Alas, we neared the end! Formal Final Paper Proposal!

“Turkish-German immigrants reclaim their national pride with oriental hip hop”

Germany is one of the main countries that large number of Turkish people relocated to work. As we have discussed several times throughout the semester, these people were named “Gastarbeiter”s which can be translated as “guest workers”. In the last two decade, second and/or third generation Turkish immigrants in Berlin have been still trying to find a home between past and future. This subculture that Turkish-German youth created is not silent. They express their struggle with issues such as belonging, racism, alienation, identity in many forms. Among these forms, art, especially music with lyrics have the power to affect and lead the youth greatly. Among music with lyrics, hip hop becomes popular not so surprisingly considering the fact that it is a genre that originated to rebel against exclusion from the mainstream society. My main goal for this final paper is to investigate how this young generation of Turkish-German people who are torn between two nationalities connect with their Turkish roots through the means of “oriental hip hop”. “Oriental hip hop” should not be confused with “Turkish hip hop”. This genre is created among the Turkish immigrant artists in Germany. It brings elements of arabesque music into the American hip hop rhythms to form a genre that is specifically aiming at young Turkish-German audience although it later acquired popularity in Turkey as well.

Some researchers argue that this genre was furthering the exclusion of Turks and fueling the tension with the Germans because first of all Germans could not understand the Turkish lyrics and secondly the lyrics almost always included nationalism which would go a bit further than just national pride. On the other hand, many researchers state that this oriental hip hop created a public sphere where young Turks who are confused and maybe even ashamed of their roots can understand where they come from and reclaim their pride in being Turkish. I plan to focus this latter side of the argument because I believe that these artists achieved so much for the Turkish youth in giving them reason to be proud of who they are no matter what the society demands you to be. Oriental hip hop may even be a safe harbor for many troubled youth who would have gone down a darker road otherwise.  As Timothy S. Brown stated beautifully in his article "‘Keeping it Real’ in a Different ‘Hood: (African-) Americanization and Hip-hop in Germany”, “Oriental hip hop is a way for disenfranchised youth to mark their place in German society. They live in Germany, but may feel like outcasts because they do not fit perfectly into the cookie-cutter mold of being only German or only Turkish. Turkish hip-hop has allowed the youth to embrace their identity and let others know that although some may see them as exiles in Germany, the youth take pride in themselves, their community, and their heritage.” Before starting this research I didn’t know a lot about hip hop genre in general and t be honestly my ears were not used to it. But as I look deeper into the meaning of the lyrics and empathize with the struggle of these artists my respect for them grows. They are brave. A derogative word used for Turkish immigrants was “Kanak” and the album of Cartel by Karakan, Da Crime Posse and Erci-E used this word in their album freely, encouraging Turkish youth to not be ashamed of their roots. Erci-E strongly encourages Turkish people to stick to their values and not be ashamed of them. His words “This is who we Turkish people are. We should be proud and Germans should accept it.” gives a general sense of what these artists are trying to achieve.

The methodology of this paper is built by three aspects. First is collection and putting together of articles on this subject. Secondly, I am going to analyze the lyrics of influential oriental hip hop artists. For this I believe I have to do as many sampling as possible to decrease the variation and see the general patterns or subjects they focus on when advocating national pride (Yes, I am an engineer so that just happened. Don’t judge me when I say sampling or variation). Thirdly, I will use the information I obtain from previously done interviews with these artists to strengthen my thesis. For this I am happy with whatever I find because of the time limits I have to rely on previously done interviews. Influential artists/groups whose lyrics I want to analyze include Erci-E, Karakan, Da Crime Posse (artists of Cartel), Akşit Uğurlu, another pioneer group called Islamic Force, King Size Terror, Mc Boe B and Azize-A who is also very important because she is a lady in the hip hop scene.

Bennet, Andy. "Hip Hop Am Main: the Localization of Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture." Media, Culture, and Society 21 (1999).

Brown, Timothy S. “‘Keeping it Real’ in a Different ‘Hood: (African-) Americanization and Hip-hop in Germany.” In The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 137-50. London; A

Diessel, Caroline. "Bridging East and West on the "Orient Express": Oriental Hip Hop in the Turkish Diaspora of Berlin." Journal of Popular Music Studies 12 (2001): 165-187.

Elflein, Dietmar. "From Krauts with Attitudes to Turks with Attitudes: Some Aspects of Hip-Hop History in Germany." Popular Music, Vol. 17, No. 3. (Oct., 1998), pp. 255-265

Erci E Lyrics, Songtexte. http://www.golyr.de/erci-e/index-36577.html. Accessed 14 May 2013.

Erci-E website http://www.erci-e.com/. Accessed 14 May 2013.

Germany. Hip Hop Archives. http://www.hiphoparchive.org/about/germany. Accessed 14 may 2013.

Karakan Lyrics, Songtexte.http://www.golyr.de/karakan/index-6725.html. Accessed 14 May 2013

Kaya, Ayhan. Constructing Diasporas: Turkish Hip Hop Youth in Berlin. New Brunswick: Transaction, 2001. 1-236.

Lauren, Stokes. “Kankardeşler Hiçbir Zaman Ayrılmaz.” Besondersweg. Wordpress. 31 July 2010. http://besondersweg.wordpress.com/tag/turkish-german/. Accessed 14 May 2013.

Minnaard, Liesbeth. "Playing Kanak Identity: Feridun Zaimoglu's Rebellious Performances." In The Unifying Aspects of Cultures. Germany and the Netherlands: 2004. http://www.inst.at/trans/15Nr/05_05/minnaard15.htm. Accessed 14 May 2013.

Mitchell, Tony. “Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA”. Wesleyan University Press. 2002.

Schwarz, Franziska. German-Turkish Hip-Hop: Field Studies in Bavaria. Goethe Institut. May 2009. http://www.goethe.de/ges/mol/tre/jsp/en4569440.htm. Accessed 14 May 2013.

von Dirke, Sabine. “Hip-Hop Made in Germany: From Old School to the Kanaksta Movement”. 103. On Orientalism see Edward Said, “Orientalism” (New York: Random House, 1978), and “Culture and Imperialism” (New York: Knopf, 1993). See also the comments by Alper in Weber, “Du kannst, da das die andern fur dich tun” http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/0472113844-ch6.pdf. Accessed 14 May 2013.

 

New Proposal

"Art is the only social force that doesn’t have to make compromises, whereas politics and economics always have to make compromises. Politicians have to think about getting re-elected after a legislation period, economists have to worry about benefit.  Art, however, is the only societal movement which may discuss problems and issues of migration and identity without compromises. Art is not required to tackle problematic issues, but at least it has the potential to do so.”
Shermin Langhoff

Inspired by this quote I am rethinking my original proposal.
My new proposal for the final project is an investigation of Turkish-German hip hop artists and the issues they address via music. Hip hop is considered as a genre to raise issues about identity and belonging. Although not a genre ı am most familiar with, throughout the semester's readings and videos I feel compelled to see how Turkish German artists use this media to show their experiences in the society.
Especially in Berlin, Turkish artists use what we may call "oriental hip hop". Some of the music/groups/artists I have found include:
A group called Cartel, founded in 1995, who raises issues about discrimination of Turks in Germany.
King Size Terror's  album "Bir Yabancının Hayatı" (Life of a stranger)
Gangway Beatz Berlin
Erko
I am mostly interested in lyrics and personal interviews with the artists. I want to focus on how music helped with their frustrations and its effect on Turkish community as a whole..

Final Project Proposal

For the final project I want to write a research paper. I've been going through IC's resources about migration to see if there are any particular subjects that I can more likely find resources or not.
I found a subject that I am interested about and I would very much like your feedback.
Proposed Subject: Migration policy-making in selected countries (not too many because I want to be as specific as possible) of Europe.
I want to do research about how immigrant integration policies are made, implemented and what factors are important during the process. Also I would like to examine how the immigrants are affected by the law and include examples. I also want to point to the similarities and differences between countries.
What do you think?

Media discovery

It is not always bad. Check this out!
"Not In Our School" movement, an extension of "Not In Our Town" movement, helps people across USA fight hate, intolerance and stereotypes of immigrants. On the website people can find videos that share stories or ways to resist bullying. This is incredible, beautiful! You can take courses in some universities or even start a campaign at your school. So many countries need this.
Schools are very important. Young kids can be very cruel to the ones that are different and this can damage the psychology of the kids beyond repair.

Here is a video of the stories of new immigrants in Newcomers High School in Long Island (this school is specializes in teaching new immigrants) with another private middle school and how teachers help them:

The link to the website: http://www.niot.org/nios

Generalization, identity, omission of facts

After reading Moran's article "Challenging the Republic: Interpreting the 2005 Urban Violence in French Suburbs" one can only come to the depressing conclusion once again that media can easily manipulate certain events and people with no other resources to see the reality may fall victim to this very easily.
Two sentences that moved me:
- "'Urban violence' become trivialized to the point of becoming almost a daily element of the various media.": The desensitization is fatal. Some critical issues come up in the media so much that over time for the people that are not immediately affected by them (for example the urbanites of France) start to ignore the importance of these subjects.
- "A specific identity is imposed upon the inhabitants of the suburbs - the identity of a population apart that constitutes a willing obstacle to the positive development of French society as a whole. This in turn reinforces social prejudices regarding the suburbs and its inhabitants, feeding into the divide that ensures the perpetuation of the suburbs as zones of exclusion and relegation": We always come back to the importance of forced identity, how it changes the view of others around someone about him/her is one thing but it is also important to consider the effects of this imposed identity whether good or bad on that someone. If no-one listens to you, your point of view about the happenings that involves you, would you still try to talk or get upset and slowly become the feared person they want you to be? How do the children turn out to be as adults that get the message of being unwanted, being a nuisance, an obstacle in the way of greater things, as they grow up in the suburbs of France?

Ethnicity and migration

İbrahim Sirkeci's article caught my attention right off the bet because ethnicity is a serious conflict reason in Turkey and no-one takes it lightly. I knew that economic factors were the driving force at first for Turks migrating to Germany but I am very curious about ethnic reasons and how ethnicity affects migrant Turks in Germany. Are there different and distinct ethnic groups among Turkish migrant in Germany? Do they interact with each other different than we interact with each other back in Turkey?
The name "environment of insecurity" I think is very well chosen. It's one of the few terms that are used in research articles that can also convey -to me at least- some emotion in it. The reasons for "deprivation" which contributed to migration are no surprise for a Turkish reader of this article. (Keeping in mind that regional populations are no way 100% homogeneous  Socio-economic underdevelopment in the east: very obvious. Demographic trends: Fertility rates, that is an easy guess as well. Political deprivation: We already know. At this point in the article the part about names being from Turkish language is a bit irrelevant. So many countries have similar laws, and there are people with Kurdish names. For foreign names, if you write them with Turkish characters it is okay. Look at all the Oskars, Ceymis and Cesis around. Come on... My uncle was forced to change to an American name after immigration, when he received his citizenship.
After this, the article gets more interesting. Among nine variables, gender has the highest score with region. Financial situation is forth! Religion, ethnicity, education come as last ones. This is very intriguing data and goes against my previous guesses. I thought ethnicity would score among highest ones.

People who are somewhat financially adequate tend to migrate more than inadequate segment. People with education can migrate more than people with no education. This shows that migration requires resources and its not always a happy exit for suffering people, which is sad. I was not looking to find this in the article but I guess this moved me so much more than other findings.

"Significantly for my argument, other variables being equal Turks are less likely to migrate than Kurds-a findingg perhaps indicative of the role of the overall environment of insecurity, while the motivation could also be economic."
Since the relative data to do research about migration is very hard to obtain as Sirkeci admits and the motivations can be hard to be surfaced, I think this is definitely an answer to the first questions in my mind which was which ethnic group tends to migrate more.

Because the data is hard to find and migration is a topic that is a different journey for different people the personal interview section is the most exciting part to read. Data sure can show many common characteristics among people but interviews show so much more. From this part, I could get some answers to my other questions. Remarkable portion of migrants in Cologne wanted to go to another country because of ethnic reasons. But for some the situation is more because of economic reasons.

While the study couldn't really answer my deeper questions, it was a good place to start.

The in-between space

"There was always something comforting, familiar about airports and air
terminals. They give me a sense of purpose and security."

My first thought after reading this sentence was "God, this person must be the exact opposite of me." I hate airports, I hate everything about them, their lights are too bright, the air is never the right temperature and you always say goodbye to something. Even if its travelling from Istanbul to Ankara for just the weekend, I dread the time I'll go to the airport and get this meaningless melancholy every time. But as soon as I pass the automatic doors of the airport and I'm out, I'm instantly in the mood to explore with a huge smile on my face. It's just that building that gets on my nerves so much. I never liked in-betweenness and maybe that's why I hate this space of perpetual in-betweenness.

Maybe I would feel totally different if I had been living in a different country than my ancestors. Maybe than, the airports would mark the contours of my life, give me a purpose. They may also become the place where I gather my thoughts and change into the mode of destination country, a kind of adjustment phase. The thing is, the later generations of immigrants can end up not knowing about the culture of the country of their origin. While some parents spend extra effort into teaching their young about their culture, for some this becomes only an annoying task. I think the reason of departure may have something to do with this. For some, the emotions the home country awakes may be a burden. The thing I've experienced from my cousins living in New York, they can't even speak Turkish and whenever they visit us here, Turkey is just a curious place that they don't really know about. They ask questions about food, about music and about everything but there is something missing in the sense of belonging. They know they don't belong here. Being Turkish in New York becomes the title they can brag about because it is so exotic to the other common Americans. Whenever I visit them there, I can see that I am treated as the most exotic creature on earth as well.

But for my cousin's case, they use their difference from Americans as a positive thing and because they are Turkish they are popular. They accept Turkey as this imaginary home made out of sugar because the experience related to it is positive. They always want to come back because they are always welcome here and gather many stories to tell back in their American home. But are they concerned with say, Turkish politics? Only the first and second generations are. I always wonder about how the latest generation of Turks particularly there would feel if they didn't get such positive feedback about being Turkish. Maybe calling here home would be harder than. Maybe airports would offer more comfort than Turkish family gatherings.

For me, home is where the heart belongs. It is the place where no matter what, no matter the accomplishments or mistakes, it is the place that you are 100% accepted to be back. It is the place you return after going out into the world and having fun. But after reading the articles I get the sense that this is because I was never forced or chose to leave my country. I was not confused growing up, I was Turkish, end of the story. I was not different from my peers. How and what we ate at home or how we behaved around our parents were all the same. Maybe that's why I have so much freedom and confidence claiming a certain to be my home now.