Who helped you? Maybe Turkish or Syrian organizations, where there nay of these two that helped you in the process that had to do with the business?

3.3. How did they help you?

Follow up question: Role of the government?

In customs also, no information. Yes, they mentioned in their website, invest in Turkey.

And in Gaziantep investing as a foreigner is much harder than Istanbul because there were so many foreign companies in Istanbul - so the accountant has the ability to give the information in English or in Arabic better than in Gaziantep. Before we came, 97% of the companies were owned by locals. Gaziantep in terms of inhabitants are also a bit tough, they aren’t used to see so many tourists and foreigners. But Istanbul is a different situation.

3.4. Role of formal or informal institutions

No not government. But from an institution. We got help from the European Bank. We did a program with them. They taught us about the server with the data base and you don’t any lose your data. We signed a contract with a consultant firm. They came and they thought our team everything they needed to know about how to save our data. Also, about some standards. Knowing the standards. It was a very good program and the European bank was very helpful. I hope the Turkish government learns from the European Bank because it wasn’t complicated, it was very easy.

Follow up question: What is this NGO called?

SIAD – Syrian Entrepreneurs and Businessmen

This association helped us a lot and we felt that we are very responsible to do something because I lost maybe more than 50,000 USD and some bigger companies lost more. And some people to start their business sold their wife’s gold or maybe their family gold. And you don’t want to make them loose this money so we start to do some conferences, invite people that actually...and also in this association we faced many problems because won’t trust any association anymore. Maybe they were thinking ‘Oh they are from the Syrian government and the Syrian government need to know whose business and businessmen moved to Turkey’. They all had these thoughts. And I totally understand them because I thought the same when we started creating this association. We had many thoughts. If I weren’t 100% trustful to everyone in this room, we wouldn’t do it. But we trust the chairman - let’s say, and the board members. But the people who trust us and who came with us and who joined the association, they made a lot of money. Just between our members, selling and buying our estimate was more that 6 million USD. And of course, avoiding the problems when we shared our experience, the new announcement from the government translated to Arabic. After that, someone found a guy accountant who was able to speak Arabic. I found an accountant who was able to speak in English. He is trustful.

We would help the buyers. But we couldn’t do this kind of force in Syria. It was forbidden.

But that the chairman changed and unfortunately it closed. SIAD closed. Because of the many problems that they face. But they opened a new association with a new name, it’s called ASSIAD. This ASSIAD, all the problems that we tried to solve in 2015, hopefully they avoid them in 2019 and onward. Everything can change. They do everything professional.

Follow up question: The Chamber of Commerce?

We attend some conferences and some educations sessions. Just that. I always send one of our team members to attend some education, but it’s nothing, I pay them for this education.

In the Chamber they have a Syrian table by the way, and they were the first Chamber to do this. An there is an employer who is Syrian, he is helpful if you go and ask him for something.

Chambers use this Syrian thing to get more contacts and money, I think.

Talking about taxation in 2017, I was the one who raised his hand and talked to them. And 2 hours for talking about tax system is nothing. We need a whole education. Maybe more than 50 hours. And they didn’t do. We always by the way write some recommendation to, but not just us all the Syrians. We have very good ideas, but they don’t do anything. And they actually loose. We started with 4 employees and now we are 24, and we rely totally on our experience and our profits. So, if they had better programs I believe we are more than 50 employees now, but they don’t.

Follow up question: And how did you manage when the chamber started to explain the system? Did you just ask people you know who were Turkish for example or business you know who know the system? Like how did you manage to understand the system before the chamber started offering its services?

We used to ask people. We used to ask our accountant and also the Chamber. But even, when you talk nothing it’s not like when you do your thing. It’s not the same at all. So, we did many mistakes in the beginning. Actually in 2013, most of the Syrian businessmen they did their mistakes. And it’s really normal. We decided to do something actually as business men because you know we have our suppliers, our customers, they moved with us to Turkey or to Gaziantep exactly, so we used to talk in the evening with Shisha, about what will we do because people (Syrian business men) start to come more and more to start up their business in Turkey. So, after many nights of talking we decided to in 2015 to start an NGO. It’s like an NGO related with Syrian business exactly. Were we help each other in one group in WhatsApp. Sharing some experiences. Like, this person failed in this section in this area, try to avoid it, and so on. New order came from the government, something happened something changed in taxes. We did so much to stay updated. This did so much for us.

3.5. Role of the family?

To be or not to be – this is our motto. We were working a lot, and actually I wasn’t so helpful at the time because there wasn’t so much experience. My family had the experience but didn’t have the language. And we were very normal in Syria we don’t do any advertisement. Everything we produce we sell. We don’t have big stocks. And we know all the owners of the pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies. But just the team, even the owners.

3.6. Role of friends?

Yes, of course. This job that we succeeded in now, actually it became possible thanks to friends. By the way, my dearest friend he is Kurdish, we used to study together, and we know each other very well, I attend his wedding and he did the same. His family, my family know each other very well and he was very helpful. And he also always writes letters to the government. He didn’t tell me, his wife told me. He wrote letters about the behavior towards the refugees and how they also were people. But unfortunately, we as human being you, face some problem in your day, it will ruin your day and maybe your next day so fall

7 times and you will rise the 8^th time. And I called my two daughters Turkish names because I don’t want them to face the things that me or my wife faced in the future when they will go to school. I called them Tuba and Mira. It’s also Arabic names.

3.7. Role of religion?

We are brothers and we are from the same religion. In the beginning they feel even more responsibility, like they are our neighbors. They wanted to help refugees as much as they could. People who came with no money, no nothing they found everything. They got a home, clothes, food, blankets… everything. When I used to volunteer, I remember there were huge Turkish groups who came to help with what they could. Of course, I am talking about 2012-2014. Turkish people felt so much responsible. They helped more than the government. Turkish people did it from the heart.

Follow up question: And what about now? Are there still people that share the religion and still help?

Yes! But nothing like in the beginning. Because the media did their job by sharing every bad story about the Syrians as they could.

4. Barriers of starting the business faced to Turkish society 4.1. What difficulties did you encounter when you started?

- Language: I was lucky because I was studying here be fore the war happened. So, my Turkish is quite good.

- Culture shock: Not so much because Aleppo is near to Turkey, so we have things in mutual. We have common phrases, that only Aleppian use and that no other parts in Syria use. And my father used to treat some raw materials from Turkey to Syria and the opposite in 1960-1970, so he also has knowledge about their culture in his age. And also, the Turkish opposite help us. Also, the Turkish TV shows used to be translated in Syria. So, people already knew something from the TV shows. My father was 73 years old when he moved from Syria to Turkey and he is my hero. He came to me the first day asking me to take him to the market. I went with them the first time and ‘I say okay Daddy and Mommy now you will rely on yourselves’. I went with you on the first time like the first day of school and you didn’t come with me the second time so now it’s you. And actually, that was a good lesson. Because I did the same with all our relatives, with all our friends. Because we all love easy things. But they can’t get used to help all the time. So, this forced everyone I know to go and attend some Turkish lessons. And they used to ask me a lot to translate things. And after that now, their Turkish is better than mine because they attend their Turkish schools and they came here 6-8-12 years old. They were much younger. So, their Turkish is perfect now. Sometimes I ask them for help. And by the way, the Syrians now in all the schools, and all kind of ages they are always the best and that made them face so many problems because people are bullying them. Because you are Syrian, and you talk better Turkish and you do math better than me and you are a refugee and we still face this..

- Integration: No. It wasn’t an issue. Because, we were already businessmen in Syria. So, we already had some kind of relationships with different people. We used to travel a lot to Turkey, and Europe.. so, we saw many things. But some people who were in Aleppo or

maybe Idlib, they didn’t even travel to Damascus. Living in Syria as mentioned before, with a dictator, the education is not very good. You work maybe 12-14 hours a day and that made you a little bit maybe unaware of other cultures. You work a lot and you don’t have the time or the money to travel or attend some courses. These people probably face problems in integration. It’s normal.

- Discrimination: As a businessman, no. The companies are always very welcome. They even avoid asking me about the situation in Syria. Image is very important. In Turkey I always wear a suit, and I have a very nice car, so people think oh he is very rich. And that gives me no problem. And also, when I talk, they can’t always tell that I am Syrian.

- Business Culture: The most difficult thing when we started in Turkey, I don’t know. Like every country in this world it’s very different. Being foreign, you don’t know exactly what the right is and what is the wrong. And being foreign and being new, that made you the best target for all authorities. They will point out the mistakes and try corruption to oversee these mistakes. Being foreign, you are the best target for them, and we actually lived this situation. You don’t know if this businessman is honest or not. You see, some Turkish examples, Turkish companies close a lot. When they close because they have these mistakes in the taxation and invoices. So, we always worry. Actually, in the beginning, the first 4 years. I’m not talking about months.

Follow up question: Is it because the government is very strict with these mistakes?

Yes! And you don’t know anyone. They have special people for these kinds of cases. Very big lawyers with contacts let’s say. Local people could create these kinds of problems. And everything we paid from is from our pockets. Everything. But Turkish companies they have some special association and they helped them with catalogs. Like they pay just 20% of the catalog. We go and we apply for this, and they refuse because we are foreigner. Also, some different programs could not help. Everything for the Turkish companies. Actually, we are a Turkish company, but of Syrian owners. And when I was a student, they used to call me foreigner. Now no, they call me Syrian. So, you start to hate this kind of phrase.

And the first letter with ‘S’ even if it’s someone standing far. You know he is talking about Syrians. However, more Syrian who understand more Turkish, answer them. Now we understand Africans better, we understand Palestinians better, we understand Iraqis better because we lived the same situation. I think most of the Syrians now think globally.

Because after losing things you understand the people that they lost lives. Of course, we are stronger now, day by day, but like my wife she lost her mother in this war, so sometimes I see her awake and crying. And after that I see my father who he was like a king, he has more than 50 kids and grandkids. He was in the village and everyone around him was family. And now some of his children are still in Syria, some of them went to Sudan, which is so much worse, some of them went to Saudi Arabia, some of them to Istanbul, some in Gaziantep, I also see the sadness in his face. But day after day we got used to it. But we always try to avoid the people who are talking negatively. Even about Turkish people.

Because if you are always complaining about let’s say the government, or the locals, the doctors.. all the stories come out and that makes you lose your energy, your faith. So, we decided in my group of family and friend no negative stories.

- Knowledge of Turkish law:

- Work permit situation: We used to apply for it in different way and it used to take more than two months. And it used to cost more. And now everything is online. You apply on the website and they don’t refuse it. At once they tell you the reasons and if you have some papers that you didn’t upload, they tell you which ones you are missing. And after that you will get it easily in one month. And that was a good thing for them and us. After this, and it was in 2018, I was able to get insurance and health care for my employees.

- The media: Some writers came to ask me some questions and were probably expecting negative answers. But we really try to stay positive. We feel responsible. So, we didn’t want to share some negative stories that we lived at that time because we are now in Turkey and we must do everything positive even if we faced some problems. And after that some people from Italy, France, they came, and the interview was 5 minutes because we didn’t share the negative stories. But after 5 years of problems, we reach the limit, it gets enough and we must share. I always want to talk positively and be positive, but now the situation is different, we must share these stories and to create or help to have a better world, to avoid these and problems in the future because the refugee issue will always get bigger and bigger. Now, COVID-19 has taught many things to this government but there was even more decease in Africa, people were dying in thousands every day. But not only because of decease, but because of lack of food, because of lack of many things we need in your daily life, but nobody looked at it. We discovered after the COVID - we knew it before, but we live it now - we maybe are just numbers to all the governments. Many things will change after COVID-19. And hopefully the situation will be better. Because we always hope for the best for all the people. But this problem of COVID-19, the worst cases happened in the middle east, it happened in Africa, but they don’t pay much attention to it.

And things happen in Italy, Paris, in America, Netherlands and it’s handled differently.

After this revolution in Syria we were talking and often catching up on the amount of people who died in different cities. After some time, we were not mentioned in the news again. We became old news.

Follow up question: Do you know If there are any media channels who tried to rebuild this image other media channels have constructed, to show that Syrians aren’t all criminals etc..?

SIAD is one of them. Turkey about 3 years ago faced the military coup. When they faced this after 3 days, we gathered all the Syrian businessmen, and we walked in the street rising the Turkish flag. We also called the channels and the press and did some announcement about that. Just to show that we were also good. Also, the economic was very bad after months, we did some deposit from USD to TL, and we announced that too. Normally, when we do bad things you will show it in 50 channels, and we did a good thing and you only saw it in one channel and in a time where no one is watching.

- Did the status of being a refugee play any role?

4.2. Would you say that there is a difference between starting a business as a Syrian refugee and other groups? Why?

It’s the same. As a foreigner you need extra papers. No, no, actually it’s not the same because when you come to Turkey and you don’t have the ID or passport, life is miserable in Turkey because they don’t have travel documents and also about the residence permit, they only give per 6 months or one year, and it depends on your passport, and when you don’t have one you need a different ID (Affad ID) that requires a permission you need to apply for. So, when you want to open a company, this can hinder the process because they will ask for so many extra documents. And when you can’t travel, that means you can’t market yourself properly and get new clients. Because every step you will do, you will need permission. But now we are equal after Corona because even Turkish people need this permission to travel.

4.3. Did you seek help elsewhere? What about in terms of financial help? Did you