Turkish German Muslims and Comedy Entertainment CURRENT ISSUES in ISLAM
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Turkish German Muslims and Comedy Entertainment CURRENT ISSUES IN ISLAM Editiorial Board Baderin, Mashood, SOAS, University of London Fadil, Nadia, KU Leuven Goddeeris, Idesbald, KU Leuven Hashemi, Nader, University of Denver Leman, Johan, GCIS, emeritus, KU Leuven Nicaise, Ides, KU Leuven Pang, Ching Lin, University of Antwerp and KU Leuven Platti, Emilio, emeritus, KU Leuven Tayob, Abdulkader, University of Cape Town Stallaert, Christiane, University of Antwerp and KU Leuven Toğuşlu, Erkan, GCIS, KU Leuven Zemni, Sami, Universiteit Gent Turkish German Muslims and Comedy Entertainment Settling into Mainstream Culture in the 21st Century Benjamin Nickl Leuven University Press Published with the support of the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand University of Sydney and KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access Published in 2020 by Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers Leuven. Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium). © Benjamin Nickl, 2020 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-Derivative 4.0 Licence. The licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non- commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Attribution should include the following information: B. Nickl. 2019. Turkish German Muslims and Comedy Entertainment: Settling into Mainstream Culture in the 21st Century. Leuven, Leuven University Press. (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/ ISBN 978 94 6270 238 7 (Paperback) ISBN 978 94 6166 341 2 (ePDF) ISBN 978 94 6166 342 9 (ePUB) https://doi.org/10.11116/9789461663412 D / 2020 / 1869 / 57 NUR: 717, 732 Layout: Coco Bookmedia Cover design: Paul Verrept Contents Preface 7 introduction 13 Finding a Voice of Their Own chapter i Germanness, Othering and Ethnic Comedy 41 chapter ii Clash Films 61 chapter iii Television Narratives of Ottoman Invasion and Cohabitation 93 chapter iv Bridget Jones’s Halal Diary 119 chapter v Funny Online Kanakism 149 chapter vi Settling into “Post-Migrant” Mainstream Culture 173 conclusion 183 European Muslims’ Issues: Turkish German Comedy in a Global Entertainment and Identity Politics Framework Notes 191 References 201 Preface My sincere gratitude goes to Leuven University Press for making this book available through their Open Access scheme. I also thank Dr Erkan Toğuşlu and the Current Issues in Islam series editors for including this discussion of Turkish German comedy in their series of scholarly, peer-reviewed publications initiated by the Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies (GCIS). Thanks go to the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (POPCAANZ) for supporting this book with a publication grant. I am grateful to the School of Languages and Cultures (SLC), located in The University of Sydney’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, for providing financial support for the Open Access publication of Turkish German Muslims and Comedy Entertainment: Settling into Mainstream Culture in the 21st Century. This book is the result of many conversations with colleagues and friends, and students, about what funny means in the face of a resurgence of racism and ethnic, anti-Muslim bias in German society and across the globe. And how Turkish Germans can use cultural comedy practices to counter this bias.1 There has been an ongoing series of events causing majority societies in non- Muslim countries to question the place of Muslim minority communities in their nation states.2 After 9/11 and the rise of ISIS, and fundamentalist terror attacks on European capital cities, the discourses of Islamist fanatism and militant Jihadism have surged. This has been playing out in newspapers, books, on television and in online contexts. The negative stereotyping of Muslimness was highly effective in its influence on public opinion. 8 In the 21st century in Germany, right-wing movements like the German PEGIDA have formed around the idea of Muslimness as a global threat. Supporters of this movement have argued that the Muslim threat would never go away. They have said that Muslims could not possibly be integrated into the Western model of democratic liberalism. How could they, if those Muslims cannot even laugh at Danish cartoons and French caricatures of the Prophet or acts of brownfaced comedy sketches? Even Muslim majority communities who had lived in their host countries for generations, as is the case with Turkish Germans in Germany, were suddenly suspicious if they did not find humour in the derision of certain cultural values or community lifestyles. This meant that humour associated with an ethnic community and jokes about its origins, beliefs and community characteristics turned into a pop cultural litmus test. Being on one or the other side of ethnicity-themed humour, so held majority opinion, became a clear indicator for liberal attitudes in liberal societies. Even with its Holocaust history and working through its separation of East and West, German society was not exempt from this reductive thinking. Allegedly, laughing at certain jokes or rejecting them measured one’s stance on the relationship between Islam and the cultural tolerance discourse of modern nation states. Socially speaking, having to laugh at one’s derision to be accepted as part of the in-group is problematic. It is an essentialist practice to regulate expression of identity. It demands conformity. Most importantly, it is undemocratic where it others and excludes members of an ethnic group from fully participating as themselves in daily life in their own homeland and country of legal and permanent residence with or without German passports. I have written this book to engage with this discriminatory practice and add a new depth and new dimensions to our understanding of the social function of comedy entertainment in German culture. I deliver a case study of Turkish German Muslims and how some of their funniest, wittiest and somewhat provocative community members use comedy entertainment to settle into German mainstream culture in the 21st century as who they are, not who they should be. These creative minds use comedy in different mass media types to entertain all of Germany with a popular culture viewpoint on the issue of Turkish Germans’ ability ever truly to belong—while several generations of the community have already lived for decades in the country and made it their home regardless of their nationality. I acknowledge here the achievement of a diverse community in laughing about a mindset that wants to keep Turkish Germans and Islam out of Germany, or at least keep Muslimness and Germanness separate. 9 Professor Alison Lewis has guided my thinking along the way, and I thank her for that. I also extend my gratitude to the reviewers of my manuscript. I owe them a great deal of appreciation for their insightful suggestions. Most of all, I would like to thank my family and friends for their continuous support. And here is to Oma Lennerl, who undoubtedly has the best sense of humour one could hope for. It truly makes the world go round. Dude, Turks here start out young with their jobs. I was an interpreter at the age of eight. My dad pushed letters from the German authorities into my hands, asking me what they said. At eight, I was still doing my ABC song in school, you know?! And he goes, “what the hell you, you learn no German in school?” And I go, no idea what it says in those letters. When I was ten, I was an interpreter. I was interpreting for my mom at the doctor’s. And then he blabs for half an hour about patella, labella, yadda yadda. What do I know what the hell he said?! And she goes, “what did he say?”’ And I go: all looking good! Folks, I really had so many jobs when I was young. Interpreter, barkeeper, doctor, dentist’s assistant; oh boy, I really worked a lot back then. —Özcan Coşar, second-generation, Turkish German stand-up comedian Excerpt transcribed and translated from his 2017 comedy tour programme Generation Aldi ________________________________ It’s not easy being an Afghan. You know, because, when I go to Afghanistan, I’m a German. And when I’m here, I’m a Turk. Can just nobody tell us apart. A German woman walks up to me. And so she asks me: “Are you a Turk?” And I go: “Nope, I’m Afghan.” Says her: “Same difference really!” Or a Turkish guy walks up to me and says: “Why aren’t you a Turk?” I said: “Well I thought being a Turk is so mainstream.” But there’s one thing we have in common with the Turks. We’re just as hairy as they are. We’re really hairy. I mean, if you see us naked, you’d believe that we’re wearing black leggings. —Faisal Kawusi, second-generation, Afghan German stand-up comedian Excerpt transcribed and translated from his NightWash live Finals 2015 performance Being a Turk is Mainstream In die Augen, in den Sinn In your eyes, in your mind Der Kopf spuckt alte Speicher hin Your head spews out what’s been stored behind In die Augen, in den Sinn In your eyes, in your mind Im geschlossenen System ist kein Platz für alte Fragen Closed systems don’t have room for old questions Die dümmsten Ideen kommen durch die Hintertür The dumbest ideas get in through the back door Wenn wir Angst haben dann raschelt’s überall Everything is scary if we are afraid Und das alte Gift fängt an zu wirken And the old poison takes effect Alle Türken heißen Ali, typisch Zigeuner All Turks are called Ali, gypsies as usual, Wo ein Bart ist, ist die Bombe