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Anastasia Balezdrova

The murder of the 44-year-old Manolis Kantaris by three immigrants in central Athens seemed to open the Pandora's Box. The hard clashes, involving members of the far right and left wing groups and the police created an atmosphere of uncertainty that has been strengthened by the attack on the police station in the district of Ekzarchia last Saturday. The Molotov cocktails seriously injured a saleswoman and a visitor to the open market, which is very close to the police building. The events provoked discussions at all levels, and the Minister for Citizens Protection Christos Papoutsis even accused the police in a lack of democracy in their actions to suppress the responses.

The problem with crime and turning into a ghetto the centre of Athens where there are a lot of immigrants, is not expected to fade soon. GRReporter consulted Dimitris Hristopoulos, an Assistant Professor at the University of Athens Pandion and President of the Hellenic League for Human Rights.

What is your assessment of the last week’s event?

The last week’s events were "stated" in advance. None of the people dealing with these issues were surprised by them. The fact that the things escalated in this way indicates that for a very long time the Greek state has withdrawn from an important field of exercising state power and social responsibility. As a result, and because there are no empty chairs in politics, the space was occupied by the far right. So, it was a matter of time for this to happen.

Therefore, the escalation of violence leads to situations that could not be forecasted through political means. Once it is on the agenda, on the one side and on the other, we could not know how far it would go.

Do you think the situation could become even worse?

We have to distinguish between the types of violence. The violence by the state is one thing and the violence by protesters is completely different, as odd as this might seem. An organised society could not meet stones with stones and kicks with kicks.

What often determines the particular actions of the Greek police in these cases is that they also respond to a "gang" as the defendant, for example, to the "gang" of protesters.

Furthermore, the violence that far right groups have implemented systematically in recent days is also different from all other types of violence. Of course, it was provoked for certain reasons. But in general, there are always reasons that cause violence in a society. The way in which the Greek media presented this systematic far-right variation in recent days is indicative of the overall atmosphere. The events were presented almost like: "well, maybe the young went a little too far and took the law into their hands." Very characteristic is the fact that all the media, from the most conservative to the most advanced, used precisely this term. This is not "taking the law into our hands." It would be if the victim's wife takes a gun and kills his killers, and not thousand of other people to attack another thousand people, having nothing in common with the case and kill them. This is called a pogrom, this is systematic crime.

What is it that caused the events?

The fact that the state has not been doing for years what it had to do. And I mean to take steps not only to suppress these reactions, because the discussion, which is currently taking place in Greece on this issue, is hinting that the state has not done everything necessary for the application of criminal law. This is only partially true. The state has not done what it had to do for its social responsibility, for the redistribution of income, for crime prevention and for many other things which require funds in this moment difficult from a financial point of view now. The first victim of the way Greece is trying to cope with the crisis is the social side. From this perspective, what we see today is the diminishing and the cancellation of these policies and the only thing to mention is suppressing the reactions.

Let us get to the essence of the topic. Are there many immigrants in Greece?

Nobody knows their exact number. If someone says something like that he or she does not know that he or she does not know or is lying. This is a very relative question. When all these people were working with low wages and the whole system was able to reproduce itself that way no one was talking about it. The question was put strongly in a time when the crisis broke out in the country. From there, it is important to mention that the state allowed a very large number of immigrants to settle in certain places. By this I mean that there are many immigrants in the centre of Athens. They are not everywhere, but concentrated in one place.

And in terms of actual figures, there is an immigrant issue – namely, that Greece, because of the current financial situation, is not able to do the minimum and even give them work. I.e. the question is not whether the immigrants are many, and whether many immigrants do not have work because people are not immigrants to go for a walk or for the adventure, but to work. If the main reason that drives immigration flows is not filled, i.e. the people can not work, and then there is the danger of social exclusion and everything. From this perspective, the question of whether the immigrants are many is wrong.

The substantial and "hot" question is how much a host society is able to "absorb" this population especially in the labour market. And secondly, to what extent the institutional structure of a country could integrate the population in social structures in one way or another. At present, it is more than evident that the Greek state was unsuccessful in both things.

All those years it was convenient to use the workforce of these people and it did nothing for their integration and now it got to this impasse, which I call "the failure of immigration policy."

Was there such a policy?

This actually was a non-policy. It resulted in that people could come to work in a country where they would live better than in their homeland and the Greeks would live better than before, because it could take advantage of cheap labour. For 15 years the system has been operating in this logic of informal positive amount of the informal economy in which we both have been in a better state than before. But it fell apart when the conditions for the financial crisis were created and I think that the time was not now, but in 2004 - 2005. There is the beginning of the story.

So, the question whether the immigrants are many or not is meaningless. If Greece is in a state of development it has room for other immigrants, and those who come create new jobs. This is something that the world history, sociology and economics of immigration show. The states are not closed systems with a capacity of 18.5 people, for example. If ten people can live in a country today, tomorrow one thousand and ten could live in it, because of the existing economic and social dynamics.

What are the stereotypes of the immigrants in Greece? Is there a different one from the way in which immigrants are accepted in other European countries?
 
Stereotypes are variables. Today there may be a stereotype that is entirely obsolete tomorrow. I think the most representative example is the endemic and violent stereotype that conquered the Greek society in the 1990s and that was aimed primarily against the immigrants from Albania. Today, the stereotype is forgotten in the worst case for them themselves, but in the best -it is considered that they are already integrated and are no longer immigrants. The truth lies somewhere in between again. And although we think that these people have integrated there is the problem with the second generation immigrants from Albania, faced with the economic crisis in a manner similar to that of their Greek peers. These young people, unlike their parents who arrived in Greece to provide "a piece of bread" have more requirements. They have greater expectations for their social integration. This applies to all immigrants and characterizes the history of immigration. Therefore, their requirements are high and because the overall level in Greece falls at that time the statements that the Albanians are fully integrated are not true. Of course, a large number of them are integrated, but others are being dismissed and very quickly though.

Here I want to point out that this applies not only to immigrants but also to the Greeks. The great debate on immigration that must be carried out should raise not only the issues of people's identity, origin, religion and culture but also the main point - the one that causes the movement of people. And this is neither religion, nor origin. This is the social layer. We should consider the problems of immigrants as a part of the general problems of the class to which a person belongs, whether immigrant or not.
 
Another stereotype typical for the last seven years in Greece is the Islamophobia to the immigrants coming from the Middle East and the Indian peninsula. It is no way inferior to the stereotype existing across Europe. It is even stronger due to the fact that Greece has a specific geographic location and the way it is used. And the last citizen asked will tell you "they all enter here." Well, all come in and come out here. Some stayed and others went. Of course, there is a problem with that, with the Dublin Regulation 2, the distribution of immigration burdens. But when Greece is seeking solidarity from other countries it should better think about what it would do if another country was on its place and whether it would show the least solidarity in the distribution of immigration burdens.

On Islamophobia, let me say that this stereotype has metamorphosed in Greece over the past decade. The anti- Islamic stereotype has existed for a long time and it was connected with Turkey and the relations between the two countries. This stereotype gradually withdrew and gave place to the traditional Western Islamophobic stereotype.

What should happen in order to allay tension and to resolve the immigration issue?

The question is very complex and giving "formulas for success" is ridiculous. Even the people who believe that the solution lies in extraditions are not aware of the things just because there are no extraditions. Not because there is no political will but because of the lack of funds or difficulties of a technical or human nature, and the few that have been made in recent years were mostly to Albania. Those that offer to open the borders perceive the things equally simple. Things are serious and need a strategy. No charity is needed, neither bigotry nor racism.

What should be done? Different things to the different categories of immigrants should be done. But first, I would like to say that it is too late. I feel great uncertainty and disappointment, because we allowed all this to continue long. First, the procedure for acquisition of Greek citizenship should be accelerated, especially for immigrants who are in the country legally and meet the legal requirements for that. The process has already begun, but now it looks more like a bicycle up the hill and the rider is gasping in an attempt to move forward but remains in the same place.

Second, the procedure for revoking the status of the legality of people who were rejected during previous procedures for legalization should be completed in any way. In Greece, as in other South European countries, the social integration of immigrants was based on the so-called "legalization". Some of them were legalized from time to time, to limit the number of illegal immigrants. This happened several times in Greece, Italy and Spain. The question lies in the fact that we still have a very large number of illegal immigrants in Greece today, which is equal to or greater than the number of legal ones. And new ones will be constantly added to them who are legal today, but due to inability to meet any of the requirements and mostly the term of service because of the crisis, they will lose their documents. I am familiar with the bill of the Ministry of Labour, which provides for a reduction in the number of working days. We should have many similar initiatives in order to solve the issues at least for the people who are already integrated and not to "throw" them rather than integrate them further.

I find two categories among the illegal immigrants. The first includes those who have never been legalized in any way, but from a social point of view they meet the conditions for social integration. Therefore, a social mechanism should be found for these people to be legalized at one point if they continue to live this way. This is something provided by the law, but does not apply because the government is not convinced that we should apply it.

The people who are in the country illegally and represent a critical mass that creates all the panic need to be registered. Thus we would find out who they are, how, where and under what conditions they live, what their health condition is, whether they have children and whether they attend school. If this does not happen I really have no idea where it could begin. Furthermore, if the government knows how many and who these people are, the state could decide to create a legal framework for legalization under certain conditions after a certain period of time or to establish an extradition system, which would be deferred until the moment when it would be possible to apply it.

All this, however, requires a lot of work, greater coordination and political will, and I am not certain of their existence.