“We Should Stop the Islamisation of Europe!”: Studying Anti- Immigrant Attitudes Among Russian-Speaking Internet Users in Ge
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“WE SHOULD STOP THE ISLAMISATION OF EUROPE!”: STUDYING ANTI- IMMIGRANT ATTITUDES AMONG RUSSIAN-SPEAKING INTERNET USERS IN GERMANY By Liliia Sablina Submitted to Central European University Nationalism Studies Program In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Advisor: Szabolcs Pogonyi CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2019 ABSTRACT Starting from 2015, some of the Russian-speaking residents in Germany have expressed their anti-refugee attitudes in the form of rallies and rising voting support for the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Due to the absence of social cues, unlimited space, immediate responses and minimal censorship, online platforms for communication have reflected the offline mobilization and became the major platforms for the spreadability of discriminative rhetoric. The present thesis investigates why Russian-speaking internet users residing in Germany justify anti-refugee discourse and how they construct the notion of the “others.” Based on the netnographic analysis of the chosen online discussions and conducted interviews with its members, the present work argues that with the appearance of the new “others,” Russian-speaking migrants have redefined their symbolic boundaries in order to draw the line between the new coming “stinky migrants”1 and themselves – people with migrant background. In many ways, participants of the analyzed discussions employed the politicized civilizational rhetoric that allowed them to redefine existing categorizations. The present research explores, for the first time, the reasons lying behind the online populist activity of Russian-speaking residents in Germany. CEU eTD Collection 1 Destroyed Europe. Germany in Russian. URL: www.germany.ru (Access date: 25.05.2019) 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................. 2 TABLE OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................. 4 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 5 1.1. HOW DOES THE MOBILIZATION START? ........................................................................................................ 5 1.2. RESEARCH AIMS ........................................................................................................................................... 9 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................... 12 2.1. SYMBOLIC AND SOCIAL BOUNDARIES ......................................................................................................... 12 2.2.FACTORS FOR RADICALIZATION .................................................................................................................. 14 2.2.1. Dual identification ............................................................................................................................. 14 2.2.2. Cultural and political integration ...................................................................................................... 15 2.2.3. Right-wing populist mobilization ....................................................................................................... 15 2.2.4. Migrant mobilization ......................................................................................................................... 17 2.3. THE SPECIFICITIES OF ONLINE COMMUNICATION ........................................................................................ 17 2.4. RESEARCH GAP ........................................................................................................................................... 20 3. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................ 22 3.1.NETNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................... 22 3.2.INTERVIEWS ................................................................................................................................................ 24 3.3.THE LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................................. 26 4. RUSSIAN-SPEAKING MIGRANTS IN THE AGE OF WEB 2.0. ................................................... 28 4.1. SNS AND THE REPRESENTATION OF MIGRANT GROUPS ............................................................................... 28 4.2. THE SPECIFICITIES OF THE RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE INTERNET GROUPS ........................................................... 31 4.4. SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................................. 36 5. WHO ARE THE “OTHERS”? ANTI-IMMIGRANT ATTITUDES THROUGH THE PRYSM OF NETNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................. 38 5.1.THE STRUCTURE OF DISCUSSIONS ................................................................................................................ 39 5.1.1. Forum “Germany in Russian” .......................................................................................................... 39 5.1.2. VK discussion .................................................................................................................................... 40 5.2. REFLECTING ON THE MIGRATION EXPERIENCE ........................................................................................... 41 5.2.1. Describing their own experience ....................................................................................................... 41 5.2.2. The appearance of the “others” ........................................................................................................ 47 5.3. BOUNDARY RESHAPING PROCESS ............................................................................................................... 50 5.4. CONSTRUCTING “CIVILIZATIONAL” RHETORIC ........................................................................................... 55 5.4.1. Racial boundary ................................................................................................................................ 55 5.4.2. Culture ............................................................................................................................................... 58 5.4.3. Religion ............................................................................................................................................. 61 5.4.4. Constructing the notion of “white Slavic Christianism” ................................................................... 63 5.5. JUSTIFYING THE RIGHT-WING POPULISM ..................................................................................................... 67 5.5.1.“The AfD is a devil which is not as black as it is painted” ................................................................ 68 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 75 CEU eTD Collection BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................................... 79 3 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1. The word cloud of the most frequently used words in the VK discussion “Are you for or against refugees?”2.............................................................................................................47 Figure 2. Analysis of 851 online answers to the question “Are you for or against the refugees?”.................................................................................................................................51 Figure 3. The AfD propaganda poster that was hanging in the streets of Hamburg, 20173.................................................................................................................................……68 CEU eTD Collection 2 Generated with http://xn--80abe5adcqeb2a.xn--p1ai/. To build the graph, I used the commentaries from the discussion “Are you for or against refugees?” (URL: https://vk.com/rusgermany?w=wall- 22450239_6026%2Fall) 3 Die AfD schaltet nun offenbar auch Wahlwerbung im russischen Staatsfernsehen. URL: https://www.buzzfeed.com/de/marcusengert/die-afd-schaltet-nun-offenbar-auch-wahlwerbung-im (Access date: 20.05.2019) 4 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. How does the mobilization start? At the end of January 2016, around 50,000 Russian-speakers came to the streets in different parts of Germany to protest against the new coming wave of refugees.4 The majority of protesters had received the mobilizing messages through the online messenger WhatsApp. One of such messages stated: “ATTENTION! THIS IS WAR! A 13-years-old girl was raped in Berlin. The corrupt elite and its faithful dogs “polizei” are trying to hide this fact from us. The press has been silent for a week. I ADDRESS ALL THE RUSSIAN-SPEAKING PEOPLE IN GERMANY! ON SUNDAY, 24.01.2016, FROM 14.00-16.00, LET’S GO TOGETHER TO THE MAIN SQUARES OR THE TOWNHOUSES OF ALL SETTLEMENTS IN GERMANY, ALL TOGETHER, FROM SMALL TO LARGE, AT THE SAME TIME. THOSE WHO IGNORE IT, LET THEM CONSIDER THIS RAPE ON THEIR CONSCIENCE.