xenos, I am sorry to burst your bubble, but EU is about the Euro, free movement of capital, workers services etc ( all very good things by the way).
It is not primarily about human rights. the EU will tolerate huge abuses of HR to keep the economic project going.
Do you really think that countries like romania or bulgaria have better HR records than greece ? should I mention founding member italy and berlusconi who is trying to get rid of romanian roma EU citizens ? or the south dominated by the mafia ?
a lot of these problems are not an exclusive phenomenon to greece. I would never bring these examples up to justify the shortcomings of greece. I don’t believe greece has the right to ignore HR just because others do.
I just think it’s hypocritical to say greece should be kicked out of the EU, because if they started kicking countries out there wouldn’t be that many left.

That’s fine Greek with No Name. I know I sound a bit harsh about this subject of names but I’ve put up with almost three years of people “playing” with me here. Some people used to change their names with each discussion to get around my moderation filter. Now I have implemented a new system here it has become less problematic (i.e. If you post with a new name, the message will automatically be moderated).

Apologies, Diva. I am just not sure what I should call myself. I am even considering dropping the “Greek” from The Greek with No Name because it may cause offense to someone.

Northerner, the name is fine. Please consider sticking to it so that we don’t get confused as to who we are talking to. You don’t need the “formerly known as” bit!

abravanel, do not project modern conceptions of community back into antiquity. We do not really know if they were considered “part” of the community anymore than Egyptians or Syrians. There is evidence to the contrary. For example, Lucian in the 3rd century AD still felt to be inadequate because he was only half Greek by birth. If he felt like this considering his excellent command of the Greek language then Jews, who were considered to have very strange manners, may have felt even more isolated.

I’m referring to deviousdiva’s request to change my username from greek peasant to something else.

Ok, i’ll post as northerner from now on.Sorry, i’m not very good at picking usernames and that’s the best i could come up with.

While “our” money means a country is bought and paid for?Let’s let people decide whether your comment was arrogant or not.I don’t have any doubts though about the reaction of the british, or even the french and the german for that matter, people if a similar comment was targeted at them

“Our” rules means the rules of European countries, as agreed through the Council of Ministers, ratified by the European Parliament and usually ratified by national parliaments. They have nothing to do with me personally. Those EU citizens who try to exact their rights in Greece are very aware of how little respect there is for the law in this country, and how little tolerance or acceptance of long-term residents who are not Greek. This is what we are talking about, not the fake arguments that you are trying to distract with.

Xenos:Judging by the tone of your comment, i doubt most people wouldn’t find it arrogant.

Greek peasant: what you wrote was arrogant. What I wrote is the law and also the political agreement made on behalf of the Greek population by the government when it acceded to the EU. The fact that Greeks don’t see why they should obey any rules is not of interest to me. You may think it arrogant to demand that Greeks obey the law and keep to agreements: most of the world does not.

The jews were a very active community in Thessaloniki, which is my hometown by the way, until the Nazi occupation during WWII.They would still be had it not been for these tragic events.

“Until you leave the EU, you accept our rules and our standards, along with our money”

The jewish greeks that lived in Thessaloniki or Veria around 50CE spoke greek, had greek names and essentially were a part a “greek community”. How do I revise history dumb greek peasant? Who did Apostle Paul come to visit around that time? Isn’t it true that he was allowed to preach in the synagogue Etz Haim of Thessaloniki for three consecutive Saturdays? I repeat, are they less Thessaloniceans because the majority of the population today is christian? Or that jews who live in Thessaloniki for more than 2000 years should be segregated because they are the other?

“this should help you to understand why people want to live somewhat apart from the Other”