"Laughter Fosters Integration"

Senay was the first German-Turkish stand-up comedian. With her jokes about Turks living in Germany and about cultural differences, she sheds a humorous light on some serious subjects. Petra Tabeling talked with the comedian.

A town in Thuringia. Senay does not have her headscarf with her today for her guest appearance. She forgot it. But that was actually a good thing, because otherwise the skinheads might have taken notice of her.

She feels a certain solidarity with the East Germans, she says; after all, her own family comes from the East as well – from eastern Turkey. And as everybody knows, people in Turkey like to make jokes about their Easterners, too.

With a charming smile and innocent wink of her eye, the German-Turkish comedian takes her place at the microphone and manages to quickly win over the audience. Playing around rhetorically with familiar clichés about different cultures and religions, she makes everyone laugh, Germans and Turks alike.

That notorious piece of cloth

With her clever wit, the artist touches on today's vehement debates on Islam and integration and manages to take the wind right out of their sails. Take, for example, the headscarf.

"I used to perform wearing a headscarf because I wanted to show that it wouldn't stop anyone from laughing," says the 32-year-old, who grew up in Germany. Senay comes from a family that is not especially strict when it comes to religion, but who nonetheless wanted to bring their daughter up traditionally.

"Until I was about 20, I suffered under the burden of my culture. I even voluntarily wore a headscarf - so that my father wouldn't recognize me on the street on the way to a friend's birthday party," relates Senay with a chuckle.

"Once I wanted to go to the disco for teenagers. And my father would only let me go if I wore a headscarf. He thought no one would look at me then. But I told him that then they would really be staring. He could see my point."

She was the stubborn and willful one in the family, says Senay today, but because of her early self-reliance and good education she managed to gain a great deal of respect in her family.

Senay became acquainted with many religions and cultures in the course of living in London and the USA. Tolerance of other people's decisions and ways of life is therefore particularly important to her: "Freedom for me means not placing restrictions on others. You should let other people live as they see fit. And if someone wants to wear a headscarf, they should go ahead and do it."

This also includes not making snap judgments about other Muslim customs. For example, Ramadan: "I had to first do some research to find out what the real meaning of Ramadan is."

The rocky road to comedic happiness

While Senay was studying architecture in Duisburg, she increasingly became aware that her true talents lay in making other people laugh. But the path to turning that gift into a career was not an easy one. After completing her degree at 27, she was too old for acting school. Instead, she took private lessons for two years.

The hard work was well worth it, because in 2002 she was asked to be a guest in a comedy show for the first time, on VIVA. Next came an appearance in a young talent contest on Sat 1, where she made it to the final round in the comedy category. She also appeared on television with Django Asül.

The strength to laugh at yourself

Senay worked at a whole series of odd jobs to finance her education and training. And the benefits were more than just financial, because her jokes are often based on her own experiences, on everyday observations of life in Germany, and on stories about her own Turkish relatives, who have been living in Düsseldorf for over 30 years.

"If my mother can't laugh about them and about herself, then I know she must have real problems. It's great when people feel equally entitled to poke fun at each other. Being able to laugh at yourself shows strength. I like to laugh at myself, too."

And to do so, Senay slips into her own German-Turkish identity, "We Turks might put up a strong, aggressive front, but we can quickly make each other melt by joking about ourselves and our mothers."

Senay doesn't tell her jokes from a German perspective, but instead from the point of view of foreign women living here, whether Italian, Indian, Russian - or, of course, Turkish.

The limits of humor

But humor does have its limits. "For example, I would not make jokes about Afghanistan in front of every audience. How can we hope to really understand their emotionality? The conditions there are so completely different. The people are living in a state without a stable order. We have to measure ourselves by our own standards."

By now, there are a few other comedians of German-Turkish origin, who are pushing the boundaries with their jokes: Kaya Yanar with his TV show "Was guckst du?" for example.

Senay admires her colleague for daring to skirt the limits: "Half of his audience is Turkish. But still, no one gets up and slugs him or tries to threaten him. He does what he does really well, but I wouldn't go there. For me, that would be going too far."

Senay comes across on stage as direct, likeable and natural. "If I had gone to acting school, I wouldn't be so relaxed. With stand-up comedy I have to be interactive, to watch the audience and gage their reactions."

"When I perform, I first summon Jesus, Maria and Buddha - Moses is also welcome – and then I implore them: 'Help me, I'm so nervous!' And that always helps to calm me down."

Oscar material: Laughter needs no language

For Senay, the great thing about laughter is that it's the universal language. "There are even different translations for the sounds animals make. In Turkey the donkey says "ai-ai" and in Germany "i-a." But when you're laughing, you don't need an interpreter. I do respect it, though, if people have a different idea of humor."

At present, Senay is working on a piece on the theme of "Deutschländer" – a parody of Turks living in Germany, from the Turkish standpoint. She would like to take the routine on a tour through Turkish prisons and perform it for street children in Istanbul as well.

"It's very easy to make someone cry. But when I make two people sitting in the same room who hold opposing viewpoints laugh at the same time, then I have really accomplished something. I would give myself an Oscar if I could manage to make everyone laugh."

Petra Tabeling

Translation from German: Jennifer Taylor-Gaida

Homepage Senay (in German)