Just ask a soccer specialist
Back on the island of Aphrodite. Just after I arrived, I decided to take a walk around the old town and reacquaint myself with Cypriot reality. I chose Ledra Street as a suitable area for such an experience and after just a few first few steps my choice proved perfect. To start with, there they were – the famous three-colour recycling bins, supplied for environmently-conscious citizens by our municipality. I couldn’t stop myself going through their contents. What a disappointment! Whether it was the result of media reports about the rubbish not being recycled or it had been happening all along unnoticed, the fact is that all three had exactly the same mixture inside, which on the whole could not be re-cycled. But boy, do they look cute? They are certainly the prettiest rubbish bins I have seen in all the EU capitals I have recently visited.
After going through the municipal rubbish I thought it was time to re-visit the Cyprus problem so I headed for Flocafe, where I had a meeting with two foreign journalists in Cyprus to write about the subject. The young people decided to take a wider approach to the issue and instead of writing about Famagusta or the Orams case, went for football and co-operation among artists. Hence they contacted me, well-known for my expertise on soccer.
We spent half an hour together in the coffee shop and then the male journalist disappeared to interview some officials while I took a female for a houmous soup in a tiny eatery next to the Turkish Cypriot post office and a walk around artists’ studios on both sides of the Green Line.
On our way we stopped for a moment in the moat between the Ledra Palace and Arabahmet (in no-man’s land), where a re-union of children and teenagers who had taken part in bi-communal summer camps was taking place. We looked through some of the kids’ drawings promoting the idea of peace and hey, somebody should use them constructively. I saw one that would be ideal as a logo for co-operation between Nicosia’s two municipalities. Of course, providing that such a logo is needed.
After the soup we went to Buyuk Han where we bumped into a group of Open Studios fans on a tour led by a Greek Cypriot painter. Under the arches there were some anarchist Turkish Cypriot poets getting drunk and watching the sunset. A freezing Russian artist from the south (what is going on with the weather in this country?) who has just had her works exhibited in the north came up to their table and asked for a glass of spirit to warm up. The others spread around the han looking at huge sculptures made from olive trees. One of the poets fetched a flute) and began to play. We made a toast to nothing.
The next stop was a ceramic studio of a female artist, who created a video titled The Tale of the Silent Walk ie Woman Makes Peace. It showed 50 pairs of female shoes marching decisively through Nicosia’s old town ‘making peace’. Fifty was to symbolise the number of seats in the Turkish Cypriot ‘parliament’. Were they all taken over by women everything would be sorted, said the artist, who also re-produced the shoes in clay in various bright colours – red for the fearless and blue for the free.
Back on this side, we again went through a labyrinth of narrow streets to a studio of another female artist whose many works explore the subject of war, with a particular accent on the buffer zone. Then we passed by the Archbishopric where a crowd of the faithful (what colour would it be?) was buzzing about the most recent developments in the Byzantine farce, the outcome of which we all now know. We stopped at Theatro Ena to ask about tickets for next day’s performance by famous spoon-bender Uri Geller and upon learning that the event was so popular that they were sold out decided to have a drink.
In the Orpheas Bar, the journalist asked where the real problem in Cyprus was.
“There is no real problem,” I said. “According to what I have heard at a recent conference in Brussels, the situation here is better than in Ireland. We have 10,000 Turkish Cypriots crossing to the south every day, working on this side, using the Greek Cypriot health system, some even getting a pension from the Greek Cypriot government. The Greek Cypriot labour unions even go on strike to make sure that the Turkish Cypriot workers are insured. In Brussels, after hearing all this, an Irish MEP said she was not surprised that Cyprus beaten Ireland in a recent football match because here we are co-operating while in Ireland nothing is really happening.”
Now, you know why I am a soccer specialist.
