Far-right movements gaining popularity in many European countries are primarily anti-immigrant and anti-Islam. This study examines Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a far-right political party in Germany. Founded in 2013, the party launched the AfD manifesto, a public document approved at its Federal Party Congress held in Stuttgart from April 30 to May 1 2016. Presently, the AfD holds 77 seats in the German Bundestag, the federal parliament comprising 733 seats. As a threat to German democracy and constitutionalism, the AfD is under domestic surveillance. Recently, a regional court fined a prominent AfD leader for posting a Nazi slogan on social media. The party claims that the AfD membership has grown dramatically since January 2023.
The AfD manifesto advances several themes, some genuinely conservative and some extreme. Endorsing sovereign nation-states, the AfD opposes the European Union and the Euro as a regional currency. It romanticizes the German past that, in the AfD calculus, is rapidly unraveling or is under mortal threat of disappearance. The AfD advocates for the de-foreignization of German culture and the restoration of the standard language. Like other far-right parties in France, Hungary, Poland, and the Netherlands, the AfD sees Islam as a threat to European values. The AfD manifesto declares in unambiguous words that “Islam does not belong to Germany.”
This study challenges the far-right parts of the AfD manifesto from philosophical and historical viewpoints. It explains the AfD’s pastism (love of the past), its advocacy for de-foreignization, and that its anti-Islam fears have no place in modern denkweise (way of thinking). Contrary to the AfD manifesto, most Germans are committed to modernity and constitutionalism, do not live in some dreamy past, or wish to de-foreignize Germany by retreating into a self-suffocative nationalist sheath.
History demonstrates that Germany has had a soft corner for Islam, even when they were fearful of the Ottoman invasions. The admission of over a million Syrian and Afghan refugees into Germany in 2015 is credible evidence to show that the modern German denkweise does not view Muslims as a threat to German culture. Nor do most Germans see Islam as a threat to Germany as a prominent country in Europe and the world. Indeed, Islam may have found a beautiful home in Germany. The far-right fear of Islam is that of the far-right, not of the mainstream Germany. The AfD will likely remain a fringe far-right party and is doomed to die as a failed ideology. Yet, examining the AfD manifesto for its misguided vision for a dynamic and prosperous Germany is crucial.
Pastism
Philosophically, pastism is a group’s fascination with the cultural, social, religious, and legal past. Pastism comes in two distinct forms: conservatism and far-rightism. Conservatism is a legitimate desire to retain traditional values, social mores, and religious interpretations. No culture or tradition can survive without conservatism, which provides a restraining anchor for otherwise senseless changes. Far-rightism is a more militant pastism that proposes dismantling all diversions from a fantasized past and is inherently anti-evolutionary. Future-oriented movements are critical of the present and propose constructing a brand-new future. Past-oriented movements like AfD are also critical of the present. However, they aspire for the future to look like the past. No future can look like the past.
Most far-right movements in Europe and elsewhere, even in some Muslim countries, are sentimental for the traditional past, offer criticisms of divergences from the past, and advocate for the restoration of ancient times. Some far-right movements wish to reinstate a specific historical period, while others want to restore a more nebulous past spread over centuries.
The Salafi movement, for example, is a far-right Muslim ideology that romanticizes the period of the prophet’s companions and the rule of the first four Caliphs, a period that lasted for less than thirty years (632-661 CE) after the prophet’s death. ISIS is the most violent face of the Salafi movement. Ironically, three of the four Caliphs were murdered by Muslims, and this was the period when the great Sunni-Shia schism originated over succession disputes, which later morphed into theological and jurisprudential divisions. Yet, whitewashing violence, apostasy wars, and Arab tribal warfare, the Salafi movement draws inspiration from the idealized era of the first four Caliphs. If Muslims of the 21st century, Arabs and non-Arabs, follow the prophet’s companions, say the Salafis, Muslim nations will restore their lost power and dignity. This ideology, ignoring the worldwide evolution of Muslims and conditions over fourteen centuries, is an example of far-rightism.
Like the Salafi thinking, the AfD manifesto declares, “We want to reform Germany and return to the roots.” Where do we start tapping the German roots? How deep do we dig to see the origins of Germany? Back to 59-50 BCE, when Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and named the people on the East of the River Rhine as Germans? Back to 313 CE, when the Catholic Church began to found its Dioceses in Germany? Back to 785 CE, when Charlemagne (later The Holy Roman Emperor) passed a law to execute Saxons who refused to convert to Christianity? Back to 1517, when Martin Luther posted his documented rebellion against the Catholic Church and launched a movement that would forever divide Christianity into a thousand denominations? Back to 1618-48, when the Thirty Years War, one of the most savage wars in Germany, destroyed houses, burnt crops, and butchered the people of competing Christian faiths? Of course, finding German roots in the Third Reich (1933-45) is not even a plausible thesis.
Germany’s golden period, spanning over two hundred years (18th and 19th centuries), saw the rise of intellectual and artistic superhumans like Bach, Mozart, Kant, Wagner, Nietzsche, Marx, Beethoven, Hegel, Goethe, Planck, Gauss, and Mann. Dictated by inevitability, Germany’s golden period was on a downward Gaussian slope when Hitler was born in 1899. Perhaps referring to this golden period, the AfD manifesto states: “Germany has a rich cultural heritage. German writers, philosophers, musicians, artists, architects, designers and film producers have made significant contributions on an international scale in each of their respective disciplines.” Germany can indeed be very proud of this extraordinary period. But life moves on.
The word “again” is a historical ruse (Make America Great Again is a form of pastism). As a guiding hand, the “again” pastism defies mutation and entropy, two cardinal principles of natural and social evolution. A beautiful period in a nation’s history is like a beautiful dream. The country cannot go back to sleep to redream the beautiful dream. The past is gone forever; it is un-resurrectable. The Greeks (469 -322 BCE) will never have Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle again. England (1798-1837 CE) will never have Burns, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and Shelly again. Those waiting for the Buddha or any other divine figure will wait forever. However, the future offers infinite new opportunities.
Looking backward and denying realities on the ground, the AfD manifesto points out that Christianity, the Renaissance, and Roman law are the roots of German culture. But are these roots mutually supportive? In another paragraph, the manifesto describes “the Judeo-Christian foundations of our culture.” It is unclear how the AfD reconciles this part of the German foundation with the Holocaust. The AfD also conveniently overlooks the fact that close to 50 percent of Germans subscribe to no religion.
The AfD must understand that even historical periods follow a bell-curve distribution: rising, peaking, and eventually flattening. Each generation has the inherent right to live as they please, and to subject them to past generations is unjust. This generational selection is as inevitable as natural selection. Great generations rise and pass away, replaced by average generations, including far-right groups that do nothing but spread hatred and hubris, contributing poison to the heritage. A selective coloring of history is possible, which cherry-picks periods, events, and laws to paint a romantic past that looks perfect not only to the naïve but also to the educated, except to those who understand the futility of historical romanticism (originalism jurisprudence is selective pastism).
Suppose the AfD’s love for the German tradition is heartfelt. What the AfD fails to understand is that no tradition is static. Nothing remains the same, and intelligent nations understand the dynamic tension between conservatism and change. Conservatism guides change, for change without traditional constraint is willful and erratic. Far-rightism resents change and forcibly, but unsuccessfully, stamps pastism over the forces of evolution. Far-rightism, in every case, is doomed to fail.
De-foreignization
De-foreignization is an intriguing German phenomenon that the AfD also advocates. Historically, Germany has ousted things foreign to preserve its moral and cultural integrity. No culture comes into being, let alone survives if people throw away their social mores. A good deal of pride and genuine respect for customs, particularly the mother tongue, is critical for a culture to breathe freely and grow organically. To this extent, the AfD manifesto is on the right footing.
Paradoxically, however, coercion, pressure, social sanctions, criminal punishments, incentives, and propaganda to reject new ideas hasten the demise of culture. A healthy culture reinforces itself when each subsequent generation freely decides to carry forward the traditions they inherited. Much like nature, each generation selects from culture what it wants and deselects what it does not. In this generational selection lies the dynamic continuity of a culture. Far-rightism is dead wrong when it wishes to suppress generational selection.
Historically, there have always been AfD-type German factions committed to cultural preservation. Consider Martin Luther (d. 1546), the professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, who launched the undermining of the Roman Catholic Church. Aside from doctrinal disputes and heresies, two key elements drove Luther: One, why should Germans finance a foreign institution (the Roman Church) by paying for repentance? Two, why should Germans pray in a foreign language, Latin, and not in their mother tongue? By promoting these fundamental ideas, Luther was de-foreignizing Germany. True to his de-foreignization ideology, Luther first translated the New Testament into German and later translated the Old Testament. In addition to his Ninety-Five Theses, Luther worked all his life to polish and refine the German version of the Bible.
Reflecting on history in Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler (d. 1945) argued that Germans living under foreign rulers, like the House of Hapsburg, yearn to uphold “the sacred right of using their mother tongue . . . and come to realize what it means to have to fight for the traditions of one’s race.” Lamenting the Austrian policy of multiracialism, Hitler writes “the poison of foreign races was eating into the body of our people, and even Vienna was steadily becoming more and more a non-German city.” Hitler praises the youth who “refused to sing non-German songs” and were “incredibly alert” while learning from “un-German” teachers.
Both Luther and Hitler wished to rid Germany of foreign intrusions. However, there is a remarkable difference in their motives and purpose. Luther deforeignized Christianity to make it more meaningful for Germans to understand and practice spirituality. By throwing away a corrupt foreign church, Luther wished to purify rituals from making money. Hitler, however, had less than noble motives. By emphasizing the “German songs” and sowing seeds against “un-German” teachers, Hitler planted hatred and engaged in ethnic cleansing. For Luther, religion was inseparable from the German language; for Hitler, race was inseparable from the German language.
The AfD must show that the emphasis on the German language is not a secret code for ethnic cleansing or mass expulsion of immigrants. Chapter 7 of the AfD manifesto states: “Our culture is inextricably linked to the German language, which has developed over centuries, and which in itself is a reflection of its intellectual history, national identity within central Europe, and German set of basic values.” This statement is valid, but what is its purpose? Even the Europeans need an answer.
Language Agenda
Even without any racial agenda, the AfD agenda about language is crude, anti-evolutionary, and internally inconsistent unless it is promoting linguistic imperialism. The AfD manifesto demands long-term action to maintain and strengthen the German standard language. It also demands that German be a spoken and written language worldwide. The demand for the standard language means the exclusion of foreign vocabulary, grammar, and humor into the German language. However, the AfD manifesto demands that the German language be taught in foreign lands through the Goethe Institute and other cultural institutions. The irony is palpable. The AfD would be very happy if Turks in Turkey spoke a mixture of Turkish and German languages, but they would not allow the Turks living in Germany to do the same.
Furthermore, the AfD firmly rejects degenderized and politically correct language. Again, the AfD makes a generational selection mistake. Each generation speaks a different version of the same language, selecting and deselecting words and phrases and borrowing expressions from other populations. This interactivity is unstoppable in the age of social media when the world’s young trade ideas and memes. The new generations must be free to form and speak gender-neutral words. They must also be free to consider political sensitivities in speech. The AfD cannot slam the ancient “table manners” in language on future generations. (Das ist doch Quatsch!)
The AfD manifesto wants the German language to be placed “on an equal footing” with English and resents the infiltration of English in Germany. Of course, the imperial clout of “Anglo-Saxon” countries, especially England and the United States, have internationalized the English language. Yet, there is more to the story. There is no one standard English. Various English accents, words, spellings, phrases, witticisms, and vernaculars freely roam worldwide. English is open to borrowing yogurt from Turkish, chutney from Hindi, coffee from Arabic, and hamburger from German. The AfD must understand that a language is a free-range organism that falls ill in a cage of restrictions. A language flourishes only when it freely interacts with other languages. For example, many languages have borrowed the Arabic word Sharia (Islamic law), including Scharia in German.
Islamophobia
Chapter 7 of the AfD manifesto states: “Islam does not belong to Germany. Its expansion and the ever-increasing number of Muslims in the country are viewed by the AfD as a danger to our state, our society, and our values.” Nearly 6 percent of the population of Germany, the most populated country in Western Europe, is Muslim, predominantly of Turkish and Syrian origin. The 6 percent of 85 million comes out to be roughly 5.5 million. Germany has a net negative population growth and needs immigrants to keep the economic engine going.
At the heart of the AfD, Islamophobia is the concern for German identity. The AfD is correct to the extent that language, ethnicity, and religion are the fundamental ingredients of identity everywhere in the world. Most Muslims in Germany speak the German language but differ in two distinct aspects: ethnicity and religion. Still, under the restraining influence of the Jewish Holocaust, any robust connection between race and German identity is something unacceptable in public discourse, though, silently, race remains a significant factor in German identity politics. Even reference to ethnicity has the odor of racism. So, Islam surfaces as the primary identity feature that the AfD has selected to draw the contrast between traditional Germany and the new Germany.
One of the three founders of the AfD quit the party, accusing its members of Islamophobia and Xenophobia. Some converted to Islam. Islamophobia, much like anti-Semitism, is a readily available label for any criticisms of Islam and Muslims. The term Islamophobia is legitimate to the extent that it describes hatred, hostility, and violence against Muslims. However, philosophical disputes with Islamic theology, law, or practices cannot be Islamophobia, and to this extent, the AfD manifesto is not problematic. Jews, Christians, Hindus, or any others have no obligation to accept Islam or refrain from disputing Islamic law and theology. Caricatures of the prophet of Islam, which the AfD endorses, are, in my view, counterproductive, even under German decency standards.
In 2023, an independent group of experts concluded that “at least one-third of Muslims in Germany have experienced hostility due to their religion. However, the experts pointed out that the real numbers are likely vastly higher since only 10% of Muslims appear to report hostility and hate crimes against them.” Nearly 50 percent of the current German population subscribes to no faith, about 25 percent are Protestants, and 25 percent are Catholic. There are no figures to show whether German Protestants, German Catholics, or non-believers hate Islam the most.
I believe the fear of Islam that the AfD advocates is deeply rooted in German history, as some German factions in almost every period have viewed Islam and Muslims as a threat to Germany. The Islamic threat is not fiction; it is real for many Germans. For centuries, the danger was territorial. Now, it is ideological. The question is whether the Germans should resist Islam by raw force or authentic intellect, prejudicial suppression, or genuine non-acceptance. Just as Germans are free to accept any faith, they should be free to accept Islam as well. The German Basic Law (Constitution) is clear: “Freedom of faith and of conscience and freedom to profess a religious or philosophical creed shall be inviolable.”
Even history supports the Basic Law. Consider Martin Luther again. During the period Luther translated the Bible for the Germanization of Christianity, the Ottomans besieged Vienna under Suleiman the Magnificent (1529). The Ottoman invasions started more than a hundred years before Luther was born in 1483. In 1389, the Ottomans conquered a large portion of Serbia. In 1422, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, which dismantled the Eastern citadel of Christianity called the Byzantine Empire. Luther saw the entire reign of Suleiman the Magnificent and died while Suleiman was still in power.
Many German factions pressured Luther, living a life as a declared heretic and outlaw, to pronounce a holy war against Islam and its Turkish invaders. A theologian who built his intellect and spirituality on distinctions and fine points saw it legitimate to fight the Turks as invaders but not as Muslims. A secular war against the Turks is the duty of Germans, but it cannot be a holy war against Islam.
In reprinting and writing the preface to a book called The Tract on the Religious Customs of the Turks, Luther is critical of the Catholic Church for misrepresenting Islam to Christians. Luther extols Islam by highlighting “the modesty and simplicity of their food, clothing, dwellings, and everything else, as well as the fasts, prayers, and common gatherings of the people.” That Luther tactically prefers Islam over Catholicism is a plausible theory. However, it is hard to believe that a professor of theology, a translator of the Bible, and the founder of Protestantism was so narrow-minded and spiritually corrupt that he portrayed Islam favorably only to put down the Catholic Church. The AfD must not misrepresent Islam by sensationalism and distortions. Honest and considered criticisms of Islamic law and theology are not Islamophobia.
Conclusion
This commentary does not oppose German conservatism, only far-rightism. The AfD manifesto promotes significant conservative values, an acceptable ideology to criticize and deter senseless cultural, social, and legal alterations. Change without conservative constraints is unruly and anarchic. Far-rightism, however, is anti-evolutionary as it denies mutation and entropy, the two cardinal principles. Values change and decay. The AfD must respect generational selection and allow present and future German generations to make changes in what they inherited from their ancestors. By all counts, the AfD opposition to Muslims and Islam is irrational and contrary to the Basic Law of Germany. In my view, Islam and Germany are fully compatible.
