Don't worry George, I'll take a rest as well....
Back on topic: it looks like Greece's misconduct towards Albanian immigrants might call for yet another NATO peace-enforcing mission....
Upheaval in the land of the eagles:a short account of the post-war Albanian social history and the 1997 rebellion
Athens, 1998
PROLOGUE
In the beginning of 1997, the "criminality of Albanian immigrants was, once again, the prevailing issue in Greek media and reached its climax when some burglaries took place in east Attiki. However, a few months later the image of the "Albanian criminal" gave way to that of the "Albanian rebel". Greek media made a spectacle out of the rebellion and the Greek government supported Fatos Nano and even allowed his pre-election campaign among Albanian immigrants in Greece. How come that the cheapest labour force in Europe armed themselves with Kalashnikovs, how did things come to a rebellion? To answer these questions we had to go back in the past and follow the history of antagonistic social relations in Albania.
From the early post-war years to the fall of the Stalinist regime and the emergence of a new social disorder.
Much attention was paid to the rebellious proletarians' inability to establish a powerful community of struggle of some duration. In this short prologue we will comment on the importance of immigrants for both the development of class struggle in Greece and the Greek capitalist interests in the Balkans.
Nowadays, there are even more Albanian immigrant workers in Greece. In March '98 their "criminality" became again a major issue in Greek media. The same month armed inhabitants of a village in northern Greece imposed an all-night curfew on Albanian immigrants and similar racist and brutal events against Albanian workers took place in many other villages.
Since 1990 tens of thousands of Albanians have entered Greece to find work. Mass deportations of illegal immigrants have taken place quite often in the 90s. In December 1991 100,000 Albanians were deported through "operation sweep". In June '93 Athens responded to the deportation of the Greek Orthodox abbot Chrysostomos, who was preaching division and secession among the Greek-speaking minority of southern Albania, by expelling some 30,000 Albanians in a few days, many of whom had been abused and beaten. By the end of 1993 a rapprochement was made between Berisha and the Greek government and since then deportations have lessened. But the most recent racist campaign against Albanians has revealed more clearly some of the reasons for Greece's immigration policy and periodic deportations. The immigrants are hostages of the Greek state and have been used to blackmail the Albanian government on several issues that range from getting more favourable business opportunities for Greek entrepreneurs and bankers to obtaining contracts to reorganise the army and navy forces of Albania after the rebellion.
Recently the Greek state, with the help of the trade unions, has started organising somehow a rotation immigration policy by providing the green card to a few immigrants and by promising it to the rest. In fact, most of them will not be able to renew the work permit for a further period of 6 or 12 months in 1999, but the state will be able to divide them in (cheap) legal and illegal ones and, at the same time, keep files on them facilitating possible future deportations. In May '98 there was the first immigrants' strike of the 90Õs in Greece. Some Albanian and Romanian rural workers who worked in a village near Volos (Greek farmers have profited a lot from cheap, illegal work) asked for wage rises, less working hours and social security. 20 of them were arrested while 5 were deported. Whether this strike, which was only partly successful, will be a good example for the rest of the immigrants as well as the Greek temporary workers remains to be seen. Immigrant and native temp workers have been used to lower the wage standards in Greece (as elsewhere). That's why last year's rebellion or strikes like the above-mentioned one could prove to be of great importance for a possible recomposition of the Balkan working class, unless the Albanian proletarians fall prey to the nationalist appeal of the Liberation Army of Kosovo and entangle themselves in another bloody Balkan war.
[snip]
geocities.com
"Operation Sweep".... Isn't that disgusting?? I wish that President-elect G.W. Bush's first bold initiative will be to launch "Operation Enforce Hope" against Greece! It'll be a wonderful tribute to his father G.H. Bush's Somalian campaign and another milestone in NATO's grand scheme to bring all these Mediterranean bums together, hand-in-hand in building their common destiny....
George, next time you fly over to Greece on vacation, you too will face a whole'nother ballgame! LOL! |
