By Sumi Somaskanda

BERLIN — On a recent Wednesday evening, a queue of families bundled in faded parkas and scarves shuffled into a bright gym in Berlin’s Moabit neighborhood. Many had spent the afternoon outside Berlin’s State Office for Health and Social Affairs, waiting in the relentless rain to register as asylum-seekers.

Tin plates of rice with hot meat stew and thin cups of syrupy sweet tea awaited them in the gym. Imam Abdallah Hajjir comes here most evenings. His mosque and community association, called the House of Wisdom, helps to run this emergency overnight accommodations center. The imam sees it as a civic and religious duty to help fellow Muslims and anyone in need — especially now. “At a time when a lot of people consider Islam a burden, we wanted to show that we’re also part of the solution,” he said.

Hajjir, who arrived in Berlin from Jordan in 1978, isn’t alone. Of the volunteers who have fed, clothed, and tended to refugees across the country, many — some 30 percent, according to a study from the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research (BIM) — have an immigrant background themselves.

But in a country where issues of integration and identity are fraught, and where anti-foreigner sentiment is on the rise, there is also growing uncertainty, and even fear, among Germany’s immigrant communities over the uninterrupted flow of asylum-seekers. In a November 2015 study conducted by the market-based research company YouGov, 40 percent of Germans with an immigrant background said they believed Berlin should take in fewer refugees. Nearly a quarter said it was time to stop all refugees from entering entirely.

Around 91,000 asylum-seekers arrived in January of this year, and more than 1.1 million entered the country in 2015. Even if the grand bargain between the European Union and Turkey that the German government helped negotiate puts a dent in those numbers, many Germans feel that Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to prepare for the cultural and economic consequences of her open-door refugee policy.

But the disillusionment in Germany’s established immigrant communities has taken on extra dimensions. The refugee crisis has led to a surge in xenophobic violence by populist right-wing groups that make few distinctions between established immigrant communities and new arrivals. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany reported a spike in threatening phone calls and hate mail, following the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Cologne, calling it a new dimension of hate, while the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD) says dealing with vicious emails has become a daily occurrence.

It’s not just the prospect of right-wing violence that has triggered concerns, however. Wolfgang Kaschuba, director of BIM, says Turkish, Arab, and African groups often still live on the margins of society and the outskirts of big cities — exactly where refugees end up settling. The competition for affordable housing, low-skilled employment, and jobs in the broader immigrant economy is already stiff, and it looks likely to get even stiffer in the near term.

“The old guard is not amused by the new guard,” said Gilles Duhem, who runs a nonprofit focused on integration and education in Berlin’s heavily immigrant Rollberg neighborhood. “Absolutely not amused. Nobody will tell you that, of course. But there will be a battle for apartments, jobs, social benefits, and schools.”

Immigrant associations like TGD, mosques like the House of Wisdom, and various civil society groups have been on the front lines of the effort to assist refugees in shelters and schools, and officially, they lobby the government for pro-refugee policies. But those who work within immigrant communities say the rhetoric on the streets can be very different. “Not every migrant here says, automatically, ‘You’re a migrant as well. I will help you,’” said Kaschuba. “They’re worried about the positions they’ve just managed to win themselves.”

The troubled history of Germany’s Turkish community, the country’s largest immigrant group, has inflamed the “us vs. them” narrative. Waves of Turkish guest workers first began arriving in the 1960s and 1970s to help fuel the postwar boom in West Germany. They were expected to return home after their labor schemes expired, but they put down roots instead. They brought over their families and all the trappings of Turkish culture, setting up mosques and grocery stores and bakeries. It took decades for Germans to realize they were here to stay.

Today, some 3 million people of Turkish descent live in the country. The debate surrounding their failed integration runs deep and fierce. A 2009 study from the Berlin Institute for Population and Development ranked Turks as the immigrant community least integrated into German society, particularly in education and the labor market. And according to a report compiled by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in 2010, one in five Turks reported having poor German skills, and 50 percent said they had little contact with Germans. German politicians have accused Turks of building parallel societies while refusing to embrace the language and way of life; Turks insist they were never welcome in the first place. Systemic racism and alienation have been a barrier to integration, and even second or third generations are not considered German.

Read more: In Germany, Immigrants Bristle at a New Generation

Source: FP