The Greeks' Persistent Uneasiness With Minorities and Migrants

AIM Athens, January 1, 2000

The "Millenium" festivities the Greek government in cooperation with the Municipality of Athens organized (and were partly broadcast internationally) reflected the still prevailing "otherphobic" Hellenocentric attitude in Greece, shared by the vast majority of opinion makers and people, and enhanced by the public silence of those who in private oppose it. A lavish budget was used to celebrate the coming year 2000 through honoring Greece's musical traditions; or rather the long-established in the country ethnic Greeks' musical traditions. But one sixth of the country's present total population of some eleven millions could not recognize their own, usually rich, cultural traditions in the official program.

Excluded was even the music of the ethnic Greeks who have migrated or found refuge to the country in the 1990s (Greeks from Albania and the former Soviet Union) or in the last quarter century (Greek Cypriots): no wonder they often -but never too loudly- complain of being "discriminated against in their own country." Only the musical traditions of the long ago uprooted Greeks from Turkey were honored. On the other hand, the dozens of immigrant communities that have settled in Greece most in the 1990s (Albanians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Poles, Filipinos, etc.) and are in the process of legalization were not invited to the celebration either, although they have been participating in or organizing a growing number of music and dance festivals every year in Athens and elsewhere.

At the same time, neither were invited the country's traditional cultural minorities: Arvanites and Vlachs (with a Greek national conscience but distinct traditions), Turks and Macedonians (with distinct both national conscience and cultural tradition), and, above all, the largest distinct cultural community of Roma, whose musical traditions are not only well known but have substantially influenced Greek popular music.

This ethnocentric event was only the last one in 1999 to show how uneasy many people in Greece, including many purported to advocate human rights and diversity, feel with the country's minorities and immigrants, especially when they deal with foreigners, giving the impression that they have something to hide or to be ashamed of. Regrettably such discriminatory behavior is sometimes legitimized by the acquiescence of foreigners with distinguished records on human rights advocacy.

A usual field where such uneasiness is expressed is the exploratory informative visits of representatives from intergovernmental institutions. Characteristic was the organization of the "National Round Table on Racism and Xenophobia" in Salonica in November, in the framework of the newly established EU financed and Vienna-based European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, whose Director Beate Winkler was present. The round table itself was delayed for many months and, when organized, no minority or migrant organization was invited (nor Greece's representative to the EU-supported European Network Against Racism). When some NGOs protested, the organizers invited only migrants but no religious or national minorities. Who were the organizers? Greece's official delegations to the European Commission on Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and the Vienna Center itself, assisted by the Secretary General for European Affairs of the Greek Foreign Ministry. The latter along with some officially chosen speakers defended during the meeting what even the Deputy Ombudsman present qualified as a myth, that of "traditional Greek tolerance."

Two months before, a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe delegation came to inquire into the problems of the Turkish minority. The ethnic Turkish deputies complained that they were informed literally in the last moment of the delegation's presence and were invited to discuss the issue with them only during an official dinner with the presence of Greek authorities. They had to impose a separate meeting with the delegation.

A few weeks later, the OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities Max van der Stoel came to Greece in an effort to support the previously announced new government line to respect the self-identification of national minorities and ratify the Framework Convention on National Minorities. The visit reportedly created uneasiness among many senior diplomats who tried to "contain" it: so, in the public lecture the High Commissioner gave, the organizers of the -closely linked to those diplomats- Greek Foundation for International and European Affairs (ELIAMEP) had not invited any representatives of the minorities concerned. A separate closed meeting had to be organized by Greek NGOs for the minorities to be able to meet with the High Commissioner. In the meeting were also invited the Ombudsman and the OSCE desk officer of the foreign ministry. The latter's confidential memo on that meeting was leaked to a hostile to minority rights rightwing and usually racist newspaper, most likely by some other uneasy diplomat, so as to fuel the opposition to the new minority policy of the minister.

In late November as well, two NGOs (including the Hellenic League for Human Rights) organized conferences on human and minority rights. Minorities, with one exception, were not invited to share their views or even attend the meetings (but many intolerant and nationalist politicians were speakers in one of them). But, in this case, the organizers benefited from the presence of distinguished foreign human rights advocates, including Danielle Mitterrand and a representative of the Human Rights Association of Turkey, who knowingly opted to attend. They refused to see that, for many Greeks, their popularity is due not to the fact that they advocate human rights in general but that they severely criticize Turkish human rights violations and support the struggle of the Kurds.

Another case where Greek uneasiness with minorities and the consequential exclusion of those who address their concerns received international caution is the Royaumont process of the EU. The program is headed by a Greek with a Greek-staffed secretariat based in Athens. The program's efforts to create a Balkan NGO network were given to a foundation linked with Greece's major media empire (which opposed even the Greek foreign minister's new minority policy last summer). The Helsinki Committees that were invited in the first couple of meetings in Salonica (June 1998) and Budapest (September 1998) were not invited again in the ensuing 1999 meeting. Probably because of their insistence in the first meeting on the inclusion of human and minority rights in the network's agenda and because in the second meeting they co-initiated and subsequently distributed a NGO statement critical of government restrictions to human rights and minority NGOs. The latter initiative, that was welcomed and widely distributed by many international NGOs, was in fact even criticized by the Council of Europe's own NGO section, which had co-organized the meeting.

The prevailing attitude among Greeks, despite the new government policy, still is that there are no minorities in the country. Among those few who think otherwise, most also believe that whatever minorities may exist face no major problems, at least of a magnitude that could explain bona fide international interest in them. So, for example, covering in a two-page dossier a Balkan conference on minorities and the role of the media (held in December in Sofia), the country's most open-minded newspaper on human and minority rights, "Avghi" (30/12/1999), gave a positive title: "The recognition of minority rights is a civilized step." But its journalist felt the need to report his and the other Greek participants' bewilderment and suspicion because the representatives of the meeting's funder, during coffee breaks, were asking the Greek delegation for "information about minorities in our country, including about some that have long ago ceased to exist." How strange indeed in a conference on minorities to ask researchers from the Center for the Study of Minority Groups (KEMO) about minorities in their country, especially when the person asking them partly sponsors their research on stereotypes of neighboring peoples and minorities in the their country's media

Panayote Elias Dimitras