The Wrong End of the Telescope

by Rabih Alameddine

They were lucky, as was Sumaiya’s family. They arrived in Lesbos while Europe was in a quandary as to what to do with them or, more accurately, while European nations were trying to figure how to stop the refugees from entering without appearing monstrous for doing so. The November 2015 Paris attacks increased the influence of the anti-immigrant factions in Europe, but those forces had yet to mature into their full fascistic power. During a brief window, Syrians, particularly families with children, were allowed to trickle into Western European countries. Processing was difficult when we were on the island but would become next to impossible not too long after. Within a month after we left, the European Union began to smother refugees in more and more bureaucracy, the empire’s most effective weapon. We were there a few weeks before Europe all but closed the borders. I understand that these days families wait for months to get a red stamp and then wait for many more months to get a blue stamp, more for yellow or green, if they’re lucky and aren’t sent back because they turned out to be color-blind. You and I were lucky. We were in Moria before it morphed into a callous prison camp, before the riots and arson, before the refugees had to be forcibly returned to Turkey, returned to whatever home the authorities deemed was theirs. With the dumb tenacity of moths the refugees kept coming, and from behind the cold pane of Moria, they longed for the unattainable warmth. Lesbos was...