New book on one of Europe's largest refugee camps recounts a shocking tale of injustice

Markham reveals the fire's complex causes and ramifications, emblematic of the world's wider refugee crisis. She takes the reader inside the camp before it went up in flames and tells of conflicts among refugees, who divide into rival gangs and groups along sectarian and ethnic lines. Ali Sayed tells the author of his surprise to find that the ethnic conflicts from his homeland had followed him to Moria.

The shared fate of the refugees did not generate enough solidarity to overcome their past ethnic and sectarian conflicts, perhaps because of the brutal and inhumane conditions they were living in.

A raft of accusations

Markham sets out to discover who started the fire and looks at the various theories. Much of what she hears is fabricated, motivated by the cultural aspects of migration and the debate around it, rather than any desire to discover the truth.

Some people claim that the refugees themselves started the fire because they wanted to destroy what had become their prison. Arabs and Africans accused the Afghans, while the Afghans accused the Arabs.

Then, there were claims that fascists started the fire. A shelter on the northern edge of the island was burned by Greek nationalists a few years ago, trying to rid their home of refugees. Greek left-wingers accused the right-wing government, saying it did not want to bear the burden of resettling refugees fleeing war. Some even accused human rights groups in an effort to secure more funding or to close Moria for a better successor.

Then there are those who said it was accidental. Markham found that all these theories had one thing in common: a lack of evidence. Despite this, the Greek migration minister announced that they had found the perpetrators and arrested six Afghans, including Ali Sayed. Charges of arson were made, but the author argues that the charges were fabricated.

Her book tells a shocking tale of injustice, one largely unknown outside of Europe, but it also reveals more than the story of the fire and the arrest of those accused of arson.

It demonstrates the toxicity of contemporary borders, decries the practices of exclusion and isolation, and the myth of ethnic purity or racial superiority.

Stories within the story

Markham's book seeks to reach a deeper understanding of the point at which migration, myth, and memory intersect. She includes details of her own family's story and blends several other stories within the main narrative to explore the wider theme.

There is a shocking and revealing read, as the book outlines the tragic history of the wave of migration set off by the conflicts and chaos across the Middle East. Details are stark, especially concerning the bodies of those who drown, including two-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi. Photos of a guard carrying his tiny lifeless body from the shore on a Greek beach shot through the hearts of many.

His family had been trying to get to Canada, where they intended to seek safety. His death challenged the world's conscience and became a defining image of the wave of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean.

Then there is the story of an older, unnamed Syrian boy, related via an employee at the legal centre in Lesbos, Amelia Cooper. She told of how he called out to her from behind barbed wire in an appeal to Germany's leader at the time: "Tell Mama Merkel what is happening to us here!" Cooper said he had no idea what would happen to him and feared he would be crushed.

Statistics reveal the harsh reality caused by overcrowding in refugee camps, including Moria. In 2019, Moria had one toilet per 506 people. On the island of Ramos, it was one per 300 people. Instances of mental illnesses increased by 40%.

As its title suggests, A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging has a wider scope and does more than recount tragedies. The multifaceted narrative moves through European history before covering the history of international migration.

Two meanings of myth

The book addresses how the West has fabricated myths about itself and its place in the world, contributing to the current crisis. Markham covers both senses of the word 'myth'; the way it captures both a sense of fabrication and deception.

She argues that the ideas of freedom rooted in Athenian democracy, the Magna Carta, and the Copernican Revolution were myths invented for ideological reasons in the standoff with communism.

As historian Kwame Anthony Appiah notes, communities dominated by white people still see themselves in this way. The West's image of itself is as a democratic, open-minded, tolerant, progressive, rational, and scientifically rational place where anyone can thrive.

Markham argues that this amounts to a feeling of exceptionalism, and that the idea of a European identity amounts to a myth, the concept only coming about at all from opposition to the presence of Muslims in southern and eastern Europe.

The idea of the West is an invented one, and it has become a form of white identity prone to hostility to other cultures. The author contrasts the present-day racialised, white, insular Greece with its more open past.

The meaning of asylum

Greeks once believed that the state had a moral duty to offer refuge to those whose lives were in danger elsewhere. Politicians offered political asylum, fearing the wrath of the gods and of ordinary Greeks if they failed to do so.

Asylum was a fundamental concept in early democracies. Indeed, the word "asylum" is derived from the Greek word asulia, meaning protection offered by the gods.

In modern times, white racist identity in Greece has been built on the betrayal of a different and longer-standing Greek sense of self and more open cultural values.

Instead, there is now a propensity toward a sense of white supremacist authority that drives politicians and anti-immigrant far-right groups.

This change is evident in the inhumane detention of refugees, the blocking of roads to prevent their access to cities, and the unconvincing charges of arson against six Afghan refugees, who were treated to a sham trial after being offered as scapegoats.

The dangers of nostalgia

Markham argues that nostalgia for an imagined past is used to promote exclusion and whiteness in a world increasingly burdened with borders.

This theme is also revealed through the story of the Moria camp and its criminalisation of contemporary migration. It contrasts with the way in which a different approach to migration in ancient times revealed such different values.

The book makes a crucial point: the way we tell our stories individually and collectively defines the ideology we embrace, our politics, our actions, and how we construct our world. The ways people interpreted the Moria fire mirrored their beliefs and how they wanted the world to be.

This story is not just about what happened at a revealing moment in the recent past. It is also about the future. The many false and biased narratives circulating about the Moria fire obscured the real story, which got lost in the noise.

That noise exposed the ideology, hatred, and racism at work, while the accusations and the injustices exposed the nature of our world, one that seems to be shrinking and returning to fights over territory.

Back to base instincts

According to scientists who study animal behaviour, when primates settle somewhere, they establish a certain type of boundary and violently attack any who cross it to compete for resources.

The author concludes that we cannot study the injustices of contemporary migration without examining past forms of migration.

Her words evoke earlier histories discussed by American author Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything. Indeed, modern anthropology is based on the idea that we evolved through migration and the sharing of genes and information.

Things only began to change later, with the sanctification of borders, the construction of walls, the hatred of the foreign 'other', and the obsession with racial purity becoming defining features only latterly.

Those who know this include Ali Sayed and thousands of other anonymous victims who managed not to drown while fleeing oppression, wars, grinding poverty or natural disasters.

Welcome to hell.