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Boat is Safe, We Will Sail Legal: Local Captain

Tahrir promises to leave Greece tomorrow

by Miles Howe

 Captain George of the sailing ship Tahrir
Captain George of the sailing ship Tahrir

Normally, Agios Nikolaos (pronounced AY-os Ni-ko-lay-osh) is a sleepy Mediterannean tourist town. Tourists, many shades of red, wander in the blazing heat, biding their time between buffet lunch and buffet dinner. A motorized train picks up and unloads carts of wandering wallets at various spots of mild interest. You can take a ferry to Spinalonga, advertised as the last leper colony in Europe. You can rent scuba equipment, buy a towel with the island of Crete spun into the thread, eat a gyro, and easily pass a week or two in bland, hedonistic abandon. Nikolaos is not pricey enough to be exclusive, but it is just expensive enough to give off false airs of grandeur to those who stroll its streets with Nikons and crabby children in tow.

Beneath this, as in any sleepy Mediterannean tourist town, a working class pours your coffee, scoops your gelato and takes your reservations. And the thing is, Nikolaos, at an advertised population of about 20,000, is just small enough that most everybody knows everybody else--or at least a cousin.

When you take an evening walk with a local, you come to understand that your every action is being watched. Greetings are exchanged every thirty paces or so, knowing looks given off that you barely catch. But they have been watching the whole time. And they know what's going on.

The problem is, as in any tourist town, the economy is largely dependant on the steady inflow of tourist dollars. So, when a boatload of peace activists shows up, meets in the semi-secrecy of a hotel board room for four days, and goes through various scenarios of violence being acted upon them by Israeli commandos, the staff at the hotel really don't want to know about it. But they do.

When said peace activists' cover is blown, and they occupy a island-hopping ferry in the marina, and begin marching up and down the boardwalk, screaming "Shame on Papandreaou!" and "Free Gaza!"...well, now there's a problem. A town like Nikolaos, with 8-euro cocktails, lazy Tuesday night karaoke with a track list that ended in 1995, and no nude beach, simply isn't built for such expressions of solidarity with the people of Gaza. This isn't Athens. This isn't Syndagma Square. There's not even a hint of tear gas in the air.

So why don't the activists just leave, you ask? What does George Papandreaou, Prime Minister of this tourist colony, mean to them? They have already demonstrated their desire to flaunt Israeli law, what do they care about Greek law, which they perceive to be dictated by the Israelis anyway? Why not just make a run for the high seas? A midnight run, past the Greek coast guard boat stationed right next to theirs?

One problem is that the captain they hired, let's call him George, is a local, and Greek law is law for him. George knows the port authority grunts in the camouflage pants who watch over the peace activist's boat. He grew up with them, probably went to school with them. Maybe even shares a set of inlaws with the mustachioed fellow. He's a Nikolaotian, and wants to keep it that way. And while he's earned his stripes running yachts and ferries through the Gaza gauntlet before, if he goes this time he'll lose his job. He'll probably go to jail. So while the peace activists can go home, and do what it is they do when they're not sleeping on a boat, George has to come back to Nikolaos, and he won't come back in shackles. George is a legend in the Free Gaza movement, a lion of a man. But he won't sail illegally.

Miles Howe: You know most of the guards here?

George: Almost all of them.

MH: Have you been friends with them for a long time?

G: Yes.

MH: What do you think their feeling is?

G: They don't know. Almost all of them...they don't know what we are doing, and they don't know why these things are happening to our boat, right here, right now.

MH: They're just following orders.

G: Exactly.

MH: You've gone to Gaza. How many times before?

G: I've been in Gaza three times.

MH: You've sailed ships to Gaza?

G: Yes.

MH: You've sailed before from Agios Nikolaos?

G: I left from here, with the other ship, the Orion, but I didn't reach Gaza. But the other times I went to Gaza, once it was from Crete, in 2008, and the [other two times] it was from Cyprus.

MH: Do you have any plans to try and leave here, or is the Tahrir just going to stay? Right now there are 50 people from all over the world here who are ready to leave. If you leave, what's going to happen to you?

G: I am still a Greek person, and I must follow Greek rules, and the Greek laws, because Greeks give these laws. No matter if [the others] take orders from other people. But for me, I'm still a Greek, and I'm legal. For me, I'm going to keep work myself, and I'm going to work in the legal way. So, as things are now, we're still waiting for two papers...I must wait for these two papers to let me go.

MH: What are these papers?

G: We're waiting for a paper from the embassy of Comoros [under whose flag the Tahrir sails], and from our inspector, which is INSB [International Naval Survey Bureau]. And this, I think, is going to come tomorrow.

MH: What are the security measures in place? How can we be sure that we won't be sabotaged like the Irish and the Greek-Swedish boat?

G: There is no measure. We cannot ensure that. How are we going to ensure that?

MH: Security details? Lights under the boat? Scuba divers?

G: If we want to be safe, to ensure that, right now we should put divers under the boat. They should stay 24 hours under the boat and watch if someone is coming, or put cameras under it. Right here, I don't think they have many chance to come because now we know. So the port police is next to us, we are in a safe harbour. But nothing is for sure.

MH: You're the captain. At the port authority they've been saying 'This boat is not safe.' Do you feel confident that this boat can make it to Gaza on the open seas?

G: Yes.

MH: Under your command.

G: Yes. Otherwise I would not do this. What I'm doing is I coming up to check the thing I'm going to drive. If I feel nice with this, then I'm going to do it. If not, I'm not doing this.

MH: So you feel good about this boat?

G: Yes, of course.

MH: Talking to the port authority, they say you can own everything, sell all the Greek islands, but you cannot take the Greek soul. How do you feel in your heart about this? Do you want to go?

G: What do they mean by this?

MH: I know that Greek people have pride, and dignity, and even if the economy is hurting, now Greece takes orders from Israel, and I wonder how this makes you feel. You want to go, obviously. You want to be able to set sail. You can't, because you have to follow the laws of your country, that's understandable. But inside, what do you feel about Greece right now, about the law that doesn't let you go to Gaza?

G: I'm sure, that the Greeks, once they find out the things I know (about Gaza), then things will be changed. But until now, you cannot take an answer from them because they don't have the knowledge of what happens. They just follow orders.

Me? I'm a citizen. I don't work for the government. I work for Greece. But they work for the Greek government. But when all the people find out what is happening, then I'm sure that I must expect more things from them. I think what we must show now that what we do is legal. But these people, they don't know this. So we must find all the ways to make them see with our eyes.

The Tahrir promises to sail tomorrow, Monday, the 4th of July. The Spanish ship promised to sail out of Crete today. See freedomflotilla.eu for updates on the Spaniards.

Miles will be reporting regularly to the Halifax Media Co-op from the Canadian Boat to Gaza. Visit Dispatches from the Tahrir for updates.


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1421 words

Comments

Dock workers around the world.

If the dock workers around the world decide to show their solidarity for the flotilla then the Greek government may wake up to the fact that  the u s and israel do not control all of the world. Although in their own minds the u s and israel think that they do.

 

By working to rule on ships carrying Greek cargo and ships sailing to Greece the dock workers around the world will show their humanity and their integrity.

 

This u s and israeli blackmail has to be stopped.

 

Nakba will always be remembered.

 

 

Very moving interview with Captain of the Tahrir

A wonderful interview with the Captain of the Tahrir.  Thanks very much for this, as well as for the introductory paragraphs which really helped me understand the setting - physical, political, and social. 

The Tahrir is very fortunate ++ to have such a man as your captain.  Please convey heartfelt thanks and greatest respect to him, from Canada.

You should get your

You should get your information about this town elsewhere! This so called journalist has no clue about this town or it's people!!

Ida

 

The gelato eaters

Greetings from the sleepy town with the gelato eaters labours. (!!!)

Dear friends. In our city two thousands of hard workers inside the hotels, are not like you describe, with insensitivity and indifference for everything. Last year, when the "ship to Gaza" mission was more a movement then a work of a committee, 300 workers and middleclass citizens of our town join the acts of this movement and there were 10 applications to join the ships. The fight of palestinian people for justice and freedom is a fight that supported from the 90% of our people.

http://visinokipos.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post_16.html over here you can see the gelato eaters woring class having  a support meeting in which thousands of euros gathered for that mission

http://visinokipos.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post_31.html over here you can see the reaction of some touristical shops in Agios Nikolaos were the 20% of the tourists are from Israel.

But even this year that the mission was not spraded as a movement like last year, a lot of supporters helped the mission with any possible way, and if you will ask the members of the Canadian mission the will tell you the truth.

We would like to double check your informations because here in Greece our pride is under great attack from our governement. We dont need another wound in our dignity.

Vasilis

Sorry Vasilis

I don't want to add another wound to your dignity. My issue with Agios Nikolaos is that aside from some people coming up to me on the street and saying that it was too bad, after our boat was chased down, we didn't have much of a surface reaction from anyone. There were shows of solidarity in other towns, where the Spanish boat has been docked the locals have come and shared meals, protested outside the boat, etc, and those shows are important to the people aboard the boat. We have been on the boat for days now, waiting for the right papers to finally come through, and you are right, there is help from behind the scenes. But there are also hindrances from behind the scenes. I don't know what the difference between this year's movement and last year's movement is, and if you could explain the reason why last year it was more popular in Agios Nikolaos than it was this year, that would be appreciated. 

I also didn't call you the gelato eating labourers, and you have misinterpreted what I have written.

Dear friend. You think that

Dear friend. You think that Agios Nikolaos is similar with Chania where the Spanish ship is???

100.000 people of Chania is ten times more then 10.000 people in Agios. So if we were a hundred to support you the difficult 4-5 July situation... then in Chania must be 1000 supporters... were they???

This year mission is different (by choise of the organisers) from last year.

We will discuss about that but only after the end of  the mission. Is not time to argue.

Your words in halifax mediacoop pass also to the local newspaper. And believe me those words gave us disapointment and make our fight more difficult.

If you say that those words were not offensive for us let us know better. But most of all were NOT TRUE...

What I said.

Again, there is a language barrier here. I said that Agios Nikolaos is a tourist town, filled with tourists. From what I observed, the Greek people that worked in the tourist industry in Agios Nikolaos either didn't know what was going on, or didn't want to know. If you are in some kind of high position in this movement, then I would suggest to you that if you really have an argument with this, you and the other people who are high up could have shown those of us who were on the boat that the community had people that did support us. Since the average person on the boat did not see that, I personally came to my own conclusions that people in the town were not interested in what was going on, or actually didn't want to know what was going on.

So if you got 100 people to come to the dock when we got towed back, is this what you are referring to? Did you get those people there? If you did, or even if you didn't, this was the first actual notion of support from Agios Nikolaos that I saw. Many of those people were curious, and about thirty were vocally supporting us. So I don't know what was going on behind the scenes, but if you want my opinion, since you really think that there was lots more support going on behind the scenes, you should have showed at least some of that to us. Were you responsible for the old lady bringing us pizza? I don't know, but I don't think so.

Anyways, you can blame my words for making the movement in Agios Nikolaos tougher if you like. I am not going to accept that, and I think you are reaching. Things were never explained to us as participants, and we were silently asked not to even ask things. Like why was George piloting the boat back to harbour with the military? Where did he come from? Sorry, but I had nothing to do with that, and nobody even gave us an answer as to why.

If you want blind support, that's one thing, and you will get that from some people. But more transparency could have helped participants know that there was a Greek community from Agios Nikolaos that was with them, before the boat left. Rather than telling me that my words, which suggested that there wasn't a Greek community outrightly supporting us before it started, which is actually true, are to blame for people not coming out afterwards.

Good luck.

Tough conversation

To Miles Howe - I think you've done an excellent job dealing with this tough and frustrating conversation, acknowledging the language barrier and trying to explain what you actually said.  You were transparent, asked tough but necessary questions, remained true to yourself, and yet were trying to have a civil dialogue with Vasilis. 

If you're still in Greece, I hope you have an opportunity to sit down with Vasilis and sort this through. 

Kind regards,

I'm in Cairo

Thanks,

I actually needed to get to another Tahrir, Tahrir Square. So I'm not able to talk to Vasilis in person about any of this. Update and photos from the square will follow.

Thank you for responding,

Thank you for responding, Miles.  All the best in Cairo.  Looking forward to reading a dispatch and photos from your journey there. Thank you for your work for justice and peace! 

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