Nationalistic Gastarbeiter (Immigrant Workers)
April 4, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
By MARIAM LAU
BERLIN -- In 1921 an Armenian student assassinated Talat Pasha, a Turkish minister, in the streets of Berlin.
Eighty-five years later, again in the center of Germany's capital, about 3,000 Turkish demonstrators -- elderly women, students, workers, politicians and even a few children -- marched in honor of this Talat Pasha, the man Armenians hold responsible for organizing the genocide of their people during World War I.
The police in Berlin tried to have the march banned on the grounds that it would "insult the memory of the deceased," but the courts wouldn't have it. The demonstrators, they argued, protested only against the political use of the term genocide and this would not necessarily imply a denigration of the victims -- as long as the Turkish nationalists didn't deny that the genocide actually happened.
A rather Talmudic distinction which led to the absurd situation where the police had to run after the demonstrators, with translators at their side, to find out if anything illegal was written on the banners they were holding.
[...] "It is hard for Germans to realize that the people they used to consider helpless underdogs, many of their former Gastarbeiter (Immigrant Workers), are actually stout nationalists," says Claudia Dantschke from the Center for Democratic Culture. Maybe the Germans, who have confronted their own difficult past in such exemplary fashion, can teach the Turks some Vergangenheitsbewältigung or "overcoming the past." Most Germans still consider nationalism in any form an illness to be overcome, the worst case of which was their own.
[...]
The recent Turkish action film "Valley of the Wolves -- Iraq" could certainly teach them otherwise. It depicts a dashing Turkish secret agent fighting American soldateska in Iraq who kill civilians at random, throwing in a Jewish doctor selling organs of Iraqi victims for good measure. Released mid-February in Turkey, the movie attracted millions of viewers. A special screening for the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended in standing ovations.[...].
This is a question Germans increasingly ask as well. The film drew 130,000 (mostly Turkish) viewers in Germany just in the first weekend of its release here. "The accession of Turkey to the European Union is definitely out of the question," said Edmund Stoiber, conservative governor of Bavaria, in reaction to the movie. Even Green Party spokesperson Claudia Roth, a longtime friend of Turkey, says "Turkey finally has to face its history. Anti-Semitism and racism cannot be tolerated." [...].
The reality is that Turks, especially young Turks, have increasing problems fitting in. Around 40% leave high school without a diploma and usually join the ranks of the unemployed. In Berlin, one in three young Turks becomes a criminal -- one in three! Turkish organizations unfortunately don't like to talk about this.[...].
One positive aspect compared to other Muslim migrants in Europe is that, so far, the Turkish community in Germany has not shown much taste for Islamic extremism. Many of them therefore feel that they are unjustly being singled out.[...].
Integration is of course a two-way street. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble recently commented that "many of our immigrants did very well, the Italians for example." It is galling for many migrants with Turkish background that they never get the kind of appreciation the American president regularly grants, say, Cuban exiles. Simple gestures, a sentence in Turkish, a visit to a mosque or community center, appointing a Turkish-German to a prominent position, could improve more than just the atmosphere. The offices of the biggest Turkish papers in Germany all proudly display pictures on their walls of German politicians who came to shake their hands. They cherish this simple gesture for days above the fold. A little more of this, some kind of "tough love," can probably go a long way.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
The Wall Street Journal
By MARIAM LAU
BERLIN -- In 1921 an Armenian student assassinated Talat Pasha, a Turkish minister, in the streets of Berlin.
Eighty-five years later, again in the center of Germany's capital, about 3,000 Turkish demonstrators -- elderly women, students, workers, politicians and even a few children -- marched in honor of this Talat Pasha, the man Armenians hold responsible for organizing the genocide of their people during World War I.
The police in Berlin tried to have the march banned on the grounds that it would "insult the memory of the deceased," but the courts wouldn't have it. The demonstrators, they argued, protested only against the political use of the term genocide and this would not necessarily imply a denigration of the victims -- as long as the Turkish nationalists didn't deny that the genocide actually happened.
A rather Talmudic distinction which led to the absurd situation where the police had to run after the demonstrators, with translators at their side, to find out if anything illegal was written on the banners they were holding.
[...] "It is hard for Germans to realize that the people they used to consider helpless underdogs, many of their former Gastarbeiter (Immigrant Workers), are actually stout nationalists," says Claudia Dantschke from the Center for Democratic Culture. Maybe the Germans, who have confronted their own difficult past in such exemplary fashion, can teach the Turks some Vergangenheitsbewältigung or "overcoming the past." Most Germans still consider nationalism in any form an illness to be overcome, the worst case of which was their own.
[...]
The recent Turkish action film "Valley of the Wolves -- Iraq" could certainly teach them otherwise. It depicts a dashing Turkish secret agent fighting American soldateska in Iraq who kill civilians at random, throwing in a Jewish doctor selling organs of Iraqi victims for good measure. Released mid-February in Turkey, the movie attracted millions of viewers. A special screening for the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended in standing ovations.[...].
This is a question Germans increasingly ask as well. The film drew 130,000 (mostly Turkish) viewers in Germany just in the first weekend of its release here. "The accession of Turkey to the European Union is definitely out of the question," said Edmund Stoiber, conservative governor of Bavaria, in reaction to the movie. Even Green Party spokesperson Claudia Roth, a longtime friend of Turkey, says "Turkey finally has to face its history. Anti-Semitism and racism cannot be tolerated." [...].
The reality is that Turks, especially young Turks, have increasing problems fitting in. Around 40% leave high school without a diploma and usually join the ranks of the unemployed. In Berlin, one in three young Turks becomes a criminal -- one in three! Turkish organizations unfortunately don't like to talk about this.[...].
One positive aspect compared to other Muslim migrants in Europe is that, so far, the Turkish community in Germany has not shown much taste for Islamic extremism. Many of them therefore feel that they are unjustly being singled out.[...].
Integration is of course a two-way street. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble recently commented that "many of our immigrants did very well, the Italians for example." It is galling for many migrants with Turkish background that they never get the kind of appreciation the American president regularly grants, say, Cuban exiles. Simple gestures, a sentence in Turkish, a visit to a mosque or community center, appointing a Turkish-German to a prominent position, could improve more than just the atmosphere. The offices of the biggest Turkish papers in Germany all proudly display pictures on their walls of German politicians who came to shake their hands. They cherish this simple gesture for days above the fold. A little more of this, some kind of "tough love," can probably go a long way.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 8:20 PM
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