37
instant: for the first time, I felt unsafe in Greece. I also understood why many people do
not consider this place the center of Athens, despite its geographical and symbolic
attributes (Faubion 1993:38-39). While at a glance, and from afar, Omonia seems a
cosmopolitan ideal, experiencing the place however makes it obvious that beneath its
façade the square is home to the failings of society and a large segment of the population
that differs fundamentally from the dominant. A different kind of citizen occupies
Omonia. It is a place of transience - a passage rather than a destination35. The Square
can never be the symbolic center of Athens for everyone that lives in the city, although it
undoubtedly is for those that occupy it and its seedy perimeter. For the rest, Omonia
might better be described as an unfortunate contradiction or testament to the inability of
the state to reconcile its dreams with its reality: a structural vision in sharp contrast to
lived experience. Some contacts would later tell me that it is this attribute of the Square
that makes them think of it as the center of Athens and Greece, symbolic of what those
mean to them, but acknowledged that most others would disagree.
I immediately left Omonia following Panagi Tsaldari Street to get to Leoforos
Pireos, which would lead me past the ancient cemetery of Keramikos to Petrou Ralli
Street and the Foreigner’s Bureau. After an hour of walking, I realized this would be a
long hike. Wandering up Leoforos Pireos I noticed the neoclassical buildings were now
very run-down and seemingly abandoned (I would later discover that several of these are
used by undocumented migrant newcomers). There was also an increase in the number
of stores owned by Chinese immigrants, although these were not like the Chinese stores
adorned with lanterns found around Athens and its nearby suburbs. Instead they were
35 Syntagma Square opposite the contemporary parliament might be considered a destination and also the
true center of Athens (see Faubion 1993).