Welcome to a new German compound. This is, the blogster believes, the first one with an umlaut, which is the term used for a German vowel topped off with two wee dots.
Türkenhasser consists of the nouns "Türke" (person of Turkish ethnicity, a Turk) and "Hasser" (hater, despise), meaning someone who hates Turks. The term is a serious insult generally hurled at despicable xenophobes who specialize in denigrating people from Turkey or of Turkish origin.
Some time ago, a German friend asked us for some foreigner advice regarding a relationship between his teenage daughter and a Turkish immigrant son. We knew the two youngsters as well as the German parents. The young man seemed personable enough, with a slight macho tendency. He talked about his father being a very traditional man who prayed five times a day and did not like Germans much.
One day, the phone rang and the German friend asked if we could offer an opinion on a problem. The kind of problem best not talked about on the phone.
When he opened the door, his face showed stress and despair.
He called me a Türkenhasser, the German said, his hands shaking, his voice the voice of a person who felt deeply betrayed, whose trust had been shattered irreparably.
What the fuck?
The other day, several kids, including his daughter, had been sitting in the car in the driveway, and when he passed someone had gotten out and a cloud of pungent smell wafted across the driveway.
We asked our daughter if they had been doing drugs, and she explained that the owner and driver of the car, not she nor her boyfriend, had. And that the other guy had offered to drive her boyfriend that night because his car was in the shop. Of course, she told her boyfriend, and the following night he came into the house. headed straight toward me and yelled
Türkenhasser.
We calmed down the couple, the wife had joined us in the meantime, and together, we talked through various scenarios. In the end, they called the father of the young man and arranged a meeting that same afternoon.
When the father arrived, there was a brief surprise.
We knew him.
The two men disappeared into the living room while we finished off the coffee the girl's mother had made earlier. Then we said good bye to the men who were discussing the events and what to do.
Seeing and hearing the two, we looked at each other, smiling. If you didn't know that one of them was German and the other Turkish, you would not have been able to tell. The Turkish father had lived in Germany since age five or so, there was not the slightest hint of an accent, and the German father would have passed as Mediterranean with his black hair and the darker skin tone of a man who had worked outside for the better part of his life.
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