In the 2010s, as large numbers of asylum seekers arrived in Europe, anti-migrant discourses rose throughout the continent. Within this overwhelmingly xenophobic atmosphere, many migrants and members of minority groups did not accept their outsider status but showed that they belong to Europe in different ways. This chapter presents an example from Berlin, Germany which illustrates how minorities in Europe show their centrality to the working of their cities and receive support from different parts of their societies (Filiz 2018). The goal is to provide an example of minority agency and solidarity contributing to the scholarship on how immigrants respond to the emerging challenges they face in Europe.

In 2015, code enforcement offices in certain neighborhoods in Berlin started to enforce a previously ignored law that forbade most shops from opening on Sundays. This law was enforced especially for spatis (corner shop-like businesses that are open late hours and on Sundays when most other shops are closed) in northern parts of Neukölln, a “hip” neighborhood known for sizable migrant populations. This sudden change affected many Turkish shopkeepers – where “Turkish” refers to individuals who migrated from Turkey or whose parents or grandparents came from Turkey, and not to an ethnic identity – who made up a large portion of spati owners and workers, especially in neighborhoods affected by this enforcement. Thus, members of the largest minority in this European capital experienced a bureaucratic dystopia that contradicted Berlin's permitting and diversity-friendly image. Turkish owners and workers did not simply accept this sudden change which threatened to bring an end to their operations. Instead, they responded to this bureaucratic dystopia by defining their businesses as indispensable for this cosmopolitan European city.

Responding to the Sunday bans

The law entitled “Berlin Shop Opening Law” (Berliner Ladenöffnungsgesetz) regulates businesses’ operating hours and states that shops are not allowed to open on Sundays. In response to the enforcement of this law, spati owners established a professional society under the name Berliner Späti e.V (Berlin Späti Organization). The group started their operations when the Sunday bans intensified in 2015 and had their official opening after the local elections in September 2016. Almost all the members were Turkish when the organization was founded.