Breaking the zones of silence…

Breaking the zones of silence…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Readers continue to call and speak, breaking the zones of silence created by leaderships of this island throughout the years, consolidated by the behaviour of authorities in both sides, cemented by examples of attempts of silencing people in the past half century…
The zones of silence created in this country are so thick that sometimes you would think they are impenetrable but still there are enough people with hearts of courage and humanity to filter through and to shine the light towards the path of truth… There have been enough readers from both sides to attempt to tell the truth, to speak about things unspeakable, to show places of mass murders, to take a step towards a path that can only lead us to our common future together on this island… Because it is the zones of silence that will always keep us apart, that will help the partition to consolidate, that will keep the suspicion cunningly eating away the hearts of our communities. Seeds of suspicion, half-truths and a cloud of mistrust will always keep our communities apart if surrounded by these zones of silence… Only when we speak up, these clouds will start to clear and the truth would come out to the open…
A reader calls to tell me the story of a shooting range… In the 1960s there had been a private shooting range he says, somewhere in Cyprus… There had been a person who was not supposed to be there on a certain night but he happened to be there and he saw a bulldozer burying some people within the area of the shooting range… My reader does not know if the people were executed on that spot or if they were already executed and were only taken there to be buried.
The man who was not supposed to be at the shooting range on the night of the burial told this to one of his friends and it is how my reader found out…
Years later, a house would be built within the land of this shooting range but my reader thinks perhaps if we investigate the yard and the surrounding land, we might find a trace of this possible burial site…
My reader believes that the people supposedly buried in this shooting range might be some `missing` Turkish Cypriots…
We would have to investigate whether this story has some truth in it or not…
A few months ago, with some Turkish Cypriots, I had gone to Limassol – they wanted to show me some possible burial sites… One of them had been another, secret shooting range next to the Turkish Cypriot mahalla of `Ay Antoni` as they called it. This shooting range had an entrance from inside the river – we would try to find it… The whole area had been renovated by the municipality and we saw roughly where the entrance to the secret shooting range might have been… My Turkish Cypriot readers showed me another building where prisoners were kept and questioned back in the 60s… Some `missing` Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot might have been buried in the shooting range and perhaps in the place of interrogation and prison. In the yard of the headquarters there had been a well for filthy water and there were some witnesses who had said that they might have buried some people in that well used as sewage… The building had changed and a huge garage
of some sort had been built in its stead but surely the well would be there… We could not enter the garage since it was closed but we took photos and decided to continue our investigations with Turkish Cypriots of Limassol who might know more details… There had been some `missing` Turkish Cypriots from Limassol who were `silenced` by people from their own community and one of them was rumoured to be buried somewhere here… In the zones of silence created in those years, it was quite easy to `label` someone as a `traitor` - even envy among persons or a rift would be enough to `label` someone that might even lead all the way up to his death. In the late 1950s there had been a teacher who had built a new house in my mother's village Knodhara and he was engaged and was getting ready to be married. An influential person from the village was envious of the good looks and the new two-storey house that the young teacher had built, this influential person
was also in love with the girl that the teacher would marry. He would start a rumour that the teacher who had been the leader of the underground organization around this area and who had been given the task of keeping the guns belonging to the underground organization hidden, buried somewhere had sold those guns in order to build a brand new, two storey house! The influential person would even report this to the headquarters and finally the teacher would be executed because of these lies… After his execution a simple shepherd would contact the authorities of the underground organization in this area and say `What shall we do with the guns, now that the teacher is dead? I had hidden the guns together with him…` And thus, the truth would come out that the teacher was innocent and killed for nothing, just simple envy… But few people would know the actual truth, hidden under the clouds of silence – it was so simple and easy to `label` people and
even get them killed in those years…
Perhaps the most vital thing to do is to create an atmosphere for breaking these zones of silence – my readers have been doing that and we are dismantling mountains of lies through their efforts… If the leadership of this island in both sides of the partition line are serious about building a culture of peace, the first thing that they must do is to help their communities to speak up, to talk about the truth of what happened in the past, to encourage this in education and to lead their communities towards a safer ground where there would be no zones of silence… We cannot build a common future over zones of silence… Unless we face the truth together, unless we try to find out what happened in the past together, any future on this island would be shaky and easy to bring down with simple manipulations… Lies and rumours survive under clouds of suspicion – it is only the truth that will all make us free from being used and manipulated…

11.1.2014

Photo: Turkish Cypriot neighbourhood of Agios Andonios in Limassol...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of January 2014, Sunday.

From Strongylos to Sinda…

From Strongylos to Sinda…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

On the 20th of December 2013, Friday we are on the roads again, at my beautiful Messaoria… Living in Nicosia, I am always nicely surprised with the flat beauty of Messaoria, the simplicity of its traditional houses, the land stretching for miles with nothing, giving me the feeling of endless space, all the colours of Van Gogh in autumn and all the colours of Matisse in springtime… It has its own quiet beauty, whispering to us its tales of past centuries if we have the patience to uncover… Buildings of mud brick, simple minarets or mosques or tiny churches, it is covered with the footprints of civilizations that have passed from here but no longer exist…The group of eucalyptus, standing next to lonely, romantic palm trees… The silhouettes of farms where the master and his fiefs worked, the Catholics, the Jews, the Maronites, the Venetians, the Genovese, the Albanians, the Ottomans, the Turkish Shamans, the Greek Orthodox, all mingling in this
dusty soil, the Tekkes of Alevites, the Hodja who had been kidnapped in 1958 and killed and supposedly burned in a gamini, the blood and the tears and the early morning stars and late night darkness existing together on this land… Here in Messaoria, the eternal poverty of the simple folk, the eternal richness of the `masters` and the struggles the people waged to survive on this beautiful soil just to survive under `masters` of an ever-changing nature – at some point in time each and every one living on this soil would become `vulnerable`, in a fight for life when `masters` would change, when their religion or ethnicity would become a `sin` and they would have to change to adapt to new conditions, otherwise they would be wiped out completely from this land. The land would become `hybrid` like a chameleon with ever-changing colours of adaptation – under the Venetians, the Greek Orthodox would be `vulnerable`, under the Ottomans the Venetians would
have to change `colour` and adapt to other colours, since they would lose everything, including their homes and land and this would be an eternal struggle for every single ethnic or religious group on this land with no one to spare – perhaps the best word to describe our `civilization` would be `vulnerability` - `vulnerability` because of ever-changing conditions and ever-changing `masters` who would invade or conquer or buy this island and the eternal struggle of ordinary persons to keep what little they have…
Our first stop is right outside Strongylos where there had been some information or suspicions about a possible burial site… We are together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay… We are meeting a family from Strongylos who have some `missing persons` - the place we stop I recognize it from some years ago… This well, I had shown to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee some years ago back in 2009 - that is almost five years ago - as a possible burial site, to be investigated. We had come here together with Panayiotis Poyrazis and his wife Angelou… Panayiotis was the son of the `missing` mukhtar of Strongylos, the kind hearted, humanitarian Stavros Poyrazis… I had met Panayiotis Poyrazis back in July 2009 when we had honoured those who had saved each other during the time of war and the `missing` Stavros Poyrazis was one of those to be honoured on the night of 22nd of July
2009 at the `Peace Hall` on Ledra Street, Nicosia. We had honoured some Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, some of them `missing`, some of them deceased, some of them alive – these Cypriots were `role models` for our communities – they had done acts of courage and humanity under the most severe conditions – they had saved the lives of other humans from other communities during the time of war and conflict… Their acts of humanity would illuminate our path, if we had eyes to see and ears to hear… Just like Stavros Poyrazis, we had honoured the `missing` member of parliament, the only `missing` Cypriot Member of Parliament in Cyprus, Cengiz Ratip from Polis – he too had saved a busload of Greek Cypriots from being executed and he too has been `missing` since 1964… Cengiz Ratip too, had done acts of courage and humanity, going out of his way to negotiate the release of `hostages` from both communities during troubled times…
So on the 20th of December 2013, we go to Strongylos to meet a family who have `missing persons` - Strongylos is like a thorn in my heart – near the well we start talking about the past: How Hasan the Desteban from Vatyli while coming to Strongylos on his bicycle had been ambushed and killed at the entrance of Strongylos and how he has been `missing` since then, about the mukhtar of Strongylos, Poyrazis and how he had helped to save Turkish Cypriots of his village not only once but twice, that is both in 1963 and 1974 but how he ended up to become a `missing person`…
This is a well made of stone – it is not far from the `Cave of the Horses` and `The Cave with Columns` where a big group, gathered by some Turkish Cypriots from Sinda and a few from Strongylos had been taken to be executed – the group suspected to be around 19 or 21 `missing persons` were killed in those caves and later buried elsewhere… According to information from my readers from this area, there had been a `military operation` to empty the graves and bury them elsewhere… One reader had come forward with information that they had been buried in the Abalestra Chiftlik, in a well… After this information from a reader from Messaoria, during the exhumations of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, remains of some `missing persons` had in fact been found in the well in the Abalestra Chiftlik outside Sinda.
We say goodbye to the family from Strongylos and continue to meet another reader and his uncle from Sinda. His uncle through one of my readers had helped to find six `missing` Greek Cypriots from Lyssi and two other `missing` Greek Cypriots I don't know from where… I had gone and met him and he had shown us two burial sites that later we would show to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they would find, just as he described the remains of the six and the two `missing persons`.
Today we meet him again with his cousin. In an area called `Pallirodi`, he shows us a well where some Greek Cypriot shepherds `missing` since 1974 might have been buried. We had been working on this for the past few years when one of my readers, Shevket, had pointed out two other wells closer to Kontea with the same story…
Mr. Shevket had been a kind hearted soul – born in Houlou, he had become a refugee three times – twice in 1963 and once in 1974, ending up in Lyssi. Although he was not from the area but from Paphos, he had tried to help us through one of my readers from Sinda.
There had been five or six Greek Cypriot shepherds with their flocks of sheep trying to leave – they had been caught by some Turkish Cypriots from Sinda – according to my readers there were around 900 sheep… Three of them were killed and buried in a well in this area and two or three with the help of some other Turkish Cypriots had managed to survive and escape and remain alive… The flock had been shared among the killers.
Now that we stand on the edge of this well in Sinda, the old man who had helped us previously reminds us of the story with the shepherds supposedly buried in this well: Sometime after they had been killed and buried in the well, a Turkish Cypriot shepherd came to water his flock but his sheep would not drink the water from the well – it was stinking so bad… Shevket had told us the same story… So the shepherd took his flock elsewhere, later on finding out that there were `missing persons` buried in that well, that's why the stinking water… This well is not so far, I find out from the well that we had shown where another `missing` Greek Cypriot, Strouthos might have been buried… We will investigate more to find out more details about what actually happened in this area and whether this is the actual spot the `missing` shepherds have been buried.
The old man and his cousin want to show us another possible burial site so we go to the area outside Sinda called `Kırk donum` meaning `Forty Donums` - this had been the road to Nicosia from Sinda since the Lusignan times – it is a dirt track, no longer used since we have new, asphalt roads, long forgotten except by those who live in this area…
The old man shows us a well and tells us the story: Two Greek Cypriot soldiers, trying to escape in 1974 had been hiding in this area and they were discovered by some Turkish Cypriots and killed and supposedly buried in this well…
We thank the old man and his cousin from Sinda for their kindness, for trying to help to uncover possible burial sites, for trying to help those they don't know, that they never met… Another act of courage and humanity from Messaoria because barbarism and humanity in an eternal struggle still exist on this land and my readers choose humanity instead of siding with `evil` on this beautiful but painful island…

5.1.2014

Photo: Murat Soysal and Xenophon Kallis, officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee at one of the possible burial sites that my reader has shown us...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 19th of January 2014, Sunday.

Not a Hollywood movie…

Not a Hollywood movie…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

No, it was not a Hollywood movie, an American thriller where a group of five or six young students, barely 15 or 16 years old, would witness a double murder and would have to remain silent for the rest of their lives… No, it was not a scene from a movie where they would not even talk about what they had witnessed amongst themselves and it would take a lot of courage on the part of one of them to be able to come up with the information and share with me, after a lot of encouragement from a mutual friend…
They had been a group of young students, barely 15 or 16 years old and had gone to a field to collect some fruit… It might have been spring time or early summer since they had been wearing short sleeves, as he remembers… Perhaps it was April or May 1964…
The place was in Parissinos, Strovolos, not far from the CINEPLEX… In the field they had gone to, there were orange trees, fig trees, gonnara… Perhaps they had escaped from school to have some fun and some fruit and had come to this field… Outside the field which were fenced, it was all open space – no buildings in this area in those times but empty fields stretching on and on…
While collecting and eating fruit, the youngsters had heard the noise of a car, a police Landover approaching and they panicked! Since the field did not belong to any of them, they thought they were going to get caught stealing fruit! They all tried to hide, take cover, lay down on the ground so they would not be seen stealing the fruit…
The Landover had stopped just on the edge of the fenced field and two men with Sten guns had got out and had taken out two persons – one of them was middle aged and the other a younger person…
They stood them side by side facing the road and shot them with the Sten guns they had…
There had been some heaps of earth so the youngsters assumed that either there was a well there or the guys with the guns had opened a hole from before in order to bury these two unknown persons…
The youngsters had assumed that those two unknown persons executed there had been two Turkish Cypriots… It was daytime, perhaps early afternoon…
The youngsters were shocked from the shooting and were terrified of what they had seen had left after the Landover had left and would close their mouths for the rest of their lives, not even talking amongst themselves about what they had witnessed… Over time, two of these youngsters had died so there remained only 3 or 4 of them alive, who remembered this shocking experience…
One day about three years ago, one of them would tell this story to a mutual friend and she would find me and tell me what she had heard. She would even take me to the place and show me the site where two `unknown` and probably `missing persons` had been killed. He would decline from coming and showing this place – his shock continued after so many years…
On the 9th of December 2013 Monday, I would have a brief encounter with our mutual friend with this witness and she would ask me what had happened. Sure, I had told the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee about this place but it would be much better if the witness himself would come and show us. She would call him immediately and we would agree to meet the following day around CINEPLEX. I would immediately call the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they would agree to come and meet the witness.
So on the 10th of December 2013, Tuesday we would meet the witness… He would be sad and you could read that sadness from his face…
`How did you feel when this happened?` I would ask him and he would say `I thought that lives of some people did not count… That life was cheap for some… It was a big shock and we did not even speak amongst ourselves about what happened, afterwards… We closed our mouths for a lot of years… I did not even tell my wife about this – one Christmas night when we were abroad in 1989 or 1990, I told her about it… It took me so many years to speak about it even to my wife…`
Since they had not seen whether the two `unknown` persons were actually buried here, the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would have to make further investigations about this. Had they been buried here or further up where there were some wells? Was there a well here or was it a hole they had dug with the purpose of burying the two `unknown` persons that they would kill? There were other wells across the road so could they have been buried in those wells?
In two of the wells further up, the remains of a total of nine `missing` Turkish Cypriots - `missing' from 1963-64 – had been found and these remains had been returned to their families and they have been buried. So apparently this whole area was an area where they killed and buried people in the wells…
We would thank the witness and our mutual friend for coming and showing us the location of the crime that took place back in 1964 and say goodbye to them… The witness would not give his phone number – he would still carry the fear and shock of those days locked up in his heart… If it was not for the humanity and encouragement from our mutual friend, perhaps he would carry his secret all the way to his grave and would never speak up… She, like an angel would encourage him to tell her the whole story, to show her the place and later on would manage to convince him to come in person and show us this area… There aren't enough words to thank her for doing this…
I will make a call on those young students of those days who had witnessed to this incident to call me with or without their names and tell me if they have seen anything more or if they have heard any more details…
No, it's not a Hollywood movie, not a thriller we watch on TV where five or six youngsters witness a double murder and have to stay silent for many years, fearing even to speak about it amongst themselves and one of them, almost half a century later would come to show where the murders took place… This is the island of Cyprus, we are in 2014, we are talking about two `unknown` persons killed in 1964 in broad daylight in Parissinos, Strovolos, Nicosia… Please share if you know more details so that we can give some answers and perhaps some remains to the relatives of those two `missing` and `unknown` persons… My phone number is 99 966518 and if you want to remain anonymous, you may remain anonymous. Thank you…

Photo: Not a movie but actual life, this was the scene of the double murders...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 12th of January 2014, Sunday.

Days of remembrance and reflection…

Days of remembrance and reflection…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I learnt all the details about death and what remembrance and reflection means at a very young age… I was only seven years old when my father died on the 3rd of April 1966. I can never forget that date, I can't erase the 3rd of April from my mind or in my soul, it has become part of my memory that simply can't be erased.
I had been taken to one of my father's friend's house to stay overnight and out of the blue at night, I was thinking `What does it feel like when someone's father dies?`
My father had died that day but I did not know. No one had told me. They had only taken me to the house of Hakki Suha, to stay in the same room with Shirin, his daughter, my friend. Hakki Bey was the head of Bayrak Radio and my father had worked there for a brief period as translator. His Greek was perfect, his English was perfect, his Turkish was perfect. It was a time for persecution for him and he had been thrown out of many jobs… He had refused to join TMT, the paramilitary underground organization, he had rifts with Denktash because of this, he had been close with Greek Cypriots which was a `sin` in those days, he had been thrown into prison, me visiting him with my mother and reading him a poem I had learnt at the pre-elementary school, him crying, my mother crying, me, the three or four year old kid, trying to make sense of why he was there, why there was this green mesh between us, why I couldn't hug him, why he couldn't come home for the
New Year. He was set to spend New Year in prison because he had committed the `sin` of saying `NO` to joining the TMT.
`I can't slay a chicken` he had explained to them… `If I join and tomorrow you come and tell me you have to kill your brother because of this or that pretext, I can't do that… You go on your way but I can't join TMT…`
This was the `sin` he had committed and why he was in prison.
Eventually he would get out and work at odd jobs, the next day being thrown out of those jobs, the owners of the businesses being threatened by the paramilitary organization.
He had got a job at Bayrak to translate and I think it was his last job… Because he would die of a heart attack on the 3rd of April 1966.
That's why I must have been taken to the house of his boss and stayed the night there. That's why I must have sensed something terribly wrong with my life and as a seven year old kid asked myself, `What must it feel like to have one's father die…`
I wish no child finds out the answer… But I did… Next day, I was taken home… My aunt from Kridhia was crying out loud, my father was in the garage, in a coffin… They had put cotton in his nostrils and in his ears…
I wanted to hug him, kiss his chubby cheeks but they wouldn't let me… I couldn't hug him one last time… He was just there, in a coffin, still, peaceful and yet my heart was crying out loud… Our next door neighbours had five kids with whom I played a lot, making `Karagozi`, the shadow theatre or `Ispastra` with cards or hide and seek or simply with our dolls… Zehra, the eldest daughter would take me to their house and we would sit, me sad, Zehra and all the other kids, not really knowing what to say or do with me, feeling sorry for me...
Later we would go to the cemetery with my sister and her husband and their daughter Il. She was barely three or four years old and she too tried to console everyone, particularly my mother:
`Grandma, don't worry` she would say, `this is just a room underground… He would just live there… It's a very small room but he would be okay…`
Things would change in our lives… From then on, we won't go to weddings or parties… We won't go anywhere alone… In those years it would be considered a shame for a widow to go anywhere alone… We would only go if my older sister and her husband would take us somewhere like the beach…
The most dramatic thing every year, from then on, would be the month of April… At the beginning of April, my mother would start acting funny… She would be all nerves, she would close inside herself like a clam, she would lay on the couch, her hand on her brow… As a child I would suspect she had been crying…
Close to the date April 3rd, we would have the same behaviour every single year, throughout our lives… I would feel awkward, I wouldn't know how to console my mother, I didn't know how to console her, there was actually no consolation… April 3rd for her was a day of remembrance and reflection. It was a day of mourning the death of her husband… Every 3rd of April, we would have `Mevlid` in the house. We would invite neighbours and family to come to listen to the religious singings of a Hodja, Ahmet Gurses… We would prepare for this from days before: We would clean the house, get chairs from neighbours, make flaounes (pilavuna) with my mother in the kitchen to offer at the `Mevlid`, the Hodja would come, all women would gather and sit, I would offer rosewater in an antique bottle to each and every guest during the `Mevlid` and at the end help my mother to offer the flaunes and the `Sadrazam Sucugu` (a sort of lokoumi with walnuts inside), tea
and lemonade and coffee. At the end of each `Mevlid` I would cry when the Hodja would pronounce our names, saying `This mevlid is going out to Mr. Niyazi Uludag from his daughter Sevgul and Ilkay and his wife Turkan…`
So I learnt as a child what death and remembrance means, what it means to sit and think about your loss, how it had been when he was there, how it became so different when he was no longer there, my beloved father…
April 3rd was a day of mourning and remembrance in the collective memory of our family… I would always wish we never had those days in our lives because they were very sad days…
So when I saw that there would be a dancing event on the 21st of December 2013, I panicked… 21st of December? I knew that the organization arranging this event was a well-meaning organisation, a Greek Cypriot foundation doing this in the northern part of the island. Immediately I tried to contact them… I managed to contact one of the organizers. I would tell him about how 21st of December was considered a day of mourning and remembrance in the collective memory of the Turkish Cypriot community. 21st of December 1963 was the day when the inter-communal fighting had begun and many Turkish Cypriots, as well as Greek Cypriots were killed or disappeared on that day and the following days… It would be a very sad day for many Turkish Cypriots whose loved ones went `missing` or were killed on that day… I remembered my mother and me, how on the 3rd of April, we would be in the mood of mourning and remembering… I told the organizer that this day – 21st
of December - was not a day to come out and dance together in the streets since it was a very sensitive date particularly for many Turkish Cypriots. Many Turkish Cypriots are still `missing` from that date…
The foundation had organized a bi-communal youth dancing event in the Buyuk Han in Nicosia, in the northern part, as well as in the southern part of our capital. The person I contacted panicked. Although they had some Turkish Cypriots in their group, no one noticed that date, no one had warned them that this was a very sensitive date, definitely not a date for `dancing in the streets`… He tried to call all others concerned with the organization of the event… I suggested to him to postpone it but it was one day before the event and after they held a meeting, they decided that they could not cancel it.
On the 21st of December 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the 1963 events, a small group of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots went outside Buyuk Han and danced tango in the street…
Perhaps this showed that while some mourned, some wanted to celebrate life… Although done unintentionally, it brought out the paradigm of life and death in the same moment… Later on I would ask one of the organizers if he would be willing to organize a street dance event in Ledra Street on the 20th of July, it would be the same thing – these were very sensitive days and very sensitive memorial dates for our communities – unless we learn to show respect to that, we would never be able to build a culture of peace on this island.
For me, the most meaningful words came from a new group called `Left Intervention`… In a statement they said:
`We do not forget that about half a century ago, some Holidays in this country were not Happy at all. On December 21, 1963 the streets of Nicosia witnessed a series of events that epitomised the failure of the Cypriot political leadership to build a state based on mutual respect and cooperation.
On that night, the corpses of two Turkish Cypriots shot by the police, accounted for the toll of that day. There had been many more corpses on either side in Cyprus, prior to, and after that day.
Officially, quasi-officially, and unofficially sanctioned and organised deaths. Yet, there was no prosecution and no trial. We invite everyone resenting the culture of impunity in Cyprus manifesting itself in recent scandals to consider its deep historical roots. The demand for justice starts for there.
We propose to establish December 21 as a day of remembrance and reflection in Cyprus. We can only enjoy happy holidays if we admit and accept that at some point, some people on either side of the island contributed to turning a Christmas holiday into a bloody one. These people are among us, have never been confronted with the consequences of their actions, and are even honoured in the context of official state ceremonies.
Left Intervention, 24 December 2013.`

22-28.12.2013

Photo: December 1963 meant more tears, more refugees, more `missing persons`...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 5th of January 2014, Sunday.

Finding a humanitarian way to treat the traumas…

Finding a humanitarian way to treat the traumas…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

On the 21st of December 1963, which is considered a `Black Day` for Turkish Cypriots, that is the beginning of the inter-communal conflict of '63, a Greek Cypriot foundation organizes a `dance` in the northern part of Nicosia, at the Buyuk Han…
When I find out, I try to contact the organizers to try to tell them that this is a very bad choice as a date – that perhaps they should think of postponing it to another date… On that day and the following days until May 1964, many Turkish Cypriots were killed or went `missing`… It is an important date in our recent history as an island… Not only Turkish Cypriots but Greek Cypriots too had been killed or went `missing` around those dates… It was the beginning of the next phase of the conflict that would carry us to the partition in 1974… The conflict, brewing had already started in the late 50s but '63 was a turning point… We all know that…
A friend from Limassol calls me to invite me to this event and I tell her it is a very bad choice as a date… `If I call you to come and dance in Ledra Street on the 20th of July, would you like that? We should show a little bit of respect to the pain of the relatives whose loved ones have been killed or went `missing` on that date…` I tell her.
One of the Greek Cypriot organizers is shocked to find out that this is a very sensitive date for Turkish Cypriots, he is very sorry that none of the Turkish Cypriots in their group had noticed it and immediately he tries to speak with everyone and calls everyone and arranges a meeting but because so much effort has been put to this dancing event he says, finally they decide not to postpone it.
So on the 21st of December 2013, Saturday, some Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots gather at the Buyuk Han and dance…
I feel sad… Call it a `mistake` or `lack of care` - the `pretext` doesn't matter really – it simply brings sadness to my heart… Was it so difficult to shift this date and to show some respect to the pain of the relatives of those `missing` on that date?
I feel sad a lot these days when I sit down and listen to the impact of the 50 year old conflict on this island on the relatives of `missing persons`…
I feel sad to hear that one old Greek Cypriot woman, after the return of the remains of her husband, whom I had helped to find, has lost her attachment towards life and that her health has deteriorated… For many long years, she had been at the Ledra Palace checkpoint with a photograph of her husband in her hands, she was wearing black… After her husband had gone `missing` in 1974, it had been her life's aim to find out what had happened to him, she had found details and I had helped the relatives to find more details and to confirm that he had been killed and despite threats we had managed to find the burial site… After the exhumation of his remains together with others, I would also attend his funeral, bringing with me seashells I had collected from the beach in Karpasia, from the village where he came from, to bury with him…
But when she gets the remains and buries her husband, after some time, she realizes that she has lost the aim of her life and her health starts deteriorating… I am afraid to ask her son how she is but one of her cousins tells me about her… I wanted to visit her but I was advised by her relatives not to go since she might not recognize me… I feel sad because I know what a strong woman she had been and what sort of struggles she had to give to survive and to find out the truth… Her untreated traumas in the end open the gates to this new situation: She has lost her aim in life… I feel sad not only for her but for all those in similar situations – no one ever treated their traumas and now she lays down to die…
Another woman, a Turkish Cypriot whose father went `missing` in 1963 from Larnaka calls me every 15 days…
`What happened? Did they start digging? Did they find my father? It has been exactly 50 years since he went `missing` - my mother died waiting for any news… I am growing old now, shall I be able to take his remains and bury him before I die?`
She has been struggling alone to take care of her sick mother who had been bedridden – each time there was a funeral of a `missing person`, her mother would get excited and she would ask if she too would be able to take the remains of her husband and bury him… This year she passes away… I feel shame that we could not even give her the remains of her husband and now her daughter is waiting impatiently for this well to be dug or for that well to be dug to see if her father's remains would be finally found… 50 years… She had been a child and now she is a middle aged woman… She had baby teeth and now her teeth have fallen out… She had beautiful, shiny hair and now her hair has turned grey… Just imagine the time she has been waiting – 50 long, long, long years… And yet, still there are no results…
I go to visit two young women in their house… One of them was six years old when her father went `missing` in 1974… As a six year old girl, she would never leave the house, she didn't want to get out of the house just in case her father came back and did not find anyone at home… Again, no one ever treated her traumas… Who will compensate for this huge loss and huge pain and this trauma? Who will give her back the childhood that she lost? Just imagine being a six year old girl and never wanting to go out to play in the street or wanting to go to a neighbour's house or outside your village since your father might come and might not find anyone at home…
Can you imagine what she has been living throughout her life? Can you imagine her fear of getting out of the house? Can you imagine how this fear must have affected her soul?
How did all these relatives of `missing persons` cope all these years with all these traumas?
Cyprus is a place where thousands of people have been living with traumas throughout their lives with no treatment or understanding or care… Politicians in both sides would only use these traumas for their own agenda but no one would actually show some human care…
These traumas are not just the traumas of individuals; they are the traumas of our communities…
Ignoring these wounds and traumas will not make them go away…
They are still bleeding and we need to find humanitarian ways to cure these traumas… Otherwise our country will never heal…

21.12.2013


Photo: The first Turkish Cypriot victim Cemaliye Huseyin who was killed in december 1963... She left behind a daughter. Kyriacos Djambazis is currently writing a novel about her...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 29th of December 2013, Sunday.

The magical violin that saved the lives of the Bedelian family…

The magical violin that saved the lives of the Bedelian family…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

The little place was called Markneukirchen in Germany, on the border with the Czech Republic. In the 17th century, some Protestants who were being persecuted in Bohemia had fled and came to this tiny village where they would settle down. Among them were those with skills of making violins and brass instruments… For the next four centuries this tiny village would be producing these musical instruments – according to the information on Wikipedia, in 1900, 80 per cent of all violins and brass musical instruments were being produced in Markneukirchen, Germany.
The young Vahan Bedelian, son of Haroutioun and Rebecca Bedelian from Adana had put an order to produce a violin for himself, a copy of Joseph Guarnerius violins to this town. Vahan Bedelian got this violin from Markneukirchen, delivered to him in Adana in 1913. This violin would accompany him throughout his life, would save him and his family's lives. It was like a magical violin and he would keep it and play it and tell the story of this magical violin to his grandchildren… He would teach his violin lessons with this violin…
In 1909 when troubles began in Adana, Vahan Bedelian and his family would flee to Cyprus, would settle in Larnaka, and would stay for 15 months. Bedelian would go to the Larnaka American Academy and when things seemed to settle down, in 1911 they would return to their home in Adana, Turkey. But things would continue to brew and in 1913 the First World War would begin… In 1915 the Armenian population of Adana and Cilicia in general would be deported to Der Zor, Syria – Syria was still part of the Ottoman Empire and on their way there, the Bedelian family would stop at Aleppo… There, one of Vahan Bedelian's friends would arrange a job as music and violin teacher for him at the Aleppo School of Art… Bedelian's grandson Vahan Aynedjian, tells me the story of what happened in Aleppo:
`During the deportations of the Armenian population of Cilicia, my grandfather's family, which came from Adana, was deported to Syria, which was then, part of the Ottoman Empire.
They arrived in Aleppo and due to the fact that my grandfather, Vahan Bedelian, was a music and violin teacher, a friend of his, Mr. Akoyan, who had arrived earlier than him, had arranged a job for him at the Aleppo School of Art, as a music and violin teacher.
With this job, Vahan Bedelian managed, after considerable difficulty, to obtain a permit from the Chief of Police of Aleppo (Police Mudur), to stay in Aleppo with his whole family, which was comprised of 11 members.
There was a luxurious hotel in Aleppo, the Baron Hotel (which still operates), owned by two wealthy Armenian brothers, Onnig and Krikor Mazloumian, built in 1909, where all the government officials and rich merchants used to stay. There was a Pasha, Shukru Pasha, who stayed at the hotel on his way from Constantinople to Der-El-Zor, where he had been appointed as the next Governor.
The owners of the hotel had the idea of organizing a reception for the Pasha, with the objective of entertaining him, in order that he would have a good impression about the Armenians and their culture, and that he would treat them accordingly when he took charge as Governor of Der-El-Zor.
They had the idea of inviting Vahan Bedelian to play the violin during the reception. He played with so much sensitivity, the "A la Turka" pieces, that the Pasha was moved and he asked that Bedelian would come near him.
He asked: "Who is this young man", and when he found out that he was a young Armenian refugee from Adana, he immediately proposed that he would take him with him to Der-El-Zor, to teach this art there.
As soon as Bedelian's friends heard this, they said that this is not possible as he had a job in the local Art School and that the local community needed him. Another friend realized that if Bedelian left, all the members of his family would have to leave Aleppo with him, as they were staying there with the permit obtained by him.
Fortunately, they managed to convince the Pasha to leave Bedelian in Aleppo, thus he and his family stayed there until the end of the First World War in 1918 and returned to Adana, when French forces were stationed in Cilicia.
Meanwhile, all others who left Aleppo towards the Syrian Desert, in the direction of Der-El-Zor, became victims of killings and of death from hunger and diseases.
That violin has made a very long journey. It started from Germany, where it was specially manufactured for Vahan Bedelian in 1913. That makes that violin, 100 years old this year. It was then imported to Adana and travelled with him during the deportation to Aleppo and after the end of the First World War, it returned to Adana and stayed there for 3 years until 1921, when they decided to flee to Cyprus and has since been in Cyprus.
In 1976, he gave the violin to me as a gift. I was 15 years old then.
He said to me: "This violin saved my life and also the lives of our family members.
If it was not for this violin, we would have all been deported to Der-El-Zor and only God knows where we would now be.
Because I knew how to play the violin, I got a job in the Art School of Aleppo and remained there until the end of the war.
The hands of the Pasha, who was going to Der-El-Zor as Governor, have touched this violin.
I want you to keep it, play on it and make sure that you hand it down from generation to generation, making sure that you tell them this story…` I have this violin now…`
Vahan Bedelian would teach music and particularly violin in Cyprus for more than half a century to Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Armenian Cypriots and all others. He would teach at four different schools, would set up bands and orchestras that would play on different occasions… He would have students of all ethnicities and would believe that music would bring people closer… His grandson Vahan Bedelian describes him so well:
`My grandfather Vahan Bedelian was a very patient person… He was a workaholic. He was a very religious person. He was a very kind and gentle person. He was a person with principles… He believed in music… He believed that music made people more human, it would make them approach life in a different way. Even if people were enemies, he believed that they would be able to communicate in the language of music. This was his philosophy and he would tell this philosophy to Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… `Music tells people what other people think… You can bring people together through music… Even if they don't speak a common language, music brings them together… Music can be their common language and this can happen in Cyprus` he used to say and always he gave music lessons in Cyprus to Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Armenians and to people from all other ethnic groups…`
According to his grandson Vahan Aynedjian, a normal day for Vahan Bedelian would start at 05.30 in the morning… He would get up and make gymnastics, in front of the open windows of his bedroom. Then he would go out to his garden, look at his flowers… He loved roses and he would pick a rose and put it on the breakfast table so he would enjoy the rose while having his breakfast. His first students for private violin lessons would start coming at 06.30 in the morning! At 07.00 he would go to the school he was teaching but it was not one school – he was teaching at the Armenian Elementary School and Melkonian and he would share his time amongst these two. On some days with his bicycle he would ride to go to the Turkish Cypriot Lyceum and to the English School to teach, his violin under his arm… His mornings would flow like this, sharing his time among four schools. He would have lunch between 1.30-2.00 and then chorus and orchestra practices would
begin – there were three other music schools where he taught as well as the private lessons in his house… He would continue until 6 or 7 at night… He took very good care of his health and he never smoked and never took alcoholic drinks… He would continue to work and give violin lessons until the age of 93! He would die at the age of 96 and would be buried in the Armenian Cemetery on the Green Line…
Bedelian did not belong to one community but belonged to all so what a coincidence that he would rest eternally in a space on the buffer zone… He had wonderful students from all communities, my brother was amongst his students of violin and my dream is to have some of his Turkish Cypriot, Greek Cypriot, Armenian Cypriot students to give a concert together to commemorate him… Perhaps in this concert, Vahan Aynedjian, the grandson of Vahan Bedelian who has the magical violin now, can also play with that violin that his grandfather gave him as a gift… This year, the violin is exactly 100 years old… So perhaps, with those interested in commemorating this great master of music Vahan Bedelian who has given so much to all Cypriots for more than half a century, we can work towards a day of commemoration for all the communities of Cyprus – as he had suggested, perhaps music can bring us all together to create a better understanding on this little,
tormented island…

7.12.2013


Photo: Vahan Bedelian with his `magical violin` in 1925

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 22nd of December, 2013 Sunday.

Learning to love the earth…

Learning to love the earth…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

We bring nothing with us when we come to this earth – we get out of our mother's womb and we are naked… We leave the same way, when it's our time to leave, not possible at all to take anything with us…
We come to this earth crying and we leave crying… Calling out to our mothers, the very first connection with our earth…
It is our mother who teaches us everything for the first years of our lives. She teaches us to smile, she teaches us to love, she teaches us to talk and to take our very first steps on this earth… She teaches us not to fear, she teaches us the loving care when we are sick, being by the side of our bed, caressing our head, soothing us, telling us that everything will be all right. She is our only and primary connection with the earth; all other relationships come after that…
She teaches us to eat and drink, she cooks for us, nurtures us… She gives her milk and then when we are old enough, she cooks wonderful things for us to eat… I remember how my mother used to cook eggs for me – the melada style – and feed me with a spoon, telling me to open my mouth wide since the plane was coming to land in it! She would put a little salt on each spoonful of egg and my mouth would fill with the pleasure of eggs… She would dip bread in the egg and would feed me, telling me stories and fairy tales so I would not notice that I was eating and all of a sudden, both eggs would be finished! As a child she would tell me years later, she had only seen eggs in books – they had been such a poor family that she didn't know what eggs tasted like. Only when she was grown up, she would discover eggs… Perhaps that's why from a very early age, she would try to feed me eggs for breakfast…
During times of deep poverty when my father had died and had left debts of the house owned when it was being built, my mother would hide the egg shells from the previous day and in the morning when I would ask her why she was not having an egg with me, she would show me the empty shell and say `I already had it before you woke up…` A white lie, I would discover years later because there weren't enough eggs for both of us…
She would make soups for me when I was a child, lentil soup with chicken stock, rice soup with carrots and celery and pieces of chicken – she would always put the liver of the chicken in the soup and would reserve this for me. She would feed me the liver of the chicken with a little salt on it and I would be all smiles…
Whenever I would feel sick with flu or would have a headache, my mother would make me `mother's soup`, putting carrots, celery, fresh tomatoes, chicken, rice and red lentils to make me strong. She would tell me stories about lentil soup, how good it is for our bodies, how it contains iron and how she had met a very old guy who came as an inspector to her school when she had been a young teacher… The old guy had rosy cheeks and he looked very fit despite his age. They would ask him his secret and he would tell them that `Every morning he would eat lentil soup!`
She would show me the lizards and tell me how great they were, eating all the flies… She would show me the spider webs in our garden and tell me that they were here on this earth and that they served a very good cause by eating the flies! She would tell me stories about snakes and how snakes ate rats and helped the farmers… She would tell me about black snakes that Cypriots used to cherish like pets, once upon a time in Cyprus… In their old house in Tahtakala, they would put milk for the black snake, who would come to drink it… She would tell me stories of the cuckoos perched on the date trees who would come at night to sing to us: `The owls are very good, they eat the mice!` she would tell me…
She would teach me that the ants were hard workers and show me their nests, she would tell me stories of the cricket and the ant, finding books in colour from the library where she was working and telling me the tales of La Fontaine… I would be amazed with the ants and the laziness of the crickets singing all day long in August, making a big noise, flying and perching on our almond tree… She would show me how ants would follow each other and tell me that `They have a wedding and that's where they are all going!` From the age of six, she would start teaching me English since she had been an English teacher at the Shakespeare School and she would use the books from 1930s and 40s, giving me homework, making me listen and repeat, every night watching television together – the series in English like Avengers or Peyton Place on RIK – and she would be translating to Turkish from English for me to understand…
She would always sing when in the kitchen – I would grow up with beautiful songs she would sing to me… She would sing children's songs, songs she had learnt from our auntie from Switzerland about macaroni – whenever she would cook macaroni, she would sing songs about macaroni from Swiss Italians…
She would teach me to appreciate milk, cheese and halloumi, rice and macaroni, chicken and meat… She would show me how fruit grew on the trees, how the lemons became lemons starting from flowers… We would smell the lemon flowers and tangerine flowers and smile… Together we would collect lots of tangerines and she would give me a wooden spoon to stir the juice with sugar in order to make lemonade… We would be hard working and happy in the kitchen, making lemonade for hot summer days, to offer to guests and to drink ourselves. No Coca Cola in our house in those times, only lemonade made with tangerines and lemons from our garden…
These are the things I cherish about life, the things I learnt from my mother, the things that helped me to stay strong despite poverty, despite threats, despite unemployment, despite dark days of political repression for many years… These are the things that I also taught my son, showing him the moon and the stars and the flowers and to be happy that we are on this earth, that we are lucky to have each other and love each other, that no matter how harsh the conditions might get, we would still survive with the love we have…
From a very early age, my mother would teach me to always give gifts, that it would not matter if it was small or big, that we needed to share what we had because the earth will always send us more if we shared.
The biggest gift she gave me was to learn to love this earth and to understand that each creature had a life of its' own, serving a purpose, a bigger good… That we should always think about them, take care of them, not hurt them because we belonged to the same earth, same planet… That we were all connected, that we should appreciate all the flowers and all the trees and all the ants and spiders and birds and all other living creatures… She would teach me compassion and to be gentle with all living creatures, to communicate with them, to touch them, to learn from them, to be one with them…
In today's chaotic world, how many mothers actually create time to teach these values to their children? Children nowadays are given electronic toys to play with, they spend more time indoors in front of TV or a computer or an Ipad, rather than being out in the open… Their parents make them run from one private lesson to another, not even run but the kids are taken with cars so they don't even actually walk… Children are more lonely today, than in the past… Children are less connected with the earth and learn less from the earth… Sure, you can learn a lot from the internet but could it be the same thing to watch the lemon tree blossom and actually see how a flower turns into a lemon? Can it ever give the same feeling, these images on screens, while the actual life passes by without being too much noticed?
I thank the earth for giving such a mother to me who taught me how to love the earth and to appreciate all living things… Perhaps everyone should create more time with their children in order to show them how wonderful life is and not everything takes place in the virtual world of internet…

18.11.2013

Picture: The Japanese painter Tetsuya Ishida felt the loneliness and the ugliness of consumer societies and painted those...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 15th of December, 2013 Sunday.