Fifty-one years onwards.
And we have again gathered.
….Fifty-one years at the last stop with the fate of our country hanging by a thread.
The years go by. The generations change. People are passing away.
The walls in the refugee settlements are rotting, the wounds of an entire generation are rotting too.
For yet another year laurel wreaths and monuments burned by the sun, burned by pain, burned by anticipation.
“Here we go again, you’ll tell me the same thing, my friend.”
And time passes. Years pass by.
What is it that binds us to that time?
Which battle should we continue? Which of the two pieces (of Cyprus) should we love?
We, our own generation that is approaching 40 years old and the generations to come.
We did not experience the twin imperialist crime.
We did not experience the coup and the invasion.
We did not live the uprooting of our people as refugees.
We have no images.
We have no memories of the places, of the homes of our parents who fled, hunted, betrayed, refugees for life.
We are the generation that listened to our elders whispering about what they lived through.
We are the generation that relived stories. Stories from (occupied) Kyrenia, Dikomo, Varosha, Morphou. Stories about the village, the peasants.
Stories about the betrayal that simmered, the threats, the persecution, the murders, the attacks, the bullying of EOKA B.
Stories, over and over again about those days.
How EOKA B entered houses, how they arrested and tortured, who and why they hunted them.
Stories full of blood, grief, betrayal, crimes.
We are the generation that grew up with the black and white photos of the heroes, the missing persons in the living rooms of our houses.
With the empty seat at the family table that we never dared to ask who it was for.
Because we knew.
It was for the one who was missing, who all we knew about was his gaze staring at us from the photo.
“I’ll be back,” he promised his mother, “they betrayed us,” he confessed to his brothers, “be proud,” he mumbled to his father.
We knew it from the moment we opened our eyes to the world.
The plate on the table was for those who were gone forever, it was for those who were never to return.
The black clad clothes were worn by our mothers and grandmothers, for those whose bitterness of loss aged our parents and grandparents in a day.
The tears were gathered in a bundle in their souls, a precious goodbye, for those who, when they finally came, were enclosed in such a dense box of their remains…
The grief of their loss became anger, a decision, a battle that does not cease.
For their sacrifices and the blood shed.
For the pain that we did not live, but that passed in our blood.
For the country our parents lived in.
For the homeland we dream of for our children.
For a free and reunited Cyprus.
For this we fight and we will fight until the final vindication.
Until the thirst is quenched. Until the battle ceases.
On the front line with AKEL.
Our event will conclude with a theatrical analogue based on extracts from Euripides’ tragedies “The Modest Goddess – Pantanassa Irene”). Music by Tasos Panos & Panos Liaropoulos. We thank from the bottom of our heart all the artists. Special thanks to living legend of Cypriot theatre, Despina Bebedeli.
