IN RECENT days, a German traveller named Hans-Georg Lindenau has enlivened Old Nicosia’s Ledra and Onasagorou shopping streets, singing a unique combination of traditional German melodies and opera.
Wheelchair bound, he pushes himself over to the old town’s pedestrian shopping district every day from the nearby Astra hotel to perform for small donations, always eager to speak to passers-by about social and political issues.
Lindenau says music is a form of therapy: “Singing is the way to reconstruct my inner stability. Because I’m disabled, I’m isolated by contact. By singing, I get communication ? I get rehabilitation in a two-legged society. They accept me and talk to me.”
A Berlin-based activist, Hans-Georg, has come to Cyprus for the fifth time since 1999 to champion two political causes: an end to the division of the island and rights for the disabled.
He has no sponsorship or government help, travelling independently on donations from singing and what he earns from a shop he owns in Berlin that sells political newspapers, pamphlets and other accessories, like T-shirts.
“I escape sometimes from my narrow situation in German and go to the south,” he says.
Hans-Georg says he has also made recent trips to Spain, Italy, Greece and the United States.
Born in Bavaria in 1959 to a mother who had recently fled from East Germany, Hans-Georg began singing in the choir at the age of 10.
He has had several run-ins with German law enforcement dating back to 1978 for his outspoken political views. In fact, he attributes his crippling injuries to a beating he received in 1989 that he claims was in retaliation for his activism.
He carries with him a multi-lingual sign in English, Greek and German reads: “I organised an escape of 200 people across the Berlin wall in 1988 and because of this I was injured and have been in a wheelchair since 1989.”
As a Berliner, Lindenau feels a special affinity for Cypriots who live with their divided island. As in his own country, though, he feels that the biggest obstacle to the island’s unity is the mentality of the people, who he feels are not motivated to accept their compatriots on the other side of the Green Line.
He also feels that in Cyprus there is a frightening lack of concern for the disabled and a shortage of services accessible to wheelchairs, especially with regard to public transport.
Next week he will leave for Greece and return to Germany shortly afterwards, but says he would like to return two to three times before the year is out.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
