It already was for many, Hell on Earth. But without the flames. That changed this week, when the refugee camp Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos, erupted in fire and was destroyed. The makeshift tents (often made from supermarket plastic bags), with the belongings of the refugees, the infrastructure (if you can call the meager number of showers and toilets infrastructure), the tiny feeling of home for the many children there, was destroyed, and people where left to sleep in orchards and on the streets.
It is not really relevant who started the fire. Many say it may be the only hope for improvements in the misery of the refugees that overcrowd the camp. Some hope that it will convince Western European countries to allow these people in and allow them to regain some semblance of human existence. But for most of the refugees it is no more than another chapter in the book of misery and despair, that has been their life since they left their homeland and arrived by boat from Turkey.
Lesbos is a small Greek Island very close to the Turkish coast, which has made it attractive to people smugglers to try and move refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and African countries, that somehow made it to Turkey on their way to Europe.
The camp Moria, which is one of five refugee camps on the Greek Islands, was set up in 2015 to control the flow of refugees in particular from Syria (at the time at least), but has been dangerously overcrowded with four to five times the number of refugees it was designed for. Conditions are almost inhuman, the food that is supplied almost inedible, education sporadic and minimal, health services almost nonexistent. But worst of all, if the refugees that arrived in Moria, still had any hopes, any expectations, any thoughts of the future, those were extinguished rapidly. From Moria there is no way forward. Moria, like the other camps on the islands, was designed to prevent the refugees from ever getting to the European mainland. The politics involved (between the EU and Turkey) is rather despicable but for the refugees this doesn’t matter very much. The only thing that matters for them is that they have nowhere to go, nothing to hope for, and nobody to believe in. The results are despair, depression, health problems, and yes also violence and religious fanatics who believe that these refugees are easy targets.
And not only the refugees are becoming desperate. The people of Lesbos, and in particular the small port city of Mytilene, (with a population of approx. 30,000 only) are rapidly losing their patience with and tolerance for the refugees, and more and more incidents and clashes are reported.
Where is the World?
So where is the world? Where is the European Union? The politics has resulted for the EU in the desired effect. Refugees are not arriving in Europe any longer, at least not through Greece, so that is the end of it? True, Europe has absorbed large numbers of refugees from Syria and other countries and the integration, or acceptance of these refugees is an on-going process and has not been easy. But the number of refugees on the Greek islands (approx. 35,000) would hardly make a difference for countries like German, Holland and France. Are they afraid that the flow of refugees will start up again once they relent? The original deal was for Turkey to hold Syrian refugees in Turkey until they would be able to return to Syria, but today most refugees are from Afghanistan and Africa, with the latter mostly trying to reach Europe via Lampedusa in Italy, but many preferring the “safer” route through Turkey.
It is high time (in fact way past high time) that the world, and in this case foremost the European countries, start to seriously look for a more comprehensive solution to the refugee problem, because it is not going away. No doubt, such a solution must include the absorption and integration of many refugees into the European countries, but efforts to improve the situation in the countries where these refugees come from must be an integral part of the solution.
But of course all that is good for the future. The crisis, highlighted by the fires in Moria, demands a solution now.
I cannot help but look at what my home countries are doing to solve these inhuman situations.
Where is Holland?
Where is Holland in all this? For months now, organizations and municipalities in the Netherlands have been trying to convince the government to allow a small number of refugee children (the number of unaccompanied minors in Moria for instance is more than a thousand) to come to Holland. However, the government kept refusing the requests, and preferred to give the Greek authorities money to build new camps on the Greek mainland to house these children. As a result of the fires in Moria (and the unrelenting efforts of some action groups) the Dutch government has now “generously” agreed to take in one hundred people from Moria. Already protests where held here and there in the Netherlands against this pathetic decision, and demands are made that Holland will live up to it humanitarian image, and undertake real steps to help these people. The debate is not over and probably changes are still in the making on this decision. But it is easy to debate, right, when you have a comfortable bed to retire in afterwards.
Where is Israel?
And Israel? If there is one country in the world that should understand the plight of refugees, it is Israel, no? Even before the fires in Moria, the Israeli government, when suggestions were made by humanitarian organizations to absorb a number of refugees, was very clear. Netanyahu, who lives in two houses, each of which could comfortably house a hundred refugees, stated that Israel is a very small country and it is “full”. In addition, he claimed that it is a bad idea to take in refugees from “Enemy Countries”. So we have to wait until there are refugees from Abu Dhabi or Bahrain? Of course the real reason for not taking these refugees in is much simpler and straightforward. They are not Jewish and will contaminate the purity of the Jewish race.
What a far cry from the seventies, when then Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to take in Vietnamese boat refugees saying he will never forget the St. Louis, a ship with Jewish refugees from Germany that traveled the world over but was refused everywhere and returned to Europe, where many of the 900 Jewish refugees perished in the Holocaust.
Several hundred of the Vietnamese people and their descendants are still living in Israel, and while they do feel discrimination because of their look, most are grateful to the State of Israel and Menachem Begin, just for being “alive”.
While in today’s world, there is very little hope for these or other refugees, and indeed I have no expectations that Israel would care even, but my beliefs in the strength of humanitarian values in Europe and particularly in Holland have not completely been extinguished and I believe that they can, and will do something meaningful in the end.
But these refugees have no time for debates about their plight. They need action today.
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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