Two South Africans on a painting holiday to Greece came away with vivid insights into the plight of desperate refugees fleeing Middle East strife, writes Michael Morris.
Cape Town - Paradise is a word which in travel literature belongs comfortably to Lesvos, the Sapphic isle of mythology and, doubtless, a tourist heaven of the jet-age getaway, with its sunny coves, forests, olive groves and food to die for.
The Greek island – otherwise known as Lesbos – is also in places just 8km from the Turkish coast, and registers if not as a paradise then certainly the first step to an uncertain but desperately hoped-for redemption for tens of thousands of refugees. They come from Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, men, women and children seldom equipped with more than a backpack and a life-jacket, and those perhaps are the lucky ones.
Everyone is familiar with the footage.
But for apartheid-era detainee Horst Kleinschmidt and his painter partner of many years, Christine Crowley, being there made all the difference.
Kleinschmidt recently shared their experiences – and one of Crowley’s striking paintings – in a newsletter to friends. It forms a telling personal account of a more or less accidental immersion in what might well turn out to be one of the most portentous sociological events of the early 21st century, a dramatic, if not unprecedented population shift in the northern hemisphere.
In June, a London Independent report noted that “more than 20 000 refugees… have arrived on (Lesvos) this year. With the peak season for migration set to begin, the island is already overwhelmed.”
Kleinschmidt and Crowley were there a month later, for a fortnight. On their first day, their taxi driver, whose grasp of English was rudimentary, went to the trouble of stopping the car to punch a number into his cellphone. The number was “500”, the estimated total of refugees crossing to the island every night.
There is a distinct sense of discomfort in Kleinschmidt’s account; the prurient gaze is not one that matches the man and, although he doesn’t dwell on it, the wretchedness and lostness of being a refugee, cast adrift from all that is familiar and secure, is not foreign to him.
Kleinschmidt had just joined the Christian Institute to assist the legendary Beyers Naude in 1975, when he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and held in solitary confinement for 73 days on suspicion of being part of Breyten Breytenbach’s Okhela resistance operation. Breytenbach had evidently mentioned Kleinschmidt as a possible recruit, which was sufficient for the police of those days to snatch him. He was ultimately released without charge, yet remained under oppressive surveillance. After being tipped off that he was about to be re-arrested, Kleinschmidt was literally wrapped up in a parcel and spirited out of the country in the back of a light aircraft. From Botswana, he was helped on his way to Lusaka, Zambia, then Holland.
It gave him, he said modestly this week, the acutest experience of “a reality that is quite precarious”. He has never forgotten it, and remains committed to an everyday routine of being in touch with refugees and migrants in his False Bay neighbourhood as a way of ameliorating their sense of precariousness.
Travelling to Lesvos in July confronted him and Christine with the staggering scale of the Mediterranean refugee crisis.
They had joined a number of friends on a painting holiday planned more than a year ago, when there was little hint of the drama to come.
“When we left Cape Town,” he wrote, “we knew things would be different from what we expected from a Greek island holiday, but nothing like what confronted us.”
He went on: “Reality is very different from watching TV and reading newspaper reports… The raw reality is terrible.”
The following are edited extracts from Kleinschmidt’s journal:
(Having left home nearly 40 hours earlier, the last stretch is a ferry from Piraeus to Mytelini, on Lesvos, where a taxi awaits them at the port.)
“He speaks no English and despite it being 1.30am, he is helpful and tries to impart information. We are still within the harbour precinct when he stops and points to a series of small tents and rows of people lying on a ledge. He says: ‘Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea, Somalia.’ He keeps repeating in English: ‘Big problem.’
“All that is lit up evokes a relaxed, Mediterranean seaside place we know from postcards.
“Our driver gesticulates for the next dark hour, mostly pointing to the rows of people sleeping next to the roadside, and he repeats the words, ‘Syria, Afghanistan’. He points to the lights across the water on our right. Turkey, it seems, can be reached by rowing boat.
“For the rest of the journey we see people huddled together, wrapped in blankets and seeking to sleep. That’s not all. We make rows of people walking single file, heading to the island’s capital. The first and the last in the file hold lanterns, so passing motorists can see them. As we pass villages, there are more people sleeping in bus shelters and shop entrances. Our driver explains: ‘The police have told them: no passport means no bus, no taxi, even if they want to pay.’ Hence, they walk to Mytilini, a journey that can take several days. There they will be ‘processed’ and taken onward to Athens and then sent to whichever EU country will have them. We feel awkward and uncomfortable to come and have a holiday in a place where there is so much misery. Twice, we see figures lying across the road. This suggests silent anger and wanting to be noticed. Our driver swerves to avoid them and expresses a third English word: ‘Stupid!’
“The displaced need help, much more help than they get here and in what lies ahead. Most are young men, but there are women and children, several toddlers. A few are limping; some seem injured or are crippled. The next morning, after we have reached Tsonia, we are told the refugees have caused no social problems; no theft, no demonstrations, no rape. These people have money and purchase food from local shops. They are educated, professional and seemingly middle class. A majority is Muslim. There is no communication as locals and the transiting refugee silently pass each other.
“From Tsonia you see the Turkish lights at night. Over on the Turkish side are the killing fields of Gallipoli – the shore where Australian and New Zealand fought Turkish soldiers exactly 100 years ago. Close to half a million lives were lost in the battle. Now the forests there shelter 1.4 million refugees from Syria and elsewhere.
“A hike to the nearby hamlet of Clio brings suffering and tragedy into focus again. On a stony town square lie 10 people.
“Eight men and two women arrived by rubber dinghy during the night. They scrambled ashore, found a road, found Clio. They have no luggage. Exhausted, in neat but dirty clothes, they sleep in the town square. They ignore the local bustle and locals seem to ignore their presence. When Anton and I take another hike along the rocky shoreline we come across scores of life vests, several wrecked inflatable boats, pairs of shoes, rucksacks with neatly packed clothes, packets of cigarettes with Turkish rather than Greek writing on them. Human tragedy is imprinted wherever we walk. We find life vests for babies and children. And shotgun casings. Could there be local vigilantes wanting to deter the refugees from landing?
“We don’t see the refugees, but feel overwhelmed at the thought of stumbling on a lifeless body or bodies. Fortunately we are spared such an experience. To avoid being turned away in their night approach, the boats head for dark and uninhabited parts. Those who trade in this human cargo leave their charges scrambling through water and rocks, where the refugees abandon their life vests and hurry to high ground. We try to imagine what went through their minds – only hours earlier.
“Wherever we go during our two-week holiday, refugees line the roads, seeking lifts. On the way back to Athens on the ferry, the purser tells us that every night they take 1 500 refugees to the capital. ‘It’s not easy for them and it’s not easy for us,’ he says. The decks astern are packed. The ablution facilities finally offer the chance of a shower or to wash the few belongings in their backpacks. Others lie, in rows, sleeping. Their faces bear evidence of exposure to the exceptionally hot weather. Their worn shoes are further evidence of what they have been through. Many young men have cellphones and take selfies, presumably to send the folks back home a message that they have made it. Well not quite. Until they are granted residence somewhere, in a mostly hostile Europe they will wait many months yet. Before they get the right to work will take even longer.
“The image of bodies on beach loungers only paces away from the passing refugees sticks in my mind. What incongruity! The unseen thousands are getting a raw deal.”
Kleinschmidt concludes his journal entries by broadening his vision to encompass world political and economic leaders and the impact of globalisation, asking: has it not “pitted a poor world against the rich one”?
Weekend Argus