I haven't written in a while, I guess because there was not much to get angry about.
Don't get me wrong, the war in Syria, the growing unemployment in the EU, the Boston bombings and the collapse of the Bangladeshi factory in Dhaka are atrocious events that have gotten everyone angry. However, there is a feral sort of anger one feels when things happen to one's family and that is the sort of anger that motivates my writing in this blog and that was missing from my life until a few days ago.
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St Peter and Paul's basilica and the Cathedral of St Nicholas in the old City
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We set off in the morning of 7 May 2013 to drive to Ammochostos, the city where my dad is from and from which he left as a refugee on 14 August 1974. It only took drive around Varoshia, the fenced-up bit of the city which has now become one of the most famous 'Ghost-Towns' in the world, to awaken my anger and a profound sadness which surprised me. I am taken aback by these emotions every time because I never lived there and I like to think that I was immune to the nationalist 'education' I got at my Greek-Orthodox Cypriot state-school.
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| Varoshia, photographed from the fence of the 'dead-zone' |
A short inspection reveals that the sadness comes from listening to my dad describe his experiences of the war. His tales switch from impassioned descriptions of the Greek military's attempts to take his life during the 15 July 1974 coup, when he was in the back of a car shouting 'Makarios is alive!', to descriptions of the battles that raged around the city he grew up in after the second wave of the Turkish invasion on 14 August 1974 and finally, to an equally impassioned description of how his school was turned into a mortuary to which one of his friends, a seventeen year old boy, was taken to, after he had fallen during one of the battles. My dad was only fifteen at the time...
There is sadness in all the human stories one hears in Ammochostos. For example I met a Turkish Cypriot refugee who was forced to leave his home three times between 1955 and 1974. He is a refugee three times over. He now runs a beach bar at Ammochostos which is the last working establishment on the beach before the dead-zone.
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| Center Beach Hotel Apartments at the beginning of the dead-zone |
The anger I started feeling when I was there is the result of deep aporia regarding the conditions that forced a 'people' - because when you start talking to Greek and Turkish Cypriots there is no doubt that this is one 'people'- to fight each-other to the death. Cyprus is another example of the powerful, domestically and internationally, creating the conditions under which the non-powerful underclasses send their children to die in mindless and preventable wars.
My anger was also fueled by the inability of the Greek-Cypriot side to take back an asset that the Turkish army and government never wanted and intended to give back, always in exchange for something else. Instead of taking it back, Varosha, the part of the city that was build between 1970 and 1974, has been rotting to the ground.
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| The Ghost-Town |
The issue of Ammochostos' return has been put back on the table by President Anastasiades and his Foreign Minister Mr Kasoulides. Hopefully, this time something will come of the moves being made that include an offer to open the port of Ammochostos to trade with the EU under its auspices.
Putting my International Relations hat on, I can say with certainty that the issue of Ammochostos is tricky and resolving it will take guts and prudent decision-making, which, despite of what may think, are not mutually exclusive.
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| Bombed hotels in the dead-zone behind the 'free' beach |
In the meantime I remain angry, sad and, unfortunately less hopeful than my dad who vehemently believes Varosha, where his house and school are, will be returned soon.
This short piece which is accompanied by some pictures I took on our visit is intended not only to inform those who have never visited Cyprus of the plight of the Ammochostos and its inhabitants but also to remind me of how much there is to be done in Cyprus and which I cannot sit back expecting politicians to do...
