Hadise's Eurovision confession years later
Hadise shared her own experience as an expatriate at the Gurbet Kuşu Festival she attended. Hadise said, 'Living somewhere else as an expatriate gives you a bit of a head start.'
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Singer Hadise attended the Gurbet Kuşu Festival, held as part of the 60th-anniversary celebrations of the Belgium-Turkey Migration Agreement.
Emphasizing that being an expatriate means longing, loneliness, and heartbreak, Hadise stated, "My mother and father moved to Belgium in the 1970s. I was born in 1985. I went to school there. Of course, the differences between the two languages are incredible. I made many mistakes while speaking Dutch. In fact, they still say, 'We can tell from your accent that you are not from here.'"
'I FEEL LIKE I BELONG TO MYSELF'
Stating that living somewhere else as an expatriate gives a person a "head start," Hadise continued her words as follows:
"You have to be stronger. You have to stand tall. I had a very good school period. I was selected for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009. I represented my country in Moscow. At that time, they asked here, 'Why is an expatriate girl representing our country?' In Belgium, they said, 'This girl was born in Belgium, why isn't she representing us?' Standing tall with all these feelings was a very interesting experience for me. When you ask expatriates, 'Where do you feel you belong?', I don't think the answer to that is very easy. I feel like I belong to myself."