FTD-Serie: Serie Business English

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Business English: Kazim Erdogan: 'I help Turkish men to westernise'

Turks are the biggest immigrant group in Germany and about 2.4 million people with Turkish backgrounds live here today. von Serge Debrebant

A year ago, a Turkish man came to me. He had a gun in his pocket and a knife in his hand. I knew him because of my job as a psychologist for the city of Berlin. ''I am going to kill my wife,'' he said. ''It's for my children. I love them.'' He explained to me that his wife had cheated on him, moved to Turkey with another man and thus wounded his honour. ''You say that you love your children,'' I said. ''Do you really want them to grow up like orphans? With a dead mother and a father in jail?'' Thankfully, I was able to talk him round. Today, I see him every week or two. He is part of a discussion group I founded a year ago. There isn't another like it in Germany. Once a week, about 20 Turkish fathers meet and talk about their everyday lives: family, work, society, love and violence. Turks are the biggest immigrant group in Germany and about 2.4 million people with Turkish backgrounds live here today. But whereas Turkish women in Germany have many resources for psychological help, such options rarely exist for Turkish men. For most of the members of our discussion group, it's the only chance they have to talk openly about their problems. And they have a lot of them. All of the men came to Germany when they were adolescents or adults. They barely speak German. Some work in factories, some in construction or as waiters, but most are unemployed. About 15 are divorced or separated from their wives. They don't have an easy life. In the first sessions, I was surprised by how open the discussion was. I have been a psychologist for 20 years now, and, normally, most Turkish men won't admit beating their wife or treating their children badly. In our group, it's different. Family violence is one of our main topics. We explore all kinds of problems. One guy came to Germany when he was 20 after his parents had arranged a marriage with a Turkish woman from Berlin. She knew German; he didn't. She worked as a cleaner whereas he, in the first years, didn't have a job. She gave him pocket money. He said that he sometimes felt as if he was the woman in their marriage. He often started to cry when he told us about his life. Do you know what it means for a Turkish man to cry? Today, he is separated from his wife and is soon going to be divorced. He comes to every meeting, and, afterwards, often says that he feels like a bird. This is a Turkish expression. It means that he feels freed from his grief. We also talk about sex and love. A lot of Turkish men are not used to showing their affection for others. In couple-counselling sessions, I notice that German couples hold hands or express their feelings; Turkish couples don't, especially when their children are around. They sit next to each other as if they were robots. I don't know why this is the case. One explanation might be custom, another that most of these men were born in the Turkish countryside where people used to work 16 hours a day and barely have time to think about love or displays of affection. I know this because I also come from a small Turkish village. In 1974, I moved to Berlin to study psychology and sociology. Originally, I had planned to return to Turkey, but wound up staying here, as so many immigrants do. My plan is to invite German men to our group so that Turks and Germans get to know each other better. Most members don't have any German friends. There are a lot of prejudices on both sides, but I think they could learn a lot from each other: Turks to be more calm, and Germans to be more hospitable.

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