The Documentary: "Söz Bizde"

The documentary "Söz Bizde" reflects youth Turkish immigrants' feelings about their country of origin, identity and religion. The documentary highlights lots of  variable such as education, class, sense of being misplaced,gender etc... Besides, it is shown that how heteregenous Turkish community is.

I think Turkish immigrants' level of education and immigration age determine their sense of belonging and integration process. Those from Oxford feel much more British because they are well-educated (they don't feel social exclusion) and they have been in London since their birth. We observe that Turkish immigrant parents push their children earning money rather than education. Parents equate success with earning money not getting proper education. I think those who don't get proper education feel social exclusion much more deeply and they are more prone to form community within immigrant youth. They want to be close to their immigrant counterparts. For example, the man who named himself as warrior indicates that he doesn't want to live outside of his district because  he has Turkish friends just like him.

Some immigrants express their feelings about their sense of belonging and community's point of view towards them. One guy says that people whether in Turkey or Britain behave them as foreigner. When he is in England he is Turkish when he is in Turkey he is British.
In one scene a young women said that she has been brought up conservatively and she is not free unlike his brother. It is suprised me when she said that she wants to raise their children just like her parents did. I would expect much more modernized and open minded second generation.

I observe two faction within the Turkish immigrant youth. Some of them criticize other young immigrants by pretending just like British (adopting British culture) and others claim that Turkey moved on but some Turkish immigrants in Britain is still living 1970s. I think some Turkish immigrants very much stick on the idea of Turkishness and somes are assimilated. Only the guy in Kebap shop and graphic designer seem to me in the middle. Finally, I should mention that for me the most wise and open minded guy was the graphic designer through out the documentary . However, I was suprised when I heard his eagerness to marry with Turkish women rather than a foreigner. It is ironic.

Derrida reading

Is it still  possible to preserve international hospitality in contrast to the reality of strong nation states? What kind of police force or what kind of borders are required in order to foster cosmopolitanism? Which level of hospitality should be applied? These are the questions that we should ask.  Derrida's proposal is about the establishment of "cities of refuge", he argues whether it is possible or not. He mentions about asylum seekers, stateless persons and refugees who seek protection or help from other governments.Although humanitarian issues at stake, governments are not willing to be hospitable to those who seek protection. I think it has been created kind of dilemma since the refugee issue has taken part in the agenda as a hot topic.  Governments' objectives are their economic and political gain rather than opening their borders to people who seek help. The level of hospitality is the issue. Derrida indicates that laws of hospitality should be improved and he argues that without any other law, the law of an unconditional hospitality can be perverted.

Proposal: Film Analysis: Screening immigrant Turkish women in movies

Patriarchal rule and pressure is in everyday life of Turkish immigrant women. It makes integration process  complex and difficult for females and increase the feeling of being in exile  within Turkish immigrant society. I will make film analysis in order to back my thesis. Two movies “40 Squaremeters of Germany” and “Head-On” represent how  does the pressure  change women psychology and behavior.  I want to show the reader that how lack of integration and the strictness of patriarchal rule can effect psychology of immigrant women.

My main objective while writing this paper is to analyze challenges of integration process within Turkish immigrant women and how these problems have been screened in the movies.  Especially Turkish women have faced much more linguistic, cultural,educational boundaries and pressure due to their  parents or husbands stereotypes against German community.

The introduction will consist of the background information about the immigration of Turks to Germany and how they import their own culture to the host country and also male pressure on female figures within the immigrant community .  In the body paragraphs I will analyze the two movie by focusing on the issue of sense of being exile and histeric behavior of women who are  under the pressure of dominant Turkish male characters. As theoretical frame work , I will mainly refer to Hamid Naficy “an Accented Cinema”, Ali Nihat Eken “Representations of Turkish Immigrants in Turkish-German Cinema”, Sarah Schaefer- Greg Austin-Kate Parker “Turks in Europe”, Janet Walker “Couching Resistance: Women, Film, and Psychoanalytic Psychiatry”.

LA HAINE

  Police brutality, social exclusion,racism and unrest of banlieu youth are the salient objective of the movie. In Paris immigrants have been pushed to the suburbs and left uneducated through government policies. In the movie, we watched the other side of the story which analyzes the unrests from suburban youths' side. The protagonists of the movie are three young immigrant (Vinz, Hubert and Said) and their one day has been screened. Actually,  we observe that their violent actions aren't related with their origin. They are prone to violence because they are excluded from society. Public stereotype towards immigrants make them wild so they are far from being integrated into the society. In one scene police forces humiliate the two immigrant without a reason (just because they are immigrant) and in this sense the notion of hospitality turns into hostility. Derida indicates that being hospitable is also means that keeping the immigrant under control. (Rosello, 2001) The idea is in order to be hospitable, firstly the one must have power to host. In France case the level of power and control, that the government and police exert, is problematic and too much. In this sense, the power to host turns to be power to force or suppress. In one scene police says Vinz that police is here to protect them and Vinz responds him that who would protect immigrants from police. 

“So far so good… so far so good… so far so good.” How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you crash.’ 

I think the most impressive part of the movie is the final scene. Throughout the movie Vinz keeps saying that he will kill a police officer with a gun he's found, if his friend dies and Hubert tries to stop him by saying  "hatred breeds hatred". (Kassovitz, 1995) At the end of the movie Vinz gives up his claim thanks to Hubert and gives the gun to him. As Said and Vinz leaves Hubert, police car pulls up and officers begin to beat Vinz. Hubert sees them and closes there with the gun. Police officer kills Vinz. So here we observe the dilemma of Hubert about using or not using the gun. Although Hubert is a good natured man, the situation he faced force him to fire his gun. The message here is the immigrants who exert fear around the suburbs are not bad in nature but other people's actions shape their behavior. At the end Hubert decides how he wants to land. The term “So far so good… so far so good… so far so good.” How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you crash.’ signifies their lost life in suburbs. 

Reference :

Kassovitz, M. (Director) (1995). La haine [DVD]. Available from http://www.filmsinemaizle.net/8693-la-haine.html

Rosello, Mireille. Introduction to Postcolonial Hospitality: The immigrant as Guest. Stanford, Standford UP, 2001.

Media Representation: Video on the creation of violence by immigrants

Link: http://youtu.be/ysjC1FlZ5qU


Insecurity and urban violence has been most debated issues of last decade within French society. The video was published by Hungarian TV channel. The journalists visited the suburbs and some officials to show how violence is created by the Muslim immigrants. It is mentioned that people are afraid of going there even 
police sometimes refrain from intervening. Drug dealing has been the popular job within the immigrants since they have no education and job. It is possible that the video reflects the reality however, since the Islamophobia has been widely spread fear around Europe, these type of media coverages trigger social divide between native population and immigrants. French society do not accept immigrants therefore immigrants feel alienated from society and form their own culture or lobby and they do not accept anybody inside so it is like vicious cycle. 

some comments on the video:

In Emery's article, it is indicated that "the development of Islamophobia or any ethnic intolerance and racial discrimination always took place in the context of the emergence of strong racist, extremist political parties and a corresponding absence of reaction against such racism by the country's political leaders." (Emery) Although the video does not mention about the causes of the violence, I strongly agree that there is a positive correlation between the  reaction of immigrants and  politicians discourses - government immigrant policies. (Especially when we think Le Pen's and Sarkozy's political stance, it seems true) A specific identity is imposed upon the immigrants so they are seen as thugs and scum. (Moran, 2008) Moran mentions that the 2005 violence was not done by thugs in suburbs as Sarkozy indicated that it was. However there have been deep stereotype against suburban immigrants and in all situations they are accused of the violence first and also media consolidates these biased views.




Reference:

Emery , M. (n.d.). Europe, immigration and the sarkozian concept of fraternite. French cultural studies, Retrieved from http://frc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/2/115

Moran, M. (n.d.). Challenging the republic: ınterpreting the 2005 urban violence ın french suburbs. (2008).

Euro-Turks & Migrant Websites

Link: http://www.tetedeturc.com/home/spip.php?article257

I found the website tete de Turc which is created by Franco-Turks in France. Their main objective is to change the negative image of Turks and Turkey. They claim that French media is biased and do not provide much information about Turkish news. In that sense, they try to provide some information. Their main focus is political not cultural. In the Kaya & Kentel's article, writers mention about the ignorance of Franco- Turks toward the political issues in Turkey. I think this site forms an anti-thesis to the argument about the ignorance   of Franco- Turks on political issues.  The site focuses on Armenian question, PKK- the Kurdish issue, problems with Greeks etc ... Since the Armenian issue is a hot topic in France, they take attention by showing the Turkish side of the problem. (like ASALA 's massacre) 

Thanks to the site they find a space to express their views towards some issues. May be they do not express themselves within the community concretely and they feel themselves much more secure. They have created a community through the site.

Unlike le tete de Turc, the site blue blanc turc gives much more cultural and geographical information about Turkey. Its main goal is to introduce Turkey and its people in order to eliminate the prejudice against them. The Turkish minority in Turkey is more prone to protect their culture and religion. Despite French assimilationism, Franco-Turks are much more protectionist. (they have stronger religious and cultural affiliations.) There are lots of wrong perceptions or prejudices against Franco-Turks both from French and Turks. The major Turkish stereotypes about Euro-Turks are those of their being rich, eating pork, having a very comfortable life in Germany/France, losing their Turkishness and becoming more and more German/French.(Kaya & Kentel , 2005) However, it does not reflect the real picture as we realize from the websites and Euro- Turks data analysis. Turks see the migrants as in between, German-like,degenerated, conservative, radical, lost generations while French or German population see them as guest worker, foreigner, co-citizen. So these migrants do not feel belonging to anywhere. In that sense, I think these sites are very useful for migrants who share the same feelings with their counterparts. 

Reference:
Kaya. A., & Kentel, F. (2005). Euro-turks: a bridge or a breach between turkey and the european union?.

The Kitchen

I visited the Kitchen this weekend, it was very different experience for me. Those of you who doesn't know the Kitchen I added the link below. In that post, I would like to share my experience with you because this topic is really related to what we have covered till today. The Migrant Solidarity Network has established the Kitchen. All Saturdays it serves meal to different migrant groups. It does not seek any profit and it pays its expenses by organizing some events. First of all I would like to tell my feelings about our experience rather than just saying what happened in there. While going the Kitchen I was very nervous about being in Tarlabaşı because of negative news that we heard from news previously. However, when I went there, my discontent turned into excitement. I have met lots of native children from Tarlabaşı. They are very different from us in terms of of their speech, behavior and culture. I met two black Nigerian guy Stephan and Eddie. I ashamed of myself for naming them as a black. Although I am a humanitarian, there have always been a stereotype against black people especially when we see them in Tarlabaşı or other places like that. Now, I think I am much more unbiased towards them. When I talked with Stephan and Eddie, we talked about drawbacks of being migrant in İstanbul. They told me that although they are like family with people in Tarlabaşı, they have faced some stereotypes outside Tarlabası. He said sometimes others look (and treat) them as if they are drug dealer or criminal. Eddie and Stephan are close friends and they earn money from R&B dancing although they studied management in Nigeria. The Kitchen helps them to form a big community. Despite their differences, people finds some similarities among them, at least they are sharing the food. It provides people warm environment and creates solidarity. Not only the migrants are different from each other but also volunteers itself come from very different backgrounds. For example, there was a volunteer who comes to study here from Germany. (She told me that Turkish people in Germany are alienated from society as we have talked in class. Although the second generation speaks German as their native language, they are excluded just because their names are Turkish.) Other volunteer works in THY as a customs officer. They have one thing in common which is sense of responsibility towards alienated people in society. It was very different experience . At first, being there was just a mandatory course responsibility for me but it was very amazing to be there. I promised the chef that I will visit them again and actually I will (I hope to see you there). 

For more information please visit: http://gocmendayanisma.org/blog/there-is-a-kitchen-in-tarlabasi/