What’s Happening in Germany? As I was walking to the gate at the international departures lounge, a police officer, with a pistol in his waist band, passing by me, was murmuring a song, “I love you…, I love you…” in a rather audible manner.

Watching the admirable freedom of this uniformed male officer before leaving Turkey, revived my yearnings. When I landed at the airport in Germany, the sour-faced police officers, Istanbul passengers made to wait for hours unjustly and baggage checks made me uneasy. However, it was my lucky day and though the habit of checking luggages had not changed, I received a “May I help you?”offer from a German police officer to assist in lifting my suitcase. Germany, where politicians try to put people at loggerheads in order to garner votes, has shelved the weird “citizenship test.” Our citizens living in Germany have been taunted for years for not becoming German citizens and for not giving up their Turkish nationality. As Turks are enthusiastically becoming German citizens and are looking for ways to get more involved in politics, the attitude of the Germans has changed all of a sudden. They saw the interest showed by foreigners as dangerous. The test period implemented by the Hessen and Baden Wurttemberg states has officially ended. It has been replaced by “citizenship courses.” The conditions for becoming a citizen have been made more difficult after an agreement reached among state interior ministers. Those who wish to become citizens will have to take the “language test” that the Volga Germans are exempted from taking. Germany continuously is discriminating against its citizens — though it is against the constitution –- in fact annulling citizen right through blood ties; and it is obvious that this German ideal dating back to centuries is what this really desires. A worker who went there in 1970 said the following: “There were beds made up of straw placed side by side in the room they squeezed us in. None of us spoke German. In a desperate attempt, I tried to tell them that this is the way animals are sheltered in our country. We do not live like this back home.” While employing German immigrant workers, no tests are applied by their employers. They never cared to understand whether or not the newcomers were human beings and had a culture. Germany insists on calling the people it invited and people who have revived its economy “strangers” 45 years later. It turns a blind eye to wild-eyed racism. Of course there are some who see the reality. Hamm Mayor Thomas Hunsteger-Petermann indicated that immigrants should be given more social rights. He said restricting the rights of immigrants and isolating them will cause big problems: “Integration is not a unilateral process. What we as politicians should do is to remove the obstacles facing the immigrants living in our country. In 2005, the 323,000 workplaces owned by Turks had an annual turnover of 29 billion euros. The immigrants are entrepreneurs, Germans are not. In fact, the foreigners have already been integrated. Opening adaptation courses for German politicians would bring more positive results. Speaking German is no talent, but speaking German while realizing positive actions paves the way for the future. Wuppertal city Social Department Director Dr. Stefan Kugn said the Turks are grateful for the slightest help they get. “These people can’t speak German, is it solely their fault? It must be admitted that the politicians are equally guilty,” he added. If the Germans pursue a policy in favor of adaptation policy, they can benefit from the majority who have already been integrated. In marked contrast to reports resulting in conclusions that children of different ethnicities are unsuccessful, Turkish students at the schools in Ostheim and Schiller in Stuttgart are very successful. School administrator Gudrun Greth, who has been working for only three years, talks about what can be accomplished if there are no prejudices: “We started working with three-year-old kids at 18 kindergartens. We educated the families of the unsuccessful kids. We opened courses for those who did not speak German. We raised the academic standards of the kids at the kindergartens. We allocated one university student for every unsuccessful pupil.” Greth saying, “Children who speak their mother tongues are more successful,” should be attributed to the Turkish state, in my opinion. And we must admit that families in Germany must be educated and urgent plans are needed to socialize women. May 9, 2006 Dear Nevval, that’s interesting. I may quote some cultural observations from here which (may) have relations to Turkey. The most prominent I have in mind is Klaus Staeck’s election as a president of the Berlin Academy of Arts. There is no precedence of a satirical graphical artist to have such a prestiguous position in Germany. Just coincidence? Our local daily reported that a new Turkish radio program will be broadcasted soon in the region, having got the necessary permissions the other day. They asked wether this licence is contradictory to the widely discussed concerns over integration of Turkish immigrants. Experts commented that on the contrary the acquisition of the home and destination cultures may go hand-in-hand and in fact intensify each other. This station will present Turkey-news in Turkish, other news mainly in German, while the music will mainly be Turkish again – depending on the requests and interests of the target public. Such stations are reported to be on the rise, while traditional Turkish-only stations and papers are slowly declining. But there is no general problem with publications in Turkish language in any kind of media, including libraries. What about Kurdish? Some times ago a theatre project in southern Rhineland-Palatinate was reported to have a similar philosophy of enhancing overall cultural awareness and adaptability by linking “culturally deprived” immigrants to modern theatre scenes from Turkey, naturally in Turkish language. Another new radio station has sent me a forum address on the net, http://www.politikcity.de/forum/vBRadio.php. Those are quite refractory and somewhat nationalist Turks, which for instance campaign on the Armenian “issue”. Last week I strolled through some audio sections of big stores. All had some “ethnical” music samplers from different countries, but not from Turkey. There were some regional samplers covering Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Guess which contained some examples from Turkey. It’s of course the normal perception not only in this country to situate Turkey in the ME, which however implicates to situate it outside Europe. I think this might be improved. Why not make some SE-Europe samplers together with Greek, Bosnian, Georgian a.s.o.? There would certainly be some interest. Latin, it is reported, is on the rise in German grammar schools, and so is, on a lower level, Ancient Greek. That’s on request of the students and their parents. It seems to be a part of an identity building process, linking the current to the roots of European civilization. That may be, in the long run, a disadvantage for Turkey in case it’s perceived as a part of a different civilization with which to dialogue rather than unite. But it might also be turned into an advantage in case the immense significance of Anatolia and Thrace in that respect can be established more intensively in European public opinion. There is material enough for the classical periods, back to the Hittites and Neolithics and forth to the Byzantines, which only must be used efficiently. Some more efforts would be useful to link it to the Ottomans (and Seljuks etc.), like in Kafadar’s works, and to modern Turkey (and perhaps, more generally, to relate Turkish identity to Turkey, or Anatolia, rather than Central Asia). Finally I found a “missing link” in a “Real” market, some cheap Turkish wine. It’s of a similar quality as others from the region’s cheap wines, such as Macedonian or Romanian (which in turn is not very different from similar country wines of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Hungary…). And it’s just what I like most. The cheese is Danish, somewhat Esrom-like.. Cheers Hans-Peter Most important, TUS Koblenz, our local football (soccer) team, managed promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga. Dear Miss. Nevval Sevindi, Thank you for the beautiful article. Some people think Germans are Hostile, barley smile and bad in cooking and that is hard to undserstand…personally i think Germany with some other European countries are the Brain of Europe, however Turkey with other sunny countries repsresenting the Heart, the passion of Europe! Sincerely, Aiman Yunes, Zama Reader

Kendini ve dünyayı fark etmek

Alanya Türkiye’de ilk akla gelen turizm beldelerinden biri. Turizmin olumlu katkısı halkın sosyalleşmesi ve sivil bilincin gelişmesidir. Buna en iyi örnek Köprülü Kanyon’dan gelen Serik Çayı alabalık ve sazan kaynıyor.