four - Grassroots community social work with the ‘unwanted’: the case of Kinisi and the rights of refugees and migrants in Patras, Greece

Summary

Introduction

In this chapter I reflect upon my engagement – as both a social worker and an activist – in the Kinisi movement, which has worked with refugees and migrants in Patras both to meet their needs and to campaign for political change in the way migrants and refugees are treated within the European Union (EU). I start by outlining the situation facing refugees in Greece, then proceed to look at the development of Kinisi, before reflecting on the role of social work in the campaign.

But before I proceed I want to highlight one ‘linguistic’ issue. In political debate a distinction is drawn between refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. Migrants are viewed as people who move for a job. Refugees are those who flee their home country because of political, religious or cultural oppression. An asylum seeker is someone who seeks formal recognition for their refugee status. But in reality, these distinctions are quite unhelpful and based on old and legalistic definitions. For example, if someone flees Afghanistan because they are a Communist facing persecution they would count as a legitimate ‘refugee’, but someone from the same country who left home because their village had been destroyed by imperialist intervention and they could no longer support themselves would be a migrant! Our view is that these distinctions are not helpful. The people with whom Kinisi works have fled countries destroyed by war and military intervention – we consider them all people who should have the right to free movement and the same human rights as everyone else. In what follows I refer to refugees, migrants and asylum seekers without distinction.

The EU's anti-immigration policy

The motto on the official website of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Border (Frontex) is ‘Libertas Securitas Justitia’ (Frontex, 2010). It has replaced one of the core demands of the French Revolution (equality) with one related to modern concerns (security). The three elements of the slogan, ‘freedom, equality, justice’, were seen for many years as interconnected. Interestingly, in contemporary Europe ‘equality’ has been sacrificed in the name of ‘safety’. This issue is in line with the dominant policies of the EU and the US, by which, in the name of ‘safety’, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced massive waves of displaced people.