Why multiculturalism remains a fictional concept in Greece

During the Cold War (1947-1989), with the defeated Greek communist forces receiving support from Bulgaria, Albania and Yugoslavia during the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), Greek governments continued to target Slavic-speaking minorities by disrupting festivals and further encouraging the “Hellenisation” of names for persons and geographical locations.  

While state-sponsored violence and outright bans on speaking Slavic/Macedonian dialects today have ended, with the 2018 Prespa Agreement between Greece and the newly renamed Republic of North Macedonia also easing bilateral state tensions,  institutional and political non-recognition of such minorities remains.

Today, Greek governments still refuse to ratify the European Charter for Regional for Minority Languages, and exclude any direct public financial or operational support for non-Greek (foreign-language) commercial radio and television stations apart from specific local stations in Western Thrace broadcasting in Turkish.

And, while residents in Greece may look for minority languages via privately-funded sources, such as the legally registered Centre for the Macedonian Language which offers free Macedonian language lessons over the internet, they too may experience ongoing court challenges from Greek authorities.

Yet, despite Greece’s obsession with “Hellenisation”, to this day Greek society has indeed become more culturally diverse in a number of ways:   

First, there has been some attempt to document the Arvanite contribution to Greece with the Arvanitic League of Greece founded during the 1980s to promote its culture, language, and history, although it remains to be seen whether any formal institutional or legal backing will emerge to support such cultural diversity.

With Greece having lost most of its Jewish population through the Holocaust after the German invasion, Greece has integrated Holocaust history into its public school curriculum, criminalised Holocaust denial in 2014, and enacted legislation in 2017 to allow Holocaust survivors and their descendants to reclaim lost citizenship.

Second, whereas Greece’s foreign population was minimal prior to the 1990s, the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe brought many economic migrants to Greece to fill critical labour shortages in agriculture, construction, and domestic services, mostly from Albania.

More recent immigration has been from South Asia, East Asia, and parts of Africa.

Today, it is estimated that first and second-generation immigrants account for around 7 to 10 per cent of the Greek population, while Greece’s Muslim Population has increased to 5 to 7 per cent in recent years due to diverse sources of migration from Albania, Africa, and Asia.

Interestingly, while Albanians today represent around 60 per cent of foreign-born people living in Greece, it is estimated that only 8.4 per cent identify as Muslim with a large proportion converting to Greek Orthodoxy, in order to blend in or avoid social bias, or define themselves as secular with no religious belief.

Third, while around 90 per cent of the Greek population still identify as Greek Orthodox despite weekly church attendance declining to 11.4 per cent after being 63 per cent in 1960 and 29 per cent in 1980, the Church’s declining influence is visible in many ways: