In Votaniko, the mosque! (in-depth report)
May 2, 2010
Source: Expresso
© Translation: Muslim Association of Greece
And the name…Votanikos! This is the name of the location that the first Islamic mosque of Athens will be constructed, after the decision of the government to proceed applying the law of 2006 and to satisfy a permanent claim for the Muslim community [in Greece].
After negotiations between the City of Athens and the related ministries of Education and National Defence, the government judged the most suitable place for the construction of the mosque to be a part of the field that occupies the Navy Entrenchment of Votanikos. The land has 17 acres and is located where the current Central Station of Navy Cars is.
The first mosque of Athens will be located at Iera Odos, a few hundred metres from Markoni Street and the Eleonas metro station. There exists several home trade businesses, car sales, and construction material in this area and it is diminished by the passing of heavy vehicles. However it is almost certain that in a few years the picture will be totally different, as the new stadium of Panathinaikos will be constructed nearby along with plans to widen the streets of this area.
According to the existing plan, the entrance of the mosque will be from Iera Odos. The construction will have a capacity of about five hundred persons and will “be included in a wider open green area,” as announced the government spokesman George Petalotis, but it will not have a minaret. As far as the Station of Navy Cars is concerned, it will be relocated to another place of the Navy Entrenchment of Votanikos.
The president of the Muslim Association of Greece, Naim Elghandour, is satisfied with the developments and emphasizes that the mosque is essential for the thousands of foreigners but also for the Greeks, as he says – Muslims that live in Athens. At the same time, he promised that when the mosque starts operating, most of the unofficial praying places that exist today at the capital will close.
“The Muslims are praying in warehouses and underground garages. This is not right and it does not suit to our civilization,” says Mr. Elghandour and states that the Association “will go forward to close,” those praying places that are located today at areas that will be accommodated by the Votanikos Mosque.
Mr. Elghandour has an Egyptian origin but has Hellenic nationality and has served in the Greek Army. In a way, he considers those developments his achievement and the Association’s, since, as he states, by their letter to the Minister of Education Marietta Giannakou in 2006, they began the procedures for the voting of the relative law, and with a recent letter to the present Minister of National Defence, Evangelos Venizelos, ‘unsticking’ the case that was frozen for a long time.
“We proposed to be a Hellenic mosque, in the terms that no foreign country is to put money so that they will not have the upper hand,” refers the president of the Muslim Association of Greece and adds that they do not want the mosque “to be something huge and attract attention negatively.”
As far as the imam is concerned, Mr. Elghandour asks the Ministry of Education to choose one of those that the Association will propose. “We want him to be active, strong and educated in order to gather the people around him and teach them the correct Islam,” says characteristically. “There is no extreme Islam – these are politics. Islam is a religion of peace, love and beneficial to the society, just as we Muslims in Greece live. We love, respect and defend it,” he underlines.
However Mr. Elghandour does not hide his disappointment for the fact that the mosque will not have a minaret, while he sees the capacity of 500 people very little. “They should think about it. We had proposed to the Ministry of Education [for the mosque] to be 2500m², and to have two floors in order to accommodate 2500 persons,” he ends up.
“With State Funds”
The construction will be based to the law 3512/2006 where describes the establishment of a legal body of private law under the name “Administrating Committee of Islamic Mosque of Athens” and its work will be the management of the mosque. The administration of the mosque will have the Greek State since the 7-member board of the committee will be consisted by the general director of religions of the Ministry of Education, a general director of Finance ministry, two reps of the City of Athens, a consultant that will be assigned by the Athens Academy and two representatives of Muslims that live in Attica. At the mosque, there will be an imam that will be assigned by the Minister of Education and will have a two year contract and his duties will be “limited in the responsibility for the internal operation of the mosque.”
For the time being there is no evaluation for the whole cost of the construction. As Mr. Petalotis announced, “the project will be executed with Greek funds by the Program of Public Expenditure Fund, and offers from foreign factors, governmental or not, will not be accepted.” According to the law 3512/2006, the operation costs of the mosque will be covered by the funding of the Ministry of Education but also from endowments, donations and every kind of offers of natural or legal faces.
By: Stathis Deligiorgis
Photos: William Faithful
Translated by Anna Stamou
No Authorized Imam in Greece?!!
April 23, 2009
Source: IslamOnline.net
After several attempts to uncover the Muslims’ status in Greece, IslamOnline.net (IOL)’s Euro-Muslims Page is shedding the light on the role of Greek imams as an alternate solution to many challenges they face in their way to integration into their European society while maintaining their religious Islamic identity.
For that purpose, IslamOnline.net (IOL)’s Euro-Muslims Page hosted Mr. Naim EL-Ghandour, President and Co-founder of the Association of Muslims in Greece, in a Live Dialogue session on April 6, 2009, to talk to IOL’s audience on the status of imams in Greece.
Naim El-Ghandour was born in Egypt in 1955 and has been living in Greece since 1974. He has the Hellenic citizenship and is a successful businessman. El-Ghandour dreams of seeing the Athens Mosque and the Muslim Cemetery in Athens and he exerted all his efforts for these two main projects.
Accordingly, he has proposed many requests to the Greek Government asking for the Muslims’ rights to have their own official Mosque and cemetery in Greece. His attempts are still going on.
In a response to a question from IOL’s audience during his Live Session about the mosques and its role in Greece, Mr. Naim said, “We, the larger Muslim community, are exceeding 700,000 only at the capital Athens, but we have no official mosque, just unofficial places to pray. We are fighting hard to have our own official Athens mosque and cemetery and en shaa Allah we will succeed. It is essential for us to have a mosque.”
IOL’s audience also raised an important question on what can be done to make it easier for immigrants to feel accepted in the Greek community. Our guest replied, “Greece is the number one destination for the illegal immigrants of Europe, and this is very difficult for all. But education is above our strength as the Muslim countries are not contributing, they may have not realized the current situation in Greece. At a governmental level, we are trying to start contact between the Greek state and the Muslim states to allow Islamic education to be a subject taught at schools.”
What does the Greek Muslim community lack in your opinion? Do you agree with El-Ghandour on his views on Greek Muslims’ challenges?
Read the full Live Dialogue, if you have any comment or suggestion for the coming Live Dialogues’ guests and topics, please write them below or email them to Euro_Muslims@iolteam.com
Greeks Rethink note: click through to the article to find some juicy comments by the visitors!
Movie review: Waiting for the clouds
March 28, 2009
The movie, Waiting for the Clouds, depicts the story of an elderly woman named Ajshe, who was a survivor of the turbulent 1920’s that reshaped the Balkans by war, genocides, evictions, forced population exchanges, new nation formation/expansion, political ideological clashes and nationalistic fervor on all sides.
Ajshe never though forgot her childhood identity and memories which she kept hidden deep inside her for many years. At a very young age she was one of the victims of those turbulent times when she, known then as Eleni, was given by her father, after a difficult march from their native Mersin (southern Turkey) to a Muslim family from the Black Sea region (Pontos-Karadeniz) who promised to protect and rear her as their own.
Eleni’s family roots were Rum (Christian). There in Pontos Eleni (Ajshe) lived for many years yearning especially to reunite with a long lost brother who got caught up in the great population exchange between Muslims from the areas newly acquired by Greece and Christians from the newly formed state of Turkey known as the Laussane Treaty of 1922.
The movie was interesting as it was based on some true elements in history that surrounded the Communist movement taking place in Turkey in the early 1970s. Apparently, it seems that Ajshe’s father, in the early 1920s, may have been a communist who were seen by the Turkish state as sympathizers with communist Russia and therefore traitors. Russia was one of the powers who dreamt at a piece of the pie after the dismemberment of the Ottoman State and dreamt of the incorporation of Turkish land into her nation.
As history tells us, the Pontians (Karadenizler) mainly live in Northern and North Eastern Turkey most of whom for various reasons chose to convert to Islam during the Ottoman period, although quite a few remained Christian, and so you will see that their language is a mix of an old Hellenic form and Turkish. A fraction of Pontians (Christians) were forcefully expelled to Greece in the 1922 exchange of populations and were settled into lands and homes of Muslims forced out of Greece.
Even though the movie had some religious elements to it, it was mainly focused on political ideological struggles and to a lesser extent ethnic ideas and conflicts and therefore, I do not recommend watching it to gain anything Islamic out of it since there were some folklore practices mentioned that have nothing to do with Islam but with local practices that predate Islam and perhaps even Christianity.
But, if you’re just looking for an emotional movie filled with human tenderness and beautiful scenery, and just a slight insight into political/ethnic tensions this just might be the movie for you.
