Solidarity with Greece

It's with immense sadness and so much rage that we've been following the news about the wildfires tearing through Greece, through media outlets and the stories of our pals with connections to the country. Those different kind of narratives are - as always when comparing personal experience to media tunnel-vision - jarringly different.

In the case of the Greek wildfires, UK media has focused on the 'plight' of stranded tourists, missed flights and lost holidays, rather than the horror of scorched homes, communities in crisis and lost lives - human and non-human. It's a narrative entirely lacking in an honest and engaged sense of place - as if people's homes were only there for the pleasure of holidaymakers who will soon leave.

This is not an inevitable trait of media storytelling either, but a conscious choice. Mainstream media often makes it seem as though we, the viewers and readers, are utterly helpless in the face of catastrophe. We must remember that this is not the case. What's happening now in Greece is one of many simultaneous symptoms of a collapsing climate, caused by fossil fuel companies that are still making billions in profit. To view catastrophes in isolation allows us to forget how they came about, and so we must combine solidarity with specific communities with the dismantling of wider systems.

The reading list offers wee examples of both - a celebration of Greek thinkers and writers, alongside some of the most urgent writing out there on the harm that's being done to the homeland of those writers and - ultimately - to all of our homes.