Greece has been turned into an open-air internment camp, a German style stalag where increasingly tens of thousands of refugees are finding themselves trapped in Greece unable to continue their journey northwards to Germany. Poor desperate souls who are streaming into Europe to find asylum and an escape from the hell of war, starvation and privation with a vision of an idealized utopia that they are unfortunately finding is not real. Families, young people, the aged and crippled with some making the journey to Europe in wheel chairs. All these poor bedraggled souls who thought they could find humanity and compassion in Europe, who now find their dreams and visions foundering on the white-washed dazzling shores of the Aegean. Where only this last week two refugees attempted to hang themselves in a downtown city square in Athens out of desperation at the shattering of their illusions.

While the rest of Europe haggles and argues over their obligations as civilized nations to the human rights of these poor wretches, poor Greece goes about the job in humility every day at plucking refugees out of the cold wintery waves by fisherman who should be harvesting the seas to feed their families, who are now harvesting the ocean of the unwanted human detritus. Not flinching for one moment at their moral and ethical obligations to show compassion to their fellow human beings; the old and weathered Greek grandmothers who sit in their chairs of the courtyards of their homes in their easterly Greek islands caring for the very young refugee children. Providing some warmth and shelter to young families – where though language is a barrier – find that love knows no boundaries; or the everyday Greeks who volunteer and provide the refugees with the basic necessities. These same Greeks who have seen their wages cut, or their pensions drastically reduced, these same Greeks who can barely feed their own children who sometimes go to school without having eaten. These Greeks who are labouring under the cruel and inhuman enforced punishment of fiscal and economic austerity by their callous fellow Europeans and the international banking system. It is my fellow Greeks who whilst labouring under this austerity are unflinching in showing warmth, compassion, humanity and dignity to the desperate war-torn refugees.

The irony here is that the same Germany that imposed this austerity on Greece, is the same Germany that at the beginning of the crisis last year opened its arms and invited the refugees to come to Germany, who now has closed its doors. As has Austria and other chain of nations from Central Europe leading down to the borders of Greece. Razor wires are going up, border checks have been reinstated, and fingers are being pointed at Greece as the scapegoat for the refugees entering Europe through its porous sea boundaries. Where the Schengen system of freedom of movement is in effect dead, as is the illusion of European unity. Where at this moment, this writer has never been more embarrassed at being a European than right now at the lack of compassion being shown. Now this writer has at many times expressed opposition to the current autocratic structure of the European Union, at the illogicality of tying the various and disparate economies of Europe to the one Euro currency, or at the loss of sovereignty and democracy at a national level. Yet these questions does not excuse Europe from expressing a united voice of human compassion, warmth and dignity towards their fellow human beings who are suffering right now; or expressing a united voice of political action at attempting to bring peace to Syria so that the refugees can safely return.

So what should Europe have done at the start of the refugee crisis when it unfolded at the beginning of the Syrian civil war? The warning signs for Europe were there when refugees started pouring into Syria’s neighbours; Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey who all took in millions of refugees to care for. Yet Europe did not act then because it didn’t affect it at that stage, and only when refugees started to enter Europe did it start to take notice. When the civil war started to unfurl and people started to become displaced Europe should have at that stage acted immediately by setting up camps and settlements for the refugees in these neighbouring nations that took them in; to provide food and resources to assist both the refugees and the affected nations. Who instead now are merely reacting rather than being proactive in the first place, who now that they realise the scale of this human tragedy, are retreating like cowards from their obligations as civilised humanitarian nations.

Where this crisis has now exposed the fissures and cracks in the tectonic plates of Europe’s modern history, where the odious fumes of racism, bigotry and fascism are rising in the guise of extreme right-wing political parties and organisations. The same racism and bigotry that was used to stereotype Greeks as ‘lazy’ economic ‘profligates’, yet it is these same ‘lazy’ and ‘profligate’ Greeks who whilst labouring under a national unemployment rate of over 22% and a youth unemployment rate of over 50%, rising poverty and hunger levels; that are the Europeans who are showing warmth, compassion, humanity and dignity.  The old grandmothers subsisting on meagre pensions, the fisherman that should be feeding their people, the cafe owners, the everyday man in the street doing their bit. It is these same ‘lazy’ and ‘profligate’ Greeks that are restoring the pride to Europe and washing the stains of its dishonour from its collective forehead. Yet what does Europe do to reward Greece for this? Turn it into an open-air internment camp, a German style stalag, all ironically by the hand of its economic jailer, Germany. Europe, hang your head in shame! For your actions and deeds bring dishonour to the human family.