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episteme80. Faubion argues that 1974 marks a period of continued modernization for most
Greeks during which the normative influence of key historically-rooted nationalist
discourses were modified by a rapid influx of imported human orders; a phenomenon
which, according to a Weberian reading of modernity (1993:143), not only inspired
critical self-realization, but also brought a Greek modem subjectivity to a broader
population. Greece’s membership into the European Union and eventual incorporation
into the eurozone deepened and broadened the influence of imported phenomena that
drove this modernizing renegotiation. We can take this period of reconsideration to mark
an important moment of subjective change in the country during which the existential
qualities of citizenship began to be renegotiated. By the late 1990s a new importation
complicated this process of subjective renegotiation. As North Africa, the Mideast and
the Balkans destabilized politically and economically, Greece experienced massive
migrant inflows, in fact, Greece became the main point of entry for undocumented
migrants (King 2000)81. The official reaction to this situation can be characterized as
inadequate and damaging (see Antonopoulos 2006b): the state took few measures to
accommodate, assimilate, integrate, or at the least register and manage the massive need
this population brought for employment, healthcare, and social assistance. At every turn
the government pursued a strategy of, as my consultants in the Ministry of the Interior put
it, general reticence and inaction while acquiescing reluctantly to mandatory EU
directives. However, the flow of immigrants did not abate, nor did their needs lessen;
801 mean this term in the Foucaudian (2002) sense as in a historical a priori that grounds knowledge and its
discourses.
81 Frontex data presented by the ex-Minister of Interior Prokopis Pavlopoulos show that Greece is the main
point of entry to the EU for illegal immigrants. In 2008, 146,337 illegal immigrants were arrested in Greece
(24.54% of the total number of illegal immigrants arrested in the EU). In the same year, Spain’s share was
16.88% and Italy’s was 14.33%.