I started off my blog series by telling a bit about me, and what revolves around me right now, or what I revolve around. That is integration. But how did I end up in this situation?  I did not yet tell. It is a hard story to tell because it is long. Because it has a lot of political aspects in it. Because some of it I even am not able to understand. But I can point out some cornerstones. Some events in the past that I knew it was a big deal. I knew, even though I was maybe around 16, that it might lead to a “bigger thing” than what is on the surface.

So, I will tell a story. Not even a story. I will tell you about a man, I will tell you what I remember. I will only tell what I feel because it is impossible for me to know the whole story. After all, it is his story.

Even before giving you his name, let me tell you why I picked him. I picked him because he is a man. It is always easier to tell stories about women. Women in need, women who are beautiful, women who are mothers, women who suffered. A suffering woman would make a nice story. But no. This man, although he is a father, is not weak. He was the general director of a media group, Samanyolu, that consisted of (I needed to look it up) 14 television channels, 9 radio channels, 2 weekly newspapers, and 1 website. How does it sound? Already lost interest? A man in a position of power, you might say. Indeed he was. Those days were glorious. Those days we had so little idea of what was going to happen. We did not know that we could lose our jobs, we could have gotten arrested, the lawyers that defended us could get arrested, and we would have to use illegal means to leave the country we love, and never come back. No, those were glorious days.

Hidayet Karaca was one of the first ones that was persecuted. It was before the failed coup attempt in 2016, it was before they closed down our schools, it was way before. Now I am looking at it, it wasn’t that far ago. It was December 2014  when he was arrested. There was no indictment to begin with. He was accused of because of a script in one of the TV shows with the argument he influenced the script. It was a drama show. He was a big name in the Hizmet movement, and they knew it. Nobody was terrified at the time. Nobody thought Hidayet Karaca could have been held captive despite the law. Back in the day, we trusted the law. He was a hero. All 14 channels and all the radio programs were mentioning his name. There was a counter on the screen that told everyone how many days it had been since the arrest. We were almost excited. We were right. They could not hold a journalist for a script that he didn’t even write. He was going to be free, and he was indeed freed, he was a hero!

After 4 months of imprisonment, the court decided that there was not enough evidence to hold him. He was released. He was a hero, all our media showed him. It was a big day, a lot of joy. There was indeed justice! The same day he was arrested before he could make it home. The judge, Mustafa Başer, who signed the decision was expelled and then arrested. His wife, Rabia Başer, also a judge, was also expelled and sent to prison.

I remember my father saying that we shouldn’t celebrate it so visible. We shouldn’t have made a hero out of him. Because now, they couldn’t tolerate setting him free, let him be the hero. It didn’t matter what the court said, what the law was, whether he was a journalist, or whether he was indeed innocent. It didn't matter. In reality, you should be careful, you should be smart. You shouldn't make anyone a hero so that they can attack. Back then we did not know. But these were the first signs of the injustices that we will have to endure. 

Hidayet Karaca had a soft voice. He was humble. I like him. This year on June 21, 2023, the ECtHR decided after 8 years, his re-arrest in 2015 was unlawful. He was convicted 33 years of prison time in 2018. The ECtHR is yet far from looking at his case where he was found guilty with merits. To this day Hidayet Karaca, once a man in a position of power is in solitary. Since then hundreds of thousands have been arrested, sometimes freed, and crossed the borders. A lot has changed. The media organization, Samanyolu, does not exist now. It was closed down after the 2016 failed coup attempt. He is still behind bars, alone. I am not sure how he is doing right now. I hope he is okay. I hope he is sane. I hope he is hopeful. He did not do anything wrong, but society punished him because he held a position in an institution that was affiliated with the Hizmet movement. For the government in Turkey, he is a terrorist, for the opposition he is not a journalist.  For many in our community maybe his story got old or there are many people who are in worse condition. I am not sure if I should call him a hero. I don’t think he ever cared.


I knew, even though I was maybe around 16, that it might lead to a “bigger thing” than what is on the surface.

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The Hero

While some concepts are not even in one's mind, the day comes and they become central to your life. Integration is such a concept for me. I was born in Turkey as a Sunni Turk. I went to private schools with people like me. I spoke the language I spoke home, also at school. Of course, there were differences, of course we were not all the same, but there was common identity, there was a Turkish society, a “Gulenist movement” circle around me and ultimately I was a part of this society. It can also be said that I am a easy going person. Therefore, I have never found myself struggling to 'integrate', to adapt, to the environment that I was in. I've always been part of the majority, and I always felt belonged.

This situation first changed when I became “the other” in Turkey as part of the Gulenist movement. I suddenly became a social minority. Finally when I migrated to the Netherlands, I was a minority socially, ethnicly and religiously. From the moment I came here, I started living in a country where I don't belong either socially, ethnically, religiously or the language I speak, and where I have to make an effort to adapt.

As a part of the majority, I have always looked down on integration, but this changed and I have been the side that needed to be integrated. As a refugee, I found myself trying to adapt to the people who belong to this society. They belonged to this socity without any effort, but it wasn’t as easy for me. I would like to point out that migrating to another country and being a refugee is different from born being a minority. The difference is that I learned and constructed the concept of integration when I was part of the majority, and now the day has come; my judgments, expectations and observations, good or bad, weighed on me.

To put it simply, my language, which I used to speak effortlessly and fluently, has been replaced by a language that I can only express myself to a certain extent with effort. Some who know me may praise my current language level and embarrass me, but I believe in my head that I am not part of this society in the eyes of a Dutchman, with the Dutch level I speak now. Of course, the Dutch are very kind people, and even with the Dutch I speak, they compliment me and congratulate me on my progress. But the strange thing is that I see those compliments and comments as condescending words for the efforts of someone who is not expected to be integrated, because deep down, I am not satisfied with with level of integration myself. I find myself in an 'inferior' position because of my own expectations. I want a level of integration that makes me part of the majority, not a level of integration that makes me socially tolerable as a refugee. Because I grew up in a society where I fully belonged.

I think, it is not just me either. Which one of us pleased with the works given to us by the municipalities? For example, how does packaging or sweeping the street appeal to our ego? I don't think it's just a matter of money, it's also a matter of status. We can’t process easily that others deem us worthy of these kind of jobs. Maybe I expressed it a little harshly, but from my point of view this is how it looks. I know from my camping experiences that, Turkish refugees like me I met, like to keep them separate from all remaining refugees. We are the more educated ones, we are cleaner, we are more adaptable, and the others are foreigners who need to be integrated even more. A Turkish idiom says that guests do not like other guests. We like to be treated differently, who doesn't? It caught my attention once, in a speech by a friend, that she then thought that the famous Dublin Regulation did not apply to 'Turks' coming from Greece. However, since Greece is a transit country for most refugees, Dublin cannot be applied to any refugee coming from there, regardless of their nationality, if Greece does not accept them back. Of course, there is no bad intention, but I was surprised how my friend developed a idea that this practice is only applied to Turkish people and not “the others”. What was it that made us so special anyways?
However, reality hits hard. Ultimately, we make such an effort to learn a language that did not speak for 20-40 years of our lives, and we compete in the same job market with people who are perhaps not more qualified than ourselves, but are part of this society. On top of that, our names, faces and accents reveal that we are outsiders.

And what happens in the end? I said in the beggining that there is a concept of integration that I constructed in my head when I was a part of the majority. That initial concept burdens me now. No matter how much they compliment my language development, even if I get somewhere, even if I get good grades, we ultimately try to achieve the integration in our minds. Maybe we want to feel like once we did, and sometimes some of us are willing to compromise even the features that make us different to reaching that level of integration. Belonging, identity, being integrated, these are very powerful concepts. But ultimately, concepts derive their power from the meanings we ascribe to them. For some, integration means getting A2 Dutch, for others reaching B2, for some, having more Dutch friends than Turkish friends, for others, being indistinguishable from Dutch people. Some will take 3 years to integrate, while others will struggle for a lifetime. I am also trying to integrate, I got my NT2 diploma, I have been living in the Netherlands for more than 3 years, but I cannot say that I have completed my integration. Where does this integration end, where will I be satisfied? I suppose only time will tell.

Why are we here