Mytilene | Story no4Walking together

I am from Pakistan, and grew up in a privileged family. When I was 13 my dad died. I am an only son so I need to take care of my sisters. I left because I couldn’t stand the torture and the realisation that the cost of human life is less than a dollar. Every time my sister was going to the university I didn’t know if she would return. They can kill you everywhere. There are suicide bombers everywhere. They kill innocent people just because they can. I was studying to become a lawyer. They turned me away because I did not want to be a liar for the rest of my life. I am not religious. Most of my friends left. Nobody can withstand it so they leave. The economic situation is only part of the problem. The other is the European Union and the states of the west that operate in our country in various ways. They want to make us like Iraq and Afghanistan. We are attacked daily. Nobody knows about this and nobody cares for Pakistan, but it is not safe to live there. In my country I participated in a left-wing party. I went to demonstrations, but in Pakistan if you are a leftist then you are considered an atheist which means they can attack you, arrest you, and erase you. They had me for 6 months in a cell and my mother could not find me during this time. For a year I could not walk from the tortures. So I decided to leave. We have no rights and no free speech.

To arrive in Lesbos I paid 6000 Euro to the trafficker. I passed through Iran and Turkey. The journey lasted for a whole month. I didn’t want to get on the boat, I was afraid, but I had to do it. It was scary; we were on the boat for three hours. They were families there. Most of them afraid, because they didn’t know how to swim.

When I arrived, I went to Moria and saw all these people who did not know the language, nothing about the future or about the continuation of their journey. I decided to stay for a week, but after three days they closed the border. It was the wrong decision to stay put here. Then I went to Athens. I had nowhere to stay and I heard about the squat in Themistokleous. I went there and participated in some protests. I met people and made contacts in Exarcheia. But it was difficult in the assemblies because we seemed to talk for hours on end and sometimes there was no solution.

Then I came back and heard about the No Border Kitchen. I felt I found the place that suits me. We make assemblies to co-decide who does what. It is of course difficult to communicate with so many people, but at the end of the day things work out. In Moria things are difficult. We are a lot of people from different places. Sometimes it is chaotic; other times its quite funny. There are often conflicts over food. Also, during the day is quite boring. At night time also a lot of people drink and then fight. There are also these nights that we light fires and sing and dance. But the people who live in Moria are very afraid, disappointed and suffering from depression. They feel that they are isolated that they are not humans. I hear people every day going on about their intentions to commit suicide. Many do not even have the desire to go to the city.

When I began my journey I expected that in Greece I would find equality. But I haven’t found it apart from a few places. I believed that I would be in a better society, where people would respect each other, but I guess my expectations were too great.

Here, the people that help refugees, I don’t want to call them volunteers, are offering a lot. You learn a lot. And I see that the refugees are starting slowly to shift their perceptions now that they see how other societies function. Of course it takes time, but it is important that they do it. However here I haven’t got a trace of sympathy from the locals. They look at you with animosity. They feel that we have affected tourism. In Athens it was even worse. They wouldn’t give me directions. It would be very difficult for the refugees to self-organise because they feel that nothing happens. That there is no resolution.

What I have to say to the next people who want to come here is to stay strong and that everything will go fine in the end. Europe is no utopia. I would like to go everywhere. I’d like to travel. I would also like to study sociology or anthropology.