Implementación del Hill Climbing

The island of Lesvos, the largest of the Greek islands in the North-Eastern Aegean Sea, is for many the ‘first point of entry’ into EUropean space. Lesvos is separated from mainland Turkey only by the narrow Mytilene Strait. Standing at the shores of Lesvos, Turkish buildings and infrastructure on the other side, roughly six miles away, are easily visible. Ferries with tourists on board travel frequently back and forth, return trips can be purchased for as little as ten Euro.

It is here, in the strait, that in December 2012 twenty-one Afghan migrants drowned and at least six went missing between the shores of Turkey and Greece. The twenty-one bodies were recovered in the sea or washed up in Thermi, near the island’s capital Mytilene.6 In March 2013, six Syrian nationals died in their attempt to reach the Greek island.7 Another tragedy occurred on the 21st of January 2014, with 12 migrants drowning, after what seems to have been yet another illegal ‘push-back’ operation by Greek border forces.8

6 _{WatchTheMed, 2014, http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/14, Accessed 08/01/2014.} 7 _{Amnesty International, 2013, ‘Refugees dying on dangerous routes to asylum in Europe’,}

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/refugees-dying-dangerous-routes-asylum-europe-2013-03-20, Accessed 06/10/2013.

8 _{BBC, 2014, ‘Inquiry calls after migrants die under tow in Greece’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-}

181

They are amongst hundreds of counted persons who have lost their lives in the Aegean Sea.9 Since the erection of a border fence in the Greek region of Evros in 2012, migration movements have shifted to more dangerous sea routes, prompting greater efforts to control by Frontex and Greek border guards. For most of those who survive the perilous journey that can cost several hundred Euros, Lesvos is a point of transit, not of settlement, and it is here that many experience EUrope for the first time. As one of EUrope’s outposts, Lesvos is becoming, more and more, another symbol of EUrope’s violent border practices and migration struggles, just as Lampedusa, Ceuta and Meilla already are.

This first part of my ethnographic investigation was conducted during the project ‘Traces Back 2013’, organised by the networks Youth without Borders and Welcome to

Europe.10 The project allowed those who had once passed through Lesvos to trace their

first steps in EUrope, to meet friends still ‘stuck in Greece’, and to come together in protest against continuous violence against migrants. Those who came back to Lesvos now reside in several EUropean countries, work or go to school, and are granted the freedom to move within the EU. They come back as Afghan migrants, but inasmuch so as EUropean residents and activists, as carpenters, pupils, fathers, friends, cricket- players, world travellers, as those who resisted and survived the EUropean border dispositif.

Having gone through Greece constitutes only a facet of their lives. Some, however, remain in (legally) precarious conditions and this is why we decided to anonymise their identities. The names used are the ones they chose for themselves. This ethnographic study developed along the ‘Traces Back’ project, remained in the background of the events that unfolded on Lesvos, and many important but sensitive exchanges will not be

9 _{Pro Asyl, ‘Pushed back, systematic human rights violations against refugees in the Aegean Sea and at the}

Greek-Turkish land border’, 2013, p. 4.

10 _{I am deeply grateful to the three for their permission to re-narrate their stories and experiences in this}

chapter. I am also grateful to the activist networks for allowing me to take part in the struggle on Lesvos, both as activist and researcher: Welcome to Europe, http://www.w2eu.info/about.en.html, Accessed 08/11/2013; Jugendliche Ohne Grenzen (Youth without Borders), http://jogspace.net/, Accessed 05/01/2014.

182

considered here. This part of my multi-sited research is based solely on accounts that were given ‘publicly’, at the local radio station of Lesvos, during an exhibition in Mytilene, and those that were narrated to be subsequently published on the blog ‘Birds of Immigrants’.11

For many participants of the project, Lesvos and Greece as such remain places of traumatising experience, abuse, fear and violence, but also ones of encounter, support, hope and friendship. Most arrived on the island between 2005 and 2010 and many were imprisoned in the notorious detention centre Pagani, described (even) by the Deputy Civil Protection Minister Vougias as “Dante’s Inferno”.12 The centre was shut down end of 2009, after protests inside and NoBorder activist solidarity outside.

This ethnography listens to the stories of Jawad, Arash and Azadi who came to Lesvos as young and unaccompanied migrants. These are the stories of those who made it, who managed to escape Greece to arrive in relative safety in Germany. These stories show how they clashed multiple times with EUrope’s border dispositif, how their lives were put on hold, how they had to imagine their futures several times anew and how, in all cases, they remained unyielding in their will to move on and away from Greece.

Three Stories

Jawad

Jawad is four years old when he flees war-torn Afghanistan.13 In Iran his family becomes subjected to constant harassment, humiliation and regular police controls. His father remains in precarious working conditions throughout, unable to send the children to school. Jawad’s family returns to Afghanistan in 2003 only to find that “there was no security, still blood, still problems.”

11 _{The blog ‘Birds of Immigrants’ “displays a platform for unaccompanied young refugees on the way to}

Europe. Some of the posts are written in Greece, others are posted in some Internet-Cafe on the run. This page should be a way for young refugees to display their view on Europe and of course all the experience on their way.” See: http://birdsofimmigrants.jogspace.net/, Accessed 10/02/2014.

12 _{UNHCR, 2009, ‘Greece shuts down migrant detention centre on island’, http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-}

bin/texis/vtx/refdaily?pass=463ef21123&id=4aefd83b5, Accessed 10/01/2014.

13 _{Jawad told me the story in German which I then translated into English for the blog ‘Birds of}

Immigrants’. Both versions can be found there: http://birdsofimmigrants.jogspace.net/, Accessed 10/02/2014. We also met again in Hamburg on the 20th _{of April 2014, where he expanded on some of his}

183

A few months later the family moves back to Iran but the situation does not improve. Jawad decides to flee. EUrope is not his wanted destination, he has never heard of it. After six months of organising, he finds somebody to get him over the border. He leaves Iran and travels through Turkey. From its Western shores Jawad and some friends cross the Aegean Sea.

The person who brought us [to the Turkish shore] told us ‘there is a light, this is Greece, until then you have to paddle’. […] From the middle of the distance onwards we had only one paddle. We started at 10pm and arrived at 8am, paddling with hand and foot.

Arriving on the Greek island of Lesvos he is chased for the first of many times by the police. They escape by jumping off a tall building but the friends lose each other. Jawad finds a travel agency but failing to buy a ferry ticket to mainland Greece without travel documents, Jawad turns himself in to the police.

I said, I am an Afghan, I don’t have a passport. [But] they did not want to arrest me. [...] I went to the travel agency and sat there from the morning to the evening. I said the police does not want to arrest me, I cannot leave, I somehow need to get a ticket.

In the end, they give in. He travels to Athens, then Crete. He spends many months in a centre for under-aged and unaccompanied migrants, learns Greek and becomes the assistant of the interpreter at the centre.

When he wants to visit his family in Iran and is not allowed to do so, he decides to leave Greece. He then travels to Patras:

One has to hide the whole time. In lorries, beneath lorries, in the time when they stop at traffic lights while the police and racists hunt you. It was also psychologically very difficult. One was all alone and worthless.

Unsuccessful, Jawad leaves Patras, travels back to Athens and then to Corinth.

From there I went to Italy in a lorry on a ferry, two days and nights. I arrived in Venice and went to Austria where the police controlled us and arrested us. They said we would have to go back to Greece.

184

Resisting deportation, Jawad begins a hunger strike at the removal centre that would last for ten days and during which he loses about 15-16 kilos.

The doctors decided that me and my friends had to be released. But they tricked us. They told us, you are free, you can go claim asylum. When we went to the administration they brought us food but then two police officers came with handcuffs and said that we would have to return to the prison to be deported. I was so disappointed and the whole world was so dark, I lost my hope.

Spending three months in a prison in Vienna, Jawad is prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

I only ate and then went back to sleep. Sometimes I was only up for about two hours per day. The day came when they wanted to bring me to the airport. I refused. There was a radiator in my prison cell. I locked myself behind it so that I could not even get out anymore. They came in and shouted and hit me but I could not leave. When they noticed that they called professional help and they cut me out. Then about ten to twelve police officers came in and beat me up. They put me into a car and brought me to the airport. A few hours later I was back in Athens.

Jawad takes a deep breath and struggles before continuing his recollection of the place that he had once successfully escaped.

When I arrived I was not really conscious, I could not think or do anything. I did not want to live anymore. Fortunately I had a friend here and I met him on the street and he took me back to his home. I sometimes left the house to go for a walk and sometimes I went so far that I did not even know anymore where I was. I also did not care for the cars. I always went to the sea and sat there and looked at the water. I also watched the people next to me and I always wanted to know what the difference was between me and them. What did I do wrong? And why is life so hard for some people? There are so many people here, millions, and the city has such a long history and culture but I am all alone.

In the following months Jawad works himself out of depression, improves his Greek, finds accommodation, and begins the job as an interpreter back in Mytilene where he spends two years.

That was a nice time but I still could not stay in Greece as I was not allowed to travel and meet my family in Iran. I decided to go to Germany. I flew to Germany illegally. I thought I would maybe go back to Mytilene but then I stayed in Germany. I went to school and now I am doing an apprenticeship. I met amazing people who help me. It is like a family, they always support me. And I feel great in Hamburg.

185

Arash

Arash came to EUrope in 2006.14 On the 16th of October he arrives in Mytilene when he is 14 years old. He spends a few days in detention in Pagani and then leaves for Athens.

There I stayed for two days and had no place to sleep. I had to sleep in the Alexander Park. I then went to Patras and just wanted to leave. I tried for two weeks to leave but unfortunately it did not work. I decided to go back to Athens.

Arash gets in touch with an Afghan acquaintance who lives in Lavrio and moves there for more than three years. “In my first year I was not allowed to go to school and I was not allowed to work and I did not receive any help.” Arash’s attempted suicide fails.

He enters school in his second year in Lavrio, and works on the weekends. While his situation improves, he decides to leave Greece.

I called my sister in Iran to ask for some money. She helped me and somebody took my money and sent me to Italy. After one night there I went straight on to Paris. I spent two weeks in Paris and I tried to learn the language. But I did not like it, both the city and the language. I met a boy from Afghanistan who wanted to go to Sweden and he offered me to come along. I then just went with him but stayed in Hamburg. I registered with the social agency there. I was 17 years old then. […] At the social agency they did not believe that I was 17 years old and they sent me to a doctor to see how old I was.

To his surprise, Arash’s age is altered to 18.

Afterwards the social agency called to tell me that I had to give them my fingerprints. I had already given my fingerprints in Greece and knew what would happen with them. […] I did not want to give my fingerprints and they sent the police. They came to get me but I decided to go by myself. At the social agency I closed my eyes and out of protest formed fists so that they could not take my fingerprints. Then they suddenly said that I could just leave.

Arash claims asylum in Germany and is granted the right to stay several months later.

14 _{Arash told me the story in German which I then translated into English for the blog ‘Birds of}

Immigrants’. Both versions can be found there: http://birdsofimmigrants.jogspace.net/, Accessed 10/02/2014.

186

Thank God I received a residency permit [Aufenthaltsgenehmigung]. Right now I live in Kiel and I have done a language course and I am about to get my school degree.

Azadi

Azadi, who now lives and studies in Berlin, entered EUrope also through Lesvos.15

It was the 19th of January 2008 when we were at sea and when the coast guards caught us. It was the same day of my birthday. I had never seen the sea before and I had great fear to drown. When the boat tips over, how will I save myself? I thought: my god, you brought me on the same day to the world, you will take me away on the same day.

Azadi is sent to Pagani where he spends about two weeks.

We saw that there were 80 people in one room. There were no beds to sleep. […] I met people who I knew from Istanbul and they gave me some food. It was really dirty [...], one had to wait for a long time to go to the toilet. Two weeks later they gave us the paper that says that we have to leave the country in 30 days.

Able to move on, Azadi travels to Athens where he claims asylum and receives the ‘red card’ proving the asylum application. “I was happy that I could go out on the street without being arrested by the police.”

A few months later he decides to go back to Lesvos where he stays in a centre for unaccompanied minors for five months. He learns Greek but then has to leave as he is with 19 years too old to be accommodated in the centre. Azadi hears about the NoBorder activist camp on Lesvos. “I read […] that they were fighting for the rights of refugees and migrants and it was the first time in my life that I saw that people were fighting for something like that.” He becomes the interpreter in the camp and is even allowed to enter Pagani: “I saw that there were 800 people. I had the red card and could move freely. They did not, which hurt me a lot.” Afterwards Azadi returns to Athens.

It was very difficult in Athens, there were racist attacks, I had a lot of fear and no hope to find work or be allowed to go to school. I decided to leave. I tried it in a

15 _{Azadi told his story at the exhibition ‘Traces from Lesvos through Europe, Respect only with passport?}

Muhajer Tour is back’ in Mytilene on the 11th _{of October 2013. He spoke in Greek and was translated}

187

lorry once but they caught me. At the airport they caught us again and put us in prison. I managed at the third time to leave Greece. I was in the aircraft and I waited until we took off. Then I called my friend […] and said that now I am gone. [He] was so happy that he broke his mobile phone. Then he went outside and cried because he was left behind alone. I was scared that they would catch me in Germany and send me back to Greece.

He is not caught and claims asylum. However, the first months in Germany are difficult; Azadi misses his friends, the islands, and ‘his love’ in Greece. “I decided to go back to Greece, to buy a ticket via France and Italy and then back to Patras.” In the end, he does not go, he is ‘patient’ as he says and receives asylum in Germany six months later.

Turbulent Migrations

The struggles of Jawad, Arash and Azadi are, more than anything, turbulent.16 Through their many movements they collided at various temporal and spatial trajectories with border practitioners but moved on. They fled Afghanistan, passed through Turkey and entered Greek EUrope. On Lesvos Arash and Azadi became detained and moved on, they became beaten, humiliated, fingerprinted, deported, but they moved on, through