Have you heard of AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, english: Alternative for Germany)? It’s a right-wing populistic party in Germany and they’re jumping on the bandwaggon and taking the fears Germans have (e.g. taking in too many refugees) and they just do propaganda with it.
Many people here are scared that it gets out of control. Also, they don’t really trust Merkel anymore. In Germany, the chancellor can get elected more than two times and it would be her fourth time and many people think that her time’s over. I do think so too, in some parts. But on the other hand, we don’t really have any other option.
Let’s get back to our lovely not lovely AfD:
In the latest state elections, there was a rising tendency towards them. In Baden-Württemberg, the state I live in, 15.1% of votes were given to a right-wing populistic party. The highest percentage of votes were given in the state elections of Saxony-Anhalt where they reached 24.3% of votes.
In both those states, AfD is now part of the Landtagsparlament (I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s an English word for that). There are other states where AfD reached the Landtag (due to our 5-% hurdle, only parties that achieve more than 5% of votes get in there): Berlin (14.2%), Brandenburg (12.2%), Bremen (5.5%), Hamburg (6.1%), Rhineland-Palatinate (12.6%), Saxony (9.7%), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (20.8%) and Thuringia (10.6%), which leads us to a total of 10 out of 16 states where a right-wing populistic party has seats in the Landtag.
They also have seats in the Bundestag, as they got more than 5% in 7 out of 16 states.
I hope it won’t be a bother but I’ll list the main point out of the election program of the AfD that really bothers me below.
I am going to try and subdivide (these are only the ones that seemed important to me personally, for any further information please click here.)
Family and “Gender Mainstreaming”
- arch conservative-anti feminist positions in their gender politics
- no equality between men and women
- traditional family, speaking of husband and wife (and best, the wife belongs in the kitchen)
- they don’t want an equality quote for women in higher positions
- they don’t want you to decide over your own gender identity
- stop gender research
- they don’t want early sexualization as in teaching people that their body is their own
- no gender neutral changes in german language (as in der Professor, die Professorin, that would be das Professor, I guess)
Education
- increase study requirements (we don’t have high tuition fees on state universities, but it’s already really tough to actually get an university place in a field you want to work in later on if you don’t have a good Abitur)
- no inclusion “at any price” - keep special schools for disabled people
Religions politics (focusing on Islam)
- Islam is not a part of Germany
- prohibition for minaret, call to prayer of the muezzin and full-face veil
- prohibition to wear hijabs in public service jobs and prohibition to wear burkas or niqabs
AfD also is trying to keep the “traditional family” (mother, father, child) and against adoption by same-sex couples.
Besides that, a german politician (AfD, of course…) said that homosexuals should be imprisoned if they live their homosexuality openly (he later tried to convince people that he was only joking, haha haven’t we laughed). We are not in 1950 anymore, and we’ve come too far of a way to let this happen all over again.
I’m sorry if this is messed up, but I’m not the most eloquent expert on politics in Germany as we really do have many parties and many election programs and stuff.
If you have any further question, please just ask. I’ll always try to help out in any way.
