My name is Michalis
"My name is Michalis. I was born in 1980 in Athens, at the 'Mitera' hospital. My parents were living inPangrati back then. After my birth, we moved to Patissia. My parents are from Nigeria. My father came to Greece to study in the 70s. After a few years he brought my mother as well. I can't remember a lot from my childhood. I was getting along fine with the other kids in primary school. Only when we got into some fight while playing football they'd call me things like 'nigger' and the likes. I was the only black student at my school. I also remember an incident. One day, after a fight, some kids had circled me and were cursing at me. Then, a child called Ilias attacked them to defend me. We became best friends ever since. During the first years we spoke Nigerian and English at home. That however made classes harder for me. Until the teacher called my parents and told them we had to speak Greek at home.
Greek took over our household over time. Greek and hip hop. From the age of 9 I speak nothing but Greek. I also speak perfect English, while I can understand Nigerian but not speak it any more. I probably got my passion from music from growing up in different linguistic sounds. I developed a passion for graffiti, hip hop and drum'n'bass in high school. It's years that go by organising parties and trading cassettes with my friends. That time religion came into my life strongly. Together, the first existential crisis. Because religion said 'peace upon you' and hip hop spoke of revolt. Religion was a wish, hip hop was action. Hip hop and graffiti were an outburst. Then, for the first time, I started writing lyrics. I wrote about racism. Suddenly, I realised something I had repulsed: my skin colour.
Being black. I am proud to be black. Being black though means you face a wall in front of you. It means you have to spend a lot of energy to convince those around you that you aren't born just to sell CDs and play basketball. That you can become a doctor, a writer, a fashion designer, whatever. Being black means that you live with that colour, you breathe it, you are never let to be invisible. You cause the biggest surprise when you speak Greek without an accent. They are amazed. Some sit there with their mouth open and look at you like an alien. Anyway... One summer in Syros. My life was upset one summer in Syros.
I had just finished with high school. I wanted then to get into the School of Fine Arts and started taking private lessons in free drawing. I went to Syros in the summer to work at my teacher's atelier. I was taking a walk one afternoon, when a jeep suddenly stopped in front of me. Two policemen came out and asked for my paperwork. I had my birth certificate with me. I thought it was enough, given I was born in Greece. They took me to the station. They told me my paperwork wasn't sufficient. One of the officers told me I'd be deported. "Where to?" I asked. "To the borders and go off to where you came from" he responded. "I never came from anywhere. I was born in Greece" I said. I never got a response. Deporation, borders, everything seemed like a movie. I felt the earth crumbling beneath me and was scared. I stayed there for three days, in the dark, sleeping on the floor, in a tiny cell with two Pakistanis that spoke neither Greek nor English. These three days upset everything inside me. After friends and lawyers intervened I was freed. Then questions started torturing me.
Who was I? Now I realised why they wouldn't call me for military service, like they did to all my friends. "My friend, you're a foreigner" I was telling myself. I didn't want to believe it though. I was thinking the officers made a mistake. It was a defensive mechanism not to fall apart. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. When the words 'paperwork' and 'foreigner' invaded my life everything cleared up. I asked the municipal employees if I could get an ID card since I was born here. They responded abruptly: "No." Then came the queues, the certificates, the social security stamps, the offices, the civil servants, the endless wait. And when the visa comes out, it has already expired. Again queues, certificates, stamps, offices, civil servants, the endless wait. You'll spend your whole life on those.
Your best years will fly by chasing after paperwork. You can't go anywhere. I gave up my university dreams because I was chasing after paperwork. I was invited in 2002 to represent Greece at a street theatre festival in France. I didn't go because I didn't have any papers. I wanted to open my own business, I couldn't because I didn't have any papers. Greek is your language... You feel a ditch slowly growing between you and your friends. They move on, walk around freely. What's a matter of life and death for you is nothing for them. You can't make plans for the future because you don't have your papers. Think of the depression. To be 20 years old and unable to make plans for the future. You subtly perish, become petty, become an introvert. You have to be very careful not to become a weakling.
So as not to see everyone around you as potential enemies. Then you get other questions. What are you? You were born here, you sing the Greek national anthem, you recited poems about the 25th of March at school. Still they think you're a foreigner. You've never been to Nigeria. Greek is your language. What are you then? You should be three times crazy not to go crazy. You have to fight hard to keep reality from undoing you. What do I do right now? I occupy myself with music and street theatre. Now I work for 'Kosmopolitismos', a cultural centre that organises a lot of interesting events with immigrant artists. My papers? I still wait for them, two years now. The future? The future, my friend, is my dreams. Those are my shield and my freedom..."
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