Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nickp]

I'm 24 years old, born and raised in Britian. Mothers from south cyprus my dad is from the North.

A couple of weeks ago i went with my dad to show me the village and the house that he grew up in the North by Rizokapas. I was really really curious as visiting Cyprus growing up, the north just felt like a forbidden zone as we weren't aloud to cross over.

At the border, i was a little nervous but more relaxed to see it was Turkish Cypriot police rarther than soldiers. We crossed over into the famagusta point. Before reaching there the first thing that hit me was the poor standard of living by some people, weather they were TC's or settlers i'm not sure. Then we got into Famagusta and i was quite impressed, there was quite alot of young students around and it was quite modern.

As we travelled up the coast past Bogazi, i couldn't help but notice rows and rows of newly built houses. I was quite impressed with them becuase they had a nicer and different look to houses built in the south. But i was kind of sad at the same time as I knew they weren't housing for the every day person in the north, just to be sold off to tourists.

As we got to my dad's village it was a beatiful village by the sea. But obviously, very run down due to limited people living there and also due to the isolation of the north. The only thing that was brand new was the extremely white mosque which is directly behind my grandparents house.

I said hello to a young turkish girl and my dad tried to communicate with some Turkish guy delivering stuff to my grandparents house that someone else lives in. My dad said they were nice people and that they would have invited us in for coffee had they been in. But that's when it first hit me that it was strange to be in Cyprus and i couldn't communicate with someone. It's at this point, that it really started to feel like a different country.

However, on the way home i knew that something wasn't right. There was a brand new mosque in my dad's village but two old large churches. Every village i past in the car all i would see is Churches everywhere. It was only when i got to Famagust and i went to the Varosi point and saw all the hotels that i realised even thought it felt like a different country it was a some place that didn't belong to the people living there. I was quite taken back by Varosi, it was so huge. I would have imagined 30 years ago, coming from a village into Varosi must have been like stepping into New York.

Overall, when i left my conclusion was this. I'm 24 years old. I've been raised in a Cyprus that is totatally Greek and the Turks were bad news. However, when i crossed over i found that myth to have fallen down. At the end of the day, the Greeks work and live in peace, and the Turkish people live and work in peace. I'm confident we cand do it together, given the chance. I don't think anyone care's about nationalistic interests or fighting anymore. I mean the youth in the Greek side hate conscription for the army, there not interested. And the fact that there hasn't been an incident since the borders opened, must be encouraging signs.

I would describe there is bitterness among the communities rarther than hatread, i think that would fade after the communites start to mingle again. I mean you have to understand, i'm 24, i'm not a witness to any of the horrors that went on in 74, or the genocide before that. I'm also not aware of what North Cyprus was like before 1974. So i would imagine people in my genoration arn't gonna carry all that hate with them.

Finally, as for the Anan plan, i did feel it was biased towards Turkey's interests more than anything. I would have suggested it would have been better to brake off from the north than adopt the plan.

The main element in for me was freedom of movement to settle. Maybe many of the Greeks would have sacraficed there homes for the sake of peace. But i think giving up you home is one thing, but not being able to settle in the north of the island just becuase it exceedes a quota system is silly. I mean we have to look towards to the future. If and when we adopt this two state solution. Lets face it, people are going to start to mingle again, and especially the young generation,you gonna see inter racial marriges for sure and the islands going to be mixed again.

The main other thing was i think more people should have a right to return to their homes and to their land, just to ease the pain of the past more than anything. As for the settlers, they are here and i think that sending them all back would be to much like a 'soft type' of ethnic clensing. However, i think the only right thing to do is for Turkey to build them alternative housing so that many Greek cypriots can return to their own properties should they wish to.

Nevertheless, i hope this whole cyprus problem gets sorted out next summer as it's gone on for way to long. The thing is, we could have so much prosperity taken into account our resources and EU membership
in comparison to other countries that have real problems like the middle east.

I know for a fact, that when it does happen. Most people are gonna be puzzled why it took so long in the first place.

[insan]

Hello Nickp, welcome to the forum

I'm happy to have heard that you've got good impressions from your visit to the North. Younger generations are our hope for a better future in Cyprus.

I wonder what your opinions are regarding those issues:

1- Political equality of two communities.
2- Guarantorship of foreign countries.
3- Land ownership of two communities and the percentage of land under administration of each in a united Cyprus.
4- Return of the refugees, temporary and permenant restrictions on some basic human rights.
5- Repatriation of settlers.


If you share your valuable opinions with us regarding those issues, I'll be much appreciate.

Thanks

[brother]

Hi nick, i am pleased with your honest opinion of the north and what impressed me more that your mind is not poisoned about the tc for that i congratulate your parents, at 24 you have spoken like a man with many more years behind him hence displaying a mature attitude, well done.

And i support everything you said and welcome to the forum.

[Bananiot]

Interesting account indeed and a frank desplay of emotions by someone who was born and raised in the UK. I would be interested to hear of any parental influence on nickp because opinions are shaped by parents, peers etc. Being a bbc (british born cypriot) and avoiding the greek cypriot education system, may have contributed a lot to the formulation of liberal ideas that are derived with some degree of independence, if I might say so. What did your parents lead you to expect nickp? What was their attitude to the TC's?

I am not trying to say that your were incapable of personal judgement, I am just exploring to see the degree of autonomy in your arguments as a person who carries new parameters from the majority of GC younger generation. Our younger generation was exposed to a lot of nationalist jargon and many a young soul has been poisoned by nationalism and racism that blind people and thus removing any possibility of arriving at meaningful conclusions. That is why I am interested in your case and I am looking eagerly to hear your answers.

[mehmet]

Welcome to the Forum Nick, I found your post interesting. Like you I was brought up outside Cyprus. Following on from Bananiot's point, can I ask you if you had any contact with Turkish Cypriot's in England? Did you have friends, did your parents know Turkish Cypriots, were they neighbours. I am reminded o the quote by a Greek Cypriot to an English journalist about how could there be peace amongst Cypriots and he answered 'if they all come to north London to live together then you would see peace'.

[brother]

Good answer but disturbing that we can do it in u.k but not our own homeland.

[Nickp]

Hi there and thanks for your kind responses.

I was bon and raised in the north of England in a small town. Hence, we were the only ethnic family on the street in comparison to North London where I expect most of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot’s live.

Hence, there wasn’t any kind of Greek/English education system here, so I didn’t get taught all that stuff they teach in Greece about the uprising against the Ottoman empire in the 1800’s or when ever it was. There was Saturday Greek School at the local Church near by but I was too much of a young brat and refused to go to school on a Saturday.

So may be this has kept my views in perspective. For example, I think something like the rising of the Greeks against the Ottoman empire is important to learn historically if you have a Greek background. However, I do think it leads to fanatical ideas. I only say this because a female friend of mine is dating a Greek guy from Corfu and he really hates the Turks because of what he learnt in school. I found this amusing as someone like my dad doesn’t have this type of negative attitude. It’s even more ironic because he’s from Cyprus where there is suppose to be real bad blood as his parents had to flee from the north leaving everything behind.

This is not to say that my background is less Greek. On the contrary I have a very strong Greek background and we latch on to the substantial Greek Cypriot community in the nearest city which is 20 minutes away. However, more importantly I’ve been going to Cyprus virtually every summer all my life as we have a house in my mum’s village. I also have a large family in that village with many cousins in my age group that I‘m close with. So these were my influences growing.

In regards to my parents. My dad’s quite educated as his parents were wealthy and sent him to private school in Cyprus. However, growing up I can’t recall any time when he really said anything negative about TC’s. The only time when I heard him say anything negative was when he was drunk and blamed Greek nationals for all the trouble and he may have said something vulgar once about Prime Minister Ecivet (if that’s how you spell it) when he pointed him out to me on TV and told me that he ordered the invasion. But apart from that, I’ve never heard my dad’s say anything really negative about Turkish Cypriots. Even when we went to the North, he was bragging to me that he was going to speak his Turkish. He was also very enthusiastic with everyone he came in contact with. This is contrary to his feelings in his first visit where he was quite upset to see how his beautiful village was not like he remembered it. My dad’s always given me the impression that his village is gone, he’s made a life for himself somewhere else in Cyprus. He also said that maybe one day we might live to see his village, obviously he said this before they opened the boarders.

In terms of my mother, again I’ve never hardly ever heard her says anything about it. My mom is like high school educated from Cyprus, so she can have naïve and swayed opinions. Furthermore, the village my mom comes from is not exactly known for it’s intelligence. But my mom’s the nicest person. The worse thing she ever said maybe in a debate is something like “we don’t want the Turks” but that doesn’t stop her from getting her coffee cup and tarot cards told by the Turkish Cypriot woman and her daughter in London now and again. I think at this stage that I should point out that my parents run my aunt’s busy fish and chip shop along with her son who is British Born and a Turkish guy as well as two Chinese cooks and the common working class English girls and they all get on fine!

I have a fair idea of what went on in the past but obviously wasn’t witness to any of it To my understanding, the whole trouble was suppose to be over this “union with Greece” which I really fail to understand because every Greek Cypriot person only ever describes themselves as ‘Cypriot’ in the Greek language. Furthermore, even though were the same race as Greeks from Greece I think were a totally different breed. We have a different accent, dialect and extra different foods. I don’t think this has come from no where I think the Turkish community must have been a strong influence on our character. I truly believe this because the first time I came across some Turkish Cypriots in London I was really in shock how alike we were. Our accents sound the same, we look the same and I can heavily recognise Greek and Turkish words in both of our languages. Overall, even though the Turkish Cypriots have a different language and religion, for the brief moment I’ve come into contact with TC’s in London, I feel closer to them culturally than I do from Greeks from Greece.

In my opinion, there’s a lot of bitterness in both communities. Furthermore, I think the younger Greek generation in Cyprus is a lot more stubborn because of what there taught in schools. I find this ironic as the older day to day Greek Cypriots who witnessed everything and lived with the consequences are less stubborn to compromise and solve the problem. But again I think this will fade once everyone gets a chance to mingle properly without checkpoints.

Like I said the main thing I didn’t agree with in the Anan plan is for limitations for people to settle on different sides of the island. I just feel the island belongs to everybody and you should have the right to live where ever you want. It would have been a little ridiculous to enter the European union on May1st as a unified island and that you could work and live anywhere in the EU apart from your own country.

Granted, the island is not going to mix over night and people may feel safer in their own communities but again over a 30 year period after a solution is found I really do believe people will mix all over the island.

I think everything else in the plan is perfectly negotiable if they sit at the table and do a bit of give and take in a fair manor. People will moan about this and that, but once their living safely in a prosperous country I don’t think there going to care weather they had to move house or loose a piece of land.

The only thing I would wish would be set-up but would probably be impossible, is a body to investigate crimes of the past and try and convict as much justice as possible in the coming decades. This would cover massacres pre-1974 and any improper conduct by the Turkish army when they invaded, that includes documented rapes and innocent killings.

Again, I think something like this just adds to healing wounds on the island.



For example, I’m in total dismay that nothing has been done about the murders of the two Greek Cypriots Tassos Issac and Salamos Salamou in 1996 when one tried to cross over into the North and the other trying to bring down the Turkish flag. If they were arrested or put in prison but the Turkish authorities is one thing but to be shot and beaten to death by the authorities in front of the world to see is bewildering. I hope some justice will be brought to this matter.

A final example is in my mom’s village. I don’t know if it was before or during the war that certain individuals went to the neighbouring Turkish village and slaughtered innocent people there. Furthermore, these poor Turkish people are suppose to be buried under the village river which is dry in the summer. I found this shocking when I recently found out. I couldn’t believe how something so evil is possibly round the corner from my house, a place where I’ve grown up as a child in bliss and sunny happiness.

To make it worse there are people like my sister in her 30’s and my cousin in his’ 40’s who know who are responsible. However, I’m sure the elderly local villagers will know everything in detail. Whether this is all rumours or not, I don’t know, but the way it was told to me there definitely is some truth to it. Weather the Greek Cypriot Government knows or not I don’t know. I would like to contact them but I’m fearful that they already know, but given the situation they’ll do nothing about it which would really brake my heart. I’m not really sure what action to take.

[Nickp]

Hello Nickp, welcome to the forum

I'm happy to have heard that you've got good impressions from your visit to the North. Younger generations are our hope for a better future in Cyprus.

I wonder what your opinions are regarding those issues:

1- Political equality of two communities.
2- Guarantorship of foreign countries.
3- Land ownership of two communities and the percentage of land under administration of each in a united Cyprus.
4- Return of the refugees, temporary and permenant restrictions on some basic human rights.
5- Repatriation of settlers.


If you share your valuable opinions with us regarding those issues, I'll be much appreciate.

Thanks

Hi insan,

apologies in my delay in replying to your post. Essentially, i have some concrete views on a couple of those points but alot of them concern legal technicalties that i really dont know too much about. I dont want to talk about something i know nothing about otherwise i'll be talking rubbish.

Thanks,
Nick

[boulio]

dont worry nick,many people in this forum at times talk rubbish

[Saint Jimmy]

dont worry nick,many people in this forum at times talk rubbish

True, true...