BERLIN (AP) – Five years ago, Tareq Alaows crossed the Mediterranean Sea in a thin dinghy and marched north through the Balkans in the direction of Germany, fleeing the civil war in his native Syria in search of a safe haven.
Since then, the 31-year-old has been learning German fluently, finding a steady job – and has just launched a campaign to serve for a seat in parliament in September.
“I am running for national parliament as the first refugee from Syria,” the gentle Alaows told The Associated Press during a rally in support of asylum seekers outside the Reichstag building in Berlin, where parliament sits. “I want to give a voice to refugees and migrants in Germany and fight for a diverse and just society for all.”
Alaows joined the Green Party last year and is a candidate for the Oberhausen-Dinslaken parliamentary constituency in West Germany.
With his beard and long black hair pulled into a bun, he has the informal look of a green politician and he also shares the party’s focus on human rights and social justice.
In Syria, he took part in peaceful demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad’s government while studying law at the University of Aleppo. He also volunteered for the Red Crescent Aid during the Civil War and helped register internally displaced refugees.
“When the war in Syria became increasingly brutal and he faced military service in 2015 after graduation, Alaows decided in 2015 to escape to a place where I could live in safety and with dignity,” he said. he said.
Upon his arrival in Dortmund in West Germany on September 3, 2015, he soon became active again after being confronted with a system overwhelmed by the more than 1 million migrants who arrived there that year.
After being pushed into a gym with 60 other people, ‘where no one could sleep at night if only one child cried’, he helped organize protests against the circumstances.
Alaows now works as a legal adviser for asylum seekers at a non-governmental organization in Berlin and divides his time between the capital and the city of Oberhausen, in his constituency.
“I really want to help improve the living conditions of refugees in Germany,” Alaows said. ‘It is not OK for them to linger in appalling conditions on the outer borders of the European Union, drown in the Mediterranean and have to live in large camps in Germany, while European Home Affairs ministers come together to find ways to get them out. keep or deport them. ”
By the end of 2020, 818,460 Aramaeans lived in Germany. Most of them have not yet applied for German citizenship. Alaows is one of the first to meet the prerequisites for applying for citizenship, which he trusts will be approved before election day on 26 September.
Overall, about 21.2 million of the 83 million people in Germany have migrating roots, mainly from Turkey, as well as the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and Poland. Recent arrivals from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq and other refugees who arrived much earlier account for about 1.8 million of them.
But people with non-German backgrounds are still under-represented in many sectors of society, including parliament.
According to the Media Service Integration group that detects migrant issues in Germany, only 709 lawmakers who ran in the 2017 federal election in 2017 have.
This is all the more reason why Alaows has found a home with the Greens, a party that, in addition to environmental issues, strives for better integration of migrants, and boasts that almost 15% of their legislators come from migrant backgrounds.
“Tareq is a candidate who advocates social justice and equality for all people as well as inclusive politics,” said Beate Stock-Schroer, a spokeswoman for the Greens in the Oberhausen-Dinslaken district of Alaows, when he launched his campaign last week. has.
Germany has a complex electoral system that gives its citizens two votes each – one for a directly elected representative of the constituency and another for a party list. Alaows has an uphill battle to win the first match to become a legally elected legislator – Germany’s traditional big parties win most of them – but could still enter parliament if he gets a prominent place on the party’s regional list.
This means that he has to vote the party to place him high enough on his list of delegates from the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where his constituency is located, when he decides on candidates for the national parliament in the spring.
His current campaign team is working hard to help him get there.
A handful of volunteers, mostly young and engaged like him, ask questions from the media, keep his social media accounts active, and regularly post videos and photos.
On Saturday, Alaows joined a protest before the Reichstag against the deportation of rejected asylum seekers to their home countries.
Reggae music blows from speakers across the snowfield while about 200 people hold banners with slogans saying, “No one is illegal” and speakers demand open borders for refugees.
“I want to bring about a political change in parliament,” Alaows said, looking past the protesters at the Reichstag building. The façade bears the slogan ‘To the German people’ in the stone under its iconic glass dome.
“I want to bring the perspective of the people to parliament who are not represented there,” he said.