The story of Kakoullou...

The story of Kakoullou…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357  99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   After my article about the `missing` Kakoullou and her husband Giannis is published in POLITIS, I get a call from a friend of the grandson of Kakoullou's sister… He says he remembers her very well and will notify the grandson who lives in London… Some days later, I receive a wonderful e-mail from the grandson of Nestillou, the sister of Kakoullou, Takis Zachariou. He gives us details of the life of Kakoullou… He writes:   `Dear Ms. Uludag I recently saw an article by you in the Politis newspaper about my grandmother's sister Kakoulou and uncle Yianni. I would like to thank you for this because although we knew that they were killed in 1963 we really did not have any other details about their death. I would like to give you some more information about Kakoullou but firstly I would like to introduce myself. My name is Takis Zachariou from Yialousa but I have lived in London since July 1963. I am the grandson of Styliani (Nestillou) Panayi who you mention in your article. In other words Kakoullou was my grandmother's sister. 'Kakoullou's mother was Katerina who came to Cyprus from Turkey, I think from Adana. This would have been around 1860. She was married twice and had two children from her first husband, Panayis Panayi, one of them being Kakoullou. Kakoullou was about ten years older than my grandmother so I calculate that she was born between 1870 to 1880. The other child was a male and his relatives lived in Rizokarpaso in later years when I met them. Katerina was married again and had two daughters one of them being my grandmother Styliani (Nestillou) born in the the late 1880's. The other daughter was Athinou. They lived in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia until my grandmother was about twelve when they moved to Yialousa. Neither my grandmother nor her sister Athinou spoke Greek until then. I have been told by my grandmother that Kakoullou was abducted when she was about twelve and sold to a harem in one of the Arabian countries. She managed to escape and made her way back to Cyprus when she was around fifteen. It is probable that she opened a brothel since her chances of settling down to a quiet family life were non-existent by then. At least those were the rumours and the whispers I heard as I was growing up but of course these are matters that old Cypriot families would not talk about openly as I am sure you appreciate. Later in life she ran the hotel that you mention in your article. Because of this Kakoullou apart from Greek and Turkish also spoke Arabic. What is true is that she became extremely rich hence her involvement with the Bank of Cyprus and the many houses and land that she owned and eventually gave to her relatives. She was the first woman in Cyprus to own a car. I remember seeing a photograph my grandmother had of Kakoullou with uncle Yiannis standing next to a beautiful old car. My estimate is that this was taken around 1920. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. This photograph and others of her sadly were lost when my grandmother and her family left Yialousa in 1977. My memories of her are from the mid 1950's. She was by then very old, ancient to a child like me. She would come to Yialousa on many occasions for holidays. She particularly liked to go by the sea where she would ask my grandmother and aunties to bury her in hot sand up to her neck which gave her relief from the severe arthritic pain she suffered from in later life. Her money gave her power and although on the one hand she was very generous on the other hand she could be very autocratic and very demanding of her relatives. She would send a message to my grandmother to go to Nicosia to look after her. My grandmother would take me with her to this magical world of Nicosia. I remember being woken up every morning by the Hodja's singing from the mosque near by. The whole thing looking back at it now seems like a dream of a bygone age that's left us never to return. On one of these visits Kakoullou had a stroke and she nearly died. I remember the doctor and the priest going to her bedroom (the room with the balcony in your drawing) and where I was never allowed to enter. And of course later on the hodja paid her a visit since aunty Kakoullou believed in having an insurance policy. I do remember her bursting into tears on many occasions saying that she would gladly give all her wealth away if she could get her youth back for a day. I certainly regret not being old enough then to be able to talk to her and hear her full life story.' Once again thank you for your article. I hope to be in Cyprus this September and my wife and I would like to take you to lunch one day. By the way Mr Yiannakis Papadopoullos is my god brother, his mother was my nounna. He may remember me but we have not met since 1960. If you happen to see him please him my regards. My best regards Takis Zachariou`   I thank his friend who got us in contact and I thank Takis Zachariou for sharing the life story of Kakoullou with us… With his permission I gave his contact details to Xenophon Kallis, Assistant to the Greek Cypriot Member of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that he can contact him and arrange to get a DNA sample… If we manage to find the remains of Kakoullou in this way there can be a match and she would not remain `unclaimed` in a box in a cold laboratory… I am so happy that we managed to find more details about her life and managed to find her family… But there is more good news: A few days ago, while waiting for a friend to cross from the Ledra Palace checkpoint, I run into Takis Hadjidemetriou who tells me that the husband of Kakoullou, the `missing` Giannis Ellinas is a close relative of him from his mother's side! He remembers his uncle Giannis, coming to their house on his shiny Raleigh bicycle on Sundays and bringing them sweets from the Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia back in the 50s and 60s… While the father of Takis worked in the joint market (bandabuliya) of Nicosia, Takis would go there and would always visit Giannis and Kakoullou in the coffeeshop they owned just next to the Bandabuliya… Prior to the 1963 events, uncle Giannis would warn the Hadjidemetriou family not to come to the Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia since there is too much tension. I find out that the sister of Takis is a writer and that she wrote a book where two chapters are devoted to Kakoullou. The following day we meet with Takis Hadjidemetriou so that he can give me more details of their lives… Perhaps I should get him in contact with the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for giving a DNA sample as well since Giannis too, is `missing` together with his wife, killed on the same day and buried on the same day, together, probably at the Tekke Bahchesi according to some witnesses of that tragic day… The tragic story of the `missing` Kakoullou and Giannis contains so much that it could be a movie like `Loksandra` if only we had movie makers in Cyprus who would be interested in such stories…Perhaps not now but maybe someone in the future would pick up our writings and try to show the story that is a real story from Cyprus…   20.1.2013   Photo: The house of Kakoullou near Bandabuliya in Nicosia...   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 27th of January 2013, Sunday.

A Syrian Cypriot activist: Adi Atassi…

A Syrian Cypriot activist: Adi Atassi…   Sevgul Uludag   Caramel_cy@yahoo.com   00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   He is an artist, a painter and a photographer, an activist… His family, the famous `Al Atassi`, have always had a big role to play in Syria since the 16th century… His relatives were presidents, foreign ministers, ruling elites of Syria and the family had a long tradition of sending their children abroad for education purposes… I meet him back in June 2012 when we start our workshop on `missing persons` for young artists from the two sides of the dividing line in Cyprus. It is extremely difficult to convince some of the Greek Cypriot artists to participate in such a workshop, everyone is very busy but we continue anyway – at the suggestion of Daphne, an artist from Limassol, the mother of our friend Nicos Triminikliotis I find Adi Atassi, the Syrian Cypriot who has spent half his life in Syria, the other half in Cyprus. He is 50 years old and only through his help we manage to find two Greek Cypriot artists: Sophia Hadjipapa and Simone, to participate in our workshop on `missing persons`.  It is not easy, I understand, for some Greek Cypriot artists, to sit together with Turkish Cypriot artists and try to tackle together such a humanitarian issue as `missing persons` - we would visit mass graves in both sides of the island, we will look at what sort of crimes both sides have committed, therefore it is not easy unless you are totally independent to dwell on such a course… But I never lose hope and for me numbers don't mean anything: What's important is the first step and to set a role model for the future. Even though some Greek Cypriot artists might have felt a lot of caution when they heard about what we were about to do, I am sure that in the coming years, they will come round and do similar activities, making it NORMAL to sit together and talk about things that hurt us both… Adi Atassi has no doubts when I tell him about the workshop where we would have relatives of `missing persons` from both sides testify to what they have gone through, where we will take them together in burial sites in both sides where people had been murdered and hidden, where they would have all the material that they would need that we would provide and where they would paint or sculpt in the end, to reflect something that has not been reflected yet: Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot artists thinking together about `missing persons`, facing the real history together, trying to make sense of what we have lost in the past 50 years, reflecting on the feelings of the relatives with `missing persons`, whether they are Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot, seeing the humanitarian side of all this and facing the human pain, rather than trying to `compete` for whatever reason. Adi Atassi comes from pain, his country is in turmoil, one of his uncles was removed from power by father Esad in Syria and put in prison, Esad replacing him and a psychological terror campaing started against the whole Al Atassi clan. As a young boy, Adi would find himself opposing the new regime and not quite sure what might happen to him if for instance, he would go to the army to do his `military service`. Adi would meet a Greek Cypriot young girl, would get married with her, would leave Syria 25 years ago and then start to live in Cyprus. But living in Cyprus would mean getting stuck here since he would not be able to go back to Syria and he would encounter a lot of discrimination when some Greek Cypriots would learn that no, he's not Christian but a Moslem… `It took a lot of years for them to realize that being a Moslem did not mean that I was a Turk!` he would explain to me… Some Greek Cypriots would put a lot of pressure on him to change his name and his religion, give up being a Moslem and being Adi, to become a Christian so that he would have a much easier life and a good job in Cyprus. But he would refuse… `Not that I am a religious person but in principle why should I be forced to change my religion?` he would say and refuse… During the workshop about `missing persons` that we have organized, Adi would sit there and listen, Adi would come with us to the mass graves and take photographs, Adi would visit the homes of both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot relatives of `missing persons` and listen to them with his heart… `In Syria, the number of missing persons is more than 75 thousand` he would explain to me. `There are some suspicions that some of them might have been kidnapped for the sale of their organs…` As I would get to know him, I would realize that he is never idle: He would go to Madrid or Cairo, he would be in demonstrations or busy collecting aid for the thousands of refugees fleeing the border for safety… The war in Syria would take its toll on Adi but he too, would never be hopeless, he would do everything he could to help the refugees… `We ordered 3 thousand boots for children…` he would tell me after a trip to the refugee camps on the border with Turkey and Syria… `I cannot describe to you how the situation is in those camps… They need everything… They need bread, they need clothes, they need milk, they need blankets… They need cornflakes, canned food, diapers for babies… They need shoes and boots… We ordered 3 thousand boots for children, plastic boots but still boots… Because when they left their country it was summer time and now it's winter and they are barefoot still… We need help…` He would travel to get and distribute the boots in the refugee camps and as one of the very active organizers of `Union of Syrians Abroad` together with his friends, he would work in this nonprofit humanitarian organization in order to help the Syrians in the refugee camps to survive… This 50 year old activist, who spent his first 25 years in Syria and the next 25 years in Cyprus, a painter, a photographer who comes from a family with three presidents and many known leaders who had led Syria in the past is now struggling for the survival of his people and he can understand what we have gone through in Cyprus since his people is going through hell now… Syria is burning and Adi who comes to our workshops and sits with us and listens to the pain our people have been going through needs our support now to help the children in the refugee camps, the children who had to flee the war in order to survive in life because as Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots we all know and have the experience of what being a refugee is… Those of us who want to contact him for more information can call him at +357 99 877387 or through his e-mail: adiatassi@primehome.com to see how we can help…   1.1.2013   Photo: Adi Atassi with refugee children   (*) Article published in POLITIS on the 20th of January 2013, Sunday.

In the gardens of the Mevlevi Tekke…

In the gardens of the Mevlevi Tekke…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Τel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   One late afternoon, together with one of my readers who grew up in old Nicosia, we go to the Tekke Bahchesi area to look at the possible burial sites he remembers from both 1963 and 1974… Mevlevi Tekke was a religious centre of the Mevlevi sect, the followers of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi – his followers, the whirling dervishes in long white robes would have performances to religious music, whirling and dancing… Mevlana, a mystic of Islam advocated unlimited tolerance, love, goodness and positive thinking… `Come, come, whoever you are, Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire, Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times, Come, and come yet again. Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.…` he had written… `In tolerance be like the Sea In compassion and grace be like the Sun In modesty and humility be like the Earth In generosity and helping others be like a river In concealing others faults be like the night In anger and fury be like the dead…` he said… The Mevlevi sect was common among Turkish Cypriots until late 50s and the Tekke Bahcesi (The gardens of the Tekke) were right behind the religious centre, a huge garden that gradually turned into a cemetery and in some parts shops would be built. During the intercommunal fighting of December 1963, it proved impossible for Turkish Cypriots to get out of the walled city of Nicosia in order to bury the ones killed during the conflict at the normal cemetery they had close to Dikomo. Therefore, they started burying those killed in 1963 at the Tekke Bahchesi, behind the Mevlevi Tekke. In this place that eventually turned into a military cemetery, some `missing` Turkish Cypriots were buried in February 1964 and until today you can see those graves with inscriptions on them saying `Unknown` or `Ayvasil` with a number. Ayvasil or Ayios Vasilios village was where a massacre of Turkish Cypriots had taken place – all those killed there had been civilian Turkish Cypriots: Those who could not escape the village like a grandmother with her small granddaughter, an old man who came to the village to bring eggs to his family and such… The rest of the village had managed to escape to become refugees, living in miserable conditions for many years to come. In February 1964, there were exhumations in this village, with the insistence of the Red Cross, under the presence of armed British soldiers, opening mass graves in the yard of the Turkish Cypriot cemetery of the village… Instead of the 10 or 11 Turkish Cypriots killed in the village, there came out 21 or 22 bodies from the mass graves… The Turkish Cypriot authorities, instead of trying to identify who the rest of those buried in mass graves were, they would bury them in the makeshift cemetery at Tekke Bahchesi, giving them numbers such as `Ayvasil 1`, `Ayvasil 2` etc. Families would not be notified or could not be notified and until today, despite repeated calls by the relatives of Turkish Cypriot missing persons, there has been no exhumations in this cemetery. It is believed that the people who were found in mass graves in Ayios Vasilios were Turkish Cypriots killed in the Nicosia General Hospital by some Greek Cypriots, as well as those killed in various parts in Nicosia and brought to the morgue of the hospital. In fact, the Greek Cypriot authorities at the hospital did try to identify them and even sent a notification to the Turkish Cypriot authorities in the first week of January 1964. They sent them news with a list of names and descriptions of 21 Turkish Cypriots in the morgue of the hospital, saying that these were Turkish Cypriots killed in Nicosia and that the Turkish Cypriot authorities should pick up the dead bodies from the hospital. The Turkish Cypriot authorities in those days could not or would not pick up these bodies so the Greek Cypriot authorities sent these bodies to Ayios Vasilios to be buried in mass graves. Perhaps they were not aware that already there had been a massacre in the village and some civilian Turkish Cypriots killed and buried in a mass grave… So when the Red Cross insisted that these mass graves be opened, they found around 21 or 22 bodies of Turkish Cypriots, most of them unidentified and took them to be buried at the Tekke. Some of those buried there are some of the Turkish Cypriot missing persons from 1963. But it was not only Turkish Cypriot missing persons buried here – Greek Cypriots killed in 1963-64 had also been buried here since there was no other place they could be buried that would be safe enough to carry out such burials for those who were burying them. I discovered through testimonies that at least three Greek Cypriots, `missing` from 1963 were buried here and I have their names. But there had been more burials not in the cemetery itself but around it – one Turkish Cypriot who took part in one of those burials of Greek Cypriots showed us where they had buried some Greek Cypriots late at night and we showed this place to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. But there was more information a few weeks ago by one of my Turkish Cypriot readers… He publishes some photos of the Tekke Bahchesi and as we start speaking with him, he starts telling me the stories from his childhood around this area. He and his family, as well as those living around the Tekke were witnesses to the burials of Greek Cypriots at the Tekke Bahchesi, outside the cemetery, both in 1963 and 1974. He even gives me the name of the Turkish Cypriot butcher who buried them to help us to get more details. So we meet one late afternoon and go behind the Tekke. He knows each tree and each stone in this area since as a child he grew up playing in this section of our walled city… `Look` he says, `these trees just outside the cemetery were there but a sort of a fence was passing from right behind them – the burial took place in this area…` We try to imagine how the old layout might have been just behind the cemetery and we try to follow leads… `People were buried here both in 1963 and in 1974 – these people buried were Greek Cypriots. They were buried with a bulldozer…` I thank this reader for taking his time and coming with me and showing me this place. In the following weeks, I take the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee here, to show them what my reader has shown me: Murat Soysal, Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay look at what I show them and we take pictures and coordinates from here. While we are there, some curious Turkish Cypriots come by to see what we are doing in the parking lot behind the cemetery. They too, have things to say, names to give about who might know better, where the exact burial sites in this parking lot might be. Taking the names and information, we thank them as well… Tekke's Gardens in old times were quite different from what it is now. Now there are no gardens, only buildings and during the construction of a coffee shop next to the cemetery, there had been rumors that some human bones were found. The cemetery itself did not look like as it looks now… Time has changed our geography and it is only in the memory of those who remember, the old appearance, the way it looked 50 years ago… Time has changed not only the geography but the culture as well – 50 years ago the whirling dervishes were still here, celebrating life with music and dancing. The Tekke was a place for the poor to come to have something to eat, the Tekke also had an orphanage and helped children in need… Now the Tekke is just a museum and behind it are all shops… The teaching of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the world famous mystic, the Sufi who embraced all with his poetry has disappeared from the face of Cyprus, after centuries of impact and only sanctuaries like the Tekke remained made of stone… Tekke Bahchesi, once where his words of love and tolerance had meaning now holds the `missing` bodies of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, buried together, resting in their final sleep…   23.12.2012   Photo: A grave marked as `Unknown` in the Tekke Cemetery   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 13th of January 2013, Sunday.

`Keep your heart clean…`

`Keep your heart clean…`   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   At a very early age, my mother would learn to sew her own dresses, knit her own sweaters, embroider the collars of her shirts… She would learn these from her big sisters or her cousin Ulufer. Ulufer's sister, Tomris was a hat maker and my mother would learn a few things from her as well, making me beautiful hats when I was a child for my dancing ceremonies on Children's Day. I would grow up surrounded with fabrics like cotton, velvet, thick woolen fabrics for coats, fake furs to put around the collars, knitting yarn to make sweaters, threads of different colors, beads and shiny sequins to embroider elaborate flowers on dresses, tin boxes of tea filled with different colored buttons… If she was `recycling` a dress, she would cut the buttons and put them in these tin boxes of Hornimans' Tea and if one of the children of my sister came to us, she would give her the boxes of buttons to build trains or dogs or cats, showing the child how to do it. Buttons were very important to her and we had buttons in Hornimans' Tea Boxes shiny like diamonds, wavy like the seas, buttons with tiny flowers painted on them, brass buttons, white buttons for shirts, pretty red buttons for velvet dresses she would sew, big buttons and tiny buttons… So when she was sewing, she would always check these tea boxes to see if there were enough buttons for the dress or nightgown she was making. We also had different colors of `kurdella` to put at the collars or hems of dresses… My uncles from London would sometimes bring her thread or some fabrics and she would be so happy while planning what to do with it… She had sewn her own wedding dress as well as my sister's, embroidering lovely flowers with sequins on it – she had designed it herself and my sister looked very pretty in it. I was a little bridesmaid with a pink gown that she had sewn and I would wear this, standing next to my sister at her wedding. I was only 3 or 4 years old – we have a difference of 14 years between my sister and me and I remember `La Comparsita` playing while my beautiful sister danced with the groom… There were never any nylon bags in those times – everything would be kept in either brown paper bags or bags she would make out of different fabrics. The traditional trahana, the molihiya, the rice and bulgur would all be kept in cloth bags tied tightly so no bugs would get in… Even the unused clothes would be wrapped in sheets and then put in chests. She valued fabrics, any fabric, even the smallest piece she would keep in case she would need it one day. When she would sew a dress or have a seamstress sew her something, she would keep a piece of the fabric, in case one day, she would need to mend that dress… And many times she was proven right: If some minor accident happened and a spot on the dress got burned or stained, she would mend it with the fabric she had kept. If there was a stain at the front of her shirt or dress that proved impossible to remove, she would sit and make a design and embroider it in such a way to hide the stain. Nothing was ever thrown out, everything would be recycled, old sweaters unstitched, the wool washed and hung to dry… I would have to hold my arms in front of me while she would make colorful balls of knitting yarn from the wool around my arms… These then, would be re-knitted for me or for her… She would lay down an old coat of hers on the table and cut out a new pattern that would turn into a coat for me! She was very creative with patterns and she would draw elaborate designs of embroidery on thin, almost transparent paper and she would sew these over the dresses she would make for us, later on tearing down the paper and the colorful flowers would stand out on our collars or skirts… Inside books, I would find these thin pieces of paper with her designs… She had a way with seeing something only once and then doing almost exactly the same thing later on… When I was pregnant to my son, she would create tens of cuddly animals, dogs, cats, bears, complete with eyes and noses, rabbits with puffy tails… She would see something on TV and she would sit down and make it… When my son was born, he had loads of handmade toys to play with that we still keep now as a memory of those days… With ordinary thread and ordinary needle she would create flowers, bunches of violets, cactuses, daisies, roses… I would buy her books about flowers and she would look at them and make flowers resembling in the book. Once, she had put a flower on TV and I said to her, `Mom, why did you cut off the flower of the cactus? It's a shame! You shouldn't do that!` and she would laugh at me and say, `It's not real! I made this one looking at the cactus flower outside!` She was not doing these to keep them, she would distribute them to my friends, to her friends, to relatives so her handmade flowers, complete with stalk and green leaves are distributed all over the world… I salute her skills, her way of life, her wisdom and the way she cared about what she had in this new year that gives us a chance to look back and see what we have lost and what we can hope for… Hers was a different generation who knew how to cook, how to sew, how to knit, how to embroider, how to survive on this island with little money but with lots of love and care towards others. She taught all of us the magic of love, that you had to take care of others so that the earth could take care of you… `Keep your heart clean` she would say, over and over again… `Keep your heart clean and the earth would know that… If one door closes, you must know that another door will open… Just keep your faith and don't do anything to harm others…` She would say that but she would also implement her words: I would realize that the more you shared, the more you would receive… She didn't like thrifty people, she didn't like stingy people – she thought that the more stingy they are, the more they would lose… She had an open heart and an open mind: She said what she believed in, without hesitation but she also showed respect and tried to understand why that person was thinking or acting in that particular way and she would explain these to me, pointing out what was important and what was not. `Look at your fingers` she would say to me, `are they all the same? But still, it's your hand… You and your sister and your brother are quite different… You simply can't be the same… Don't expect people to act or think the same way you do… Just put it from one ear and let it flow from the other one! Don't think about it too much! Relax!` As the situation in our divided country gets worse and worse, I think of her more and more often, her wisdom, her words, her deeds… Even after her death, she is still with me, guiding me through difficulties and giving me hope with her endless love and care… I know that so long as I remember her, she will always remain beside me, smiling from her photo on my desk, reminding me how Cyprus was and how Cyprus could be…   26.12.2012   Photo: My mother in Limassol in 1930s…   (*) Article published in POLITIS on the 6th of January, 2013.

Struggle in Cyprus and Mexico…(*)

Struggle in Cyprus and Mexico…(*)   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   We gather at the Cyprus Community Media Centre on the grounds of the Ledra Palace Hotel on the Green Line dividing Nicosia, to open the exhibition of scarves embroidered by the relatives of `missing persons` in Mexico, on the 18th of December 2012, Tuesday evening… We set up the exhibition with the help of my friend Nilgun Guney, with whom we have been running a workshop on `missing persons` for young artists at her studio, as well as Gulay Kasher, an activist for peace… Gulay is 62 years old but every day she is out in the streets, demonstrating, together with a citizens' initiative about various issues that concerns our communities. They change their slogans each week after discussing the most important issues and the agenda for the week. They stand during rush hours of traffic, wearing the printed slogans on them and just standing there for everyone to see: Sometimes they got sworn at, sometimes passers-by make obscene signs to them but most of the time they get a cheering from passengers in cars and horns are beeped showing agreement to the slogans… Last week as I was coming back from Agios Dometios, I saw her standing with the slogan on her: `Sleep well and grow up… Lullabies to you!` urging the community to wake up! The Turkish Cypriot community is going through very difficult and harsh times – every day there is at least one demonstration and one strike going on… Teachers are on strike because teachers have not been appointed to schools due to a rift among the authorities, they have been demonstrating against new dress codes sent by Ankara – in Turkey too, there has been demonstrations against the new dress code for teachers and government workers. Teachers fear that the government in Turkey might put new dress codes in order to bring a more conservative appearance in the northern part of Cyprus, as well as Turkey. The trade union of electricity workers have been on strike on and off, against the privatization of electricity. Last week they started cutting off the electricity of government buildings, courthouses, municipalities, street lamps and anyone else that does not pay the bill in the private sector. There are some hotels who have vast amounts of debts but who don't pay a penny since they have support of the authorities in the northern part of the island. The trade union of electricity workers, EL-SEN, thinks that this is done on purpose in order to bankrupt the electricity authority so that it can be privatized – Ankara has already decided that electricity should be privatized. So nowadays at night some streets are in total darkness… The Nicosia Turkish Cypriot Municipality Workers Trade Union BES has also been on strike: While there are around 250 municipality workers in Nicosia Municipality in the southern part of the island, there are more than 1,200 workers in the northern part working in the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot municipality. Hundreds of persons were employed by the current Turkish Cypriot mayor and as a result the municipality went bankrupt and could not pay wages… Garbage was not collected for months and streets were stinking while flies and rats started appearing all over the place. Nowadays, the authorities have some private companies collect the garbage but this has not solved the problem of the workers in the municipality… Their wages have not been paid for months. The mayor is trying to get a big loan from a bank from Turkey but the bank's conditions have also upset the workers… Workers are against layoffs and are demonstrating in the streets. On one such occasion few weeks ago, they threw garbage in all the main roads, making it impossible to drive through these streets, in order to get the attention of the public. Last week lawyers went on strike and made a demonstration with their black robes, protesting a new law about payments of debts. If the new law comes into force, people will not go to prison for avoiding paying their debts and thousands who have not been able to pay and who are sent or will be sent to prison will be pardoned. Lawyers and judges think that this is a political intervention in the court and justice system and are against this. The Young Businessmen's Association made a statement saying that if this new law is put into force, they will call on their members not to pay their debts! Sometimes it's farmers who have demonstrations, sometimes small merchants or some left groups… One of the biggest discussions of the past weeks has been the economic protocol signed between authorities in Ankara and Nicosia, foreseeing privatization and other economic measures. Already the Ercan Airport was privatized and the new operator is a firm from Turkey who will start running the airport from the 1st of January 2013. One group called `Baraka` said last week, `Ayshe, the holiday is over, get out of Cyprus!` `Ayshe` was the code name giving the sign to Turkish soldiers to proceed to the second phase of their military operation in Cyprus back in August 1974. The group, protesting the Ambassador of Turkey in Cyprus, as well as local authorities for signing the latest economic protocol with Ankara, symbolically put them in a basket attached to black balloons and had them fly out of Cyprus in the basket with the balloons! So this is the atmosphere pertinent in the northern part of Cyprus and with these conditions, my friend Gulay is never at a loss for finding slogans to demonstrate with, together with her friends from the citizens' initiative… She comes to help me to set up the exhibition on the Green Line… We open the exhibition on the 18th of December 2012 Tuesday evening and many Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot relatives of `missing persons` come… We put on a rope some of the scarves embroidered by the relatives of `missing persons` from Mexico – Cordelia Rizzo, about whom I wrote about in these pages in the past months had contacted me for advice about what they could learn from what I have been doing concerning the `missing persons` in Cyprus. She is part of the demonstrations and the women's embroidery movement in Mexico: Each scarf embroidered with green thread tells the story of a `missing person` and each scarf embroidered with red thread tells the story of someone killed but whose killers have not been punished. Every Sunday they gather in town squares to embroider these scarves and then put them up on a rope for passers-by to see… They too have their struggle in Mexico, just like us in Cyprus. Petros Souppouris and Huseyin Rustem Akansoy, who both lost their families in massacres in Palekythro and Maratha back in 1974 and who are leading members of the Bi-Communal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of War and Massacres called 'Together we can' open the exhibition. Souppouris says, `What we have been doing in Cyprus has crossed the ocean and reached Mexico…` Christos Efthymiou, leader of `Together we can`, says that the pain of relatives of `missing persons` are common both in Cyprus and in Mexico… I tell the story behind the scarves and Ricardo Lopez from Chile who has been in Cyprus for many years talks about the issue of `missing persons` in Latin America since 1910… On the night of the exhibition, Gulay comes after her demonstration bringing some nuts, I have brought bulgur koftesi (koupes), Christina Pavlou Solomi has cooked pies with halloumi and olives, Maria Georgiadou has brought some melomakarona she baked. We offer wine brought by Christos and these things to eat at the exhibition and there is a warm atmosphere as people greet each other and go to see the scarves and read in three languages, Turkish, Greek and English, what's written on them. Galina has translated from Spanish to Greek, Christos from Greek to English and I translated from English to Turkish so everyone can understand what's been embroidered on the scarves… For one night, we might put aside everything, the darkness of the streets in the north, the daily demonstrations in both sides of the island, the economic crisis and let our heart beat in Mexico, feeling the pain, suffering and struggle of the Mexican people for their `missing persons`. For one night we might remember that we are part of the world and it is not only Cypriots who suffer but thousands of miles away, in Mexico, there are more than 10 thousand relatives of `missing persons` waiting to hear about the fate of their loved ones. Some of them have been taken by police or army, some kidnapped and `disappeared`, all of this happening in the past six years… Nouritsa Nadjarian, an old Armenian Cypriot friend is also here with us: She leads a `Patchwork` group and knows how to embroider. She will embroider one scarf to send back to Mexico to express our solidarity and love from Cyprus to the relatives of `missing` from Mexico… She knows better than most what it means to live in pain, her family expelled from Anatolia back in 1920s… Born in 1921 in Nicosia, Nouritsa, a very distinguished lady, a dear friend, will embroider the scarf with love, empathy and the joy of being able to connect with the rest of the world: She will express exactly how we feel and this scarf will be another connection of ordinary people who suffer all over the world but who can manage to develop relations of understanding no matter where they live… Oceans don't matter, miles don't matter, what matters is that we are human and we struggle daily for a better world whether we are in Mexico or in Cyprus, whether we are in the northern or southern part of the island – we are all human and we are capable of connecting with each other to create a better understanding and solidarity amongst us…   22.12.2012   Photo: From the exhibition of scarves from Mexico at the Cyprus Community Media Centre on the Green Line in Nicosia, Cyprus   (*) Article published in POLITIS on the 30th of December, 2012 Sunday.