Though it failed to make it to the World Cup finals, the multicultural team fielded by Germany for the international tournament has come to be seen as a symbol of successful integration in the country.
Despite the challenges still faced by immigrants in Germany, a population that includes many Turks, German players such as Turkish-born star Mesut Özil, 21, have been held up as representatives of a modern, young, multicultural and dynamic country. The 11 players of non-ethnic-German background on the German national team’s roster of 23 have also helped deepen ties between immigrants and their adopted country.
“I would already support Germany in the games, but now that Mesut is involved, I feel more connected,” said taxi driver Mehmet Günay, 42, who has lived in Germany for the past 20 years. “Turkey couldn’t make it this year to the Cup, but Özil is representing us.”
Cenk Bülent Kayabaşı, who has worked in Germany as a football player and coach for many years, said Özil’s success on the team is driving the talk about better integration of immigrants, something he said didn’t happen when Polish, Ghanaian and Tunisian players joined German teams. “The Polish have always played football and the situation of Ghana and Tunisian players is a symbolic one, as there are far more Turks in Germany than people from Ghana and Tunisia. Mesut is the main actor behind all the integration talk,” Kayabaşı said, adding that the player also sets a good example for young German Turks.
“The new generations have fewer ties to Turkey; they feel like foreigners [there], they don’t even speak the language well,” Kayabaşı told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “Before, we had examples of players like Halil and Hamit [Altıntop] and Yıldıray [Baştürk] who chose to play for Turkey, but I think it was more difficult for them.”
Özil’s decision three years ago to play for the German national team instead of the Turkish team sparked a major debate, with many Turks accusing the young player of betraying his origins and country. Countering the criticisms, Özil said he felt “most comfortable” on the German team. “I am Turkish and I will remain so, but I feel good here,” he said. His success is now celebrated in both countries.
“Turks are doing things that would have been considered impossible 20 years ago. If you had said 20 years ago that a young Turk would win a prize at Cannes or get involved in politics, people would have thought you were mad,” Kayabaşı said. “But now the young generations are seeing the success of others and want to follow. I think this is a global success as well. If I were young today, I would want to be Mesut Özil.”
Incomplete integration?
Not all immigrants in Germany have achieved such success, of course. According to a recent government report published last week by Die Spiegel, immigrants are still left out in terms of education and career achievement. In 2008, twice as many migrants were regularly unemployed as ethnic Germans, with 12.4 percent of migrants jobless. Immigrants also search longer to get into trainee programs, waiting an average of 17 months to secure an apprenticeship while their contemporaries from ethnic German backgrounds wait only three months on average.
The report also showed that 13.3 percent of immigrants between the ages of 15 and 19 dropped out of school in 2008 without graduating – a dropout rate twice as high as that of students with ethnic German backgrounds. Observers hope, however, that immigrants’ success on the football field could pave the way for better integration in other realms.
“I think Germany has come a long way compared to the past,” sports columnist Fikret Doğan, who lives in Germany, told the Daily News. “In the past, minorities couldn’t even play for [German] clubs, let alone the national team. But now this has changed. The fact that France won the Cup in 1998 with a multicultural team changed the German mentality a lot.”
In addition to Özil, players of Turkish origin Barış Özbek, Serdar Taşçı and Selim Teber have all played for German national teams.
“Especially the current German Football Association president, Theo Zwanziger, has made a lot of effort to include minority players on the teams. The politicians have also realized that it is a matter of belonging and they have put a lot of effort into this as well,” Doğan said. “So Germany has won the hearts of many not just by its football but by its multicultural nature as well. Whether it is through Mesut Özil or Sami Khedira or [Lukas] Podolski, many minorities in today’s Germany identify themselves more with Germany.”
