with a voice, attitude and the special taz view of the world. New every Saturday at the kiosk and of course by subscription.

taz: Conservatives today like to point to Denmark's restrictive migration policy - under a social democratic government.

Pichl: Yes, and this social democracy has recently suffered massive losses. For the first time in 100 years they lost the city of Copenhagen. Left-wing forces are becoming stronger - but the extreme right has by no means disappeared; it has become much more differentiated and gained strength. We see the same thing in the UK, with the Tories down to third place and Reform UK going from strength to strength. In France the conservatives have virtually disappeared, as have they in Italy. We see the survey developments in Germany. There are countless studies on this. But you don't actually need science to understand: This is not how you fight the extreme right and their positions, you normalize them. And a vicious circle is created.

Pichl: This populist debate about migration has far-reaching consequences. Also on dishes, for example. The European Court of Human Rights, for example, banned pushbacks from Italy to Libya in a key decision in 2012. But since 2015 the jurisprudence has changed and the interests of nation states have gained more weight compared to the human rights of refugees. But you cannot simply relativize human rights for a certain group. You should really look at which rights are under scrutiny in order to understand the extent of the danger.

Pichl: Most of the judgments revolve around Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. So: the ban on torture. This is a universal concept and a central lesson from the Nazi crimes. If you start formulating exceptions there now, right-wing actors will quickly expand this to other groups - migrants, political opponents. The door is opened to harsh restrictions and repressive police methods. Also central is Article 8, the right to privacy and family – also not something that only affects refugees. Laying hands on fundamental rights calls them into question very fundamentally.