Worlds apart

This article is better understood by Cypriots, but it does not mean that anyone else will not find it interesting.


While you cannot expect the same standards for perceptions of different aspects of society in countries that are at different stages of their political and social development, the perception of foreigners and the issue of racism in Cyprus is something so shocking that it cannot be simply put aside and regarded as an issue that will change with time and get better as people on this small island become more and more aware and in touch with the wider world.

Every other day somewhere on the news you will find some new record on the number of asylum seekers in Cyprus and some shocking case of mistreatment of foreigners on the island (which the Interior Minister recently said amounted to more than one in five of the entire population of the island[1]). The most recent story that comes to mind is last week’s account of an asylum seeker who despite needing medication daily he, along with another 250 asylum seekers, was told that he would not receive the monthly benefits he was entitled to from the government (according to Cypriot law asylum seekers receive a social package from the government as they are not allowed to work in the first six months of their stay and after that their employment is restricted to the farming sector. This leads to most asylum seekers forced to work illegally in the private sector, for much lower payments than their Cypriot counterparts as well as the unbelievable situation of some extremely educated asylum seekers or refugees –scientists and scholars – who are made to work in agriculture for a very meager salary).

These stories however have become in a way ‘accepted’, meaning that while everyone knows that this is happening, it is mostly ignored. You don not need to be living in Cyprus permanently to realise that foreigners are not treated the same as Cypriots, just a few hours on the island will suffice. Therefore, such stories that are meant to awaken Cypriots to the ills of their society no longer touch a nerve. The common reaction would be ‘not another group of asylum seekers on strike, what do they want again, isn’t it enough they are in the country?’

It must be said that there is definitely a group of people ( the Action for Equality, Support, Antiracism in Cyprus (KISA) a few journalists – I can possibly count them on the fingers of one hand - people in the government working for the Interior Ministry(find exactly where) that are committed to working hard for the implementation of the necessary EU laws on asylum seekers and refugees as well as probably the most important and hardest task of not only raising the awareness of Cypriot citizens to these issues but to actually get people to change their perceptions on the matter.

But in general, this is a very small group of people that you see at every government talk raising social awareness on the problem or the same journalists who write on the topic and try to highlight the grave inequalities that foreigners are subject to.

At a presentation of the results of a survey by Community Initiative EQUAL, responsible for the ‘Social Rights for Asylum Seekers’ movement, a representative of the Anti-Racism Department of the Interior Ministry said one of the most correct comments I have heard when it comes to foreigners in Cyprus.

“In Cyprus foreigners don’t have a name.”

This may seem like a drastic comment for an EU country in 2008, however it is entirely true for the majority of the population. The most striking example here comes in the form of police reports and press coverage of crimes.

On police reports, when the subject of the report, either for being charged for a crime or being the victim of a crime, a foreigner appears under the term ‘allodapos’, which translated into English means either ‘alien’ or ‘foreigner’. Now this is a way of describing any foreigner in Cyprus, this is the broad category that 22 % of the population come under. No name, no description, nothing, just ‘allodapos’, whether the person has been living in the country for 10 or 15 years, he is just a ‘foreigner’.

Here is one of these police reports:

Εργατικό ατύχημα
Γύρω στις 11π.μ. σήμερα, ενώ 25χρονος αλλοδαπός, βρισκόταν σε υποστατικό, σε χωριό της επαρχίας Πάφου και ασχολείτο με τον καθαρισμό του, κάτω από συνθήκες που διερευνώνται, έχασε την ισορροπία του και έπεσε στο έδαφος από ύψος 3 μέτρων περίπου, με αποτέλεσμα να τραυματιστεί στο κεφάλι.
Από τις έως τώρα εξετάσεις της Αστυνομίας, φαίνεται ότι ο πιο πάνω, βρισκόταν παράνομα στο έδαφος της Κυπριακής Δημοκρατίας.
Ο Αστυνομικός Σταθμός Πόλεως Χρυσοχούς διερευνά τα αίτια του ατυχήματος.

Work-related accident:
At around 11am today, a 25-year-old foreigner, while cleaning an estate in a village in the Paphos district, under circumstances that are being investigated, lost his balance and fell to the ground from a height of three metres, injuring his head.
From the initial investigations of the Police, it appears that the abovementioned was in the Republic of Cyprus illegally.
The Polis Chrysochous Police Station is investigation the causes of the accident.

This story might have been published in the press the following day in the same way: a foreigner fell, injuring his head. He is in Cyprus illegally. But most probably the story will not have even made it to the dailies. The bottom line I get from this is: who cares?
No mention of the 25-year-old’s name, not even nationality, the only thing that seems worthy of mentioning is his status: a ‘foreigner’.
Had he been a Cypriot, well that is a totally different story. The incident would have made the 8 o’clock news on all channels, undoubtedly with his name, origin, family background and the concern of his family worried for his health and calling for better health and safety provisions at the workplace.

But that is just a minor indication of the scale of the problem we are facing. If that was the only problem, then we would be going well. What I notice time and time again in Cypriot society is a general racist and xenophobic attitude to the most simple things, not the normal right of centre view in many western countries that these foreigners come to our country and steal our jobs. The problem in Cyprus does not have much to do with political perspective, the problem of racism is one that is inherent and tends to passed down from parents to children. It is not rare to see children or teenagers watching a Premier League football game or a World-Cup game and shouting, as if vindicated, when a black player gets something wrong, saying: Ε τι περιμένεις που ένα μαύρο, αφού εν έχει νου!’, ‘What do you expect from a black guy, he has no brains.’ And this from children who do not think twice about this as they undoubtedly picked up such a phrase from their father or mother.

This again, is a relatively small example which cannot possibly capture the inherent racism on the island. I remember a conversation with an English friend in London, trying to explain to him that the only people that use the bus or even ride a bicycle in Cyprus are the foreign workers – and maybe a few old-age pensioners, this in the case of the bus and not the bicycle. He could simply not understand how it was so normal for us to say that and it was something that was a part of our life and we accepted it without protest. It is something so normal in Cyprus that you don’t even think about it.

Possibly the most stark example of the problem however is neither the lack of care for asylum seekers and recognised refugees from the government, neither the fact they are reduced to second class citizens by the police and the press nor the blatantly racist comments and perceptions from Cypriots towards foreigners.

Inherent racism – commonly called ‘patriotism’ be some – exists everywhere, even in the most liberal of states. Having lived in London for a year, I have come to the realisation that while it appears to be a multicultural society, there is a serious lack of integration (this does not mean that the lack of integration comes about due to racism) and mixing of people of different race, religion or ethnic background. However, what the UK has succeeded – not fully but partially - in creating is a general acceptance of people of other cultures and backgrounds, something which even though it is not ideal, it is definitely further than many other countries have come.

While I cannot expect this from Cyprus, what is so striking is the fact that Cypriots and foreigners here – especially the non-European ones – live in two entirely different worlds. At this press conference I attended two weeks ago carried out by EQUAL on the social rights of asylum seekers, it was said that 65 per cent of asylum seekers in Cyprus live below the poverty line. This is an absolutely incredible statistic for a country that has such a high standard of living. Just walking from the car park to go to the office where work in the morning in old Nicosia, one can see the kind of houses where the foreigners live (anyone from Nicosia will know where and what I am talking about). In most of these houses a Cypriot would not allow his or her animals to live. Derelict buildings – I am not exaggerating when I say dangerous to live in as they look ready to collapse – are evidence of the stark differences in the worlds where the foreigners and Cypriots live.

The main issue in Cyprus is that there is a total lack of any sort of integration policy for the great number of foreigners that live here. While I know the problem is generally non-European foreigners – western Europeans are accepted, not so much Eastern Europeans such as Poles, Romanians, Ukrainians and Russians and Pontians – you will most probably never see a Cypriot going out with a group of non-white foreigners, you will be hard pushed to find a Cypriot conversing with them unless the foreigner in question is his household cleaner or any other sort of worker under his command. However shocking this may seem and even if many Cypriots may say that things are changing, the reality is we live worlds apart.

And if we are going to be brutally honest, it will take much more than committed work from a tiny group of individuals when compared to the attitudes of the wider population and it will probably take more than a lifetime before the inherent racist and xenophobic perceptions in Cyprus are to change for good.



[1] There are reportedly 170,000 foreigners living in Cyprus. There are 60,000 third country nationals legally here, 50,000 Europeans (including Pontians) and around 50,000-60,000 illegals, counting for approximately 22 per cent of the population.