Pepi Rigopoulou on people without papers

Pepi Rigopoulou reflects in daily Eleftherotypia on the situation of people who lack a residence permit: "People without papers are neither a number nor a category. They are 'dead souls' of the kind Russian writer Nikolai Gogol … described in his masterpiece … . Beyond the soothing rhetoric about foreignness and hospitality, the foreigner remains an enigma, a problem, a challenge. But solving the problems, finding answers to the challenges, can't be achieved with simple slogans, moralistic sermons and weak generalisations. We must understand: even if a foreigner has no papers this doesn't mean he has no identity. He has his own particular story ... which not only separates him from the rest of society but also from the other foreigners we tend … to see as a mass. In a unique way … the foreigner represents a certain personality that demands the sympathy of all those … who humiliate him."

» full article (external link, Greek)
More from the press review on the subject » Migration, » Integration, » Minorities, » Greece, » Global