Walking down Solonos street on Thursday morning and watching a beautiful sunny winter daybreak, surely the last thing on my mind was the events that followed. I was headed for the old building of the Athens Law School. Find three immigrants and listen to their story, that was my reportage brief. Wearing a t-shirt that perfectly complemented the morning sun was my first mistake. My second was thinking that ten cigarettes in the pack were enough for the day.
The situation at the School was almost normal… If you didn’t know what was going on you could easily think it is just another student occupation. I, myself, was taken back years ago to my time at the Philosophy School halls… But the stand in front of the old building and the students handing out pamphlets and simply talking about what was going on, were changing the landscape completely. A lot of passers by stopped to read them and become informed about what was happening.
Media interest around the world
A good friend sent by the Canadian embassy, approaches me right outside of the building. «What’s going on?» she asks, really surprised. «I have no idea» I reply as honestly as I can, and we leave for a cup of coffee.
Journalists from all over the world are recording this unprecedented happening. A South Korean TV crew asks me to talk on camera. After I persistently refuse to help my colleagues from the other side of the world, showing unprecedented unprofessional behavior, they ask me to explain at least why an upper judge’s decision is not enforced. I don’t know what to answer so I step aside. The colleague from the French agency is speaking to an immigrant. The information circulates among us. Either way, I have to report to the other medium with which I am working. In Luxembourg.
The surrounding cafes were filled with journalists waiting to cover the developments. Two meetings were programmed, one for the immigrants and one for the solidarity committee. We waited in vain for any news. The meetings hadn’t even started by 3:30pm. At that time appeared the first signs that something was happening. Blocked in the streets around Solonos, we were trying to gather information from the French agency. A line of hired buses nearby showed that things were underway. Within a few minutes, Solonos was closed off and the area was filled with police officers.
A difficult ice-cold night…
The solidarity committee members bring the journalists inside the Law School to announce the decisions of the meetings. The immigrants declare they have decided to stay and are ready to react to violent removal attempts. The journalists move out but I remain, not out of professional interest but due to naivete. Honestly, I didn’t realize I had to leave and I had left my reportage unfinished. I wanted to learn about the personal stories of the immigrants. Also, in my nirvana, I thought it would be natural to leave and come back if needed. Only when I saw a few DELTA team officers, who reminded me of something, blocking the door of the School did I realize that I was going to stay inside for a while. It was the first time in my life I had seen policemen blocking the door of a university.
Unconsciously I checked on two things, one basic for my work and the other a bad habit acquired in the army… my cell battery and my smokes. Both were running out slowly but steadily. The first problem was easily solved as the polite members of the solidarity committee told me that there is a computer on the first floor where I can charge my battery. The second was solved too, as the cigarette exchanges brought everybody closer but drobe our throats closer to pharyngitis in the process.
As the night drew in, the situation became worse for the immigrants if you think that they hadn’t eaten for three days. The cold was unbearable and the few heaters were not enough to break it. A TV with a makeshift antenna was showing the «condemnation of society for the excesses in the Law School». My t-shirt had done its job and my feet were uncontrollably shaking from the cold. An immigrant approached me and gave me a sleeping pad so as not to sit on the cold marble.
I climb to the rooftop of the building and the sight leaves me aghast. Police everywhere. Police wagons were lined up creating check points, YMET squads surrounded the building and DELTA force men who looked like Robocop (then I remembered what they reminded me of) all made up a war zone scetting. As much as the occupation of a building for taking care of immigrants is against the logic of the majority, the sight of a European capital full of armed cops is equally worrying. The cold is really unbearable and lying down in some hall I am trying to stop my legs from shaking. That I had not eaten for 24hrs seems a joke compared to these people on their 3rd day of hunger strike. Water comes only from the toilet sink, and a few heaters are not able to warm more than 300 men.
«Punk, snitch journalist, you got no place here»
Without keeping my identity secret, in fact giving my name to a few, I realize that our profession does not have the best reputation among some of our fellows. A group of anarchists approaches me and politely «suggests» that I leave, as a «punk snitch journalist» did not belong there. A member of the solidarity committee intervened and I escaped the worst as the anarchist «comrades» saw me as someone who represents the dregs that are an insult to our profession.
Outside the School the cold is unbearable, almost painful. The colleagues inform me of a bar that serves coffees. I run to it. The man waiting at the door reinforces the surrealism of the night. Giannis Stankoglou, one of our most talented actors, takes me in. Instead of coffee, alcohol is brought out. The warmth is almost salutary. He gives me his cigarettes, as I hadn’t been left without a smoke for so many hours since the army. We barely raise our second glass and he tells me about his next play, when the voices from the School take me back there.
In a new building, in a new fatherland (?)
The evacuation is on. Warm and refreshed, I see the people with which I spent more than six hours being transferred to a new building, a new temporary fatherland which will be castigated and considered a mistake by everybody. There is a temporary home for around 300 people towards whom, regardless of whether we want them or not, we are obliged to show the appropriate sensitivity. In the present reportage it doesn’t matter how they made it to Athens. They did. And they remain here. What matters is that as human beings, we must help 300 of our fellow human beings to get through one night at least. Really… do you disagree?
By Vassilis Dalianis
source: Proto Thema
