A hundred years ago, the Anatolian Greeks were driven from their lands and homes in Asia Minor. The Ottomans didn’t care what happened to them: hundreds of thousands had been killed already. It was either into the sea or death, just get out.
That’s how my grandfather first came to the easternmost Greek island of Chios. You can see it easily from Çesme, right across a thin slice of the Aegean, the crossing no wider than a major river. It’s so close, it looks swimmable, but it’s a continental divide: here ends Europe, there begins Asia.
Back in June of last year, my family and I visited Chios for the first time. I’ve still got relatives there; after fleeing the genocide, my grandfather and one of his brothers continued onto Athens and settled there, but one brother remained on the island. He had seen too much misery on the Aegean for one lifetime, I was told, and refused to ever give himself over to the sea again.
While on Chios, we attended a fundraiser one night for the Syrian refugees who live all around the port city: at the end of alleyways, on the sides of roadways, in plastic-tarp tents. There was souvlaki on the barbecue, the grill-master a professor of mathematics in Thessaloniki. The volunteer making change in the beer line was a pediatrician. One of the musicians on stage was a police officer. It was a normal Thursday night, and Thursday night in Chios that summer was refugee fundraiser night.
There were a couple hundred people in attendance; we gathered in one of the city parks adjacent to a commemorative square. It was as close as I’ve ever been to the amazing, terrifying and ordinary concept of “refugee”. I remember one Syrian boy in particular, maybe ten years old. Skinny, shoulder-length dark brown hair, mischievous smile, beautiful, ducking and weaving through the crowd as a small team of little girls chased him around, all of them laughing in the universal child’s voice. I remember his clothes: a plain pink t-shirt, plain green cotton shorts, plain flip-flops. All meant for a girl two sizes smaller than him, you could buy it all for a dollar. A confusion of emotions, I almost wept as he caught my eye. And I remember in that moment, I thought I saw him wondering: what is this rich white dude so upset about? If he could have asked, I could hardly have answered.
The banner in the photograph above reads: “Do not allow the solidarity to sink.” Solidarity? With what? I asked Anna, our tour guide from earlier that day: “I don’t understand that banner,” I said, “how does it mean solidarity? A hundred years ago, our ancestors became refugees because of these people’s ancestors. Why solidarity, why not — I don’t know — fear, worry, even retribution?”
“You come from a family of refugees,” said Anna, “from that war, one hundred years ago. That’s what war does to ordinary people. It was their turn then, it is these people’s turn today. But who’s to say, we might just be refugees again someday.”
She looked away as the young Syrian boy dashed between us, her gaze tracking his path into the crowd, playful, shouting, and gone.
“It’s hard to offer help if you can’t imagine yourself ever needing it,” Anna said. “I guess that’s my biggest complaint about Americans.” She paused, reaching for her beer. “Or maybe not American people, maybe just your concept of American exceptionalism. Too many of you just can’t imagine that you’ll ever need any help from anyone.”
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This article originally appeared on Medium
Photo courtesy of author.