Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz

Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz is a German author, social researcher, anti-racism trainer and performer.

Their father emigrated from West Anatolia in Turkey to Berlin in the 1960s as a gastarbeiter.

He was interested in experiencing life in Germany but also in creating a better future for himself and his family.

A few years later he brought his wife to Germany.

He initially worked on construction sites, later as an interpreter and translator in public service.

His wife worked as a cleaner, factory worker and finally as a kitchen help in a kindergarten.

By moving to Germany they worked hard

to build a new life, hoping for a better future for their children and supporting the extended family in Turkey.

Initially they lived in Wedding (Berlin), which still is predominantly a working class and ethnically diverse area.

Ergün-Hamaz states about his early years: "I don't remember much of that time there, but I think I felt comfortable in kindergarten."

He has one older brother, Merih Ergün, who was born in 1972 in Berlin as well.

He was born on 2 June 1978 in Berlin, West Germany (now Germany).

Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz was born as Mutlu Ergün in 1978 in Berlin, Germany to Perihan and Muharrem Ergün.

His father had worked for a few years in public service, when in the early 1980s the house they lived in burnt down (who or what started the fire remained inconclusive).

They were then moved into a housing cooperative for people working in public service in Westend (Berlin).

Their family was the only Turkish-German family in the area.

Merih Ergün, his brother, was a good student in Wedding, but after the move to Westend he struggled a lot in primary school which shaped his experience of the German education system significantly

. Ergün-Hamaz notes that he himself "was also singled out because of [his] Turkishness in kindergarten in Charlottenburg and some of the children would refuse to engage with [him]. [He] remember[s] from a very early age feeling out of place in Charlottenburg, even asking [his] mother if [he] was German or Turkish [...] which [he] didn't really understand as a child because [he] just felt or wanted to feel like everyone else around [him] and not different."

In primary school, Ergün-Hamaz was considered a mediocre student.

He was not an angel in school, but mainly the students of color were branded as trouble-makers.

During his secondary school years, Ergün-Hamaz felt alienated and could tell that something was wrong in his country.

As a child, Ergün-Hamaz wanted to be a lawyer, but when he grew up he was more interested in writing and literature.

For him educational sciences was a good combination of psychology and sociology, that is why he decided to study Education and Contemporary German Literature at the Free University Berlin.

After finishing his studies, Ergün-Hamaz moved to Great Britain in 2006.

On the one hand to live with his partner Sofia Hamaz and on the other hand to start a master program in Race and Ethnic Relations at Birkbeck College, University of London.

He finished his master studies in 2008 and began doing his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the Sociology Department a year later.

Recently, he has been doing qualitative research on German anti-racism practitioners for his dissertation.

Ergün-Hamaz argues racism is still unconsciously prevalent in Western society.

The society is based on White privilege to the disadvantage of People of Color.

In order to undo racism, white people have to become aware of their racist attitude towards People of Color.

Ergün-Hamaz is i. a. influenced by Whiteness studies, Postcolonialism, Orientalism, Black feminism and Black Panther Party.

He applies their concepts to the situation of non-white German population.

Also, contemporaries as Sybil Phoenix and Noah Sow (de) had a crucial impact on Ergün-Hamaz.

Ergün-Hamaz gives an example for how children are inclined to develop an unconscious racism, describing how the TV news series for children Logo! explains terrorism to its young viewers.

For this purpose, it shows pictures of non-white Arabic terrorists.

The children learn to associate People of Color with terrorism.

Logo could have used a picture of a RAF terrorist as well.

To end this practice, Ergün-Hamaz proposes to introduce an organization as the Ofcom in Germany.

Ergün-Hamaz is best known for his debut novel Kara Günlük: Die Geheimen Tagebücher des Sesperado, published in Germany in 2010.

He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.