Greek slant on Euroarabia and Islamophobia

Source: Enet.gr

by Pericles Korovesis, PM SYRIZA to the Greek Parliament.

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Is Europe in danger of becoming Islamized? How can Turkey, a non-Christian country that never has had Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, integrate into Europe without distorting its characteristics? Should all Muslims be expelled from Europe in order to find the lost identity?

These are some questions and more similar others that the Right and extreme Right Wing of Europe and the USA are asked to answer. Several books have been written and the Yellow Press officiates of racist campaigns of any kind incriminate immigrants that have Islamic religion.

Racism and nationalism, in order to make its arguments seem truthful, must distort reality. So the fact is concealed that in Europe, out of 493 million residents, only 3-4% are Muslims. And still they do not bring the question of who brought them. After World War II, Europe needed cheap workers. Where could they find them? The old empires sufficiently destroyed their colonies. France made mass import of workers from North Africa. Britons brought workers from India and Pakistan. Holland brought Moroccans. Germany preferred to bring Turkish, but also took Greeks, Yugoslavians and Italians. Even the Spanish that did not want Muslims at all for historical reasons brought Muslims massively in 1970 for the needs of their economy.

Mainly, this working force was occupied for the hardest and heaviest jobs, was living in the urban ghettos and never attained the same rights with the natives. Even the second or third generation that had no Islamic education and the vast majority of them went to public schools (in France only 5% of the Muslims go to the mosques), they have not become first class citizens. Surely there are extremists as they exist in every religion. But they are an insignificant minority cut from the Muslim community.  If we can talk about something like that, their problem is not the Islamization of Europe, but the unemployment that hits always the weak.

The extreme right parties as the National Front of France, Liberty party of Austria or the British National Party etc., have invented a neologism: “Euroarabia”. And that means new pogroms. Islamophobia takes the place of the old anti-Semitism that carries basic characteristics to Islam. For example, that behind any world conspiracy Islam and Arabs are hiding. After 9/11, terrorism and Islam were coincided, and was formed the axis of good Bush and of bad Muslim. In Greece, these theories have not found a ground yet, because what  prevails is the native xenophobia and the specialized Turkophobia. But besides this, we have made neither a mosque nor cemetery for the Muslims. And maybe this is our own Islamophobia. At the point where there is no tolerance for the others, the different, there is no democracy and we enter in dangerous paths. And the other becomes the enemy.

Special report: Greek Parliament member pushes religious freedom for Muslims

Parliament member Mr. Periklis Korovesis from the Syriza party lodged a formal question [about religious freedom] to the Greek Parliament, in particular the Ministers of Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Education and Religions, National Defence. (Please view the seven questions at the end of this report.)

 

 

 

 

Subject: Muslim Cemetery and Mosque in Attica

In Athens, where 700 000 Muslims of all nationalities live, there is neither a mosque nor a Muslim cemetery, making Greece the only country in Europe that has not taken care of this.  This practice opposes Article 13 of the Constitution and Article 9 of the European Convention for the Human Rights that clearly state “the freedom of religious conscience is unhindered”.

Understandably, the Muslims in Athens feel the sense of rejection as they have no ability to pray, get married, and have a funeral service with dignity.  As a result, this brought the existence of over 50 unofficial praying places in the region, often located in undergrounds and garages.

Just recently, the Prefecture of Athens fined the owner of an underground building at Nea Ionia 60 000 euro and 30 000 euro because he used it as an unofficial mosque without special permission of a “bethel”, allowing Muslims of the area to pray there.

There were significant local protests from the immigrants who opposed the prefecture as well as Greek inhabitants and authorities, demonstrating on Saturday February 7^th at a massive movement in this small area (more than 1000 people) asking for a proper place to conduct religious tasks, which is a right registered by the constitution. 

However, the decision of the prefecture and the reactions on behalf of the immigrants is not new.  Thirty years have passed since the first claim in 1976 was lodged for building a mosque in Athens from the Arabic embassies, when all Greek governments projected several barriers in order not to proceed to its fulfillment.

Meanwhile, in other countries like Sweden, there are five mosques, 150 praying places and 10 Muslim cemeteries; in France there are 2000 praying places and 12 mosques when the cemeteries (except for one Muslim cemetery established in 1930) where it is obliged to have place of burying Muslims; in Norway (Oslo) the mosque was established in 1980, in Poland (Gtansk) in 1989, in Russia (Moscow) in 1912, in Scotland (Glascow) in 1983, in Portugal (Lisbon) in 1988, in Malta in 1978, in Ireland (Dublin) in 1978, in the UK there is the biggest Muslim cemetery in Europe and many mosques.

In 1983 the Greek state was committed to construct a mosque in Marousi, but this did not work due to the reactions of the local authorities. In 2000 the law 2833 was including the establishment if an Islamic Cultural Centre and Mosque in Peania with expenses that the Saudi Arabian Government would cover. This project was cancelled and in the very same place they realized that was already been built an orthodox church!

In October 2006 the Ministry of Education presented a draft law for building a mosque at Eleonas, a feasible project in harmony with the protected green of the area. The decision remained inapplicable because at the area that was given for the mosque is located navy base and the transfer of that means that 5 000 000 euro should be found. Although the Muslim Community was willing to offer that amount, this offer was not accepted, for it is the obligation of the Ministry of Defense to provide the funds to the Navy.

The Muslim Association of Greece sent a recent letter (27.01.09) to the Minister of Education and Religions asking to fulfil the governmental commitments and accusing the ministry’s palinodes twice for losing the necessary documents for the realization of this project.

Similar luck seems to have the permanent claim of the Muslims for the establishment of the Muslim cemetery in Athens, for which we have lodged a question (number of lodgment 1334/15.7.2009).

Despite of the bestowal of the field at the area of Schisto for the establishment, and the commitments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that was authorized as a coordinator of the engaged authorities, no procedure has proceeded. Hence, since the Muslims of Attica have no official mosque, nor  a cemetery, nor a religious scholar who will be under a law to practice their religious rituals, they are forced to move their dead to Thrace or abroad with a huge economic cost for the family, that rates even 5000 euro (for Pakistan).

For the construction of the Muslim cemetery in Schisto, the Muslim Association of Greece has sent a letter again to the Minister of Internal Affairs on 27.01.2009, asking for intervention, as far as the bureaucratic procedures of the local authorities are concerned for the following reasons:

•  All these are unprecedented for an elemental democratic country and equals to “Islamophobia” and discrimination if the Islamic civilization;
• The pertinacious non-immigration policy of the governments has created a suffocating place of living for Muslim immigrants and refuges that are in Greece, insulting fundamental and obvious human rights of every civilised country;
• The immigration stream of the last decade has definitively changed the face and composition of the Greek society affecting even its deeper structures, transforming it to multicultural and religious differentiation, which in fact compels changes in point of vision, criteria and methods.

 The ministers are asked:

1. What is the status of the procedures for the construction of the Eleonas mosque and what are the obstacles of moving the navy base, the cost of the moving etc.
2. Have the funds been found by the Ministry of National Defense for the move of the navy base from the area of Eleonas?
3. In which point are the procedures for the establishment of the Muslim cemetery in Shisto? Is the topographic survey of the area that was expected to be completed within a two months period starting from July 2008, according to the response that was given to us by the Deputy Minister of foreign affairs Theodoros Kassimis?
4. Has the transfer of the proprietary title of the area been made by the Church of Greece to the local authority in charge of the Muslim cemetery?
5. Are the procedures of the Ministry of Zoning and Public Works finished as concerning the zoning of the cemetery area?
6. How do they think to improve the conditions of religious freedom and equity, having in mind the condition that has prevailed in Greece and in Europe, in order to reduce the distance that separates our country from the rest of Europe?
7. Which constitutional preconditions they think to create will allow all religious communities to enjoy the internationally acknowledged equity of rights and parity for the religious rights?

 

Athens, March 26, 2009

Member of Parliament

Periklis Korovesis

 

 

 

The tide is turning in Europe

 

 

 

I see more and more European news outlets and blogs such as this one talking about Islamophobia*.  If I was not a Muslim, I guess I would be concerned too, being constantly bombarded by heavily distorted and false propaganda, but really if you understand Islam and how an Islamic state treats and protects dhimmis with high respect and honor, there’s nothing to be afraid of.  And I’ll go even further to say that it’s a much better system than how democracy treats its minorities.

 

          Will Muslims be the majority in Europe in 20 years?  Maybe.

          Could Christianity die out in a century?  Allah knows.

          Is Europe afraid?  Definitely.

          Is there a need to be afraid.  I don’t think so.

 

This blogger seems to think so with her ’see saw’ theory that when Europe is up, Islam is down and vice versa.  She has a point. 

The tides are turning and no one can deny that.  Br. Amr Khaled has stated it publicly as well as Shaykh Yusuf Qaradawi here:

 

 

Someone might view this video and be afraid but there’s nothing to be afraid of.  The truth of God stands clear and everyone is given a choice to accept or decline.

 

*Note:  Just had to throw this definition in here to show our “Greekness”  

A phobia (from Greek: φόβος, phobos, “fear”), is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or persons.