Thursday, November 11, 2010

German-Turkish Relations

I was going to wait to blog about this, but I had such an amazing morning today - I just need to tell someone about it! :)

So as part of the Lexia Visual Culture program, students are required to do a research project of some sorts - it can take any form (so research paper, photo journal, documentary, ect. all work) and it can be on basically any topic. The only requirements are that it has to be something that we can't really do back home and it has to get us out into the culture, talking to people, experiencing life in Berlin.

So, originally I was going to do my topic on Berlin's dog culture - which by the way is huge (dogs can seriously go anywhere, even into restaurants - don't get wrong, I love it, I mean I'm a total dog person, but even that surprised me). Anyways, this whole idea of dogs and the culture that exists around them, got me thinking about people who aren't really into dogs - for example, Muslims see dogs as being unclean, and therefore don't like to be around them. This would obviously present a problem for any Muslim who lives in the city - because, seriously, dogs are everywhere. This in turn got me thinking about cultural differences and how that plays a role in Berlin.

See, Berlin has a huge Turkish population, I mean, some districts have more Turks in them than Germans! It's kind of crazy, and something I didn't really think about before coming here. But the more I thought about it, the more I noticed it, and the more I wanted to know about it. So I decided to steer away from the dog culture to take on German/Turkish Relations, with a specific interest in Integration. Which is a huge topic, I realize this, but I mean my research paper is supposed to be like 18-20 pages, so I'll definitely have enough to write about!

But anyways, here's what's going on: Turks first really started coming over to Berlin in the 1960's, when they were invited over as guest workers. At that time Germany had huge employment opportunities, but not enough people to work. Therefore, an agreement was made between Turkey and Germany, that workers would come over to Germany from Turkey, for a few years to make some money and then return home. But then in 1964, the agreement changed, and the clause stating that Turks could only stay for so long was removed - see companies didn't want to have to deal with retraining employees every few years. So suddenly, Turks had the opportunity to work in Germany, bring their families with them and stay as long as they wanted - and of course some of them took advantage of that. Now many families are into their 3rd generation as Turkish-Germans, with no intention of returning home, even though some Germans are still grasping for the past, and believe that they will eventually leave.

Therefore, the question of integration comes into play. There are those who believe that Germans and Turks are not integrated at all, while there are some who feel differently. Language is one big barrier in all of this, as many older generations don't speak German, only Turkish. Which, as one can tell, can be a big problem. There are also many Turkish shops set up and Turkish communities that have formed within the city, because of this there are some who would even go as far to say that Germans and Turks lives in 2 separate worlds. Needless to say, it's definitely a heated topic throughout the country, especially in politics.

So, there's a lot of tension, but at the same time, there's not. It's really interesting - I'm still trying to figure it all out, but this morning I had the opportunity to go to a local high school in Berlin and talk with some students during their English language class (which was awesome, because, I mean, we were able to speak English together, and they're kind of my age). And they gave me some really awesome information, that I wasn't getting from newspaper articles - the best part was that for the first time, I was actually able to talk to Turks about this issue/or lack there of. Before that I had only ever had the opportunity to talk to Germans about it - who are very opinionated, at least the ones I was talking to, about the subject, and I was kind of only getting the negative side of everything. But after talking to the students this morning, I kind of get the feeling that, for their generation at least, it's not a big deal. Sure, they speak Turkish at home and hang out with Turkish friends most of the time, but they also have German friends. Even the one German guy I was talking to didn't see what the big deal was.

It was just really interesting to talk with them, and I'm now totally excited about my project and can't wait to find out more. Hopefully, I will be able to reconnect with some of those students and talk with them some more, but until then, it's off to the streets for random interviews!!

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