AVOID GREECE
Published by deviousdiva February 17th, 2006 in Personal.If you are going to escape from poverty or war or persecution in your homeland, do not head for Greece. I know the extensive coastland and borders makes it seem like a good choice, provided you survive the leaking boats and the dodgy coastguards and you avoid the landmines, but your chances of being granted asylum status here is only 1.9% (compared to the European average of 26.4%). Some good news though: this measly percentage has doubled since 2004. If you do decide to risk all the above and head to the “cradle of western civilisation” be prepared to be one of 9000 asylum seekers herded into “reception centres” designed to hold 900 or perhaps, into a metal container. You will then face a very long wait to have your case heard in the first place and you may or may not have access to a lawyer. After all that, 98.1% of you will be turned down. So if you can scrape together money to pay smugglers, try and find ones that will take you anywhere but here. Sorry about that. Greece, it seems, does not believe your claims of torture, perscecution, war, famine and oppression.
I know what you mean jelly bean. I came here as a refugee from America and still waiting for my hand out of cheese and wine.
Well, cheese and wine I do not think is expected, Scruffy American. And I think that you are an expat, not an asylum seeker. Sorry but this real pi**ed me off. Let’s face it, we are from the right countries and WE expect handouts. The asylum seekers I am talking about just expect a fair hearing.
It is truly a sorry state of affairs that Greece, with its thousands of economic and political refugees of the 50s and 60s, refuses to open its arms and accept asylum seeking refugees.
It hasn’t always been this way, but then again the wave of economic and political refugess seems overwhelming compared to the 80s when Greece was much more consenting to refugeess, e.g. Kurds.
Devious Diva, can you point me (internet wise) to some EU directives regarding granting asylum to refugees. Your post indeed triggered my curiousity as to why the European average is larger than the Greek.
Sorry Diva. Just trying to inject some levity into a tense issue. No handout needed or wanted for me. I got the Greek in-laws for that.
I hope I didn’t inflame the issue, but as a “Dog Barks”, so will a “Scruffy American” satirize…..
By the way, I haven’t seen Ethnocentrist around lately. Does he know you moved over here? I haven’t been back to his blog since his mean comments on black people. I decided to protest by not reading his blog again until he apologizes.
Hi Flubberwinkle, I would hazard a guess that the low recognition rate in Greece is largely due to a lack of organisation, the lack of access to lawyers, interpreters and an unwillingness to change the situation from the powers that be. I am pointing you to an article I posted a long while back (when no-one was reading this blog!).
Click here
The article is from Athens News in 2005. It covers a lot of the issues mentioned in the post.
Hi Scruffy American, I just wasn’t in the mood for levity! I understand why you felt the post needed it but I take this stuff quite seriously, as you have probably noticed! As for ethnocentrist, I am glad he’s not around anymore. His blog makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t want an apology from him . He believes the things he writes about and a shallow apology would not even begin to cover the hurt and anger I feel when I read his blog. I hope he is very lonely over there in his swamp of hate and paranoia. Your protest is much appreciated by me and I imagine by many others but I think he couldn’t care less. We are not his target audience. Anyway, enough about him. I can feel the anger rising as I write. So I’ll leave it there.
i know…. i myself is not an asylum anymore I am now beginning to have doubts if this country is for me.. am not joking
one reason I have not blogged much these days is.. am a bit sad of this decision of my other half to come back here for good
It is a blantant lie. Before all the so-called refugees began puring in, my counry was a plce where you could leave yourdoors open, your luggage at the sidewalk. No longer. Muggings, rapes, murder, burglary is rampart, perpetrated by the shelter-seekers. So, yes, Please do avoid my counntry. I’m glad you will no longer be welcomed there
eleni
Eleni,
Are you really Greek? I don’t know any Greeks who spell so atrociously. (Well, maybe Zardoz but he does it on purpose)
However, I’ll make you a deal. When you pull all the immigrant Greeks out of every country in the world (including the majority that are in MY AMERICA), then I’ll ask the refugees who are in Greece to leave.
Deal?
Get the drift? You Greeks have been immigrating to countries around the globe and now all of a sudden you are upset about fair play?
I don’t believe the average, decent Greek has your view, and thank God your government does not. In fact, even the KKE Communists respect Immigrants!!!
I have only seen kindness towards immigrants by the rank and file Greek, but your view makes me wonder if you are a “Civil Servant” at Dimosio maybe?
Or, better yet? Are you in America now safely hiding behind the wall of Freedom and Opportunity???
Do tell…..
Hello again, sha. Sorry that you are feeling bad about being here. It is sometimes very difficult. Even more so, when I read comments like the one above from eleni Fourtouni. I have also written that I am leaving as soon as I figure out where to move to.
Hi Curly, thank you for addressing the comment by eleni. It arrived as I was writing a response to another post. What a nice way to start the day! I will respond later once I’ve had a cup of tea and feel a bit more level-headed. Welcome to my blog. I hope you will come back and share your views with us.
zardoz says :
hey curly , hiya .
ive been told about my grammar being bad ,
but ive found thats because i write faster
than i think,
i usually make mistakes,
but thats the problem of knowing 6 languages
but this is a first about my spelling ,
so i ‘ll be careful ,
but on purpose..?
next time , please ,
feel free to help out ,
hey i just thought of that MOE-LARRY-CURLY are the names
of the three stooges .
just a thought.
=== Z ===
And his name is Curly/Scruffy…
Oh a wise guy eh…
Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk…..
Hi Devious Diva,
It’s not a big secret that the civil sector in Greece is responsible for what you describe. It’s not only related to asylum seekers and immigrants. Native Greeks also have a difficult time here in all sorts of issues. I think that this country is really slow in developing the infrastructures, not just for asylum seekers, but even for the people that live here. They really don’t have a clue about anything, and all they care about with their delays is how they can pocket money.
For instance it took them almost 15 years to build a metro for Athens and still it’s a relatively small system, whereas other countries in the same time span would have built a system twice as big and much cheaper also.
I am very sensitive when it comes to people that have to flee their countries because their life is in danger and I am pretty sure that there are many Greeks here, that are just as sensitive as me.
Last year some top goverment politicians had to step in and make the authorities give asylum to a Pakistani woman, who was about to be deported back to Pakistan and if that happened she would be killed by her husband there, for sure. In her case the media outburst made things work in an amicable way.
Unfortunately the civil sector here is really slow and corrupt and not even the politicians are always in control of it.
This not a perfect country but things do improve in Greece though. It happens slowly yes, but in the end the change is usually for the better. Greece ten years ago was a much more difficult place than it is now.
A fact that I am afraid does not always apply to some of the so-called advanced countries. May I remind everyone here of the recent Paris riots by second and third generation Muslims, who are basically social outcasts, or the series of racial crimes that are happening at an alarming frequency in the UK recently…
Sincerely yours,
Alexandros
To eleni Fourtouni, you have a special post about your comment. See “DEFINITIONS”
Hi zardoz, I never diss anyone for their spelling. I can’t spell to save my life. Spellcheck is my best friend.
Hello, I smell a rat, and curly. I’m sure I am missing a joke somewhere along the line?
Hello again Alexandros, thank you for your insights. Yes, things do improve slowly in some areas here. However, I think the rise of anti-immigration rhetoric and action everywhere in Europe is making life pretty unbearable for many people. I do not feel that the majority of Greek people are unsympathetic to the plight of immigrants. Gradually though, all the propoganda and false reporting, about crime and unemployment being the fault of immigrants, is turning people against them. The same happened in Britain. Industries (mining, shipbuilding, steel etc) were destroyed and left hundreds of thousands of people unemployed and without prospects. It’s much better for the powers that be to spin it and make out that it’s the foreigners at fault. Not necessarily by coming out and saying it themselves. Just let the rabid litttle tabloid press do it for you. That’s where people get their opinions from not from libraries or research or discussion. in my opinion the likes of the Sun and the Daily Mail and the rest have done more damage than the BNP (British National Party). The BNP is considered too extreme by most people’s standards. However some of these rags have said pretty much the same stuff. I am not very savvy on Greek tabloids but I’ve heard enough on trashy talk shows to get an inkling that pretty much the same is happening here? Maybe you could fill me in on tabloid reporting on immigration here in Greece ?
I’ll sign off here. Real life is calling. See you around DD
Well I guess that thrashy tabloids and TV shows do pretty much the same hatchet job about immigrants here, like those you mention, do in Britain. I do not follow any of these though, so I can’t really fill you in with the stories they write or broadcast. I do know one thing though, there is a big economic and unemployment crisis going on here, pretty much like the rest of the world. Some people like to hold immigrants responsible for this, but the reality is that immigrants do jobs that no Greek would like to do. People here are more afraid of them because there have been a couple of very high profile crimes, that involved immigrants in recent years. However overall I really don’t think that there is a serious racist movement in Greece. Of course there have been isolated cases of racial hatred and crimes here as well, but this is very rare, I think and definetely not as frequent as in Britain, for instance.
Later
Especially for ELENI FOURTOUNI
I promise you that Greece will ONLY ever reach its full potential when it becomes truly muticultural, multi ethnic and multi faith. Like it or not that’s what will happen and mmmmm it sounds like sweet heaven to me!
When you pull all the immigrant Greeks out of every country in the world (including the majority that are in MY AMERICA), then I’ll ask the refugees who are in Greece to leave.
Childish uneducated post by an American who doesn’t know Ameircan hisotry.
The Greek immigrants to America (as well as Canada and Austrailia) came legally. They have much lower crime rates than not only other immigrants but the pre0esistign populations. They worked hard, asked for no state welfare, no state schools in their own language, and became among the top educated and income earning groups.
Thank You Jimmy for enlightening some of these people. Why do you think it is that Greeks are almost the only group of people that do not have any negative stereotypes associated with them. They are very aware of the fact that they represent not only themselves but their culture and people when they are in a foreign nation. It is too bad others do not think as much of their heritage.
well I don t think that things in greece are so bad. The asylum status in greece is as you said BUT…. the number of people that report for asylum is much larger that any other europe country because of the vast coast line with poor countries so… in numbers the people that grand asylum in greece and in other european country is the same… (it is very tricky to talk about asylum numbers only with percentiges. sorry for my english writing)
Vasilios, I will not approve your comment here because this blog is closed. It says so in big letters at the top of the page. Please go to my current blog if you wish to comment. (http://deviousdiva.com)
I also do not allow racist, sexist comments on that blog so your comments will probably just get deleted….
Our Metro is a work of art, the best anywhere. As for my spelling, try try to write in Greek. And you know, if Greece doesn’t suit you, please, keep out
What are you talking about. There is a multitude of refugees in Greece: Eastern Europeans, Turkish, what have you.