Thessaloniki | Story no1Walking together

I am from Syria, I came to Greece in February 2016 and actively participated in the residential occupation of Orfanotrofeio. I had never been in a squat before in my whole life, it was an abandoned building, and if we were honest we would say it was an illegal occupation of a building but it became my home, and I will explain further how important that is. To start with, I want to talk about my first impressions. When I first reached its entrance there were 3-4 anarchists present that told me I am welcome, they talked to me very politely and I had a positive impression because that was the first time that somebody welcomed me in Greece. I stayed in the squat of Orfanotrofeio for 6 months and it was a very important experience for me. The people that supported it were very good and very caring and I made some very good anarchist friends. We co-designed certain rules of operation that were imbued with a logic of respect for one another, without discrimination based on gender or nationality. We agreed to refrain from stealing, smoking drugs, being rude to each other or dishonest and to respect times of eating and sleeping. The daily concerns of the squat were to distribute the work that needed to be done each day, to make a shifts schedule for cleaning, cooking and securing the space while having many assemblies and organising various political actions.

Political actions were focused on equality and the rights of refugees, primarily through an imperative to become visible in the city and not hidden and tossed away like garbage in the camps that the state has set up in the fringes of the city. Orfanotrofeio was an abandoned by state and church building inside the city, so it was a very good idea to occupy it and provide food and shelter to refugees. I, like many other refugees –occupants of Orfanotrofeio could be in the centre of the city very easily and have experiences from the city and the lives of its inhabitants. For example we could go to parties and to concerts in the universities, to make friends, learn the Greek language and to know and feel that we are part of this city. My opinion is that keeping refugees out of the city in isolated camps is a grave mistake.

Likewise, in the squat processes we all talked between us, there was no leader and nobody was seen as superior to the rest. I have never met such a way to function collectively before and most importantly, this way of functioning never made you feel that you are foreign. It was instead trying to break the perceptions that some were local Greek citizens or Europeans with privileges and the rest refugees from other continents. Yes, it’s true that the experiment of Orfanotrofeio attempted to break national and social borders and brought us closer. It became my home because I felt safe and at ease there. Most importantly it was rejecting the concept of private property. Usually when we say home, we mean either a space where we have a rent contract or that belongs to us because we bought it or that was given to us by our parents. Orfanorofeio became our home because it gave birth to relationships of comradeship, relationships of trust, relationships of responsibility without having to obey someone, without having to pay rent in order not to get evicted. It was not a closed house controlled by an owner. Instead all refugees had access to it as the entire neighbourhood had access to it. It was very touching to see people from the neighbourhood daily offering us food, medicine, and clothes while all the shops and individuals around the street respected us and helped us.

A very important event that took place during my stay in Thessaloniki was the No Border Camp in the summer of 2016. It was of primary and significant importance because I met people from all over the world, Germany, England, Greece, Arabs, Kurds. It looked like a multinational gathering. Everybody talked with everyone, laughing and making jokes and in general created a great condition to meet people and participate in various activities, in the kitchen, at the party or in concerts. It was a unique experience to gain knowledge from all these people gathered in solidarity. Every day we were transferring refugees by bus, from the camps in the outskirt of the city to the University at the centre of the city where the no border camp was situated. For some people maybe it was the first time at the centre of Thessaloniki and what they were seeing was nothing less than the fantastic community of the No Border Camp. For these people it was a very important event, they felt that their life mattered, that people from all over the world came to support them. I as a refugee, but also as a resident of Thessaloniki I talked with them and I explained them what is the No Border Camp. Slowly the refugees organised their own assemblies, they organised dances and celebrations, they were offered food, clothes, support, and legal assistance and started sharing their problems and their needs. A lot of the refugees met people in solidarity who offered them a home in the centre of the city and left the horrible camps.

I mostly though want to highlight the issues around the psychology of the refugees. Most of them are people traumatised by war, they have lost their homes, their belongings, and have done a massive and extremely hard journey to reach Greece. As they arrived here, they found closed borders, and survived the horrid conditions of Idomeni only to be thrown in the camps outside the city. Even the luckiest ones that got given a flat in the city are totally psychologically damaged. They sit all day and stare at a wall for 24 hours a day, they have no friends and they wait, they wait while feeling lost in the bureaucracy of the interviews for asylum or relocation. All of them suffer from depression so I would like to say the following: When you have depression –and I have passed long time depressed- you shouldn’t live alone, you should get out, go to the centre of the city, walk, look at the sun, the sea, meet people and talk, acquire social experiences, make friends and show the best of you. Otherwise it is all wrong, you need to open conversations, to be active and polite, only this way you improve your life.