The Nightmare Life: Migrants tales from Greece by Costas Avramidis - WSM

Racism is definitely not a "new fruit" in Greek society and not a unique phenomenon to
this country. I have witnessed it with my own eyes as it manifested throughout the years I
was living there so I can share with you a little knowledge of how it ripens. ---- In
Greece being different is not a good thing, as you will suffer a lot if you are a
minority! Your life will be a living hell, if you are a woman or find yourself in a
minority like being a lesbian, gay, gypsy, Pakistani, Albanian, Egyptian, Bulgarian,
Ukrainian, Nigerian... In other words it will take a lot of effort to escape being
discriminated against and that's without mentioning the people that are prepared to stand
up for all these people, the likes of socialists, autonomists, anarchists, people that
volunteer in NGO's or anyone that cherishes humanism/altruism. For people to fit in, in a
land the locals like to call Hellas (and of the sun) to survive within it is to stay
silent and live life in a comatose state.


Between 1994 and 1996 I was doing compulsory army service and I found myself on Samos
island amongst others. Samos island is one of the closest Greek islands to Turkey. During
that time there were a few serpentine Greek and Turkish characters making a fortune
transporting immigrants on rusty overloaded buckets they called boats. These people had
made their way from the Middle East, Africa and Turkey itself and for a chance to make it
into fortress Europe they had to pay a handsome fee. Lots of times these "boats" would
sink to the bottom of the Aegean Sea loaded with human cargo, in many cases it was women
and small children that perished. Those who managed to escape death or being arrested by
the coast guard or the coppers ended up trapped on the island. They found themselves
wandering around the island with no legal documents, and without any means of leaving the
island. They were living in constant fear of getting caught and being arrested by the
police who beat and tortured them before they were eventually deported. Some did not
survived the beatings!

Most of the time if there was no pressure from the government on the police to enforce the
law to have them all arrested. They were happy to turn a blind eye to the immigrants and
leave them to be exploited by the locals*. They would have them working for nothing and
threaten them constantly with the police if they didn't do as they were told. Many of the
immigrants would be left to sleep in old barns packed on top of each other like livestock!
They were worked an unimaginable amount of hours with little food in all kinds of extreme
weather conditions. From time to time you would hear the locals talking about them in
coffee shops and markets with snippets of conversations such as "the Pakistanis are very
hard working unlike the Africans that are lazy bastards"

For the rest of my service I ended up for a brief period of time on the Greek-Turkish
borderline in the Northeast of Greece by the river Evros. During a period of 3-4 months
that I spent there I witnessed some of the most horrific incidents I have ever witnessed
in my life!

Early in the summer they sent me and another two co-soldiers out on a patrol by an island
between the river and a canal that faced the Turkish side. There we found 33 men and women
from Morocco, Middle East, Turkey and Rwanda (fleeing the recent genocide there). We
arrested them, left them to rest and then fed them a little stale bread and gave them some
fizzy orange to drink. That was the only food they had. We escorted them from this massive
sand trap beyond the island west of the river. When we arrived to our small guarding hut,
we try to ask them if there was something in the way of medicine or food that we could
offer them.

I have to say that most of the soldiers and even the fellow that was acting lieutenant
were all doing our best with the resources available to us. The riot police bus arrived
from Alexandroupoli and they started to chain the migrants, squeezing the handcuffs as
tight as they could on their hands in a sadistic manner as if these poor, exhausted,
half-starved and barely able to walk people stood a chance of escape. And even if they
could where could they go? A good few of us soldiers, including the lieutenant, tried to
protest against their ill treatment by the policemen but these bastards took pleasure in
their job.

Another time we were told that one of the pumps that had been placed into the river to
help with the irrigation of the fields during the dry summer season was blocked. They had
to switch it off to see what was wrong with it, only to discover the body of a young man
that had drowned trying to cross the river during the winter months when that river ran
very high.

If that was not shocking enough for us young fellows, some of us barely 19 year old, the
next thing we found out had us completely devastated. We heard the locals saying very
calmly that this was not the first time, but one of many. The locals were finding bodies
blocking the pumps and they were fed up with the inconvenience caused

To whoever cares about these all back in Greece, I want to plead with them by saying that
the time of the festivals and concerts in solidarity with the migrants is over a long time
ago. The time of organising with them and start kicking the living daylights of all these
scumbags -racists, Nazis, police- is a long time coming!

Many of you rose up in 2008 when the police murdered Alexis Grigoropoulos and fair play to
you for this but very few have come even close to doing the same for the migrants that
have been abused and killed for year. All these humans are as important as Alexis and
their lives weigh equally. To de-humanise people is the genesis of all our oppression.

An injury to one is an injury to all regardless of sex, sex preference, race or religion.

*diversion tactics to pull the wool out of the eyes of the locals to have them distracted
from other things happening such as salaries and pension cuts, big scandals, high
unemployment etc.

Bron : a-infos-en@ainfos.ca