Stopped by the Gestapo

Ok, so it was not really the Gestapo, it was the Athens police, but it sure felt like I was doomed so please, let me explain.

 

The Lowdown

 

It may have been jet lag, my ridiculous work ethic, or just my desire not to miss a moment of my time here in Greece that caused me to be awake at two or three in the morning working on one of my posts for this blog. Anyhow, at about that time I went out of the dorm to have a smoke–I have an electronic cigarette that I puff on. I was not doing anything than what I normally do, even for just being a newcomer to Greece, I went to smoke where the Resident Advisors of my dormitory instructed me to smoke and I was just leaning against the wall smoking and editing one of the many pictures that I have shot. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The next thing I know, two motorcycles turned around the corner, each with two police officers on them and assault riffles hanging from all of their chests. (((SCREACH)))… Both bikes come to an immediate stop and they jump from their bikes and surround me. I was standing there about to piss my pants and a million thoughts were running through my head. I am a foreigner and I do not have any rights here. Everyone is asleep and no one will know that I have disappeared until the morning and by that time it will be too late. Smoking must be illegal after the sun goes down. There is a curfew that I was unaware of and people are not supposed to be on the street after a certain time. These guys are not going to know what this electronic cigarette that I have is and if they do they are going to think that it is marijuana and I am going to prison, never to see the light of day again. I am going to die. Needless to say, I was terrified.

Anyhow, I calmed myself down as they began asking, in almost yelling voices, definitely some of the most stern that I have heard since I have come to Greece, about what I was doing there. Now the question started in Greek but instantly turned to English as they saw that I could not understand and was saying so in English. Cool, I thought, at least I will be able to communicate that I am AN American citizen and that I am just here to complete a school program. “What are you doing here?” two of them demanded of me simultaneously. I respond, I am smoking a cigarette. “What are you doing smoking here?” they demanded of me again, and I told them that I go to Deree, the American College of Greece and that this is my dorm I am in front of. “Where are your papers? Where is your passport? Give them to us now. Luckily, I listened to Dr. Taso Lagos, and before I left the United States I copied and printed my passport, so that I could have a copy of it in my wallet without fearing that I would lose it or have it stolen by a pick-pocket, and I had my passport on me–well at least a good facsimile of it, anyway.

Once I handed them my papers, there gave me about a foot and a half of space, but two of them never removed their hands from their assault riffles. However, I knew that I was legit, and I was hoping that I was not doing something illegal that no one had thought to warn me of. But, at least I thought that if I was breaking some unnamed law that I would be okay because they were calling in my passport to their headquarters to verify my identity. “Who is your daddy?” my daddy…? “Yes, what is your father name?” I could not help but think WTF does my father’s name have to do with anything. I have not seen my father since I was like nine years old. The only document that I have which still links him to me is my birth certificate. What, did these guys used to hang in the bars somewhere in America and could somehow have thought that they had a drink or gotten into a fight with my father some night? It did not make any sense, but seeing as how I was not really in a postion to make any snark remarks, I just answered their question: Dennis Moynihan.

“Dinis Mo y ni han” is what I heard them call into the headquarters just before they spelled my name out with that army-radio-cop talk that puts a word after every letter and then my passport number followed. All the while, I was getting mean-mugged from one direction and the stank-eye from the other, like I was a child molester or something. I mean I really felt dirty and bad for having fostered that much disgust in someone else. I felt like I was a bug that could be smashed at any moment, and forgotten the next.

In the twilight, underneath a pale streetlamps light, my passport, Washington State I.D., and my University of Washington I.D. was passed around from cop to cop  and by this time there were only speaking in Greek and of which the only word that I could make out was “Americki” blah blah blah, “Ameriki.” Thank god, they know that I am an American… (Huge sigh of relief, I hope…).

(((Cuchshshshshshshshshs)))

The bike finally responded to all the calls, in Greek of course, and then the next thing I know, the hands were off the assault riffles and their faces were full of smiles and their tones had dropped about ten octaves and 30 decibels. They folded my passport back up, handed it back to me, and told me to have a good night. Then they jumped on their bikes and like thieves in the night they were gone faster then they came, and as I was still shaking the pee loose from my legs, the night went silent again. (I did not really pee myself, that was meant to be mostly for rhetorical impact).

So, What I Learned from this Experience

 

I have heard stories, read articles, watched documentaries and discussed what it is like being in a foreign country, especially as an immigrant, but nothing could have prepared me for what happened that night and the way that it made me feel. For instance, I am from Seattle, Washington, which is not to far from California or Texas (other states in the US). Anyhow, I am sure that many if not most people have heard at one time or another in the news that immigrants, and in particular in the region that I just described, the West US, the largest immigrant population is primarily from Mexico and other South American countries. Their skin tends to be brown, so they stand out against a primarily white population, and they may or may not speak English. Some of them in the United States are there legally, and some, not so much. However, there have also been people who have identified as being Mexican, who have tinted skin, who have lived in that region of the US since the borders were first arbitrarily drawn in the 1800s. The point I am making is that there are also tinted skin citizens of America that may or not also speak Spanish, but who also share physical characteristics with immigrants.

There have been more than a few reports of police officers who racially profile people and groups who seem to match the general characteristics of what they think that a illegal immigrant from South of the United States is supposed to look and sound like. And they get rushed like I did, or worse and they are just arrested and then they sort everything out later. It does not matter if they are legal or not, they are guilty because of how they look.

Now, I always felt that this was wrong. Perhaps because I am an African-American and I have and remain to be racially profiled by police officers, school officials, store clerks and employees, jobs, you name it. But, I have never understood what it feels like to fear that my entire life would be over–whether that meant a physical death or an opportunity death because I was deported–just because I fit some arbitrary description of what the “wrong” type of person is. I know what that feels like now, and as you have read, it does not feel good.

And this is what we do, or we find permissible and allow in the United States; a country that claims to be free and to support and protect liberty. A country that is founded and propagates the so-called “American Dream” whereby you can make anything you want out of yourself so long as you have ambition, determination, desire, resilience, skill and a little bit of luck. That seems like a fairytale and that it was never meant for the general population, but rather, for the few, and for the elite. Because it does not seem like liberty is being protected when we tolerate the false imprisonment of people who have done nothing wrong just because they fit some description. And the psychological trauma that occurs when you know that you cannot walk down the street safely because you are afraid that the people who have sworn to protect you and whom you pay the salaries of via taxes or otherwise, will forget that you were born free just because of the color of your skin or the tongue that you speak.

Unfortunately,  have been learning that is not only an “American-thing,” but it a phenomenon that has permeated Greece as well and perhaps also in more places than I have had the opportunity to visit. So, the way that I have been hear that it is here in Greece is exactly the same as the situation I described in America, and people who have immigrated, whether legal or otherwise, are terrified to walk through the streets for fear that they will be arrested. If it just so happens that they do not have their documentation on them then it is to the detention center they go for processing. However, they may only be feet from where they live and they are not searched until they get to the station. Now, of course I do not think that there is a way that I can actually verify this because of the clearance level that I have been granted as a student here from another country, unless I find myself arrested as well. So, given those constraints, I am obliged to take the words of more than one of the citizens here. Besides, it does not sound that far fetched when I consider what is going on in the United States.

It seems that even as upsetting as it is, and given that it could totally ruin your day and perhaps week, having papers to prove your citizenship staves off a lot of heartache. But, that is not the case for people who have found some way to cross the border somehow, without first being approved to do so. And people choose to migrate for many reasons, the least of them is because the place they once called home is torn apart by war. Some people migrate because there is not enough food to support themselves and their families. Some people move because it is not legal for a woman to speak or for girls to go to school. Some migrate because they have no opportunities and they have heard that there are better opportunities elsewhere. Whatever the reason, once they migrate and make to another country and they are attempting to live without papers, and are thus illegal, they must live in constant fear of being detected.

It is ironic that illegal immigrants have been called “aliens” because they tend to be treated as sub-human. Once they are caught, they may be starved, deprived of medical attention, and even beaten or worse; it depends on the situation, the authority figures in their proximity, and their mandate. They may or may not be shipped back to these war-torn or poverty stricken regions, or they may sit and rot in some detention center somewhere. None of the options they are facing sound or look very enticing, but if we looked at it economically (not necessarily monetarily) in terms of Opportunity Costs, wherein the cost of something is the second best things that one has given up to achieve it, then facing the Gestapo is a lower cost to immigrants with its subsequent possibility of harm, than to remain where harm is most certain to occur.

The way that I hear it, in some countries, like Greece, a person could be here for over fifty years and still not be granted citizenship. This is the case even when they have been granted a residency pass which allows them to live and work, but is always up for continual renewal and evaluation and if it lapses the whole process starts all over again. Given these constraints, which entail the reason for migrating, the hope for a better life and the trouble finding one, it seems that the best option many immigrants have is to just stay below the radar.

After taking a look at it like this, I think we may have isolated the reason that the police exhibit general blanket policies, as such, that target anyone who fits the rough description of an immigrant is arrested because the immigrants can blend in.

 

Is it important enough to locate those considered to be illegally in a country to cause all the psychological harm to those who are legal or who are not immigrants?

If so, why?

Why is it so important to catalog and categorize each and every person that crosses the border of a country?

What is it that causes humans to put up walls and separate themselves from one another?

Is it because people believe there are scarce resources and that they need to ensure they have enough to take care of their own?

If people were really worried about having enough to survive, why would they throw so much away?

Does that not reveal that they believe they have more than enough?

What is it that causes the human race to tolerate and permit the maintenance of Feudal Privilege?

 

 

These are difficult questions to answer and I am sure that the answers will not be so pretty, but they are answers that I am after.

Stay tuned…