Cold weather. Rain. And now, an unprecedented wave of rejections. The Greek goverment has made a request to Frontex and the EU to deport 1415 people to Turkey. (1) This while Turkey has not been accepting deportations for almost a year, citing the pandemic. And whilst the country they are being brought to against their will, Syria, is far from any norm of safety we would adhere to in Europe. An act of xenophobic propagandha, to further stigmatize people that are already treated like they are barely human. This is nothing if not a declaration of intent. “Emptying the Islands” in it’s most obviously hateful and destructive way.

With the new Frontex standing corps firmly in place to guard the riches of Europe against the “invasion of the barbarians” it is not hard to see what the direction is where this going. Both of these things are sympthoms of both Fortress Europe’s increasing empire fetish and subsequent militarisation of the borders, and Greece increasing extreme-right populism with it’s own range of cultural obsessions.

As we cannot possibly explain it better then the man himself, this is how it was quoted by Frontex boss Lagerri, according to this source (2):

“In addition, the author states that the executive director “repeatedly made it clear to staff” that “Frontex is not an expensive lifeguard service,” and staff in operations had been made to understand that “reporting pushbacks involving Frontex personnel is not a route to popularity or promotion” within the agency.”

They are building a new closed camp not only on Lesvos, but also on Chios (3), and probably planning to do so on the other Islands and evantually also on the mainland. As extreme-right rhetoric, thought and idea’s becomes the “new-normal”, people will be faced with even rougher and deadlier obstacles. Again, Nation-States are using people as pawns to gain more power and votes to support rotten conservative goverments structures. And again preventable loss and suffering will be unleashed on the people that risked everything for safety and security.

This rise in dehumanizing and contemptuous policy’s and actions around the world does not only affect the struggle of people on the move, but will in the end spread it’s effect to all who struggle for a brighter, dignified and free future for all.

A future without borders, bosses or cops.

Get Angry. Organise.

(1) https://www.infomigrants.net/…/greece-pushing-to-return…
(2) https://www.ekathimerini.com/…/olaf-raided-eu-border…
(3) https://www.ekathimerini.com/…/migration-ministry-to…

History is written on Lesvos. In the past year, it was a story of violence, fire and imprisonment. For those who wish to exist everything became more difficult, even more so then it ever was. We have to speak no more about Moria 2.0, as it is now well known that the camp is worse in every concievable way. The fire that consumed Moria 1.0 was not a fire of cleansing or liberation, but more an indication of the darker even more oppressive times to come. And not only on Lesvos, or even Greece in general. The fire that burnt down Lipa Camp in Bosnia shows local authorities and goverment’s just as unwilling to act in a humane way as the Greek authorities a few months ago. This, and the fires that destroyed a significant amount of Vathy camp on Samos wil not be the last. If we don’t act, it will never stop. It will only get worse. Small step by small step, the EU will move the goalposts in a darker and even dystopian direction.

With the presentation of the new Migration pact a new turning point has been reached. This year will see the construction and maybe also the eventual use of the new, closed camp. While it’s obviously an escalation of the previous situation, it is very rapidly becoming the “new normal”. Across more countries in the EU people are being put in closed camps. And then there of course places like the Australian prison Islands and the camps on the US-Mexican border. If we don’t act now, in five years this will be the norm without question. The pact promises to enact the whole might of the cross-country surveilleance state in order to make sure Fortress Europe stays impenetrable, and thousands of people will not find safety from war,poverty, diginity or self determination.
This year there where hundreds of documented pushbacks in the Aegean. Multiple ministers of the current goverment passed by throughout the year to congradulate the officers of the Coastguard with the very good job they where doing, keeping the borders of Greece and the EU safe. Safe, ofcourse from the migrant invaders send from turkey. All of this while denying pushbacks where happening at al in a grand Trumpian fashion. This narrative and the empowerment that the current goverment provides through spreading such claims was one of the main instigating factors behind the violence this year. There is nothing indicating that this will change in 2021. The new interior minister of Greece, a post that also presides over intergration of migrants that received asylum, is a long time extreme-right activist with connections to the leader of the military dictatorship that ended in 1975. (1)

A legacy of administrative detention, bad food and neglegence. structural racism and neo-colonial mentalities is being made by Greece in agreement with the EU. History has seen such times before, but just looking into the past to see a possible future is not enough. We know what this situation will not change without any substancial structural upheaval, and merely writing about the current situation has also proven to be ineffective. The why do it? Not only to inform about the situation or provide a extreme left perspecitve. We seek to inspire emotions, be it anger or empathy, in the hope that more people will be moved enough to act. What is an act? This is not an easy thing to define. For years, solidarity campaigns have run throughout europe, yet the situation on the border is worse then it was five years ago. Papers, thesis, newspaper articles and pamlfets have been written, but have had limited practical effect. The people that decide over the lives and deaths of the thousands of people stuck, killed or abused by the walls of Fortress Europe don’t give a fuck. It’s becoming more and more clear that parlimentary politics are rotten to the core. But day by day, laws and policies get passed that benefit the upper class elites without consequences whilst the lower classes, minorities and migrants suffer at the hands of nation-states worldwide. Let’s make 2021 the year of consequences. Let’s act.

Get Angry. Organise.

(1) https://www.jta.org/…/greek-jews-rap-appointment-of…

During Christmas, when despite the pandemic, still people will be inside their warm homes with some family present ,finding solace in eachother’s company. The thousands trapped in Moria 2.0 will not. In fact, people will not all be allowed to leave the camp. It will be closed for the holidays. The contrast is striking and the contempt is sickening.

Because the shops are not open, people would supposedly not have a reason to leave the camp. It might have more to do with the fact that the authorities do not want people to go to the city and disturb the already locked down streets of Mitillini. The clarity that this contrast provides, is rare. Mostly we see the disregard and dehumanisation of the people through subtle acts of administrative sabotage by bureaucrats, or the racial profiling and violence of the police. We see it in the way politicians continually use migrants as paws for their geopolitical and financial games. However this closing of the camp for the holiday period is a very visual and fixed example. The gate is literally closed and the camp is surrounded by fences. Fences maintained by the greek state and financed by eu money, and divised by the united nations.

We didn’t write this text to play into the familiar christmas capitalist scheme and ask people to buy off their guilt regarding relative privilege with donations. We wrote this, to make sure that this inhuman and disgusting way of treating people that are looking for safety and security is never normalised. Imprisoning people, no matter the lenght of time, be it years, months, days or even hours should never be normalized, or it’s use diminished and subsequently tolerated or even accepted in public or political discourse and practice.

This heavy and challenging year is almost at it’s end. The covid-19 situation has forced many of us to change tactics and made repression against marginalised groups evermore apperent and common. What waits in the new year will most likely not be any better for people trapped around the world. We will continue the struggle in 2021, despite the repression, as best we can. For a 2021 without borders, prisons, racism,classes, sexism or capitalism.

As always,

Get Angy. Get Organised.

It is is silent around Lesvos, while inhuman practices continue. The cold has arrived, and with it the people are stuck, without heating and with the police left without supervision to act as they see fit.All of this while they are building our worst nightmare, the new closed “reception centre”. When they have their closed prison, years of lobbying, anti-migration populism and structural racism will have reached it’s practical next step. A one dimensional idea of the “refugee” used as a tool to stir xenophobic and racist fears that, with the closed prisons as an Idol of the current state of europe.

The right wing populist parties of the continent serve as a distraction for the bourgois social democrats and liberals. They are the ones responsible for designing, perfecting and maintaining Fortress Europe. They are the ones that are coming up with new migration pacts where they introduce more and more repressive measures with the excuse of “pleasing the populists” whilst simultaniously publicly denoucing them. Nation states negotiate in quota’s, reducing human beings to numbers that can be traded like cattle or done away with through money. Single men, already the most stimagised group at the moment, will not stand a chance. Meanwhile the racist populists get a public platform to normalise their idea’s, all the while the middle parties put the same idea’s into practice.

All established political parties advocate for stricter migration laws, and borders in general. A capitalist, oppressive society can only exist when there is an “us” and “them”, and the future inhabitans of the closed prison will suffer for it. Locked up, with fast track procedures based on dirty deals with supposedly safe countries like Afghanistan. How can human rights be observed in fast track procedures? After all the stories from Moria, Moria 2.0, Vathy and Vial, how can the greek state possibly be deemed capable of treating people in a human way?

Despite the slogans and campaigns, these people will be left behind. In countries like Poland and Hungary, we can see the future of europe. Not only for migration, but for all who dare to be different from the post-christian normative status-quo under the rule of law.

No Border Kitch Levos stands in solidarity with comrades in Belarus, Poland and all others that resist this possible dystopian future. As times are bleak, and the darkness of winter surrounds us, we know we are not alone. We are many united in one struggle that includes migration, women’s rights, anti fascism and many others. We fight together in many different places, for many different reasons, but united by our hatred of capitalism and it’s white supremacist foundations. Together, our fire will shine a light on the darkness of the winter of the pandemic.

Get Angy. Organise.

Another lockdown, more tragedy.

Greece is once again locked down. This time for three weeks, they say. Here a short description of the situation in the Moria 2.0 by one of the inhabitans:

“The camp is once again in lockdown, this time way more strict, only people with with specific reasons can go out, everyone has to wear a mask even inside of the camp, otherwise they will be fined €150. However some cops who are coming from outside and can transfer the virus are still not wearing a mask, they give food only two times per day and that food has a very bad quality. And with the lockdown people can’t buy food or anything to make the food at least taste better. There is no hygiene and people are running out of hygiene stuff and they can’t buy it because of the lockdown. Also winter is coming its getting cold and people have no money to buy clothes and even if they had they couldn’t buy it because of Lockdown. People feel imprisoned.”

This is the state of Lesvos at the moment. Locked down and with a curfew in effect. Police hardly checks people, unless you are a migrant. Also as described above, it’s getting harder and harder to leave the camp, and we have no idea if this will go back to “normal” in three weeks. There are three separate checkpoints before the main gate, and some people cannot even leave their tent without showing papers. Guards at the first checkpoint will say “tommorow,tommorow” unless you are able to show any kind of paper. This kafkaeque display of true bureaucratic disdain forces people to stay inside cold tents without heating. A lot of women suffer from dehydration because they dont drink enough water. This because they are afraid to go to the toilet alone in the night.
This in spite of the enormous amount of attention focused on this Island and the situation of migrants in general after the fire that struck two months ago. And also dispite the massive amount of donations that came from around the world for the camp, there are STILL no proper hygiene facilities or showers, despite the camp now being in use for almost two months. After two months, massive donations to organisations claiming to improve the camp and widespread knowledge of the situation of the people, it is still worse then Moria, and it doesn’t show any signs of improvement.

Meanwhile the pushbacks continue, and hardly any new migrands arrive on the Islands. In addition to this, new deals are being struck with different countries to ensure more deportations can take place. Also, Mitsotrakis reafirmed his belief in the notorious eu-turkey deal. This deal could be seen as representative of how the eu and greece think about migrants, and how they, the ones with the power to decide people’s futures, define “safety”. Their public affirmation with a deal made with a authoritairian oppressive state is symbolic. It represents the lengths to which our goverments are willing to go to keep out migrants, with zero regards for their lives or safety or the beliefs of liberty and freedom they claim to adhere to. The lives of people on the move being made more precarious every day as europe leans more and more towards the right, facing ever increasing economic damage because of the pandamic.

More Eu-turkey deals, pushbacks, closed camps, quota’s, xenophobic bureaucrats, politicians, police and double or triple standards define the still inhuman and outright racist treatment of migrants in 2020. After years of hollow words, empty promises and outright lies by politicians we have seen the situation decline time after time. Everytime we look back, the situation is worse then before and next year will be no different then any other. Unless we activly work and organise to abolish ALL camps, “detention facilities”, prisons and combat racism, colonialism, sexism and classism not only here but worldwide, it will only get worse.

The line must be drawn here.

Get Angry. Organise.

#LeaveNoOneBehind
#shutdownallcamps

The cold has come. Winter is beginning to settle on the Island, and with the new camp it has the potential to be one of the worst. New lockdown restrictions have been announced, and the camp will be locked down. This whilst the covid-19 quarantine area is a joke and there is no 24 hour medical service in the camp. It is a repeat of April, where we spend many words on writing about the cruel situation where a well known inhuman disaster of a camp was unfit for measeures that govemerments worldwide demanded to curb the pandememic. But it’s November now, and that camp is gone. The new one was build in the middle of the pandemic, and it therefore would have been reasonable to expect that this location would be somehow build with this in mind. They must know, that keeping people in conditions like these would put them at higher risk of dying from covid-19. But, like many other things, they don’t care.

The combination of strong winds, cold and rain has will be devasting for the inhabitans of Moria 2.0. But nothing seems to be done about it. It seems the people will be left on their own devices by the politicians,cops and society that forced them to stay there in the first place. Last week, there was also the first fire. No one was injured, and the fire was quickly put out, but it will not be the last. The lack of winter preperations by the relevant authorities will mean that people will have to find ways to warm themselves, often by making fire with whatever is around, creating a bigger risk for more fires. 750 people are allowed to leave the camp, so people have to cue up for hours, and with curfew at 20:00, sometimes only for a few hours. And there are still no showers, people are washing themselves in the sea. Imagine this in winter.

The global media once again turning away from Lesvos, Kos, Samos and the rest of the camps in the Agean or on the mainland proves that interest in this topic is sensational. When there is no sensation, there is no urgent media to speak of. The coming winter for the people in the camp in these appaling conditions is not a topic, while it again concerns preventable suffering and death.
The camp being closed to press is a strategic move on the part of the authorities. Because how can mainstream media outlets report on the conditions without pictures of people of colour behind fences or non-white kids playing in the mud of the flooded camp? The idea that a situation like the one here and in other places has to be “newsworthy” in order to report plays right into the hands of the authorities. They know, they can get away with many,many different smaller things as long as it is implemented slow and there is no large unrest. Who knows what they will try now the world is once again not looking, and not seeing the everyday sruggle for survival of human beings at the hands of the greek and european asylum system.

The US election shows us relying on “decent people” (the left) to do the “right thing” (vote left) at the right time (election day) to stop institutional racism, classism and sexism is not going to work. Win or lose, more people voted for Trump after four years of having him in office. The election of people and parties like Trump, Orban, the PiS and others is not a anomaly, it is part of the new normal. Their idea’s are supported by large groups of people that will exist whether their parties are in goverment or not. These people are creating and maintaining a society that is activly becoming more racist and exclusionary, and this is one of the reasons why places like Moria 2.0 exist and will keep existing.

Let’s make Moria 2.0 and all places like it a shameful part of our history, not the future.

Get Angry. Get Organised.

Inexcuseable. Winter is coming and there are no indications that there are any plans to prepare the camp for the harsh coming season.
Worse then that, the authorities have made it clear that this “temporary facility” will continue to be used until spring 2021. From the Ashes of Moria, and even more sinister and dehumanizing place has arisen Arisen to swallow more human beings whole in the EU-created void that we refer to as Moria 2.0. For the greek state and the european union, it must certainly seem like an improvement. Still, no water connection, decent food distribution or adequate medical care. Still, no proper isolation facility for covid-19 isolation. The camp is still closed every sunday because “the shops are closed”, and apperantly this also goes for holiday’s. A much more likely reason is that sunday’s, like holiday’s are family time, and that the goverment would rather not have non-white people interfering with that. As the media exposure from the fire dies out, the general apathy increases. Before winter, there will be rain. By now, it is clear that every time there is heavy rainfall, large portions of the camp will flood over and over again. The aspirations of the eu and the greek state to use the camp and its inhabitens as a detterent for any who dares to risk their life and safety to come to europe truly deserves it’s 2.0 mark.

Prisons and imprisonment are bad enough as an idea and practicality on their own. But these camps are truly a monolith of inhumanity. On Lesvos, but also on Chios, Samos and in Serbia. The ICE facilities in the United States, with the recent reports on forced sterilisation. The detention centres spread around Northern europe, where people are being held awaiting new dirty deals to be made so people can be deported back to active warzones. All sympthoms of a vile and cynical campaign from those who benefit from the political system to opress and control. Daily stories of confirmed violent pushbacks both on sea and on land give us an impression of the amount of violence used to achieve the sheer amount of hatred needed to condition uniforms with an all to familiar excuse that will undoubtely be used: They where just following orders. As the future seems more and more bleak, this old excuse will see new life. It will be used to justify cruel inhumane acts on a global scale, that are happening right now. Right now, as our worst nightmares are becoming reality. The question becomes: who cares? Do you? If so,

Stay Angry. Get Organised.

This is the story of Asmar, a 26 year old migrants who has been stuck on Lesvos for a considerable amount of time.

After every disaster or crisis on this Island comes the question: who will take migrants from greece to other european countries? This year, with Covid-19 and the fire in Moria 1.0, it became painfully aparrent that in all these talks, people are used as pawns to trade off. Even though many cities in europe said they have the space and the will to take larger numbers of people off the Island, national goverments continued to block such proposals. And when they did choose to take a number of people, more often then not this concerns vonourable people, unaccompanied minors and maybe some families. But what about the single men?

By not taking single men from the Islands, they can manage to the lowest amount possible, and still being able to present their decision in a humanitarian fashion. Meanwhile the single men have to stay in the prisons that are called detention centres. With no special reason that would give them access to something that gives them an edge in their asylum procedure a lot of them are deported. Because men are seen as traditionally less vonourable, european cultural stereotypes are coming into play. But they are not based in reality. Men also endure life changing trauma’s, and many of them have also lost so, so much to be able to get to europe.

As NBK, we stand for a world without borders, sexism, classism or patriarchy. It is important to us that everybody understands that we do not write this to say that the countless woman, children and members of the lgbitq+ community on this Island dont deserve help, or that single men have more of a claim to freedom then aforementioned groups. This story is about how the state uses ancient and very entrenched racist and colonial ideas to create a false dichotomy. A dichotomy that allows them to keep thousands in a prison, whilst keeping up a humanitarian appearance. This humanitarian illusion is a lie. Europe and it’s member states only goal is to further the goals of the people in power and the corperations that sponser them. Power at the expanse of Asmar, and thousands like him.

—————
My name is Asmar, and I am 26 years old. I come from Syria, the city of Deralzoer’. I left my city because of the war.

When the war broke out, I was 16 years old. From that moment on, I was scared all the time. War, for people who are not soldiers and even for them, means fear. Everytime I left the house, even for cigaretts, I would hug my mother like I would never see her again. War also means violence, this means that whenever you walk on the street, you can see dead bodies of people with missing limbs or heads. War also means destruction, and every time you leave the house it might be the last time. This is what happend to me. One day I came back to find my family’s house a pile of rubble. My brothers head was in the street, and my mother was buried under the rubble. My little sister had survived, but was in the hospital. On the way to the hospital the army stopped me, to ask where I was going. I explained that I wanted to go to see if my sisters was ok, or dead. After one hour of questions, they finally let me get through. In the morgue, I found my mother, one brother, two sisters and my aunt. After I went to the room where they kept my little sister, who survived. First question she asked me was, where is mother? I had to lie to her, because she was to injured and I didnt want to tell her the truth. I asked her what happend, and she explained that there was a red flash and then a loud bang. Everything went black and there was explosion.

After three days, she was discharged from the hospital. I was forced to take her to my house, but she still couldn’t move. The bomb has cut her muscle underneath the knee. Her body was also still full of scrapnel. When Isis sieged the city there was no electricty, no water, no internet. Actually there was nothing. The doctor has written a paper for me to get medicine for my sister. With the city being under siege, there was no way I could get this medicine. And one time, I walk in the street at eight o’clock pm, to try to find this medicine for my sister. Eight o’clock is a very dangerous time get out, because the city is full of snipers. Everything that moves gets shot. Dogs, cats, children,woman,men everything and everyone. Everywhere are checkpoints. I passed one of them, guarded by military who are not known to be nice. The first thing he said to me was: “give me your id card motherfucker”. I said, I will give you my id card, but please don’t talk about my mother. She died last week and you killed her, please show some respect. He said: I will go to the graveyard and fuck her there. I got so angry, that I beat him up. I broke his nose, and I find a rock and broke his legs and I started to run. His collegue chased my and tried to shoot me, and I am very luck to not get shot. I had to leave the city. I send a message to my friend to tell my sister I am very sorry but I have to leave the city. I went out of the city in the night, to try to swim river. This very dangerous, because of the snipers between the Syrian army and the Isis snipers. It took two hours, but I managed.

First, I went to Turkey, but actually I wanted to go to Europe. I stay some time in Turkey, to get a job to send money back to my sister. She needs a surgery to be able to move the leg again, go to school and have a good life. The good thing was, I got a job and managed to send her the money and she was able to move again, and go to school. After that I started to think more and more about Europe. Europeans think Turkey is a safe country for me, but it’s not true. Why?

1. Turkey organised a lot of militia for Isis. This makes it dangerous for me to be around. In 2016 they killed a friend in his house because he spoke on social media about the situation in Syria. You can look it up for yourself, the facebook account is Arraka Tthbh besmt.

2. The police came to my house by mistake. They where looking for Isis members and got the adress of my neighbour, but raided my by mistake. For two weeks I was in the police station, until they found out I’m a normal person , and I also don’t like Isis.

3. Every week we find a bomb in different area, and the police come to take it away. For example, close to Taksim I sit with my friend and close to us a suicide bomber blew up a club less then one kilomoter away from us.

This is only a synopsis of what happend to me. A lot more happend, but that’s a story for another time.

As mentioned before, when I arrived in Turkey I started thinking of going to Europe. At that time, to me Europe was a place where I can find safety and where I can express myself to full extend of my personality. I keep working to save some money to find someone that could bring me to Europe. At that time, I had no idea what that meant. All I wanted, was to be safe and not feel like I’m in a zoo. But, the important thing, when I come here everything changed in my mind about fucking Europe.

When we crossed the sea we managed to get picked up by a Greek Coastguard vessel. They said to us; Don’t worry, you are safe now. You are in Europe. I remember vividly that at that time, this made me very happy.

After the police take me with a bus to Moria Camp. The first thing thing I see, spray painted on the wall was the sentence: “Welcome to prison Moria”. I stay three months in a small tent with twelve people in the winter. When the winter rain, we had to run to catch the tent that was being blown away by the wind. And after there was a fight in the camp. Some people where fighting with the police. One of these people that was caught up in the fighting, had the same name as me. The police couldn’t find him because he left the camp, so the police found me. The cops took me in for questioning, and they put me in prison for a year.

After one year in prison, I go to court and the court just told me that they made a mistake. Just like that I lost one year of my life. Without any reason or apology. For one year, my family doesn’t know if I’m alive or dead, where I am or what I went through.

In my head, Europe was a nice place, where people can be whomever they want to be. A safe place where people have rights, and where you can trust the Goverment. They day after I was arrested, was the day I was supposed to have my asylum interview. In the police station, I asked the cops if they would at least let me reschedule. You have to understand, that the asylum is a very strict process. They didn’t let me, and when I got out they told me my case was closed. Why? Because my life did not matter to them. For them, I’m just another migrant. And they could care less if they fuck my life or not. Europe is not at all how I imagined it to be. So far in all to those years I spent in Greece, I have only seen contempt, racism and violence. Both to police, and migrants among eachother. Also the asylum service can be violent in it’s own way. With them, I feel the same way as in the police station or in the prison. The people that work in the asylum office, act in the same way as the police. They don’t care about you, or why you are here. They only thing they care about is drinking coffee,smoking cigaretts and talking with friends. When you want to ask a small question, they will say that they are busy. They make you feel small and dependand. Small and insiginicant. They dont treat me with dignity and make me feel like thrash. Why? Because I came here and I don’t look like them? Europe claims to be a place where they repect human dignity. But I’ve found very little in Greece. The cops, and the other people that work for the goverment or EU don’t do not reflect the values that they say they represent.

When I look at the news every day I see some European country announce that they will take one hundred minors, or twenty five families or whatever. My question is why does Europe only cares about minors or families? Because you think the single people are more dangerous? To be honest, the minors are not less dangerous than the single people. The first thing a minor will exclaim to you when you approach is that they can fuck with you very easy, because they are a minor. Some minors are as dangerous then single people. Why do you not care about single people? Every refugee has a story, and it does not make sense to me that we should be selected based on factors that are not within our control. There are a lot of organisations that work with and take care of minors and families, but none that takes care of single people. When you are a single person on this Island, nobody cares about you.

We do not come here to take your space, your money, your children of your jobs. We come here to find safety and security. Something our goverments, sometimes because of war and sometimes because they are oppressive, cannot provide. From the first time I saw Moria, I knew that Europe might not be what I imagined it. How can Europeans and their Goverments allow this to happen to people? Do their leaders truly do not know how it is to expirience life like this? Why not, do they trade places with us for one week. We will share the same shitty food, shitty bed in the same shitty tent with 15 people. Use the same shitty toilet, and surrounded by the same fences. After that, you can explain me why you decide to treat people like this. And it’s not only about people from Syria. It’s the same for people from Irak, Kurdistan, Palestine, Afghanistan and the whole continent of Afrika. You can explain me why you decide to send weapons and bombs so that countries can make war. You can finally explain to me, why I have to suffer like this

Rain season is coming again. Moria 1.0 was already full of mud and flooded tents after rainfall, Moria 2.0 is even worse. The inhabitans desperatly trying to dig ditches, to make sure the camp doesn’t become part of the sea, but it’s build on a spot that is without any protection from the elements. With winter fast approaching, there are still no complete tents, showers or any of the other facilities proudly proclaimed by the greek authorities when intially constructed. It is apperent that the only thing they cared about was building another prison where people can be left to rot. Left to rot, without access to adequate healthcare or food or diginity.

The power and competence of the greek state was also on display with the supposed eviction of Pikpa. This was indefinetly postponed, because apperently the public prosecutor had not realised that Pikpa also housed some unaccompanied minors. These where UNHCR referrals, so how could they not know? And why postpone it? The answer is easy. In Greece unaccompanied minors are under the protection of the public prosecutor. And when he is personally responsable, how could he put people in this new prison? What if the greek goverment, or any goverment for that matter, would feel so responsable for the people that they care for? We will never know, because all the public discourse around migrants has been overtaken by the far and extrem right. Our goverments are deliberatly keeping people in prisons. They are deliberatly generalising ever migrant as a “refugee”, so they can keep them in “Detention Centres”. Along the Aeagean, in the direction of the Central Med, they will build new closed facilities. Together with europe, money will flow over the backs of people suffering every single day as “compensation” to host states in new schemes being thought out as we are writing this. Plans are being made to close the borders even more to “combat smuggeling”. Every concession to populism takes more of the public space in their favour. All the words spoken or written by the european union with regards to dignity, self determination and supposed human rights, are just that, words. Europe lies, to benefit career politicians and corperations that use the suffering of thousands to make money and keep white supremacy in place.

Most likely, conservative far right and extreme right think tanks, parties and organisations will create a privatised prison system, for people fleeing from western neo-colonial engineered wars and poverty. Our worst nightmares from fifteen years ago are already coming true, with Moria 2.0 being surveilled by drones and undercover cops in addition to the fences and police checks on the way in. How long will we stand and watch? How long will we let europe and it’s goverments dicate the terms and circumstances in this struggle?

Get Angry. Plan. Strategize, Organise. Mobilise

The authorities have been very busy the last week to keep transferring to the mainland in light with their program to “clean the island” by the end of the year. If the first three quaters of the year are anything to go by, nothing about this whole situation bodes well. If anything the policies are becoming more and more explicity racist as the greek goverment and europe as a whole are becoming more comfortable with expressing racist and white supremacist sentiments, and incorperating these into their new policy’s, program’s and funding requirements. But then again, europe was never going to provide the solution to this endless suffering, because europe benefits from keeping people out. Recently in talks among the authorities it was again confirmed that to create a feeling of “security” both to the inhabitans and the people living around, to create a closed structure. Another Prison. Another prison for people who only come here to seek safety and security. How can we #leavenoonebehind with a closed camp? The mask is coming off, to reveal the ugly wretched face of the true European Values. Already on Kos, the migrants are kept in a prison without acsess to lawyers, medical assistence or basic human support.

“You know Area 51 in America? Well, this is Area 52.” That’s how M. describes the detention centre on Kos. No lawyers. No UNHCR. Detainees have cameras on their phones broken by police upon entry. A black hole within the EU hotspot into which hundreds disappear.”

Meanwhile in Lesvos, the situation in the new camp has not been improving at all in the last month. There is still no running water in the camp, and food is given out once a day. A lot of the times, it’s not eatible and even the people who have stood in line for hours to receive the food will not eat it. People are only allowed to leave between 8 and 8, but to get back in there is a long line. So in fact, people have to get back much earlier to be allowed back into the camp, for everyone that is not inside at 8 pm has to sleep outside. From others, we heard that they thought Moria 1.0 was better even. For sure, covid-19 regulations that are becoming standard in the most parts of the world are again impossible to follow. As the goverment continues to hammer on the point that the new camp is improved, it has in fact not. The conditions are in fact so bad that some of us heard some people express sentiment for old Moria.

No matter how many people get transferred to the mainland it will not change the future that is coming. A future of almost impossible to cross borders, lined with uniformed officers armed with guns,surveillence equipment and prisons. Civilian eyes no longer welcome in the mediterranian or the aegean sea, or any other border region because of extended crimininalisation. The new migration pact cement’s idea’s that come for our worst nightmares 4 years ago, with more dirty deals, more deaths and more suffering inevitable. We cannot rely on demonstrations, politicians and other superstructural constructions. The least we can do is from now on, for those who where still in doubt, refer to so-called “reception centres” as prisons.

MORIA 2.0 IS A PRISON.

VIAL IS A PRISON

VATHY IS A PRISON.

KOS IS A PRISON.

….and many more.

Get Angry. Get Organised