Poetic licence, anyone?
Some time ago, in early July, I was attending a launch of a book, Building Bridges Across the Green Line by Benjamin Broome, at Nicosia’s Fulbright Commission.
The discussion was chaired by Marios Michaelides, one of the most respected advocates of rapprochement, and brought together, as well as the book’s author, those two veterans of bi-communal co-operation, the former mayors of Nicosia, Lellos Demetriades and Mustafa Akinci. The audience consisted mostly of experienced bi-communal activists, who have spent the past two decades working on bringing the two communities closer together.
Yet in spite of the fact that those present were the most persistent Cypriot ‘peace-builders’, the atmosphere at the event was gloomy.
“It was like seeing a group of 1960s hippies who have gathered again, after years of preaching love and peace, to realise that after all this hard work they put in, they are exactly in the same place they were at the beginning,” commented one of the attendants. “I think they must feel pretty hopeless, seeing what is happening on the island right now. They must feel like a total d?j? vu.”
And d?j? vu it was, even though certainly conveying such a feeling wasn’t the main aim of the publication.
“A decade ago, individuals involved in contacts across the Buffer Zone were routinely criticised in both communities for their meetings with the other side,” says the book, written by a Fulbright scholar who since 1994 has visited Cyprus numerous times, organising workshops and seminars dealing with the island’s bi-communal movement. “At best, they were viewed as idealistic, na?ve and dreamers. Worse, they were accused as traitors to the national cause, as friends of the enemy, as paid agents of the international community. The media either ignored them or were vicious in their attacks, claiming they were ‘betraying their country’ or ‘selling out’ to the other side.”
The author proceeds to analyse the social and political reality in Cyprus: “In a social system where the existence of the conflict has become part of everyday existence, the meeting of individuals across the dividing line can be perceived as a serious treat to the comfortable (if undesirable) status quo. Also for those who suffered from the loss of loved ones, property, and a way of life, any attempt to understand the point of view of the other may be considered inappropriate and even insensitive.”
Now, doesn’t it all sound very familiar and up to date?
A few days ago, I was thinking about various recent situations, similar to the ones that Broome describes in his book (although not really in the framework of official bi-communal activities). Let me give you just a couple of examples:
1) The case of Tony Angostiniotis, a Greek Cypriot filmmaker who made a documentary on the killing of Turkish Cypriots villagers by Greek Cypriot gunmen in 1974. The film, presenting a different insight into the complex Cypriot history, has been screened many times abroad, but never in the Republic of Cyprus. Angostiniotis, because he dared to have a different point of view, has been by many branded a traitor.
2) The now notorious case of Manifesta 6, an international art biennale cancelled in June because its curators insisted on part of it taking place in the Turkish Cypriot part of Nicosia. In the ensuing legal battle, both the International Foundation Manifesta (IFM) and the curators were accused of various contract breaches and sued for thousands of euros. Also, some local papers had the great idea of making a connection between them and the CIA.
3) The most recent story of another Greek Cypriot film director, Panicos Chrysanthou, whose film Akamas has been selected for screening at the Venice Film Festival. Chrysanthou is well known for several other films, mostly documentaries, on the politics of the island, and Akamas is, as far as I know, his first feature film. It is a love story between a Turkish Cypriot man and a Greek Cypriot woman taking place between 1955 and 1975, and includes a controversial scene in which national heroes from EOKA kill a suspected traitor in a church. The director says that, not only did the government demand that he change the place of the killing to a coffee shop (an interference bad enough to smack of political censorship), but now, since the change hasn’t been made, it has asked him to withdraw the film from the festival and accuses him (how similar to the Manifesta case!) of breaching his contract by exceeding the agreed film duration, as well as failing to meet his deadline.
Hello, I just want to ask when will people here finally learn the meaning of “freedom of expression”, “licentia poetica” and “just letting go of things”?
I am just waiting for somebody to write that Chrysanthou is a Turkish spy since, some of the funding for his movie has come from a Turkish Cypriot investor.
