The Efficacy Of Queer Community: The Isle Of Lesbos Is Originating Collectively To Aid Refugees | GO Magazine

Eressos Connected
is actually a Twitter team your area in Skala Eressos, a beachside community on Island of
Lesbos
, Greece. Town is breathtakingly stunning: standard tavernas and taverns line the seafront, crystals of sunshine sparkle over the water as individuals eat new fish and toast another cloudless day in haven. It is also a
lesbian utopia


; queer women are every-where there’s a (record-breaking) three lesbian bars on main strip.

Residents, lesbians, Greek family members, and hippies live amicably alongside both, all acknowledging that the is among the only spots around where lesbians can go to encounter deep, genuine, durable society. All groups utilize the Twitter team for general island business: pinpointing scruffy canines, leasing residences, inviting individuals to beach volleyball competitions, or natural lesbian wedding events.

A few weeks in the past, the site had a swell of activity as individuals smelt something using up, “Is there a flame?” they wrote. “we smell it,” they noticed — “powerful smoking odor.” The following day, news trickled in, hitting statements across European countries, and very quickly truly the only posts on Eressos Connected concerned the huge flame in Moria, Greece’s largest refugee camp, one hour . 5 from our little lesbian destination.

The camp, designed to hold 3,000 men and women, is actually house — from inside the most short-term, unclean, and unpleasant feeling of the term — to 13,000 people: destitute people, refugees, asylum candidates, and migrants fleeing war, impoverishment, or oppressive leaderships. They expect long intervals, aspiring to have their own programs provided for them to enter the very militarized and increasingly resistant fortress around Europe.

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Refugees do not want to take Lesbos. Residents feel incapacitated of the increase of men and women right here. Tourism (the island’s primary revenue) might stunted from the unfolding situation, while Covid provides virtually produced it to a standstill. Islanders feel betrayed from the Greek government; government entities feels betrayed by different European countries. The problem is actually difficult and strong, the stream men and women from the international Southern on international North is only in its infancy.

The Flame

Trying to detect reality from fiction on Eressos Connected (as with any large social networking team) is challenging. Intuitions, truths, and half-truths blend together, sparking enthusiastic spiels, heated keyboard arguments, hugging, weeping, and raging emojis. No one’s certain who began it as well as how the
flame began.
Many think it actually was intentionally ready — by asylum seekers perhaps, sick of staying in purgatory, enraged by the camp’s current separation purchases (after 35 Moria residents tried good for Covid). Some say it had been ready by right-wingers, the police, the residents. We possibly may never know for certain. The flame definitely brought about significant damage. Some zones endured, other individuals are ash and dirt. Images of burnt asylum programs are specially haunting — the prospect of obtaining to start all over again.

Greek police have developed a parameter all over camp to stop people from discovering protection in neighborhood towns. Discover refugees showing for freedom, your abolition of Moria. Residents on the left and right are calling for the exact same thing. Army helicopters could be heard overhead. You’ll find research of police putting tear gas and photographs of refugees flowing coca-cola to their burning up eyes. Lesbos is within a situation of crisis. Tonight, many people tend to be asleep on roadsides and gasoline stations. Certain hill ranges out, in Skala Eressos, the lesbians come in Flamingo Beach pub.

The Sinking Titanic

The lesbian area in Skala Eressos is actually worldwide and intergenerational: 70 season olds from Paris, 40 year olds from Cape community, 20 year olds from Athens. You’ll find women of varied political persuasions and financial conditions: personal employees and general public equity solicitors, products and painters, physical fitness teachers from swanky fitness centers in Berlin, ascetic-wandering yogis from Goa. Each one is hooked on this one. Skala is actually the blood; it is the closest thing to property many of us have.

Less pubs are open this year, and there are fewer ladies than typical. Each of us got a risk popping in, and resting in Flamingo tonight, it is like it is repaid. The bar pulses as Diana Ross stations from the speakers and other people drink daiquiris, flirt, chat, and dancing in their seats — reaching personal highs they would authored off this season. The majority of women take a 10-day holiday. They would like to eat octopus, play volleyball, journey paddleboards, chase enjoyment and happiness, and steer clear of whatever might destroy this sacred-seeming journey.

There are certainly others here this evening just who look pulled and drained, like they have spent from day to night squinting at their particular mobile phones in the last in the summer’s sunlight, reading and viewing the refugee situation unfold


a couple of hundred kilometers away


. They are troubled of the distance, from the the same terrain in news reports and all around all of them. They profoundly feel the dichotomies of


the sea as life giving on their behalf, existence having for other people; the mountains as places to hike, or places to disguise from the Greek authorities; the sunlight they brown in, exactly the same sunshine that pounds on the tarmac of gasoline programs. These ladies are sat in Flamingo, anesthetizing by themselves with ouzo, seeing their society, wanting to know precisely why no body more seems to care.

There are unquestionably different attitudes on the refugee situation on this area — within very club. Discover those concerned about a nearby economic climate, about Greece’s financial troubles, and towards depths of one’s own purse. There are ladies right here exactly who tirelessly volunteer with refugee, instructing English or violin or fundamental refugee liberties. You can find women that regularly provide time, energy, and sources but feel disillusioned today, like their efforts performed absolutely nothing to remedy the specific situation. Absolutely condescension from individuals who’ve thrown within the soft towel, which knocks the wind away from individuals who’re prepared and raring to do whatever can to ease the suffering of people in urgent demand.

As a residential area, we be seemingly paralyzed because of the divergence in opinion and enormity of scenario. We do not know what to-do, whom to trust, don’t know where you can send the cash. We don’t have physical skills to greatly help and help. We know that giving crisis aid, resting handbags, and sanitizer is an activity, but not a remedy whatsoever.

Though it could well be difficult to charge any person only at that club with maybe not nurturing, there is a significant silence, increased — t


his season, more than ever before — by a desire to maybe not ruin anybody else’s holiday.


The silence will leave all of us hanging out inside beach club, the moonlight dancing on h2o, filled with the eerie feeling we’re toasting the evening given that Titanic sinks.

The Lesbian Response

After party at Flamingo began to feel a tad too disconnected from reality, something remarkable occurred. The DJ faded out of a Stevie question track and passed a microphone to someone for the crowd. “Hello Flamingo,” she stated, before namelessly presenting herself as a member of a nearby queer womxn’s collective, Ohana. These are generally a small grouping of 10 who live on some secure a kilometer from the coastline.

“This afternoon, all of our collective met up and chatted,” she said. “We chatted and spoke and decided absolutely an elephant inside the area in Skala Eressos. We all have been conscious of the unfolding refugee situation on this island, it is from inside the back or even the top of all of the of our heads. Yet, do not appear to be doing any such thing regarding it. At best conversational or keyboard activists, we offset our very own shame with a like or a mention prior to getting back to our very own ouzos, daiquiris, and lesbian romance.”

“every one of these everything is great, excellent; we are a marginalized community in a patriarchal globe, we’re allowed to discover delight and enjoyment and that belong,” she continued. “But we ought to repeat this knowingly. We possibly may be residence, but thousands of people about this very rock tend to be far removed from any semblance of residence.”

“very this evening,” she stated, “we will start fundraising. We’ve connected with a local NGO called
Pikpa Lesvos Solidarity.


They’ve been focusing on this area for eight many years, mostly with susceptible populations (and generally women and children). With all the cash raised this evening, two people in our collective will go shopping for the necessities — think hand sanitizer, powdered milk products, underwear, liquid — fill a Jeep, and drop them off during the corporation’s HQ the next day mid-day.”

Since the message received to a close, she questioned people to provide the cost of a shot or a beverage — such a thing they may be able. Applause smashed out, and a profound sense of reduction surged through audience. An improvised contribution’s container moved around, fast answering with 20s, 20s, 20s, 50s, singles. After a swift half-an-hour whip, €620 spilled through the bucket. Community activation demonstrably is not hard. The lesbians here merely needed a place to put their own resources, a path in order to make positive personal modification.

While the last couple of songs played at Flamingo, the movie stars punctuated a lot of levels regarding the sky, in addition to Ohana member got to the stage saying thanks to everybody else amply. She was really gob-smacked from the overflowing bucket. “thank-you, thank you, efcharisto,” she said. “we had been wanting 100 euro, perhaps two, but this will be incredible!”

She paused for a moment before she mentioned, “we have been the lesbians associated with the area of Lesvos; this is certainly surely all of our obligation as well.” It feels like lesbians worldwide can stand in solidarity because of the lesbians regarding island of Lesbos. This continuous humanitarian situation is perhaps all of one’s duty.

To donate to Pikpa head to


https://www.lesvossolidarity.org/en/support-us.



Stay tuned in for much more revisions regarding the circumstance in Lesbos.