Conclusion
Our aim in this article was to show how immigrant associations refer to
historical minorities as models to create a common ground of struggle
against discrimination and then make political claims. We have argued
that social scientists rarely look at the ways in which immigrant groups
orient their behavior to those who arrived before them. Both immigrants
and minorities orient themselves to other minority or immigrant groups.
This is one way in which societal structures are being reproduced and
that give ethnic-cultural communities (globalization notwithstanding)
their own character within particular nation states. As we have demon-
strated, Turkish leaders certainly have taken note of Jewish communal
behavior, and Jewish leaders have done the same vis-à-vis the Turks.
Turkish leaders in Germany use the German Jewish trope to establish
Jews and Turks in Germany after 9/11 · 89
associational ties, organize campaigns against anti-Semitism and racism,
and make claims to German state authorities.
Although Turkish immigrant leaders take the German Jewish trope as
a model, there are three major questions that need further research. First,
how does the Jewish community in Germany react to immigrant groups
who take them as a model? In our preliminary research, we found that
the presence of Jews at some Turkish commemorative events is still mini-
mal overall, and while Jews are an important reference for German Turks,
Turks play a minimal role in Jewish debates except by default, as fellow
targets of neo-Nazism and as a religious community with occasionally
or potentially similar political and legal claims.
66
This pertains especially
to seeing the religious needs of the respective communities recognized
by the German state. Individual Jews have played, and are playing, an
important role in the fight against racism, neo-Nazism, and in foster-
ing closer relations with the Turkish and/or larger Muslim community.
One of these organizations is the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, a founda-
tion started by Annetta Kahane following some racially motivated kill-
ings by neo-Nazi skinheads; another, the Jüdische Kulturverein, founded
by Irene Runge, caters mostly to Russian immigrants and East German
Jews, also in Berlin. It is indicative, however, that—probably on account
of their East German Jewish background—both women have remained
marginal to the Jewish leadership in Berlin and the Jewish community in
Germany at large.
A second question that demands further research is the issue of class
differences between Turks and Jews. In both communities, we found
that culturally and in terms of class, Turks and Jews inhabit different
worlds. Most Jews are solidly middle class, in many if not most cases,
with higher secondary degrees and often some university education. A
small but significant number of Jews are recognized public intellectuals
in Germany. Most Turks, on the other hand, arrived as guest workers and
are proletarianized peasants with minimal education, as Navid Kermani
has observed.
67
In contrast to Britain and France, virtually no Muslim
elites have arrived in Germany, and even among most German-born
Turks and Muslims at large, both their class and education are still clearly
distinct from those of the Jews.
68
There is, however, a small but signifi-
cant stratum of educated, middle-class Turks, very much at the level of
their Jewish counterparts, even though they still inhabit different worlds
and their encounters with Jews are few and far between. The issue of
90 · Gökçe Yurdakul and Y. Michal Bodemann
class should be studied in detail to lay out the effect of class differences
between Turks and Jews on their interethnic relations. The last question
that needs further research is this: How typical and cross-nationally valid
is the relationship between Turks and Jews? In a way, it’s unique because
of the Jewish past in Germany. Jews and Turks are marked by a special
relationship in Germany, but other cases may multiply this immigrant/
minority relationship.
69
The main conclusion, however, is that immigrant groups interact
with other immigrants and historical minorities in the process of inte-
gration and take them as models. Therefore, in order to understand the
immigrant incorporation process, it is not sufficient to analyze only the
majority/minority relations. Rather, we need to look at how immigrants
perceive themselves and how they draw upon historical issues of the
receiving country, specifically with respect to historical minorities.
Notes
We would like to acknowledge that this article has been previously published
in German Politics and Society 24 (2): 44–67. An earlier version was presented by
Gökçe Yurdakul at the workshop on “Incorporating Minorities in Europe: Nine-
teenth Century to the Present” at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European
Studies, Harvard University, 16–17 April 2004; at the Princeton Institute for In-
ternational and Regional Studies Graduate Student Conference, Princeton Uni-
versity, 8–9 June 2005; Bridging the Worlds of Judaism and Islam Conference,
Bar-Ilan University, December 2005; and by Michal Bodemann at the German
Studies Association Conference, Milwaukee, October 2005, and as a Bucerius
Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society Guest Lec-
ture at the University of Haifa, December 2005. The authors would like to thank
the participants of the workshop, lecture, and conferences for their feedback,
and Valerie Amiraux, Christian Joppke, Riva Kastoryano and Anna Korteweg
for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
1. By using the term leaders in immigrant associations, we would like to re-
fer to the executive committee members of Turkish immigrant associations in
Germany. These leaders are usually the secretary general, spokespeople, and
presidents of immigrant associations. We differentiate between members of im-
migrant associations and their leaders. The leaders’ perspectives do not always
reflect those of the members. In other words, members of immigrant associa-
tions do not always share the views of immigrant leaders who associate Turkish
existence in Germany with German Jewish history.
2. Riva Kastoryano, Negotiating Identities: States and Immigrants in France and
Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 131.
Jews and Turks in Germany after 9/11 · 91
3. Of course, the impact of the Holocaust in Germany can not be compared to
any fire bombings. However, we believe that the leaders of the Turkish associa-
tions in Germany make this comparison to point out the similarities between
racism and anti-Semitism.
4. Homi K. Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990).
5. Sujit Choudhry, “National Minorities and Ethnic Immigrants: Liberalism’s
Political Sociology,” Journal of Political Philosophy 10, no. 1 (2002): 55. We use the
word minority for the sake of brevity here. Minority should be read as any group
that does not fit the ideal of a homogeneous national collectivity and that has
been involuntarily incorporated into the state, such as Jews, Kurds, and Arab
Israelis.
6. Ibid., 60–61.
7. Thomas Pogge goes one step further and raises the question of immi-
grants’ children who are assumed to give consent to assimilate, because their
grandparents have immigrated and waived their rights to construct a culturally
distinct group. Thomas W. Pogge, “Accommodation Rights for Hispanics in the
United States,” in Language Rights and Political Theory, ed. W. Kymlicka and A.
Patten (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 105–22.
8. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Choudhry, “National Minorities
and Ethnic Immigrants.”
9. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princ-
eton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
10. Choudhry, “National Minorities and Ethnic Immigrants.”
11. Although immigrant associations are significant for our understanding of
the emergence of immigrants as political actors in the receiving state, there are
only a few case studies that focus on this theme. See Adriana Kemp et al., “Con-
testing the Limits of Political Participation: Latinos and Black African Workers
in Israel,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 1 (2000): 94–119; Luin Goldring, “The
Gender and Geography of Citizenship in Mexico-U.S. Transnational Spaces,”
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |