#publisher alternate (BUTTON) Close Skip to main content sign in * Comment activity * Edit profile * Email preferences * Change password * Sign out become a supporter subscribe search jobs dating more from the guardian: * dating * jobs change edition: * switch to the UK edition switch to the US edition switch to the AU edition International * switch to the UK edition * switch to the US edition * switch to the Australia edition The Guardian * home * › world * › europe * US * americas * asia * australia * africa * middle east * cities * development * home * UK * world selected * sport * football * opinion * culture * business * lifestyle * fashion * environment * tech * travel browse all sections close Germany Europe: Immigrants under pressure Immigration: the rare success story of Mesut Ozil German-born Mesut Ozil's footballing brilliance earned him headlines and wealth, but in the Ruhr, where his family settled, the future for immigrants is anything but rosy Germany's midfielder Mesut Ozil Mesut Ozil: the first soccer star in Germany from an immigrant background – he is third generation Turkish. Since the World Cup 2010, he has moved from Werder Bremen to Real Madrid. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images Kate Connolly in Gelsenkirchen Monday 15 November 2010 17.32 GMT First published on Monday 15 November 2010 17.32 GMT * Share on Facebook * Share on Twitter * Share via Email * (BUTTON) View more sharing options * Share on LinkedIn * Share on Pinterest * Share on Google+ * Share on WhatsApp * Share on Messenger * * (BUTTON) Close This article is 6 years old The locals call it "Mesut's ape-cage", the fenced-off pitch on Olga Strasse in Gelsenkirchen where the German midfielder Mesut Ozil learned to kick a football. His is a success story that has inspired the German nation, earning him the nickname "multi-kulti kicker" for being the first national player from an immigrant background to have made it internationally, in a journey that has taken him from a scruffy, grey playground in the Ruhr valley, once a booming but now rundown part of the nation's industrial heartland, to the heights of Real Madrid football club. The district of Bismarck, to where Ozil's grandfather moved as a gastarbeiter (migrant labourer) from his native Turkey 40 years ago, is nowadays typified by boarded-up shops, derelict apartment blocks, unimaginative graffiti and the popular "ape-cages" dotted around the residential areas. "Our boy Mesut made it," said Duran Uzunur, 69, sipping his way through a thick Turkish coffee in a cafe frequented by retired gastarbeiters. "Anyone who can get out of here does, but few succeed. When I arrived 36 years ago I was received with open arms and work was plentiful." But now he said, following many factory closures and increasing numbers of companies moving operations abroad to reduce costs, there are few opportunities. "Our youngsters are seen as a burden, and for most of them there's no hope." Mesut Ozil, he said, "is the exception to the rule". Ozil has been repeatedly upheld as the prime example of an immigrant success story since he took his place on last summer's national World Cup team. Everyone, it seems, has sought to use him for their own political gain. Chancellor Angela Merkel took full PR advantage of the player's success, including an impromptu encounter with him in the team's dressing room following Germany's win over Turkey earlier this month. Meanwhile, the far-right NPD has labelled him a "plastic German" - an artificial, manufactured fake. But behind the Ozil story is the untold narrative of a growing underclass of poorly-integrated, under-performing parents and children of foreign origin who are unemployed, under-achieving and increasingly dependent on the state. It was they Merkel was referring to recently when she waded into a heated debate about immigration with her damning remark that Germany's "multi-kulti" project had "utterly failed". Betül Durmaz said she is glad that German politicians are "finally waking up to the fallacy of a dream". The 42-year-old Turkish-German is a teacher at a secondary school in Neustadt, a district of Gelsenkirchen close to Bismarck, where 70% of pupils come from immigrant backgrounds. All of them are classed as having learning difficulties and most of them do not gain a school leaving certificate. "The first generation of guest workers, like my parents who came here in the 1970s from Turkey, were much better integrated," she said. "They earned a living, they worked and lived alongside Germans, spoke German and they wanted themselves and their children to succeed." She became a teacher; her brother, a successful actor. Viewing her school as a microcosm of the rest of a country facing the problem of integrating the 9% of Germany's residents who are of non-German origin, Durmaz said. "The success of integration is dependent on education, work and speaking the language, but the will to succeed in any of these areas amongst those with a migration background is missing." Durmaz, author of a bestselling book on the topic called Doner Kebab, Machos and Migration, a warts-and-all illustration of day-to-day life in her school, blamed the government and its "misguided education and integration policies" for the resulting stalemate. "For years, successive German governments have held a romantic idea of multiculturalism, believing if they put the money into supporting foreigners wanting to work and live in Germany and give them every helping hand, they would be able to say 'We've done our bit'." The trouble is, the government has not followed through sufficiently, she believed. "They should have set conditions," said Durmaz. "They should tell those who refuse to take part in German language classes on offer, or whose children bunk off school, that there will be consequences, such as fines or the removal of certain benefits." Anyone wanting to investigate why official German policy has taken the direction it has, only has to look at history, and an enduring "guilt complex" linked to the Holocaust, she said. "German history has much to do with the fact that governments have turned a blind eye to the problems." The gastarbeiter system – which functioned on the basis that all Germans believed the workers would one day go home – functioned, said Durmaz, between the 1950s and 1970s, when the booming German economy was crying out for hardworking labourers. "But now there's no work for any of them, they live increasingly isolated from the rest of society, they don't learn German and they increasingly define themselves through their religion because it's all they've got to make them feel special." The results, she says, are to be seen in the playground, where she points out the clusters of children – Turks in one corner, Lebanese in another, a further, smaller group of German children huddled together, all speaking their own tongues. Their separation emphasises the sense of division. "In fact, the German children are so much in the minority they often get insulted by the rest of them," Durmaz said, adding that popular terms of abuse, are 'Christians' or 'pork scoffers', while the German children typically retort with the phrase 'whore's son'. Recently politicians called for a "German-language only" rule to be introduced in all playgrounds, suggesting such a decree would hold the key to solving many of the problems of integration. Durmaz believed the playground rule would be counter-productive as well as unrealistic. But 75% of Germans questioned in a poll supported the idea. The proposal was a knee-jerk reaction, to Merkel's declaration that "multi-kulti had failed", as well as the remark of another mainstream conservative politician that Germany was unable to cope with any more immigrants from Turkey and Arab lands, and the claim of a leading banker and Social Democrat that their presence was even "dumbing down" the nation. To the horror of those who had liked to argue Germany was progressive in its integration policies, such sentiments have received widespread backing and fired up a frustrated section of German society that seems pleased its misgivings about immigration are finally being given a voice. "Germans still haven't come to terms with the fact that they're now an immigrant country," said Barbara John, a former integration commissioner for the Christian Democrats. "It's a chalice out of which they know they have to drink, but they'd do anything not to have to do so. "But until they finally understand that the foreigners are not just guests who are going to go home one day, nothing will change." __________________________________________________________________ More news Topics * Germany * Turkey * Europe * Mesut Ozil __________________________________________________________________ * Share on Facebook * Share on Twitter * Share via Email * Share on LinkedIn * Share on Pinterest * Share on Google+ * Share on WhatsApp * Share on Messenger * Reuse this content more on this story * Made in little Wenzhou, Italy: the latest label from Tuscany In the third of our series on immigration in Europe, John Hooper visits the thriving, Chinese-run pronto moda workshops of Prato Published: 17 Nov 2010 Made in little Wenzhou, Italy: the latest label from Tuscany * Immigration: Far-right fringe exploits European coalitions Mainstream European parties appear paralysed by populism, unable or unwilling to temper the rise of the far-right Published: 15 Nov 2010 Immigration: Far-right fringe exploits European coalitions * Bavarian party backtracks over call for immigrants to speak German at home Germany’s coalition split over Christian Social Union linking residency to speaking German in private Published: 8 Dec 2014 Bavarian party backtracks over call for immigrants to speak German at home * Immigration: France sees tensions rise five years on from Paris riots Violence in the ghettos brought an outcry over racism – but President Sarkozy is now putting immigrants under even more pressure Published: 16 Nov 2010 Immigration: France sees tensions rise five years on from Paris riots * + Islamophobia is racism, pure and simple Yassin Musharbash Published: 10 Dec 2014 Islamophobia is racism, pure and simple + Sarkozy's rightwing reshuffle kicks off 2012 campaign Published: 15 Nov 2010 Sarkozy's rightwing reshuffle kicks off 2012 campaign + UK and Germany have very different attitudes towards immigration Published: 26 Nov 2014 UK and Germany have very different attitudes towards immigration (BUTTON) More more on this story most viewed The Guardian back to top * home * UK * world selected * sport * football * opinion * culture * business * lifestyle * fashion * environment * tech * travel all sections close * home * UK + education + media + society + law + scotland + wales + northern ireland * world selected + europe + US + americas + asia + australia + africa + middle east + cities + development * sport + football + cricket + rugby union + F1 + tennis + golf + cycling + boxing + racing + rugby league * football + live scores + tables + competitions + results + fixtures + clubs * opinion + columnists * culture + film + tv & radio + music + games + books + art & design + stage + classical * business + economics + banking + retail + markets + eurozone * lifestyle + food + health & fitness + love & sex + family + women + home & garden * fashion * environment + climate change + wildlife + energy + pollution * tech * travel + UK + europe + US + skiing * money + property + savings + pensions + borrowing + careers * science * professional networks * the observer * today's paper + editorials & letters + obituaries + g2 + weekend + the guide + saturday review * sunday's paper + comment + the new review + observer magazine * membership * crosswords + blog + editor + quick + cryptic + prize + quiptic + genius + speedy + everyman + azed * video * World * › Germany IFRAME: /email/form/footer/37 * Facebook * Twitter * Facebook * Twitter * all topics * all contributors * solve technical issue * complaints & corrections * terms & conditions * privacy policy * cookie policy * securedrop © 2017 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. [p?c1=2&c2=6035250&cv=2.0&cj=1]