He has been beaten up, received decease threats together with hundreds of insulting emails, but Karamba Diaby is non i to hand up.
After winning a topographic point 4 years agone equally the foremost African-born dark MP inward Germany, Diaby, 55, is straightaway seeking re-election.
"To all racists: I'm non your negro!" he wrote on Facebook inward exasperation later receiving a torrent of vitriol online ahead of the September 24 full general elections.
"I won't live on intimidated," the Social Democrat lawmaker said inward an interview alongside AFP, despite noting that on social media, "the commentary has move very, rattling aggressive."
Germany has experienced a surge of racist together with incendiary spoken communication online, peculiarly since the arrival of roughly i 1000000 asylum seekers since 2015.
After the far-right NPD political party called him a "black monkey" together with used "the N-word" which he refused to pronounce, Diaby filed a lawsuit.
"There is no liberty of facial expression when i insults somebody else," he said, adding that it was "the duty of all society" to fighting such hate.
"The dignity of an private is written inward our constitution," said Diaby, who speaks fluent German, French together with Mandinka.
Bundesliga together with BMW
That he is non easily deterred is demonstrated inward his odd life story.
Born inward Senegal, he won a scholarship to report inward together with therefore communist East Deutschland thank y'all to his membership inward a left-leaning educatee organisation.
"I solely knew 2 High German words, Bundesliga together with BMW, when I arrived," said Diaby, recalling the 24-hour interval inward 1985 when he foremost set human foot inward East Germany.
Life for a migrant was non slowly inward the closed-off erstwhile east, where in that place was fiddling endeavor to integrate Africans, many of whom were students from socialist countries.
When the Berlin Wall brutal inward 1989, racism inward the portion exploded equally unemployment shot up.
One nighttime inward 1991, equally Diaby got off a bus, he was set upon past times neo-Nazis.
But he went on to larn his doctorate inward chemistry, espouse a German, together with inward 2001, obtained High German nationality.
In 2013, he stood for a topographic point inward the Bundestag.
Not solely did he musical rhythm out the odds to move the foremost African-born MP inward Germany, he won his topographic point inward Halle, an eastern urban gist known for its nationalist together with hard-right leanings.
Last year, the upstart anti-immigration political party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) clinched 24 per centum inward province elections there.
Diaby recounted his odyssey inward a mass published final year, "Into the Bundestag alongside Karamba: My route from Senegal to the High German parliament."
So rare was it to run into an MP of color that on i of his foremost days inward parliament, a cashier at the Bundestag canteen initially refused to serve him until it was made clear that he was an elected lawmaker, he recalled.
But Diaby sought to play downward the fuss surrounding his feat.
Garden allotments
"It's also bad if it's an extraordinary number or a sensation but because somebody who has lived hither for to a greater extent than than 31 years, who studied here, who has his household unit of measurement here... campaigned for a topographic point inward parliament," he said.
Diaby says he won over Halle locals later delving deep into what makes them tick.
It was his doctoral thesis that set the groundwork, equally it focused on soil pollution inward garden allotments -- something Germans concord honey to their hearts.
Curious swain gardeners came over to chat, together with that was how Diaby broke the H2O ice alongside the community, the offset of his long route into politics.
Walking downward primal Halle, it is clear that Diaby is straightaway a familiar human face upward inward the urban gist of 230,000 inhabitants.
"Karamba!" calls a immature human being belongings his fist upward equally a sign of victory.
"Are y'all coming to the check on Saturday?" Diaby was asked past times some other human being equally he was on a ladder putting upward his motility poster on the lamppost.
Germany is a province that is welcoming, said Diaby, despite the abuse he has suffered.
"I ever tell foreigners that when y'all are inward Germany, y'all should consider it equally your country," Diaby said.
AFP