What’s next for Generation Lesvos?

When I was in Tangier, Morocco, a few days ago, there was one moment when my heart sank. This is what happened:

I walked out one evening to get some tea and mingle, and passed a man selling paper tissues. He was sitting on the doorstep of a house, clutching a white cane, the kind blind people use. He was indeed blind, or at least of very poor eyesight. He had a very short but perceptible beard, the beardline neatly trimmed up on his cheekbones. His hair also looked very neat, as did his clothing — simple but clean. He had a gentle smile on his lips. On a cardboard box in front of him he had stacked packets of paper tissues. Just seeing him made my heart sink for a moment. I’m not sure what the exact reason was or whether I can express it; that’s simply what happened.

I went back and passed him again a few minutes later. He was wrapping it up for the day. He stood up, folded his cardboard box and squeezed it between two drainage pipes a few steps away, against the outer wall of a building. He was then approached by a few friends who greeted him cordially and walked on, leaving him. He crossed the street. I was standing right there. I was pretending to be speaking on my phone in order not to appear staring, because there was almost nobody else on the street. He finished his crossing and started walking up and away from me. I put away my phone and approached him. I addressed him in French, and asked how much the tissues cost. He said one dirham, about ten cents. I gave him a ten dirham coin, about a dollar. He felt the coin, turned to me and smiled, and I took the tissues and went away, bidding him good night.

I spent this past week with people whose hearts have been sinking on a minute-by-minute basis for the last few months, in the face of a true humanitarian catastrophe. They are the volunteers working with incoming refugees on Lesvos island, in Greece. You’ve heard the story — it’s where boats with refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and a dozen other countries, land. The distance across the sea from Turkey is the shortest here. This is a modern, perverted version of the Silk Road. The refugees pay the smugglers upwards of $1000 for a place on the boat, and then drive those plastic or rubber dinghies themselves. They are joined by 40–50 others, most of whom have never seen a sea before. They leave at night, sometimes urged at gunpoint by the smugglers, heading for the lights of Lesvos. Some of them make it, others drown.

For those who would make it, for a long time there was no formal welcome on the other side. They would dry themselves up and try to figure out their steps from there — i.e. head for the port and then make their way to Athens by yet another ship, this one a bit more sturdy. The final target, for most, has been Germany.

Yes, you’ve read the story by now.

Volunteers appeared sometime last summer. At first they were just holidayers whose lunch at a seaside restaurant was being interrupted by the arriving boat; they couldn’t ignore it. They distributed clothes, provided food, offered shelter, gave information. The authorities were slow to step in, so more volunteers came to help, these new ones with solely that goal in mind, sans holiday. In the summer of 2015, boats would bring in thousands of refugees every day. For the most part, it was down to the volunteers and local individuals, many of whom did what they could, to help where it was possible.

The island soon started becoming famous for the spirit it represented. More and more volunteers made their way; at the same time, the winter and the changing political climate caused the number of boats to decrease. Then a few days ago they all but stopped. When I arrived in Lesvos about a week ago, there were many more volunteers than refugees on the island. I pulled a night shift with a local grassroots group and we spent it chatting and getting to know each other; there was no actual work to be done. Today there were volunteer calls for patrolling the shores, working at the warehouses or helping clean the beaches, all important and necessary tasks, but the feeling is that the show is coming to a close. The Greek coast guard is now intercepting the boats. NATO announced it would step in as well to seal off the route. We’ll see whether this all will materialize (similar announcements have happened before), but it is strongly looking like it.

You can attack volunteering from any direction you want and be right. It might be counterproductive in the great scheme of things (for example, smugglers justify the boat journey price by promising food, clothes and blankets on the other side). People who come often have no practical skills, say linguistic or medical — they are often just idealist student and unemployed folk, with a few pensioners thrown in. You could ask whether these people do the same kind of work in their countries, where people are probably also in need. It’s all grossly inefficient and uncoordinated. Every now and then you run into “little dictators,” who are no longer even in the region, monopolizing communication channels and telling others off. Severe pathos abounds, as do-gooders litter their social media channels with photos that demonstrate their altruism.

I agree with most of the above remarks, and at the same time think that they don’t matter the slightest bit. In the end, the most noble thing to do is “the right thing” no matter what, and these people are doing it. They are doing it because it feels right, and that’s enough for them. One smile, one saved life, one person fed, it’s worth it. It sounds cliché, but it’s actually, practically, literally true. You save a life, you enrich yours, what more can one aspire to? It is a private affair that takes place between two human beings; nobody else needs to be involved or understand. In the process, you build a camaraderie with those working with you, a friendship that might last a lifetime. When I did my nightshift at Moria camp, I found the bonding heartwarming, something I would have liked to be a part of, had I not been a few months too late.

I met dozens, maybe hundreds of bright minds working in all the different teams across the island, and was genuinely impressed by their drive, devotion and strength of character. They were by and large indeed genuinely good people. The new arrivals were not much different — they had come because they wanted to be part of something, something meaningful, true and big. They had come from other continents, some leaving jobs and lives behind.

So the image in my mind is this now: all this potential, all this willingness to make a difference, it is here, it exists. Hundreds upon hundreds have self-selected themselves and stood up to be counted. Countless others exist out there. They all need to go somewhere as the boats are subsiding. They are a generation in search of a cause, in search of a meaning. They have no great war, no great depression, no Woodstock and no Vietnam to define them. And they so badly want to define themselves, to feel the belonging, to do the right thing. They are now palpable, visible. They have faces and they have found each other. If I am to judge by their numbers in Lesvos, their mass is quite critical. They want to make their mark on this world. It is anyone’s guess what it will be.