'Giwrgos Toronidis',Your rhetoric shows that you're, if not already a member/support of a racist group, then ideologically predisposed towards such membership. You're a product of a society and a culture that has not developed (for various reasons) strong institutional resistance to the formation of organised racist groups like 'Golden Dawn' , but all that,and the fact that you've been made redundant,do not in the least grant you immunity to censure, or exculpate you from your present or future political affiliations. Some of the points you made in your extensive drivel (clad in the language of a melodramatic 'personal memoir', as if the fact that you've had certain experiences automatically makes you an authority in understanding them and their implications. It does not) need addressing:1) Your threat(?) that you 'will be made' to become a member or voter of a racist gang of thugs aims at what exactly? To bully the rest of society into adopting racist policies so that YOU don't join/vote for a racist group? Or to say that such a position (support of racist gangs) is the only one open to people in your present state (i.e., since I'm unemployed I have to turn around and kick those who're in an even worse position than myself)? The social and financial turmoil of a country coupled with the uninterrupted and unopposed reproduction of a dangerous nationalistic-racist-homophobic-misogynistic sub-culture at the very heart of mainstream culture, and the indulgent fostering of a vast uneducated populace (and I would include the uneducated degree holders in this), are major contributing factors to the creation and growth of organised groups of racist thugs and allow their rhetoric and their aggressive illiteracy to acquire a seductive tone (for deliberation, political action and reflection require much effort and time and their effects are neither immediately felt nor immediately visible, while violent outbursts have that immediacy, the immediacy of consummated hatred and provide a fast outlet to blind resentments). Your first hand experience of such a social milieu, coupled with your uncritical mind, may account for the fact that you're tempted to join such thuggish groups, it does not, however, absolve you of the responsibility for doing so. In a few words, even if your entire social realm joins a thuggish gang, YOU will still be held responsible for doing so and no amount of hiding behind a guilty collectivity will be able to absolve you from your decision to become a racist thug yourself or vote for one. There are other political and social alternatives that do not involve the espousal of violence for the sake of violence and the blind hatred of everything that is not identical with you or does not agree with your Weltanschauung, you could have joined those.2. Women who live in oppressive and destructive of women communities (communities which are themselves ghettoised, excluded by the generality and soon turn inward and ossify) by definition HAVE NO CHOICE, so the language of choice does not apply to them (you sound like a racist version of Marie Antoinette's 'let them eat cake'). You speak as if these women have somewhere to go, have a repertoire of social identities from which they could choose and live human lives. These women are trapped between a populace that views them with hostility (if not downright hatred), a state that cuts them off and treats them as pariahs, and an oppressive community that has the power to destroy them through their families. That is the reality of these women and hence their escape into medication (you too have your own kind of medication and escape, go and read Julia Kristeva's interview here on Lifo, you might learn something). that said, one does not expect any particular social insight (let alone sensitivity) or exercise of political judgment from a person who views others as 'lice carriers'. 3. The German education system operates on an equal opportunities basis (like all German state institutions) and it is inspired by egalitarian, non-nationalistic principles. Your 'case-study' of a hypothetical Pontian Greek in Germany,by which you seek to establish similarities between the countries, in order to excuse your adoption of racist and exclusionary ideologies and practices, is both laughable and false. For it overlooks that integration policies in Germany are embedded in a context of equal opportunities in a thoroughly egalitarian (at least in principle and in its institutional expressions) society and its education system. Positive discrimination measures in Germany -or preferential treatment via an extensive system which includes special monetary benefits, special and extra tuition, free membership in sports clubs, art venues, holiday camps, free language lessons, etc.- are activated whenever that egalitarianism is threatened by various factors (e.g., for children whose parents are drug addicts or in prison, or live on the poverty line, IRRESPECTIVE of their ethnic background. Asylum seekers and refugees also get some form of preferential treatment in the form of social housing and help with language learning, education and employment. Your Pontian Greek would receive all those benefits if he/she fell in one of those categories). Children who come from an underprivileged background are granted special treatment THROUGHOUT their primary and secondary education in Germany. For that reason there's NO NEED for the rather empty gesture (which comes too late in any case to be of any real benefit to the recipient and it only seeks to patch up the deep inequalities members of ethnic minorities are faced with in Greece) of granting a small percentage of 'free' entries into higher education. If you want to talk Germany then talk Germany and don't spout untruths and make haphazard associations, designed to suit your racist argument (by the way, I know that families with many children are also given similar preferential or 'positive discrimination' treatment in Greece, yet it is the members of ethnic minorities that attract your ire. It goes to show how racist your position is). 4. In what way you only pay the VAT of Muslim Greek university students? I can't make sense of that statement at all -as if one can choose where one's taxes and VAT can be spent!!! I don't want to see my taxes go into the pockets of arms dealers, or indeed, my Greek friends' taxes going into paying the salaries of racist thugs sitting in Parliament, but I don't stop paying my taxes because they do- but for the sake of the argument, let's continue). First of all, it is your absolute obligation to pay VAT, you're not doing us a favour, second, your VAT goes (again for the sake of the argument)among other things to ALL university students good and bad alike (and their ethnic background should not enter the picture at all). Besides positive discrimination measures have nothing to do with your VAT obligations, and everything to do with a country's addressing an injustice and a source of inequality among ITS OWN NATIONALS. Since there's no policy of showing the exit to any Greek university student, and one can resit a year or a module indefinitely, in what way is it only the Muslim Greek university students who are 'eternal students' and devour your VAT contributions?(I won't tell you what your ideological cousins in the UK say about 'bailing out' the 'lazy' Greeks indefinitely, basically because I abhor their drivel as much as I abhor yours). I personally know four 'eternals' in Greek unies., who, by the way, obtained excellent marks in their entry exams and proudly entered the faculties of their choice 10-11 years ago and are still there, none of which is a Muslim Greek from Thrace (or any other part of Greece). 5. I'm glad the writer of the letter to the racist thug-MP is a fully employed teacher. People like him greatly contribute to the transformation of the historical experience of the area (an exit from the violent history of the past and the shadow it has cast upon all the communities)and the possibility of a different social experience for all communities and individuals, while 'teachers' like you are, rightly, kept away from the minority's children (your unemployment benefit is paid by the Greek taxpayers, by the way, some of whom are Muslim Greeks from Thrace I presume). Imagine if the education of Muslim Greek children was left to the likes of you, the country will be condemned to permanent social and historical decadence, reproducing past violence and present injustices. And I sign off by saying that you should have a look at how many times Greece has been internationally censured for its Human Rights record for, specifically, the treatment of its minorities (ethnic and religious). The shockingly high number (for an EU country) shows how baseless and false your argument is (you seem to believe that your country is actually too lenient towards its minorities!!!). If Turkey has a foot in the Turkish speaking Muslim minority of Greek nationals in Thrace then the blame rest with Greece's treatment of such minorities. It is that treatment that has allowed Turkey to assume the part of their saviour and set foot in Thrace. Also, the fact that Turkey has a more appalling human rights and ethnic minority treatment record should not fill Greece with pride at its own failures. The way to protect itself from Turkish expansionism is definitely NOT by violating human rights and mistreating its own minorities, but by cementing its position in the EU and forging powerful international alliances (through interest-alignment with the powers that be). It is by strong and efficient diplomacy and skillful international politics that a country (especially a small country) protects itself, not by the unlawful exclusion and mistreatment of some of its communities. Note to Lifo and its readers: I'm British with a good knowledge of Greece (and many many dear friends in the country). I read, understand and speak Greek (very well one likes to think) but my writing skills in your great language are,at best, fragile. Therefore I had to post my reply in my mother tongue. Apologies.
