Paris Demetriades
Certain catchy lies continue to circulate in our public discourse. Lies that, no matter how many years have passed since they first misled people, no matter how many times they've been thoroughly debunked by credible sources, and no matter how blatantly they contradict even the most basic common sense (assuming such a thing still exists), simply refuse to die. They keep resurfacing, repackaged and repeated, haunting us with consequences that are anything but trivial for the health of our democracy and our social ethics.
In an era where unfiltered speech dominates and calm reasoning seems to have disappeared, catchy lies have become nearly immortal. They’re the Hydra of our time. Try to slay them with facts and arguments, and for every head you cut off, three more grow in its place.
One of the most persistent and dangerous of these falsehoods, repeated so often over the past decade that it has taken on a life of its own, is the claim that so-called “illegal immigrants” (as those pushing this narrative like to call irregular refugees and migrants) receive vast sums of money in state benefits. The recent attacks on delivery workers and the racist pogroms in Paphos and Limassol are not isolated incidents. They’re deeply connected to this toxic narrative.
The reality, of course, confirmed time and again by the relevant government agencies, independent organizations, and political groups resisting the current wave of racism, is that the amount received through the minimum guaranteed income is nearly three times what refugees and asylum seekers receive. Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, this truth doesn't make headlines. We’ve learned, over and over, that lies spread faster and stick longer.
Even if, hypothetically, the two groups received the same amount in benefits (they don’t), or even if refugees and asylum seekers received more (they absolutely don’t), this would still miss the forest for the trees. The real issue, the bigger picture in this bleak story about our eroding sense of humanity, is the welfare state itself, and whether it can still protect and support the vulnerable and suffering members of our society, regardless of their race or origin. Whether they were born here or arrived under desperate circumstances, that shouldn’t change their right to be treated with dignity.
And speaking of the welfare state, it’s worth taking a close look at the recent study published by SEK on poverty and deprivation rates in Cyprus in 2025.
Migration is, without a doubt, one of the defining challenges of our time. Not because of benefits supposedly being handed out, or imagined threats to our demographics or social cohesion, and other such fairy tales peddled by both institutional actors and the multiplying branches of the far-right. Migration is a problem mainly because of the biased, unrealistic, and ultimately self-defeating way we’ve chosen to handle it.
