tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/lesvos-27848/articlesLesvos – The Conversation2017-08-03T20:16:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816822017-08-03T20:16:55Z2017-08-03T20:16:55ZFriday essay: the photographer, the island and half a million lifejackets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180326/original/file-20170731-16184-1uyx8l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An aerial shot of discarded life jackets on the Greek island of Lesvos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tasos Markou and his fiancé, Maria, were on their sofa avoiding Greece’s summer heat when a video of a man carting a toddler in a green wheelie bin turned up in their social media feeds. The place looked familiar: a Mediterranean coastal village, a street sign in Greek.</p>
<p>“Lesvos!” said Maria.</p>
<p>The clip showed the man climbing a steep road in the midday sun. The child was alive. More people were walking the roads, or slumped against buildings, or laying spread out on verges and shading themselves with jackets or thin cotton sheets.</p>
<p>Refugees had been making the sea crossing from Turkey since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but this was something bigger. In the summer of 2015, tourists on Greek islands began sharing videos of people landing on beaches or wandering into town from the mountain roads. An internet news channel compiled the mobile-phone footage.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tasos Markou.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lois Simac.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tasos put his laptop down and turned to Maria. “I need to go there,” he said.</p>
<p>In 2015, more than 800,000 refugees crossed the Aegean Sea to Greece, up from 40,000 the previous year. News media showed images of discarded fluoro-orange lifejackets and PVC boats bulldozed into massive piles on the island of Lesvos. Greek freelancer Tasos Markou was one of the first photographers to share those dramatic images with the world. His photos were published in major British papers and across Europe.</p>
<h2>A signal for help</h2>
<p>You can buy a factory-direct child’s lifejacket online for US $4.14 apiece. Shipping is free to most destinations. Some Turkish apparel shops have switched to selling lifejackets exclusively. Even kebab vendors saw an opportunity, and started hanging them above their counters. The orange colour is a signal for help; it communicates the courage and desperation of people on the move, hopes dashed at the borders while the rest of us watch on feeling powerless.</p>
<p>Lifejackets also allow us to think through global political and material circumstances. The strategic desire for control of fossil fuels in the Middle East gave rise to colonial interference, to new borders and conflicts; the burning of those fuels has increased the volatility of the climate, which influenced the severity of the drought preceding the uprising against Assad in Syria. The industrial use of petrochemicals and the globalised workforce made plastic lifejackets cheap enough to be used in sea crossings by hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war in Syria and Iraq.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refugee cemetery, Lesvos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Populist fear and anger are fuelled by more than economic and cultural insecurities. For more than a decade, experts have issued warnings about resource scarcity and the disruptive consequences of climate change. I want to try to consider our anxieties and fears, displacement and migration, with the social and the environmental combined.</p>
<p>A concept in the natural sciences offers a way to bring these strands together: the Anthropocene. Some scientists argue that humankind’s activities – deforestation, soil erosion, chemical pollution, species extinctions and greenhouse gas emissions – have altered Earth’s systems so much that we have entered a new geological epoch. The concept pushes our imaginations to think in vast timescales and expands debate beyond climate change to include the many other environmental pressures we face.</p>
<p>However, the Anthropocene narrative makes political claims that flatten historical difference, casting all people as responsible for problems the privileged created. If we can return contingency to the Anthropocene it will be a richer concept for thinking about our current circumstances.</p>
<h2>On Lesvos</h2>
<p>I first emailed Tasos last year when I sought permission to reproduce one of his photos. We began corresponding, and when I learnt he was continuing to document the plight of refugees in Greece I asked to interview him. We spoke regularly on Skype over several months.</p>
<p>In June 2015, Tasos flew from Thessaloniki to Lesvos with 500 euros in his pocket. He and Maria had been saving the money for a holiday. It was more than Maria earned in a month as a home-care nurse, but she urged him take his camera and go. Tasos headed north to the closest point to Turkey.</p>
<p>It took Tasos two hours to drive the island’s winding and mountainous roads to Skala Sikamineas, a fishing settlement at the coast. By then night had fallen.</p>
<p>The wind blew hard and Tasos thought he could hear voices on the sea. It was only the waves. He was about to head for a guesthouse when he looked down and saw traces of arrivals on the beach and rocks. Shoes, passports, backpacks, T-shirts, plastic water bottles and lifejackets. Hundreds of lifejackets.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Traces of arrivals on the beach and rocks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I realised this was not just rubbish,” said Tasos. “Each jacket meant a human life, a story of a crossing.”</p>
<p>The next morning, Tasos drove the rough roads along the northern coast and into the mountains. He saw people emerge from parks, fields and roadsides. Refugees and migrants had to walk 60 kilometres south to the port of Mytilene, where they could be assessed and issued with papers before boarding a ferry to mainland Greece and, from there, into northern Europe. </p>
<p>Some journalists and Lesvos locals were offering rides to the walkers. Tasos asked if he could help. Drivers were supposed to call the police and register their name, car make, licence plate, car-hire company, pick-up point and destination – a procedure designed to prevent smugglers exploiting refugees.</p>
<p>“My car was filled with people, against the roof, out the windows,” said Tasos.</p>
<p>By the time he made it to Mytilene it was 36 degrees. There were queues of men in their underwear at the public shower. Families sat under trees or statues or beside walls. Some tourists wound down their car windows, took a snap and drove on. Others handed food and water to exhausted people. Tasos followed the example. He spent the next three days buying water, interviewing and taking photos across Lesvos. Most of the refugees were from Syria; many were from Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180807/original/file-20170802-14599-5majq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men queuing for a shower in Mytilene.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After three days Tasos’s money was gone. This was something you couldn’t understand in a single news article, thought Tasos. He was determined to follow the story.</p>
<h2>Stripping social causes</h2>
<p>The 15-year drought in the Levant that preceded the Syrian civil war was likely the worst in 900 years, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-finds-drought-in-eastern-mediterranean-worst-of-past-900-years/">according to NASA</a>. Still, since the beginning of the conflict, some scientists and media have overstated the link. This has led to misguided conclusions about people, climate and migration.</p>
<p>In March 2017, ABC’s Four Corners aired an American documentary titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TKKcI-1Db8">The Age of Consequences</a>. It posed climate change and migration as risks to United States national security. The film warned of more terrorism and hordes of climate change refugees overwhelming countries and causing the collapse of states. </p>
<p>Refugees and migrants have often been represented as dangerous for wealthy nations and as “agents of chaos in the Middle East”, <a href="https://climatemigration.atavist.com/syria-and-climate-change">wrote Alex Randall of the UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition</a>. The standard narrative for Syria is that the drought forced farmers off the land, food prices rose and competition for resources among rival groups led to violence. Some campaigners on climate change have used populist fears over refugees as a tactic to try to build support for action on emissions.</p>
<p>Randall pointed out that drought and social grievances in Syria didn’t cause people to turn on each other – it united them. Different groups began mingling in urban centres in a way that Assad’s regime had tried to prevent. This led to protests and co-operation, which Assad’s authoritarian government responded to with violence.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180465/original/file-20170801-22140-6kw9m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some of Tasos’s portraits of refugees and volunteers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To avoid “reducing our future to climate”, <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/661274">in the words of Mike Hulme</a>, professor of climate and culture at King’s College London, the concept of the Anthropocene could serve as a shorthand way for introducing broader ecological changes and historical timescales. </p>
<p>But the problem with the Anthropocene narrative is that it strips the social causes from ecological disruption. Not everyone is responsible for the Anthropocene and not everyone will experience it equally. </p>
<p><a href="http://rdcu.be/uFXR%20or%20http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6867/full/415023a.html">Paul Crutzen</a>, the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist who popularised the term, suggested the invention of the steam engine during the Industrial Revolution should be considered the start of the new epoch: the switch to fossil fuels “shattered” an energy bottleneck. </p>
<p>Humanities scholars approach this from a different angle: human ecologists <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2053019613516291">Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg</a> ask what the motivations were for investment in steam. Only the very wealthy could afford steam engines, and they “pointed steam power as a weapon” at colonies in Africa and the New World, extracting material resources and labour in plantations, mines and factories, completely reorganising ecological and social relationships. </p>
<p>The Anthropocene was founded on global inequity. Some have suggested “Capitalocene” as a more accurate moniker.</p>
<h2>Moments of hospitality</h2>
<p>On 20 August 2015, Tasos drove to Idomeni, a Greek town near the border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and a gateway to the “Balkans route”. It’s from here that refugees and migrants followed train tracks into Macedonia, northwards across the Balkan countries, and finally into Germany. </p>
<p>Tasos saw hundreds of people gathered on the rail lines. The Macedonian government had called a state of emergency and rolled barbed wire across the border. It wanted to slow the flow of people. Military and anti-terror troops stood at the border next to armoured vehicles. Tasos said they aimed guns and yelled, “Go back to Greece”.</p>
<p>People jumped with every new explosion and burst of gunfire. It began pouring rain and some sheltered under cardboard. Tasos was afraid. He hadn’t seen the crowds angry and confused before. He was covered in mud and his lens was destroyed. Stun grenades cracked in the distance.</p>
<p>A young man from Kashmir took Tasos’s arm and offered him shelter under a concrete railway culvert. The men gave him biscuits, water and cigarettes.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men sheltering under a concrete railway culvert.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The photos that agencies and newspapers wanted were of human drama in extreme moments: people falling from boats, pulling children from the sea, landing on the beach with tears of fear and joy. Tasos began to wonder if these images helped. He wondered how he could convey moments such as the hospitality under the culvert.</p>
<p>In October Tasos returned to Lesvos. The small island was now receiving 200,000 people per month. The cemetery in Mytilene was running out of space. Camps were over capacity.</p>
<p>“People slept in boxes, old fridges, whatever they could find,” said Tasos.</p>
<p>Remarkably, international and Greek volunteers, authorities, locals and refugees collaborated to hold it all together. Fishermen in the northern village of Skala Sikamineas spent every night in their boats, guiding refugees to the shore, diving into the water and rescuing people. Women handed out sandwiches and fruit. They washed clothes and looked after children. They hugged and kissed those who made the crossing.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman on Idomeni gives onions from her garden to a new arrival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tasos drove volunteers from Skala Sikamineas to a cape at the northernmost point of the island. There, beneath the Korakas Lighthouse, the beach gave way to sharp rocks and cliffs. It was the most dangerous place to land on Lesvos from the sea. Many died in the attempt.</p>
<p>Tasos worked with two American volunteers who wore wetsuits and dragged lifejackets from the ocean and shoreline. The older one, Jeff, had holidayed on Lesvos with his parents in the 1980s. When he saw reports about the crisis he came over to help. The other American, Max, was trekking in Nepal in 2015 when the earthquake struck. He helped in the aftermath and it changed his life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180332/original/file-20170731-5295-1aix4z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Korakas Lighthouse, on Lesvos (with Turkey in the background).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“We spent the days collecting lifejackets, and the nights helping people arriving on the beaches,” said Tasos. He saw a man collapse with hypothermia. He saw a hand rise from the ocean, waving for help.</p>
<p>Jeff and Max told Tasos to stop feeding the daily news and follow his own path. Tasos began to question whether he could continue as a photojournalist. Previously, some papers had used his photos out of context. News stories appeared one day and were gone the next. He wanted to be able to provide more depth.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I decided it wasn’t enough to just be a good person. You have to act. Lesvos changed me. It would change anyone who comes here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thinking about the different reception these refugees and migrants would have received in Australia or the UK, I asked Tasos why Greece, suffering as it is from austerity measures, was so generous. He said, “In Greece, we all have a story.”</p>
<p>Tasos’s great-grandfather was injured fighting the Germans in World War II. When a Nazi officer was killed, the Germans began massacring whole villages in the north. They burned the hospital where Tasos’ great-grandfather was being treated. Tasos’s grandfather was left an orphan; a family took him in, and when he was older he worked in Germany illegally, saving enough to build a house back in Greece – the house in which Tasos’s father was raised.</p>
<p>“We know about displacement,” said Tasos.</p>
<h2>‘First in my heart’</h2>
<p>In March 2016 the European Union, alarmed by rising popularism and right-wing nationalism, signed a controversial deal with Turkey to prevent further refugee and migrant crossings to Greece. Anyone who arrived after that date would be sent back to Turkey. In exchange, Turkey would receive more assistance for the nearly three million refugees it was hosting. The Balkan route was closed permanently.</p>
<p>Tasos was in Idomeni volunteering. “When we told the guys that the border was closed they didn’t believe it. They refused to leave.”</p>
<p>More people arrived at the bottleneck, swelling the makeshift camp to 12 000. Portable toilets overflowed. The Greek military delivered firewood but couldn’t meet demand. Refugees burned whatever was at hand to keep warm. They searched fields for food. Children shivered in the wet. A UN spokesperson described the situation as “misery beyond imagination”. Fences went up in Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Hungary and Germany. Journalists dubbed it the “rise of the mesh curtain”.</p>
<p>“We weren’t the European Union anymore,” said Tasos.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180819/original/file-20170803-14599-1t8oz8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A passport on the beach.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Volunteers and NGOs set up a network of storage facilities in the area, paying cheap rent for empty farm buildings. Tasos packed boxes, distributed food and translated from Greek to English. Greek authorities began transferring people to better-equipped camps in the cities. Around 50 000 displaced people were stranded in Greece after the EU–Turkey deal.</p>
<p>On Lesvos, people continued to take selfies to let loved ones know they’d made it to Europe.</p>
<p>“They didn’t realise they hadn’t made it to Europe,” said Tasos. “They made it to Greece.” No one knew how long they would be stuck there.</p>
<p>The series of photos that Tasos did sell – the aerial shots of half a million lifejackets piled up on Lesvos – provided enough money for him to continue volunteering. He thought a photography workshop might help occupy people during the wait. French photographer Lois Simac had a similar idea, so they partnered to run a twelve-week course in Thessaloniki. The camp there was set up in an abandoned paper factory from which it derived its name, Softex. Petroleum fumes drifted from the nearby oil refinery.</p>
<p>Only Syrians could pitch their tents inside the Softex building while Moroccans, Algerians, Eritreans and others slept in nearby disused train carriages without power, water or heating. Just over a thousand people stayed at the site.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180815/original/file-20170803-17995-1pvc0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An abandoned rail carriage where people were sleeping near the Softex camp in Thessaloniki.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twelve participants signed up to the photography workshop. They named it Crossroads and decided to develop an exhibition. One of the keenest students was 20-year-old Mohammad from Syria. Tasos said that after each lesson Mohammad would be the first to email his assignments and results of experiments with the new techniques he’d learnt. Previously he’d spent a lot of time keeping to himself and drawing allegorical pictures about war. Now he was interacting. Tasos was impressed with his photographic work.</p>
<p>“I draw it first in my heart, and then I take the photo,” Mohammad told Tasos.</p>
<p>Mohammad was from a city in northern Syria that had expanded in the 1920s as a French military post. It was home to many Kurds, as well as Armenians who had fled the genocide, and Assyrians who fled Iraqi nationalists in the 1930s. Since the Syrian conflict began, the city had been the site of four major battles and control changed between Kurdish, ISIS and Assad-government fighters.</p>
<p>Tasos couldn’t help thinking about the people in Europe saying, “Why don’t they stay and fight?”</p>
<p>“Fight for what?” asked Tasos. “And for whom? There is no point dying for someone else’s war.”</p>
<h2>‘They say you turn boats around’</h2>
<p>The winter in Thessaloniki in 2016–17 was the most severe in 30 years. The pipes at Tasos’s apartment froze and burst. The city had to provide carted water. At the Softex camp, people warmed their hands around the building’s exterior vents. In the months since the closure of the Balkan route most of the Syrians at Softex had been relocated within Europe. Authorities allowed the Algerians and Moroccans to move from the abandoned trains into the Softex building.</p>
<p>I’d asked Tasos to question his workshop participants about Australia.</p>
<p>“First, I must ask you something,” he said to me, his face grave. “They say you turn boats around in the sea. Is this true?”</p>
<p>Tasos couldn’t believe it. Maybe it was because Greece is a seafaring country of many islands that this came as a shattering moral violation.</p>
<p>“They say Australia is a no-go zone,” said Tasos. “That it’s worse than Trump’s America.” Our political parties would be pleased this message made it to Syria.</p>
<p>Tasos said the refugees he spoke with have no intention of travelling to Australia. They want to stay closer to family in Europe. Most hope to return to Syria if the country still exists.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180817/original/file-20170803-23916-3d6c77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rubbish dump full of lifejackets on Lesvos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A month later Tasos said he had bad news. “Mohammad was beaten. He’s been in hospital for days.”</p>
<p>The uncertainty was weighing on the migrants and refugees. Money had run out and there was no way of making more in Greece. It was unlikely that anyone who was not Syrian would be granted permission to stay in Europe. Some in the camps preyed on the vulnerable. There were reports women had been sexually assaulted at the Softex camp and elsewhere in Greece. Mohammad was bashed with an iron bar.</p>
<p>“He’s such a sensitive guy,” said Tasos. “He would never fight back.”</p>
<p>There were tensions within the workshop group over the future of the Crossroads project. They didn’t have enough money to hire a translator so had to rely on volunteers and friends. Tasos and Lois were spending their time writing exhibition proposals and seeking legal advice. </p>
<p>On Lesvos, members aligned with the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn threw a Molotov cocktail at a café helping refugees. Unlike many parts of Europe, the Greek people hadn’t turned against the refugees and migrants yet, but they had started to ask how the government could manage. </p>
<h2>Photos crossing borders</h2>
<p>In 2016, writer James Bradley gave <a href="http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/writing-on-the-precipice-climate-change/">a moving lecture </a> on the role of the arts in an age of global ecological transformation. He said he is uncomfortable with the term Anthropocene because “its assertion of human primacy reiterates the blindness that got us here”. Whatever we call it, said Bradley, we must recognise that something is different and the world we are creating presents challenges to every aspect of our societies.</p>
<p>I think bright-orange lifejackets say a lot about our times. They are sold to desperate refugees fleeing conflict, poverty and ecological disorder for the security of Europe, the US and Australia. The refugees come from places that the wealthy countries are bombing in wars that are, in part, a legacy of Europe’s late-imperialist carve-up of territory, of forced migrations, Cold War geopolitics, exploitation of fossil fuels and the rise of the privatised corporate war economy under the auspices of the “War on Terror”.</p>
<p>If we saw the larger forces at play, it might be possible to treat migration as an adaptation to the challenges of the Anthropocene rather than as a security risk. </p>
<p>By April this year, about half of the Crossroads participants had been relocated within Europe. Some of them met up with former Softex camp volunteers in France, Finland and the Netherlands. People have asked Tasos why he is helping 12 refugees when there are thousands stranded in Greece.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180334/original/file-20170731-21988-1ychz3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The remaining Crossroads group at the Softex camp Skype with Vienna as the Crossroads exhibition opens there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasos Markou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Ask those 12 people if their lives have changed,” said Tasos. “If everyone helped one person we’d all be happy.”</p>
<p>In May 2017, the Crossroads exhibition began to tour major cities, including Barcelona, Copenhagen, Izmir and Dubai. The first showing outside of Greece was in Vienna. Mohammad and the other refugees weren’t permitted to travel for the opening night so they used Skype to participate in a forum with the gallery audience. I asked Tasos if the group was excited.</p>
<p>“The guys had mixed feelings,” said Tasos. “They saw their photos travelling to places they can’t.” Their photos, they noted, moved faster than refugees.</p>
<p><em>POSTSCRIPT: The day before I submitted this essay Tasos, emailed with an update. Mohammad’s application had been decided, and he will be relocated to Norway.</em></p>
<p><em>This is an edited version of an essay republished with permission from <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/perils-of-populism/">Perils of Populism</a>, the 57th edition of Griffith Review.</em> <em>You can read other essays from The Perils of Populism <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/perils-of-populism/">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>For more information on Tasos Markou’s work visit <a href="http://www.tasosmarkou.net/">http://www.tasosmarkou.net/</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Muir receives funding from the ARC project, 'Understanding Australia in The Age of Humans: Localising the Anthropocene.' </span></em></p>In late 2015, 200,000 refugees a month were arriving on the Greek island of Lesvos. Tasos Markou went there to photograph their plight - and ended up joining the locals to help the new arrivals.Cameron Muir, Researcher, National Museum of Australia /, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670042016-10-13T11:33:52Z2016-10-13T11:33:52ZWalking on fire water: how a whisky maker put its brand to work for refugees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141596/original/image-20161013-31336-1k8igu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>Who best to try to change the narrative around Syrian refugees? A new film by a Sundance-winning director to raise donations for the international NGO Mercy Corps has been funded not by a traditional media organisation – but a well-known whisky maker.</p>
<p>Johnnie Walker, part of consumer giant Diageo commissioned Talal Derki, best known for his award-winning feature documentary <a href="http://www.returntohoms.com/">Return To Homs</a>, to make a film about the island of Lesvos, which last year helped around half a million refugees making the dangerous voyage across the Aegean Sea. </p>
<p>Some of the islanders (who are featured in the film) were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/24/greek-islanders-to-be-nominated-nobel-peace-prize">nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize</a> for their actions. These included fishermen Stratis Valamios and Thanassis Marmarinos, and 85-year-old Aimilia Kamvisi.</p>
<p>The film Ode to Lesvos has had 31m views since its launch last month, according to Johnnie Walker, and Mercy Corps says the film has raised almost £1,500 for the charity so far. From my conversations with Johnnie Walker, Mercy Corps and director Talal Derki, the message all three want to push is that the film is a way of repositioning the story of the refugee crisis that has <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/refugee-crisis-20183">dominated the news agenda</a> over the past year.</p>
<p>“My point of view was as a Syrian refugee and exile,” says Derki. “For me, I wanted to do the story in a positive way to show it as inspiration … This is a work about finding out who can change things around themselves.”</p>
<p>The subtitled four-and-a-half minute film, which features several islanders speaking about their experiences in rescuing refugees and which includes dramatic pictures of piles of abandoned lifejackets, is resolutely upbeat and beautifully shot. You can view it below:</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4iDRksHhshg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>For Selena Victor, director of Policy & Advocacy at <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org.uk/">Mercy Corps</a>, the message was key: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is so much rhetoric that is anti-refugees, anti-outsiders about closing borders and political debate. But when people come face to face with refugees, it’s not the case. From our perspective it is really interesting that this film harnesses the goodwill people show in life and death situations. We wanted to challenge the media portrayal that sees refugees as either those drowning, or generating a dangerous security threat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unlike in his previous documentary, Derki made a conscious choice in Ode to Lesvos to focus on the Greek islanders, rather than the refugees who were helped: “I wanted it to be about the Greeks and their experience and their reaction.” This, says Guy Escolme, global brand director for Johnnie Walker, fitted well with their new Storyline programme which works with writers, directors and photographers to create “inspiring stories of positivity and progress”. </p>
<p>So far, Storyline has released a film about a post-war art project in Colombia, plus a perhaps more typical one about an Edinburgh-based whisky blender travelling to New York with a limited edition rye blend. Says Escolme:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’ve always sought to tell inspiring stories of the human spirit. The Keep Walking campaign is really about people doing extraordinary things … And we wanted to tell the story of how the Lesvos residents responded to a crisis in front of them and we thought they would inspire other people … We hope people are inspired to reflect what it would take to be a better person, and also as a call to action, people can go ahead and make a donation.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141597/original/image-20161013-31308-gmjug9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141597/original/image-20161013-31308-gmjug9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141597/original/image-20161013-31308-gmjug9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141597/original/image-20161013-31308-gmjug9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141597/original/image-20161013-31308-gmjug9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141597/original/image-20161013-31308-gmjug9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141597/original/image-20161013-31308-gmjug9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diageo and Johnny Walker have involved themselves in other humanitarian campaigns.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some may feel uneasy that an NGO should be working in such close contact with a company that’s primary aim is to sell alcohol. Victor, however, is adamant that Mercy Corps, which has a long relationship with Diageo, has no ethical problems with this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We partner with enormous range of people at Mercy Corps – civil society, local NGOs private sector, think tanks, everyone has something to contribute. Of course, we had a conversation about it and we respect everyone’s position on how they feel about alcohol but this was a really positive film brought to us by a company we had worked with and respected in the past and it was just such a good and important way to get the message out.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p><em>Donations can be made here: <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/johnniewalker">www.mercycorps.org/johnniewalker</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenda Cooper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When commercial considerations work with charitable concerns for the common good.Glenda Cooper, Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/599152016-05-31T14:01:40Z2016-05-31T14:01:40ZGreek asylum decision exposes the major flaw in EU-Turkey refugee deal<p>The Greek authority that handles appeals by asylum seekers <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/syrian-refugee-wins-appeal-against-forced-return-to-turkey">recently overturned</a> a decision to reject the application of a Syrian refugee who arrived in Greece from Turkey. </p>
<p>The original decision had turned on the fact that Turkey is a country where the applicant would have access to refugee protection in line with the standards of international law. The appeal authority took the opposite view. It raises questions about the recent <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-963_en.htm">EU-Turkey agreement</a> which allows the return of migrants arriving on the Greek islands to Turkey – and it could have implications for the management of the refugee crisis across the EU. </p>
<p>The EU-Turkey <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-963_en.htm">agreement</a> stipulates, among other things, that all migrants who have arrived at Greek islands from Turkey unauthorised since March 20 can be returned. This also includes Syrians and non-Syrians whose applications for asylum have <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-1664_en.htm">failed</a>. </p>
<p>According to <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV%3Al33140">EU law</a>, asylum seekers can be returned to a “safe third country”, namely one that will give them access to refugee protection in accordance with the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html">1951 Geneva convention</a>; and where they will not be at risk of persecution, serious harm or being returned to the country they fled. A key assumption behind the EU-Turkey agreement is that Turkey is such a country. </p>
<p>In April, Turkey <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-16-1883_en.htm">gave assurances</a> to the EU that all returned migrants would have access to asylum; and <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/proposal-implementation-package/docs/20160420/report_implementation_eu-turkey_agreement_nr_01_en.pdf">passed a law</a> granting temporary protection to the returning Syrian refugees. Yet there are serious concerns on whether Turkey is in practice a safe third country. It has not ratified the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html">1967 Protocol</a> of the Geneva Convention, which extended the original international refugee rules to non-European claimants. </p>
<p>Its asylum procedures have significant shortcomings; and access to the labour market, health and education for refugees remains problematic despite recent <a href="http://www.asylumlawdatabase.eu/sites/www.asylumlawdatabase.eu/files/aldfiles/turkeynote%20final%20edited%20DCR%20ECRE.pdf">legal changes</a>. In addition there are <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2016/04/turkey-illegal-mass-returns-of-syrian-refugees-expose-fatal-flaws-in-eu-turkey-deal/">reports of</a> forcible returns to Syria, which violates one of the key principles of the convention (“non-refoulement”). </p>
<p>The decision of the Greek Appeals Authority appears to have been influenced by these concerns. The <a href="http://www.kathimerini.gr/860436/article/epikairothta/ellada/mh-asfalhs-trith--xwra-h-toyrkia">Greek media</a> has speculated that the decision could suspend returns of Syrian refugees. Yet this might be off the mark. While 386 non-Syrians <a href="http://www.mopocp.gov.gr/index.php?option=ozo_content&lang=&perform=view&id=5815&Itemid=630no">have been</a> returned under the EU-Turkey agreement, no Syrians have been forcibly returned yet <a href="http://www.astynomia.gr/index.php?option=ozo_content&lang=%27..%27&perform=view&id=55858&Itemid=1240&lang=">according to</a> official data. Having said that, <a href="http://fra.europa.eu/en/event/2016/fra-joins-greek-asylum-service-anniversary-workshop">according to</a> the Greek Asylum Service, as many as 89 asylum applications had been rejected by May 5 on the basis that Turkey is a safe third country. The asylum seekers in question have not been returned, but they now could be. </p>
<h2>The new Greek procedure</h2>
<p>The decision was <a href="http://www.kathimerini.gr/860436/article/epikairothta/ellada/mh-asfalhs-trith--xwra-h-toyrkia">reportedly</a> the first one taken by the appeals authority, and it remains to be seen whether future ones will follow the same rationale. The rejected applications were examined under a new asylum law <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/proposal-implementation-package/docs/20160420/report_implementation_eu-turkey_agreement_nr_01_en.pdf">passed</a> in Greece in April to ensure the implementation of the EU/Turkey agreement. </p>
<p>The new law introduced an “exceptional” procedure for examining applications at the reception and identification centres on the Greek islands. This procedure, to be followed in cases of (undefined) mass arrivals, has considerably shorter time limits than the existing procedures. Applicants have just one day to prepare for their interview and the decision can be issued within one day. Rejected applicants have five days to appeal, and the appeal is examined within three days of submission. In addition, migrants in the reception and identification centres are now being detained for up to 28 days, and access to the asylum procedure and legal aid <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/04/greece-refugees-detained-in-dire-conditions-amid-rush-to-implement-eu-turkey-deal/">is problematic</a>.</p>
<p>The short time limits – along with the volume of applications and staff shortages – raise questions about the quality of decision making, especially when it comes to applying the concept of a safe third country. Decisions appear to have used a <a href="https://twitter.com/stevepeers/status/721259578311249920">standard formulation</a> that asserted Turkey is a safe third country <a href="http://www.hlhr.gr/?MDL=pages&SiteID=1215">without providing</a> any detailed justification. This goes against the EU’s own <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=celex%3A32013L0032">asylum procedures directive</a>, which requires that the asylum authorities consider and explain why a particular country is “safe” given the individual circumstances of the asylum seeker. </p>
<p>Decisions that don’t properly apply the existing requirements around safe third countries and asylum procedures are more likely to be overturned by the Greek appeal authorities. If they keep overturning decisions on these grounds, it will pose an increasingly strong challenge to both the current decision-making practices by the Greek Asylum Service and the EU-Turkey agreement as a whole. </p>
<h2>Lessons for the EU?</h2>
<p>The decision sends a message to the EU that the application of the safe third country concept should respect the international and European laws around refugee protection. </p>
<p>It could also have implications elsewhere in the EU. On June 1 the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A22014A0507(01)">EU/Turkey readmission agreement</a> will come into force. This agreement will allow any member state to return migrants and failed asylum seekers to Turkey who travelled to the EU through the country. This may mean that other asylum authorities will have to consider the question of Turkey as a safe third country, and could mean that they find themselves with the same dilemma as Greece.</p>
<p>EU policy, for reasons of political expediency, has assumed that Turkey is a safe country for the return of migrants and refugees. From June 1, the question is whether asylum authorities across the union are going to prioritise refugee protection instead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lena Karamanidou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Syrian asylum seeker has been permitted to stay in Greece on the grounds that Turkey is not safe for return. It could be a major blow for the EU’s controversial refugee strategy.Lena Karamanidou, Visiting Fellow, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.