Germany’s domestic intelligence agency designated the AfD, just topped a recent poll as the country’s most popular party, as “extremist” before withdrawing it pending litigation. This label would legitimize surveillance of them and can set the pretext for banning them. Vice President JD Vance condemned this earlier move as equivalent to building a new Berlin Wall while Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Germany to reverse its decision and also end its “dangerous open border immigration policies”.
Lost amidst a lot of the debate over this controversial decision is the basis upon which it was made: “The party’s prevailing understanding of the people based on ethnicity and descent is incompatible with the free democratic basic order.” The AfD believes that ethnic Germans have a special connection to their country due to their shared culture and experiences, which non-ethnic German citizens lack, especially those from civilizationally dissimilar societies across the Global South who only recently arrived there.
These views actually aren’t extremist at all since they’ve been shared by the vast majority of humanity throughout history in their own contexts. In fact, they’re still popular in non-Western societies, the same places from which most of Germany’s non-ethnic-German population originates. From Africa to West Asia and the Indo-Pacific, most of these countries believe that original inhabitants have a special connection to their country, which can take several generations for newcomers’ descendants to share.
It’s only the radical liberal-globalist ideology espoused by the Western elites that denies this special connection or pretends that it’s always shared by all newcomers once they step onto foreign soil. To be clear, acknowledging this special connection doesn’t imply that members of non-titular nationalities who obtain another country’s citizenship don’t deserve any rights, rather it’s meant as a safeguard of the titular nationality’s socio-cultural rights. It’s here where the Russian example is instructive.
One of the constitutional amendments that entered into force after 2020’s referendum stipulates that “The state language of the Russian Federation throughout its territory is the Russian language as the language of the state-forming people, part of the multinational union of equal peoples of the Russian Federation.” It reaffirmed the equality of all Russian citizens while emphasizing the role that ethnic Russians and their language have historically played in forming their cosmopolitan civilization-state.
Separately, legislation was passed mandating that foreigners pass tests on Russian language, history, and legal basics in order to obtain long-term permission to reside in Russia, let alone citizenship. This is meant to mitigate the socio-cultural threat posed by those who refuse to assimilate and integrate, which Patriarch Kirill drew attention to on three occasions in 2023 and 2024 here, here, and here. He and Putin, however, also united in condemning ethno-religious hate speech after the Crocus terrorist attack.
What the Russian example shows is that a titular nationality’s special connection to their country can be recognized without doing so at the expense of other nationalities. The same goes for having policies for ensuring that migrants assimilate and integrate. None of this is “extremist”; it’s respectful, pragmatic, and sensible, which is why the AfD wants the same in Germany. These views on nationality are the historical norm for humanity, not the exception, which makes the liberal-globalists the real extremists.
