There is nothing quite like a female Israeli airline security guard

During the 14 months I spent in Israel making my 2000 film Settlers I spent many hours being questioned by the security boys and girls at Ben Gurion airport as I travelled in and out of the country… So it is from experience that I know they hate it when you get annoyed by their questions – obviously I always make sure to take great offence and obviously I always get annoyed when stopped for questioning, but today is different, today I approached the guards with a gleeful smile, knowing already that I would definitely be in for a question or two because of the Syrian stamp in my passport.

I am stopped by two female security guards… “Where are you going today” they ask, “Beirut” I say.. “Oh really, why?”, they ask, “I’m filming there”, “Why did you go to Syria?” “To film” I say.. “Ah you are a brave man” the two women say almost flirtingly, It’s going well so far I think to myself. “Did you make any friends in Syria?” they ask, “Yes” I reply, “Why would you do that?” they ask, “I need to know people to make films” I tell them, “But do you STILL know them?” the girls ask, “Yes” I answer, suddenly I get the feeling that the women are no longer flirting, the rubber finger is getting closer to my ass unless I get better control of this interview.

So I go for broke and play (what I hope will be) the winning card, and one which happens on this occasion to be the truth… I tell them that the Syrians I had been filming were now living in Beirut because they had to flee Syria in October last year after I was arrested and held secretly in a high security Damascus prison for a week. Thankfully the girls faces soften, and a sense of the relief comes over me as the rubber finger retreats and I begin to win back control of the encounter.

They both go away for a private whispering session looking at me “flirtingly” out of the corners of their eyes. They return, handing me my passport, “Mr Sean.. You are very cool, one women says.. you can enter this way no problem, in that direction”. “Where will you be going next after Beirut?” one of the women asks as I move along, “I leave Beirut for Athens in a few days where I am starting a new film” I explain, the woman look surprised and excited, “This is the new Nazi land of Europe” the perceptive women tell me, “Yes” I tell them, “The neo Nazi’s just got 8% of the vote – these are very dangerous times in Europe”. I tell them the story of how I arrived in Athens last month and was tear gassed within 2 days at an open air party set up by anarchists who keep the police out of “their” part of town.

The women look very impressed and I feel calm, no rubber fingers coming my way now I think to myself. “You are a very brave man” they tell me, “You go to all the hot spots in the world and you put your self in the fire”, I smile and tell them that the bravest thing I’ve ever done is taken on the two of the most feared security women in the world at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport. They both smile, laugh flirtingly again, and usher me on my way.

Today’s news from Homs

Amer gets a telephone call telling him that the Shahbiha (thugs) have attacked a Sunni area called Shamas in Homs killing 15 men – but before killing them the thugs disfigured the men’s bodies with knives, gorging out parts of their faces and bodies, cutting their fingers and penis’s off, and cutting out their tongues… before finally slitting their throats.

The wife of the muezzin of the area (the man who performs the call to prayer) was also taken by these thugs and using her phone to call him they demanded that he came home immediately telling him they would rape and kill his wife if he didn’t. On his return he was tortured, his tongue was cut out and his fingers cut off before his throat was also cut.

And this is just a little of today’s (16 May 2012) unreported news from Homs, despite the presence in Syria of UN observers… somewhere.

Athens Tear Gas

I tripped over a syringe yesterday as I walked past a shopping trolley which was half-full of empty cans; recycling other peoples rubbish is a good way of making money in a financial crisis – I flashback to my meetings with the hordes of homeless in Japan – but this shopping trolley is padlocked to a post so precious is it and its contents. Nearby two ‘homeless’ guys sleep slumped together awkwardly. As I make my way home I become aware of an eerie silence permeating the streets and the boarded-up shops.

The silence is broken here and there by moments of quiet action as I pass small groups of people sitting outside still open cafes. Is this the new face of Europe I ask myself as the crisis steamrolls onwards unabated uncontrolled towards an end that no-one really knows.

Here in Athens people still like to live life as much as possible – with a strong emphasis on eating and drinking – it takes ones mind off the bleak harsh reality of life.

Tonight, In the anarchist run square where I am staying a live band entertains a massive happy crowd into the early hours of the morning until a loud boom is heard, and suddenly people start to move. There is a strong stench in air and my eyes quickly become weary and irritated – “It is tear-gas!” someone announces, and the crowd pushes out of the square, groups of once happy party people are forced to cover their faces with handkerchiefs as they head off in the direction of the police who (although they remain outside the quarter) have made it clear that the party has gone on long enough, that now it must end. I decide to return to my room.

As I enter the hotel I joke with the hotel manager that check-in should include a gas mask, he laughs but I am kind of serious. This is nuts. A country at war with itself in a doomsday international economic crisis never seen before in history – but the manager laughs and tells me to wait for tomorrow night “You will get used to it soon” he says bidding me goodnight as I head upstairs to watch the night from my balcony.

Nazis in Athens

What a day… It feels like I’ve never stopped since I got to Athens, I was told about Exarcheia, a wonderful vibrant neighbourhood populated by anarchists, students and leftists for 40 years, so I have got myself a 4th floor room overlooking a noisy anarchic square. The square (which seems to be getting ready for a concert) is filled with amazing café’s and bars, it reminds me of East Berlin the air is filled with ideas, bubbling with alternatives to the “failed” economics and politics of Europe. The counter-culture. The killing of a 15 year old boy here sparked off a month of riots across the whole of Greece in December 2008.

Today I met a local Kostas who drove me around the town, highlighting the division that exists between leftists, and anarchists from the neighbourhood where I am staying, and the Neo-Nazis in another square, in another area of town.

I’ve only been here a day or two but it is clear that Athens has an air of fragile calm that could explode at any moment, with up and coming elections on the 6th May things don’t bode well. Support for the main parties has collapsed while support for ‘radical’ parties has grown. The experts predict a hung parliament while the Neo-Nazis hope to see their leader go into parliament for the first time in Greek history,

“This far-right ‘Golden Dawn’ party are not like Le Pen in France, they are Nazis” Kostas tells me… “They have copies of Mein Kampf, and salute like Hitler”. Earlier today they had a meeting in a neighbouring hotel and Kostas invited me to take a look, it was scary – I saw (the usual, expected) skinheads but there was also lots of families too, they were complaining about the economic crisis but also the lack of any effective immigration policy.

After we left Kostas took me to an ‘immigrant’ neighbourhood, it was once an area for the richest Greeks in Athens, and has one of the biggest church’s in Europe. Immigrants sit around looking hopeless, we watch as a little black girl plays hop-scotch on some massive graffitied letters at the entrance to the church that read, ‘Greece is for the Greeks all immigrants go home’. “It has been there for 2 years” Kostas explains, “but no-one dares to remove it, because of the power of the Neo-Nazis in this area of Athens.”