Poetic Movements

Letting go of my tidal battles and climate change worries for the evening, on Wednesday 13 March 2019 I joined a panel discussion on the West’s physical and political responsibility for refugees , hosted by SolidariTee National and Students for Global Health in St Andrews. The audience’s feedback was moving, and it formed the following much-deserved blog post, diving deeper into our unfinished conversation (blame in on the clock). Q 1. Do you think that a meaningful response to refugees would require both broad and deep social and economic reforms within the UK and EU (such as monetary flows between countries and urban regeneration to combat segregation and ghettoisation)? Q 2. (cont) Do you think these reforms are realistic given the neoliberal nature of the EU and UK politics? A1 & 2. The overall discussion about responsibility and response becomes much more immanent if you consider it through the lens of pre-existing policies. According to hi...

Monday morning. At the camping. A relaxing tune comes from the background and I am aimlessly gazing at the sea for a moment. A boat is floating, not much far from the shore. My senses are all alarmed. I walk to the camping fence with a sped up pace. From there I can easily see two bodies diving in the sea, perhaps even posing before the actual dive. The remaining third person on the boat starts paddling. A warm breeze whispers in my ears; a boat close to the camping, bodies instantly hovering above the easy wave... the y are on vacation, what else did you expect? For a second I expected to se e bodies struggling to reach the shore, any shore. I expected there would be no paddles, just a hull left to sink. I expected to face the Mediterranean collapsing right under my feet. But that was another time. I am on Samothraki now. Yet Turkey is not that far. It’s only a 3-hour sail, to be exact. If there were a Customs Office on Samoth...

A year or so time flies but we are grounded. A year or so ships sailing away and we were waving goodbye every single day. A year or so this place will never again be just a port it has never been. A year or so with amplified gaze and a burning heart. Today and tomorrow wherever I stand there is a haima* over my head and a heema** above it. And I keep thinking that Mira and Zahra are growing up for better or for worse away from Piraeus. 27 April 2017, Dundee. *Arabic word for tent. **Arabic word for moon.

You should hear their screams because they are the kids you will never meet who will never go to school and learn to count numbers in so many incomprehensible languages.   You should see their faces burned and tearful because they will never smile again or play some mischief.   You should feel their pain because you will never feel their joy some evening running onto you full of candy in their hands.   You should comprehend the disaster because it is stealing their lives away the light from inside their eyes and their age to be fools.   And you should know why the world is a bad place   why it’s not just enough to hold them in a hug and narrate yet another fairytale of witches and dragons; why?   25 Sept. 2016 Dundee, Scotland.   *For the little ones who we never met and we will never meet, here, in “our Europe”.    ...

Port of Piraeus, Gate E3, playground time, 13 March 2016. Wednesday, 27 th July 2016, 09:00 am. As we were driving inside the port, we saw at the horizon three coaches parking close to the last remaining refugees’ tents, under the bridge, close to the formerly evacuated Gate of E1. We had all been informed that the port would soon be completely evacuated, but we had been given no exact date. As we walked to the food distribution point to prepare the breakfast, one of the coaches’ drivers asked whether they should come closer for the people to start embarking. We had no answer. But something whispered in my ear, this would be our last ever meal. Port of Piraeus, Gate E1, lunch distribution, 3 May 2016. Photo courtesy of Pierre Haddad.                               Port of Piraeus, close to the bridge, breakfast distribution for the remaining refugees of the camp, 22 July 2016 (one of ...