Thessaloniki | Story no2Walking together

I reached Greece in November 2015 and stayed in Idomeni for a month at the time when the borders were closed and only refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were allowed to pass through. They didn’t let me pass. I did not have a specific destination to reach, I just wanted to reach a place where I would feel safe and able to live and create the life that I desire without problems. After Idomeni, I went to Thessaloniki at the squat Orfanotrofeio for refugees and migrants. In fact I was the second refugee that entered the squat. At that time it was full of people in solidarity though none of them spoke as political teams which I considered a good thing. So we started altogether, migrants and solidarity people to repair the building. At the beginning we did not have hot water, the showers did not work and the kitchen did not exist. We repaired everything from scratch and with the assistance of mechanical engineers in solidarity we did some more work in the building. The refugees were of various nationalities and most of them wanted to go to Germany. At some moment in Orfanotrofeio there were around 100 people which means that we surpassed optimum capacity of the building. People were sleeping everywhere, it was very hard.

More specifically I consider the Orfanotrofeio squat as a prime example of refugee living squats because it was based in active solidarity. Whoever participated did it out of genuine interest and not due to political or personal gain. There were people of solidarity that stayed for 24 hours a day, who slept by our side, giving with an open heart. If we needed anything they would bring it from the outside, paying it out of their own pockets, and I know very well that here in Greece there is an economic crisis and that the solidarity people have economic problems too. Yet whoever was going out to get a coffee was always bringing one more for us. Whoever came to support us for their micro political benefit did not stay long. There is an important difference between petty political investment and real solidarity. It is different to be asked “hello, how are you doing?” in an offhand manner and to be asked “hello, how are you doing?” wholeheartedly. Later, the borders closed for everybody and the people started to think more on what to do, so life at Orfanotrofeio acquired a more permanent basis.

As for the evacuation of Orfanotrofeio, that day there were a few solidarity people that got arrested. The police that evacuated the building destroyed everything, even the personal items of immigrants. So, people lost their money, their papers, their passports even their few clothes. Think how important it is for a refugee to lose her/his phone, yet the cops deliberately did not allow the refuges to take their mobiles so that we wouldn’t contact other people. But the mobile phone is the only way the refugees can be in contact with their own families and people far away, with their own country. The building was destroyed instantly by order of the church who owns it. The church and the state tended to accuse and blame Orfanotrofeio for everything bad happening in the city.

As for the internal processes of Orfanotrofeio, it was working as an assembly that we all (men and women) participated and talked in various languages such as Greek, English, or Arabic through translators. We build two assemblies, the political assembly and the housing assembly. The housing assembly was run by migrants, that is by the occupants of the squat and organised around daily issues, whereas the political assembly was mainly dealing with political issues and was open to all, refugees /immigrants and solidarity people. With time relations of trust started to develop and we organised many demonstrations and other actions. At this point I would like to repeat that we sensed which kind of people participated out of real interest or out of micro political motivation. The migrants are people who left from countries that are at war, they left for political, economic or other reasons and as such, each one thinks and understands, has a political view, and by time acquires the knowledge on who to trust and who not to. This way we were able to create some form of unity between us, and ultimately to function together, migrants and solidarity people as one collective person. Characteristic of this process is that every week we co-decided the programme of the operation of the building. Each of the dwellers had the responsibility to clean on certain days, to cook or care for the building. In collaboration with solidary Greeks and internationals that had the necessary knowledge we repaired anything that needed to, the plumbing, the toilets, the showers. Of course, sometimes whoever had an expertise on a field tended to be occupied more by the task at hand, like with cooking or some technical jobs. But overall I can say that most of us were trying to learn from one another and to participate equally to our obligations. Some might wonder how we all communicate with each other being from different countries. But I have to say that most of us come from Arab countries and we share common cultural codes, and as such we know how to communicate between us. We respect each other’s culture. The few times that there were some problems such as a violent event for example, we all talked about it in the assembly, because the non-exercise of violence was one of the basic values in Orfanotrofeio.

As far as the personal goes, from my own experience, I have to say that we shouldn’t look solely for the negative but neither to applaud. I come from a country where the only thing allowed is to applaud the dictator, but it’s important to recognise both positives and negatives. So these few months, I can say with certainty that I met some of the kindest people, I can’t find words to describe it, also as I said before I met people with political motivation but I also met ordinary people that helped because they were philanthropists, but they all come I have to say from the one same family that is called human race.

On the other hand it is a usual perception that if you meet one person from a specific country you tend to see everyone from that country behaving the same way. So at the beginning I thought that all Greeks, Spanish and Germans were like the solidarity people I met in Orfanotrofeio, however, after going out and meeting more people I realised things are more complex. Without going very far let’s pay attention to the Orfanotrofeio neighbourhood. Some people were truly in solidarity, others were negative and accused us that we make noise, others that I wouldn’t call fascists but are against immigrants kept asking us why should this building be for refugees only and not for poor homeless Greeks. Some of the solidarity people told us that these are racist and fascists, others didn’t pay much attention. Some of the neighbours were coming over to eat together with us, I won’t forget last New Year’s Eve where many of our neighbours came and you could see people that were with us or others that did not like us. Though to be honest the Orfanotrofeio was sustained to a great degree because the neighbourhood helped, people kept coming and bringing food, clothes, money for the hospital and medicine.

Closing I could summarise my experience in the motto “ the lonely fish can easily be consumed” and would like to suggest that we shouldn’t consider the Orfanotrofeio as a paradise, instead we should learn from its problems so not to repeat the same mistakes . If I am doing something wrong my friends should come and tell me that I am wrong, because if they don’t and they are tolerant, then I will keep making the same mistake my whole life. Specifically the most important mistake from which we can learn is to stop thinking that if you are not with me you are against me, so if you tell me that you don’t want to drink coffee I shouldn’t pressure you because you might have some reason, and I should hear it. Finally something for those at the camps, don’t think only of food, sleep and your journey to Germany. The world is bigger than the camp, exercise your abilities.