Gaining Freedoms: Claiming Space in Istanbul and Berlin by Berna Turam

Author:Berna Turam [Turam, Berna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2015-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

6

KREUZBERG’S DIVIDED DIASPORA

SOME 40 PERCENT of Kreuzberg’s residents may be Turkish Germans, but behind the neighborhood’s claims to ethnic and cultural diversity, everything seems to come apart: the people, groups, associations, and the landscape. Kreuzberg creates the impression that Turks all arrive on German soil loaded down with ancient antagonisms from their homeland. Groupings of Turkish descent segregate themselves, each to its own “ghetto.” Secular Alawites cannot get along with Islamists, who are in turn divided into the mutually non-cooperative Millî Görüş (National Vision)1 and Gülen Movements. The LGBT community and the Islamists cannot get along easily, and the Kurds and the nationalists are traditionally antagonistic. What makes Kreuzberg remarkable is that the deep fault lines that divide the immigrant community are compressed into a small, overpopulated area. Located in the heart of Kreuzberg, Kotti is home to the congregations of both Islamist Millî Görüş and Alawite Cemevi mosques, as well as to LGBT clubs and associations. Clearly, none of these are friends or allies, but they cohabit on the same dense and crowded streets without any safety problems. On an ordinary day in Kotti, drug users and punks may mingle at one end of the street while Turkish-descent mothers push their children’s strollers at the other, and feminists can be seen organizing outside all-male Turkish coffee shops.

Kreuzbergers from all walks of life and every ethnicity and class almost always defend their neighborhood proudly as a peacefully diverse haven. During my visit in 2012, I was chatting with Matthias, a PhD student in German history and a proud Kreuzberger. Matthias was also working for a company of tour guides in Berlin. I wondered how Germans all over the country viewed Kreuzberg. I asked: “Would they consider it a ghetto?” He responded: “No, absolutely not a ghetto. Its image is liberal and diverse. Haven’t you heard the term Kreuzberg Mischung [Kreuzberg mixture]? It’s a place where everyone mixes voluntarily.”2

On a beautiful summer day, I went for a long walk along the canal in Kreuzberg with several young second- and third-generation Turkish Germans, whose families lived in various parts of Germany. Several of them had moved from different German cities to Kreuzberg to study and/or work in Berlin. We discussed their different perspectives on the so-called Turkish neighborhoods across Germany. Osman, a second-generation Turkish German, proudly promoted his Turkish neighborhood in Cologne, saying that it was “a little bit outside the city but much better than Kreuzberg.” In Osman’s well-off neighborhood in Cologne, Turkish Germans lived in big houses with higher standards and well-groomed backyards. Faruk, a Berliner by birth, looked at Osman skeptically. Faruk clearly held Kreuzberg in much higher regard. He seemed reluctant to compare it, not only to any other Turkish neighborhood in Germany, but also to any other Muslim neighborhood in Europe. “The Turks in Kreuzberg are diverse. . . . the key is that they all live peacefully side by side with one another and Germans here,” Faruk said. “We are also proud that Kreuzbergers have different class, ethnic, religious, and professional backgrounds.

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