Dancing the Racial Walls Away
October 31, 2001
Now, at 2.5 million, they and their descendants make up the largest ethnic minority in Germany - a country that has never seen itself as an immigration society.
As both sides came to realize, the original scheme was founded on an illusion: the average guest worker remained here not five years but 20. Long enough to raise children, sometimes even grandchildren.
"We called for labour", said the Swiss writer Max Frisch, "but what we got was human beings." But many of those human beings remain second class citizens in a country that is ill at ease with its multicultural character.
In one of Berlin's Kreuzberg district's numerous cafés - places where many young Turkish men meet to watch TV in Turkish, a group of men kill time, playing billiards, reading the papers and drinking tea. And, swapping news from home - none of these people have steady jobs. Most of them can speak only Turkish.
"I only get a job here and there. Kitchen worker - things like that. I want to learn a trade, but uptil now, I haven't found any oppurtunities. I've already written twenty to thirty applications."
One of the major reasons that Berliners who come from Turkey find it so difficult to find employment is lack of education. Almost fifty percent of this group who're of working age, are unemployed. Few have learnt a trade, and apprenticeships and traninee programmes for these young people in the German capital are hard to come by.
According to Barbara John, Berlin's Foreign Commissioner,
"There is a lot of competition for very few trainee-places. And young Berliners of Turkish origin don't, in general, do so well, because they don't have an excellent, or at least a good, school-leaving certificate."
Many have no such certificate. Seven year old Merva and her schoolmates have extra lessons in German. Although they were born in Berlin, and although these children are third-generation Berliners, they, like most of their parents, speak fluent Turkish, but little German.
A factor that leads inevitably to problems at school. Twenty percent of the children with Turkish origin leave school with no final qualification.
Asim Güllüglu, private coach: "When you want to make your way in this society, you must be able to fulfil its basic requirements, those that other children or youths are able to fulfil - and that means German - good German. If they don't have that, then they just don't have a future; no chance to learn a trade, not to mention the opportunity to study. All that is impossible without being able to speak the German Language."
Turkish is the common currency
In Kreuzberg, everyday problems can be overcome - without good German. The Turkish language is the common currency here. The proportion of native Germans in the district is small - the culture essentially Turkish.
Getting the racial mixture right is of the highest importance. For instance in Kreuzberg's Naunynritze youth centre. Young Germans, Turks and other nationalities practice Breakdancing together here. The language used is German.
"We get on well together. Very well. We'ge got afro-Americans, Turks, all mixed in. We understand each other - there's never any problems."
Dancing their way through cultural and racial walls – at least the Breakdancers, have got the idea of integration right.
Germany's long-running debate on immigration has grown louder of late, as the government pushes for a new immigration law within the next year. The high level commission appointed to make recommendations for that law has urged that immigration be regarded as normal, pointing out that a rapidly aging Germany will need an influx from outside to fill jobs and pay pensions.
All that may make it easier for new arrivals -- in time. But for those immigrants already here, advancement generally depends mostly on a combination of will and skills and pure good luck.
One year ago, 30-year-old Cüneyt Tirelioglu took the plunge and went into business on his own. He rented a warehouse at Hamburg's wholesale market, where he now buys and sells fruit and vegetables from midnight until ten in the morning. He built a small corner office out of wooden palettes where he can deal with the paperwork.
Cüneyt Tirelioglu -Inhaber Großhandel "Fruchtquelle":
"I've been self-employed for one year, and right now it's going really well. At first, I had to pay cash every day to buy my goods; now I have enough standing for a six-week credit. So it's become easier. At the start it was very difficult."
Cüneyt Tirelioglu now has three lorries and five employees. Restaurants, canteens and hospitals belong to his clients. Tirelioglu is a man who has managed to shake off the image of 'guest-worker' and has achieved the ownership of a company.
In Germany there are about 260,000 companies either managed or owned by foreigners. A small number - the reasons lie in the past.
Cüneyt Tirelioglu -Inhaber Großhandel "Fruchtquelle": "If more first generation people here had managed to make themselves self-employed, there would now be more Turkish-owned companies."
The first Turkish entrepreneurs concentrated on supplying their own countrymen with fruit, meat and vegetables. They opened Turkish travel agencies and Turkish tailor shops - circumventing native German competition.
But Yasmin Ekinci, a young jewellery-shop owner, has taken on any competition that comes her way. The secret of her success, she says, is a good qualification and the right sales strategy. The 32-year-old wants to be an example for third generation Turkish immigrants.
Yasmin Ekinci, "Gold & Diamonds": "Very often people are frightened of taking the first step towards self-employment. How did I do it, they ask. But when they've seen the business in operation, they become a little more sure of themselves, and say 'I think I'll try that too.'"
Foreign business-people are also successful on the cutting edge of the more innovative branches of German industry.
Russel Alizadeh is a chipbroker. His firm buys and sells microprocessors on the international Hi-Tech market, and can boast a turnover of five million Marks for the year 2000.
Russel Alizadeh -Inhaber RFC Components GmbH: "We're a service industry, not in the sense of personal service, but in that of the business world. An area where the maintenance of a high standard is necessary. And if you can deliver the goods, of the right quality, then it's completely unimportant where you come from."
Russel Alizadeh took his degree in industrial management, and became self employed in a partnership with a female colleague six years ago. The 35-year-old would like to see more state subvention for foreign business-people.
Russel Alizadeh: "That would be a great advantage for Germany. That the people who live here achieve independance; that they can, a, create jobs, and b, that foreigners who're looking unsuccessfully for work would more readily, more confidently, trust themselves to apply to a foreign-owned company; and from there achieve integration in society".
Trading on the international market in Hi-Tech micro- chips means working long hours. Very often, Russel Alizadeh leaves his office late at night - but he's happy. He's his own man.