“The challenge of our role is to be thermostats, not thermometers, which means not taking the environment’s temperature, but trying to change it.”
If we think about a conflict, we easily imagine a situation of violence and injustice and we easily expect an environmental “temperature” of rage, a sparkle ready to start a fire and an explosion.
But in Greece – cradle of democracy, philosophy, classical art – where is the conflict? I have found it in the colourful graffiti on the walls of camps monitored by cameras and covered by barbed wire. I have felt it in the alarmed reaction of the camp’s private security, standing before our attempt to help a fragile person carrying a weight through the entrance checkpoint. I have seen it during the meetings around our tiny table, into the circumspect glances, checking who else was listening in the moment they start talking about their mother language, their own story. I have heard it in the voice of a father, telling us he could not take care of his own child inside a hospital wherein they spoke a language he did not know. I have felt it into the tears of frustration kept by a girl who could not bear to be exploited any longer at work.
The Camp Network Group is an informal network of collectives, assemblies, grassroots associations and individuals working in solidarity with people forced to live in isolated refugee camps (Ελεγχόμενη Δομή Προσωρινής Φιλοξενίας Αιτούντων - Controlled Access Facility for Temporary Accommodation of Asylum Seekers) around Athens and all over Greece. We believe that refugee camps are inhumane and degrading. They violate people's human rights and freedom of movement by hindering access to basic services and enforcing control and isolation instead of inclusion and support. No one should be forced to live in these conditions!
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
