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.