NUREMBERG, Germany — “On the primary day of the Taliban takeover, they got here to my home and took away my automotive and the weapons we had,” says Seema Stanikzia, an Afghan girl in her mid-30s.
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She is sitting within the kitchen of her house in Rennweg, a neighborhood of Nuremberg in south-central Germany, the place she lives together with her husband and 4 youngsters. There may be meals on the desk and the room smells of saffron and freshly baked bread. The very first thing Stanikzia does is supply everybody a drink.
“[The situation with the Taliban] compelled me to depart my homeland,” says Stanikzia, who has two daughters and two sons and wished her daughters to go to highschool.
Because the Taliban’s return to energy in Afghanistan in August 2021, most excessive faculties for ladies have been closed, girls have been prohibited from attending college, and a few have been banned from working.
Many public locations — together with gyms and parks — at the moment are off-limits for ladies. Whereas the Taliban did not straight threaten her or her household, Stanikzia says, it was the extremist group’s draconian restrictions on girls that compelled them to depart.
Whereas Stanikzia nonetheless longs for residence, her household now has political asylum and everlasting residency in Germany. They did not face any vital issues once they arrived, she says; in reality, fairly the other: On their first day in Germany, they received free transport from the airport to their lodging and cash for meals and different requirements.
“The entire course of was very well-managed,” she says.
What makes Stanikzia even happier is the data that, sooner or later, her daughters can go to highschool.
Issues have been very completely different within the Nineteen Nineties. The primary time Meho Travljanin tried to make it to Germany, he was 9 years outdated and had misplaced his footwear within the forest. It was 1992 and the start of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Together with his mom and two brothers, Travljanin tried to cross the border from Slovenia into Austria, solely to be caught by the police and despatched again. One other 12 months handed earlier than Travljanin was given the inexperienced mild and allowed to reside in Germany.
Travljanin, who now resides in Berlin, is one in all over 350,000 refugees that escaped to Germany through the Balkan wars of the Nineteen Nineties, which killed over 130,000 individuals and displaced hundreds of thousands. Three a long time later, Germany has taken in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Syrians, and Afghans, drastically altering how the nation welcomes and integrates migrants. However for the Bosnians who’ve been in Germany for many years and for the newer arrivals from Afghanistan or Ukraine, a lot of the core expertise of being a refugee has stayed the identical: Integration and acceptance remains to be an extended and arduous course of.
‘Duldung’ And ‘Hajam’
In a park close to his house the place he walks along with his spouse and two youngsters, Travljanin remembers his first try to attempt to get into Germany.
“I used to be [just] carrying woolen socks…all muddy and, with my brothers and mom, we have been ready for the practice again to Trbovlje,” says Travljanin, referring to the city in Slovenia they have been being despatched again to.
After that first ill-fated try, the household obtained a letter of assure from a relative who had been residing in Germany for some time. They lastly left Bosnia, one 12 months after fleeing their war-torn hometown of Sanski Most within the north of the nation.
In these days, it was all about “duldung” and “hajam.” The German phrase duldung “means to place up with somebody,” Travljanin says. It was additionally the official title of the refugees’ visa, which needed to be prolonged each six months.
“It was a really traumatic expertise for us all, as a result of it was an extended wait,” he says.
Hajam was a Bosnian rendering of the German phrase heim, that means residence. It’s definitely a lovely phrase, Travljanin says, however again then it had a barely ironic or pejorative tone.
One other Bosnian, Hasan Mehmedovic, spent 80 days residing in forests round Tuzla, the nation’s third-largest metropolis, earlier than he managed to flee to Germany in February 1996. A Bosnian Muslim, he was expelled from his hometown of Drinjaca, within the east of the nation, when the conflict started in 1992. Earlier than making it to Germany, he largely lived in Srebrenica, the place Bosnian Serb forces massacred over 8,000 largely Muslim males and boys in a conflict crime that has been legally outlined as genocide, together with by two UN courts.
Mehmedovic’s arrival in Germany did not put an finish to the uncertainty. Due to a difficulty along with his paperwork, he ended up preventing German forms for 9 years, earlier than he ultimately obtained his everlasting residency. Mehmedovic’s spouse, who has been in Germany since 1992 and now has 5 youngsters, nonetheless doesn’t have everlasting residency.
Dwelling in a state of authorized limbo, Mehmedovic wasn’t allowed to depart Germany to go to his father’s funeral in 1999. And resulting from restrictions on his freedom of motion, it was 4 years earlier than he returned to Bosnia to put his father to relaxation, solely after he obtained permission to depart Germany for seven days to bury one in all his brothers who was killed within the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Mehmedovic’s brother was one in all 6,700 of the estimated 8,000 victims to be buried within the close by village of Potocari.
For probably the most half, the Bosnian refugees weren’t complaining, although.
“We had sufficient, our house was paid for. We even had our excursions paid for,” says Travljanin.
His fellow Bosnian, Mehmedovic, skilled a lot the identical, with a paid-for house and social help all through his keep.
Acceptance, tolerance, handouts — what duldung did not imply was integration.
“I want Mother had labored, if we had been part of society, if we weren’t on social welfare, if we weren’t residing in hajam. I want Mother knew German, if we have been in some way built-in,” Travljanin says. “You were not allowed to work, to go to school, to go to commerce faculty. The one factor that minors needed to do, as a result of the legislation stipulated it, was go to elementary faculty.
“There was no deliberate coaching of individuals, whether or not it was the language [or] some extra schooling, as a result of it was not anticipated that these individuals have been going to remain. And it actually was like, ‘You are right here whereas the conflict lasts, and when the conflict ends, you possibly can return to your nation,'” Travljanin says.
Travljanin discovered the uncertainty — relentlessly ready for the opposite shoe to drop — very tough. Together with your homeland being destroyed by conflict, it was completely regular to consider staying in Germany, Travljanin says. However again then, it did not even appear to be an choice.
From Tolerance To Integration
As of June 2023, 13 million out of Germany’s 83 million residents are international nationals, in keeping with knowledge from the Federal Statistical Workplace of Germany. The newer arrivals have been higher served by the system, with Germany making enormous strides in the way it integrates international migrants and refugees, significantly relating to schooling. Since 2005, the Federal Workplace for Migration and Refugees has provided integration programs that embody German-language instruction.
By 2019, greater than 2 million individuals had participated in this system, Saskia Geltenpoth, a spokesperson for the migration workplace, tells RFE/RL. “The purpose of the combination course is for contributors to have the ability to act independently when it comes to the German language and be capable of get by in on a regular basis life,” Geltenpoth says.
For Stanikzia’s household, this system has accomplished precisely that.
“My sister goes to highschool; my sons. too. They discovered German and at the moment are actively concerned of their research,” Stanikzia says, including that she remains to be studying the language. “It is the legislation right here that an individual has to be taught the language first; that is a fundamental requirement. For individuals who wish to be taught extra, there are extra language courses.”
Fariba Aram, a younger journalist from Afghanistan, can also be studying German. She left Afghanistan for Germany in February 2022 due to threats she was receiving from the Taliban. A neighbor of Stanikzia, she usually comes for lunch, as do different Afghans residing within the Rennweg neighborhood of Nuremberg.
“Seema is one of the best prepare dinner,” Aram says. “Studying the language is vital. For the Germans, it is necessary that you just be taught their language.”
Analysis performed yearly since 2013 by the Analysis Heart of the Federal Workplace for Migration and Refugees exhibits that data of the German language has elevated amongst refugees, in addition to their contacts with the native inhabitants. In 2020, for the primary time, greater than half of the refugees who got here to Germany between 2013 and 2016 assessed their German-language abilities as “good” or “excellent.”
Geltenpoth, the spokeswoman for the federal migration and refugees’ workplace, says that language abilities are a key ingredient in a profitable integration program.
“Quite a few empirical research present that talking and understanding the language of the host nation of residence facilitates entry to social contacts, schooling, or the labor market,” Geltenpoth says.
After spending most of his life in Germany, talking the language is now second nature for Travljanin, though he needs that the scenario within the Nineteen Nineties was completely different.
“They only threw you into class,” he says, with out understanding the language. “I went to elementary faculty from the fifth grade and, by the eighth grade, I knew German very well.”
Mehmedovic additionally needs issues had been completely different again then. Now 60, he lives in Berlin along with his spouse and 5 youngsters and says he needs that he had discovered German and will work to assist his household.
“I had the will to work, however, theoretically, there was no likelihood,” he says.
Germany’s Labor Scarcity
Germany’s altering method to the way it welcomes and integrates migrants has been partially prompted by the nation’s labor scarcity, resulting from an ever-shrinking workforce and an growing old inhabitants. Over the previous few years, it has been migrants — in Germany and extra broadly throughout the EU — who’ve helped plug the gaps.
“There are extra alternatives for Germans and foreigners, migrants, and likewise refugees. We at present have near 2 million job vacancies that aren’t stuffed,” says Karl Kopp, head of the European division at Professional Asyl, a corporation that aids refugees and migrants upon arrival in Germany.
Everybody wants staff, Kopp says, from small companies to bakeries to firms on the lookout for extremely expert technicians. And Germans plan all the pieces, Travljanin says, together with what number of migrant staff are wanted to complement the nation’s workforce.
“To be able to preserve the extent and wealth of all the pieces we now have right here as a rustic, we’d like a number of hundred thousand new staff yearly,” Kopp says.
After eight years of bureaucratic battles, Mehmedovic obtained his everlasting residency in November 2005, giving him the proper to enter the German workforce. He labored a lot of completely different jobs through the years and is now retired and receiving a state pension. The scenario is a lot better than it was within the Nineteen Nineties, he says, just because the nation wants extra staff.
Most German politicians, Kopp says, have realized that it’s neither sensible nor humane to maintain individuals out of labor and youngsters out of college simply because they’re ready to change into residents of this nation. “It is higher,” he says, “to start out integrating early.”
Now there are refugees from Bosnia working within the German parliament, Kopp says.
“They’re not refugees,” he says. “They’re German residents, politicians, and [they] characterize their districts. I’d say that is a great method. I’m satisfied that if you happen to do it proper, [it] will probably be profitable.”
Migrants (Not At all times) Welcome
Europe’s migrant disaster, which divided politicians and publics and emboldened the far proper, peaked in 2015, when hundreds of thousands fled the Syrian civil conflict and the brutal rule of the Islamic State extremist group. Germany alone took in over 1 million Syrian refugees, inspired by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who gambled her political profession by opening the nation up. “We will do it,” she implored, and the slogan turned a well-liked chorus.
In accordance with analysis from the Berlin-based Knowledgeable Council on Integration and Migration, nearly all of individuals in Germany specific solidarity with refugees.
“Three out of 4 individuals are able to donate cash,” says Nora Storz, a researcher on the council.
Nearly two-thirds of the 4,000 individuals polled in February and March of this 12 months mentioned they might be ready to assist refugees, for instance, by accompanying them to a bureaucratic appointment.
Such a heat welcome has largely been Aram’s expertise, and she or he says she hasn’t obtained any abuse or harassment in Germany.
“Perhaps it is due to the legal guidelines that forestall unhealthy therapy of migrants,” she says, including that typically she will get “appears” from older individuals. Younger individuals, Aram says, do not appear to have an issue with migrants.
That does not imply that refugees are by no means focused.
“Some individuals right here do not put on Afghan garments once they exit,” Stanikzia says, “as a result of they are saying that the Germans maintain looking at them.” They need to be pleased with their tradition, she says, as a result of that’s what defines them.
For Noor Ullah Arian, a 33-year-old refugee who additionally labored as a journalist in Afghanistan, it wasn’t simply individuals staring. On his journey from Afghanistan to Germany, Arian says he was overwhelmed and verbally abused, together with being attacked by police in Belarus. A few of his buddies died alongside the way in which; others have been injured however did not have medical health insurance or cash for therapy so needed to return to Afghanistan. Worldwide rights watchdogs, together with Amnesty Worldwide, have expressed issues concerning the therapy migrants obtain on the Polish-Belarusian border, the place they’re usually forcibly returned to Afghanistan.
“Nobody deserves to be insulted or overwhelmed,” Arian says. Life then, he provides, simply wasn’t value residing.
Racism towards individuals of shade can also be on the rise in Germany, in keeping with a survey revealed on the finish of October by the EU Company for Elementary Rights (FRA). Together with Austria and Finland, Germany had the very best charges of discrimination from the 13 nations surveyed. And for the primary three months of 2023, there was a rise in assaults on asylum seekers and their lodging, in keeping with knowledge from the Infomigrants web site, which is co-financed by the European Union. Within the first 9 months of this 12 months, there have been 1,515 assaults on migrants — normally carried out by far-right extremists — a rise from 2022, the place there have been 1,371 assaults all through the entire 12 months.
Whereas assaults on migrant facilities seize the headlines, refugees are made to really feel like outsiders in different methods. In spite of everything these years residing in Germany, studying the language, after which getting citizenship, Travljanin wonders why he’s nonetheless thought of a migrant in many individuals’s eyes. Regardless of having spent most of his life in Germany, Travljanin says he typically feels that what’s necessary is his final title. “You converse German completely,” he says, “and other people nonetheless ask what you are doing right here?”
In some respects, politics is catching up with fashionable opinion, and never each politician in Germany has been as smitten by migration as Merkel.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Germany’s center-right opposition occasion that Merkel used to guide, has lately known as for an entire overhaul of asylum guidelines. Mario Voigt, the top of the CDU within the German state of Thuringia, mentioned on December 11 that, “We’re a cosmopolitan and hospitable nation. However hospitality does not imply eradicating the entrance door. As an alternative, hospitality means deciding for ourselves who and what number of come into our properties.”
German political watchers say the CDU’s proposed tougher line on migrants is partly an try to attract votes away from the far-right, anti-immigration Different For Germany (AfD) occasion, which has its voter base within the former East Germany. With an financial downturn and rising alarm over unlawful migration, the occasion is now seeing report ranges of recognition, polling at 22 % nationally. In state elections in Hesse, held on October 8, the AfD achieved its greatest outcome ever in a western German state, coming second to the CDU with 18 %.
Even Olaf Scholz — the chancellor who changed Merkel in December 2021 and who’s a member of the center-left Social Democratic Occasion — mentioned that too many migrants have been coming to Germany and that the authorities will “now differentiate extra exactly.”
“On the one hand,” Scholz mentioned, “it’s concerning the immigration of staff, which we’d like. And it is [also] about these in search of asylum — for instance, as a result of they’re being politically persecuted.” In the event you do not belong to both of these teams, the chancellor mentioned, you should not be capable of keep in Germany.
Scholz additionally mentioned that the German authorities ought to start large-scale deportations, saying that those that stay within the nation shouldn’t solely work “however reside and combine as effectively.”
As a rustic, Scholz added, Germany has the proper to resolve who it desires to confess.
“Certified staff and [talented people], for instance. And this doesn’t have an effect on [our responsibility] to offer safety to all those that are fleeing political persecution, who’re fleeing conflict and loss of life. The fundamental proper to asylum is embedded in German historical past,” Scholz advised the German information web site Der Spiegel.
A fundamental proper, in keeping with Scholz, however are these rights utilized equally?
Stanikzia says that typically she looks like Afghans and Ukrainians are handled otherwise — for instance, in school rooms. Whereas Kopp says that taking in 1 million Ukrainian refugees was successful story, knowledge from the Knowledgeable Council on Integration and Migration confirms Stanikzia’s sense that not all refugees are created equal.
In a ballot carried out by the migration council in July, respondents made a transparent distinction between individuals of various origins and religions.
“For instance, 67 % of respondents would accompany Ukrainian refugees [to help with a bureaucratic task], whereas 63 % would do the identical for Syrian or Nigerian refugees,” says Storz. “The identical applies to faith: 66 % of contributors would assist Christians and 63 % Muslim refugees.”
That might merely be prejudice, Storz says, or maybe it is resulting from “a way of [cultural] proximity to Ukrainian and Christian refugees.”
‘You By no means Overlook The Place You Had been Born’
For Stanikzia, it was the worst day: the day she left Afghanistan. Regardless of the brutal restrictions of Taliban rule, Stanikzia was reluctant to depart her homeland. After she received permission from the German authorities to come back, she nonetheless waited round six months earlier than leaving Afghanistan.
“We hoped that the Taliban would change, that possibly they might open the colleges after which we would not have to depart the nation. However that did not occur, and we made the choice to come back right here,” she says.
“You’ll take into consideration your homeland on a regular basis. You always remember the place you have been born,” Stanikzia says. “The most important problem of immigration is the gap from household and family members.”
Travljanin agrees that not seeing family members is the toughest half.
“I have not lived in the identical metropolis with my brothers and mom for over 20 years. When you might have all these lovely moments in your life and the people who find themselves a very powerful to you aren’t there, it is tough,” he says.
It is the little issues that assist. Stanikzia likes to arrange Afghan delicacies — for her household but in addition her neighbors within the Nuremberg house block the place they reside in. Day by day, with out fail, she takes the time to arrange conventional Afghan saffron tea.
For Travljanin, it is Bosnian espresso — a practice he honors each Saturday.
“That is my residence. I reside right here. My youngsters have been born right here [and] I used to be educated right here,” he says. “That is the place I work. That is the place my buddies are. However there may be all the time this eager for one thing else, [even though] individuals largely do not know what they’re eager for.”
