Turkish Talk Radio

Radyo Metropol is the first radio station in Germany that serves the Turkish-German immigrant community with a mix of Turkish culture, talk and news in both Turkish and German. Turks first came to Germany as guest laborers in the 1960s and it is possible to grow up in a Turkish community in Berlin without learning to speak German or Turkish very well. Above is one of the student interns who are working at the radio station while being paid by the German government's labor department and finishing their university degrees.You'd think the German government would be embrace the idea of Turkish radio as a way of reaching out to the immigrant community, but the reality is just the opposite. The Germans see it as more proof that the Turkish-Germans don't fit in to their society. According to station manager Tamer Ergun, even Chancellor Angela Merkel said she didn't favor the idea of Turkish language radio signals "on German soil." The station has had trouble obtaining the additional licenses it needs to expand. The station claims it fights Islamic extremism by encouraging immigrant participation in German politics and providing a reliable source of news whenever there is an attack on the Turkish community. The perpetrators, often from right-wing extremist or neo-Nazi groups, are not always caught. Still, the Turks in Germany are increasing their share of population due to a higher birth rate, so it's a growing audience that needs to be served.
The double standard is also evident in education, where Turkish children tend to be sent to the "hauptshule" or high school instead of the gymnasium, which is for college prep. The Germans refer to people of "immigration background," even when they're referring to the third or fourth generation of passport-holding citizens. By that standard, I'd still be a "Polish-Slovenian of immigration background" instead of an American because my grandparents were immigrants! How many generations will it take until the descendants of the Turkish immigrant are considered to be actual Germans? We met with a Green Party politician, Ozcan Mutlu, who overcame the odds to obtain a university education and now represents his community in Berlin's state parliament. He answered confidently that he believes systematic discrimination, such as Nazi anti-Semitism, could never happen again in Germany. However, as he described the fight for such basic principles as bi-lingual educaction and affirmative action, it's clear that diversity is a strange concept for Germans who perceive the Turks, not as hard-working laborers and small business owners, but as freeloaders on the generous social welfare benefits provided in Germany. We were told that an unemployed Turk in Germany makes more money than a working person in Turkey. Ironically, we met in a restored building that was the parliament in Prussian times. As we were about to find out, unified Germany has a surplus of former parliament buildings!