Pakistanis started arriving in Greece in 1994 to become a big immigration flow in 2000. Pakistanis do not work in labour intensive jobs, but rather in smuggling and minor trading activities. Smuggling includes cigarettes, alcohol, house-ware, sun-glasses but mainly flowers.
Some of the left Pakistan for political reasons, others just for economic and others for cultural reasons. Talking about cultural reasons, we shall include the Pakistani gay community, oppressed in Pakistan.
Hindi people are another immigration flow Greece gets from Asia. They are involved in almost the same activities as the Pakistanis.
Chinese people open their own restaurants, textile commercial shops and generally shops where they sell Chinese products. They tend to make ghettos and they do not socialize much. Small China towns have blossomed in Athens and in Bardaris area in Thessaloniki.
Russians and Georgians, sometimes also referred as Greek-Russians or Greek-Georgians, work in ordinary low-intensive industry sector. Many of them live in the western suburbs of Thessaloniki and Athens. Some of the youngsters of this group are involved in robbing and other small crime. If you want to find the Greek society “banlieues” you have to search within this community, as it is the most discriminated, it has developed a ‘provocative’ (as the society perceives it) sub-culture. This community is supposed to be or actually is of Greek origins. Their fathers immigrated to Ukraine, Russia and Caucasus about 400 years ago as merchants or workers. There they mixed with the locals and after the end of Cold War the Greek government decided to repatriate them. Some say that the origin criterion wasn’t used at all and that they are real Russians, as their characteristics differ from the Greek ones. Those who believe in this theory, accuse the former Greek government of PASOK, of providing Greek citizenship to people willing to vote for it, with the excuse of repatriating Greeks of former USSR. Others believe that these people are of Greek origins and therefore they have a place in the Greek society. Whatever the truth is, this group is really discriminated, along maybe with the Albanians.
In the next article you will find more about the immigrants in Greece. We go on with Africans.
Technorati Tags: immigrants, ethnic groups, Pakistanis
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