Treatment of Turks in Present-Day Germany

Throughout 1992, Germany had seen eighteen thousand racist and rightist incidents, an increase of 70 percent from 1991. Sixteen people died in 1992 alone, leaving the country a dark and eerie place reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Antisemitism and a grim sort of free-floating xenophobia continue to have Germany in their grip, as the backlash against foreigners, and especially Turks, lingers on.

The picture-postcard-pretty northern (West German) town of Molln was the scene of an arson's fire which took the lives of three Turks. As Joffe points out,

The arsonists' fire also consumed two comfortable homilies about the New [reunified] Germany. . . one was that violence against foreigners was the result of a lack of economic growth. . . the other was that Germany has tried to take in too many foreigners seeking political asylum [the country's constitution ma

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h population has full citizenship rights, including the right to vote. By both law and custom, Turks and other foreigners are almost invisible in public life: there are no Turkish members of parliament and only a handful in such sensitive areas as the civil service, the police, and the new media (Phillips 6). The lack of power or representation in German life has taken a toll on the Turkish psyche, just as the flood of asylum-seekers to Germany has angered many Germans who yearn for the door to slam shut. It should be noted that Germany receives a staggering 70% of Eastern Europe's refugee population (440,000 in 1992 alone), "at a cost to the German federation of some $8 billion, sparking a wave of public resentment" (Phillips 20). Although Ahmed, our "native German of Turkish heritage" (to be politically correct) is not one of the asylum-seekers, he is in danger of being scapegoated along with all those who do not look like "real Germans" (Phillips 20). One final note about citizenship in Turkey is in order. As a 1991 article in The Economist observes: Males like Ahmed born to Turkish parents in Germany face a real obstacle course. The Turkish law may soon change [partly as a result of the Turks' problems in Germany?], but
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Approximate Word count = 2583
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)