#quo vadis europa
19.03.2016 idomeni, greece. today strong wind was blowing away dozens, if not hundreds, of tents in the area. it was a mixture of horror, laughter and for some kids even fun. the last two photos are taken within 1 minute. two members of team humanity let one broken tent fly and in the very next moment their own big tent was blown away, leaving a sleeping member of the team pretty astonished behind on now open air ground.
somehow it was a good allegory for what was happening the same time on the greek islands, refugees hopes where blown away.
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23.02.2016 victoria park, athens/greeece. i met mohammad while i was at victoria park, a place in athens where a lot of the refugees stay during the day that have no other place to go. the camps in and near athens are full, so there are tenthousands of refugees with no place to go. mohammad is from afghanistan. he studied engineering, speaks a profound english and worked as a translator for amerian forces, as well for the eeas (eu election observation missions). like numberless afghan translators he was promised to get a special visa from the usa as well as from the eu, because of the high danger this translators have to face because of the taliban and like numberless other translators he was betrayed by his employers. since it is almost impossible to get through the process of being accepted for the special visa process, it needs years and many bureaucratic steps to climb. also the usa and the eu now use for years “agency´s” to employ a lot of the translators, so they can´t be directly connected to them. this way the translators don´t even gain the right for the special visa. the usa and the eu know very well that working for them is putting their employers in a life risking position, since the taliban kill everyone they know helping the usa and eu. same story with mohammed, he was warned by a friend that he should leave afghanistan asap, since the taliban are looking for him to kill him. so he went to pakistan first, but he was not save there as well and so, after a long trip through several country´s, he went on the boat-route to greece, with the final goal to reach germany, since he has a uncle living there for decades. he was on a boat with 53 other refugees, helping them in the registration process with translating and thats what he does now as well in athens. since he is a single man from afghanistan and the eu just declared afghanistan for a save 3rd country, forcing macedonia not to let pass any refugees from afghanistan coming from greece anymore, now he is stucked in athens. he have no place to go, no governmental institution that take care of him and no legal way to go to germany to his relative. all he want´s is to help as volunteer, finish his studies and live a normal live. he is smart, friendly and very polite, cares about others. apart from the illegal actions from the eu states, breaking every international treaty regarding refugees, this betray of the afghan translators, people who risk their lives to help our governments and army´s, is one of the most fucked up actions our governments take. i feel deeply ashamed that this is also done in my name, since i am a citizen of the eu.
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13.02.2016 - EUROPEAN UNION
according to the magazine “the spiegel”, 4 members of the eu in the east, hungary, polen, czech republic and slovakia are meeting next monday to have talks and agree on ways to close the balkan route for refugees entirely.
first of all this will be a breach of a whole bunch of laws and treaty´s, since these country´s have signed the geneva convention for refugees and the the european convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. they would also breach some other european laws about cooperations.
also that would imply that these country would disavow on fundamental ethic grounds of the eu.
it is a unilateralist move that could have the power to destroy the fundaments of the european union.
the same time the eu and the nato, led by germany, is sending military forces to greece to handle the boarder situation with turkey, militarizing a crisis that is caused by refugees fleeing from a genocide like war in syria. this way the eu betrays every ethic and moral grounds that it is claiming to stand for.
the last time fear was leading the european politics this way, there was no good end to it, it was in the late 20s and beginning 30s of the last century. the uprising of the far right, the barbaric ideology of fascism, especially in the east of europa, but also in most other country´s of the european union, has reached a point where these forces are able to drive the political process in front of them.
in germany, after ww2, we had the saying: “resist the beginnings” and we used that phrase to remind our selfs and our fellow human beings to let this kind of horror, the holocaust, the fascist movement in germany, never happen again.
we are in the middle of the beginnings already, on a european scale this time.
if you wan´t to live in a free society, based on ethical standards, on democratic standards, you have to stand up for your rights and beliefs NOW. you have to leave your comfort zone, your private bubble and take a stand. there is no time for wait and see anymore, for nobody. stop distracting yourself with bullshit and talk about the important topics, get activ, find better solutions for everyone. don´t wait for others to clean up the mess. act!
if you don´t, you will ask yourself in a few years: how could that happen? like our ancestors did.
and like our ancestors, you will ask yourself this question in the ruins of europa.
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neal mcqueen
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22.01.2016 near skala sikamineas, lesbos/greece. turkey is a keyplayer in the whole crisis. first of all the government of president erdogan is deeply involved in the wars in syria and irak, supporting several fighting islamic extremist groups, including the isis. they deliver weapons, ammunition, other supply´s and military intelligence. they allow these fighters to freely pass the border to turkey to get medical treatment and allow groups like the isis to recruit new fighters within the turkish population, without interfering. the turkish president erdogan ordered the army to operate a war of extermination on the kurdish minority in the south-east of turkey, bombing and shooting the city´s where the kurdish people live. the turkish airforce is bombing them in syria and irak as well. the kurdish fighters, like the peschmerga, are the main reason why the isis was not able to conquer more parts of irak and syria, they even fought them back. so fighting the kurdish resistance groups is creating even more suffer and chaos in syria and irak and weaken other groups like the free syrian army. this forces a lot more people from syria and irak to flee their country´s, generating a massiv wave of new refugee movements. turkey now have officially 2.5 million syrian refugees within it´s borders and since turkey closed it´s borders, another estimated 40 to 50 thousand are waiting at the border to come in. the syrian and iraki refugees don´t have the status of refugees in turkey, the are “guest”. that means that turkey don´t grant them the rights of the geneva refugee convention. officially the turkish government grants them aid, the possibility to go to school for kids and even the right to work (since january), but actually these are only rights on paper not realized in reality. only a few hundred thousand of the refugees live in aided camps, but most hide somewhere in hotels, apartments, live on the street without any help from the government. parts of the turkish police and parts of the government are deeply ensnared with the smugglers who organize the traffiking to greece. the deal with european union had 4 major points. point 4 was the actual real deal. the european union granted erdogan that they will not interfere in his war against the kurdish people. now he is able to play the eu as he like´s, because he can control the stream of refugees. meanwhile he abolish the rest of the democratic foundation in turkey. there is almost no free, independent press left. in no other country in the world there are more journalist in prison than in turkey. the educational system is almost under complete control of the akp. they make sure that their supporters make it to the university´s by passing them the test questions and answers before the tests. whenever someone raises his or her voice against him or his government and their politics, he denunciate them as terrorist and chase them down with compliable prosecutors and secret services. the half of the turkish people who are rather modern or at least still think that atatürk had a point when he created the modern turkey, are demoralised and depressed by the not existing support from the western world. turkey is on the best way to become a flawless dictatorship and the west makes dirty deals with them. i guess thats about good old european tradition.
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