More than a decade ago
Can Candan produced the documentary Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls. Candan interviews immigrants of Turkish origin about the changes
they faced after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany. Although the film plays in the early 1990s, the societal conflict portrayed therein is still highly valid today. Most of the
interviewees in Candan's movie describe how their situation has become worse
since the fall of the Wall and how discrimination against them has increased
not only on the streets, but also in the job market. The "Ossis", as the Eastern German's were called, have become the Wessis' more favorable "others". In a similar
vein, through the creation of the European Union (EU) and the implementation of
the free movement of persons for it's member states citizens', immigrants throughout the EU and amongst themselves have been put into a de facto hierarchical order. At the top of the list
are skilled EU nationals, the bottom form uneducated third country nationals. But
what happens with immigrants who are already residing in a country (as
opposed to those who are send back at the borders) in the light of a discourse of unification such as portrayed in Candan's movie and the construction of the EU?
Let me address this question by giving an account of an interview
I conducted with a member of the Swiss parliament in the context of my BA
thesis in the summer of 2012. The parliamentarian described a
group of middle-aged women of Turkish origin who once made an appointment with the politician to
talk about their employment situations. The women portrayed how they would like
to work, after having raised their children who are now independent. Now, the
problem they faced was that of unemployment. Not even a cleaning job could the Turkish woman find due to the fact that individuals from EU countries were preferred over non-EU citizens, even if they, the EU citizens, were to migrate to Switzerland in order to take up the jobs; EU citizens immigrants were preferred over the already in Switzerland residing women of Turkish origin.
Coming back to Candan's movie the immigrants felt like un-welcomed foreigners, regardless of how long they have been living in Germany (or any other EU member state, for that matter), not only because of worsened opportunities to find employment but also due to increasing hostility and
violence against immigrants by the host societies. Violence
against immigrants went even so far, in 1992, as to set on fire a residential building in Rostock-Lichtenhagen with mainly immigrants living in it. Right wing groupings were amongst the accused for this atrocity, spectators cheered. One of the interviewees in the movie reminded in relation to this incident of the fact that not so long ago “not desired” people had been burnt in Germany. The hint to the Third Reich is certainly provocative. Germany has worked hard to distance
itself from its Nazi past, emphasizing over and over again that something alike will never happen again. Is it, however, in and of itself enough to say that something wont ever happen again? To my mind not. In particular Germany and its people have come to construct a powerful taboo around the Third Reich incidents. The common discourse seems to evolve around that Germany and it's citizens cannot bear responsibility today for events that happened 70 years ago in Nazi Germany. The thing is so put under the table. This act of Tabuisierung, however, bears, a crucial downside risk to it. As the
case of the murdering of 9 immigrants (8 of Turkish 1 of Greek origin) by a neo
Nazi group between 2000 and 2006 shows, neo-Nazi cells have been
active and growing in the past decades. As Hurriyet Daily News cited Sebastian Edathy (the German Bundestag’s inquiry
commission head) on the recent neo-nazi scandals in the country: ‘the threat of far-right criminal organizations had long been
underestimated in Germany and that the police had misinterpreted the murders as
an internal feud between immigrant shop-owners’. Wolfgang Wieland, another member of the commission, gave to protocol: 'They [the police] approached the murders with
the prejudice that ‘There cannot be racist murders in our society.’ That’s
horrible. The whole mentality of the security units should change'.
These terrifying developments can to a fair portion be ascribed to the tabooization process described above, which by default implicates a 'solving-by-sweeping-away' approach to the subject in question. It is only through actively engaging, so I believe, that we can genuinely prevent the re-occurrence of events such as those that took place in Germany. The prevalent discourse or narrative of 'it happened once, but it won't happen again' is unfruitful for that matter. Both the German government and its people need to start actively engaging in fighting xenophobia if the goal is to make all of the country's citizens feel safe and at home - both settled and newcomers. So that's why we should let the past reflect on our futures.
Thanks for this thoughtful post. One of the most troubling aspects of violent incidents like that at Rostock is not the perpetrators themselves but the "regular" people who stand by and do nothing or even encourage them. They make it clear that racism is not limited to a few "extremists." And this isn't even to single out Germany. We're seeing a rise in right wing movements all over the world. I think nearly every human has some prejudice against some group of people; the only way to combat it is to begin by acknowledging it. So to link this back to class materials, do you think music can encourage people to confront prejudice or are there more effective means?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the stimulating input. I think music can help to confront prejudice in that we often don't know who the artist is when we hear a song for the first time, so our reaction to it is based on it's music, maybe on the text (if we understand the language). If we then later learn that it is a song of someone we were prejudiced against our previous impression might be challenged. But at the same time, the artist could be thought of as an exception (all the others are like this and that) and thus, reinforcing the prejudice. This problem does not only occur with musicians, but in general with successful individuals of groups of "others", or individuals who are perceived as "well integrated".
ReplyDeleteA further difficulty is, as we touched upon in class also, if music produced by ethnic minorities is (mis)interpreted as a manifestation of nationalism and "threat" to the country of residence. Thus, a let's say, unguided confrontation with music could also be counterproductive.
I think there would be more powerful means for combating prejudice, that is the media and politicians. The question then is whether they are interested in doing so. If this is the case music could, to my mind, work as a supportive mean; if it is not, music should definitely (continue to) be utilized for confronting prejudice.