A few words on this brochure
As a collective project, we are trying from the beginning to take form through two main ways. On the one hand, through having a conversation regarding the needs and the lacks of the movement in Greece. On the other hand, through our participation in actions, events and demonstrations, so as to build a collective experience. This brochure is an effort to respond to two main deficits that we have traced while discussing about the state’s migration policy and the relationship between the antagonistic social movement and migrants.
The first lack concerns several forms of resistance that are used by migrants but are not recognized as such. We believe that this is the result of a long-term state policy that aims to undermine and exploit migrants. One of the tools used by the state for this purpose is the criminalisation of their resistances, in order to strip them of their political characteristics. As for the antagonistic social movement, it very often fails to perceive different forms of resistance adopted by migrants us such, because they are not always part of the movement’s common practices of resistance (for example attacking a bank, or a hunger strike). From our point of view, we consider it important to be able to recognize negations, resistances and forms of struggle that migrants choose for themselves that are “strange” to us and to highlight them.
The second lack concerns inequalities in the relationships between locals and migrants, both inside and outside the social movement in Greece. Within the movement, the dominant perception is that equality is considered a fact, only because someone participates in a horizontally organized group. On the contrary, we believe that equality is not a fact, but a goal, and that it can only be achieved by pointing out our particularities, our differences and our personal experiences, starting with the ones of the most oppressed. For this reason, in the first part of this brochure, we chose to present the lived experiences of migrants from Albania. On the one hand, to make these experiences more visible in the public discourse and on the other hand in an effort to bridge the inequalities between us and to be able to support each other in terms of mutual respect and solidarity.
How did we do it?
Taking for granted the structural inequality between locals and migrants, and knowing how hard it is for someone to share his or her experiences as a migrant, we decided to trigger a discussion in which only albanian migrants from our group would participate. A discussion which would evolve without the presence of greeks and that would be recorded from the discussion group itself. The first part of this brochure is the result of this recording. It is the result of the discussion between migrants from Albania. So this brochure is practically the product of two parallel procedures: our political group and the discussion group concerning the lived experiences of criminalisation of being a migrant.
We didn’t have a magical recipe on how to do that, and we still don’t have answers to all of the questions that arose through this procedure. The way that we did it is a sort of an experiment and a test on how we should face these kind of questions and how we can build equal relationships through the things that we do. Since the beginning, when the idea first came up, but also all through the evolution of the project, many questions came up which we consider fruitful to share: For example, what is the relationship between a political group and a discussion group about the latter’s lived experiences? How can the discourses of these two procedures coexist, without creating or reproducing a relationship of political exploitation, since the brochure can be defended in its totality by the political group, for its own purposes and needs, while the discussion group only participates in the first part? Maybe, the best would have been for both groups to co- author the whole, but this would require first to give answers to all the other questions. Finally, what is the relationship between the two groups during the writing procedure or after it? We leave this questions open for further discussion.
Content
This brochure consists of three parts. In the first part, part of the lived experiences that have been recorded from migrants from Albania are presented, regarding (among other things) their criminalisation from the greek state and greek society and vis a vis the mainstream discourse during the same period. In the second part of the brochure we try to point out the needs of the greek state and capital for cheap migrant labor, its management and its consequences for the development of greek economy. However, this chapter was written without having a previous common perception or method on the ways that the state and capital functions. Therefore, we restrained ourselves to the presentation of precise moments and facts form the history of greek capital, that we consider being indicative of (part of) the state’s strategy, before the migration from Albania in the beginning of 90’s started. Finally, in the third part we focus on the functioning of criminalisation, on crime as a form of resistance and our position on these subjects, aiming to contribute to the overcoming of the deficits mentioned earlier (recognizing other forms of struggle, building relationships based on equality).
antiauthoritarian initiative from athens
September 2018
you can download the brochure here