Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
I want to bend down on my knees and kiss the soil and open my hands towards the skies and thank you my land…
I want to face the sea and the winds, the clouds and the sun, I want to extend my hands towards your heart and thank you my land…
I want to lay down on your beach and take a handful of sand and hold it in my palm and thank you my land…
I want to climb your hills and smell the pines and listen to their song and thank you my land…
I want to embrace every corner, every stone, every tree, every bird and every cat and dog, every living thing on you my land and thank you…
I want to let go of all my sorrows, all my worries, all my anxieties, all the bad energy I got throughout the year from those evil persons and breathe in a new day, a new month, a new year and find hope in you my land…
I want to let go of the past, of the tears, of the unbearable pain…
I want to let go of the storms in my brain and in my heart, cleanse my soul from all those dreadful years and dreadful stories of our past, I want to find meaning in you my land…
My land, my country, my soul…
Wherever I have gone, I have carried you with me, in my heart…
Wherever I went, I looked for your colours, for your smells, for your roots…
My land, my country, my soul…
Let me embrace you for one more time so I can find enough strength to carry on…
My land, you have been kind to me, good to me despite all the evil persons around trying to destroy humanity on this land…
Despite all the evil and the stupid who only think of their own personal benefit, their own personal status, their own chair, making a few bucks more at the cost of killing a bit more the humanity, you have been kind to me my land, offering me solace, strength and courage to walk on towards better days, towards humanity, towards making you more liveable…
My guide has been compassion, mercy, empathy…
My guide has been all those who struggled for better days on this earth before me and I took solace from having heart comrades from history and from the current times to be able to continue…
My wings burned down and I created my wings from the ashes to fly over you my land and with each new story that I wrote, I would become more sad and more experienced – I would know how to differentiate between the lack of sense and the lack of understanding as well as a surge of compassion in these stories…
I would learn how to mend my wings from the little and big things you offered me my land – the earth that is so innocent with its own natural laws and natural life, the trees I would touch, the roots I would feel, the natural kindness of animals with whom we share this earth…
Struggling against evil of the past and present, I would know that I have to do the best thing I do in life in order not to lose my soul, not to lose your value, not to lose my dreams…
Struggling against the evil and stupid who can destroy beauty, kindness and compassion and think only of their own little interests, I would confirm and reconfirm every single day that the only way out of the dark pits they create in our communities for all of us to fall in is through a daily struggle and that this can only be done only if there is love in our hearts…
I would realize over and over again that if one does not love you enough, it would be futile to try even to struggle because love is the strength one needs in this struggle, the only strength that can endure all the evil and all the stupid…
I would embrace you with love every single day my land, knowing that we are all part of this earth and only with love we can move forward…
Once, a peace activist, a friend who passed away this year told us `You teach what you are…`
You cannot do more than what you are…
You cannot move more than what you make yourself of…
She moved in different continents, different countries, different conflicts trying to heal the wounds, trying to bring some sense into senseless conflicts, trying to empower peace activists like us teaching us the rules of Aikido and how we could use the negative energy of the evil forces to lead it and turn it around and make it harmless…
She would teach us to sit down and listen and to paraphrase what we heard from the other – did we really understand what they are trying to say?
Did we really go down the tip of the visible iceberg or did we simply see the iceberg and not what lies underneath?
She taught us to try to see what lies underneath the iceberg we encounter on our way on this earth – what sort of feelings are there lingering beneath the surface? Fear? Stereotypes? Anxieties? Inequalities? We would have to find out and tackle each and every one of these in order to understand why the iceberg is there…
Why the conflict is there and what creates those icebergs that we encounter…
She gave us strength and tools to encounter evil and stupidity and she left, leaving behind memories that we shared, things she said, things she did for peacebuilding on all continents…
We will all pass from this earth leaving behind who we have been, what we have done and what we failed to do…
We are on this land for a short time – what is a lifetime when compared with thousands of years of life on earth – and I am grateful for being able to do the things I am doing…
For having so many readers from all communities on this land and even more from other continents who help us in our struggle to bring out the truth…
I am grateful that the whole of last year, 2016, with the help of my Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot readers, we managed to help find the remains of three Greek Cypriots in Livadia in a well, one Greek Cypriot buried in a mandra in Neochorgo Kythrea, five Greek Cypriots buried in Epicho in the rubbish damp, nine buried in Mora, three buried in Komourdjou… In Komourdjou in another place we showed to the CMP years ago three or more "missing persons" have been found and some of them identified through DNA and we await their funerals… Theodosis Vourkas will be buried in Kalohorio, Limassol by his family on the 12th of February 2017… His remains had been found in Komourdjou in a place a kind-hearted reader had shown us and the CMP back in 2010… May he rest in peace… I am grateful that all the years of struggle for these places, finding witnesses, finding readers who would show voluntarily, following up the stories eventually would bring results in 2016… Our struggle for the Tekke Bahchesi in Nicosia where `missing` Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots had been buried in unmarked graves would last a whole ten years and finally in 2016 there would be digging there by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and the information that my readers had given would prove to be true – ten years of struggle would be finalized and the remains of 34 persons inside and 8 or 9 persons outside the cemetery at the Tekke Bahchesi would be found… Now it is time to wait for DNA identifications to see who they had been…
I am grateful that the whole of last year, 2016 that the remains of `missing` Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots have been returned to their relatives after DNA identification by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… I am grateful that my Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot readers contributed and had shown the burial sites to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee where remains were found at different dates and identified through DNA this year to be returned to their families and that this process continues… Remains of 10 `missing persons` from Greece were identified as young soldiers from ELDIK – one of our Turkish Cypriot readers had shown us their burial site and there the CMP found remains of 12 persons, 10 of them identified as Greek `missing persons`. This year remains of those `missing` from Strongilos were identified and started returning to their families for a proper burial – I am happy my readers contributed to the finding of their burial site… I am grateful to my Greek Cypriot reader from Paralimni who showed us where three Turkish Cypriots who were `missing` from 1964 were buried… They too have been identified and returned to their relatives for burial… I attended some of these funerals…
I am grateful to our Greek Cypriot reader who showed us the burial site of a Turkish Cypriot `missing` person from 1963, Ramadan Ahmet and whose remains were found in a well in Polemi have been returned and his burial took place in Famagusta in 2016.
I am also grateful to the relative of a `missing person` who, together with a bulldozer operator showed me and the CMP the burial site of a Greek Cypriot in Kyrenia Boghazi – there, the remains of `Londos` (Christophoros Kaymakamis) were found and identified… His funeral will take place in January 2017 in Limassol and I will attend to lay flowers…
Last but not least, I am happy that in a place we showed to the CMP with a reader in Dikomo years ago, where remains of two persons were found have been identified… I attended the funeral of one of them, Petros Kyriacou Philippou to lay flowers and meet his family… The other person whose remains had been found has not been buried yet…
Another funeral I went to this year was that of Kyriakou Karasavva, an old lady `missing` from Trikomo – their burial site, we had shown twice to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee with the help of her son in law… Where we showed, four `missing persons`, among them Kyriakou Karasavva had been killed and buried… They have all been returned to their relatives for burial ceremonies…
The tragic situation of the old woman who had been laying down on her bed in Ayyorgoudi – Tyllirga – Nazire Sadik Chelebi and who had been buried under the rubble of her own house and stayed there for many years was also finalized and buried this year… I attended her funeral as well, together with Xenophon Kallis, assistant to the Greek Cypriot member of the CMP… Kallis had been telling us about her all those years – finally we had gone with the great grandson Nazim and Kallis and on the same day, our wonderful archaeologists would find her remains in the place that Mr. Nazim and Kallis showed them… I would lay flowers on her grave at the funeral…
I am peaceful and happy about all this help I get from my readers from both sides, as well as the relatives of `missing persons` from both sides with whom we walk this road together…
I am grateful to you my land for all of this and may we continue to open our path despite evil to continue our work in 2017 with love, courage and support…
May all those found with the help of our readers, rest in peace and may all their relatives find a bit of a solace with their burial…
30.12.2016
Photo: Theodosis Vourkas whose remains were found with help of a kind hearted reader...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 29th of January 2017, Sunday.
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