Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur (2003) note that the notion of diaspora originates from the Greek diasperien and merges dia (through or across) and sperien (to sow or to scatter) and can be dated to about 3 BC. The term was first ‘used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures explicitly intended for the Hellenic Jewish communities in Alexandria (…) to describe the Jews living in exile from the homeland of Palestine’ (Braziel and Mannur: 2003: 1). The authors point out that the term had a negative connotation due to its association with the plight of this community. Similarly, Robin Cohen stresses that this experience has been linked not only to displacement but also to trauma.
36 The destruction of Jerusalem and razing of the walls of its Temple in 586 BC created the central folk memory of the pessimistic, victim diaspora tradition – in particular the experience of enslavement, exile and displacement. The Jewish leader of the time, Zedekiah, vacillated for a decade, and then impulsively sanctioned a rebellion against the powerful Mesopotamian Empire. No mercy for his impudence was shown by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. His soldiers forced Zedekiah to witness the execution of his sons; the Jewish leader was then blinded and dragged in chains to Babylon. Peasants were left behind in Judah to till the soil, but the key military, civic and religious personnel accompanied Zedekiah to captivity in Babylon. Jews had been compelled to desert the land
‘promised’ to them by God to Moses and thereafter, the tradition suggests, forever became dispersed (Cohen 2008: 22)
According to Cohen, although diaspora was initially used to describe in particular the Jewish experience, the connection with trauma also applies to the ‘first’ African diaspora,7 which is rooted in the African slave trade; the Armenian diaspora, which is linked to the massacres in the 1890s and their forced displacement by the Turks in 1915 and 1916; the Irish diaspora following the famine of 1845-1852; and the Palestinian diaspora related to the refugee movements after the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948 (Cohen 2008: 2-4).8 The author classifies these five diasporas as prototypical diaspora. In Cohen’s categorisation of diaspora studies into four phases, the prototypical diasporas constitute the first phase and are marked by a traumatic and forced dispersal from a homeland and the communities’ collective memory of that original homeland (Cohen 2008: 4).9 Therefore, the Jewish, African, Armenian, Irish, and Palestinian diaspora can be classified as ‘victim diasporas’ (Cohen 2008: 2).
However, most notably since the 1980s the term has developed into a concept that captures present experiences of migration and exile. In this context, Khachig Tölölyan notes that the term ‘that once described Jewish, Greek and Armenian dispersion now shares meaning with a larger semantic domain that includes words like immigrant, expatriate, refugee, guest-worker, exile community, overseas community, ethnic community’ (Tölölyan 1991: 4). In his attempt to renew the historical meaning of diaspora and to adapt it to today’s modern societies, William Safran suggests a definition of diaspora whereby the Jewish diaspora constitutes the ‘ideal type of
7 Cohen suggests that a ‘second’ form of a new African diaspora which is caused by emigration movements predominantly due to famine, civil wars, and political turmoil emerged in the postcolonial 20th century (Cohen 2008: 3).
8 See Cohen (2008: 21-38) for a detailed exploration of the Jewish diaspora and (39-60) for the African and Armenian diasporas.
9 See Cohen (2008: 1-12) for the exploration of the evolution of four phases in diaspora studies.
37 diaspora’ (Safran 1991: 84).10 Safran further states that even though other diasporas such as the Turkish diaspora, cannot entirely conform to the ideal form of the Jewish diaspora, it is possible to speak about a Turkish (and several other) diasporas in Germany in the frame of his definition of diaspora. Safran explains his idea of a Turkish diaspora by drawing on an opinion poll from 1988 showing the Turks’ hopes of returning to their original homeland within a short period of time. For Safran, this urge to return demonstrates the Turks’ ‘highly developed diaspora consciousness’ (Safran 1991: 86).
Many scholars in the field of diaspora studies, such as James Clifford (1994), Rogers Brubaker (2005), and Cohen (2008), have criticised Safran’s ground-breaking definition of diaspora mainly for its primary focus on the original homeland. A closer look at the definition reveals that four of the six diaspora features are linked to a real or imagined homeland: firstly, the retention of a collective memory including the history and achievements of the homeland; secondly, the belief that this homeland is the ideal home and the place they wish to return one day; thirdly, a collective commitment to the maintenance, safety and prosperity of the homeland; and fourthly, the continuity of a relationship with the homeland that shapes the communities’ solidarity and ethnic and communal consciousness (Safran 1991: 83f.). Although Safran states that meeting several of the six criteria is adequate to identify a community as a diaspora, it seems unlikely that the outlined four homeland-bound features all apply to the Turkish community in Germany. It seems plausible to assume that this community continues a relationship to Turkey mainly through frequent visits and by following the Turkish media. However, the criterion of regarding Turkey as the ideal home to return to one day as well as collectively committing to the maintenance, safety and prosperity of Turkey seems questionable especially in relation to the third- and fourth-generation immigrants. This assumption needs to be researched further. Responding to Safran’s homeland related criteria, Clifford remarks that even the ‘ideal’ type of the Jewish diaspora does not meet the last three features of the defined diaspora: ‘a strong
10 Safran defines diaspora as expatriate minority communities whose members share several of the following characteristics: 1) they, or their ancestors, have been dispersed from a specific original ‘center’
to two or more ‘peripheral’, or foreign, regions; 2) they retain a collective memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland – its physical location, history, and achievements; 3) they believe that they are not – and perhaps cannot be – fully accepted by their host society and therefore feel partly alienated and insulated from it; 4) they regard their ancestral homeland as their true, ideal home and as the place to which they or their descendants would (or should) eventually return – when conditions are appropriate; 5) they believe that they should, collectively, be committed to the maintenance or restoration of their original homeland and to its safety and prosperity; and 6) they continue to relate, personally or vicariously, to that homeland in one way or another, and their ethnocommunal consciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by the existence of such a relationship (Safran 1991: 83-84).
38 attachment to and the desire for a literal return to a well-preserved homeland’ (Clifford 1994: 305).
Drawing on Clifford’s advice to ‘recognize the strong entailment of Jewish history on the language of diaspora without making that history a definitive model’ and to take the ‘Jewish (and Greek and Armenian) diasporas (…) as nonnormative starting points for a discourse that is traveling or hybridizing in new global conditions’ (Clifford 1994: 306), scholars working on diaspora have extended the definition of the concept of diaspora. Brubaker points out that the extension enabled scholars to also include among others ‘labour migrants who maintain (to some degree) emotional and social ties with a homeland’ (Brubaker 2005: 2). This interpretation of diaspora includes the Turkish community in Germany. Similarly to scholars such as Clifford (1994) and Brubaker (2005), Cohen (2008) picks up on Safran’s definition, modifies it and names nine common features of a diaspora:
1. Dispersal from an original homeland, often traumatically, to two or more foreign regions;
2. alternatively or additionally, the expansion from a homeland in search of work, in pursuit of trade or to further colonial ambitions;
3. a collective memory and myth about the homeland, including its location, history, suffering and achievements;
4. an idealization of the real or imagined ancestral home and a collective commitment to its maintenance, restoration, safety and prosperity, even to its creation;
5. the frequent development of a return movement to the homeland that gains collective approbation even if many in the group are satisfied with only a vicarious relationship or intermittent visits to the homeland;
6. a strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long time and based on a sense of distinctiveness, a common history, the transmission of a common cultural and religious heritage and the belief in a common fate;
7. a troubled relationship with host societies, suggesting a lack of acceptance or the possibility that another calamity might befall the group;
8. a sense of empathy and co-responsibility with co-ethnic members in other countries of settlement even where home has become more vestigial; and
9. the possibility of a distinctive creative, enriching life in host countries with a tolerance for pluralism (Cohen 2008: 17).
Cohen presents here an extended definition of the concept of diaspora. While Safran’s definition assumes a forced dispersal and implies the wish to return to the homeland, Cohen, by contrast, refers with his second criterion to dispersal of any kind whereby a (constant) link to the homeland exists without a definitive wish to return. The
39 last feature in particular of the modified definition demonstrates a constructive approach to the notion of diaspora in assuming a creative and enriching life in a heterogeneous host environment. This point seems applicable to the Turkish community in Germany and in particular to Turkish German filmmaking, which represents a transnational creativity likely to enrich the society as a whole. In addition to those nine features, Cohen (2008) determines five ‘ideal types of diaspora’ by giving examples to each form: Victim including Jews, Africans, Armenians, and present-day refugee groups;
imperial (colonial or settler diasporas) like British or Russians; trade which embraces business Chinese and Indian business people; deterritorialised (Caribbean people, Roma, and religious diasporas)11; and labour diaspora (also termed proletarian diaspora) including, among others, Indians, Chinese, and Turks (Cohen 2008: 18).
Cohen’s broader definition seems to be the most comprehensive one so far and can therefore be used to assist in defining whether an explicit dispersed group embodies a diaspora. However, the author draws attention to the point that not all of these nine criteria need to be meet. In using the expression common, Cohen aims to show that not every diaspora will feature each criterion (Cohen 2008: 16). In the same way, Clifford refers to Safran’s definition and points out: ‘Whatever the working list of diasporic features, no society can be expected to qualify on all counts, throughout its history’
(Clifford 1994: 306). With regard to different definitions of diaspora and proposed features of diaspora, Brubaker suggests three key elements which are essential: firstly, a traumatically or voluntary dispersion; secondly, a homeland-orientation to a real or imagined homeland; and thirdly, a boundary-maintenance that leads to group solidarity (Brubaker 2005: 5ff.).
When exploring Turkish guest-workers and their descendants in Germany, (German) scholars generally refer to this group as immigrants, second- or third-generation immigrants and as people with a migration background. The term migrant seems to be more often applied to Turks living in Germany than the notion of diaspora.
Hence, at this point, it is useful to examine how the terms migrant and diaspora can be distinguished and how they are interrelated. In its basic definition, ‘migration involves the (more or less) permanent movement of individuals or groups across symbolic or political boundaries into new residential areas and communities’ (Scott and Marshall 2009: 470). Similarly, the International Organization for Migration defines migration as the ‘movement of a person or a group of persons, either across an international border,
11 Cohen notes that the terms hybridity and cultural are mainly linked to this type of diaspora (Cohen 2008: 18).
40 or within a State (…) encompassing any kind of movement of people, whatever its length, composition and causes’ (IOM 2011: 62f.). Both definitions imply that migration can be either permanent or short-term. Related to this idea, Cohen cites Richard Marienstras who suggests that ‘time has to pass’ (Marienstras 1989 as cited in Cohen 2008: 16) before it becomes clear that a migrated community can be seen as a diaspora. This implies that migration is invariably a prerequisite for diaspora. In this respect, Tölölyan supposes that ‘migrations have led to a proliferation of diasporas and to a redefinition of their importance and roles’ (Tölölyan 1991: 4). It follows from this that migration can be regarded as a precondition for the eventual formation of a diasporic community. However, in today’s world, marked by transnational mobility and flexibility, there are also forms of migration that do not result necessarily in a diaspora – as for example in the case of temporary professional labour migration or short-term refugees. Diaspora, in contrast to migration, always requires a permanent settlement and collectivity.
Brubaker’s three core elements of diaspora and Cohen’s nine diaspora features, together with his suggested five ideal types, provide relevant and useful tools.
Alongside the relation described between migration and diaspora, they help to determine whether the Turkish community in Germany constitutes a diaspora. In this framework, it is worth mentioning that diaspora is a scholarly term that is rarely used in the media or in the public sphere. The Turkish migration to Germany in the early 1960s is the precondition for a formation of a diaspora community. As explored in Chapter 1, Turks living in Germany, have settled there with their descendants for more than five decades and participate in the social, political, and cultural everyday life of the host society and still have links to Turkey. A steadily growing number of scholars working on diaspora already refer to the Turkish community in Germany as a diaspora (e.g.
Safran 1991: 84; Brubaker 2005: 2; Huyssen 2007: 88; Appadurai 1996: 4; Cohen 2008:
18). One question that needs to be asked, however, is what sort of diaspora the Turkish community in Germany represents. According to Cohen (2008), the Turkish community can be classified as a labour diaspora. Since their migration was motivated by a search for work, at first, Cohen’s suggestion seems appropriate. Cohen states that migration in search of work does not necessarily evolve into a diaspora, in particular if migrated individuals or small groups intended to assimilate to the host society and are easily accepted. In this case, a diasporic consciousness, which is one of the crucial features of a diaspora, may not emerge. Whereas retaining group ties in the form of religion, language, and cultural norms over a lengthy period, a myth of a link to homeland, and a
41 social exclusion in host countries enable a community of labour migrants to be labelled a diaspora (Cohen 2008: 61). Based on the fact that the Turkish migration to Germany was generated by emigration in search of work and the long existing group bonds as well as the connection to the homeland and different levels of social exclusion experienced, allows us to conceptualise the Turkish community as a labour diaspora.
However, taking into account the political refugees, who emigrated in the 1980s and the Kurds, and thus the heterogeneity of this community, Pnina Werbner’s term ‘complex or segmented diasporas’ also seems applicable (Werbner 2004: 900). With this conceptualisation, she aims to capture ‘modern diasporas’ coming from a broader geographical region who share – regardless of their national homelands, language or religion – ‘similar cultural preoccupations, tastes, cuisines, music, sport, poetry, fashion’ like ‘South Asians, Middle Eastern Arabs, Latin Americans, Africans [and]
Afro-Caribbeans’ (Werbner 2004: 899). She further states that
members of such diasporas may unite together in some contexts and oppose each other in other contexts (…). In such complex, segmented diasporas the fact that people from a particular region share a rich material culture of consumption, both high cultural and popular, and sometimes a dominant religion (…), creates public arenas and economic channels for cooperation and communal enjoyment, which cut across the national origins or religious beliefs (Werbner 2004: 900).
Despite the fact that the author applies the concept to communities from vast geographical regions such as South Asia, Middle East or Africa, the idea of a complex and segmented diaspora seems to be applicable to the case of people from Turkey in Germany. This would respect the community’s heterogeneity marked by diverse religions, ethnicities, languages, political affiliations and also take into account similarities in their shared culture and history. In this respect but in a broader framework, Brah (1996) draws attention to the fact that ‘diaspora represents a heterogeneous category differentiated along the lines of class, gender and so on’ (196).
This also applies to the Turkish community that is differentiated not only by religion, language or ethnicity, but also by gender and class.
A detailed look at the heterogenic structure of the Turkish diaspora reveals a highly segmented community in regard to religion, language, and politics. Taking the latter as an example, Ogelman et al. (2002) have shown how the Turkish community in Germany is as deeply politically partisan as it is in Turkey. Political organisations representing diverse interests such as the Islamists, pan-Turkic nationalists, Kurds, and
42 Alawis have been established in Germany (and other Western European countries) who dependent on their stance on Turkey’s Kemalist ideology try to influence Germany’s policy on Turkey. Most of their goals are along the agenda of Turkish politics and are likely to either totally support the existing Kemalist state or to oppose it (Ogelman et al.
2002: 148). Whilst Islamic associations seek to ease the harsh secularism in Turkey, the Ultranationalists aim to strengthen the Turkish ethnic identity in Turkey and Turkic peoples. In his investigation of nationalism in the Turkish diaspora, Landau (2010) notes that the ‘clearest evidence of the attachment to the homeland may be observed in the ultra-nationalist organizations’ (232). Turkey’s religious minority, the Alawis, call attention to their oppression by the Sunni Muslim majority, whereas the Kurdish associations focus on self-determination and cultural independence for the Kurds. These four key strands concentrate on generating change in Turkey by influencing German policy. However, another highly organised community are the Pro-Kemalists whose aim is to positively influence German policy on Turkey and to weaken the anti-Kemalist Kurdish and Islamist organisations. (Ogelman et al. 2002: 148-152).12 These five main Turkish political directions in Germany that are closely affiliated with Western European organisations, illustrate clearly not only how segmented the Turkish diaspora in Germany is, but also the strength of its relationships with the Turkish diaspora in other countries and in particular the communities’ commitment to the homeland's preservation, restoration, and safety. With regard to the impact of these different Turkish political organisations in Germany Ogelman et al. note:
The most striking feature of the preferences within Germany’s Turkish diaspora is the intense, highly conflictual fragmentation they have generated in the community. Germany’s Turks are so intensely divided in their preferences about the Federal Republic’s policies toward Turkey that they are unable to work together effectively to pursue common goals, such as greater political empowerment (Ogelman et al. 2002: 152).
The Turkish diaspora’s focus on Turkish politics rather than on politics in Germany shows how important homeland remains to them and could imply a wish to return there one day. Although the Turkish diaspora is heterogeneous, its members all have similarities in their shared culture and history. This creates the group consciousness, requisite for any diaspora.
12 See Ogelman et al. (2002: 145-157) for a complete discussion of Turkish organisations in Germany and their impact on Germany’s policy on Turkey.
43 A significantly high number of the Turkish migrants who came to Germany as guest-workers in the 1960s and, as Turkish and Kurdish political refugees between the 1980s and late 1990s, have become permanent settlers over time. The question arises as to what extent former guest-workers, resident in Germany for almost 60 years, and
43 A significantly high number of the Turkish migrants who came to Germany as guest-workers in the 1960s and, as Turkish and Kurdish political refugees between the 1980s and late 1990s, have become permanent settlers over time. The question arises as to what extent former guest-workers, resident in Germany for almost 60 years, and