Tag Europe

It is pouring rain as we arrive with the Refugee Women Center. Women are standing in a line. A few hesitate about finding shelter, but there is hardly any place to take cover. “Stay in line, or you’ll lose your spot,” someone shouts to a few others. They stand close together. Some hold on to each other.

It is still raining as we set up the gazebo. Meanwhile, the line keeps growing longer. A number of women step out of the line to help, then quickly return to their place.

Next to this spot, Project Play is playing with children under a small shelter. They are coloring, puzzling, playing. Small children. Tonight, they may or may not sleep in a tent. They run around. A brief moment of lightness. Their mothers are standing in line for a tent.

But beyond that, there is nothing light about this place. Nothing at all. Truly nothing.

While angry people in the Netherlands shout that these are criminals—yet set fires themselves and then go home—people here are standing in line so they do not have to sleep outside tonight. Children play in a place without perspective. Just for a moment.

These people, who can still laugh, who help each other, where sometimes anger takes over and sometimes, astonishingly, it does not, are standing in line for a small tent. A blanket.

Imagine standing in that line. Set up in a place where there is nothing. And tomorrow the police will clear it.

In this place, your heart breaks into a thousand pieces. Because people are reduced to non-people. Because it is a senseless loss of billions to keep taking everything away from people again and again. An endless cycle that says: you are worth less than nothing.

And no, it does not deter. The numbers are not decreasing, and they will not decrease as long as wars are encouraged, as long as bombings are supported. As long as every country says: we do not want you.

The only thing in this hell that gives courage are the people who help each other—the organizations, but also the people themselves. But what used to be enough for me is no longer enough.

We are creating a world in which the downfall of people is the goal.

This world suffers not only from a lack of empathy, but also from a lack of imagination. Imagination to see how these people are trampled when numbers are used to create a sense of control. Imagination to see how all of this could be different.

A small boy wearing a self-colored mask tries to scare me. We both burst out laughing. Tonight, he will sleep in a small tent—or not. The wind is too strong, so no one is crossing.

For the love of all that is humane, support these organizations that are doing everything they can to preserve the last glimpses of humanity. If they disappear, hell will be complete. Then there will be no drinking water, no tent, no blanket, no aid, no clothes. And as Europe shifts further to the far right, there is little to expect from governments. It will simply come down to people of goodwill—to you and me.

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Rob and colleagues,

Over the past two weeks, I was in Greece, visiting our partner organizations that offer the last glimpses of humanity in a world that, for people on the run, is no longer humane.

Because no, Rob, this is not about a single incident where something goes wrong. Human rights are being violated systematically. A sentence in a policy document stating that this should not happen does not mean that it does not happen. Because it does happen. And on a large scale.

I have seen a great deal of suffering in my life across this world. What makes this different is that I am a citizen of a country that supports this suffering. That considers it acceptable.

I would very much like to take you along on my next trip. We would talk to the boy who had to flee his country, who endured a hellish journey filled with horrific experiences, who crossed the sea. Upon arrival, the Greek coast guard tried to push the boat back into the sea (this happens on a very large scale; there is overwhelming evidence—could you address Greece about this?). The boy held up a baby who was also on the boat and said: Don’t do it! They did not, but they arrested him and claimed he was a smuggler. He is not. Thousands of people in Greece are imprisoned on charges of human smuggling when they are not smugglers at all (could you also address the Greek government about this?).

We would also try to speak with the people who, just the night before last, were taken from their beds in one of the camps on the islands by the police and arrested. Their application had been rejected for the second time. They can now be detained for two years, even though their legal term had not yet expired.

And we would visit the organizations working on mental health. Because 50% of the people who come there have suicidal thoughts. After experiencing terrible things, then not being welcomed, being placed in a filthy camp, and then waiting—there is a limit to what people can endure.

I could tire you with an essay about the legal, constitutional, and factual errors that dominate the debate on migration. About numbers that are incorrect, but above all about the ongoing lies used to justify inhumane measures.

I will not do that. I appeal to your humanity. Things are happening at the edges of Europe that cannot bear the light of day. Children arriving on the shores of Greece are sent back out to sea naked in rubber boats. Masked men push boats back or let them sink. With impunity.

Saying that human rights must be respected while holding no one accountable, dismissing kilometers of evidence—I cannot and do not want to understand it. Once, we were a country that held human rights in high regard, that stood up for them internationally. Now we are participating in a European contest to see who can create the harshest asylum policy.

Come with us sometime and listen.

Rob Jetten

Back when Joseph Kony was still terrorizing northern Uganda, I traveled there with two Ugandan colleagues to visit our local partners. That’s when we coined the term levels of horribility. Of course, that word doesn’t actually exist, but we had no other way to describe the madness of bad, worse, worst.

How do you place one horrific experience next to another? How do you compare speaking with a woman whose face was partially mutilated to hearing stories of mothers forced to cook their own children? You want to fit horror into manageable concepts, to make the incomprehensible graspable. But how do you define bad and worse? Cruel and crueler? And can you even do that? The answer was no—because in doing so, you inevitably diminish someone’s suffering.

When you think about what happens to people—about what people do to each other—you find yourself on an endless continuum of experiences. And those experiences exist in context.

What Does a Camp Like This Mean?

This morning, I stood with Maaike from Fenix at one of the spots where many people have arrived on Lesbos. The storm was raging, the cold was biting. Scattered car tires and pool floats are the silent witnesses of the boats that made it to these steep cliffs. Once, organizations could be there to receive them. Now, NGOs risk prosecution for helping.

In December, 2,000 people arrived. In January, only 175. People are now diverted to other islands that are ill-prepared, while less-monitored routes are being used. Those who make it are either intercepted by the coast guard—though pushbacks also happen—or taken to the camp.

How do you define a place like this?

If Calais, where people sleep in the bushes between filth and trash, constantly beaten away by the French police (paid for by the UK), is hell—then what is this? Ice-cold tents, overcrowded dark shelters, freezing water, and one meal a day that is barely edible. This too is hell. The hell of waiting. Of not knowing what’s ahead. Of losing every shred of control over your own life. The hell of dehumanization.

The Storm Rages On

As I curl up next to the heater in my small, cozy home in Mytilini, the icy storm howls through the camp. And with it, the question of what is worse? is blown away. It is all unbearable. And it should not be happening.

Yet, with the approval of our governments, this continues. Angry voices still claim that these people are criminals. In the camp right now, there are 900 children. In total, 3,500 people.

Looking down at the raging sea, at the silent remnants of those who made it across—or those who never did—this becomes a new level of horribility. The level of failing to guarantee humanity for all.

But recognizing this is not enough. The real question remains: what do we do?