The desert island of Samothraki

 Samothraki, a remote island in Northeastern Greece...

• 3 days without electricity as a result of the supply station in the mainland across having been damaged by the fires blazing across the East Macedonia &Thrace Region (now known to be the largest wildfire recorded on European soil in years). There used to be an independent electric station on the island which 20 years ago was closed down on the grounds of the island's population reducing. Since then, the electric supply on the island has deteriorated. Evidently, it is harder for people to remain or move to an island were electricity is not a given. See how the circle goes? 
• 3 days with restricted access to telecommunications due to the local antennas being electrically powered.
• On the first day, large parts of the island had no access to water due to water pumps being electrically powered.
• On the first day, and while Samothraki had been for days on Amber alert for fire hazard, the sole ferry connecting the island with the mainland was necessitated to transfer ICU patients from the University General Hospital of Alexandroupolis to another port in Northern Greece; the Hospital, unique in its facilities for a Region of over half a million residents, had to be evacuated as the fire had reached its gates.
• On that same first day, a fire broke out during the night in a steep canyon on mountain Saos on Samothraki, at high altitude. Fortunately it was soon put under control and later extinguished. 

Challenges are no stranger to Samothraki:

• Between 2018-2019, the island was cut off from the mainland for days twice because of the malfunctions in the ferries serving the line back then. The second time, it was in the midst of summer and in peak season. Visitors on the island had, reasonably, panicked. The summer season was cut short. 
• In September 2017, Samothraki experienced a destructive flash flood that destroyed public infrastructure such as roads and sewers, municipal buildings, the island's Hospital as well as homes and local businesses. The Municipality's business continuity was severely affected, with state administration in Athens struggling to provide solutions. The island remained in a state of emergency for a year. By coincidence and timing, this became the subject of my doctoral fieldwork research. 

But why should Samothraki be so familiar with challenges?

Unable to work for 3 days now, frequently unable to communicate, observing in horror the fire devouring miles of land in the mainland across, showering in cold water and doing my laundry manually, I think that this Samothraki is no stranger to me. I think of what Deleuze had called ‘desert islands’, islands where the islanders become so self-sufficient that what becomes isolated is the surrounding sea. 

I remember reaching that level of awareness on Samothraki the second time it was cut off in the summer of 2019, while visitors were trying to find means of evacuation, and food as well as medication were running out. The first time the island was cut off in December 2018, I had also panicked; in summer 2019 I could deal with being isolated on a small island in the middle of the sea, I could manage food and medication shortages. I experience the same feeling now, I can work my way through the lack of electricity and the absence of signal (I have literally climbed next to my top window to write this post). Those things said, I am a young and relatively healthy woman; I am expected to be able to manage such situations. 

There are situations though that, given the circumstances, would not have been manageable on the island. Like the fire that broke out the first day should the wind have been stronger or the response less efficient. Like people not having access to telecommunications or simply their phones charged, thus not being able to be informed in case of an emergency. Some will object that few decades ago none of these provisions were in place, and yet the island was much more densely populated. That's true. But we live in different times now; our dependencies have become stronger, fires are spreading faster, floods occur out of the blue. 

A part of me thinks that Samothraki becomes self-sufficient by necessity every now and then (though there's a huge socioeconomic argument lurking in that). Perhaps a mock of Deleuze's 'desert islands', since in these moments of forced self-sufficiency the need for a better connection to the mainland intensifies. There is so much liability for this pressure on the island to handle such dire circumstances so frequently - but again, this would be the subject of another, much longer post. Yet, it seems to me that the island cannot afford but to become truly 'deserted' in Deleuze's terms, which means truly sufficient; with the islanders deciding on and leading the steps to that; with what is good for the island being acknowledged as what is good for its people; with eyes on the mountain, not gazing at the sea.