6/3/2016 Keep quiet and eat soup – On the Refugee Trail https://refugeetrail.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/keep-quiet-and-eat-soup/ 1/6 On the Refugee Trail Keep quiet and eat soup May 24, 2016May 24, 2016 | Ben jamin Julian Today , the Greek authorities at last started what they had long threatened: an e viction of the camp at Idomeni. Greece’s migration spokesman said that everyone knew that “conditions would be much better” in the camps they’re being moved to. He promised “no violence would be used”, but also that he expected the 8000 people, who’ve been there for months, to be gone in “no more than a week.” To ensure that nobody sees just how peacefully Idomeni will be e vacuated, all journalists and activists have been removed from the area. An explanation as to how this paradox of nonviolently moving thousands who don’t want to go might be resolved was given by an MSF representative, who said the police siege of the camp “complicates food handout efforts and sanitation maintenance”. It is a move similar to the one reported by refugees in Vial, Chios, when they were being told they had to go to the hotspot in Kos: “We don’ t have water for using bathrooms or taking showers,” a refugee said. “W e just have water for drinking. The police cut the water because, he told us, you must go to another island.”
Today, the Greek authorities at last started what they had long threatened: an eviction of the camp at
Idomeni. Greece’s migration spokesman said that everyone knew that “conditions would be much
better” in the camps they’re being moved to. He promised “no violence would be used”, but also that he
expected the 8000 people, who’ve been there for months, to be gone in “no more than a week.” Toensure that nobody sees just how peacefully Idomeni will be evacuated, all journalists and activists have
been removed from the area.
An explanation as to how this paradox of nonviolently moving thousands who don’t want to go might be
resolved was given by an MSF representative, who said the police siege of the camp “complicates food
handout efforts and sanitation maintenance”.
It is a move similar to the one reported by refugees in Vial, Chios, when they were being told they had to
go to the hotspot in Kos: “We don’t have water for using bathrooms or taking showers,” a refugee said.
“We just have water for drinking. The police cut the water because, he told us, you must go to another
Stand in line It is not just the customary European feeling of superiority that nourishes this attitude. When I worked in
soup kitchens this winter, it struck me how quickly a paternal, or even authoritarian, mindset could
develop among volunteers. We, mostly white twenty-somethings, were the givers and they the receivers.
We had things, they mostly didn’t. We could travel, rent places and drive cars, they mostly couldn’t. It
was us who made them stand in line, who decided on their portions, who could decide if someone got
one, two, or no cups of soup, who told them to line up single file, who ordered people that jumped queue
to go all the way back and so forth. This superior position can easily progress into straight out bossiness,
and I repeatedly, and in various places, saw volunteers screaming at refugees who were waiting in line to
get a pair of underpants or a registration paper. It is a sight I’d like not to see again.
This denigration was sometimes systematized when NGOs and food distributors marked the fingernails
or tagged bracelets of refugees to be able to give each person their fair share. The motive is pure, the
practice is repellent. But when conditions are as they have been in Greece this winter, the dignity of
refugees has to be weighed against the practicalities of humanitarian work. The conditions they’ve been
thrown in by war at home and closing borders in Europe leaves us little room to maneuver.
The unfortunate result of this structure is that “humanitarianism” has become a very flexible word. When
refugees were moved from Vial to the hotspot in Kos, it could be portrayed as having had a
“humanitarian” aim, because they got more space in Kos. The fact that they were locked up, while inVial they had been free to go out, has been explained to me by a volunteer as a minor and temporary
inconvenience – not a fundamental abuse of the inmates’ rights and a denial of their autonomy. The fact
that refugees in hotspots say they’re treated as “animals” is to many a matter of giving them more soup,
more space, more blankets, rather than more dignity.
It is this redefinition of the word “humanitarian” as merely “comfort-provider” that allows the Greek
authorities to present the evacuation of Idomeni’s residents to “more humanitarian” camps as helping the
poor scared ignorant refugees make the wiser choice. (This is called acting as a “white savior”.) But it’s
simply irrelevant how great the military camps are. The point is that refugees are not
allowed a choice. What is missing here is what should be a fundamental principle of humanitarianism:
not to oppose the will and desires of those subjected to it. Dragging adults as if they were beasts from
one place to another is never helping them, no matter how great the place where they’re to be put.
When refugees occupied the port in Chios, it engendered a similar discussion. They had found a place
where they could not be ignored, where the media talked with them, where their protests were seen. But
volunteers and NGOs pleaded with them to go to “better” camps because there they’d have showers and
warmer beds. As if that mattered! They chose to sleep on concrete, not because they were stupid or
senseless, but because they wanted to make a political statement. But that fell on deaf ears of those
volunteers who worked “nonpolitically”; who wanted to create comfort, not change society.
The roots of nonpolitical volunteering merit a discussion of their own, which I won’t go into here, but it
roughly seems to mean working within the system, registering when you’re told to and not going where
you’re not allowed. Sometimes people honestly just follow this simple idea, to find people in need and
provide them with whatever makes them feel better.
Keep calm and eat soup
The risk nonpolitical volunteers run is to become handy implements of inhumane state policy, to end up
working working under terms and conditions which in the long run destroy the hopes of refugees – and
which will eventually remove any vestige of humanitarianism in the treatment they get.
The most obvious case of this is when volunteers tell refugees to keep calm. It is a typically nonpoliticalstrategy: if you keep calm, we’ll be better able to bring you soup. It completely misses the bigger
picture: that refugees are being violently screwed over by the EU, and want to make their case to the
European public. They can’t do it without media attention, and the media doesn’t show up without there
being “an incident”. Refugees have to be crying, starving, shouting or drowning for there to be a story.
As soon as “humanitarianism” has enveloped them in its suffocating embrace, they’re off the front page
– and can wait silently for deportation. (It’s also worth mentioning that refugees in Vial greatly improved
their conditions by literally breaking out of prison, after volunteers told them they’d be better of by
And thus, nonpolitical humanitarianism ends up achieving its opposite. By removing refugees from thepolitical and media scene at the Chios port, by evicting them from Idomeni, from the squares and from
the parks, by giving them just enough food to stave off starvation, the authorities have managed to shut
DRS. EFTHIMIA DILPIZOGLOU SAYS: “To ensure that nobody sees just how peacefully
Idomeni will be evacuated, all journalists and activists have been removed from the area.” <– many
of the refugees have iPhones and other handhelds with camera software, some kind of footage will
get out eventually. It's impossible to keep all the media out when you have so many people in once
place with many of them having access to mobile technology. People will just end up recording
things themselves.
May 24, 2016 at 5:43 pm • Reply »
2.
HANSBREUER SAYS: thanks a lot for your critical analysis. I perfectly agree with most of yourevaluations. we have to give them all information what is possible to give and offer help for
resistance. solidarity greetings from austria.
May 24, 2016 at 10:07 pm • Reply »
3.
VESNA DAMLJANOVIC SAYS: Honest, unflinching analyses! The word ‘humanitarian’ has been
bastardized from its inception, but this brave new millennium has brought that to the whole new
level… Thank you for the courage to point it out!
May 25, 2016 at 3:16 pm • Reply »
4.
CARMEL NIC AIRT SAYS: As an independent volunteer I have constantly faced the dilemma you
eloquently describe in your piece. Well done for elucidating the disconnect that exists betweenproviding direct immediate much needed aid to a refugee and catering to their greater human needs,
the need to be seen, heard and respected.
A case in point, I have for the last 3 weeks struggled to get any form of medical support for a sick
little boy. Last night my friend sent me a message to say the child has begun his final journey. He has
never been seen by a doctor either in Syria or in Europe. My heart is breaking today for him and his
family as he leaves us and mostly because of my failure to get anyone to listen and understand.
