Solidarians in the Land of Xenios Zeus: Migrant Deportability and the Radicalisation of Solidarity

This chapter discusses solidarity with refugee/immigrant groups and about state and non-state actors' involvement in the deportation and the detention arena in Greece. Following the presentation of the historical genealogies of the term and its relation with the anarchist movement in post-dictatorship Greece, the chapter proceeds with the radicalisation of solidarity and the theoretical discussion on the cultural formation of sociality in Greece. This conceptual framework explores how solidarity with immigrants and refugees challenges established ways of managing alterity. In August 2012, Nikos Dendias, then Minister of Public Order and Citizen's Protection, launched 'Operation Xenios Zeus'. The operation's twofold purpose was to 'restore order and security' in the centre of Athens and to 'close the country's borders' to flows of lathrometanastes from Asia and Africa. The solidarians' solidarity is not grounded on humanistic terms but draws upon the legacy of the anti-authoritarian movement and it is conceptualized in anti-statist terms.