The refugee crisis is, without doubt the most important development of the year which comes to its end. The tremendous rise of the influx of refugees has already made its impact on Europe and we still haven't seen it to its full effect. Those millions of desperate souls are expected to bring major changes in the Europe we k new with its' Shcenghen and Dublin agreements. TIME magazine, a publication which holds the record for the oldest “person of the year” feature, chose Angela Merkel as the person which influenced the most the year 2015. In some sense, this included her stance towards the refugee crisis. Germany opened its borders to more than 500.000 Syrian refugees and the credit for that should go to the German chancellor as her personal achievement.
Nevertheless, TIME failed to mention the European behaviour in terms of foreign policy which were critical in triggering the devastating increase of masses of refugees coming from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere. It was, indeed, A.Merkel who, in the beginning of 2014, appeared in a German TV show where she denied a young girl leave of stay thus making the girl cry, and faced worldwide criticism about her soulless stance. What's more, it was this very leader; A.Merkel who supported policies which led to the financial and military empowerment of those groups which rose against Assad in Syria, thus feeding the monster of ISIS and bringing the destabilization of the entire area.
Moving to the exact opposite direction, ThePressProject chose as Person of the Year a woman who chose to deal with the refugee crisis on as humane level. Matina Katsivelis, a member of the Solidarity Network of Leros never participated in the trading of human lives and pain. She is not the founder of an NGO which manipulates funds, and she did not start her pro-refugee action when it became fashionable. Most importantly, she never used her “humanity credits” in order to gain any kind of personal benefit.
M.Katsivelis managed the rebuild of the Villa Artemisia which is now offering shelter to almost 40 women and their offspring. She is also the force behind the rebuild of an old children's hospital which will become one more asset for the provision of decent short term shelter for the refugees – an effort which has still to come to fruition due to the reaction of the Mayor of Leros. She is a woman who stood against political favouritism and beaurocracy, who did not give up when things became impossible and is still in the line of action exactly where it counts most; where the refugees arrive in their hundreds and thousands in rafts from Turkey. Matina organized the huge movement of solidarity and support into a plausible mechanism which makes it possible for food, water, milk and diapers to be brought daily to the uninhabited islet of Farmakonisi where up to 500 people get washed ashore every few days. To us, Matina Katsivelis is not just the Person of the Year, but she is the human of 2015. She is the one who revived the old Greek tradition of hospitality, made us feel human again and never gave up, even when it became apparent that the struggling efforts of the Network for Solidarity would never be enough to prevent all those mothers from losing their children in the Aegean sea. Keeping hope alive, and responding to plain necessity, she kept trying to drain the sea of human suffering. Her determination never lessened but grew stronger and stronger.
These are the reasons why we, in ThePressProject, decided unanimously that this year's Person of the Year is Matina Katsivelis.
Matina honoured us with an interview which follows.