As a journalist, I’m used to being ashamed.
It may sound a little strange, taken out of context, but I have no better word for the feeling that occasionally arises when I meet vulnerable people. No matter what part of the world I am in, Sweden or, more recently, Moria on Lesbos in Greece.
I’m privileged, that’s the best explanation I can give. As a Swede, I was born straight into the world of VIP rooms and it has always been obvious that I have been able to study, travel, work, dress the way I want and be able to express my thoughts, feelings and opinions freely and without fear.
I’m proud to be able to pick and choose on the buffet table of life, but then sometimes that feeling of shame comes.
When I recently – neck over head – booked myself on the first best flight to Lesbos to report on the terrible fire that destroyed Greece’s largest refugee camp Moria and entered the most affordable hotel I could find at the last minute, I woke up with that feeling. It is everywhere. as a spice to the fantastic breakfast buffet that I get to eat next to the palace-like hotel building by the pool area, just a ten minute drive away from the road where thousands of refugees and migrants are now forced to sleep after losing the little they had in the fire … I’m ashamed.
When I walked around the Morial camp the other day after the first fire and saw thousands of people trying to save what could be saved from the camp and a man carried a small puppy in his arms through burning ash heaps and debris, the feeling came again. Shame!
Or like when I talked to Giorgios, entrepreneurs in the village of Panagioúda, just a few kilometers from the Morial camp where riot police set up roadblocks. I asked why he thinks that people here on the island are tired of the refugee situation, he reminds me of 2015, when people talked about giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Lesbos because they selflessly took what little they had after ten years of national economic crisis and gave to the refugees who came with the first wave.
Now foreign media only show the people of Lesbos as racists – they no longer care about why the picture has changed, about their fear and frustration, says Giorgios.
I hear the same thing from many others, they say that the Greek government has left the islands closest to Turkey to resolve the refugee issue themselves, and that Europe has turned its back on Greece. I remember when a volunteer showed me the correspondence of the Greek authorities with other EU countries, an appeal to receive some of the thousands of unaccompanied children who were then in Greece.
They did not receive an answer in two years. I do not have to say how I felt … you see.
So when I’m on Lesbos to report and walk around the Morial camp to talk to the people who are being evacuated when a second fire suddenly breaks out, it feels good to be a little affected myself. That the smoke from the fire fills my eyes so that I can let the tears fall.