generalspeaking

When Never The Twain Shall Meet

"When neighbours are Turks and so is everyone at work, you just don't meet that many Germans."
"I would never say that I am not German, owing to the fact that I was born here and have a German passport, but I love Turkish traditions and I cannot identify with any German traditions."
"They say there were Muslims who do this [sexually molest German women], so if  you are a Muslim you might do it, too. I am afraid the prejudices will become worse and that Turkish people will have to deal with it."
"They always say, talking generally, that you are a good Turk but that the rest of the Turks are not. They tell me it is weird that my parents can't speak German. They'll say, 'Fifty years have passed and you are still here. Why don't you go away?' This is something every Turk has heard."
"I am torn between being a German in Turkey and a Turk in Germany. In Turkey they always call me a German girl and do not accept me as a Turkish girl, and when I am in Germany they do not accept me as a German girl."
Sevilay Tan, 19, German Turk

"You can see it [attitudes] changing. Germans have actually asked me if I say 'yes' to ISIL."
Galip Daslik, 19, German Turk

Sevily Tan and Galip Daslik -- Matthew Fisher Postmedia News

"[They are wrong, those who] say we are Nazis without any discussion. I am not right wing. I am a libertarian. My problem is one of civilization. They do not want to integrate."
"I have tried to read the Qur'an but this is not a book that allows for self-reflection. I see women who aren't free and I see this demanding attitude while always claiming they are the victims. I do not make a distinction between Islam and radical Islamists."
"We fear to lose our freedom, our liberty, our values, our culture. It is not only Germany that will be destroyed. It's all of Europe. From the outside Germany still looks normal but if you look behind the scenes society is collapsing. Within five or ten years Germany will be completely changed. Our systems, whether it is health care or education or other structures, will be falling apart. Our schools are already a mess." 
Tatjana Festerling, 51, novice politician, Pegida: Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West

Photo: Germans protested against the country's refugee intake in the wake of mass sexual assaults in the city of Cologne. (AFP: Tobias Schwarz)

"They [Pegida] are crushing our beautiful city's reputation. Foreigners become afraid here. They have changed the climate in the streets. They are not a majority but a lot of people who lost their jobs after reunification do not see what we have in Germany. That we are so rich and so blessed."
Carolyn Hendschke, Dresden tourism office

A poll taken in December of 2015 resulted in the finding that 48 percent of those asked wanted Chancellor Angela Merkel defeated in the next election. According to 47 percent of those polled, Chancellor Merkel had done a poor job of handling the refugee crisis. The anti-immigration sentiment is running high in Germany amid fears of terrorism. Polls show that the right-wing Alternative for Germany has moved ahead of the Green party with the support of over ten percent of voters.

Ms. Festerling had been a member of AfD, and then she joined up with Pegida, switching once she lost her job as a press officer for a German railway company. She had posted on Facebook images of a Pegida demonstration that had turned violent last fall in Cologne, and this led to her firing. More recently she was among the major speakers at a right wing, anti-migrant rally in Leipzig. There, she accused Muslim asylum seekers of declaring a "sex jihad" against "blond, white women". Dozens were arrested.

The views Ms. Festerling expressed, however, are gaining growing support from Hungary, to France and Scandinavia. In an interview, she alludes to Germany's dark past, focusing on the horrors of the Holocaust. Germany, she says, is "an open psychiatric ward. We need to develop a new self-esteem. To make decisions with self-respect and to watch out for ideologies and terrorism. The chancellor says we are a cold people full of hate and must be avoided. Nobody actually looks at what we say. Nobody in the ivory towers wants to put any of this up for discussion."

And then there are the two 19-year-olds, Sevila Tan and Galip Daslik, born and raised in the Ruhr region of German, their German impeccable, who considered Turkey to be "our country". They plan on graduation from university; to marry, acquire some savings, and move together to Turkey. It was their grandfathers who had emigrated as "guest workers" in the early 1960s to take up work in coal mines and steel factories when Germany was experiencing a shortage of workers.

Germany had the idea that the guest workers would simply work as needed and contracted in Germany and then return to Turkey once their temporary immigration program ended in the 1970s. It just didn't work out that way, despite the German government refusing to give permanent residency status, let alone German citizenship to those Turkish workers who insisted they weren't prepared to leave Germany.  Even when they were offered cash incentives to return to Turkey.

In 2000 a law was passed allowing children and grandchildren of the original guest workers to take out German citizenship. But they remained in their original ethnic enclaves, which maintained a separate existence from mainstream Germans. The factories still employ tens of thousands of the four million Turks that remain in Germany. Germany's largest mosque was built in the Duisburg suburb, not far from the tall factory smokestacks that were partially responsible for Germany's post-war economic turnabout.

The massive Melkez mosque aside, most Turks in the Ruhr region simply don't feel part of Germany, its culture and its history, not its future. They feel that irrespective of how long they live in Germany they will never be accepted as Germans.

The Merqez mosque in Duisburg -- Volker Hartmann/AFP/Getty images

Labels: Conflict, Germany, Islam, Migrants, Turks

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 27, 2016