[MGSA-L] MGSA-L Digest, Vol 85, Issue 17

George Baloglou gbaloglou at gmail.com
Thu May 19 08:03:11 PDT 2011


Dear Mimi,

your butting-in is in fact appreciated, as it throws some light into
certain reactions ... and since "you look like an algerian/morrocan"
and I happen to love Arabic music, let me dedicate to you a couple of
songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcI-ZOmlY3U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jun2mSREXIo

:-)


2011/5/19 Mimi Vasilaki <uctcdva at ucl.ac.uk>:
> very sorry to butt-in but I was reminded of a conversation I had with a man
> from Paris. When asked how did I like Paris (I lived in the 14e for a year),
> I explained to him that although the city is nice I had problems with racism
> (spat-on, not served at restaurants, verbally assaulted and so on) because I
> look like an algerian/maroccan. He was so incredulous and so much in
> denial/embarassment that the poor man started calling all his Parisian
> friends to ask them whether they think what I was saying is true!
>
> Incidentally an Indian colleague of mine from mumbai recently visited Athens
> for work.. they put him in the historic 'Titania' hotel in Panepistimiou.. I
> asked him what he thought and his first reaction was to exclaim 'what a
> dump'.. He was very impressed by the rubbish and the graffiti and felt too
> scared to leave the hotel at night. Another Greek colleague who was present
> during the discussion rushed in to defend our beautiful city.. 'well yes, it
> is ghetto down there, there are much better places to go to..' Nevermind
> that the 'down there' is Athens city centre, like, we say for example,
> 'trafalgar square'...
>
>
> George Baloglou wrote:
>
> Unlike Dr. Allen, I do not visit Athens frequently. But I hear from a
> relative who lives there that you do not want to walk at Panepistimiou
> Street at night, and a U.S. friend tells me that his aging mother has
> minimized her walks at Patission Street even during the day. (These
> are streets I am familiar with, streets that looked safe to me two
> years ago.) And there is much more reported in the media, about store
> owners that have been mugged several times, about closing downtown
> hotels (largely because of high crime rate), and so on.
>
> If you read http://seisaxthia.blogspot.com/2011/02/blog-post_4944.html
> carefully enough you will realize that what happened to actor Stelios
> Maynas was far from random; in my judgement, the situation described
> in his statement fully justifies the term "crime-infested" (for a
> substantial, and inevitably growing, part of Athens anyway).
>
> George Baloglou
>
> 2011/5/19 james verinis <jverinis at gmail.com>:
>
>
> Without intending to make light of the situation, in line with Dr.
> Allen's thinking, with all the melodramatic press Greece has suffered
> over the past couple of years (I'm thinking of headlines such as
> 'beware of Greeks....' or 'Herculean debt'), I feel compelled to say
> that I wish Athens was the most crime infested city I've ever been in.
> And I'm really not that well-travelled. If the immigrants are so
> dangerous and the immigrant-hating Greeks are so dangerous, if we
> believe what we read, who are the people I know in Greece?
>
> On Wednesday, May 18, 2011, Allen, Peter <PAllen at ric.edu> wrote:
>
>
> No. many of them live in Kolonaki, Zoographou, Pangrati, etc.  And when I go
> to Athens, which I do regularly (I was there last week and will be going
> again in mid-June), I stay in Pangrati and spend most of my time in the
> center of the city.
>
> PSA
>
> Peter S. Allen
> Department of Anthropology
> Rhode Island College
> Providence, RI  02908
> 401-456-9639
> Fax: 401-456-9736
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Baloglou [mailto:gbaloglou at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 5:07 PM
> To: Allen, Peter
> Cc: mgsa-l at uci.edu
> Subject: Re: [MGSA-L] MGSA-L Digest, Vol 85, Issue 17
>
> On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Allen, Peter <PAllen at ric.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> I was a bit put-off (and puzzled) by the characterization of central Athens
> as "crime infested" in this posting. It seems to have come from the4
> Associated Press.  Is there any justification for this?  I know crime has
> increased in Athens in recent years, but I would hardly describe it as
> "infested" with crime.
>
>
> Why do I get the impression that all your Athenian friends live in
> nice suburbs???
>
> Here is some fresh news for starters (with a 'nice touch' in the
> penultimate paragraph):
> http://www.tanea.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=1&artId=4631330
>
> --
>
> Γιώργος Μπαλόγλου -- Θεσσαλονίκη
>
> http://www.oswego.edu/~baloglou (1988 - 2008)
>
> http://crystallomath.wordpress.com (2009 - )
> _______________________________________________
> List-Info: https://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/mgsa-l
>
>
>
>
>



-- 

Γιώργος Μπαλόγλου -- Θεσσαλονίκη

http://www.oswego.edu/~baloglou (1988 - 2008)

http://crystallomath.wordpress.com (2009 - )



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