[ALBSA-Info] Greeks and Albanians in Greece

[aalibali at law.harvard.edu]

*** Greeks and Albanians in Greece

       AIM Athens, December 7, 2000


Recently an event took place in a Greek school which is characteristic
of
the overall Greek attitude towards the Albanians from Albania residing
in
Greece. The Greeks, for the most part, have shown a marked intolerance
towards the Albanian migrant workers and their families, an attitude
which
smacks of ethnic discrimination bordering on racism. Ironically this was
precisely the attitude of the host countries and their people towards
Greek
migrants in the United States in the first part of the 20th century and
towards Greek migrant workers in Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. 

In the case in question, a young Albanian pupil happened to excel in his
class having earned the highest grades, an achievement which by reigning
Greek school rules entitled him to bear the Greek flag during the
school's
parade in Greece's national holidays, something which is regarded a
great
honor. The Greeks at the local level were apparently appalled at the
prospect of an Albanian bearing the Greek flag and ended up not
permitting
the youngster to carry the flag. Not being ethnically Greek, he was not
deemed worthy of such an honor. Greeks at governmental level, including
the
Greek President, where mortified and took to upholding the young
Albanian's
right to bear the Greek flag. However the grounds for this more correct
view are, it seems to me, suspect. They imply paternalism and a subtle
attempt at ethnic assimilation.

What is beyond doubt is that in the last ten years, the Albanians rank
last
according to the Greek images regarding other nations and ethnic groups,
even below the Roma and the Turks who are also held in very low esteem.
Why
this downgrading? We will try to offer some possible reasons for this
despicable state of affairs.

Well before the upsurge of Greece ultra-nationalism, which manifested
itself during the first part of the 1990s with the Greek-Macedonian
dispute
over "the name of Macedonia" and more recently with the hysterical
fundamentalist nationalism of the Orthodox Church of Greece, nationalist
sentiments were instilled in Greece by way of the most traditional and
effective method: namely primary and secondary education (and in some
cases
even at university level). Education, as it is well known, has been used
as
a vehicle of political socialization, the process whereby young
individuals
learn to become enthusiastic patriots and loyal citizens of their
country
and state. The Greek educational system is of course not unique in
pursuing
such aims and hardly the inventor of such forms of socialization to the
nation. Similar processes are more than obvious in all the countries of
Southeastern Europe and beyond. Even a student in, say, Denmark is
taught
somewhat differently a historical event regarding inter-Nordic relations
than a Swede or a Norwegian, though these countries have not gone to war
between themselves for centuries. One is made to love his country and
feel
a sense of utmost devotion to his nation and by the same token to
despise
and hate his/her nation's historical enemies, who are regarded
uncivilized,
untrustworthy, immoral, hostile, aggressive, expansionist, devious and
so
one. The key is of course to convince one's fellow citizens of the
supremacy of one's nation (a) by bestowing the nation with all the
merits
imaginable and (b) downgrading all foreign nations and groups, the
enemies
the more so. The national myth is part and parcel of the national
narrative
and national project. 

In the Greek case, the pupils are thought to be intolerant of other
nations
and ethnic groups (outside and within Greece). The Greek educational
system
teaches them and makes them believe that the Greeks are superior to all
others; that the Greeks are the direct descendent of the illustrious
ancient Greeks, who are said to be the greatest civilization of ancient
times and the point of departure of Western civilization; and that the
Greeks (presumably the ancient Greeks) are the creators of all major
human
values with an incomparable contribution to world culture. Greek
students
are also taught that their nation is more than 3000 years old. They do
not
recognize the well-known fact that nationhood is a very recent
phenomenon
in human history and that hardly any Greek nation or people existed in
the
classical ancient Greek cultural-linguistic milieu of antagonistic
city-states. Again the attempt at historical depth is characteristic of
most national historical narratives, but the Greek case is one of the
most
extreme, comparable only to the Israeli or Ethiopian cases. Furthermore
it
is deeply held and provides the Greeks of today with one of the most
glorious myths ever conceived. It gives rise to self-esteem but also to
arrogance and haughtiness towards all others. 

Another masterful stoke of the Greek national historical narrative is
the
fusion of two directly opposed movements and belief systems, namely the
spirit of ancient Greek philosophy and culture (which remained alive in
some peripheral intellectual and elite quarters of the Byzantine Empire)
with its prime historical enemy, Christianity (notably Orthodox
Christianity) and the theocratic Byzantium (which regarded itself as the
state of the Christian world in its entirety) which was virulently
anti-Greek (Greek being defined as heathen and infidel). In addition
young
Greeks are taught something even more far-fetched: that they have no
relation or intermingling and cross-fertilization whatsoever with any
other
culture, nation or ethnic group in their vicinity. They end up regarding
themselves as standing stand alone, unique, aloof, apart and well above
all
the rest!

All this is deeply ingrained and remains valid for most adult Greek
individuals (e.g. schoolteachers, administrators, politicians, diplomats
even several academics which should have known better) who do not bother
to
check whether the information handed over to them in school bears
correspondence to historical reality. After all it is such a soothing
collective identity for Greeks, so why bother to question it?

But let us focus on the Albanians and how they feature in the Greek
national narrative. Throughout the 19th century with the Greek War of
Independence ("Greek Revolution" as it is known in Greece) as the point
of
departure, the Albanian-speakers, notably the Orthodox Christian
Albanian-speakers known as "Arvanites" were largely regarded as Greeks
by
the Greeks and Greeks-speakers, as Greeks in substance, "Greeks and
Arvanites: two races, one nation" as some had put it at the time. And
indeed this was to a considerable extent the self-definition of the
Arvanites themselves at least in the southern part of the Balkan
peninsula
at a time when no sense of Albanian national self-consciousness had
emerged. Albanian nationhood began in the last quarter of the 19th
century
in Kosovo, particularly as a reaction to the Serbian and Greek threats
to
those parts of the Ottoman Empire where the bulk of the Albanians lived
for
centuries. Prior to that the Orthodox Albanians in the Southern Balkans
were among the most active and renown "Greek" guerrilla leaders on land
and
sea during the Greek War of Independence and with the advent of Greek
independence and until today, fully assimilated and very prominent in
politics, diplomacy, the army, etc. 

This leads us to another possible interpretation of the outrageous Greek
stance towards the modern-day Albanians from Albania who have the
misfortune to live in Greece. The fact that the two ethnic groups have
been
so intricately interwoven for centuries (well before the advent of
nationalism) may have prompted them to erect fences between in-group and
out-group, to solidify ethnic boundaries between them when none existed
before (particularly as far as Orthodox Albanians and Greeks were
concerned). What we are implying is the antithesis of the largely
erroneous
Samuel Huntington thesis of clash civilizations, namely the fissures
which
inexorably lead to endless conflicts. Nearness, being very close and
intermingled as cultures to the extent of being indistinguishable in the
course of the 19th century may have given rise to this trend for
clear-cut
boundaries on both sides (as seen on the Albanian side in Albania among
nationalists and right-wingers such as Berisha and other like-minded
Albanians). Boundaries almost by definition create a sense of shrill
ethnocentrism and hate for the Other, the closer he is culturally and
physically the more hysterical and ridiculous the downgrading, but also
very real and explosive in inter-ethnic and inter-state relations, as in
the case of Greece today.
_____________________

(i)  Alexis Heraclides is Associate Professor of International Relations
at
the Panteion University in Athens