Dear friends, When it feels like we’re at the door to partition, actions such as these become a necessity. On Thursday at 11am, the multicommunal choir (that I also happen to be a member of) Kıbrıs Havaları Derneği/Cyprus Songs Association/Κυπριακός Σύνδεσμος Τραγουδιού performed a number of traditional Cyprus songs at…
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‘Hope is somewhat of a cliché’ – a phrase that has stuck and continues to play over and over since a conversation (or perhaps interview) I had a few weeks ago with a student from Germany. She got in touch as she wanted to have a conversation about the Cyprus…
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Dear friends, If you thought that social media was lacking in content on the Cyprus issue/reunification and promoting a true Cyprus identity, you are very much mistaken. It is absolutely brimming with both educational and laugh-out-loud Cyprus-made content on topics from the Cypriot dialects (both Greek and Turkish), to concise…
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Some of Mustafa Akıncı’s parting words after losing Sunday’s presidential elections (2nd round) were ‘good luck to the people of Cyprus’. Indeed. And so ends Akıncı’s 45 years in politics. Akıncı was considered by many Cypriots as the last hope for reunification under a bizonal, bicommunal federation (BBF). The only…
Read moreDear friends, This is a very quick guide to the current elections in the north, with info taken from a couple of different sources which I shall name below. Most importantly, it is imperative to know how the system works in the north and the significance of these elections for…
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News of the coronavirus pandemic has dominated our lives and our news feeds for many months now. However, a very close second has been the unfolding of the Black Lives Matter protests not just in the US, but globally. I would never presume to know enough about the global movement…
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Strolling through the cool evening air, I thought of you. I thought I glimpsed you on the street. It can’t have been you though, because you’re on the other side of an impenetrable line; at least for the moment. Or perhaps the unforeseeable future. While we wait, us on our…
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Dear friends, For many of us who already have contact with ‘the other’, whether the other is Greek or Turkish Cypriot, the below won’t provide anything of value. However, over the years I’ve realised that there are still many Greek Cypriots who don’t know that Turkish Cypriots speak a dialect,…
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My history teacher at school told us that ‘history cannot be pigeonholed’. I recently visited for the first time (I’m 35 years old) the Imprisoned Graves (more commonly known in Greek as Filakismena Mnimata – Φυλακισμένα Μνήματα). Like many other Cypriot school children who didn’t attend public school, I was…
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It is a truth universally acknowledged* that trying to change someone’s mind over the internet and more specifically over Facebook does not work. A few years ago now, I decided that I would stop engaging with people over social media, in a usually failed attempt to change their mind or…
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