Germany's guest workers mark 40 years
Turkish workers say life has improved since the early years
By Rob Broomby in Berlin
At the Serhat Turkish bakers in Berlin, the bread emerges from the oven. Baker
Yueksal Tuncay came in the 1960s to work for the car maker Daimler Benz. He
now owns his own business.
In the four decades since the first Turkish guest workers
came to Germany they have learned to sustain
themselves.
"I thought I would be here for 10 or 15 years," Mr Tuncay
says.
"But I saved a little money and now I have my own
business and I'm happy. Things are good."
It is 40 years since the deal was signed allowing the first
Turkish workers to come to Germany.
It was a deal which transformed the society forever.
There are now more than two million Turks in the country,
but they are still regarded by many as aliens.
"When I meet an official or a policeman," says Mr Tuncay,
"they see my black hair and to them I am still a foreigner."
In the Hasir Turkish restaurant across the road they are
hard at work.
The restaurant never really closes. It is evidence of the
hard work which has brought some Turks prosperity.
Yueksal Tuncay saved
enough money to get his own
bakery
When I meet an
official or a
policeman they see
my black hair and to
them I am still a
foreigner
Yueksal Tuncay
They came to do the jobs no-one wanted and became the unsung heroes of the
economic miracle.
But until the 1970s they lived solitary lives, cut off from
their families back in Turrkey.
Restaurant manager Ilhemi Isci says for his parents the
separation was the hardest.
I am not a real
Turk or real German
- I am something in
between, but I am
happy
"It is one of the worst punishments for a Turkish father we are family-orientated people," he says. "For my father it
Suekran Ezgimen
lasted 10 years."
But progress has been slow. Passport reform has made it easier for second
generation Turks to become Germans.
But they will still have to ditch their Turkish nationality
with adulthood in order to get a passport. For many that
is an unwelcome choice.
Across the city at the Tuerk Sehitilik Camii Mosque the call
to prayer echoes across the skyline.
Germany has begun to accept that it needs immigrants.
But the attacks on America have made people uneasy.
Most of the Muslims here are moderate, peace-loving
people, but they fear that Islam could be demonised as a
result.
"We came as guest workers and 40 years later we are still
guest workers," says Recep Tuerkoglu, head of the Islamic
Turkish Association. "But it will change, the third
generation will be German."
Many workers believe their
Wewill
came
as guest
children
be accepted
as
Germans
workers and 40
years later we are
still guest workers but the third
generation will be
German
The forthcoming immigration law was intended to pave the
way for more economic migrants in the decades to come - Recep Tuerkoglu
especially for those with valuable computer skills.
But the talk now is of clamping down on Islamic militants operating within the
country.
As one senior government official put it: "These are difficult times for those who
want integration."
Confidence growing
Yet 40 years on and Germany's Turkish community is increasing in confidence
and investing in the future. A new dome is replacing the flat roof on the mosque.
The message is clear: Germany's Turks are here to stay.
Many gave the country their best years. In return they
wanted something better for their children.
"I think it was a battle all the time at first," says Saftir
Cinar, vice-president of the Turkish community.
"The so-called first generation had very badly paid and
very heavy jobs and it was no fun. But now they have
children and their children have children.
"Now they have more fun than in the first years," he says.
The so-called first
generation had very
badly paid and very
heavy jobs and it
was no fun - now
they have more fun
than in the first
years
Saftir Cinar
Dreams live on
Evidence of that emerges at the Karayilan belly dancing school.
The raven-haired teacher Suekran Ezgimen goes by the stage name Black Snake.
She says came "like a lamb" to work in the Siemens factory and had no idea what
to expect. But she emerged with her dreams intact.
"I am not a real Turk or real German," she said. "I am something in between. But
I am happy. I now live through my dancing."
It's a personal success story. One of thousands. But life has not always been
easy. The battle for true equality is only just beginning.
"Türken raus!"
The Plight of the Turkish Gastarbeiter in Post World War II Germany
"Integration, integration, integration. . . How should this take place when foreign
children are not given the opportunity to learn the German language and to find
contacts among German children? . . . Children are children, they should not be made
to suffer because they are foreigners" (Mushaben 125).
Under the auspices of Interior Minister of the Economy, Ludwig Erhard, the newly
formed Federal Republic of Germany experienced a period of extreme economic
growth and expansion during the first two decades following the end of the second
World War. Known as the Wirtschaftswunder the time period between 1950 to about
1970 brought an average annual growth of 6.5% to the West German economy
(Power 12). Due to this tremendous growth, many new jobs were created. World
War II caused a labor shortage in Germany, as many men were killed in battle. To fill
the job vacancies, the West German government established treaties with many
nations which allowed West German firms to recruit workers from those particular
countries. In 1961, one such treaty was signed with Turkey, and thus began the
massive influx of Turks into West Germany (Ardagh 282).
Of the four million foreigners in Germany today, about 1.7 million are Turkish guest
workers - a majority of them completely separated and isolated from mainstream
German society (Castles 73). The German government and society has always
referred to the Turks and other foreigners in Germany as guest workers. The term
Gastarbeiter (guest worker) implies that the foreigner is not seen as a permanent
fixture in their society. The Turks are expected to stay a certain time, earn a "target
income," and leave without bringing their wives or children. The Germans follow the
somewhat humorous saying, "Guests are like fish: they stink after three days." The
Turkish Gastarbeiter, by adhering to their religiously-based, Islamic culture, have
somewhat hindered their own ability to integrate into German society. Yet, the
policies of the German government as well as their mentality that Turks are not
permanent fixtures in German society have not only inhibited the Turks even more
from fully integrating into German society but have also contributed to the
xenophobic and racist sentiments of the German people.
After the initial influx of male Turkish workers into Germany between 1961 and
1973, the West German government passed a law which put an end to all immigration
of foreign workers into the country (Castles 74). The government, faced with rising
levels of unemployment and a comparatively stagnant economy to previous years,
wanted to reduce the number of foreign workers in their country. All of the foreign
workers' populations declined, except for the Turks. Between 1974 and 1982, the
Turkish population in West Germany rose eight percent because many of the Turks
brought their wives and children over and began to reproduce in Germany (Castles
82). Almost all Turkish families experienced some degree of culture shock as they
felt lost in the fast-paced, western world which was much different from their relaxed,
religious life in Turkey (Abadan-Unat 17). To counter the initial feelings of isolation
from mainstream society, most Turks clung to Islam more than in their homelands.
Their only system of defense was (an still is) to use their understanding of Islam to
overcome the overwhelming rootlessness with which they are confronted (AbadanUnat 17). Turkish women, for example, started to wear long traditional skirts and
cover their faces with head scarfs in Germany whereas they would not have done such
things in Turkey. Such behavior further isolates them from mainstream German
society.
Turkish parents in Germany tend to be much more overprotective of their children
and want to keep them away from what they perceive as a ruthless and heartless
European society (Ardagh 279). Young, female Turks, for instance, are often isolated
from their German friends because their parents demand that they stay home to help
with chores - a common practice in Turkey. A German social worker explains the
overprotective nature of the Turkish parents toward their daughters:
Their parents won't allow them (Turkish daughters) here at all and very few Turks let
their daughters aged thirteen or more go swimming with boys. The girls have to stay
home, helping mother (Ardagh 282).
Female Turks are designated the active preservers of Turkish cultural traditions in
Germany (Mushaben 133). Not only are they expected to speak perfect Turkish at
home, young females are also called upon to recite Arabic passages at religious
schools and help their mothers at home. Meanwhile, they are supposed to speak
flawless German at school and have German friends (Abadan-Unat 13). The females
are shouldering the impossible task of synthesizing two totally different cultures. A
female Turkish student describes her situation as follows:
Each day I travel from Turkey to Germany. When I leave in the morning the house
of my parents, I actually quit Turkey. I then go to my work place or to my friends and
am in Germany. In the evening, returning home, I am again in Turkey. At home I
never tell anything that has happened at school, or with my friends, I just act in
accordance with the expectations of my parents. When staying with my friends or at
school I never mention my parents, there I am orientating myself according to the
actions of my friends (Abadan-Unat 12).
Living by the standards of two completely different cultures causes many second
generation Turkish-Germans to become isolated from German society. As their
parents tighten their control on their children, it becomes impossible for the young
Turks, especially females, to associate with their German friends. Due to their
situations, many young Turks develop psychological and emotional problems and
often resort to violence as a means to vent their frustrations (Power 31).
Parents also demand that their children attend religious school. Some of the schools
meet every afternoon after German classes (Ardagh 290). Due to the heavy time
requirements of the religious schools, many younger Turks find it impossible to
socialize with their German friends outside of the classroom. In addition, many of the
mullahs who teach the Turks about Islam and the Koran have repeatedly told their
students to disregard what they learn in their German classes (Ardagh 287). Besides
their large religious commitments, young Turks are also given conflicting messages
about the society in which they reside. These conflicting views fill them with doubt
and further isolate them from German society.
Although the Turks do isolate themselves from German society by hanging on to
their strong religious beliefs, the German government has contributed more to the
isolation of the guest workers. Since the German government refuses to acknowledge
that the Turks are a permanent ethnic group in their nation and believe that it is
impossible to integrate them into German society, they refuse to provide the Turks
with adequate political rights, housing, schooling, job opportunities, and overall
security. In other words, the Turkish guest workers are treated and viewed as second
class citizens by the government whose nationalist rhetoric and policies only
promulgate racial hatred and xenophobic attitudes toward the Turks.
Many German politicians use the excuse that since Turks do not want to become
citizens of Germany, the government should not do anything to help their cause
(Castles 207). However, the politicians refuse to recognize how difficult the
government has made it for the Turks to obtain citizenship in Germany. Not only
does a foreigner have to live in Germany for eight years, he or she must also have a
secure job, have no criminal record, and pass a stiff language test which often requires
the foreigner to speak various German dialects. In addition, Germany will not allow
any foreigners to have a dual citizenship. This means that the Turks would have to
give up their Turkish citizenship in order to become a citizen in Germany. Needless
to say, many Turks do not want to revoke their Turkish citizenship because it is
psychologically and emotionally difficult for them to break away from their
homeland. As a result, on average, only six percent of the Turkish guest workers
want to apply for German citizenship (Ardagh 282). Politicians realize what the
Turks face in gaining citizenship in Germany, yet they refuse to acknowledge this or
try to reform the citizenship requirements and put the blame on the Turks.
Since unemployment started to rise in the mid-1960s, the West German government
has passed many acts which have tried to reduce the number of foreign workers in
West Germany. Each of these acts were very discriminatory and offered the Turks no
security, further isolating them in the process. In 1965, for example, the Foreigners
Law granted a foreign worker a residence permit if he or she "does not harm the
interests of the Federal Republic of Germany" (Castles 77). The wording of the law
was very elastic and vague. As a result, many officials easily refused to grant foreign
workers a residence permit. In 1969, the Labor Law stipulated that a residence permit
could only be granted to a foreign worker if he already had a secure job (Castles 78).
Although the Labor Law may ostensibly seem to be quite fair, the reality of finding a
job was very difficult for a Turkish guest worker. When a position was open in a
factory or plant, managers always hired an ethnic German before a Turk or another
foreign worker (Korte 44).
As a result of the Foreigners Law and the Labor Law, many of the Turkish guest
workers and their families were rendered homeless. The two laws, along with the
government's inability to provide the Turks with adequate, affordable housing, caused
the Turks to be residentially segregated. The Turks started to settle in small areas of
large cities. Today, in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin, for example, the Turks account
for 40.1% of the total population (Abadan-Unat 4). The racial segregation of the
Turks caused the Germans to develop a ghetto mentality and stereotypes toward the
Turks and their run-down living quarters. The section of Kreuzberg where the Turks
are most concentrated is referred to by the Germans as the "Kreuzghetto" (Ardagh
289). Many of the Germans resent the growing population of Turks in certain areas of
the major cities, and some Germans (mainly Neo-Nazis) have become violent toward
the Turks. One teenage Neo-Nazi explains the frustration he feels about the
residential isolation of the Turks:
I went to Kreuzberg, but there were hardly any German shops. I wanted to buy a
cassette but they only had ones with Turkish writing on them. And at the
Alexanderplatz today all you see is Turkish beggars and con artists (Mehr 140).
If the government provided adequate housing for the Turks and did not restrict them
to certain "ghettos," there would be less xenophobic and racist feelings toward the
Turks. After all, a survey in 1983 reported that 83% of the Turks were willing to live
in predominantly German areas (Castles 199).
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the government continued their
discriminatory policies toward the Turks, continued to isolate them as a result of their
policies, and continued to condone and create racist attitudes against them. In 1973,
the government put a stop to all immigration in order to decrease the foreign presence
in Germany. Then, in 1979, there was a chance at some progress as Minister of
Foreigner Affairs, Heinz Kühn, wanted to consider the guest workers as an immigrant
group — a permanent fixture in German society. In a memorandum to the German
parliament, Kühn reported:
Future policy towards foreign employees and their families living in the Federal
Republic must be based on the assumption that a development has taken place which
can no longer be reversed, and that the majority of those concerned are no longer
guest workers but immigrants, for whom return to their countries of origin is for
various reasons no longer a viable option (Castles 80). (italics added)
Among Kühn's recommendations were granting the Turks and other foreign workers
the right to vote, greater legal status, and better education for young Turks.
Unfortunately, none of these recommendations was considered by the government as
the new CDU (Christian Democratic Union) regime under the leadership of
Chancellor Helmut Kohl had their own agenda. Throughout 1980 and 1981, Kohl and
his CDU party made reducing immigration one of their primary campaign platforms.
The language of the CDU became more and more nationalistic as they declared in
November of 1981 that Germany was not a multi-ethnic state nor a country of
immigration (Castles 202). Alfred Dregger, leader of the CDU parliamentary group,
stated that he thought that it was impossible for the Turks to integrate or assimilate
into Germany society because the fundamental differences between the two groups
were too great. (Castles 207). The nationalistic and sometimes outright racist rhetoric
of the CDU party stirred up a lot of anti-Turk sentiment in Germany. Once in office,
Chancellor Kohl, in 1982, announced that there were too many foreigners in
Germany. He wanted to reduce the foreign presence in Germany by one million over
the next three years by stopping immigration, reducing family reunification, and
keeping out refugees (Castles 82). To make his plan aware to all German citizens, the
CDU sent leaflets entitled "Dealing with the Foreigner Problem" to every German
household. The main points of the leaflet were highlighted as follows:
Keeping the ban on entry of foreign workers.
No further immigration of family members from outside the European Community.
Stopping the fraudulent exploitation of the German social security system.
Better laws against the flood of economic refugees.
Deportation of foreign criminals to their countries of origin.
Strict measures against foreign political extremists (Castles 209).
The similarity of Kohl's leaflet to Nazi policies and propaganda of the past is quite
astounding. During the Nazi-era, Hitler often referred to the overabundance of Jews
in Europe as the "Jewish Problem." In many of his speeches, Hitler often spoke of
solving the "Jewish Problem" in Europe by liquidating all of the Jews, and thus
making Europe judenfrei (free of Jews). The CDU's racist policies only created more
antagonistic feelings against the Turks and made them the undeserving target and
scapegoat for other problems in West Germany such as rising unemployment (Ardagh
280). It is no coincidence that the racially-motivated violence against the Turks
increased tremendously during the early eighties when the CDU introduced their antiforeigner policies. One just has to examine the common jokes that the Germans told
about the Turks to see the racist overtones.
-Have you seen the latest German microwave? — It has room for a whole Turkish
family.-A Jew and a Turk jump out of an airplane at the same time; which one hits the
ground first? — Does it make a difference?
-A Turkish train with a crowd of people on board leaves Istanbul, but arrives later in
Frankfurt entirely empty. Why? — It traveled by way of Auschwitz.
-What is the difference between Jews and Turks? — The Jews already have it behind
them (Toelken 162).
These jokes echo the blatantly racist policies of the CDU government. Kohl and his
party did not set a good example to the German people. One cannot expect the
German people to treat the Turks with respect when the government treats them
without any regard and as second-class citizens. A couple of months before the CDU
regime issued their official leaflet on the "foreign problem" in Germany, the violence
toward the Turks escalated to new heights. In June of 1982, a middle-aged German
male in Frankfurt was disturbed by the noisy Turkish children living next door. He
grabbed a three year old Turkish boy, pushed him into a small concrete box, and
slammed the lid shut. He explained his actions by saying, "They (the Turks) are just
filth. They must get out of here" (Castles 191). The German government treats the
Turks as if they were filth; it is not surprising then that a German citizen also acts in a
similar manner.
Since the mid-1980s, the Kohl administration has continued to treat the Turks poorly,
even though the government now wants to integrate the second generation TurkishGermans into mainstream German society (Mehrländer 167). Between 1983 and
1985, the German government offered monetary incentives to the foreigners if they
left West Germany. The government gave each family DM 10,500 plus an additional
DM 1,500 for each child. Over three hundred thousand foreign workers left; eighty
percent of them were Turks (Ardagh 290). With the temporary ease of foreign
presence in Germany, the Kohl administration decided to begin integrating second
generation Turkish-Germans into German society. Ever since then, the official policy
of the German government has been one of integration; however, the government still
treats the Turks as second class citizens and does very few things to improve their
situation.
In order for integration to be successful, the children need to be immersed into the
German culture as early as possible. The main tool for integration is education in a
German school; however, the schools are not prepared to handle the needs of the
Turkish students. Only 28% of the Turkish children are enrolled in Kindergarten
classes, while only 54% graduate from Grundschule (elementary school - ages 6 - 10)
and are eligible to become skilled workers (Mehrländer 172). The low performance
level in school is due to the Turks' lack of understanding of the German language.
Many schools do not have adequate classes and aids to teach the Turks German in an
efficient and correct manner. Those who do not graduate from Grundschule attend a
Jungarbeiter one day a week where they can obtain the means to become a skilled
worker. Unfortunately, many Turks, whether or not they graduate from Grundschule
are unable to become skilled workers because training jobs are not as available to
them in comparison to ethnic Germans. Most German firms will hire ethnic Germans
as apprentices and pass up many foreign workers (Mehrländer 166). A majority of
the Turks end up following in the footsteps of their parents and work as unskilled
laborers in an undesirable, low paying, dangerous job in the mining or construction
sector. Even though it is the "official policy" of the German government to integrate
second generation Turkish-Germans into society, they are not doing enough to make
the integration process any easier. The young Turks still experience the
discriminatory practices of German society.
Ever since the Turkish guest workers came to West Germany in 1961, they have
always been treated as second-class citizens by the German government and the
people of Germany. Not only are the Turks not provided with decent housing, but
they also are not given many job opportunities or an adequate education. The German
government's policies have always been very discriminatory toward the Turks .
Along with heeding to their Islamic beliefs, these policies further isolate the Turks
from German society and cause many German citizens to resent them. Although the
official policy of the German government is to integrate the second generation
Turkish-Germans into German society, the government has not done enough to make
the transition into Germany society a smooth one. The bleak reality is that TurkishGermans still face discrimination every day of their lives and are unable to progress
any further than their parents. The responsibility of Turkish integration into
mainstream German society falls directly onto the shoulders of the German
government and Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The discriminatory and racist policies of
the past have only ignited the deeply rooted ethnocentric attitudes of the German
people against the Turks. Chancellor Kohl wants to integrate the Turks into German
society, but he needs to reverse the xenophobic and ethnocentric mentality of the
German people. As one Turk stated in response to the German policy of Turkish
integration, "This is hypocritical. If they were sincere, they would make it easier for
us to stay. They do not give us enough security of residence" (Ardagh 285). Is the
reversal in mentality of the German people toward the Turks possible, or has too
much damage been done already as a result of the previous discriminatory policies of
the government? Only time will be able to determine that answer to that question.
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