The wildfires are raging again in Europe’s south. In Greece, 1.2 million acres of forest and several villages have already been destroyed. Countless people and animals have been displaced and lost their homes.
One could say this happens every year. One could call the fires a “natural disaster”. The fact is that the fascist New Democracy government has done everything to make it impossible to prevent the fires or to react to them. For years the fire department has been asking for 17 million Euros to maintain sufficient infrastructure, yet they have only received 1.7 million Euros from ND. The state has failed to employ new staff after retirement, creating a gap of 3500 to 4000 firefighters. Furthermore, since 2006/7 the specialist forest fire unit has been dismantled and firefighters trained for dealing with cities have been sent to deal with wildfires. In spring this year the government stated that it had a plan to prevent fires, but this failed to surface. Despite only half the number of fires as last year, the amount of burned land remarkably increased this year. So much for ND’s great plan. Instead, those fighting the fires are often self-organised groups of local residents.
While there are over 100 wildfires still active in Greece, the fire in Evros is the most dangerous and largest recorded in Europe for years. Police and the fire department reported that the fires were caused by lightning. Yet ND plays the same racist card they always play on such occasions: they blame everything on the migrants, the same people that they hunt and force to hide in the forests. This is useful. Blaming migrants distracts from State responsibilities and failures, and the hostility to migrants creates more support for Mitsotakis’ “tough but fair” pushback policy.
This policy has claimed the lives of 26 more people. In the Evros region their bodies have been found in the last few days, and we fear that there are more deaths to expect. There are more reports that people on the move are surrounded by the fires with no hope for help from the authorities that keep pushing people back to Turkey, or pretending that they can not locate them. Their surveillance techniques seem only to work when they come in handy to push people back.
The Ministry of Migration has cynically blamed the 26 migrants for there own deaths, declaring that they died as a result of an “illegal crossing”. Even by their standards, this is low, but things have gone even lower: while the fires are still raging, far-right politicians are calling “their militias” to “do what they know to do” with people on the move. Their calls have been well received.
A few days ago a video was published on social media by a man claiming to have captured 13 people on the move, accusing them of starting the fires. Along with two accomplices, he had abducted them and locked them in his trailer. In comments under the video, people wrote that they should “execute or burn them on the spot”.
This kidnapping is nothing new. It is standard procedure for Greece’s men in uniform to kidnap migrants in this region, strip them, steal their property, put them in the back of vans and drive them back to Turkey. This time the kidnappers were arrested, but only so the police could keep their monopoly on violence against people on the move and, equally important, their monopoly on the goods stolen from them.
The kidnappers were arrested and have appeared in court for their initial defence (απολογια) for the charges of criminal abduction, endangerment by locking thirteen migrants in a cage, all with the aggravating factor of racist motivation. They have been placed under house arrest, as a result of a “disagreement” between the Prosecutor and the Investigating Judge regarding the use of pre-trial detention. Despite their arrests, the response of the state, which initially charged the kidnapped migrants with arson, has given legitimacy to their actions. While the thirteen migrants have now been released without charge, that initial response from prosecutors was enough to throw more fuel on the anti-migrant fire, stoking the energies of even more hunting parties.
The kidnappers were met with sympathy from Members of the Parliament and far-right groups all over the country. Paris Papadakis, the Evros MP for Hellenic Solution, is the President of the Ainisio Delta Association, a far-right group that became notorious in 2020 to organise armed attacks on migrants in the Evros region. Claiming on social media that “illegal immigrants” are “hindering the work of pilots” who were putting out the fires (how the hell is this even possible?), he called on the members of his association to “take action”, declaring “WE ARE AT WAR MEN!”
The media has thrown fuel on the fire. A reporter asked a police union representative at what point it is legal to take the law into your own hands. And as usual they are not reluctant to dehumanize people on the move to the point that the loss of their lives does not even count. Take, for example, Alexandra Douvara on ERT News, who claimed “We haven’t mourned the loss of human lives besides those 18 people who died in the forests of Dadia.”
This rhetoric has hit its target. An online group of “headhunters” known as “Hooligans in action” write “Whoever you find, kill immediately. Don’t feel sorry for them. Corpses – that’s the only way they’ll understand.” Local villagers publicly organise hunting parties. A video circulating on social media shows a man in military uniform telling a crowd to search for migrants, but not to bring weapons and knives (as the state would not let them), while a man in the crowd asks “can we kill them?”
We have been here before. The same happened in March 2020, but the Greek State turned a blind eye. It didn’t stop then and it won’t stop now. Instead, these narratives remain latent waiting to resurface and explode. The state’s migration policies are mutually dependent on these narratives, at the same time as they are reinforced by them, they also breath life and legitimacy into them. As Greek migration policy raises the stakes, in turn, over the years, the state responds to the raised bets of fascists. The last time fascist groups took the law into their own hands, New Democracy gave in to their demands through its pushbacks, an undeclared war on migrants that gave in to fascist demands. Then, the Greek State did in private what the fascists did on the streets. Now, fascists overtly enact the state’s covert anti-migrant practices.
Blaming the migrants for starting the fires is a deliberate attempt to hide the state’s failures. Having fascists calling for blood and publicly organising patrols only benefits the state, by making its measures seem at least more moderate in comparison.
In the meantime, forests will continue burning for lack of infrastructure, and people will continue to die in them.
Make no mistake! These fascists seem to have the loudest voices, at least while they act in groups or, even better, behind their computer screens. As long as they come in handy, they are protected and supported by state actors. But this does not mean that they will get away with it. Many stand in solidarity with those affected by the fires, with their self-organised emergency response, and with the migrants, especially with the 13 kidnapped people. A fundraising target for their legal support was met in just a few days. We will not stand by and let fascist cowards win. Not in Evros, not in Greece, not anywhere! Sooner or later, the hunters will become the hunted!