‘My arrest turned out to be the key to finally open a Member State Committee for the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages also in Greece’, says language activist Sotiris Bletzas. He took the initiative to open such a Member State Committee already several years ago, but because of disagreements between the different minorities in Greece it wasn’t successful. Bletzas was arrested in 1995 at a pan-Hellenic reunion of the Aroumanians for distributing EBLUL’s brochures ‘Unity in diversity’, which contents a map with different European minorities. For the Greek authorities this was an offence against the Greek nation. ‘The events that followed this, led to a climate of friendship between the Greek minorities and to the conviction that we have to work together and do something’, Bletzas explains in an interview with Eurolang.
Apart from minority representatives, also the police was present at the foundation of the Greek Member State Committee (MSC) on the 26th of January in Thessaloniki. ‘The police protected us from a possible assault from a fascist reunion that happened on the same day in another part of the town,’ Bletzas explains.
For Athanasios Parisis, the President of the newly established MSC, belonging to the Slavomacedonian minority, the presence of the police at the inauguration was a good sign: ‘Five years ago the Greek Government wouldn’t have taken such measures.’ He refers to the time when authorities didn’t protected or help the minorities. He gives as example the occasion when the ‘Home of Macedonian Civilisation’ was established in Florina.
‘We put up a bilingual sign with the name on the house. But that is impossible in Greece! On the same day extremists – some of them came with busses from other towns - started riots in town. They broke everything in our bureau. The people working in the office had to go court for spreading ideas against the Greek nation.’ But by bringing the case to the European Court, the Greek State was sentenced to pay the restitution of the bureau and its employees.
The recently changed behaviour of the Greek Government is according to Parisis due to international influence: ‘The Greek Government nowadays feels trapped. They want to find some solutions to the problems in Greece, because the country is always criticized on a European and international level. There have been many trials, not only the one with Bletzas, and these have caused a bad reputation for the Greek authorities.’ But behind the new openness towards minorities is a clear strategy, Parisis explains: ‘They want us to help them promote these ideas to the Greek society and to stimulate the discussions about the new ideas on all levels of society.’
Decades of education promoting a certain image of Greece is the reason why these ideas are so new for the Greek society, says Parisis. ‘An ordinary Greek is the victim of education promoting the idea of ‘megalomania’: The great Greek State will one day again be like 2,500 years ago. A formation of the nation happened in other European states in the 17th, 18th or 19th century. Greece went through this process later and in shorter time.’
Its important for Parisis to stress that Greece has a high level of democracy: 'You can express everything and write everything in the newspaper - except in issues concerning nationality, diversity and languages, where there is no democracy. This is something that doesn’t exist in the Greek society. There are people who want to support such movement, but they have no power’, Parisis says. ‘Some people, like us, express their thoughts but we have big problems with the authorities from the community and in our jobs. We are isolated – but in the rest of Europe we feel free to communicate. This is not the case in our country. We are isolated from the community, as if we had some kind of illness and everybody avoids us. They fear each other and wouldn’t work with people dealing with things against the state.’
Even though the situation seems to be quite difficult, Bletzas is optimistic: ‘I think things have also matured in Greece. We have made some steps forward – slowly maybe, but we made them. Because they have acknowledged that we don’t want a separation; we are only linguistic minorities. We do feel Greek, but with some particular features. I do feel Greek, I don’t have anything against the Greek state, I work there, I live there and I like it there. But I would like to be able to speak my language.‘ (EL)
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