A volunteer carries a Syrian refugee child off an overcrowded dinghy to a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos in September 2015. Photo by Yannis Behrakis. From reuters.com
A network of volunteers living on the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea who have taken the lead on the front line of Europe’s refugee crisis by rescuing and sheltering hundreds of thousands of desperate people fleeing war and terror have been tipped as nominees for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for their unwavering demonstration of selfless compassion.
In what EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulo has described as “the worst refugee crisis since World War II,” more than a million migrants entered Europe in 2015, fleeing conflict, persecution, and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, according to the International Organization for Migration, which noted that more than 80 per cent of those had arrived via Greece. It was on the islands of Chios, Kos, Leros, Lesbos, Rhodes, and Samos that people chose to respond to the crisis by diving into treacherous waters to save lives, opening their homes, caring for the sick and the injured, and sharing their food and clothes.
Because the prize—for which for United States spy agency contractor Edward Snowden and peace negotiators in Colombia are also believed to be in the running this year—must go to an individual or an organization, it would be difficult to identify Greek winners under the framework set out by the prize’s Swedish founder, Alfred Nobel. As such, members of the Academy of Athens, the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, the Hellenic Olympic Committee, and the deans of Greek universities have sent a letter nominating two Greek islanders—85-year-old Emilia Kamvisi from Lesbos and 40-year-old fisherman Stratis Valiamos—along with American actor Susan Sarandon as candidates for this year’s prize.
These experts argue that Kamvisi, whose image holding a Syrian baby alongside two friends went viral last year, and Valiamos, who has saved scores refugees from drowning, were representative of “the behavior and attitude of Greece, organizations and volunteers toward the huge refugee crisis.” They also singled out Sarandon as one of many international volunteers to travel to the Greek islands to help. Sarandon spent Christmas on the island of Lesbos documenting the struggles of the refugees in a storytelling project called “The Crossing.” (Huffington Post)
Emilia Kamvisi, third from left, feeding the baby of a Syrian refugee. Photo by Lefteris Partsalis. From neoskosmos.com
But for the inhabitants of the islands, it’s a simple matter of humanity, not a question of recognition. “What did I do? I didn’t do anything,” asked Kamvisi, a grandmother and herself the daughter of refugees, who said the crisis recalled life under Nazi occupation. “We saw people crying in the boats, people leaving their homes, people sleeping in the streets,” she told Reuters.
Valiamos was equally modest about the lives he has saved. “People say ‘you’re a hero,’ but this isn’t heroism, it’s the normal thing to do,” the fisherman said. “When you’re fishing and a boat is sinking next to you and they’re screaming for help, you can’t pretend to not hear them,” he said, adding, “No one wants to leave their home, to take a suitcase and five babies and walk for five months and get on a plastic boat.” (Neos Kosmos)
More than 600,000 people around the world have so far put their names to a petition calling for the Nobel nomination. But whether these people—who found themselves faced with a humanitarian crisis merely by virtue of geography and chose to open their hearts and extend the hand of compassion—actually win the Nobel Peace Prize is, perhaps, beside the point. In the words of Maria Androulaki, a resident of the island of Lesbos: “We are monsters if we don't do this—why should we be given a prize for being human beings? We are supposed to be human beings.”