What are the biggest minorites living in Greece?

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JASON BOURNE Aegean Janissary

Sorry to disappoint you, Mister Lascari, but the minority in Western Thrace is not "just" Muslim, they are also ethnic Turks.
I don't understand why that would bother you...
After all, in Turkey we do know that we have some Armenians,Greeks,Jewish,Gipsies,Kurds, etc. .. They all are our citizens, because they are proud of their citizenship, and anyway we respect their difference and their roots : they have shools,organizations,they can speak their language,etc...We love them and they love us as well...

I suppose that now you understand the irony in Mamma li Turchi's post, don't you?...

anlarm

I used to believe the biggest minority was the Turkish one. But nowadays I hear from Greeks that there is a growing number of Albanians there. Anyway, after closely studying history, I found out that when the peace treaty was signed at Lausanne, Ismet Inonu named the Turks there as the 'Muslims of western Thrace', which gave a legal excuse to Greek governments to say there are no Turks in Greece. In those days, the Ottomans talked about Muslims and non-Muslims, rather than ethnic origins. Some of those Muslims could be of different ethnic backgrounds like Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian etc. I wouldn't know. All I know is that the majority of the Muslim minority are of Turkish descent. They are now Greek (and thus EU) citizens.
There is difference of course, between the minorities of a country and the (legal/illegal) immigrants who come to work.

asimenia

There are quite a lot of Filipinos leaving in major cities and in the past few years a lot of Chinese have opened up clothes shops all over Greece.

ragzeus

The minority that exists in Greece is a Muslim minority in the region of Thrace. They are about 97,604 (0.95% of the total population).
They are of Turkish, Bulgarian(Pomaks) and Roma origin.
There is also a small Armenian minority (about 50 thousands but they do not have the official status of minority).
There is also a very small Jews community.
Today in Greece you will also find a great number of economical immigrants from all around the world!
There are Pakistanies, Albanians, Bulgarians, Africans and others who work and prosper in Greece.
(about 8% of the population of Greece. Only 200 thousand are legal immigrants , the rest are illegal)
Nowhere in the world the economical immigrant have the status of minority! But they can become citizens if they like!
There isn’t of course any non Greek Macedonian minority simply because the
Authentic Macedonians are Greeks like the Spartans the Athenians the Cretans etc. Someone confused the authentic Macedonia of Greece with the modern Slavic/Albanian-Macedonia. The modern Slavic/Albanian-Macedonia has no relation with the ancient Greek kingdom of Alexander the Great and it is clearly stated by their Government!
The first president of FYROM (Slavic/Albanian-Macedonia) Mr Gligorov declared: "We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia… Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century" (Toronto Star, March 15, 1992).
There a few though who claim to be Slav-Macedonians in Greece!!! They formed a political Party (with 10-25 members). And they formed a coalition with an extreme left party and few gay/lesbian activist groups and they participated in the election with the name Rainbow.
It received 2,955 votes in the region of Macedonia {in a total of 2,450,000 (0.1% of the votes!!! in authentic Macedonia of Greece and 0.0027% in entire Greece!!!!)} in the elections of (2004).
They did not participate again as they were mocked by the authentic Macedonians of Greece.
A pro-Bulgarian political party, known as Bulgarian Human Rights in Macedonia (Български Човешки Права в Македония) was established in June 2000, promoting the concept and rights of what they describe as the "Bulgarian minority in Greece". This party has not yet participated in elections simply because it can not raise any members!

To ovcichka: Completely wrong. There are ethnic states and multyethnic states! And Yes there are a lot of ethnic states in the word!!
Such as :
Algeria: Arab-Berber 99%
American Samoa: native Pacific Islander 92.9%
Armenia: Armenians 97.9%
Albania: Albanians 95%
Austria: Austrians 91.1%,
Bangladesh: Bengali 98%
Croatia: Croats 89.6%
Czech Republic: Czech 90.4%
China: Han Chinese 91.9%
Cambodia: Khmer 90%Egypt: Egyptian 98%,
Finland: Finn 93.4%,
France: 93% French
Georgia: Georgian 83.8%
Germany: German 91.5%,
Hungary: Hungarian 92.3%
Italy: 94% Italian
Japan: Japanese 99%
Lichtenstein: Alemannic 86%
Mongolia: Mongol (mostly Khalkha) 94.9%
Morocco: Arab-Berber 99.1%
Netherlands: Dutch 83%,
Romania: Romanian 89.5%,
Tunisia: Arab 98%
And more!

Zoi ((Ζωή))

Dear Mama i turchi, I live in Thace and I can assure you that most of the Muslims are not at all Turks but Pomaki, that they are taught by hodga that they are Turks. Many though are coming to Greek schools and they don't understand Turkish well, I have such students in my school.

Dear Peace, despite the efforts of Turkey to make all of the muslims Turks, Turks are only a few in Xanthi, but in Komotini they are really of tourkish origin. I live...here, I live in Xanthi and have relatives in Komotini!

♥ ☼ ♫ Ibrahim ♫ ☼ ♥

Mr Alexlascari, I am very very disappointed by your hatred and your racism.

Dellarovere

Ayran and Fatih, as a (personal-that's my creteria) friend of yours I just express to you my wonder if such an intervation by Greeks in an relevant question about minorities in Turkiye should be equally accepted.
But just out of generosity, we can give you the Thrace "minority" as a gift. Would you, secular ones, accept the extreme expression of Muslim fanatism and conservative way of life of theirs?
Is there any minority territory in Turkiye where Turks are not allowed even to have a cup of coffee?
Because that's what happened to me when I tried to visit a couple of your (?) minority villages in Thace.
Ayran, you can be proud, if you need to, of the 16th century way of life the Muslim minority of Thrace has chosen to live.
If you claim them HAVE THEM, we can make a Christmas wrapping and send them to you as a gift.
Let's see what you will say next day.

Rob Anybody

Anybody who isn't afraid of Mamma li Turchi will immediately turn to stone. So spake the Zarathustra.

PEACE

Approximately 150000 ethnic Turks live in Greece.

somerlo

We must define what "minority" is: different Ethnical group living in a country for many generations.
And such an ethnical group does not exist in Greece, but, as Alexlascari already said, there exists a religious minority in Thraki.
All others, Albanians included, are only immigrants who came here only to work, without having changed their citizenship or settled down here for ever.

emiliosailez

Currently there are many minorities in Greece, many more than ever before, so the demographics are in a state of flux.
Certainly Albanians are in Greece in huge numbers and I would imagine they are the largest minority. But there are and have been large numbers of Turks, Armenians and Vlachs.
As of the last ten years also a lot of Bulgarians and Russians have come in.

Frank B

Ethnicity means nationality in Greek. An ethnicity is not defined by you, your God or your preference. It is defined by your place of birth and cannot change (as with your citizenship) never ever in your life. No where in this world.

Muslims, Jews, Christians or atheists born in Greece are all Greeks. By international law. No European country defines nationality by religion.

There are no ethnic minorities in Greece other than those of the immigrants (which are not minorities now but may become in the future). Simply, aside immigrants, everyone else's passport says: EU/Greek. And says nothing else about its religion because in EU, it is not allowed to say it.

There is a self-defined religious minority of Muslim people in the north-east of Greece. They are not Turks but of Ottoman origin that dates centuries back. If they were Turkish nationals, they would not be able to live, work and remain in EU. If they would feel Turkish, then they could change their citizenship or move to Istanbul (not very far by train). Who prohibits them from doing that really?

Because I don't think anyone keeps anyone in Greece without his/her own will. Free people (women or men) living in a free nation with free journalism, free papers, free speech and free to believe on whatever they wish. This sort of freedom is what we fought and still stand for not only in Greece but in the whole EU.

Totally Blunt

Yeah. "Muslim" minorities are ethnic Greeks. They don't speak Turkish at all.

Edit: Dellarovere, I really don't understand your point. By that logic, we should talk about an Orthodox minority in Turkey, not a Rum one, because our Orthodox people have always lived here, in Anatolia and Istanbul, and they belong in here. And as citizenship is NOT defined by religion and language, you wouldn't mind us not referring to their cultural ties.

Please let us talk about what we SAY. I don't remember exalting fundamentalist Islam. Also, I don't really care what you call your minorities as long as the Greek government gives them equal education an job oppourtunities. I feel it's despicable to leave those people poor, uneducated and isolated from a global world.

And Frank, in this age ethnicity isnot defined by nationality. Bosnians and Serbs are ethnically the same, only their religions are different and they fought anyway.

Ela

Catherine...there's a LOT of Albanians in Greece, not some...i can assure you of that.

? ? ? I. A. ? ? ?

Mamma li Turchi, Jason Bourne, Ovcichka and Peace are right !

♥AngeliC spirit♥

Russian people and Turks~

Drake & Josh

There is a Turkish minority which people don't respect and which PEOPLE SHOULD GET AN APPOİNTMENT TO GO TO THE PLACE WHERE THEY USUALLY LİVE

carmelo_sabato

Are they 40 % of the Albania Greeks? and 20% of skopia . i will say Gypssies are a Big problem.

Toxin

I think the biggest minority is Macedonians. Of course they vanished them but there are still out there!

flavivs severvs

Macedonians, Turks, Albanians, Valachians...

kozan

There was a turkish majority in crete until early last century until the were massacred by Greeks......also Northen Greece is part of Macedonia and its even called Macedonia ...I dont really know how ever but i think racists my be in the majority ....with liars forming a large and growing minority

alexlascari

There is only a small Muslim (religious) minority in Thrace.
The rest of ethnic groups living in Greece are only immigrants who don't consist minorities as they are not established permanently here.
This stands for Albanians, Pakistanis, Ukranians etc who work in Greece.
So, no ethnic minorities in our country.

e-shan

I don't know about the other minorities in Greece, so I'll refer to the Macedonian question. First Macedonia is the region from Thesaloniki (Solun) to more than half the way in Macedonia(what you may know as FYRM). there is a active naming issue between Greece and Macedonia to this day.
About who the macedonians really are isnt all complicated. They are of Slawic origin, came here in 7'th c. and Mixed with the Ancient Macedonians living here (the ones who didn't run) and exepted the name and region as a home. Until the Otoman invasion it was a Slavic speaking land and ortodox cristian. and the borders to that land streched south to modern day Thesaloniki. As it recently became greek, most of the Macedonians who refused to change their names, language and become greek were forced to flee north. Indeed they werent slaughtered for fear of war with Yugoslavia. And there's a HUGE number of Macedonians in Greece today who stayed by allowing to be named greek, but since that in 1955 they changed back their names and language. So about 30-40 % of Greece's teritory is inhabited by Macedoians who declare themselves so (but are restricted higher education etc if they fill out any forms) so all to the Meteori and Thesaloniki are infact Macedonian people of slavic origin- not greek.

About the Albanians. They do inhabit 26 % of Macedonia and in Greece and they are minorities as well.

I myself am Serbian so my statement isn't pro-Macedonian, but simply a fact for I live in Macedonia. And the truth shouldn't offend anyone.

greeks

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