"How has Patmos dealt with the refugee situation?" Alex asked me as I led him on a FaceTime tour of Skala.
"Well, they really haven't. They didn't really let them in. A few workers I've seen around were probably refugees, but mostly, there aren't any," I explained.
"How did that happen?"
"Well, some refugees tried to reach Patmos, but Patmos had them towed to other islands. They were stubborn and didn't allow them in."
Alex suggested that Patmians are a strong, conservative group that holds its own. I realized that in a sense, that's true.
That's not to say Patmians don't believe in birth control or stand against public services – but they probably aren't into secularizing the nation and clearly not illegal immigration. What they are into is conserving their way of life.
"How does your varied palate do being there? You're used to so many things at home. Are there many kinds of food?" Alex continued.
"Not really, but I like Greek food and get really into it while I'm here. It's fresh and good."
"So there's not even a Chinese place? Chinese are everywhere. Not even one of those got in?"
"Um, no. Nothing. No Thai, no Chinese – that's why when I get home I end up wanting a lot of Asian food – especially Thai. There's one restaurant – Mostra – that has sushi. That's the only Asian on the island. There's the vegan place I told you about that does gluten-free (Alex is gluten-free) and a couple of Italian restaurants. And that's it for other cuisines,"
They say the highest level of learning is teaching. Turning around and being able to teach someone else cements what you yourself have learned and creates mastery.
In the course of our walk and talk, Alex evoked things I knew, but put them in a new light. He forced a synthesis.
Patmians reject the fire truck and firefighters the national government sends for the tourist season each year. Sure, there's nothing they can do to prevent it from coming – they just don't call for it because it's inefficient. The local volunteer fire brigade makes use of the water trucks that rove the island, delivering fresh water to the homes and businesses that don't have access to water mains. The water truck drivers are the backbone of Patmos' fire defense and there's usually one of them on any given part of the island at any time. One of them can be on-site fighting a fire faster than the dispatcher in Athens can activate the fire truck parked by the port – which is guaranteed not to be near whichever section of brushy hillside is at risk. Because Patmians are used to their volunteers during the off-season, they just call them year-round and ignore the official fire fighters.
Patmians regulate which cruise ships can stop here: no more than three per day, not every day, only smaller ships and they have to anchor off-shore and tender in. While foreigners can buy property here (I'm case-in-point), the government has to approve the transaction and can, at its discretion, deny someone the ability to purchase. Foreigners do own their land outright – it's just the transaction that's up for question. Buildings must adhere to the Patmian building style with stone facade construction that can either be white or natural stone of a particular type.
Patmos has some foreign workers – usually in kitchens or in the building trades. Mohammad who worked on my house and his friend Hassan who did the cement and plaster work in the bathroom – have been here for many years now. They both speak fluent Greek and are well regarded by their Patmian colleagues and clients. In fact, when Hassan stopped by to fix the hole in my bathroom wall, I realized how little English he speaks. I think he assumed we were better off in Greek than Arabic and with only a few English words mixed in, rattled off what he was doing in a language I was only slightly more able to decode.
Alex asked about crime and violence on Patmos. I told him there's virtually none. the police officers come from elsewhere in Greece to prevent graft and nepotism among the small population of an island. But there's another force at work too. Every Patmian male above age 18 who is fit is required to have a gun in their possession and to report annually for military reserve training. There's a VERY small military base on Patmos. The national government recognizes that in a real invasion or emergency, Greece's military presence is unlikely to be sufficient to defend all its islands. Therefore, locals must be part of the national defense system. The men of Patmos are compelled to own and be trained on guns. Yet, according to my friend Prokopis at the hardware store who explained all of this to me, there have thus far been no gun mishaps and certainly no gun violence. He finds it baffling that America has all these shootings when everyone in Patmos has a gun and there are no shootings at all, ever.
In short, there is a Patmian way of life with clear definitions accompanied by a political will strong enough to maintain it. Patmians are conservative.
The United States was essentially founded by immigrants. Most of the founding fathers were no more than two generations from migrating from England. Achieving Manifest Destiny and developing a thriving nation – especially in the northern states which embraced the Industrial Revolution – required a larger population than the families of the original colonists could produce. In the South they brought in slaves. In the north, they allowed immigration from Europe. By the end of the 19th Century, America had clearly chosen the path of immigration as a backbone of its expansion and economic success.
Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore – a country with three major ethnicities and also not enough of its own people to power a rapidly expanding economy – said America's greatest strength is its ability to attract and assimilate the world's best talent.
America was young and nimble enough to perform an amazing balancing act – allowing diversity while retaining a core definition of American culture and what it means to be an American. Of course, that hasn't come easily and often we have vast internal tension around this aim. Antisemitism, racism, bias based on national origin are real ills and injustices the United States continues to struggle with.
On the other side, the immigrant groups who have done best and who we tend to feel more sympathy towards when they are poorly treated are the ones dedicated to assimilation. The Vietnamese wave of immigration in the 1970s and 1980s was one of the most economically successful of all-time. While most came with nothing but the shirts on their backs, they managed to quickly build businesses, educate their children and find their path as successful participants in the American system with loyalty and appreciation for their new home. When a group like this is mistreated, it's easier to find outrage and want to come to their defense. More of us can embrace diversity under these circumstances.
All of this to say that while America is in the middle of vast and sometimes frightening debates about immigration, diversity, equality, equity and fairness – there is a base of our culture that rests upon immigration and assimilation. We live with the interesting paradox of expecting to be both different from one another and the same. We debate what that looks like and what's in or out of bounds – which is ideally some sane point between burning crosses on lawns and allowing anyone who wants across our southern border.
Europe, on the other hand, has a very different history. Unlike America whose culture was designed to assimilate and flexibly adjust to the people coming in – the definition of a Greek, a German, a Dutch person or a Frenchman or woman is a bit more defined. Until the waves if immigration that transpired following decolonization, European nationality and ethnicity were essentially one and the same. The French were the descendants of Franks and Gauls; Germans of the Germanic tribes such as Goths that came from north to conquer much of Europe; Hungary the descendants of Huns like Attila, and Greeks the sun-kissed children of the ancient Hellenic city-states.
Imperialism had some unintended effects. It's hard to call people your subjects and deny them any access to your country. How do you paternalistically educate them and then keep them segregated? This was the exact issue that spurred Ghandi to lead India to independence. He was an attorney educated in the British system with all the appropriate credentials – yet he couldn't sit in the same train car with his white colleagues. Ghandi was willing to assimilate to the British system he admired only to find it wasn't willing to meet him – he was still separate and unequal. When his complaints fell on deaf ears, he turned history on its head because he spoke a powerful truth.
The Western imperial powers didn't miss Ghandi's point and by the time of post-war mass decolonization guilt and remorse led many European countries – especially Britain and France – to allow unprecedented waves of immigration from extremely diverse places. Whether it takes one generation or three, eventually these formerly homogeneous countries have to review the definition of what it is to be British, French, Dutch, etc. By sheer inertia – and with no shortage of irony – it would seem the reverberation of the Age of Imperialism is to separate ethnicity from nationality in Europe.
Today, we are witnessing the political and social fallout of these decisions. We are watching Europe struggle with diversity, how it wants to handle it and the implication of taking waves of refugees who don't easily assimilate. We are watching the French struggle with how to retain their identity while maintaining their liberal values and these two impulses are coming to a head. And the Dutch. And the Germans. And the British. And the Italians.
Patmos, on the other hand, seems to have opted out – deciding the turmoil around Europe is not for them. I suppose a legacy of the Greek city-states is that islands feel somewhat independent and sovereign. Patmos may not be entirely self-governing, but it clearly has figured out how to resist when it wants.
One other example, and then I'll be done. The Greek government has been shutting down fossil fuel burning power plants on smaller islands and replacing them with undersea cables linking these islands to the power grids of larger islands. Thus Samos can power Ikraia and emissions are reduced. Patmos is having none of it. It questions the reliability of undersea cables (locals cite of examples of power fluctuations elsewhere) and refuses to give up its power plant. For now, the national government has stood down.
There's a lot to appreciate about the Patmian stance. Their quality of life is high because they maintain their island as a place for like-minded people. They value their culture, tradition and recognize how those link to ethnic composition. Europe, after all, is a small continent of MANY countries precisely because it has a longstanding tradition of homogeneity. It has also fought innumerable wars in attempts to maintain the distinct identities of its many peoples (and over resources and religion).
I have no doubt if I weren't caucasian and American – but say Nepali or Botswanan – my application to buy my house would likely not have been approved. I'm not sure how to feel about it. From a Patmian perspective, I understand how that makes sense. Patmos is for Patmians and would Greece still be Greece if it had a different ethnic majority?
Then there's another part of me who knows in my native Southern California there remain deeds with no longer enforceable, but still visibly remaining covenants on them forbidding the sale of homes to Jews, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and other ethnicities. My grandparents couldn't have bought a house in Pasadena if they had wanted to. No one likes being on the pointed end of the covenant.
Like so many things, I don't know that I have answers. I support Patmians being who they are – loving and appreciating their home. If Israel can be a land primarily for Jews, what's wrong with Patmos being primarily for Patmians? At the same time, how would I feel if a Singaporean friend was denied the ability to buy a home here because he or she doesn't look like me – even if their finances were better than mine and intended to stay for less of the year than me?
Maybe there are no hard universal truths in these conversations. It's possible there are just different arrangements and solutions that work in different places, for different reasons. The solution to France's dilemmas might not be the same as for Britain's and certainly not the same as America's or Australia's. I just know the issues aren't as simple as the media portrays them or the conversations I hear at dinner tables and backyard barbecues. The beauty of spending time in another place is having access to the depth of its people, situation and issues. Most of us have very limited context to the issues we're so sure of – and it's always easier to identify problems and what we dislike than to develop comprehensive, just and lasting solutions.
The only stance I can fully commit to is the fire truck at the port is bullshit. Water truck guys all the way!
