Searching for a way out of the labyrinth…
Sevgul Uludag
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`Uncle Giannis would come every Sunday with sweets made by Turkish Cypriots… He would come on his Raleigh bicycle to our house in Agios Dometios… We would look forward to those sweets since in those times this was a great luxury…`
Takis Hadjidemetriou now 78 remembers his uncle Giannis quite well… He was a close relative from his mother's side, from Morphou… Giannis has been `missing` since 1963, together with his wife Kakoullou… They had been killed by some Turkish Cypriots at the end of December 1963 and later that night buried in the Tekke Bahchesi (`Garden of Tekke`) by two of their neighbours… The neighbours had been witness to the killings of Giannis and Kakoullou – I had written their accounts previously in these pages as well as the letter of one of the relatives of Kakoullou from London… Kakoullou and Giannis had been living in a house next to the Agia Sophia (now Selimiye Mosque) within the walled city of Nicosia, in the Turkish Cypriot part… Giannis Ellinas had warned the sister of Takis one day in early December 1963, telling her not to come and go around in this part since it was becoming too dangerous… Takis says that `He could smell danger from that time…`
Giannis, seeing that they had come to kill him and his wife, tried to escape and go towards Ermou Street but could not manage… He had jumped from a second storey window down to the Khani below and broke his leg – crawling he had tried to leave since the street they lived in was close to Ermou Street but the killers had caught up with him and killed him in the street… Kakoullou was killed in her bed in her house and thrown in the street… The Turkish Cypriot neighbours feeling terrified with all this violence but at the same time feeling sorry for the killing of their Greek Cypriot neighbours had taken the bodies from the street, hidden them in a van they used for distributing goods and waited for the night. Secretly they had gone to the Tekke Bahchesi (`Tekke's Gardens`) and buried the couple secretly in the dark of the night… Kakoullou and Giannis had no children to actively search for them… Most of Kakoullou's family was in faraway Gialoussa in Karpasia and in those days, news travelled slowly in Cyprus – no mobile phones, no internet, no fax machines… 1963 seems like a lifetime away and yet its scars are here in our hearts and minds, destroying life in Cyprus, creating `missing` from both communities, creating mistrust and fear just like 1974 that finally led to the complete partition of our island, resulting in hundreds of `missing` and killed, thousands of displaced, people uprooted from their homes they built working all their lives, losing their fields, their trees, their animals, their houses, their dowries, their photographs and furniture… Only their memories, good and bad and bitter memories would remain… The key to a house would remain or a `bavouli` that would only fit so few things to take with you… Always there would be something lacking – even if you had been able to take away your chest, your bed, your clothes and your photos, still your trees would remain without you, your flowers, your garden, your fields and would come back to you in your dreams…
In these dark days of July where there are so many commemorations for those Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots who died in the war, few voices of wisdom looking forward to a better future are heard. We hear the same things repeated over and over again every year but what is the way out? Are we locked up in the labyrinth of Minotaurus that we can't even conceptualize a bright future? What is the way out of the labyrinth? Do we see any future in this partitioned country for our children and angoni?
Any move creates suspicion and any proposal is scrutinized by sceptics. Any attempt to do something new is bound to be killed before it has a chance to flourish… This is the general mentality of Cypriots, whether they are Turkish or Greek speaking – the underlying reason is that they have been disappointed so many times that people are afraid to hope and to dream! The forces who are intransigent and who want the partition to continue have always managed somehow to steal the dreams and hopes of our communities… I remember during the times of Denktash, whenever there was a fresh move to `resolve the Cyprus conflict`, he would `assure` people that `nothing will happen, don't you worry!` Even though Denktash is gone, the same sort of attitude remains – the two `sides` does not even `negotiate` now, let alone create hope and dreams for a better future. And we have new `belas` called gas and oil… In the whole area of Middle East, the petrol never brought any happiness to the people living there but instead brought dark days and endless wars involving outside powers… We have the whole area on fire and we are sitting in the middle of the Mediterranean searching for a small light that might bring some peace and happiness to us, a way out of the labyrinth…
Actually it would not take too much effort but only a very clear mind, courage and wisdom to get out of the labyrinth… It is us, the Cypriots who helped build the labyrinth because without the cooperation of certain sections of our communities, the `outside` powers would have not have been successful.
It would only take wise leadership on the island from both communities to sit together and work out a road map out of the labyrinth that would protect primarily the needs and concerns of both main communities of the island. The type of `leadership` we need for such a road map is people like Takis Hadjidemetriou, like Alpay Durduran, people like them who have proven to all of us that they have actually risked their own lives in order to defend peace and democracy on this island. Only with such leadership who would care as much for `the other` communities, not just their own, we can find a way out of this mess that our communities have helped to create. If we, as Turkish speaking and Greek speaking Cypriots can agree on a road map out of the labyrinth, it is much easier to deal with whatever `outside power` there is who might like to keep us inside the labyrinth…
For us to succeed, first of all we must look in the mirror and face our own mistakes, our own stupidities, our own weaknesses and as people of this land must find a way to walk together out of the labyrinth. We can't ever get out of the labyrinth unless we join our efforts as Turkish speaking and Greek speaking Cypriots, as well as `other` smaller communities like Maronites and Armenians – we all belong to this land and have nowhere else to go, no other motherland, no other sky under which we would feel most comfortable because this is the place we are born in. Only if we build trust among all Cypriots, only if we face the past together and see clearly how Cypriots have been used and manipulated by their own mistakes, we can try to build a road where we can walk together towards the light… Unless we deal with how this labyrinth was created, we won't find our way out of it, neither community and in future we shall become extinct while outsiders will continue to enjoy the benefits of this land…
19.7.2013
Photo: The house of Kakoullou as painted by Turkish Cypriot painter Ferah Kaya (oil on canvas). The painter remembers clearly Kakoullou and her husband...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 4th of August 2013, Sunday.
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