Five Years
After Refugee Wave
How Syrians Are Reshaping German Society
A large portion of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian
refugees who arrived in Germany in 2015 are planning to stay in the country for
good. They have changed much over the past five years, and so has the country.
By Katrin
Elger
23.07.2020,
17.16 Uhr
There’s a
problem with German bread. It crumbles when you use it to mop up fried eggplant
or bulgur salad from a plate. It’s also difficult to fill with meat, hummus and
sauces. Traditional German baking can do a lot, but it can’t do everything.
It’s no
surprise, then, that when asked what the most popular item in his grocery store
is, Mohammad Hanawi, 20, immediately answers with "chubs arabi,” the Arab
pita bread. It is well-suited for dipping, and Syrians eat it with almost every
dish. Some even revere it so much that a piece that falls to the floor isn’t
thrown out, but rather picked up and kissed and then eaten.
On a Monday
in February, Hanawi is sitting behind the counter in a sporty blue and white
jacket. At this point in time, COVID-19 still seems like a faraway problem.
Next to him, his father is weighing olives for a customer. Hanawi writes down
orders for the store in Arabic. He opened the family business in January. He
says it’s going great, and that beans, sausages and pickled grape leaves were
also popular. "Syrian things. That’s what people were missing here.”
By
"here,” he means Uetersen, in the Pinneberg district near Hamburg, in
northwest Germany. The city has about 19,000 inhabitants, and until 2015,
almost none of them had a Middle Eastern background. Hanwai says his family was
one of the first to move to the city. Today, around 300 Syrians live in
Uetersen.
New
arrivals frequently asked where they could buy the best Arab groceries, he
says. "In Uetersen, that didn’t exist.” Hanawi decided to fill the gap in
the market. As the family discovered in recent months, this was a pretty
crisis-proof decision. Unlike many stores in other sectors, Hanawi didn’t have
to close his doors during the lockdown, and the demand for chubs arabi
continued, uninterrupted.
The Syrian
originally hails from Aleppo. He stopped going to school in Germany after the
ninth grade, to open the store. "I don’t need the diploma anymore now,” he
says. The whole family pooled its money. They renovated a former bar near a
train station and created a little patch of the Middle East in Uetersen.
The growing
part of the German population that has Arab roots is visible in many parts of
the country. In Berlin, Sonnenallee boulevard has long been known unofficially
as "Arab Street” because it is home to so many Middle Eastern cafes and
stores. One of the main libraries in the German capital city now has an Arab
section, and before the pandemic, the imam at Hamburg’s Al-Nour mosque had to
hold his sermon in two shifts to enable all the worshippers to fit inside.
These days, though, he reaches most of his mosque’s worshippers via livestream.
Syrians now
represent the largest Muslim minority in Germany after Turks. Since 2010, their
numbers in the country have risen from around 30,000 to almost 800,000. Most
arrived as refugees after the outbreak of the civil war, and they are reshaping
the country, much like Turkish migrants did for decades.
Between
2015 and 2018, Syrian women in Germany gave birth to over 65,000 babies. But
the Syrian community will continue to grow in the country for other reasons as
well. In the past year, around 40,000 Syrians applied for asylum, a small
number compared to 2015, when the large wave of refugees came to Germany.
Many of the
refugees currently toughing it out in the countries neighboring Syria or on
Greek islands now have relatives or friends in Germany and would like to follow
them here. It’s impossible to know how many are in that situation. After almost
nine years of civil war, the situation in Syria is disastrous, especially in
the regions near Idlib and Aleppo, with fighting still ongoing. International
observers are warning of catastrophic famine, and Syria is suffering from a
massive economic crisis that is now being exacerbated by the consequences of
the COVID-19 pandemic. The German Foreign Ministry considers every part of the
country to be unsafe, and the German Conference of Interior Ministers has
extended the moratorium on deportations to the country.
A lot of
Syrians have now been living in Germany for so long that they will be able to
transition their time-limited protection status into permanent residency
authorization this year as long as they are deemed to be well integrated. At
that point, they are no longer considered refugees. Experts say the first big
wave of applications will happen in 2020. Due to the coronavirus, however, many
authorities are working in a limited capacity, and appointments at the Federal
Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and at the immigration authorities
were delayed. However, the situation is now starting to normalize.
Anyone with
refugee status who wants to become a permanent resident must meet several
requirements: They generally have to have lived in Germany legally for five
years and speak relatively good German. They need to earn most of their living
without support, they can’t have a criminal record and they have to be able to
show proof of housing. And the reason for asylum, in this case the war in
Syria, must still be valid. Those who earn enough money and speak a high level
of German are entitled to apply after three years.
Officials
at the German Interior Ministry say that 12,000 Syrian refugees received
permanent residency in this way as of mid-2019. There is no central record of
how many applications have been filed thus far this year. Three-quarters of the
Syrians who are fit for employment in Germany are living either completely or
partially on welfare. These people often have a limited chance of getting the
desired permanent resident status.
According to
the Federal Employment Agency, 42 percent of the refugees from the eight main
countries of origin who immigrated since 2015 had a job at the end of last
year, but those statistics also include low-paid and marginal part-time
employment. It’s also likely that this situation has worsened considerably
since the start of the pandemic.
But even
those who have barely learned any German -- and are thus far from gaining their
foothold on the labor market -- are likely to stay, even if the situation in
Syria becomes more stable. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has regained control
over large parts of the country, and many refugees fear his unjust regime.
A Home in
Exile
Muhannad
Qaiconie, 33, has fairly poor chances of getting a permanent residence permit
at the moment, even though he has already made a lot of things happen in
Germany. Like many other artists and intellectuals from around the world in
Berlin, he speaks fluent English, but his German isn’t very good.
Qaiconie
founded Baynatna, an Arabic library, together with a German, a Jordanian and
two other Syrians. The library is now housed in a space in the Berlin State and
Regional Library (ZLB) in the capital city's Mitte district. There had
previously been few options in Berlin for people wanting to buy or borrow books
in Arabic. "We wanted to create a home for ourselves in exile,” says
Qaiconie. They began with a few hundred books they had been given by friends
and acquaintances. There are now almost 3,000 books in the collection.
They are
arranged on simple wooden shelves: fiction, non-fiction, comics. The floor is
covered with long, colorful patchwork carpets. The room is nice, bright, but
still closed to visitors because of COVID-19. Anyone wanting to borrow
something simply needs to reserve the title online and pick it up.
"We're
hoping that everything will gradually return to normal, and that we'll soon be
able to offer other things,” says Qaiconie. He and his colleagues organized
numerous workshops and events before the start of the pandemic, including the
Arab-German Literature Days last fall. Qaiconie says they wanted to show how
diverse and beautiful Arabic literature can be. Unfortunately, he argues, the
language is too often associated with terrorism. "Sometimes, it’s enough
for you to speak Arabic in the subway for people to look at you suspiciously.”
"Baynatna,”
the name the library has been given, means "among us” in Arabic, which,
according to the founders, doesn’t reflect a desire for people to segregate
themselves. Instead, they argue, it’s about creating a familiar framework, also
for intercultural exchange. "It would be nice if the Arabic language could
find its place in the German cultural scene,” Qaiconie says.
The
language has long since arrived in everyday German life. In the streets of
largely Muslim neighborhoods, one can hear both Turkish and Arabic. Terms like
"yalla!” (hurry up) and "habibi” (my love), are also becoming part of
the German language.
Since the
influx of refugees in Germany in 2015, there has been strong interest in Arabic
courses at German continuing education schools, and some high schools now also
offer Arabic classes. In Hamburg, for example, students graduating from
college-prep high schools also now have the option of selecting Arabic as one
of the subjects of their high school completion exams.
Baynatna
was initially housed in a refugee hostel, but now it’s part of the Berlin
Central and Regional Library, which some might see as a sign that Syrians have
become an accepted part of German society.
But
Qaiconie is less confident about that. He fears that the right-wing populists
with the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party will gain in stature. "Who
can guarantee that we won’t all get deported in the end?” he asks. For someone
who has witnessed his home country sink into civil war, a lot seems possible.
The attack in Hanau earlier this year, in which a racist gunman killed nine
people because they had immigrant backgrounds, made many nervous.
Qaiconie
studied to become an interpreter in the Syrian coastal town of Latakia, with
the goal of becoming an English translator. After arriving in Berlin, he
received a scholarship to study at the Berlin branch of Bard College, an
American university, and completed a bachelor’s degree in ethics and politics.
He plans to begin a master’s degree in program September.
"At
first, I liked this whole 'refugees welcome’ atmosphere,” he says. "But at
some point, I realized that for many people in Germany, we are always just 'the
refugee.’ As if we were a homogenous mass.”
What
distresses him most, though, is the fact that his mother and sister live in
Turkey and that he isn’t allowed to bring them to Germany. The German Embassy
in Turkey wouldn’t even grant them visas for a short visit to Berlin.
Like so
many other refugees, Qaiconie needs to live with the fact that his family has
been torn apart, a source of melancholy for many Syrians in Germany.
The rules
for bringing family members into Germany are strict. Only their closest
relatives are allowed to join them, if at all. Adults can apply to bring their
spouses and underage children, and minors can usually only apply for their
parents, but not for their siblings, no matter their age. It often takes months
for an application to be accepted and processed.
In 2018,
21,000 Syrians came to Germany through the family reunification process. Human
rights organizations have accused the German authorities of slowing or
obstructing the process in order to limit the influx, even for those who are
entitled to it. The coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated the situation.
A Longing
for Family
Amal
Alburs, 41, barely recognized her son Mousa at the airport in Düsseldorf when
he arrived. They had written and spoken via WhatsApp every week, she says:
"But that’s different. The day I arrived, he suddenly had a beard.”
She let him
leave when he was 12 years old, and now he’s a 16-year-old teenager. She needs
to get to know her son again, a boy who has built up his own life in Germany
over the past four years. Mousa has friends she doesn’t know. He speaks a
language she doesn’t understand, and he feels at home in a city that
intimidates her. She doesn’t even know what he likes to eat. Mousa says he
doesn’t like Syrian food. "Far too much meat. I can’t even stand the
smell.”
When the
Alburs family tried to make it to Germany via Turkey, they split up into two
cars as they drove to the coast from which their boat was set to leave, Amal
Alburs recalls. She was in one car with her husband and two of their sons,
while Mousa and his cousins were in the other. The vehicle containing the
parents was stopped by the Turkish police, but the boys made it through. They
managed to make their way to Germany, while the rest of the family got held
back.
For a
while, Mousa lived with an uncle near Leer, a city in the northern German state
of Lower Saxony, but after an argument, he moved into a group home. Last July,
he was able to bring his mother. Since then, they have rented a small apartment
in Leer, where Mousa is going to secondary school. He would have liked to
graduate in the summer, but school was cancelled too often in the past weeks
and months because of the coronavirus. Mousa will repeat the ninth grade after
the holidays, after which he wants to become a car mechanic.
A few trees
are growing between the red brick buildings in the apartment block. Some
doorbells bear Arabic names. Amal Alburs rarely leaves the house, but this was
already the case before the pandemic. "I’ve always told her to go out,”
says Mousa, "but she doesn’t have the courage.”
Amal Alburs
speaks only a few words of German, but her son is almost fluent. She wants to
learn the language, but she says she won’t have the energy for it as long as
her other children are still in Turkey.
Mousa had
submitted applications for the entire family to be reunited. The German authorities
approved the visas for his mother and father, but not for his three siblings.
The youngest, Asiel, is only four years old. The parents decided that the
mother would fly to Germany so Mousa would finally not be alone after all these
years. The father stayed behind in Turkey with the other children.
In early
June, Amal Alburs received news from BAMF that she would enjoy so-called
subsidiary protection in Germany from now on because she was "threatened
with serious harm in her country of origin.” This means that she can now submit
an application for family reunification herself. But it is unclear how long the
procedure will take or whether it will ultimately be successful.
Amal Alburs
cries a lot. "Every time we talk on WhatsApp, my little one asks me when
I’m finally going to bring her to me,” she says. She’s worried about her child.
A few days ago, she says, Asiel was playing on the street and was almost run
over by a car. "I’ve been having panic attacks ever since, because I fear
something bad might happen to her before she makes it to Germany.”
Amal’s
smartphone is her most important link to the outside world. She spends a lot of
time on Facebook, keeping up with the situation in Syria and Turkey. "It
would be better if my mother wasn’t constantly reading things on Facebook,”
Mousa says. "The Syrians are constantly posting horrible images from the
war. That just makes you sad. I don’t want to see that.”
The family
comes from Idlib, where the situation is terrible at the moment. Amal’s parents
still live there.
"I
pray a lot,” she says. "That’s all I can do. All that happens is Allah’s
will. He gives me strength.” Tears run down her cheeks as she talks.
"Without strong faith, you would perish.”
Many
refugees seek comfort in mosques in Germany, where they can meet other people
with similar backgrounds and where imams do counseling work. But Amal doesn’t
visit them because she believes Muslim houses of prayer should be reserved for
men. She grew up in a patriarchal environment, with a father who had 17
children by two wives.
A New Islam
Women are
as welcome as men at the Al-Nour mosque in Hamburg, but at the moment, at most
150 worshippers are allowed to be in the building - and only with advance notice
– because of the coronavirus. The ritual washing in the mosque is banned,
everyone has to bring their own prayer rug, and the room is disinfected after
each sermon.
A separate
loft room has been set up for the women, even during normal times. It has a
good view of the mihrab, the prayer niche. The room is large and bright, with
stained-glass windows.
"Before
the coronavirus, it was usually full here on Fridays,” says Daniel Abdin, the
chair of the mosque association. After the arrival of the refugees in 2015, he
says, the number of people praying at the mosque more than doubled. Almost
2,500 people were here every Friday, he says. Currently, most people watch the
sermon online by livestream. For months, the imam could only offer counseling
over the phone, but he recently began taking appointments in his office once
again.
The mosque
is very popular among Syrians, partly because Abdin and the imam both
originally came from Lebanon. They speak almost the same Arabic dialect as the
Syrians, and preach in German as well as in Arabic. "And our mosque is
really very beautiful and multicultural,” says Abdin.
It was less
than two years ago that the mosque moved to Horn from a former underground car
park near the main train station. "We are very happy to be here now,” says
Abdin. The mosque is housed in a former Protestant church. From the outside,
the building still looks like a Christian house of worship, only the cross on
the tower has been replaced by the Arabic inscription, "Allah.” The
remodeling was financed by donations, including money from Kuwait. "It was
important for us to integrate well into the neighborhood,” says Abdin. Everyone
was welcome. "We Muslims are a part of this society. It is becoming more
and more normal,” he says. "But for that, we have to become more visible.”
Around 5
million Muslims now live in Germany. Islam, which has been strongly shaped by
Turkish migrants in Germany for decades, has become more diverse thanks to the
refugees. Abdin says there’s a better balance between cultures now.
Lamya
Kaddor, an Islamic scholar from Duisburg whose parents immigrated to Germany
from Syria in the 1970s, agrees. She says she’s glad that the "Islamic
monoculture” which had long existed in Germany is now a thing of the past. In
contrast to Turkey, she says, religion in Syria isn’t as strongly
institutionalized. Ditib -- the mosque association that operates around 900
houses of worship in Germany -- is subject to directives from the Turkish
government. The Turkish Muslim movement Milli Görüş is also dominated by
political goals.
"For
most Syrian Muslims, faith is a private matter,” says Kaddor. She says she
knows many Syrians who are very pious and conservative in their religious
beliefs, but nevertheless open to people of other faiths. Syria is a
multiethnic state in which many ethnic groups and people of different religions
lived together largely in peace before the war. "This is a good
prerequisite for successful integration,” the Islamic scholar says.
Becoming
German
It’s a week
ago Friday, and the door to Hanawi’s grocery store is wide open. Mohammad
Hanawi’s father is sitting behind the counter and chatting with an
acquaintance. His son isn’t coming into the shop at the moment and is difficult
to reach, he says. "Mohammad has better things to do right now.” In
February, Hanawi said that he wants to start a family as soon as possible,
since he’s already 20 years old. His life plan doesn’t include returning to
Syria. "There’s still war going on there,” he said. "My entire family
is here, and we’ve already built something up.”
He was 15
years old when he came to Germany. He has spent a quarter of his young life in
Schleswig-Holstein, and he hopes it will only be a matter of time before he
becomes a German citizen.
Hanawi
should now be very close to this goal. If his marriage proves stable, he could
be naturalized in two years. As his father explains,
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