Göç ve Edebiyat: Londra'nın Türk Göçmenleri

Abstract

This paper examines the link between the monocultural British education system and the struggles of UK immigrants, with a focus on London’s Turkish community. Widespread hostility towards migrants and foreign culture in British society is concluded to stem from the assimilationist ideology originally at the heart of the education system and its policies. It is argued that monoculturalism itself is the mother of racism, and that Britain’s monocultural education system has been feeding racial tensions for decades. Similar concerns regarding the education system are covered, such as institutional racism. Multiculturalism and its promotion of tolerance if not respect towards cultural differences is proposed as a solution to replace monoculturalism. London’s Turkish community, it’s history and “self-sufficiency” is examined in detail, especially the causes behind widespread academic underachievement in younger generations. It has been advised that a middleman helps schools and parents communicate and cooperate, as lingual barriers and lack of parental involvement seem to be the biggest causes. On the literary side, the lack of new authors in the Turkish community is attributed to poor academic success and lack of cultural cultivation, while the paucity of translated material is attributed to public disinterest in foreign works, again caused by monoculturalism. Overall, it is concluded that the tendency of Turkish immigrants to rely on their network of countrymen to get things done, as well as lingual, racial, and social barriers have all contributed to an unintentional segregation of the Turkish immigrants from the rest of British society.