AS Friday marked the eleventh anniversary of the Annan plan referendum, which saw Greek Cypriots reject the UN Secretary General’s plan to settle the Cyprus problem with a resounding 76 per cent, political parties redeployed old arguments and tried to draw parallels with the imminent resumption of talks. Ruling DISY, the only party – along…
Minaret as identity
By Evie Andreou OTTOMAN GREED, British colonial policies and Turkish nationalism are the main reasons why the majority of Turkish Cypriots are so secular, according to Mete Hatay, senior research consultant at the Cyprus centre of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Hatay presented the results of a joint study carried out with fellow academic…
The EOKA struggle: what was it all for?
By George Koumoullis AS WE have done every year on this day, today we will celebrate the anniversary (60th) of the start of the EOKA struggle with triumphal events of ‘national elation’ and fiery patriotic speeches. Contextually, these speeches take me back to my school years when teachers taught labyrinthine and exhausting lessons with…
Not saluting but drowning
The boy chose to carry the Cyprus flag at last Wednesday’s Greek Independence Day parade rather than the school standard or Greek flag. At nine o’clock on that same morning the three flag bearers were transported by school bus to Phaneromeni Church in Nicosia to receive a blessing. All Nicosia and suburbs’ secondary schools, scouts,…
Evil and humanity in Cyprus…
Evil resides on the island with us. Evil has arms, legs, a head – it walks, it talks, it makes friends, it mixes with us… Evil is in the form of human being. Evil is in the form of a retired teacher, residing in Lefkonico and Limassol… The one who resides in Lefkonico and the…
The Sorrow of a Photo
The photo of Nevcihan Oluşum –the wife of Hüseyin Niyazi Hasan who was martyred during the Gaziveren Resistance in 1963 and which has gone down in history as the photo of sorrow became the storyline for a documentary. The premier of a documentary entitled “the Sorrow of a Photo” which was jointly produced by…
Let us return to the past, it will be a step forward
By Alper Ali Riza Shortly before she died, my mother famously told a journalist who had impertinently asked her how she came to marry a Turkish Cypriot that by the time she realised my father was Turkish it was too late! She had fallen in love and according to the Ancient Greeks, whose sayings my…
Sener Levent:We still not find out who committed the “crime of the bathroom”
Writing in his column in Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika newspaper (04.01.15), Sener Levent continues a series of articles regarding the murder of the wife and the three children of a Turkish army major in a house at Kumsal area of Nicosia in [December] 1963. Levent reports that we have not been able to definitely find…
Eroğlu slams Anastasiades
President Derviş Eroğlu evaluated the statements made by the Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Anastasiadis, who returned to the island after undergoing heart surgery in New York, as extremely grave and worrisome. According to a written statement issued by the Presidency, President Derviş Eroğlu criticised the accusations made by the Greek Cypriot leader that the Turkish…
From Maratha to Voni: Rapes as a weapon of war…
We gather at the inner yard of the British Council in the old town of Nicosia – we are participating at a `fringe` event, in connection with the biggest global gathering on `Ending sexual violence in conflict`, that is rape as a weapon of war… The day we gather at the British Council, there is…