Rotten bananas

It’s an unpredictable world, that’s for sure! A few days ago the residents in the area between Dali and Potamia, known as Agridi, awoke to the decree that the Afro Banana festival is to be held in our midst, without a single one of us being informed or consulted. Tickets for the festival were already being sold online.

Having been refused a licence from the authorities in Kornos, the original site for the party, on account of noise pollution and nuisance, the organisers frantically appealed for an alternative venue. The valiant municipality of Dali came to the rescue, because apparently we are a subspecies impervious to noise and unbothered by the damage to our precious environment that will certainly ensue.

For those of you who don’t know the area, Agridi is a charming tree-filled spot, bordered by the Yialyas river, and host to a unique community of flora and fauna. It is the sole remaining area of undisturbed ancient eucalyptus forest in the broader region, while being home to the 13th century church of Ayios Demetrianos, and the old, recently restored watermill. It’s a stone’s throw away from the nearest houses, and a rare precinct of natural beauty wedged between the general aesthetic freak show and architectural eyesore that characterises the expanse south of the capital. We who live here, and those many others who care, want to keep it that way.

The Afro Banana festival is a five-day event attracting thousands of visitors. The organisers plan for 200 tents, three large stages, permanent lighting, music till 3am, generators to sustain all this, and sundry other unforeseeable interventions in nature. Three large parking areas are shown on their festival handout. These are now freshly ploughed wheat fields waiting to be sown.

The setting up and taking down of this event will obviously involve the movement of huge amounts of infrastructure, and require several weeks. The festival organisers and an environmentalist have stated publicly, that there will be “no serious or negative impact” on the environment. Really?

Afro Banana is run by a company called Alternative Brains Rule. Ordinary village brains are clearly second-rate. If their brains are so superior, how come they haven’t solved their rather simple problem? They have refused every kind offer for an alternative venue. They protest that one option is too far from home, another doesn’t provide enough shade or align with their product. We suggest they create shade by some alternative means, they cry that’s too expensive and besides, nature-lovers need real trees. We protest that many other life-forms need trees too, and we would like to protect both, and besides, is the comfort of their campers really more important than our wildlife?

ABR prides itself on its “non-profit” status, yet at every turn in their dilemma they choose the penny-pinching route to least expense, and maximum income.

And yet we still support their festival. We support ethical culture. Just not in our precious beauty-spot. Putting their party here is a godsend to the organisers. It’s a mini paradise where their customers can levitate transcendentally in the caressing shade of century-old eucalypts. They can burn incense and beat bongos till they succumb to the intoxicating ecstasy of their union with the cosmos. But one misplaced fag-butt could spell disaster, and bring the joyful Dionysian revelry to a blazing finale. And then where will all the birds and the beasts go?

Duncan McCowan, member of the Committee to Protect Agridi