Much of the Syrian refugees who arrived in Germany in 2015 are planning to stay in the country permanently. They have changed a lot over the past five years, and so has Germany. When asked about the most popular product in his grocery store, Muhammad Hanawi (20 years old) said that it is "Arabic bread", and it is perfectly suitable for dipping, and the Syrians eat it with almost every dish, so that some people attach it special importance and do not throw a piece of it, but rather They are taken, if dropped, kissed and taken. Hanawi sits behind a table, wearing a blue and white sports jacket, while his father weighs an olive for a client. The Syrian youth is writing orders for the store, which opened in January, in Arabic. He says that things are going well, and that beans, sausages and pickled grape leaves are in great demand. "It is the Syrian things that people here miss."
No migrants from the Middle East had reached Uetersen, in the Binberg region, near Hamburg, before 2015. The city has a population of about 19,000. Hanawi says that his family was among the first to move to Medina. Today, more than 300 Syrians live in Uetersen. The new residents say they were asking where can they buy the best Arabic groceries. Hanawi decided to bridge the gap in the market, and as the family discovered, in recent months, this was a strong decision that resisted the crisis. Unlike many stores, in other sectors, the Hanawi family did not have to close the doors of its store, while closing the “Corona”, and the demand for Arab products continued without interruption.
Muhammad Hanawi stopped going to school, in Germany, after the ninth grade, to help open the store, and he says, "I no longer need the certificate, now." After collecting enough money, the family renovated a former bar near a train station, and created a small space from the Middle East, in Uetersen.
Growing part
The growing part of the Arab population, in Germany, has a clear impact in many parts of the country. In Berlin, the "Sonnenali" street was known for some time as "Arab Street" informally, with many Middle Eastern cafes and shops. And inside one of the major libraries in the German capital, now, there is an Arabic section. Before the epidemic, the imam of the "Mosque of Light" in Hamburg had to conduct his sermon on two shifts, so that all worshipers could enter, but these days most of the worshipers contact the mosque, via live broadcast. Now the Syrians are the largest Muslim minority in Germany, after the Turks. Since 2010, their numbers in the country increased from about 30,000 to more than 800,000. Most of them arrived as refugees after the outbreak of the civil war, and they are reshaping the country, as Turkish immigrants have done for decades.
Between 2015 and 2018, Syrian women gave birth in Germany to more than 65,000 children, but the Syrian community will continue to grow in the country, for other reasons as well. Last year, about 40,000 Syrians applied for asylum, a small number compared to 2015, when a large wave of refugees came to Germany.
Permanent residence
Many refugees who are currently in countries neighboring Syria or on the Greek islands have relatives or friends in Germany, and would like to catch up with them. It is impossible to know the number of persons in this case. After nearly nine years of civil war, the situation in Syria is catastrophic, especially in the areas near Idlib and Aleppo, with continued fighting. The German Foreign Ministry considers the whole of Syria unsafe, and the government has extended the suspension of deportations.
Many Syrians have lived in Germany for a long time, which qualifies them to convert the limited-term protection status into a permanent residence permit this year, as long as they are considered well integrated. At this point, they can no longer be considered refugees. Experts say the first large wave of requests will occur in 2020. But due to the coronavirus, many authorities operate with limited capacity, and appointments have been delayed at the Federal Office for Immigration and Refugees, and at the immigration authorities.
Anyone with refugee status who wants to become a permanent resident must fulfill several requirements. The most important one is to live in Germany legally, for a period of five years, and to speak German relatively well, and to gain most of his strength without support, and without a criminal record, and he must be able to show evidence of the existence of housing. Those who earn enough money and speak good German are entitled to apply after three years.
Return excluded
Officials, at the German Ministry of the Interior, say that 12,000 Syrian refugees obtained permanent residency in this way, until mid-2019. There is no central record of the number of applications that have been submitted, so far, this year. According to the Federal Employment Agency, 42% of refugees who migrated since 2015 got a job at the end of last year, but these statistics also include low-paid and part-time work. It is also possible that this situation has worsened considerably since the beginning of the epidemic.
But even those who have barely learned the German language, are still far from the job market; They are more likely to remain in the country, even if the situation in Syria becomes more stable. With President Bashar al-Assad's regime regaining control of large parts of the country, many refugees fear return.
Cultural balance
About five million Muslims live in Germany. Islam, which Turkish immigrants strongly shaped in this country, has for decades become more diverse thanks to refugees, and there is now a better balance between cultures. Lamia Kaddour, a researcher from Duisburg, whose parents immigrated to Germany from Syria in the 1970s, agrees, and says she is happy that "mono-Islamic culture", which had long existed in Germany, has become a thing of the past. In contrast to Turkey, religion in Syria has not been institutionalized. In Germany, about 900 places of worship are under the direction of the Turkish government.
A home in exile
Muhannad Qaiquni (33 years old) has somewhat weak opportunities to obtain a permanent residence permit, at the present time, although he has already achieved a lot of things in Germany. Like many other artists and thinkers from all over the world, in Berlin, he speaks fluent English, but his German is not very good.
Qiqouni established the Arab Library of “Pienatna”, along with a German, a Jordanian, and other Syrians. The library is now in the Berlin State Library and Regional Library, in the Mitte district of the capital. There were previously few options in Berlin for people who wanted to buy or borrow books in Arabic. "We wanted to create a home for ourselves in exile," says Qaqoni. They started with hundreds of books presented by friends and acquaintances, and there are now about 3,000 books in the library.
They are arranged on simple wooden shelves, and the floor is covered with long, colorful patchwork rugs. The room is beautiful and bright, but it is still closed to visitors because of "Covid-19", and anyone who wants to borrow a book, simply needs to reserve the address online and receive it.
Reunion
Amal Al-Barrus (41 years old) barely met her son Musa at Dusseldorf airport when he arrived. They were chatting and talking on WhatsApp, every week, the mother says: “But this is different; The day he arrived, he suddenly had a beard. ”
"I left him when he was 12 years old, and he is 16 now."
She needs to get to know her son again, a boy who has built his own life, in Germany, for the past four years. And Moses has friends his mother does not know. He speaks a language that he does not understand, and feels at home in a city she does not like. I hope you don't even know what he likes to eat. Moussa says he does not like Syrian food, “a lot of meat. "I can't stand the smell."
Amal recalls when her family tried to reach Germany via Turkey, and they split in two cars, while they were heading to the coast, from which their boat was to leave. She was in the first car with her husband and two of their sons, while Musa and his cousins were in the other car. The Turkish police stopped the car carrying the parents, but the boys passed the road, and were able to make their way to Germany, while the rest of the family failed.
The growing part of the Arab population, in Germany, has a clear impact in many parts of the country.