The contribution of Albanians
The contribution of Albanians and ethnic Greeks from Albania to the Greek economy is indisputable. The big migration wave of the 1990s revitalized almost all professions and remains a decisive factor in the country’s economic development. Greece gained capable bluecollar workers and laborers who, with their dedication and hard work, continue to contribute to the country and create wealth.
Today, the children of those migrants not only speak excellent Greek, but are excelling in education, growing up in a country that they now consider their own, and contributing to the development of the arts, sciences and entrepreneurship (even if examples of unequal treatment and unacceptable difficulties in obtaining citizenship still persist).
The fears in the 1990s that the country’s cultural makeup would change were baseless. Let us remember that a great number of Albanian and Slavic people have migrated to Greek lands over the last few centuries and the descendants of many of them are now indistinguishable from the rest of the population. After all, what Greek or Englishman can say that he knows who his ancestors were 1,000 years ago? Even the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II is of German descent.
Greece, with its culture, geography, language, climate, history and religion, has created Greeks for millennia, whatever their place of birth.
Consequently, the new migrants who arrive in Greece also carry the promise of a significant contribution to Greece. This does not mean, however, that society has unlimited possibilities to develop social interactions with (the word “assimilate” is tasteless and racist) the “foreigner.”
People who come to our country should be treated well, but Greece cannot continue to take in so many arrivals. The increase in the number of refugees and migrants reaching Greece is driven by anti-Western forces that want to destabilize Europe.
Turkey allows the smuggling boats to sail from its shores, which it controls completely, as a means of pressure. This is aimed at making migration an issue of bilateral negotiation with Athens.
In other words, immigration certainly strengthens Greece in a variety of ways, as the Albanians and ethnic Greeks from Albania have clearly shown, but the large numbers of migrant arrivals, which is the result of secret plans to destabilize Europe, must be controlled by the mobilization of the European Union and NATO.