If only they knew you … things would be different.

I am lucky to have met many incredible people during the time I have volunteered in Greece. So incredibly lucky that these fellow humans both young and old alike have opened my heart and mind in ways I never thought possible.
The reason I always try to bring dialogue back to individual is because I feel the truth of the situation is masked (and easier to ignore) if we fail to effectively and empathetically cut through statistics – people are after all – not numbers! If only those who make the rules, those who decide the fates of refugees had the courage to truly to get to know the people whose lives they control. If only they knew you, Fatima .. things would be different.

I think about the last 4 years, the political steps that have been taken to ‘control’ the ‘refugee crisis’–most have made life even more uncertain for refugees, most have been designed to build barriers between ‘them’ and ‘us’ – designed to propagate doubt and fear within the populations of Europe – preparing the way for us to accept even more inhumane policies, after all – they are not like us.
If they knew 10-year-old Fatima, so smart, so bright, so much tenacity with an energy that is contagious and an insatiable desire to learn – would they deny her access to schooling? Would they listen to her tell them in Arabic/Greek/English that the thing she wants most is her education? Would they look her in the eye and tell her that she would have to spend much of her precious childhood living in a refugee camp, at the mercy of the changeable weather, sharing her bed with snakes, scorpions and rodents?

If they knew Fatima’s mum, so calm and dignified – a talented artist – a devoted mother – a woman who left her beloved homeland to seek safety for her children.  Would they look her in the eye and tell her she must try to keep her children clean in filthy showers, with no hot water – shared with thousands of people, would they tell her that the food crawling with maggots was good enough for her family. Would they tell her that her children must live in the mud, cold, wind, rain, sun, snow – lives on hold in the most inhumane way.  Would they go away and decide – this was the way it should be? Would they sit behind their computers and decide – this is an acceptable solution?

Maybe I am naïve – but I can’t believe a fellow human could meet you, Fatima, could witness your spirit and your potential, could look you directly in the eye and then decide this fate for you.
The politicians in Greece flaunt International Human Rights legislation on a daily basis – and the other European countries (and the UK) turn a blind eye… there is now no real functioning asylum process in Greece – deportations to Turkey and Afghanistan have increased – with the knowledge that the Turkish Government deport back to Syria and that Afghanistan is far from a safe country. The policy – to send people back into a war zone!

It has been reported that on that occasion people are deported without a chance to have their asylum claim heard and without access to the interpreters. This flagrant disregard for human rights can only happen/be accepted within a democracy when the majority of the indigenous populations see refugees as different from them.

The latest plan from the right-wing Greek Government is to build detention centres – or pre-removal centres – AKA prisons. These prisons will be built far from local populations and people won’t be allowed in or out.  We are walking a terrifying  path – and we said – never again!  I remember that many Jews didn’t die by the hands of the Nazi’s in the gas chambers (especially at the start)  – no – they died of neglect, lack of food/water/sanitation/shelter in concentration camps – locked away from the public gaze, until the bulk of the public were ready to accept the reality of their genocidal policies.  

The process of using closed prisons has started on the island of Kos – people incarcerated behind barbed wire.  A report came out via Augean Border Monitoring from a Palestinian man (Tarik) locked in the prison, he says:

“Please help us, we are locked up in a prison here, you cant imagine what it looks like.  There are concrete walls and barbed wire fences.  We are in a cage beside some forest; everyone is very scared.  I don’t understand why we are sitting in this prison.  No one tells us anything and the police treat us like shit, we are suffering here.  They only call us by numbers, no names.”

This dehumanising, calculated treatment of people seeking asylum – trying to exercise their legal right to find a safe life is shocking in 21st century Europe.  I let Tarik’s words sink in, let the anger burn.

Divisions have been carefully cultivated today to make the building of these prisons possible – with rhetoric against refugees increasing. It seems we are once again living in the age of Nazi-style propaganda.  The decisions by the leaders of Europe to treat people inhumanely is deliberate and calculated and has ramped up over the years.  Wake up Europe.