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Irritated instead of integrated: Speechless in a foreign country

What happened to this baby as a toddler in kindergarten, no mother would want for her child.
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  1. So helpless a child can feel in the kindergarten
  2. Doubts, questions, fears
  3. Insults in the job

So helpless a child can feel in the kindergarten

Ahmet Özdemir was born in Germany as a child of Turkish immigrants. His life as a migrant child was difficult from day one.

"I remember being together with the children and educators in a group and explaining the profession of our father, which was very difficult for my brother and I. I sat around and everything in me was reluctant, We were afraid to explain the job of the miner: for one, we did not really know what a miner was, and on the other hand what his job was, we only knew it had something to do with coal, but This term was foreign to us, so we stood in a circle and said only one German word that we knew and which we considered a suitable synonym: "stone, dad stone", and made a few movements in the hope that we were understood, I still do not forget the looks of the children. "

Ahmet Özdemir was born in 1975 in Aachen. His parents came as guest workers from Turkey to Germany. They wanted a better life for themselves and their children. His father worked hard as a miner. But the children did not have it easy in the new country, a country where many locals encounter foreigners with fear and disapproval. Even in kindergarten, Ahmet and his brother often felt helpless and completely misunderstood.

In the meantime, Ahmet Özdemir lives and works in Cologne and he has written a book: Irritiert statt Integriert. With this book he wants to mediate, between the Germans and the migrants. This text is an excerpt from this book:

Ahmet Özdemir lives and works in Cologne. After studying communications science, he specialized in digital marketing and since then has been working as a manager Digital & Strategy, lecturer and trainer. Both privately and professionally he loves meeting people. Ahmet Özdemir is married and has a daughter.

Doubts, questions, fears

"My personal life always had two characteristics: two cultures, two languages, two religions, two customs and two ways of thinking - German and Turkish just! I can still remember that my time in kindergarten was the most difficult - without a word of German My brother and I were pushed into the German events, it took a full three years and it was a torment. Without a word of German: How do I want to communicate, what do the educators of me - but above all the question: Why Why could not I understand the language? Doubts, questions, fears - even as a child.

Insults in the job

Another very memorable event was a company outing, where I was completely unprepared for a bad insult. I had always got along well with my colleagues, there had never been conflicts about my background. How should I guess what would happen there?
The excursion served a stronger team cohesion - significantly. During lunch, I stood in line with my colleagues at the buffet. By that time, it had been an excellent, interesting day. While I served at the buffet, I was watched by my boss all the time. I did not think much of it. My boss was known for his rude comments, so I might have expected him to make another inappropriate speech. That he would be as tasteless as the buffet itself I would never have thought possible. My boss stared at my plate and said loud and very clear: "That was once again clear that the small Anatolian Turk makes his plate!" Thanks for the statement, the day was over. What an outrageous insult!

[...]

Unfortunately, I experience stories like these again and again. Again and again! It is such a burden to fight against it. I just wanted to arrive, to live contentedly and to belong. If I look at it from this point of view, my life in Germany is very tedious. Very exhausting. Very marginal. Very unfair. Everyone tries to take out what he can. Main thing, offend. The main thing is to reduce people by force. The main thing, people harm, often mentally!

And why? Because the religions are not identical? Because we do not look the same? Think differently, believe differently, celebrate differently and maybe eat differently? Why the hate? Why hurt each other? "

Ahmet Özdemir: Irritated instead of integrated - Living in Germany

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