Recognition (of rights) NOW
Newspaper "TA NEA"	December 18, 2003

 

 

Today, the day dedicated to immigrants worldwide, it is hard not to recall sadly EKKE's latest social study, which reveals that Greeks, by a percentage exceeding 80%, respond with aversion to the presence of immigrants in Greek society, and link "foreigners" with crime, reduced wages and salaries, unemployment, and other social ills. The same study also indicates low tolerance for diversity and multiculturalism. Thus contemporary Greece presents a paradoxical face, in which spiritual and cultural poverty coexist with economic growth and material prosperity. Complacency is accompanied by bigotry, by insensitivity to the human dimension of the worldwide phenomenon of millions of uprooted people searching for a place in the sun.

 

This is the state of affairs in a country which shed its village mentality only two or three decades ago –largely thanks to PASOK governments- and has been transformed from a place of emigration to a prosperous country attracting immigration, an Eden for thousands of immigrants.

 

On the occasion of Immigrants' Day, we must once again stress that immigrants add to the national economy – they do not subtract from it. The jobs they take over are those abandoned by local people who have moved on to higher standards of living. Immigrants represent a valuable asset, covering real market needs and creating jobs.

 

We must therefore give our time and attention to the problems immigrants face, and in particular we must grant them, in Greece and throughout Europe, full recognition of their human, social, and political rights. 21^st century Greece ought to draw inspiration from its own history and culture, and expel from the Land of Xenios Dias, Hospitable Zeus, racism, xenophobia, and bigotry.