Please head on over to Teacher Dude’s blog for this story of a Greek illegal immigrant in Greece
Manos was born in Greece in 1977, his parents immigrants from Iraq. He studied in the 17th primary school, Peiria and the 2nd junior high school, Renti. Everything went smoothly until 1992 when his father died. Manos was just 15 years old when his mother, unable to deal with the loss of her husband alone in Greece made the fateful decision to take her children to visit her home country, Iraq. It took just a few days for her to realise that this was a mistake, however, there was no going back.
Read the whole post. It’s heart-breaking. Thank you TD for taking the time to translate this for the benefit of non-Greek speakers. Original article in Greek by Afrodite Al Salech at Αφημένες κάποιες Σκέψεις
Technorati Tags: greece, immigration, birth, iraq, law
Citizenship Battles on February 17th, 2010
Being Greek on February 10th, 2010
Laos Against Citizenship on January 25th, 2010
The Immigration Debate on January 22nd, 2010
Lack of Humanity on November 2nd, 2009
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Very interesting and sad story. Born in Greece, educated in Greece but not Greek. Ridiculous.
But the again most Greek lefties and righties supported Sadam Hussein’s regime. You expect mercy on immigrants from those political powers?
There are plenty of people born and educated in Greece that would be insulted if you called them Greek. I would tell you to go watch Albanians take to the streets militant style with their flags in full view in Greece during demonstrations but that’s impossible to do from the USA so instead of that please take a virtual stroll to albanians.gr to see young greek educated nationalist Albanians and then come and tell me that they are “Greek”. Surely schooling, even military service help build a national consciousness but the primary shaping force remains the family unit. The child of Albanian nationalists who have ended up as economic migrants in Greece will most likely become an Albanian nationalist, not a Greek.
This aside from the story of this particular young man that appears to be as Greek in sentiment (which is all that counts) as most Greeks of his age. The American notion of “once born here, you’re an American” is already proving itself too naive – whether it’s John Walker Lindh or the bozos that dream of Aztlan states or other Mexican reconquista concepts.
I have seen Albanian demonstrations during soccer games(remember I grew up in Greece (1981-2006)) so please don’t patronize me. We did the same thing in Portugal when we won. Paraguyans did so in the US in the last soccer game. Secondly nationalists exist everywhere. Some of the Greek-Americans here are ungrateful to the US, and just go on on how superior they are to all other people. But the majority of Greek-Americans just as I bet the majority of Albanians in Greece, are loyal more or less to their country of residence. Now if you have data to the contrary, that all or the majority of Albanians in Greece are rabid nationalists I would like to see it.
I’m not talking of soccer games – I’m talking of labor or political rallies with Albanian flags and participants that are the children of immigrants. Since you were in Greece up until 2006 you could not have missed them – they happened from time to time, Omonia square in particular.
Secondly I did not claim that all or the majority of Albanians in Greece are rabid nationalists. I did claim that being born/educated in Greece does not necessarily make you into a local Greek. You’re intelligent enough to appreciate the difference. I don’t have numbers as to exact breakdown of pro- and anti-Greek children of Albanian immigrants to Greece but neither have you. Certainly their public presence suggests that they are not a fringe group of a few dozen individuals and at the same time the lack of public unrest in Greece suggests they are not a massive majority. Automatically conferring citizenship to all of them however would include along with the ones that care about Greece the ones that would want to see it end in Amvrakikos.
As for the comparison with nationalistic Greek Americans it’s invalid. Even the very few that are “ungrateful” to the USA do not consider that US borders should be changed. You should compare with the militant Mexican movement instead – which I already mentioned. Born in the USA, raised in the USA and dreaming of reconquista. Again, to save you the trouble, I’m not claiming all or even the majority of Mexican immigrants see things that way – but I’m not discounting the minority as numerically equivalent to a few kooks, else La Raza would not exist and Mexican flags would not be flying over some American schools.
But waving an Albanian flag and calling yourself an Albanian doesn’t make you Greek anymore than waving a Greek flag and calling yourself Greek makes you Greek. You can’t take flag-waving extremists seriously, whatever they say or do. And don’t forget all the trouble caused by the immigrant students whom some parents didn’t want to carry the flag in the national parades etc.
You say that sentiment is the only thing that should matter- that’s a noble idea but it’s also wishful thinking. There are numerous people that hate Greece deeply who would fullfilll the most stringent criteria for Greek-ness, in terms of their descent. I’m sure you can find some people with genuine Byzantine-era names among the ranks of antinationalist anarchists.
And what does that mean? Do you propose to strip the Greek citizenship from Greeks who hate their country? But how do you tell someone’s sentiments? I mean, how do you tell with enough certainty to establish it as a criterion for granting them the Greek nationality, officially and all? Unfortunately there’s no real way to know peoples’ sentiments- and even if you come up with some test people can just fake it.
So I’m afraid what we need is an actual practical policy that makes sense and does not exclude people who should not be excluded. Now, I wouldn’t want to exclude anyone at all but I guess we can discuss that- however, “sentiment” is not going to help anyone in this case.
Manos was born in Greece in 1977, his parents immigrants from Iraq
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
he was not a greek citizen and his ethnicity was not greek simple he is not greek…either ethnically or nationally.
but he can make a case for being an very assimilateable asylum seeker considering he grew up in Greece.
I understand your point Oath, but you cannot avoid rotten apples. We both know that there are many natural born-Greeks who are equally traitorous. I am liberal which means that I can’t support a system of naturalization that is based on loyalty tests, which is the only way you could control for the bad apples. But I can support one on education (DD knows my position on that, I have explained it on a previous post). I don’t have numbers, but I bet that they are a minority. Extremists always are.
Every choice has consequences. I am willing to accept the risk of some bad apples, then to institute loyalty tests (which you are not proposing)
As for the Aztlan and La Raza, they are a vocal minority, and nutjobs. Chicago has a large Mexican immigrant population but they generally are supportive of the US. You see Mexican flags, but they fly next to US ones in the same place. Cinqo De Mayo (Mexican Independence Day) is celebrated by almost everyone up here. It may be different down in California (not in Texas though, according to a couple of Texan people I know).
In the meantime:
From Elefterotipia, by Stratis Balaskas, via tvxs.gr
Note: The original text calls the Somalians “αλλοδαποί”, that is, “foreigner”, but I find this a stronger term in English than what seems to be the intention of the piece, so I’m using “migrants” instead. On the other hand, the article calls the refugees “illegal” which I have placed in double quotes; notes in square brackets are also mine.
By definition. And fortunately!
Konstantine, Loyalty tests? That’s frightening! I don’t think they are going to help anyone anyway they’ll just make the life miserable for mingrants and Greeks alike. I mean, it’s what they had in the Junta, innit? “Πιστοποιητικό εθνικών φρονημάτων”?
On the other hand similar measures seem to be implemented by other European nations (in the UK recently, apparently also in Germany and France for some time)… I really don’t get it… This is the European Union! Not the Soviet one!
::shakes head::
PD, did you see that guy’s fatsa? He’s the spitting image of Kalyvatsis.
What heartless, cruel person would send Kalyvatsis away?
Just saw an article about 600 hunger strike immigrants. Greece won’t be able to keep their abuses quiet for much longer . As we see from NY Times Arricle Greece is getting on USA people radar screen which is hard to do as Americans don’t generally follow international stories unless they are put right in front of them. This Samos 600 incident may be a tipping point. If Europe won’t act maybe USA thru UN sanctions could pressure Greece?
Link to article mentioned:
http://ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/.....009_109598
Note this:
In fact, this provision of Greek law is clearly discriminatory, requiring that immigrants earn more than Greeks. Quite a bit of Greek immigration law is either on the margins of legality or openly illegal: so much for the “illegality” of the immigrants.
Yeah! I’m 1000% behind that! Wait- actually, I have a better idea! Let’s invade the basterds and show them how to properly ruin their country!!!!
Er… I meant “run”. Run the country!
::conspiratorial whisper::
Pssst. Samos Incident. All that went right over the top of your head, dinnit?
/whisper