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Report on the Study Visit to Greece
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Politics can be done differently you don’t have to just
repeat bad politics!
Zoe is part of a group called European Level Initiatives
who are actively looking into alternatives for Europe and
want to incorporate and include everyone who wants
to be involved in a better alternative Europe.
Refugee Crisis
There has been a refugee scheme since the summer
of 2015. Greece is the first country refugees get to with
the Eurozone. This is causing major problems, and the
refugees are just seen as burdens not people in trouble.
There is no talk about the war being the cause of the
problem or discussion around disarmament. There is an
increase of far right groups across Europe (most notably
– Golden Dawn) with a number of vicious attacks on
refugees and the people trying to help them. But on the
flip side there has been some great compassion from
the left with Greeks opening their homes to refugees
despite in a crisis themselves which is helping to slowly
reform the mentality.
The government is not tabling any kind of thorough
or viable proposal with the refugee issue just simply
accepting people and making no Euros from it – in the
long run Greece will be left to ruin to save the rest of
the EU from dealing with the crisis. The EU want to turn
the islands of Greece – their main source of income via
tourists – into refugee islands in order to release the
‘burden’ elsewhere.
Zoe told us of how in Denmark valuables are being
taken off refugees upon entering as payment for them!
Hitler would be proud.
Social Kitchen Athens:
The Other Human
We visited another project that helped homeless
people – called the Social Kitchen. Before we met the
founder we spoke to one of the volunteers who gave us
her interpretation on what is was like living in Athens at
this time.
When SYRIZA came into power, a lot of people had
hope for a better life but in fact things are worse
than they were before an the problem is that people
expected too much. In the work that she does, she
makes sure that people have food but she believes that
there needs to be more. She didn’t believe that the
public knew the true meaning of solidarity.
The project has been running for over 5 years and every
day there will be about 10 people volunteering but
there are just 5 core people that work there all over
Greece though there are little groups attempting to do
the same. The main aim of the project is to bring people
and communities together, to work together and share
good practice of how they can make change.
Penny
Penny was a volunteer at Costas project and she
spoke to us at length whilst we waited for Costas.
She explained how the night before whilst we were
meeting with Zoe the far right Nazi groups were
having a ‘celebration’ across Europe. In Greece they
were particularly violent as lots had travelled over from
Germany in order to tell the refugees they weren’t
welcome. They didn’t just attack the refugees but the
volunteers who were trying to help and protect them
too.
People are not fighting back at them as they are afraid
to do so. Most do not understand the whole situation
around the refugees or Greece ad they are not facing it
themselves.
She told us in Greece anarchists are buying buildings
and filling them with people to create communities
but they are having issues as there is a lot if in house
fighting and no direction/ goal to what they want to
achieve.
According to Penny it is very difficult trying to help
others without offending them but at the kitchen the
visitors/ users are helping themselves. The project is not
about helping someone to make you feel better it is
about educating people and communities about what
solidarity actually means, working in one direction with
shared aims and values and being able to open people’s
minds to fight back at the corruption and inequality.
Costas
We then met Costas who set up the project who told us
a very interesting story of his past and how he has got
to the point where he is now.
At the age of the 35 he lost his job in marketing. For 2
years after he tried to find a job but he was too old and
it seemed unemployable. He lived with his mother for 6
months and only left the house to buy cigarettes which
made him feel useless.
His whole life changed when he saw two children
eating from a rubbish bin. People could see what they
were doing but just ignore what was happening. This
made him angry and realised that these children were
worse off than him, and he wanted to do something
about it.
As mentioned by the volunteer he had the idea of
bringing people together (using food). It was like
creating a family, where everyone is equal and treats
each other with respect. No-one show pity, there is an
Photos courtesy of Bindu Paul
and Sarah Woolley