Integration: a True and a False Life, Imran Ayata

After our morning meeting, we headed to the Ballhaus West advertising agency for meeting with İmran Ayata who is the managing partner of the company and also a writer.

Storytelling & Kanak Attack

When we started to interview, we asked him about his stories related with Turkish people. He published 2 novels and 1 short story book in German. However, firstly he explained that he likes to write about people, figures and stories so he is not especially writing about “Turkish people” which is not particularly starting point, it is just one of his contents that is very important. In his early years, he was working on an agency which was consulting the German government and he realised that it was hard to write about political issues. Then, he shifted to write about novels and stories.

Also, he told us about “Kanak Attack” which is very radical, anti-racist political movement. In 90s, he was one of the founders of the movement. People who participated in Kanak Attack like writers, film-makers and young people were focused on racism and social right; they didn't talk about ethnicity.

Concept Of Identity

We have also asked him about being a Turkish child of a migrant family in Germany. At this point, he underlined many times that he didn't consider himself as a ”Turkish” or “German” or as a part of any society. He explained that it was a very nationalistic reference to say and he wasn't keen on the concept of “ethnicity” . The reason of this refusal resulted from the idea of being part of something without being like it. “I don't know what it is like “being Turkish” but I love reading Cemal Süreyya and drinking rakı listening Ahmet Kaya. It is okay, these are several parts of my life but I wouldn't say this is making me a Turkish person“, he added.

Migrants, Refugees and Perspective of Germany

Comparing to other western countries, Mr. Ayata considered Germany as more homogeneous, nationalist society and not an open-minded state about the migration and the refugee issue. Firstly, he gave us an example of USA which is a country was built up by people came from Europe.

Afterwards, he talked about the huge influence of the migrants and refugees as an opportunity which could develop political strategies and be used as a dynamic toward different countries and societies. Although, he mentioned that even if today people had still discussion about the refugees who came to Germany, and had still questions such as how long will they stay here or how can government afford to some money for them even though Germany is a very rich country. He said generally the decision makers and the politics were very aware of these opportunities. In their campaigns. they tried to attract people with the idea of “multicultural open society”.

Change in Attitudes

We also discussed the change in attitudes and perspective of German government. He gives an example of Solingen tragedy. In 1993, there was a racist attack against a Turkish family; they were murdered. Then the chancellor Helmut Kohl didn't go to Solingen. Instead, he went on television and constantly repeated his conviction that Germany was "not a xenophobic country”.

Comparing this example he said that 2 years ago there was an another racist attack by an underground nazi organisation which ended up with the killing of 9 people. And this time, in the German government ceremony, the chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that the people who had killed were their victims.

These two different attitudes about the racist attacks proving that there was a significant change about the perspective of the German government considering the migration and the refugees.He mentioned that also globalisation has huge impact on the this change as well. Because Germany is very important player in world’s economic system and they had to consider the refugees and the migrants as a chance for their economy.

Adaptation and Integration

While we were talking about the German perspective about migration and refugees, we asked him to tell us about what he was thinking about the concept of “adaptation” and “integration”. He said that basically these concept were wrong and he was against them because these concept were constituting the hierarchy. According to him, the idea that one society could adapt to another one was very absurd because there was no homogeny structure in the societies and also the main point should be living together, establish a dialogue together.

“Integration is like there are a true and a false life".

It is like saying : “You’re in a wrong life, welcome to join to the right one” So that is a wrong concept basically to say”, he said.

At the end, we can say İmran Ayata is very different from our other interviews because of his perspectives about the identity, being Turkish, social right and Germany policy. It was a pleasure for us to meet with an important writer and discussing the issues with him.