Frankly ... integrated  Home and Origin

Who gets to become a German citizen and when? Sineb El Masrar writes about how citizenship affects a person’s personal identity.

The current German federal government intends to facilitate both naturalisation and multiple nationality in future. As is often the case with immigration issues, one side is happy and relieved, the other concerned about incentives for illegal migration. Here, too, the truth and reality of this issue is to be found in the golden mean. What is certain is that, according to the organisation Pro Asyl, some 200,000 people are living here on a tolerated stay permit, meaning a temporary suspension of deportation, and that the prospect of naturalisation will alleviate their fear of possibly being deported.

There are people in our midst who’ve been stuck in this tolerated stay loop for up to thirty years, which makes it difficult not only to get a job, but also to travel freely and integrate. Not to mention the effect on mental health of constantly having to worry about being deported to their, for example, undemocratic or perhaps even unfamiliar native country. Henceforth, in the future, anyone who can demonstrate German language skills, earn their own living and provide credible proof of their identity is to be granted a residence permit. If they can’t, they’ll be stuck with their tolerated status. It took a long time to get there.

Place of Longing Versus Status-quo Home

It’s been a long rocky road to this reform. Because even if Germany is de facto a country of immigration, it’s taken several decades to acknowledge that fact and say it out loud. Despite the fact that only a few years after the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1949, workers were systematically recruited from other countries in Europe as well as from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. And then there are all the foreigners who studied at universities in West and/or East Germany, or came to Germany simply for a better life. Some immigrants eventually returned to their native countries, but many have stayed and even brought their spouses and children to join them, or had children here. Germany is closely linked with people from all over the world who’ve been here for decades and have put down roots here. Many think of Germany as their status-quo home.

I like to divide the concept of home of people with an immigration background into two parts. A home of longing and a status-quo home. For many, the native country of their parents or grandparents is very present in their daily lives through the language, religion, names, rituals and customs and have more to do with a home of longing: countries like Turkey, Italy and Tunisia, where everything would be perfect if they didn’t have to stay in Germany for all kinds of different reasons.

Home is More Than Citizenship

Germany has become their fixed point of reference, which they cannot deny, even if they feel this country has not been good to them. They can’t let go of Germany, it is like a parent that is entangled with their own biography and has shaped them in the same way as their country of origin. Even if they live their lives in hermetically sealed parallel societies. Those parallel societies form when communities are not integrated or when people reject this cultural group. Above all, however, these people have made a safe, secure life for themselves here, which is where their schools and jobs are, their families and friends, neighbours and co-workers. They know their rights are secure here – and that they’re in good hands when it comes to medical issues as well. This may sound trivial, but it’s of vital importance to us as social beings.

So home is more than just a nationality in a passport. Quite a few feel at home in this country whose passport they do not hold. An official document will seldom suffice to make you feel at home. And yet secure status and citizenship can provide the security of having equal rights and thus make life a whole lot easier.
 

July 2022