Mohammad Eke was born and grew up in the German city of Essen. Until authorities found out that his parents had entered the country illegally, Germany was his home. Then Eke was deported to Turkey, even though he'd never visited the country and didn't speak the language. It's just another run-of-the-mill case of German immigration policy in action. The young man sits with his bag in Istanbul's airport, as he often does when he doesn't know what to do with himself or his time. The bag holds two towels, two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, a pair of shoes, a jacket and his toiletries. It also contains a Turkish dictionary, a folder containing documents from a German Office of Alien Affairs and a bottle of antidepressant pills, which he needs to fall asleep. The bag is the size of a carry-on bag, and he could easily be mistaken for a tourist visiting Istanbul for a couple of days. Such tourists are eager to see the sights and do the things tourists do here: see the Bosporus, Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque or a game of Fenerbahçe, the city's famed football team -- and then return home.
Mohammad Eke was born and grew up in the German city of Essen. Until authorities found out that his parents had entered the country illegally, Germany was his home. Then Eke was deported to Turkey, even though he'd never visited the country and didn't speak the language. It's just another run-of-the-mill case of German immigration policy in action.
The young man sits with his bag in Istanbul's airport, as he often does when he doesn't know what to do with himself or his time.
The bag holds two towels, two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, a pair of shoes, a jacket and his toiletries. It also contains a Turkish dictionary, a folder containing documents from a German Office of Alien Affairs and a bottle of antidepressant pills, which he needs to fall asleep. The bag is the size of a carry-on bag, and he could easily be mistaken for a tourist visiting Istanbul for a couple of days. Such tourists are eager to see the sights and do the things tourists do here: see the Bosporus, Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque or a game of Fenerbahçe, the city's famed football team -- and then return home.
But since I am writing my dissertation now, the Auslandsbehörde now says I am a student under paragraph 18. No grandfather clause for a bureaucratic misprint.
Now, I am a resident of German ancestry (with documented proof as a descendent of the Luther family, and Martin is practically a national hero) and an educated Germanist with a Masters Degree who speaks relatively good German and who has been told that he knows more about German literature and culture than the average German - intergration is not a problem for me. Yet still, I am having a lot of problems (more here in Thüringia than in NRW).
As Essen is in NRW, and I lived near there before, this is scary. I mean if I am having these problems, I can imagine what young Mr. Eke had to face. This is very unjust, the young man is German! Period!
Maybe that is just my idealistic American upbringing where an immigrant is an American after he or she swears an oath to the Constitution.
But these laws sincerely need an overhaul, but there seems no political will to do so. "Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"
