Article - The real heroes of Cyprus (Published in Greek in 24h on 27 July 2014)

The real heroes of Cyprus

I watch in terror as the fighter jets rip the sky to mark the anniversary of Turkey’s military operation in Cyprus. They are here to celebrate, to remind the heroism, to mark the pride... My ears are deafened with their sound and I wonder how anyone can ever find this vulgar display of aggression entertaining. My blood freezes. I am petrified…

“I think it was a Saturday. We were in Tessera Fanarga in Limassol. All we heard were the sounds of mortars and guns… Mortars were being fired down on us continuously. So many of them, everywhere” said my father of the morning of 20 July 1974. “We were at the mercy of Greek Cypriots. And Greek Cypriots were at the mercy of Turkey.”  

The Turkish Prime Minister of the day – Bulent Ecevit, during the extraordinary parliamentary session on 20 July 1974 at the Turkish Grand National Assembly, had said: “This is a move not aimed at war but aimed at peace; to bring peace and freedom not only to Turks, but to all the people of the island, and not to seize a state but to re-establish a collapsed state on just foundations.”

Unfortunately, every step Turkey took after that day proved the opposite. Turkey was not here to re-establish the Republic of Cyprus but a new state of affairs. Turkey was here to stay…

A great show was put on last Sunday, complete with fighter jets and tanks. The TV overflew with endless outbursts of heroism, pride and fanaticism. And any Turkish Cypriot daring enough to criticise Turkey’s post- military operation policies, the “celebrations” or the status-quo, were called a number of names ranging from “ungrateful” to “bastard of Greeks” and were told to “go live in the south.”

I have found these celebrations, these outbursts of heroism nauseating ever since I was a kid. I have always believed that the real heroes of Cyprus are those, who keep silent. Those, who have suffered the most, who carried the real burden of all the painful events that ever happened in Cyprus, and those who still so faithfully long for a solution in Cyprus…

One of those mortars, being fired down on the Turkish Cypriot district of Limassol on that Saturday morning, 20 July 1974, fell within a couple of meters of my uncle – my father’s younger brother. He didn’t have time to escape. He suffered a major injury on his spinal cord. Last Sunday was also the 40^th anniversary of him becoming paralysed from his waist down and becoming confined to a wheelchair. It was also the 40^th anniversary of him, standing up for peace in Cyprus every day of his paralysed life. He was not among those shouting stories of heroism or cheering the fighter jets last Sunday. He was among those, who shut their windows to not hear the terrifying sound of war. To me, he is the real hero of Cyprus.

Article - We need to start telling the beautiful stories (Published in Greek in 24h on 20 July 2014)

We need to start telling the beautiful stories

There are terrible stories that can be told about 20 July 1974. Stories of war, bloodshed and fear. But today, I choose to tell you a beautiful story. A beautiful, true story I wrote in May 2003 when I was a 23-year-old journalist working for the Associated Press. The crossing points had just opened and we had gone to Limassol, together with my father and late mother to find Antonis, who had risked his life to help my family in July 1974.

May 2003

"Özel, I knew you would come," shouted Antonis as he warmly hugged my father, who still couldn't believe he had found the man who saved him almost 30 years ago.

"You lost your hair," my father said, examining Antonis with curious eyes. "You got fat, Özel," he replied, tapping my father's big belly. They had last seen each other in September 1974, when my parents fled their house in Limassol to come to Kyrenia.

My father had told me about Antonis the night before we went to Limassol. As Turkish troops landed in Cyprus on Saturday, July 20, 1974, the Turkish Cypriots in Limassol, including my parents and then 9-year-old brother, were detained by Greek Cypriot soldiers. My brother was sick, very scared and terribly weak.

"We had no idea what was going to happen to us," said my mother. "People were crying and begging the soldiers to let them free." My parents spent the night under detention at Yousoufidis’ clinic along with a large group of Turkish Cypriots living in Limassol. The next morning, Antonis, a young Greek Cypriot soldier recognized my father as the physical therapist, who had treated him some years before. "He rushed us into his jeep. Before taking us home, he drove to a doctor’s clinic, where he had your brother examined. He bought the medicines prescribed by the doctor and took us to our home," my father told me. "And he told us not to leave the house for a couple of days before things got calmer. He was back at night with a basket with bread, cheese and a bottle of milk." …

On arriving at Limassol that day, almost 30 years after my parents had fled the city, we stopped at a coffee shop to ask if any of the customers knew Antonis. My father could only remember his first name - and that his family had owned a grocery store. An elderly man recognised who we were talking about and offered to take us to his house.

It is unbelievable, but Antonis had been waiting for us. "I saw in my dream that you would be back," he shouted from his balcony after we rang the doorbell. "I had the same dream four times. This is a dream come true."