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УДК 81.272 ББК 80/84
КУЛЬТУРНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ МИГРАНТОВ В ГЕРМАНИИ
З.Б.Доржинова
В статье рассматриваются языковые и культурные проблемы, с которыми сталкиваются мигранты в Германии и пути их решения.
CULTURAL PROBLEMS OF MIGRANT GROUPS IN GERMANY
Z.B. Dorzhinova
The article deals with language and cultural problems facing migrant groups in Germany and the ways of their solution.
Ключевые слова: миграция, этническое меньшинство, культура, диаспора, образование, социальная защищенность.
Keywords: migration, ethnic minorities, culture, communities, education, social security.
The EU approach to migration addresses the issue of integration. Successful integration of migrants into their host society is essential to maximize the opportunities afforded by legal migration and to realize the potential that immigration has for EU development. Many economists argue that mobility of labor is an important factor of world economy. Some scholars proclaim the virtues of greater geographical mobility. It is asserted that greater labor geographical mobility would bring about a renaissance of national economic strength.
European leaders imported people to fill short-term shortages after the Second World War. Germany was also in urgent need of additional labor force to rebuild the economy. Germany and Turkey signed a ‘Recruitment Agreement for Labor’ in 1961. This agreement led to a mass migration of “guest workers” from Turkey. They helped to build Germany’s “economic miracle”-its massive growth at that time.
Germany’s ‘guest worker’ recruitment from 1955 to 1973 was at first aimed to provide temporary labor. But in the long run it led to family reunion, permanent settlement and the emergence of new ethnic minorities. Turks comprise Germany’s biggest migrant group and a significant proportion of Germany’s Muslims. Following rising domestic unemployment in the early 1970s, Germany introduced a general stop on labor migration in 1973; the policy was intended to stem the continued immigration of guest workers. While discouraging further immigration and actively encouraging repatriation to source countries, policies also focused on the integration of existing migrants into German society.
When Turkish migrant workers first came to Germany they were offered heavy manual labor, especially in the industrial and agricultural sectors. But the second generation of Turkish people is still doing low grade jobs, selling cars and selling vegetables. German Turks earn less, are more often unemployed, and depend more on social security than Germans. Of the 1.7 million Turkish citizens resident in Germany in 2008 only 27 percent were fully employed (with social security). In 2005 14 percent of all Germans lived below the official poverty line. The figure for German Turks was 30 percent. Contrary to most other industrialized nations, Germany does not have a fixed minimum wage. The pro and contra camps are at loggerheads over the sense of introducing such a ruling. Tradition in Germany
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dictates that wage agreements are negotiated jointly by employers and unions.
Immigrants of Turkish origin are found to be the least successful in the labor market: they are often jobless, the percentage of housewives is high and many are dependent on welfare. The state of Saarland was found to have the worst record - 45 percent of its Turks had no educational qualification of any kind. Some 16% of all Turks are dependent on welfare, twice the share of native Germans. In 2005 the unemployment rate among Turks was 23%, compared with 10% for native Germans.
Immigrants fall outside the relevant social networks, so they are less visible as candidates for jobs. Employers sometimes have negative expectations about the performance of immigrants, or fear a more diverse staff may bring negative consequences for the functioning of the organization.
Today the number of jobs in the service industry has greatly increased. Culturally sensitive communication and relationship skills are much more important in service jobs and may put immigrant workers at a disadvantage, due to a lack of sufficient mastery of the language or trouble interpreting the unwritten rules of social conduct. Training, retention and advancement of immigrant employees lag behind that of their native colleagues. Immigrant workers experience greater difficulty in making connections among colleagues and supervisors, and experience more conflict and fewer career advancement opportunities.
There are a number of different reasons for this. For instance, an immigrant who doesn’t speak the German language accurately has probably no chance of getting an ideal job position in Germany. Turks are often able to speak German fluently, but their lack of skills in writing German means that they can only find jobs as unskilled workers. In addition, good or even perfect language skills are the most reliable means of protection against loss of qualifications. The number of those with difficulties among first generation immigrants can be estimated at more than 30 percent.
In spite of all difficulties, there are examples of successful integration into German culture by some Turks. They speak German fluently; they graduate from Universities and become prominent actors, journalists, writers, businesspersons and the like. In 1994 the first MP of Turkish origin was elected to the Bundestag - Gem Ozdemir for the Greens. He was a Member of Parliament of the German Bundestag and of the European Parliament. Currently there are 5 MPs of Turkish origins in the German Bundestag (0.8 percent). Turks are also present in many regional parliaments.
Policymakers who invited guest workers were even more mistaken about culture than they were about numbers. They assumed that immigrants would quickly adopt the mores of their host societies. But a surprising number of immigrants have proved ‘unmeltable’. Some scholars argue that the reason why so many immigrants failed to assimilate can be summed up in a single word: Islam. In the middle of the 20th century there were almost no Muslims in Germany. Today there are about 7.5 million.
Due to the geographic proximity of Germany and Turkey, cultural transfer and influence from the country of origin has remained considerable among the Turkish minority. Furthermore, the majority of second-generation Turks appear to have developed emotional and cultural ties to their parent’s country and also to the country which they live in and intend to remain. Most Turks live in two conflicting cultures with contrasting behavior codes and patterns of belonging. At work or school, German culture tends to dominate, while during leisure time social networks divide along ethnic lines of the Turkish culture. In the first generation of migrants, social networks were almost exclusively Turkish, and now in the second and third generations this segregation line remains just as effective as ever.
The Turkish language is Germany’s main immigrant language. The second and third generations Turks often speak Turkish with a German accent or even modelled on a German
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dialect. There emerged a specific dialect, a multi ethnic youth language in which Arab and Turkish words are mixed with German words.
For Turks in German society, patterns of discrimination maintain disadvantages of low economic and social status, whilst also restraining social advancement. Despite their longterm residency, Turks continue to face hostility, which has intensified since the mid 1970s. In Germany today, there is an undercurrent of xenophobia in public opinion and an open emphasis on xenophobia in right-wing and neo-Nazi organizations. The wave of xenophobic violence that saw offences treble between 1991 and 1993, claimed several Turkish lives and revealed how excluded and vulnerable non-Germans have remained in German society.
With hostility to Muslims mounting in Germany, some Turkish women draw parallels with Nazi racism. They have been victim of racism, discrimination, and bullying, physical and verbal abuse. Daily and widespread racism on the part of the Germans has also been cited by many critics as a major obstacle to integration. Such racism has been blamed for isolating children of immigrants by limiting access to education and employment opportunities.
Therefore a growing number of Turkish immigrants are withdrawing into ‘parallel societies’: communities with their own shops, media and entertainment, and few links to German society. As a result, it is possible to claim that the current atmosphere in German society does not allow Turkish Muslims to be integrated. Youth crime has become a hot topic in Germany. A recent report showed that 80 percent of severe youth crimes in Berlin were committed by delinquents with immigrant backgrounds. The epicentres of this trend are the Berlin neighbourhoods of Kreuzberg, Moabit and Wedding. These neighbourhoods are home to homogenous immigrant communities, where young men grow up torn between tradition and liberty.
The roots of crime are based partly on education. “Immigration in Europe is still considered a problem rather than an opportunity, and nowhere is that more obvious than in education,” said Schleicher, who co-authored the recent study by the Program for International Student Assessment, which compared the quality of schooling in OECD member countries. Nearly one-third of Germany’s Turks have no secondary-school diploma, and just 14% qualify to go to university. The proportion of immigrant children who make it to this top track stood at 18 percent last year, compared with 47 percent for German students, government statistics show. The share falls to 12 percent for children of Turkish origin, the biggest immigrant group. Only 3.3 percent of immigrants who go through the German school system make it to universities.
Meanwhile, 40 percent of immigrant children attend the lowest branch of secondary school, twice the German proportion. An estimated 19 percent end up in special-needs schools and another 19 percent leave school without diplomas, compared with only 8 percent of German students. Immigrant children today speak poorer German and have less contact with German culture than 20 years ago. Many Muslim students go to Koran classes outside of school and speak only Turkish or Arabic at home. Meanwhile, the growth of digital television has made a host of Turkish- and Arabic-language channels available, intensifying language problems and nurturing identities that are informed more by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the war in Iraq than by the local German environment.
Unlike many other migrants in Germany, Turkish migrants do not hold European Union citizenship and therefore cannot benefit from the advantages this brings. The original Turkish guest workers, their children and grandchildren have largely remained foreigners. They are denied formal political rights such as the right to vote, the right to stand for office and the constitutionally protected rights to assemble and associate, although the latter are provided through statute.
Some authors believe that there are ways to improve the integration of Turks:
-Legal protection. German government should ensure that national laws and practice
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that promote and protect human rights of Germans apply to migrant workers and that they are respected by all concerned.
-Protection of the rights at work. The preamble to the 1919 Constitution of the International Labor Organization sets among its objectives the ‘protection of the interest of the workers when employed in countries other than their own’. This was reinforced by the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work which reiterates that the guarantee of fundamental principles and rights at work is of particular significance.
-The role of Diaspora communities. They can play an important role in human development issue. If members of Turkish Diaspora are subject to abuse of their human rights, the government of Turkey may wish to intervene to try to ensure respect for their human rights and promote their human development.
-Social protection. The conclusion of social security agreements - treaties that coordinate the social security schemes of two countries (Germany and Turkey) to ensure the portability of social security entitlements which is the most effective way to provide social security protection to migrant workers and their families.
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