80 Years Republic of Turkey -

News / bilateral tasks

8/Nov/2003 - 17:6

Workshop Importance of Turks in Today's Vienna
31.10.2003, 16.00 - 18.00
by Ayhan Evrensel

With a modest calculation, one out of every 40 person on the street in Austria has roots in Turkey.
This last workshop of the 3-day programme was dedicated to almost all aspects the Turks in Vienna today talk about: From stereotypes as a besieger or as a cleaning woman, to voting rights of immigrants.
Five Turks from Vienna's political and business world shared with the workshop audience their personal experiences of "being a Turk" in Vienna.
The two businessmen on the panel, Edip Bayizitlioglu and Mehmet Atis, gave samples of prejudice shown by clients and how they had to overcome them.
The discussion among the representatives of three major Austria political parties, Nurten Yilmaz, Sirvan Ekici and Alev Korun, showed the diversity of opinions among the Turkish Viennese intellectuals.
A dynamic question and answer session followed short presentations of how the speakers saw the Viennese Turks today. Questions from the audience included the language issues among Turkish immigrants, the difficulties in obtaining Austrian citizenship, voting rights, Turkish/Muslim cemeteries and efforts against discrimination.
From a moderator's point of view, the workshop's main outcome was the emphasis on integration, and that both Austrians and the Turks had still much to do to achieve this.