Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk recently tweeted his support for Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, a German politician from the AFD party. This has caught the attention of some Afghans.
Given the current situation in Afghanistan and the dire circumstances of Afghan refugees in neighboring countries and the West, they did not anticipate that someone like Elon Musk would endorse the views of a person whose political campaign is based on spreading misinformation about refugees, which has led to the highest levels of attacks on defenseless refugees in Germany in 2023.
The Controversy Unfolds
Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX and Tesla, criticized a German court ruling against Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, a politician from the extremist party Alternative for Germany. Kaiser was found guilty in court for making inflammatory statements against Afghan immigrants and was fined 6,000 euros.
Musk posted on his Twitter account about the conviction of the anti-immigrant extremist politician, claiming that her statistics on the increase in crimes by Afghan and African immigrants are “accurate” and based on German “government statistics”
Kaiser reposted Elon Musk’s tweet. She recently tweeted about an increase in her X followers, saying, “The miscarriage of Justice passed yesterday ultimately led to me welcoming 10,000 new followers here on X. “
Supporters of this 26-year-old German politician argue that she was convicted for publishing statistics about Afghan immigrants involved in crimes like sexual assault. However, the court found her guilty due to inflammatory statements.
The German website Junge Freiheit reported that during an election campaign in 2021, she accused Afghan immigrants of “group sexual assaults.” According to this report, she made these statements amidst the German government’s efforts to relocate their Afghan colleagues to Germany.
She has stated that these remarks were part of her election campaign and should be protected under the principle of free speech. However, the judge stated that her remarks endangered public peace and did not fall under the principle of free speech. Right-wing political groups like Alternative for Germany have opposed accepting immigrants, blaming them for the rise in crimes in Germany.
Refugees Face Hostility
Arian Afghan used to work with a local radio station in Khost province in Afghanistan that broadcasted music and entertainment shows. When the Taliban shut down the radio station and threatened him, he was forced to flee his homeland. Recently, he arrived in Germany via difficult and dangerous smuggling routes through Iran, Turkey, and Greece and is now waiting in a refugee camp in Germany, hoping to be granted asylum.
Arian Afghan told Afghan Insight that in the past one and a half years of his journey from Afghanistan to Germany, he witnessed numerous hardships and heart-wrenching scenes faced by Afghan refugees in Iran, Turkey, Greece, and even Germany.
However, Arian said that he was disappointed by a tweet from Elon Musk, whom he considers an ideal figure, that supported disparaging remarks about Afghan refugees in Germany. Arian believes that Elon Musk cannot even imagine the scene in a forest in Turkey where he, along with ten other refugees, half of them younger than fifteen, were hung upside down by their feet from trees by Turkish border guards for at least three hours.
He believes those who have not seen their soil become a fiery hell would not choose such dangerous paths. According to Arian, after reading that tweet from Elon Musk, he also saw others where Musk portrayed himself as a savior of human civilization. However, Arian says it is impossible to expect someone who apparently says that “the thinking for the survival of human civilization keeps him up at night” not to understand the complex and troubling situations of Afghan refugees and to link it simply and easily with the increase in crimes in Germany.
The Impact of Anti-Refugee Sentiment
Recently displaced Afghan refugee Lima Barak was attacked a month ago due to the growing hostility towards refugees. The 21-year-old Afghan has been living in Vienna for two years. However, she has adapted her clothing style; she occasionally wears traditional Afghan scarves, highlighting her refugee status among the locals.
Lima says that last month, while at a train station, she was assaulted by a group of young people and pushed down onto the train tracks, injuring her head and leg. The attackers quickly left the station, and an older woman helped her back onto the platform.
Since that day, she feels unsafe wherever she goes, and now life under the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan seems less dangerous compared to her life in this city in Austria. She points out that in Austria and other European countries, many politicians exploit the refugee issue and their alleged involvement in crimes for their political gains, which encourages the local youth to mistreat refugees.
Lima is saddened by reading Elon Musk’s tweet and worries that such general views about refugees could incite another attack on someone like her.
Misjudging the Many Based on the Few
Elyas Timur is another Afghan residing in Germany. He said he first became familiar with the name Elon Musk in Afghanistan when he saw a train of lights moving across the sky of his homeland, later learning that it was a train of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites.
He says that Mr. Musk should understand that if his Starlink satellites orbit over my head and around the orbit of my homeland, Earth, it means that we share this Earth. “ It would be good for Musk to continue orbiting Earth with his satellites and also give us the right to secure our heads wherever we find safe shelter on Earth,” Timur said.
Timur, who studied international law in Afghanistan, says there is an essential and straightforward law in all the world’s laws, even Taliban laws, which is “crime is an individual act“. If one Afghan commits a crime, or even ten, it never means that all Afghan refugees are criminals or that anyone should generalize this way.
According to him, AfD party member Marie-Thérèse Kaiser view and Elon Musk’s support for such views are wrong judgments against a group of people. They could be considered a misjudgment or even a type of racism under civil laws.
According to Timur, such statements by politicians endanger the lives of refugees and have contributed to the highest number of attacks against refugees in Germany.
In 2023, the German authorities recorded 2,378 attacks on refugees or their accommodations, almost double that of the previous year. The success of the far-right AfD party and the rising anti-migrant rhetoric across Europe could be to blame for these.
Timur mentions that if Elon Musk, whose Starlink passed over our heads in Afghanistan and gave us hope for humanity’s progress, cannot help Afghan refugees, at least he should not assist those who increase attacks on them.
Timur acknowledges that refugees, including Afghans, who mainly comprise teenagers and young adults, need time to integrate and find their place in a developed society, and some may be involved in crimes.
However, he doubts the accuracy of the statistics on refugees’ involvement in crimes provided by host countries. He says crimes happen in every country, committed by locals and refugees alike as individuals. However, according to Timur, the attention that security agencies and media give to crimes involving refugees does not extend to those involving others.
He says that crime is an unfortunate phenomenon in human society, and it is problematic when someone claims one ethnicity commits more crimes while another commits fewer or none.
The West’s Role in the Afghan Situation
Omid Ehsan, an Afghan refugee residing in France, originally from Kunduz province, blames particularly those young Afghans who have recently arrived in European countries for either ignorantly or intentionally engaging in actions that provide the media and anti-refugee politicians with excuses to tarnish the reputation of all Afghan refugees.
He emphasizes that Afghan refugees, especially the young, should be helped to understand and appreciate the norms and laws of their new societies rather than being ostracized. Omid wishes for Afghan refugees to integrate to become part of their new communities rather than cause problems.
However, Omid wants to tell Elon Musk that Germany and other Western allies “share the blame for Afghans’ current situation. According to Omid, they “came to our homeland with guns, planes, and armored vehicles. They never told us about their arrival or asked if we wanted them to come. But they roamed our streets for 20 years and did what they wanted. We were told they came after (baddies).”
In his memoir, “Spare,” Prince Harry describes his role as an Apache helicopter copilot gunner in Afghanistan during 2012-2013, claiming to have killed more than two dozen Taliban militants. He describes his view of the combatants as chess pieces, stating that his role was to eliminate “baddies” before they could kill “goodies.”
Omid said when the Afghans were told that Western allies were here to eliminate some bad guys, and some Afghans decided to help them, “ but 20 years later, without giving any information to their Afghan hosts about their actions or at least informing them of their departure, they left Afghanistan with the weapons and support they had brought, abandoning them on the battlefield.
Omid’s message to Elon Musk is that he should not worry about me (as an Afghan refugee in France); “ I came here with only a backpack and nothing else and will try my best to help my host community and to respect the asylum they have offered because offering asylum has a unique value among Afghans.