The Turkish community in Germany held a ceremony at the House of World Cultures in Berlin at the beginning of October. The 60th anniversary of the recruitment agreement between Germany and Turkey was celebrated. The publicist Ferda Ataman, who had the nice idea at the beginning of celebrating representatives of the first generation in the hall, led through the festive event. They should stand up so that applause could break out. It took a little while, then two or three men got up. Much more were not present either. There is hardly a more suitable picture for how this anniversary is celebrated in Almanya. The political mainstream, whether with or without a migration background, still talks mainly about guest workers and not with them. Are you invited to such celebrationsOften they are left with the role of biographical key word in order to adorn the new narrative of immigration as a success story. Racism has also found its place in this narrative. Solingen, Rostock-Lichtenhagen, NSU complex, Mölln, Halle and Hanau are mentioned. But the obsession to draw a track record outshines a lot. Guest workers have built a home in Germany, their children and grandchildren are not only integrated, but also capable of outstanding achievements, this is the story.outshines a lot. Guest workers have built a home in Germany, their children and grandchildren are not only integrated, but also capable of outstanding achievements, this is the story.outshines a lot. Guest workers have built a home in Germany, their children and grandchildren are not only integrated, but also capable of outstanding achievements, this is the story.
The immigration country Almanya remains trapped in the toxic triangle of enrichment, victimization and threat and pretends that it is the task of immigrants to enrich this country economically or culturally. In all positive developments, people with a history of immigration are made victims or stigmatized as such. Immigration is still portrayed as a threat to homogeneity and racially instrumentalized. In the case of criminal offenses by refugees or migrants, the rule of law principles are sometimes forgotten, and calls for deportations are reflexively loud. The demand made by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that it was time for a “change of perspective” therefore made people sit up and take notice. Speaking about the recruitment agreement, he said:"They are not 'people with a migration background' - we are a country with a migration background."
This somewhat clumsy formula, in which what separates “they” and “we” can be found, inevitably leads to the follow-up question, what exactly this should be, a country with a migration background. In any case, more is required for a change of perspective. This includes understanding migrants as equal actors in the immigration society and emphasizing how important they are for social transformation. It is amazing how little guest workers of the first generation are praised as “role models”. They could be seen as pioneers of progressive ways of life, because for them struggling to reconcile family and work was part of everyday life as early as the 1960s - when the image of “Mutti at the stove” was cultivated in Germany and “Father was mine on Saturdays”.There is just as little room for this in the memories of the recruitment agreement as for hundreds of female guest workers who initiated strikes in the early 1970s for more wages, better working conditions and equal rights.