Nermin Aydemir JTW Columnist printable version send your friend message to author add comment ()

Friday, 9 January 2009

Naturalization can be generally defined as changing the nationality and getting accustomed to the way of life in the new country. In the context of increasing tension between migrant groups and their host societies, it became one of the most problematic issues nowadays. At first, naturalization was not handled as a problematic concept and the official requirements were not so much difficult to fulfil. However, the policies towards migration have been strictly tightened and are becoming much more restrictive every single day.  Nonetheless, the recent implementation of the province of Baden-Wurttemberg, in Germany seems to be the triumph of all such attitudes.

Germany has never given right to the dual citizenship and took serious preconditions in order to prevent this. Last summer, many “naturalized” German citizens received posts, warning them that they would lose their German citizenships in case not ending all their official ties with their former nationalities. More than six thousand “naturalised” Turks lost their German citizenship due to ignoring such formalities. Some support the position of the country while others strictly oppose it. Nonetheless, a new implementation of the province of Baden-Wurttemberg led to increase in criticisms and made the German attitude towards foreigners once more open to debate.  

Foreign people, coming from Muslim countries, have to pass an odd test nowadays to become “naturalized” Germans. Several questions are asked to measure how much these people are suitable for being a citizen of this country. These include questions like what would you say if one day your son comes to you and says he will live as a gay for the rest of his life. Several questions about the relationship between men and women take place in this questionnaire. People’s opinions about criticizing a religion are also among criteria of being a citizen of the country. Questionnaires are also held in many other European countries, usually with the explicit intention of controlling high migration flows, but most of these have at least more or less legitimate grounds. Such tests are acceptable if they are measuring a person’s familiarity with or his/her potentiality of becoming adapted to the new country. But what is going on in Baden-Wurttemberg is really open to debate. The fact that the questionnaire is only compulsory for Muslim people raises doubts about discrimination. Moreover, the content and the general attitude in the questionnaire decrease the likehood of a peaceful integration. The manner, in which the questions are asked, makes foreigners feel humiliated. Immigrants retire into their own subgroups rather than incorporating to the social life in such circumstances. Hope that similar questions are not on the edge of being implemented in other European countries.

Western identity has long been introduced as the opposite of the Eastern one. But this is something imaginary than being real and too much aggravated. For instance, women in Turkey do not live in worse conditions than their European counterparts. Turkish girls also get education as German girls do and women are not restricted in employment in this country. A particular affinity against Al-Quade or other terrorist groups does not exist in Turkey or other Muslim societies, either. Assimilation over Integration In the meantime, it is highly obvious that assimilation is preferred to integration in many European countries. Policies on migration are shaped in order to assimilate people into the major culture rather than trying to get them adapted while protecting their ties with their countries of origin. Many European officials do not hesitate to give speeches, which value assimilation over integration. The statement of the former Interior Minister, Otto Schily, is quite thought provoking in this sense. The Social Democrat politician did not keep himself from saying that the best way of integration would be assimilation.[1]
The humanitarian aspect of these policies is very much open to debate and such attitudes are naturally irritating immigrant people. On the other side, the choice of assimilation can be understood up to one extent. Making everyone get accustomed to the values, norms, and rules of the country may make sense to some. People may think about a relief of heavy burdens in spite of encountering differences and facing several challenges. Nevertheless, when people are enforced to forget their own identities and constrained by the values of another one, the result will be the reverse rather than a smooth adaptation process. To put it in another context, there is a threat of complete separation from the major culture while trying to assimilate people with different characteristics.
People increase their ties with their home cultures in such circumstances and become much more Turkish, Moroccan, Iranian, or whatever they are when such differences are over and overemphasized. People recreate their ethnic identities and catch up strongly with their origins in such cases. Cerulo defines this as symbolic ethnicity. People get affiliated to the symbols of ethnicity rather than the ethnicity itself.[2] The relationship gets into a highly risky manner since differences become as a source of opposition and unfortunately to strong hatreds most of the time.
It is not very possible to get minority people accustomed to the social life while constantly claiming the superiority of the culture of the majority over all the others identities.  When such a policy is followed, minorities become much closer to their own ethnicities than they really are. Immigrants create sub societies within the major one and define themselves with their origins even if being highly diverged from these. According to a study of Kaya&Kentel on Turkish immigrants, living in Germany and France, around 65% of immigrants defined themselves as Euro-Turks, or Europeans. This amount rose up to 80% among young groups.[3] On the other hand, when these people feel that they are discriminated or forced to get assimilated, their Turkish identities prevail and start behaving in a separatist and even aggressive way. It is worth paying attention that many ultra nationalistic Turkish immigrants prefer living in European countries rather than their homelands and get the nationality of the country they are living, sometimes at the expense of their own one. These people have lost the myth of returning back long before and are now building up life’s, making future plans in the countries of settlement. On the contrary to the general opinion, they immigrant people feel foreign when they are in their “original” societies and act much more comfortably when they are in their new countries.
 In short, people fight for things, which they actually do not support when they feel discriminated and when their differences are so much overemphasized. Humiliation does nothing but further ruins the adaptation process. Many immigrants are already willing and adopting the German culture in a quite successive way as well as the European identity in general. The peaceful coexistence of different groups is by no means an easy task to achieve but it is not something impossible. Just so policies are kept away from prejudices and a sincere respect is kept for the values of the other