Blog 19 Prime Minister Visits Lesvos Today

Blog Post 19
Prime Minister Visits Lesvos Today
May 3, 2018

Gentle Reader,

Today was pretty much shut down completely in Myteline.  The Prime Minister was scheduled to visit.  I had been told that all the stores were shut down for security reasons.  According to this article, the stores closed to protest "the presence of thousands of migrants and plans to revoke the favorable tax status enjoyed by Aegean Islands."

I'm sharing this article, but because I am not familiar with publications in Greece, I don't know the reliability of this source.  I also don't know if this paper is right or left leaning, as I would if I were posting an article from an American publisher.  That being said, here's the article...

Security tight on Lesvos for PM's visit as stores close in protest

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TAGS:Politics, Migration, Economy, Protest

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was due on Lesvos on Thursday for a speech at a "growth conference" as local businesses closed to protest the presence of thousands of migrants and plans to revoke the favorable tax status enjoyed by Aegean islands.

Security is expected to be tight on the island as residents are to stage protests at its main port of Mytilene to express their frustration with the current situation.

Police are expected to cordon off the area where Tsipras is due to give his speech at 7.30 p.m. three hours in advance.

Speaking ahead of the visit, leftist SYRIZA's party secretary Panagiotis Rigas said that protesting residents were acting illogically, noting that the conference was an opportunity for discussing growth prospects for the local economy.

The government sought to play down the issue on Wednesday, claiming that the police presence on the island was being boosted due to "tensions created by a minority of far-right elements." 

In his speech on Thursday, Tsipras is expected to acknowledge the burden placed on islanders due to migration flows and to announce some measures to offset a planned increase in value added tax. 

Speaking on Wednesday, Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas warned that the migration influx was growing, both from the land and sea borders, and said the authorities aimed to decongest overcrowded reception centers by the end of September.

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Here's another article from April, which offers another perspective:

Forum of Refugees president testifies in parl'ry committee on asylum laws

POLITICS /Friday 27 April 2018, 19:02:27 / Last Update: 19:04 / Source: ANA-MPA

The president of the Greek Forum of Refugees Yunus Mohammadi told a parliamentary committee on Friday that after official channels failed him he had resorted to paying a human trafficker 8,000 euros to bring his wife to Greece.
The committee is working on a draft law to amend the asylum-providing process in Greece and is hearing testimony from several agencies and organizations.
 Mohammadi, an Afghan national who was granted political asylum by Greece in 2004, said he had officially requested a visa for his wife under family reunification procedures. He said that he had become separated from his wife, who was in Iran and pregnant, some time after his release from a Taliban jail. Following unsuccessful attempts to bring her to Greece, he resorted to paying a human trafficker. During the hearing, he also charged that human traffickers live in the Moria hotspot on Lesvos and "conduct business from there."
His admission caused the ire of Costas Katsikis, deputy in the ruling coalition's ANEL party, who asked him why he resorted to illegal means of bringing her to Greece and had suggested a prosecutor should be notified of the violation. The deputy rebuked by two deputies from a different party, including the commitee's chairwoman, both of whom told Mohammadi he is not obliged to answer.
However, the refugees forum president responded, "Let him call in anyone he wants to arrest me. I would hope this case becomes cause to bring the issue out in the open." He said he had already told the same things to the European Forum for Migrants in Brussels. He added, "I had the same reaction there, from a Marine LePen deputy," referring to the leader of the right-wing populist National Front party.

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Again, I want to state that I don't know all the political back stories regarding what is going on in Lesvos regarding refugees, asylum-seekers, tax status, etc...  In talking to other volunteers, many of them say they don't pay any attention to politics whatsoever.  They are simply here at Kara Tepe, and Moria, to do whatever they can to be helpful to people who have been displaced due to war and strife in neighboring countries.  

Talking to one of the residents from Kara Tepe yesterday, he told me how frustrated he was that the Syrian refugees have received so much more attention in the news than the Afghanis or the Iraqis here at Kare Tepe.  He told me that their situations were sometimes just as horrific, and in some cases even worse.  He just wanted me to know that he wanted very much to see the processing procedure simplified, stream-lined, and speeded up -- for all residents at Kara Tepe and Moria.  He talked to me about how every day at the village is the same.  He is a professional who wants to be placed and move on with his life.  While at any of the camps, the residents, as far as I know, are not allowed to work. They aren't issued the kind of papers that permit employment.  This becomes very frustrating for them, as you might imagine.  The Afghani man I was speaking with is working on putting a resume together.  He is qualified as an interpreter, as he speaks fluent English and Spanish, as well as Pashto.  He has asked me to work with him on his resume, which he brought to me yesterday to go over with him.

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As I walked down to Myteline Port this morning, I was aware that shops might be shut down.  What I wasn't prepared for was the complete shutdown.  It was impossible to get a coffee or a water, as everything was closed.  It is an eerie feeling to walk into a usually vibrant city and find it essentially closed for business.  All the older gentlemen who gather in clusters to drink coffee and play backgammon were sitting at cafe tables without their usual beverages.  

My plan today was to go to Avyalik, Turkey, by way of a 90 minute ferry ride.  As you might know, I have a fondness in my heart for Turkey because that is where I met my roommate Patricia in 2009, and that is where Scott and I fell in love... all while there on a Fulbright studying Turkish identity. This town is supposed to have a wonderful marketplace on Thursday; plus, Thursday is the only day that a ferry runs round trip.  Usually, one would need to stay overnight, and I am unable to do that due to my commitments at Kara Tepe.   After much back and forth texting with my daughter Alicia, and after reading the US State Department Travel Advisory regarding Turkey, I cancelled that plan.  A wise decision, I think.  One that caused relief for my caring and persistant daughter.

My new plan, since I had already requested the day off from working at Kara Tepe, was to find an island tour of some sort.  Because of the Prime Minister's visit, all tours were cancelled.  Plan C would have been to go to one of the villages nearby, but the experience I had at the bus stop prevented me from doing so. The bus stop was packed with refugees from many different countries.  As the bus stopped for pick up, the driver began screaming and shoving people off the bus.  I think perhaps some of the folks were attempting to get on without paying the 1 Euro required, but I am not sure.  It was a chaotic scene, and I was saddened and angry that people were being treated with such harshness and disrespect.  When I asked the driver about bus direction, he spoke very politely to me.  I was a white woman, clearly receiving preferential treatment.  In the midst of that situation, I felt ashamed that I was shown respect due to the color of my skin.  I could not board the bus.  

Instead, I decided to simply get a taxi and return to the apartment.  I went to one of the usual taxi ques, only to discover that the cab drivers were on strike today.  Sigh.  That meant getting back to the apartment on foot, which is all uphill.  In this heat, I knew that would be a major challenge for me.

So, I began the trek.  Along the way, just a little ways out of the port, I discovered people drinking coffee in an outside cafe.  The place was packed.  I think word got around quickly that this was the only restaurant open in Myteline.  I was able to get a small table, ordered some iced tea and pasta carbonara, and had a lovely lunch.  

This was a challenging physical day for me, as you might imagine in the extreme heat.  I've been having stomach issues for almost two weeks, as well as some coughing.  All in all, I am not up to my usual health, so I took this afternoon to simply be still and get a little extra rest.  I am hoping to feel better in the morning.  

I have a new roommate, Bianca from Holland, and she told me The Shop was crazy today.  One man insisted on being given new clothing, which is not always possible in the shop.  We run the shop with donations, some of which are new (from various companies), and some of which are used, as you would find in any Goodwill or Salvation Army shop in the States.  We have many new families at Kara Tepe this week, so the shop has had to double up on the number of families per hour.  Frustrating for the residents, challenging for the volunteer workers trying to get each new family set with a full kit of clothing and shoes.  In the meantime, other volunteers work on delivering pots and pans and other household goods to each  new family.  There is also a new fan project going on at Kara Tepe at this time, too, which many volunteers are working on.  

So, that's the update for today.  I will attempt to discover more about the Prime Minister's speech, which supposedly occurred at 7:30 this evening.  I will also try to find out more about the political back story of the day.

I will end today's blog with some quotes about the refugees/asylum-seekers:

“Refugees didn’t just escape a place. They had to escape a thousand memories until they’d put enough time and distance between them and their misery to wake to a better day.” 
― Nadia Hashimi, When the Moon is Low

“A nation ringed by walls will only imprison itself.” 
― Barack Obama

“A human being can only take so much when their basic rights as a citizen of the earth are being denied to them – or sold at a high cost.” 
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Your enemy is not the refugee. Your enemy is the one who made him a refugee.” 
― Tariq Ramadan

“Refugees are not like you and me. They are you and me. That terrible river of the wretched and damned flowing through Europe is my family. And there is no time in the future in which they might be helped. The only time we have is now.” 
― Richard Flanagan, Notes on an Exodus

“At times it seems as if the whole world has become a refugee and the few of us, who are privileged enough to wake up to the sound of an alarm clock instead of a siren, those of us who are enveloped by a veil of safety many of us fail to appreciate, have become desensitised to the migrating numbers, to the images of the dead, shrugging them away as a collective misery that this ailing part of the world must endure.” 
― Aysha Taryam

“One of the strangest things about this journey was how whenever a smuggler or a driver gave us an instruction, we simply followed it. Whether it was get in the car, stay silent, follow me, eat this, shave your beard, hand over your passport - we simply followed orders. Without questioning or really even thinking, we put our lives into the hands of strangers, time and again. We had no choice. When they said come, we little lost sheep had to follow.
It's very hard to explain the feeling of repeatedly putting your complete trust into the hands of strangers who see you as a commodity. Every time I did as one of these men asked, I had an acute awareness that this could be the last instruction I would ever follow. Each of these men had the power to take us to our deaths, at any time.” 
― Gulwali Passarlay, The Lightless Sky: A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee's Harrowing Escape from Afghanistan and His Extraordinary Journey Across Half the World

In a future blog, I will tell you about Miriam's (not her real name, for protection) story, a young woman at Kara Tepe from Iraq.  We've worked in the shop together for the past three weeks, and it will be very difficult to say goodbye to her.  

May your day be filled with reaching out to others who may need your good listening ear, your tender heart that offers a safe place for their story...

Namaste,

Marianne