Berlin – The migrant – who still thinks today of a person whose family comes from Italy, Portugal, France? Rather, the migrant is a Turk, a Persian or, for example, an Arab. In Germany, a distinction is often made between people with an immigrant background, they are put into completely different boxes. At least that’s how I feel. There are those who are capable of integration and to a certain extent have already (outwardly) merged with society, the so-called German leading culture. And those who – it is often claimed – do not integrate themselves, do not want to have anything to do with “the Germans”, who stay with one another, isolate themselves, are not at all interested in the country in which they have lived for many decades. Neither socially nor politically nor culturally. And on top of that, they constantly complain about how violently and how often they are discriminated against – but you don’t hear a single complaint from Japanese or Greek communities.
For a long time I could not explain to myself the origin of this artificial separation – until the number of readers’ emails increased and I recognized a common thread. Religion. Islam, as one reader wrote to me, cannot be integrated and is not compatible with the German Basic Law. Another reader went further and declared all those who belong to the Islamic faith to be filthy Islamists who want to kill those who think differently and are all potential murderers (and a few other things that would not be printable). Islam is not a religion, but a perfidious sect, it said elsewhere. Anyone who is a Muslim cannot be a European.
I am not concerned with the very absurd content of the letters, but with the fact that apparently many are convinced that all people of Turkish descent are Muslim, including myself. And this religious affiliation, I believe, seems to “distinguish” one migrant from the other. I find that incredibly crazy. Almost as crazy as if I assumed every German to be a Christian. And in introductory talks I would ask: “And, are you Protestant or Catholic?” Or: “And, in which church are you a member?”
It is still not possible for some people in Germany to free themselves from mental automatisms. It shouldn’t really matter who believes in what. Instead: Turk equals Muslim. And the reconciliations: He’s only going to watch Turkish state television. Adored certainly Erdogan. He’s sure not to let his wife out of the house.
What does this person of Turkish origin have to do to no longer be assigned to the “migrant” category? In order to gain a foothold in German society, free from prejudice, once and for all. Sometimes I have the feeling that in Germany certain cultures, such as the Italian or French, are welcome, can and should be lived out. People from Turkish or Arab communities, on the other hand, have to suppress their cultural (and religious) identity as much as possible, even give up, in order to be recognized as willing and able to integrate. Perhaps one or the other at work or among friends even hides their belief in Islam for fear of being seen through different eyes.
Who is surprised that it is precisely they who complain of discrimination?
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