For refugees, a home away from home

Farsi tunes blare out through portable speakers in the industrial kitchen space at the City Plaza Hotel in Athens as half a dozen people prepare a meal for 400. The chefs are not hotel staff, however, and the food will not be eaten by paying guests who have come to see the Acropolis or the ancient ruins that attract most tourists to Greece. Rather, the cooking team is a mix of refugees and international volunteers, and those feasting on the communal meal have come to Greece from around the world as refugees, only to find themselves stuck here indefinitely.

The City Plaza Hotel, which bills itself as “The Best Hotel in Europe,” is in fact one of Europe’s largest refugee squats.

The closure of Greece’s northern borders in March 2016 saw thousands of people who had entered the country en route to Europe become trapped: the estimated figure is that there are currently 60,000 stranded migrants in Greece. The response of The Solidarity Initiative to Economic and Political Refugees — a seasoned group of activists — was to occupy the City Plaza Hotel in central Athens which was abandoned seven years ago. “After long discussions, we said ‘we must do something that will make noise’,” says George Athanassakis, one of the activists who was amongst the first people to occupy the building. “And, at the same time, the main objective is to provide humane conditions of living for these people.” They immediately welcomed 150 refugees to the hotel’s dining room, a living space quite unlike other humanitarian organisations.

“Most of these people were picked up from the camps, from the streets, and suddenly they found a place to stay, they found a bed to sleep [in], they found a bathroom to wash themselves,” says Athanassakis. “Most of them understood that we are not here to serve them [but] to live with them. We consider them as equals, as human beings who need protection.”

Almost one year later, the result is a seven-storey living space now shared between 400 residents — mainly from Syria and Afghanistan, but also from Kurdistan, Iran, Iraq, Palestine and Pakistan — in which self-organisation is the central pillar. Each resident must work a minimum number of hours per week in a different area of the hotel — whether it is in the kitchen, storage room, security or cafe. In return, living space and essentials are available to everyone free of charge: everyday commodities such as shampoo, conditioner, diapers, soaps and milk are rationed to ensure a sustainable distribution

They also share responsibilities in maintaining multiple facilities: the hotel’s premises now include a hairdresser, medical centre and library, and the list of classes taught ranges from language to pottery and is constantly growing. It is an ethos of giving and receiving at it simplest. “In all teams of the hotel there are refugees who work with us in an equal part. And this is very good for us, first of all because we don’t have [many] people,” says Athanassakis. Most importantly, however, is the sense of mutual dependence and culture of collectivity that this cultivates. “They start to understand what collaboration is. This is coexistence,” he says.

“They are like me. They are not treated like an inferior race. They have exactly the same rights and the same obligation as we do. For example, I clean the toilet with them. I don’t let them clean the toilets [while] I count the money... We must do these things together. We translated the word “Together” in all the languages. Otherwise the project is condemned to falling apart.”

The rules of the squat are worked out in group discussions, and every week an assembly of refugees meet to discuss proposals they would like to make. When I visit the hotel’s cafe, it is brimming with activity: a group of children congregates around one table playing backgammon, and a young Syrian man takes careful notes while a volunteer teaches him French at another. Someone brings a dog in — the reason for which I never find out — and people converse animatedly over coffee. The walls are plastered with photographs of residents as well as posters advertising events and sign-up sheets for tutoring sessions with the school-aged children.

The rooms that the residents live in allow for relative privacy: an Iranian couple invites us, myself and another volunteer, upstairs to their room for tea, and while the space and utilities inside are minimal, there’s still enough room for the storage of dishes and a kettle, so they make tea and we share it while sitting together on the floor and exchange stories in broken English. The room is small but has several personal touches. The mother and daughter were makeup artists in Iran, so their vanity table is covered with nail polishes and makeup brushes. A selection of hats hangs on the wall for decoration.

But a set-up like this requires active work, and as to be expected, the process is not always easy. “We are not servants, we are not the butlers,” says Athanassakis, remarking that this shift in culture is difficult to communicate at times. “For example, every day there are shifts for the kitchen. We divide them up by room. Several times, they don’t come down because they are sleeping, or because they don’t want [to]. We try to tell them, if you do the same thing three times in a row, you are out of the hotel. Because this is not a hotel.”

Housing people from diverse backgrounds in such close proximity also brings its own set of challenges. “We are pleased to see that we manage peaceful living between [people of different] ethnicities,” says Athanassakis. “It’s magical, the multiculturalism. I love the multiculturalism. But it’s not easy to manage every day.”

The more menial maintenance aspect of the hotel is managed by extra hands on deck, and City Plaza sometimes has as many as 30 international volunteers at a time. But during the winter this number can be lower, and the economic circumstances in Greece have made it harder for local people to offer help. Athanassakis notes that the economic crisis has severely inhibited the capacity of Greeks to become involved with projects like this since 2015.

As the living conditions deteriorate in refugee camps in Greece, the survival of the City Plaza Hotel becomes even more vital. Many of the hotel’s residents who lived in the camps prior to the squat become visibly tense when refugee camps come up in conversations — for all of them, the overall camp experience was filled with insecurity and indignity.

Moreover, the Greek winter brought heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures putting added pressure on the overcrowded camps. Photos of tents caving in and brought to near-collapse by snowfall have been circulated on social media in recent months. There were reports of high incidences of illness, and of people ‘literally freezing’. In the last week of January, five people died in Greek camps.

“This is inhumane,” says Athanassakis. “No one deserves this kind of treatment, even animals. When we see an animal out there in the snow, we bring it into our homes. These people are completely drowning in snow. And this is the answer, when [people] ask us ‘why are you doing all this?’ We show them the picture. And that’s why. They don’t deserve this.”

Without government action or a legitimate alternative to these conditions, the City Plaza Hotel is here to stay. “This is my third year without vacation,” says Athanassakis. “There are a lot [of people] like me, because we found ourselves in front of this huge problem and we have to react.”

The pressures placed on an initiative of this scale are huge, and as City Plaza doesn’t accept money from government or NGOs — they rely entirely on private donations from Greece and overseas — securing money to run the project is a constant concern.

But for volunteers and activists like Athanassakis, it is an effort that they are dedicated to. “Three days ago, I drove a family to the airport at 3’o’clock in the morning for the unification of their family,” says Athanassakis. “Their hugs and their words; for me this was the biggest reward. The woman, when she walked out to the boarding gate, said to me: ‘I have a new brother here,’ because we collaborated in the kitchen... That is the biggest reward. Because this is what we are looking for. This is solidarity

source : gulfnews