Protect, Serve and Eat the Rich

No matter how deep your research goes, no matter how good your ability is to navigate the sensationalized and manipulated media perspectives on any given issue, there is no preparation you can make that will prepare you for the visceral reality of experiencing something for yourself.





I was in Athens with a film crew to capture video for my upcoming feature, ANARCHISM, this past weekend. It was the December 6th, 7 year memorial for Alexis Grigoropoulos, the 15 year-old boy shot down in cold-blood by two police officers, in the Exarchia neighborhood of Athens.
Before the planned marches, in which I witnessed more than 5,000 participants (the international media reported hundreds), we visited a small memorial marking the spot of his death, in the graffiti covered Exarchia neighborhood.



What struck me right away was how safe and calm the neighborhood, which is widely hyped as being one of Athens most dangerous, actually is, especially as it is basically a no-police zone. For the police, on the other hand, it is a very dangerous place, they barricade off their one neighborhood station and don't venture into the heart of the neighborhood at all.





This hands-off, let them fend for themselves, don't enter, except under the cover of clouds of tear gas, attitude, is portrayed by the news media, as a clear indication that it is a neighborhood of chaos and high crime. The reality of what I experienced and what residents conveyed to me, was quite the opposite.

The clear absence of police presence gave a palpable lightness to the streets. I felt like I was in an alternative universe, or alternative nation, at the very least. And while there is definitely a bohemian student vibe that dominates, there are people of all ages, walking the streets and sitting typically(for Greeks) at sidewalk cafes. There is a palpable friendliness and camaraderie on the streets, that I have never experienced in a city before.

Of course, police weren't the only notable absent force of the neighborhood. There were also no high end fashion or electronic stores, the banks were long closed and there was no mega corporate presence in coffee shops or retail stores. Sorry kids, no malls.

By nighttime, the neighborhood would be under siege.



The peaceful, but very vocal memorial marches, which were supported by an alliance of left-oriented organizations, men and women of all ages circled the closed off main streets of central Athens, and were all the time sealed off and contained by 6,000 police officers(more than one per protester), dressed in military gear, who lined the sidewalks, basically fencing in the marchers from every side.







The feeling for me, when inside with the protesters, was one of being herded, like sheep. It was a very suffocating feeling, as if there was no escape, and no control, should something...erupt. And as the 2 hour march came full circle, back to the starting point, something did. There was a loud explosion and a big flash of fire, ahead of the marching crowds. No one was injured, but the intensity of the explosion sent the marchers desperately running away, for their lives. I stopped, to try and catch some video of the stampeding people, elders, youth, men and women. But before I could set my camera, I saw a forty-something woman running and at the same time from the line of police, a policeman, as she passed him, stepped off of the curb and blindsided her with his shield, sending her flying into the street and at the feet of the running masses.
No, I didn't get a photo, of the insanely cheap shot, and no I can't explain the feeling of powerlessness I felt in the face of such a cowardly act of injustice,  paralyzed by the intensity of a virtual armed military capable of such unprovoked violence, cut off from my film crew and suddenly unable to see as tear gas filled the air.
I wandered upwind, away from the gas, behind the police lines, not knowing who the enemy was, or what safety looked like, wishing I had a gas mask, and feeling a sense of helplessness amidst the chaos, like none I have ever experienced.



Was that helplessness, somehow at the root of everything? Was that the outcome or the source of the confrontation?



Away from the front lines, away from the sheep herding, for a moment, behind the masks, and from under the helmets, I caught a glimpse of humanity.

But the night was just barely beginning, and if helplessness, or hopelessness was the source, the core anarchists were determined to not allow it to become the outcome. The battle shifted fronts and began in earnest. The Anarchists dug into their Exarchia fortress. And they raged against the dying of the light.



I had been seeking the answer to a question all day, which was this: What was the victory the Anarchists were seeking?
I asked many people, and every time my question was answered with a smile and a kind understanding of my obvious naiviety. They weren't after victory. They didn't expect to win anything. When the day began, I couldn't wrap my understanding around that answer, Surely there had to be a marker, a goal, an objective?
But as the night burned on, as molotov cocktails shattered and flared and lit up the streets, my research, programmed pre-conceptions and logic finally began to burn away as well, and I began to understand not with my mind, but to feel with my racing heart.That helplessness, I had felt in every pore of my body, during the fleeting moments of initiation through the fire of experience. they weren't going to feel that, not for a moment.
For the anarchists of Exarchia, victory might be a far away, inconceivable concept...but defeat, was even more so.

Kos Refugee Crisis Update...A multi-headed Hydra

I've been working for the international media, covering a local story that has skyrocketed to the center of the public's attention....at least for a couple of days. Taking on the journalistic perspective and navigating media scrums, has definitely shone some light into a lot of shadowy spaces.

Taking a moment to reflect on how happy someone can be to have a cucumber, or how long they are willing to wait for it.....is certainly a lesson in gratitude and should be an opportunity to reflect on what we take for granted in life....

These photos were taken in and around an abandoned hotel that has become home to 3-400 refugees from diverse nationalities, Afghanistan and Pakistan dominate, but there are also those from Yemen, Bangladesh, Iraq and Iran here.

Two sisters from Germany, collected private donations and devoted their energies to buying and distributing cucumbers, tomatoes and some chocolate, which they said they bought when there wasn't any produce left at the market....

There were also Greek doctors from Doctors without borders on location.

Both of these developments were new to a camp that has been occupied and growing for months now....International media does bring some positives to the surface....
But winter is coming, and the refugees are arriving in increasing numbers, from....many lands.

On my way home from capturing photos at the port, where hundreds of Syrian refugees hopes in their hearts and on their backs, waited anxiously, to board the 2,500 seat converted cruise ship now being used as a refugee processing center....so far for only Syrian refugees, who do have some...albeit limited...resources.

International help was presnt in the form of UN refugee workers

But before I let the point slip away, the situation is escalating...as I was driving home from the port at 3 in the morning, I saw four separate groups of dozens of refugees, appearing out of the dark, along a dserted beach road, clearly, freshly dropped off by trafficking boats under the cover of a moonless night....

Meanwhile, today at the police station, authorities began to tackle the problem of unrest amongst the other nationalities...

It was a sweltering hot day....and attention should definitely be given to the general calmness of the Greek police and refugees alike.....this particular crowd was of Iranian refugees who were waiting for an organized processing. It's their turn today. There were about 150 of them it seemed....maybe more.

Working with the media, I did learn some things, not all very surprising.....Firstly, both sides of the fence are in uncharted waters, dealing with a very difficult situation for everyone......
The Greek police are trying their best to navigate a difficult situation....Whatever the tabloids may portray....They are humans at heart ....

And this somewhat illuminating statement by a 25 year veteran AP photographer....when referring to the general calm inside the storm and the lack of aggressiveness from either side of the fence....
He said,

It's a good day for the people, but a bad day for us...

Meaning obviously, that the press feeds on conflict and sensationalism. The people....they want peace.

Hopefully there will be more good days for the people......

Inside the Mayhem of the Escalating Greek Refugee Madness

I have spent a good part of my life championing the wisdom of win-win situations and natural wisdom shows us that when something is right, it is right for everyone, and that how when we force things to match our expectations, we are often sabotaging the truth or missing out on more effective or efficient solutions.

Two days intimately exploring and meeting with the exponentially increasing refugee population here on the small Greek island of Kos, turned all my ideas of win-win upside down.

The population of Kos is normally about 22,000. Refugees from war torn Syria and Afghanistan, mixed with an influx of immigrants in search of a better life from Pakistan and Bangladesh, have literally flooded the island at a rate of 5-600 a day since the beginning of the year and the numbers seem to be growing with each passing day. The Government is mobilizing private ships to transport as many as possible each day to processing centers in Thessaloniki and Athens, but it is a struggle to keep up with the numbers.

The local police and coast guard, already under staffed after mandatory EU cuts to governmental agencies, the EU labeled bloated and excessive, were already struggling with maintaining standard services before the influx accelerated and are now desperately struggling to maintain order and some semblance of a system to deal with the massive humanitarian crisis.

The mayor of Kos, Giorgios Kyritsis, has up until the last couple of days, done his best to pretend the problem didn't exist, hoping perhaps if he didn't pay attention to it, the problem would just vanish. 

It hasn't. 

His first suggestion was to give out tents to the thousands camping out, waiting to be shipped off to Athens, where they hope to be processed, given papers and somehow find their way to the promised land of Germany. He stated that he believed if people saw the refugees camping out in the middle of Kos' most picturesque, touristic harbor streets, international assistance would come flying in.

It hasn't.

Quite the opposite has been happening actually. The German led EU finance masters recently swept in and swept up 50 billion in Greek assets(just about everything Greece has), forcing mass privatization and land grabbing. They raised taxes, not to use to fix the inadequate roads, the understaffed schools or the overburdened hospitals, but to repay loans imposed by the ECB and IMF to protect the euro....NOT Greece. Additionally, they  gave the banks increased judicial powers to repossess homes more rapidly.
What they have not done is lift a finger to somehow ease the strain of a humanitarian crisis, that is as far from win-win as any situation could be.

But in the same way, the politics of humans do not linger in the eyes of the Gods, this very real human tragedy is beyond the realm of political understandings and manipulations. A bicycling Doctor from Doctors without Borders stopped to ask me how I felt inside the swarm of Syrian tents and families filling the sidewalks and roads of central Kos town. 

I had no answer. My feelings were swirling beyond the realm of words. I asked her the same question, how do you feel?

She told me it was a tragedy this was happening in Europe.

I said, it was a tragedy it was happening anywhere, she was a doctor without borders, what difference did it make if this was Europe or not.

She said because here, only blocks away, tourists were sipping 6 euro cappuccinos.

I understood her, but the situation was all so much more complex.

People were struggling to understand from both sides. The compassion of locals, whom the refugees said were treating them with kindness and compassion was being tested to its limits. 

The refugees, run out of their homeland by political manipulations and global struggles for resources they couldn't glimpse or understand, had been made false promises by those exploiting them. Suddenly they were facing as uncertain and unstable a reality as the one they were fleeing from.

The locals already under siege from the same global economic masters, have been  putting on their bravest heart and offering what assistance they could, true to the nature of the Greek family spirit, in spite of a tourist season that was suffering from excessive EU sanctions and escalating policies that are as masked by the refugee crisis as they are intensified.

I set out with my camera in search of understanding.

I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to hide behind my camera lens and remain impersonal. Those who could speak even limited English, were eager to speak...and have their photo taken.

In my search for answers, I gained information, but only the kind that led to more questions, and nothing close to anything that hinted at solutions.

I realized there was a definite hierarchy of refugee situations based on national origin. The Syrians, were the definite priority and majority. 

Fortunately, for them, a good deal of them had some resources. Some money, family savings pooled and gathered for the trek of the pioneers searching for work and land they could some day soon bring the rest of the family to. There was a general optimism amongst them that they were only stopping off and would soon be delivered safe and sound to civilized Germany and jobs. 

Many came from bombed out villages, walked to Turkey and than hired Turkish boats to drop them near the Greek coast where they could swim onto the shores of Europe.

Many were promised by the Turkish boatmen who exploited them, easy passage once they arrived in Greece and were confused as to why they had to wait days for their papers and legal status. they questioned me as to why the police were taking so long in processing them. They couldn't know that the local police were under staffed and working overtime to try and keep up with a situation they could not have possibly been prepared for.

The reality of their situation was beginning to settle in and while they were still generally calm, a sense of fear and even anger was beginning to creep in.

The children, while generally trusting and playful, were starting to wonder.

None were ready for what was about to happen the next day. The mayor finally took action and ordered the refugees to be gathered and centralized in one location, the local football stadium. 

Special force police from Athens were called in to assist the mass movement, and local right wing, Golden Dawn affiliates added their aggressive volunteer energies to the herding. Emotions on both sides began to erupt, but the police maintained a professional calm and appeared to keep  tensions to as low levels as could be expected, although the Mayor who couldn't even gather the organizational talents to prepare the local roads for the summer tourist season, now warned, 

“This situation on the island is out of control, There is a real danger of uncontrollable situations. Blood will be shed.”

Everyone, on both sides is becoming increasingly restless, no one has any answers and people increasingly speak in dehumanizing tones, such as they and them, as if either the refugees or the Greeks think and act as one entity, rather than individuals with complex and diverse thoughts, feelings and belief systems.

When I visited the abandoned Hotel Elias, now home to families and singles from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, I began to understand the diversity of dreams people were searching for, hardships they were fleeing from and struggles they were encountering. The more I searched for possible solutions, the deeper the complexities of the problems appeared.

Somehow, the concept of win-win now feels more like an impossible challenge of re-assembling a piece of wood splintered into a thousand pieces.

Stay tuned. More to come.

Please do not reprint photos without requesting permission.

UPDATE.....

Since I posted this, a lot has changed....no EU or outside assistance has come in, but the Greek government sent in peace keepers, police and administrators to process the thousands of refugees. Already massive ships have come in and the majority have been moved off the island. Much smaller numbers...moved from chaotic random camping on the streets, into a centralized location at a local stadium. International media seems to be reporting only one side of the story, the sensationalist side, the rare flare ups and the hardships of the refugees. No attention has been give to the strain on the already economically stressed island residents or the significant volunteer efforts and extensive contributions of the locals to help in whatever way they can.....or as many Syrians reported to me...the kindness of the Greek people.....and while outside agencies have been criticizing the Greeks ability to provide adequate hospitality to the thousands of illegal immigrants arriving monthly, none of those agencies are providing support or pragmatic help....The island situation is clearing and significantly improving but it appears the buck is simply being passed and the root issues are not being addressed...