The year 1975, Semiha Yankı represented Turkey in the Eurovision Song Competition. She did sing a western type song but was forced by the government to wear a traditional dress. Europe argues about the relativity of Turks and Europeans but refers mostly the differences. The dress of Semiha Yankı was a connotation where non-verbal communication has beaten the verbal. Turkey was labeled as undeveloped.
These were times, where Turks have immigrated to Germany. Just as my family. Turk have a different culture then Germans and are labeled mostly in a ethnocentric German way. Turks tried mostly to conserve their cultural artifacts but forgot to follow cultural change in their own country, which has created an alienization to both cultures.
We can see this also in the Turkish-German print media like newspaper. Their mediais not about being Turkish or German. It is just about be an alien.
I begun my primary school at Germany. We had a class where all of us were Turks. It was a programm where we have learned two years in Turkish Language. For a point of view in a social constructivist way, the goal should be the adaptation of children to the German language and culture. To do so they used the first spoken language as a channel to integrate us in. But, as I have experienced it, they had created just a domestic group in a public organization. Turks have localized themselves and spoke Turkish to each other.
My parents were working, so they send me to an afterschool care called “hort”. A hort is like a pre-school. You have to make your homeworks, eat lunch, play games with other children under the supervision of caretakers. The caretakers concerned about to teach us the German way to live. We were an international group from every continent and also with Germans. They instructed us to play games which have developed our interpersonal communication. We talked much about our own country an and life at home to understand each other. This was for me a perfect experience to understand other cultures and share a common sense of life.
Far later, where I have planed to study Psychology in Germany i have realized that I have to be connected to a power network to earn a good job. Therefore I tried to learn more about the Turkish Association in Berlin. They have a great authority over Turks who can't speak German and introduce those people their local yellow pages which was also an instrument to help our communicate, work or support Turks each other. My goal was to be a Turkish speaking psychologist, which were in the yellow pages of the association in 2003 only three.
My advantage would be my life in Turkey which could help me to reach more poeple and understand their local culture and mores. Anyway, life has changed my plans but, I also saw that in this Gemeinschaft you have to be strong islamic to be one of them. The Association emposes also power by being conservative. Because, if people change, there wouldn't be a strong need of cultural belongings.
There are several problems that distort the communication between Turks and Germans and I didn't saw any organization which inoovates a bound. There could be a positive interdependence but as i saw, they just look at everything in their own perspective.
Alper Çetiner
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