#refugees are welcome

EUROPEAN VALUES & FUTURE

31-03-2016 camp at eko gas station near polikastro /greece. this place is called the eko camp. it is located on a highway gas station. around 3000 refugees live here in tents, about 25 km away from idomeni. several small ngo´s and private volunteers trying to help with medical attention, food distribution, cloth tents etc. there is even a tent with a little school by spanish volunteer´s. even if it is better than to be in the mud and dust of idomeni, the situation is bad. a lot of family´s live here. the kids play on the roads, even on the highway sometime. 

this serious looking afghan girl is maybe 4-5 years old. i saw her several times during my visits on eko station and it was very rare that i saw her smiling. most of the time she had that serious look of a person, who seen and experienced to much. 

to be frank, the european union and it´s members handle the situation now like a defensive-war in greece and other country´s in europa. military was alway´s the worst option to handle humanitarian crisis.

all hot spot camps and official camp facilities, including distributions are now under the control of frontex, greek military and other military forces. on the greek islands are fbi, interpol, greek, turkish frontex and other european police that have granted police and further rights. it is almost martial law installed. the official camps are detention center now, but you can even call it concentration camps. from the refugees coming after the 20th of april the military and frontex are ordered to take away the personal belongings, as well as the mobil phones. the big ngo´s like unhcr and doctors without borders withdraw their activities in the camps, publishing statements that they are not willing and able to work in prisons. you have to think about this for a moment. these organisations work all around the globe in almost all kind of crisis and in europa they have to stop the mission because of the political implanted conditions.

the smaller ngo´s where kicked out the camp some weeks before. private volunteers and journalist are generally not allowed to enter the camps. so almost no independent information can leak out of the camps. 

since some time the refugees are ordered to claim for asylum via skype and as far as i know this process is mandatory now. this is kind of impossible if you don´t have a computer or smartphone and i actually never heard of one refugee that had a successful attempt to get through this way. that implies that there is no way right now to claim for asylum in greece for these refugees, a clear violation of the geneva convention for refugees and simply diabolic.

when volunteers try to pass supply´s and informations of what kind ever through the fences, the police comes within minutes and stop them. on the other hand the military/frontex hired subcontractors to deliver food. first of all the food is not enough. camps with baby´s and mothers need special food for the baby´s, because a lot of the mothers can´t breastfeed the baby´s anymore, but this supply is not ordered as well as most of the medical goods you need for ten thousands of people. there are several cases of subcontractors delivering bad quality, old, fungal affected food. in pireaus harbor, where a few thousand refugees live in tents now, near the space where the ferry from lesbos is landing, there was a wide spreading food poisoning because of this. these people are vulnerable, live under worst sanitary conditions and you fucking give them rotten food, seriously?

camps like pikpa are ordered to close. pikpa is a wonderful and special place on lesbos. it is a former municipal owned camping space for local kids, a summer camp. it was empty for years. now there is a refugee camp for the refugees that need special support and protection. children and grown ups with traumata, psychological problems, disability´s, ones who recover from wounds and medical conditions. it is a space of peace and care for people who are in real need for it. pikpa is running without state money and all the volunteers are working without payment. it is a real treat, a manifestation of humanitarian values, values that that europa blab about quiet a lot during the last six decades, a shiny example of civil service with almost no coast for the public authorities. there are several places like pikpa in greece. all face the same threat, closing without any plan for creating something equivalent from the government. instead all these special cases are planed to be moved to the official camps as well, all the new cases are going their already. 

do we really wan´t to treat refugees, humans of all age, baby´s and small children like the british treated the boers in 1900 in south africa? because this is exactly what our governments implants right now. without the constant help of ten thousands of greek and international private volunteers working to prevent an absolut humanitarian disaster, we would face hundreds, if not thousands of dead refugees on european soil within a few month, because of the conditions they live in. 

the european plan is to send them back in “safe third country´s”. safe country´s like turkey, that has a president that want to shape the state as he need it. a state where you face long term prison time if you dare to criticize the president, an islamist who dreams of a new ottoman empire. a man who managed to become the richest dude in turkey by corruption. a country in wich the border troups shoot to kill on incoming refugees, beat them up and sink their boats when they are leaving. a safe country where unattended teenager girls from syria are sold into marriage and refugee kids sold as working slaves. to a state that has not even fully signed the geneva convention nor has a working asylum system. where judges and police forces that try to uncover crimes of the government are thrown into prison, as well as journalist who dare to write about these scandals. a state that fights a brutal war against one if its minority´s, the kurdish, while it supports directly the al-nusra front and other hardcore pro-kalifat combat groups. if this is what you call a safe country, you can also call the caldera of an active volcano a safe substratum for your retirement house. 

if we allow our government to treat humans in need of protection this way, because they are not from our region, the very same government will soon have no problem to use the very same kind of actions to the citizen of their own country´s as well. not only betray we all of the values that we claimed to have, but destroy the very fundament of the european union. 

the nationalist movement in europa is stronger then it ever was before, since the second world war. two and a half generations after the second world war, the people don´t fear war enough anymore here in europa. they don´t remember what it is like. they just know about it from the media. the war´s we fought have been fought far away from us, mostly. 

now the same healing promises are made by the same kind of narcissistic psychopath, using some group of humans to blame all bad on (refugees/muslim/terrorist), to instal repressive states. a lot of people resonate to this, because they live in society´s that offers not much of a future for them or their children. 30-40%, in some country´s even more, of our european populations are poor, undereducated, with no real chance to get better. new laws and technology create the consistently surveillance and screening of all the citizen in all our country´s. these are for sure not signs for freedom. these are signs for dictatorship. 

check your history books. 

it is our responsibility as citizen to take care of this, or we have to face the same consequences like our ancestors 80 years ago. in that case i can promise you a lot of no fun time. 

neal mcqueen

ps.

doing all this, helping people in need with such a large number of people from all over the world, is quiet uplifting, fun, exhausting, intense, happy and sad. almost all of the volunteers come back to their homes as changed personality´s. the experience changes your perception. a lot of the volunteers i talked to during the last six month, told me about this moment when the situation only enable them to function. all of them describe this moment as a no ego experience. this is something that let you grow as a person, as a being. it teaches you humility and can create a inner peace that you will not find in our modern bubble existence.