Ilias Marmaras
The Newly Builts (Neoktista), located along the route of the new Ikonion-Thriassio rail line, are chosen as a spatial node for this research. They are a site of open racialised tension between ethnic Greek and Roma inhabitants, who accused of being responsible for the degradation of the town due to their involvement in the drug trade and the scrap industry.
The Newly Builts, contrary to their name, are not so ‘newly-built’. The area started being populated around the 1960s, when its first settlers moved there to encroach and inhabit a mostly empty land. The settlement belongs administratively to the municipality of Aspropyrgos, which once played host to granaries and lettuce fields. Aspropyrgos began to develop as an industrial zone after the 1960s and as a logistical hub in the late 1990s. Different migration waves, either internal (Greeks from the province) or international (Russian-Pontiacs, Pakistanis and later Albanians and Roma) arrived in the area. Migrants were attracted by the opportunities of labour in the fields and the growing industry, which became scarce since 2008 and the emergence of the financial crisis.
The current composition of the population is ethnically diverse, including families of the Russian-Pontiacs that settled in the area mainly during the 1970s, Albanian migrants that came in the 1990s, several Roma families that came in 2005, forcibly removed from Argos (Peloponnese) to set up their improvised houses (tsantiria) anew here. After 2008, and as the crisis became more acute, Greek families from the western suburbs of Athens arrived, motivated by the relatively lower prices of land and houses.
The Newly Builts are linked to infrastructures in contingent and fleeting ways. They are constructed and sustained by what was stolen, reused and sold from existing infrastructures. Many of the houses in the settlement are containers or shanty constructions. Sewer metal caps on the streets, street lights and almost any metallic part of the town’s infrastructure is removed and melted at the scrap foundries. For the moment, there are, however, no known incidents of thefts of metal from the infrastructure of Trainose, the independent state-owned railway company.
Illegality, Racism, Infrastructures
The debates at the local cafe of the Newly Builts are constantly revolving around a matter: Roma, the ‘sub humans’ and ‘thieves’; the ‘criminal’ Russians; the ‘drug dealer’ Albanians. The problem of drug dealing is a major issue. The morphology of the area, its proximity with the North-west suburbia of Athens (Zefyri, Liosia, Menidi) – areas well-known during the last decades as ‘nests’ of different gangs that store and deal drugs – as well as its proximity to the port of Piraeus, makes the town a perfect location for this kind of business.
Warehouses where drugs are manufactured and packed are discovered from time to time in the area. On 19 March 2014, an illegal factory of drug manufacture and storage was raided by police forces. The factory was located in the area between Newly-Builts and Aspropyrgos. Inside the factory, a special lab provided technical facilities for the construction of special hiding places inside trucks for the transport of the drugs. Media referred to the accused people in general as a gang of Greeks and foreigners.
In another case, during a police raid on 14 April 2014, 67kg of heroin and a small amount of cocaine were found in a Roma settlement in the same area. The drugs were buried in the ground outside the houses. Police used bulldozers to dig the ground and reveal the special barrels containing the drugs. This time, the police operation was covered by prime-time media. Two Roma were accused, a 19 year-old man and a woman aged 21. However, the same day six Bulgarians were arrested at the Greek-Turkish border, trying to enter the Greek territory in a boat carrying 50kg of heroin. The media attention in this case was basic.
‘A year ago some unknown guys attacked the bank with Kalashnikovs’, says a woman resident of Aspropyrgos. ‘Almost all the police force came to the spot. At the same time in another spot, some others were able to pass – undisturbed by the police – drugs and guns. This kind of thing has happened several times’. And she continues: ‘Another day, a mafia guy ran like hell in a Porsche cabrio. He crashed on a wall. People gathered around him and he, in a dizzy state, pulled a gun. Police arrived and found the trunk full of cocaine. In a week he was out, free again’.
A businessman who owns a small enterprise in the area tells a story that reveals the vulnerable position of the inhabitants who face crime: ‘In one case, police were after someone who found shelter in my factory. They started shooting. At the beginning, the workers and I just stood frozen. And then we behaved, as there was nothing to see and we continued our work. In another case, I see a truck driver stopping for a cup of coffee. Another car stops aside, someone jumps on the truck, and takes the mobile phones and wallets. I look at the truck driver. He makes me a sign to keep quiet and say nothing’.
Illegal and dangerous usages of space proliferate. On the 13 of February 2014, after a police investigation, chemical waste in liquid form, extremely dangerous for public health, was found stored in the area. In the same investigation, findings included untreated and illegally stored industrial waste. After this incident, The Region of Attica took the initiative to have all Uncontrolled Waste Disposal Sites (UWDS) of the entire Attica Region aerially photographed in detail for the first time.
In another case, on 23 June 2011, police discovered an illegal lab for the treatment of chemicals. The lab was inside a house fenced with high walls. A Greek ethnic and two foreigners were arrested but dozens of barrels and plastic pots containing dangerous chemicals were already dispersed in many spots in the area.
Social Life, Education and Labour in the Newly-Builts and Aspropyrgos
George A. is 44 years old. He is unemployed. He lives in the Newly-Builts with his wife and his four daughters – the youngest is six months old. A 12 square metre container is their house. During the first two years they had no electricity and water. Later, they succeeded in connecting both. But today the electricity is cut because they have an unpaid bill of EUR 2,500. He says that ‘the bill corresponds to a house of 65 square meters!’ During the winter they burn wood to heat the water in order to take a bath. ‘A pulmonary disease caused by the smoke affected one of my girls’, he continues. ‘I searched for a job but in vein. I am pissed off hearing: leave us your phone number. The plastic bottle on the fireplace that contained olive oil is empty. The only available solution for food is charity meals. We wait in the queue to get 2-3 portions to feed our children’.
According to the statistics of the Western Attica Region, at the social grocery of Aspropyrgos municipality, more than 400 families seek food-aid at least twice a week. The official number of the unemployed – those who are registered to the lists of OAED (Manpower Employment Organization) – in Thriassio is ten thousand.
In the Newly-Builts there is the 6th elementary school that belongs to the Aspropyrgos municipality. According to the head of Primary Education of Western Attica, for the period of 2013-14 the school teaches 175 pupils of diverse origin: 2/5 of the pupils are Roma, 1/5 are Russian-Pontiacs and the rest Greek ethnics. The school has 11 classes and one reception class for pupils with special educational needs. There is also a nursery school, which has two classes for 50 infants. The director says that the school is understaffed of teachers. There are several problems with the school building, unresolved even to this day. The state does not own the area of the building and necessary works cannot be carried out. The parents have requested the relocation of the school from the Ministry of Education because of its current close proximity to an electricity power station.
One teacher from the school says that violent incidents between pupils are frequent. Problems of drug use and prostitution exist in some families: ‘In one case, a father was pushing his daughter to prostitution and her brother, who was experiencing this at home, was aggressive at school’. ‘Because’, he continues, ‘the financial status of the parents is very low, children experience violence due to poverty on one side and domestic violence on the other. And violence generates violence’.
Occasionally, Halyps Cement, a subsidiary of Italcementi Group, that is located in the area, provides financial aid to the school.
The Head of Primary Education in Western Attica says: ‘Roma people preserve their own way of living. They are constantly on the road. When they move they take their children with them. Thus, the children cannot follow and complete formal education. They are not willing to learn how to co-exist with other ethnic groups. There are exceptions but the stereotypes remain strong. Roma usually arrive on the periphery of cities. It is easier for them to “conquer” an uncontrolled area and to set up settlements. Lack of control facilitates activities like burning of tires in order to extract metal, thefts (mostly copper) and drug dealing. Roma, although they have Greek citizenship, are among the ethnic groups that suffer from racist attacks. The neo-Nazi political party Golden Dawn establishes its presence in the area using Roma as scapegoats. The conflict relations between Roma and Russian-Pontiac families are clearly of an ethnic-racist nature’.
Another local merchant explains: ‘In the past, industry brought money to the area. The rents paid by the factories were high. As far as the immigrants are concerned, on one hand they were subjects of exploitation and on the other hand they were not welcomed. When they (immigrants) were asking for their salaries, the bosses reported them to the police calling them illegal immigrants. But now in this period of crisis all these “bosses” take the side of Golden Dawn and collaborate with every demagogue that gives them any kind of promise. The ex-owners of small factories of metal products (aluminades) that today become members of Golden Dawn were employing immigrants in the past’.
The area of Aspropyrgos is highly industrialized. It has the highest indicative number of increasing population in Greece. Here are located the three most important steel industries in Greece and the Aspropyrgos Refinery (Hellenic Petroleum). In total, 670 industrial units are located in Thriassio, almost 40 per cent of total Greek industry, something that makes the area the most polluted zone in Attika region and probably in Greece.
The only public transport that connects the town of Aspropyrgos with the Newly-Builts is bus line 805. Due to several attacks on the bus drivers and passengers, the frequency is nowadays low and there are rumours about a definitive abolition of the line. However, there is an intense reaction on the part of the Aspropyrgos municipality against this measure.
The Head of Primary Education of Western Attica explains a specific case of racism, concerning the 12th elementary school of Aspropyrgos located at the district Psari. According to this official, it is a district where many Roma families have their settlements:
The parents of the Greek and Russian-Pontiac pupils demanded the exclusion of Roma pupils. The mayor of Aspropyrgos cooperated with them. Then, two reception classes for the Roma children were constructed by the use of containers. Later, the containers were ‘baptised’ the 12th elementary school.
A conflict between Primary Education of Western Attica and the municipality began, and one day bulldozers raided the Roma settlement of the area. An NGO, active in the area, collected signatures from the Roma and denounced the incident at the European Court of Human Rights. According to the European law on human rights, no country is allowed to form educational infrastructure that separates ethnicities and minorities. The ECHR issued a conviction to the Greek state, including a fine. Still, the situation remains unresolved. However, the Head of Primary Education adds that ‘the problem is more complicated because some Roma families do not wish to disperse their children in different schools, because the parents are afraid that the children will meet Roma from other areas and families and they will probably get married in undesirable marriages’.
At the East side of the Newly-Builts, the last natural water source of the Thriassio area is located. The spring is located in Zastani. During the past decades, it has served as an important water supply for shepherds and farmers. Today it is neglected, almost abandoned, and only a few people try to keep it clean and preserve it. But they try.