A SMALL TURKEY IN LONDON
Özge Baykan
Döner kebab restaurant”, “home made meze”, “lahmacun
machine”, “baklava saloon”…
These are only some of the linguistic amalgams for
Turkish culinary tastes you can find in Green Lanes in north London, which came
to be identified as the heart of the Turkish community in the city.
Yet, the diaspora is much more diverse and spread
out than it seems.
The growth of the Turkish-speaking population in
London shows a unique pattern as opposed to other Western European countries.
The first big Turkish immigrant flood to the UK came
from Turkish Cyprus during the political turmoil of the 1950s and 60s, and the
years following the 1974 military intervention by Turkey.
Unlike Germany and France where Turkish countrymen were
invited as “guest workers” as early as the 1960s, British encounters with
immigration from Turkey have been through Turkish and Kurdish asylum seekers in
the 1980s, who fled the 1980 military coup.
It is estimated that in London there are currently as
many as 300,000 “Turkish-speaking people”, a popular and politically correct
term that has come to meld together Turkish Cypriots, Kurds and Turks into a
unified community.
“But in fact, Cypriots, Kurds and Turks do not
intermingle much,” feels Denizhan Ozer, a Turkish contemporary artist and one
of the most well-known figures of the community, who moved to the UK 20 years
ago.
Over the years Denizhan observed that
“Cypriots tend to integrate more easily, they speak English, and have a good
professional life while Turks and Kurds show a more withdrawn and
underprivileged profile. These three groups do not necessarily touch each
other, nor are they too happy to be classified within the same community, but
they seem to have accepted the present classification.”
Muharrem Aslan, the board member of RenkArt, a Turkish
cultural centre, agrees: “It is exactly like the life in Anatolia. They seem to
be together but they are separate.”
Demographic Structure
As the needs of the Turkish community grew from the
1980s onwards, the service sector has expanded to meet the demands of the
Turkish speakers in London.
Turks made everything more homely so as not to feel
too nostalgic. Almost nothing is left out: goldsmiths, barbers, banks,
butchers, greengrocers, solicitor’s offices, restaurants, coffeehouses,
associations, mosques, and football teams.
The Turkish and Kurdish community predominantly
lives in northeast London, in neighbourhoods like Hackney, Haringey, Stoke
Newington, Green Lanes and Tottenham.
“It is the ideological stances that connect
Turks, Kurds and Cypriots, rather than religion or ethnicity. For example a
leftist Turk can get along with a Kurd better then a nationalist does,” thinks
Denizhan.
The coup
d’état of 1980 in Turkey meant flight for several resentful Turkish and Kurdish
dissidents who faced jail in early 1980s, causing a vast wave of immigrants and
asylum seekers in the year 1989.
But the Turkish community is not confined to
political and economic immigrants: The UK has become more and more popular
among the Turkish youth who come to London to baby-sit, learn English, to work
in Turkish companies or for higher education.
Economy
Originally the Turks and Kurds took up jobs in
factories, predominantly textile mills and frequently as illegal workers
throughout the 1980s.
As many textile mills eventually closed down, the
focus of the economic activities moved to the service sector, and the Turkish
community members started businesses in hundreds of small shops and restaurants,
for which the long array of Turkish signs in Kingsland Road in Hackney
constitutes an example.
Social Life
Associations, local media and coffeehouses are three
major elements in the daily life of the Turkish speaking community.
Along with the associations, coffeehouses are places
where community members, mostly men, spend long hours chatting, playing board
games, drinking tea and reading newspapers.
Cypriot, Kurdish and Turkish coffeehouses are
separate, coffeehouse frequenters do not intermingle much, says Denizhan Ozer.
The local media’s power has grown dramatically in
recent years, with several local newspapers and a radio station, “London
Turkish Radio”.
Turkish speaking intellectuals and artists are still
a small minority, but the arts scene is thriving, if a little isolated.
Integration and Identity
Since the influx of illegal workers and asylum
seekers in the 1980s, the community has gone through considerable change in
terms of identity and integration.
Immigrants, who were confined to poor living
conditions in neighbourhoods such as Hackney and Haringey eventually bought
houses, mostly on mortgage, formed families and moved to richer neighbourhoods
where they could raise their children in a more pleasant environment.
“It is difficult to raise children in the UK because
of the exposure to things at school that are against our culture, such as
drugs. But we stay because in terms of economic conditions we are doing well,”
says a restaurant owner in Kingsland Road.
In terms of integration, the language barrier
remains the biggest issue for the Turkish speaking community.
Although the second and third generations have much
more integrated into society, conservative cultural practices prevail in many
families who refuse to send their children to school or where women suffer from
domestic violence.
“I remember days when clients attempted to take off
their shoes when they entered a solicitor’s office. They were very naďve in
that regard,” says Denizhan. “But Turks eventually became accustomed to living
in Britain and more or less adapted to the culture over here.”
Snowball Magazine, March 2007
©Özge Baykan