THIS CHAPTER TRACKS VICISSITUDES OF THE iconic figure of the male labor migrant through three decades of writing. “Ali in Wunderland” was Gail Wise's apt title for her Ph.D. dissertation on German writers' representations of foreign workers (1995). “Alle Türken heissen Ali” (All Turks are Called Ali) was the working title of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Angst essen Seele auf (Fear Eats the Soul, 1974), in which the actor El Hedi ben Salem plays a Moroccan called El Hedi ben Salem M'Barek Mohammed Mustapha, but known in Germany as Ali. As in Katzelmacher (Dago, 1969) (where the “Ali” figure is a Greek named Jorgos), the immigrant is a device that reveals the economic, materialistic, and pragmatic underpinnings of personal relations under capitalism. His status as worker and outsider and his exotic sexual attraction make him a plot motor. These films scarcely explore his subjectivity: they repeat and display Ali's objectification in German society.

The representation of “Ali” is a key site of cultural and political struggle for Turkish German writing and one where issues of class conflict are as important as issues of nation, race, and ethnicity. The obverse of a cosmopolitan character, iconic Ali suffers from a multiply compounded lack of cultural, social, and economic resources. His displacement is traumatic; his individuality and humanity are denied. He is nothing more than typical. He is socially invisible, unless as an object of pity, of racist aggression, or, more rarely, of erotic fascination. When writers take upon themselves the task of re-establishing his humanity on his behalf, they risk patronizing him, and merely confirming his powerlessness.