Soon after the Turkish Prime Minister’s call for fully-Turkish secondary schools to be established in Germany, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come out to reject the PM’s plans, calling for integration through learning the German language and German customs. Many Turks in Germany have also denounced the Turkish PM’s plan, saying that it would hinder efforts of integration than help it. Also, analysts comment that the plan could also be a part of the PM’s ploy to gain votes in Turkey by using “a nationalist rhetoric.”
The most interesting part in the article is the fact that Turkish-Germans themselves also disapprove of the plan, agreeing that it would hurt efforts to integrate than help it. This suggests even more that the Turkish-Germans are shifting away from being always tied back to Turkey, and increasingly asserting themselves as different from Turkey. They are still different from the Germans, which explains why they want to further integrate themselves, but they are different from Turks living in Turkey as well. This event is an example of the growing solidarity of the Turkish-German population.
