Over my years living on a Greek island there were a few moments in which I felt penned in. In closed communities, consensus can form quickly against perceived enemies, and overnight you can find yourself on the wrong side of that divide, open to a beating, an arrest, or a banishment. A few years ago, during a wave of far-right violence, I found myself rounded up by vigilantes, paraded around the port in front of jeering onlookers, then put in the back of a police van, with a warning that if I didn’t pack my bags and leave this would happen every day until I did.
Over the past week, the island of Chios has seen similar scenes. Three years ago I took a trip there. I’d gone with my partner at the time and she had a knack, she said, for stumbling upon a glénti – a feast or party in a town square – when she travelled around rural Greece. It was carnival season, and we seemed to always be in the right place at the right time.
We visited the village of Thymiana on parade day. Thousands lined up behind papier mâché floats – pirates, dragons, who knows what – young and old, all dressed up in costumes and disguises, some re-enacting local stories and spreading local gossip. In the middle of the effigies, waving to the onlookers, was Notis Mitarakis, the Minister of Migration at the time. Here was a man – in the flesh – who, for the past three years, I’d been obsessed with. During his time in office, balaclava-clad men conducted kidnappings, drownings and expulsions at sea. This was the man behind the pushbacks, one of the few faces you could connect to those crimes that wasn’t hidden by a mask.
In early February, fifteen people died in Chios island’s waters when – according to witnesses – the Coast Guard rammed its military-grade vessel into an overcrowded migrant dinghy. Hospital staff worked through the night to treat the casualties. They said the injuries weren’t consistent with the official narrative.
Monday was the first day of Lent in the Orthodox calendar, and in the village of Mesta it’s celebrated through a mock trial: someone dresses up as an Ottoman-era judge – the “Aga” – sits on a podium, judges local notables for the year’s crimes and demands a fine. It’s meant to be funny. This year, the hospital administrator was put on trial by one of its doctors for the deaths of the fifteen migrants. “They were too few,” said the judge. “Yes,” chuckled the defence, “they should have all drowned”.
A little later, a woman grabbed the microphone. “The fact,” she said, that “nobody reacted and this was treated as a joke, should be a source of shame.” The crowd turned on her. “If you are offended,” someone yelled, “you can leave and never come back”. Yesterday the island’s anti-racist social centre had its windows smashed in.
The same day three years ago, when we’d stumbled upon the carnival in the same village, we were made welcome. A man dressed up in a backless hospital gown dropped a couple of glasses in front of us and wouldn’t let the whisky dry. That day, I suppose, he took us for the right kind of guests.
