Zeynep is 28, mother of three and lives in Hamburg/ Germany. She takes care of the extended family´s household and does not speak a word of German. She only leaves the flat to go to her Koran studies. She is an »import bride«, a modern slave – sold against the bride price. Thousands of young Turkish women are taken to Germany for arranged marriages each year. Basic democratic rights do not apply for them, nobody is interested in their destiny. These women stay strangers in the foreign country and often live the life of a servant. Necla Kelek, Turkish with a German passport, gives account of the failed integration of Turks in Germany. To provide the reader with background information, she recapitulates the Turkish marriage-tradition, going back about 100 years, choosing her own family as an example. Her great-grandfather gained wealth through selling female slaves to the Sultan´s harem. Her grandfather kidnapped his later wife as a guerilla, her father bought his wife for two oxen and was one of the first Turkish foreign workers in Germany. And she tells about her own fight to break free from these traditions. Subsequently, she analyzes the situation in today´s Germany: The Turkish-Muslim community refers to cultural traditions and religious freedom and dissociates itself from the German society. The members find the understanding of liberal Germans who rather ignore their own constitution than risking an accusation to be xenophobic. Necla Kelek gives an inside account of love and servitude, honor and respect, and the most important issue in a Turkish family´s life: marriage. This is a very personal book that offers a key to understanding Turkish-islamic culture and states a critical perspective to multi-culture-illusions.
