5/22: Hey everyone! It's Josie and Tate here!
Today was spent focusing on immigration and refugee policy in Greece, as well as attributing it to a larger, universal perspective of the morals of the treatment of refugees and immigrants worldwide. It was a tad different from other days, since we spent half of it in a more academic setting, which was honestly quite refreshing!
The day began with a lecture from Journalist John T. Psaropoulos, an independent journalist based in Athens who has worked with several large publications in Greece and the United States. Psaropoulos gave us a crash course on the history of immigration policy in the European Union as a whole, with an emphasis on the role that Greece has been thrust into. Below, we describe some of the history of Greece's Immigration policy and situation.
Greece, in a topological manner, sits as the "Shield of Europe" in the migration crisis of the 2010s decade, and still acts in that role as it rolls into the 20's. Greece has a direct border with Turkey, which is the closest land bridge to Europe for most of the Middle Eastern and African Nations. These nations, plagued with years of war, poor living conditions, and humanitarian crises, are major producers of refugees. These refugees, with knowledge of the European states' development, flee through Turkey to Greece, where they hope to start a new life in Greece.
In the 2008 economic crisis (yay finance! -Tate), Wall Street's institutional failure brought down the economies of the world around it, including the members of the European Union. Greece was hit the hardest of the nations, with an economy that had been so deep in debt and corruption. Greece's culture, since its declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire in the early 1800s, has made a distinction between the Greek nation and the Greek state. This brought Greece a great deal of trouble, as each day, millions of dollars in bribes, unlawfully earned money, and clear tax fraud were committed. Rolyn gave me (Tate) a great book when we began this trip, called The Full Catastrophe, which covers a great deal of the Greek cultural and economic disaster. In this book, I found a fantastic quote to describe this phenomenon: "Disloyalty to the state did not equal disloyalty to the nation, Greeks don't synthesize their ethnos (a word to mean ethnicity's identity) with the republic" - " The government was a foe, and if you could defraud it, you were not only enriching yourself, but you were a patriot" (35)
This crisis, and the Greek culture of fraud, devastated the Greek economy, driving unemployment to an all-time high of 28%, and slashing almost a third of Greece's economy away within months.
So, with the economic crisis leading Greece into the 2010s, the people were incredibly dissatisfied with the government, and a huge wave of migration hit (The EU migration Crisis). From 2013 to 2014, immigration increased from 3000 to 50000 people. With such a slow economy, Greece could barely handle the immigrants, and the city suffered, leading many citizens of Greece to resist immigration.
Years of European Union assistance and aid packages followed, as well as a plethora of votes on policy. Today, Greece's policy is loose, and claims to be following a positive agenda for immigration, finding migrants economic and humanitarian benefits, but their actions don't align with their hopes, as they still have horrible humanitarian disasters, including a story that Psaropoulos told us about a migrant girl who had her ship rammed by Egyptians, killing all but 8 members of the refugee ship. She made it to shore in Greece and was not granted citizenship.
Psaropoulos, after detailing all of this to us (and much, much, MUCH more), also recounted some of his personal stories. Without going too in-depth, he detailed how he had to stop working for Greek companies, since the Greek journalism world was still incredibly corrupt (like, his-life-was-threatened-corrupt).
We are incredibly grateful for the time and effort Psaropoulos gave us today. Please give his blog and articles a look - we for sure are!
After that, we spent a couple hours at Taste of Damascus, a non-profit restaurant in Athens devoted to a simple mission: supporting refugees through hiring and skill building. It was an incredibly meaningful and complex experience. I (Josie) am generally a picky eater, and even though Mediterranean food isn’t something I usually eat (other than CAVA), I enjoyed trying something new and their variety of sauce options. What I did not enjoy was the pigeons flying at my face…. (of which there were many). After we ate, I spotted a cat sunbathing outside of a local boutique.
From Josie: I needed a moment to breathe, so I walked up to say hello. The cat was super friendly, and I noticed a small bed outside the shop. The cat eventually walked inside, and I followed. I asked the owners - husband and wife - if the cat was theirs. They told me it was simply the local cat they take care of. It was such a small moment, but my favorite of the day. There was something so beautiful about their quiet life and their simple act of kindness. It reminded me of our lecture and meal focused on asylum seekers— how people, like that cat, find themselves far from home with nowhere to go. It made me think about the role of political systems in shaping who gets protection or care. At their core, immigration systems are human. Just like the cat, many displaced people aren’t looked to be owned or saved—just seen and welcomed. Immigration systems should reflect that basic truth.
From Tate: I love learning, and today was full of that. The reflection of doing work that aligns with what we believe in is incredibly pertinent to my life - I am always finding ways to live in a way more true to myself. In the work I do at Furman, I do it because I believe in the mission and respect those who lead it. Beyond that, I thought the crossroads between immigration and the economy were incredibly compelling, and I was filled with energy learning about the way that the Greek culture affected the economy, which affected the migrant crisis across Europe. It's refreshing to see that work can be done in the economy to help mend peoples lives.
We spent time this afternoon thinking about how our actions and beliefs align with what we are called to do in this life, and discussed whether or not we could work for someone who didn't share our values. We chatted about how immigration related to knowing ourselves, and how being a refugee was such a rock-bottom experience, and how all you have is who you are, and not even the people or place that made you that way. We then moved on to speaking about how immigration appeared in our lives, and how we feel about it, as well as how it differed from Greek immigration policy. The discussion veered to be about hospitality and how each and every person deserves to be treated with respect, and how immigration policy often dehumanizes and commodifies real people who have incredibly painful stories, all to arrive in a receiving country and be treated in immoral and inhospitable ways.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or want to learn more, feel free to comment, and we'd love to chat! Cheers!
Josie & Tate
No comments:
Post a Comment