Stereotypical Images of Germans and Turks in Autobiographically Inspired Texts by Turkish-German Writers (English)

Veronika Bernard

 

Stereotypical Images of Germans and Turks in Autobiographically Inspired Texts by Turkish-German Writers

 

 

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

 

let me first of all thank Kadir has University for hosting our exhibition “Breaking the Stereotype: The oriental image of Europe and Europe’s self-perception” on their Cibali Campus here in Istanbul and for co-organizing the panel “European Migrations” with us. Thank you very much for this.

 

Let me turn to my paper. Autobiographically inspired texts are something special in many ways within the literary range because they suggest to be linked to some real context although being fiction at the same time. And if this “real context” is a multi-ethnic or multi-cultural context – as is the case with texts by German-Turkish writers – it certainly is promising to ask how those texts present the representatives of the cultures involved.

I have picked one such text to show one of the possible ways to do so. It is Hatice Akyün’s book “Einmal Hans mit scharfer Soße. Leben in zwei Welten” (I would like to order a Hans with hot sauce. A life in two worlds). The passages I will analyze have been translated into English so that all of us will have a chance to follow my talk on the quotations analyzed in more detail.

So first of all: What is the book about? Akyün’s book introduces the reader to the members her family, each of them having a very different approach to the different aspects of life as there are traditions, religion, faith and the like: the father who came to Germany as a worker years ago, the mother who has followed her husband and having been a housewife all her married life, and their two daughters who have been born in Turkey but having spent their youth in Germany and having gone to school there; and it introduces the reader to the narrator-protagonists life within this family context: Her feeling of being different, her strive for independence, her idea of making a professional career, her wish to marry a German man.

The interesting thing now is that all those aspects are reduced to sort of symbols in illustrating the narrator-protagonist’s point of view: her family’s relation to tradition, religion and faith is illustrated by their relation to praying at the mosque and to the wearing of a headscarve by the female members of the family. A passage which shows this very well is the following passage:

In Germany my father had turned to be very religious and he went to the mosque daily. Starting at age 10 my brothers and sisters and me joined him in order to study the Koran. My mother joined us only sporadically, she did so just on important religious holidays, for the rest of the time she prayed at home. Friday was the most important day in my father’s life because he went to the Friday prayer on that day. … I had sincerely decided to get some proper education. Apart from this I wanted to get rid of my headscarf. It simply did not suit me; it made me look short and ugly. I did not feel comfortable wearing it. As soon as I had left our house in the morning and had disappeared round the next corner on my way I pulled it off my head and stuffed it into my school bag. At school we did not have to wear headscarves, on the very contrary, the headmaster did not allow us to do so. We loved him for this. My mother still cannot understand this. In her life the headscarf was something very meaningful and important. It was an honour to be allowed to wear one, and you even had to reach a certain age for this … My elder sister also never took off her headscarf for good. Ablam wore scarves by Kenzo, Versace and Valentino, on which she was willing to spend between a hundred and four-hundred Euros. The headscarf for her is a sign of religiosity on the one hand and it is her most important accessory on the other hand. “It is not written down anywhere that Muslim women have to dress like scarecrows!”, she says. … When I was a child I did neither know anything about the tradition and the culture nor about the religious meaning which is linked to the headscarf. I simply felt wearing it was tiresome, and I wanted to free me from it. (66-71)

So, what does this passage tell us about the way the narrator-protagonist portrays her family’s cultural background? Well, we learn that the father deliberately turns to religion after coming to Germany, but we do not learn anything the like about the mother. We learn, however, that she has been wearing a headscarf all of her adult life and feels this to be an honour for a woman. Her elder daughter shows the same behaviour, just the younger one, the narrator-protagonist of the autobiographical migrant story, takes a different way. She rebels against wearing a headscarf when she is still a teenager, she wants to learn some serious profession, and she does not get married when she is older. All in all, you are introduced to a very diverse social structure within this family of Turkish origin as far as their ways of dealing with religion, faith, traditions and gender roles as parts of their lives are concerned.

All of them define their cultural identities differently. The father defines it by the negative motivation of a felt loss, the mother by the positive motivation of lived traditions. The mother is rooted in an original cultural background which provides its limits and liberties and by this gives exactly that feeling of stability and belonging the searching character of the father is longing for. This is also true of the protagonist’s elder sister. On the other end of the scale there is the protagonist. She has her conviction and her devotion just like her mother and her sister have: her identity not that of wishing to be part of a group but rather an identity of leaving a group.

And just like all those characters are linked to certain symbols to illustrate their cultural identities (the scarf, the prayer) they are set into a portrait of Turkish society which looks very much obliged to the so-called typical and which is contrasted to a portrait of German society which looks just as obliged to the so-called typical as the Turkish does. While the typical of Turkish society is represented by aunts, uncles, cousins and the Turkish gentleman at a date, the typical of German society is represented by Hans and Helga. In contrast to all this there is the protagonist who presents herself as being non-typical in all respects.

Let’s see how this is constellation is set at the very beginning of the text:

My name is Hatice. I am Turkish and have a German passport. For politicians I am THE example of a working integration, for German men I am the forbidden, exotic fruit and for German women I am the reason to hate their hair. … I am a journalist. This means I work a lot, have got little money and even less time. I do not wear a headscarf and I have not been forced into marriage which is the reason why I do not have a husband yet. Now and again I go on holiday, mostly to Turkey, where my parents own a summer house and where my relatives welcome me by asking: “Well, have you finally succeeded in finding a Hans?” When my family is not in Turkey I regularly visit them in Duisburg where they also own a house and where they welcome me asking exactly the same question every time I come: “Well, have you finally found a Hans?” Hans and Helga are the names by which all Germans are known to us Turkish. And it’s natural that Hans is a good provider. He will ride his bike to the first date, wearing a colourful biking helmet and that special device to keep his trouser-legs from getting stuck in the spokes of his bike. With his egg-shaped helmet, his ducked head and his legs moving fast he looks a bit like a toad wandering. When you look at his lifted trouser-legs, his pale legs and the bruise which the helmet has left on his forehead, you lose all sexual appetite, and, indeed, you really automatically panic at the thought you might have to see Hans stripped of any trousers. If the waiter asks “one or separate bills?”, Hans will politely and correctly answer “separate ones!” – although he might shortly glimpse at Helga while saying so. As for Helga, she would never go to the hairdresser’s just to have her hair blow-dried. She would never wear heels higher than 4 centimetres, and she has no idea what the perfect curve of a styled eyebrow looks like. But she is highly interested in getting to know. And you can spend a whole evening sitting and wonderfully discussing with Hans and Helga. Hans, we also know this, will walk his dog and pick up all the tiny pieces of his excrements in a plastic bag. He will assemble his furniture all on his own using a do-it-yourself instructions manual, and he will do so carefully and only after thinking about it thoroughly. … By the way, I have not found the right Hans yet. A Hans who would be a passionate lover and gentlemanlike enough to open the car door for me on our first date – as is common in Turkey. I am looking for a Hans with hot sauce, so to speak, but have not found him yet. And Turkish men have become frightened of coming close to me. (7-11)

If you now take the definition of stereotype as being a generalization of one or more features which do exist in a society, for example, but are not true of all its members you can say that both the technique of portraying both societies in the text is a stereotypical one. And what becomes obvious in this passage is that the two stereotypical images are linked and cannot be analyzed isolated from each other: the German hetero-stereotypical image created from a Turkish perspective and the Turkish auto-stereotypical one created from the perspective of a Turkish female who has defined her cultural identity by leaving parts of her cultural traditions behind.

The protagonist of Akyün’s text does so by trying to pick the “goodies” and apart from them stay away and different from what she has defined as a hetero-stereotypical image of Germans: she lives the life of a sexually active single but takes an effort to point out her difference to German women whom she considers ignorant to what is stylish and sexy and she emphasizes that she prefers the gentlemanlike behaviour of Turkish men when dating women to the quite sober one of German men in the same situation.

She indirectly defines what she considers cultural conservatism concerning her cultural background by her attitude towards the German hetero-stereotype. The hetero-stereotypical image makes her receive European everyday life selectively as shows e.g. in the wish to find a Hans with hot sauce.

If we move all this to a more general sociological level she is in line with what Berry says about the four types of migrant identities: chart

Akyün’s narrator-protagonist according to this chart is what she presents herself to be: a non-typical in between.

 

Figure 1: Berry’s (1990) Model of Acculturation Attitudes, modified by Horenczyk (2000)¹

 

		Attitudes Toward ‘New Identity’
		Positive	Negative
Attitudes Toward ‘Old Identity’	Positive	Integration	Separation
	Negative	Assimilation	Marginalization

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening.  

 

 

Notes

(1) Horenczyk, G. (2000). ‘Conflicted Identities: Acculturation Attitudes and Immigrants’ Construction of Their Social Worlds’, in: Olshtain, E. & G. Horenczyk, Language, Identity and Immigration. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press.

Berry, J. W. (1990). ‘Psychology of acculturation: Understanding individuals moving between cultures’, in: Brislin, R. W. (Ed.), Applied cross-cultural psychology (pp.232-253). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

 

(2) Text passages in their German originals quoted from: Hatice Akyün: Einmal Hans mit scharfer Soße. Leben in zwei Welten, 2005 (translation of the title by V.B.: I would like to order a Hans with hot sauce. A life in two worlds)

Text passages quoted in their German originals:

Akyün (1):

In Deutschland war mein Vater sehr religiös geworden und ging täglich in die Moschee. Ab unserem zehnten Lebensjahr begleiteten meine Geschwister und ich ihn, um den Koran zu lernen. Meine Mutter kam nur selten mit, lediglich an den großen Feiertagen, ansonsten betete sie im Haus. Der Freitag war der wichtigste Tag im Leben meines Vaters, denn dann ging er zum Freitagsgebet.  … Ich war fest entschlossen, eine richtige Ausbildung zu machen. Außerdem wollte ich mein Kopftuch loswerden. Es stand mir einfach nicht, es machte mich klein und hässlich, ich fühlte mich nicht wohl damit. Sobald ich nur raus aus unserem Haus und um die Ecke war, zog ich es mir vom Kopf und stopfte es in meinen Schulranzen. In der Schule mussten wir es nicht tragen, im Gegenteil, der Direktor hatte es sogar verboten. Wir liebten ihn dafür.  Meine Mutter kann das bis heute nicht verstehen. In ihrem Leben hatte das Kopftuch immer etwas sehr Bedeutsames. Es war eine Ehre, und man musste ein bestimmtes Alter erreicht haben, bevor man es überhaupt anziehen durfte. … Auch meine große Schwester hat ihr Kopftuch nie abgelegt. Ablam trägt wunderschöne Tücher von Kenzo, Versace und Valentino, für die sie bereit ist, zwischen hundert und vierhundert Euro auf den Tisch zu legen. Das Kopftuch ist für sie einerseits ein Zeichen von Religiosität und andererseits ihr wichtigstes Accessoire. „Nirgendwo steht geschrieben, dass sich Musliminnen kleiden müssen wie Vogelscheuchen!“, sagt sie. …. Als ich ein Kind war, wusste ich nicht, was für eine Tradition und Kultur, welche religiöse Bedeutung sich hinter dem Kopftuch verbarg. Ich empfand es lediglich als lästig und wollte mich davon befreien. (66-71)

 

Akyün (2):

Mein name ist Hatice. Ich bin Türkin mit deutschem Pass, für Politiker ein Paradebeispiel einer gelungenen Integration, für deutsche Männer die verbotenen, exotische Frucht und für deutsche Frauen der Grund, ihre Haare zu hassen. …. Ich bin Journalistin, das heißt, ich arbeite viel, habe wenig Geld und noch weniger Zeit. Ich trage kein Kopftuch und bin nicht zwangsverheiratet, weswegen ich noch immer keinen Ehemann habe. Ab und zu fahre ich in den Urlaub, meistens in die Türkei, wo meine Eltern ein Ferienhaus besitzen und meine Verwandtschaft mich mit den Worten zu begrüßen pflegt:“ Hast du jetzt endlich einen Hans gefunden?“ Wenn meine Familie gerade nicht in der Türkei ist, besuche ich sie regelmäßig in Duisburg, wo sie auch ein haus besitzt und mich alle jedes Mal mit genau denselben Worten empfangen: „Hast du endlich einen Hans gefunden?“

Hans und Helga heißen alle Deutschen bei uns Türken. Und es ist klar, dass Hans ein braver “Brötchenholer” ist. Zu seinem ersten Date kommt er gerne auf dem Fahrrad, mit buntem Fahrradhelm und Hosenschutz. Mit seinem eierförmigen Helm, dem eingezogenen Kopf und den strampelnden Beinen sieht er in wenig aus wie eine Kröte auf Wanderung. Die hochgebundene Hose, die käsigen Beine und die Druckstelle, die der Helm auf seiner Stirn hinterlassen hat, zerstören jegliche Lust auf ihn, und man bekommt unweigerlich panische Angst davor, Hans ganz ohne Hosen sehen zu müssen. Wenn der Kellner beim Zahlen fragt, zusammen oder getrennt, dann antwortet Hans höflich und korrekt – allenfalls mit einem verschämten Seitenblick auf Helga – getrennt.

Helga wiederum würde niemals zum Friseur gehen, einfach nur um sich die Haare föhnen zu lassen. Sie trägt keine Absätze, die höher sind als vier Zentimeter, und was der perfekte Bogen einer gezupften Augenbraue ist weiß sie auch nicht. Sie ist aber sehr interessiert daran, es zu erfahren. Und man kann den ganzen Abend beieinander sitzen und herrlich mit Hans und Helga diskutieren.

Hans, das wissen wir auch, führt seinen Hund Gassi und sammelt dessen Kothäufchen in einer Tüte zusammen. Seine Möbel baut er nach Aufbauanleitung zusammen und arbeitet dabei überlegt und aufmerksam. … Den richtigen Hans habe ich übrigens noch nicht gefunden. Ein Hans, der leidenschaftlich wäre und galant genug, mir beim ersten Date – wie in der Türkei üblich – die Autotür aufzuhalten, ein Hans mit scharfer Soße sozusagen, ist mir noch nicht begegnet. Und türkische Männer trauen sich nicht mehr in meine Nähe. (7-11)