This Report was drafted by the Camp Network Group, a network of organizations and solidary individuals—which also includes Operazione Colomba—that monitors the conditions of people on the move in Athens and in the camps belonging to the city.
What does it mean to be in the Peace Community as 'Paloma', an international volunteer with Operazione Colomba?
I put on the orange t-shirt and leave myself behind; I am no longer just me, I become a symbol.
It means being a witness. But only in a small way compared to these ancient trees, the birds that punctually sing hymns to creation, the stones polished by the river like the bones of giants—they have been observing human movements since time immemorial.
It means putting oneself at others' service.
It means having no time or space of your own, sacrificing them to sharing, to accompanying others, making them sacred.
It means embodying what it is to be an instrument.
Pouring cement into water wells, stealing Palestinian livestock, uprooting olive trees.
Preventing Palestinians from working their own land,
setting up armed flying checkpoints at the entrances to villages,
grazing sheep on Palestinian land and destroying their olive trees.
Shining enormous floodlights all night long onto Palestinian homes, planting Israeli flags on the hills, passing through villages to spread terror.
Entering homes, demolishing them.
Detaining, arresting, blindfolds and handcuffs.
Beating, killing.
Diary of Agnese – 5
I am tired and I’ve had enough.
It’s still etched in my mind, the coexistence between life and destruction: the lit-up and modern shops on the ground floor of dilapidated and crumbling buildings.
They still leave a mark, the words of W. when she brings me to see her home, completely destroyed:
“It wasn’t enemies who reduced my home to this. It was the government...mine”.
It’s still etched, how the evil that man is capable of is in front of everyone’s eyes...walking through destruction you see every day how far the madness of war can go.
It’s still etched, the feeling that after all war did not completely win, because it’s not the end.
Hope is in the air.
Diary of Agnese – 4
At 6 I’m woken up by the crowing of a rooster and the singing of the Muezzin.
The others are used to it by now, I was too when I lived here. But every time we start all over again.
Today I’m following the group in the local activities.
They are trying to organise some inter-religious communal moments in occasion of Ramadan and Lent, which this year overlap for a little while.
The Muslims will have their month of fasting, which we all know by now, even in Italy. The Christians have 40 days of penitence, which we’re used to see unobserved in Italy, but here are carried out by fasting from midnight to midday, and by abstaining from all animal products.
Syria really is big and travelling it’s not just the scenery that changes, but the ethnic and cultural geography as well.
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
