It doesn’t happen any day, that you officially welcome someone into a community, with all pomp and circumstance. So today, I am really proud to introduce my old friend Zelimir to you, who, finally after the 21 years that I’ve known him, has recently received his German passport. Zeli, whose family hails from Serbia, former Yugoslavia, agreed to talk about becoming a German here at the Gumboot.

Enthusiastic about German reading culture and literature: Zelimir Pecenica (31).

Pete: I remember being on the phone with you back in High School, when you were with your parents spending the summer in Beograd. The situation always reminded me of that Ramones-song: “You by the phone, you all alone – It’s a long way back to Germany…” So, finally you are officially a German citizen! Congratulations, mate! Do you feel any different now?

Zeli: Emotionally, it’s not much of a difference, since I’ve always lived in Germany. So, what’s new? Travelling in the EU is a lot easier now. Also, when dealing with bureaucracy, there are no more questions about my heritage anymore. I’m German, period. When you’re not a native, people will always harbour secret doubts about language proficiency and so on. The citizenship helps.

Pete: What was it like to vote in an election for the first time?

Zeli: I’ve lived here all my life, and now my vote counts, at last. My first election was the EU-parliament, and then I did the municipal elections here in Solingen and the election for the Bundestag in 2009. When you’ve never been able to do that, you really feel how special democracy is.

Pete: Do you think your relationship to Serbia will change?

Zeli: Merely acquiring a new citizenship doesn’t really change that. Yet it’s been a long and slow process, and I can say that I now relate to my ancestry in a different way. Maybe I’m just more serious about dealing with my roots.

Pete: What did your parents say, when they got the news?

Zeli: They like it, though it’s a cut. But then my status isn’t transitory any longer. My parents lived in Germany for fourty years, and they’re still not allowed to vote. Also, my dad said: “Son, it’ll also be better for your job perspective.”

Pete: Who gave you a harder time? The infamous German bureaucracy or the guys in Beograd?

Zeli: They were both tricky, on different levels. They took more bribes in Beograd, yet the Germans were also tough. Here I am, perfectly integrated into German society, fluent as a native speaker, good High School education, studying German and English literature at Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf – come on! Why the long wait with all that evidence in my favour?!?!?

Pete: What do you like especially about Germany?

Zeli: You have your rights here, as a citizen, and they’re respected. Also, everything is in order, be it infrastructure or bureaucracy. We know how to run things, this country simply works. And I like the high cultural level, the book- and reading-culture, the incredible way in which every small town sports the odd museum and library. There’s only a German term that describes this aptly: “Kulturnation”. Germany is a nation of culture.

Pete: What do you like better about old Serbia?

Zeli: Back “home” (in inverted commas, since my home is Solingen), people are more overtly emotional. They socialise easier, and they’re not as prone to having idiotic things dictated to them by the state. Nobody crosses the street at a red light in Germany, and if you do, at least two bystanders are bound to glare at you.

Pete: Now for a touchy question. All of us remember the civil war that tore Yugoslavia apart in the nineties. What was that like – seeing the war on TV, in your parents’ home-country, and with all your relatives living there?

Zeli (sighs): That was a difficult time. As a teenager, you’re struggling with your identity anyway, and such a situation doesn’t help. Especially, since the mainstream media made Serbia out as “the bad guys”, although in reality, it was of course a bit more complex than that. Some Germans seemed to be glad to finally be able to point their fingers at others. I rejected the war, yet of course the fault for it wasn’t on only one side. I didn’t tell a lot of people for a long time about my ancestry, unless I had to. But luckily, time is a healer.

Pete: Could Germany have done more for you and your integration?

Zeli: Not for me, obviously. I’m training to be a High School-teacher in the not too distant future. But lots of other foreigners in Germany could have needed and still need more help in finding their way around. A lot of people feel that all German society does for them is build them a ghetto.

“MULTI-KULTI” – Germany, home of many cultures

Germany has roughly 82.2 million inhabitants. 7.3 million have a different nationality, making them 8.8 %. In our province, Northrhine-Westphalia, you find 1.9 million people amongst the 18 million inhabitants who don’t have a German passport (10.6 %). Solingen alone hosts over 130 different nationalities. The largest group are Solingers with Turkish citizenship, followed by Italians. Then you get a lot of “foreigners” from former Yugoslavia like Zeli, and almost as many Greek Solingers, constituting the fourth larger group. 14 percent of all people in Solingen are not native Germans.

Check out this youtube-video (in English!)  about young immigrants who are less lucky than my buddy Zeli – courtesy of Deutsche Welle-TV: