Greece

No more refugee shipwrecks! Open the borders!

With deaths of likely more than 600 refugees off the coast of Greece on 14 June, we are seeing the consequences of the policy that the Tories are introducing to the UK. The closing of almost all legal routes for refugees. The arrest of any refugee getting through and their incarceration in camps with conditions even worse than the worst prison. All of these are planned for by the UK government. They have now been in place for nearly seven years in Greece. The boat that sank 50 miles off the Greek coast, the Andrianna, had, by the testimony of survivors who heard them being being counted on...

Kino Eye: A symbol of defiance

This week I wanted to cover a film which, somehow, reflects the horrors of the Putin regime. “Z” has oddly been taken as a pro-Putin symbol in Russia, but the 1969 film Z , by Greek director Costa-Gavras. was on very different lines. It concerns an investigation by an unnamed magistrate into the murder of a prominent Greek Deputy (based on the Grigoris Lambrakis of the United Democratic Left, murdered in 1963). It is adapted from the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos, with music by Mikis Theodorakis (under house arrest at the time). The parallel with 1960s Greece is clear, although this is never...

Kino Eye: Greek refugee experience

I'm not sure how much relevance Greek director Theo Angelopoulos’ film Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (2004) has to the notion of the “right of return” which has been discussed in the pages of Solidarity recently, but there are some parallels. The film demonstrates the precarious nature of the migrant experience even in a country considered to be their “motherland”. It is 1919. The long-established Greek community in Odessa is displaced by the Russian Revolution and they eventually land on the shores of Greece, near Thessaloniki. However, there is no welcome for them and they are forced to build...

Covid-19 strengthens case to welcome refugees

Right-wing governments and movements are using the C-19 crisis to demand refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere are kept or driven out of Europe. In fact the crisis only strengthens to the case they must be let in, welcomed and integrated. The Syrian government says the country has no confirmed C-19 cases, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports outbreaks in several provinces. It says the regime has issued a gag order to stop medical personnel discussing the issue. Meanwhile Syria is one of very few countries in the region not to have stopped air travel with Iran — the...

Open the borders for Syrian refugees!

For a long time, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been "threatening" to open Turkey’s western borders, and allow the millions of refugees to travel to Europe. Now he is upping the threats and raising the stakes. His aim is not to get better conditions for the refugees. It is to force Europe into greater support of Turkey. Yet, with the renewed attacks on migrants, it is the responsibility of socialists all across Europe to challenge the racist anti-immigration laws being put forward by our governments. In Britain the losses have far outnumbered the victories as Home Secretary Priti...

The island, the refugees, and the yachts

I started coming to Symi, a tiny Greek island in the Aegean, closer geographically to Turkey than the Greek mainland, 30 years ago. Missing a few years in the middle, I resumed coming five years ago. In these five years, the island has seen many refugees being washed up on its harbour side; mainly from Syria plus some from Afghanistan, Iraq, and sub-Saharan Africa arriving from Turkey just across the water. Although there was consternation on the island from residents who themselves were suffering the effects of the collapse of the Greek economy, the response to the refugees was (and continues...

Greece’s election: end of a chapter

The 7 July election in Greece confirmed the trends that emerged in the Euro elections: • a comfortable ND (New Democracy, equivalent of the Tories) dominance that revolved around engaging the centre right and alt right voters • a lack of momentum from Syriza (the leftish party that has governed since 2015), which paid the price of its capitulation and transformation into a pro-memoranda, pro-austerity party • the weakness of the anti-capitalist Left to persuade and inspire • the continuing fall of the Golden Dawn, leading them out of Parliament for the first time since 2012. Abstention was at...

Europe for the whom?

An open letter to the Europe For the Many conference on 26-27 October from Greek socialist Theodora Polenta. Dear Comrades: I am looking forward to attending the event "Europe for the Many: a left strategy for transforming Europe" on 26-27 October. But I am concerned about the fact that the conference's top-billed speakers are the Portuguese prime minister and the Greek finance minister. Are the current 2018 Syriza-ANEL government and its financial minister part of our European socialist vision? Can they be our inspiration or our partners in pushing a radical Labour government forwards? No...

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