izinsiz gosteri

I will start by thanking the organisers for inviting me to speak in this wonderful conference, thus helping me rediscover Jung. You see, as a student, I was so fascinated with Jungian ideas, that, having to learn a foreign language, I chose German, in order to be able to read his books in the language he wrote! I even went so far that I asked my German language teacher whether, instead of the usual examination, she could examine me from Jung's book “Religion und Wiesenshaft” (Religion and Science)! Interestingly enough, I lost my interest in Analytical Psychology after the Cyprus Tragedy in 1974, getting more interested in socio-political theories and practices, rather than depth psychological theories. Anyway, here I am 27 years later, invited to speak about the Cyprus Tragedy, re-discovering Jung again and feeling that his ideas can help us better understand how connected are the phenomena on the intra-psychic level with the phenomena on the collective or society level.

The focus of my presentation is the process of forming and overcoming the Political Shadow (negative stereotypes, prejudices, a kind of national arrogance or ethnocentrism, a complex of the victim etc) projected on the other Cypriot community. I highlight especially the role of emotionally corrective experiences, with particular emphasis on experiences of Crying. Why Crying? Because my experiences as a person, as a man, as a psychotherapist, as a subject of the peace process in Cyprus and as a peace activist / facilitator tell me that Tears and Crying (especially Tears of Repentance or Metanoia in Greek), is the Element and Process that can melt the Icy Walls of our psyche. The Walls or Compartments and Drawers (to use Jung's words) so that “modern man protects himself against seeing his own split state” (Man and his Symbols); Walls, therefore, in order to avoid some painful realisations like destructive / violent / possessive tendencies or fantasies that do not fit with the Image of ourselves…

At this point I would like to apologise for my choice to present my personal story in trying to develop my theme. I did so in line with the Jungian idea that the intra-psychic phenomena are connected to those on the collective level, with the belief that the essence of my experience is quite similar or at least relevant to that of most Greek Cypriots, at least of my generation. Additionally, I cherish the hope that by distilling my personal experience from the point of my theme, you could probably get a clearer and more powerful picture of the transformation process I and many other friends down there are going through… The first part of my presentation deals primarily with the formation of my Political Shadow, its manifestations or projections and it culminates with a decision to explore the Human Face behind the Alien's Mask. The second part consists of 7 stories of emotionally corrective experiences that I went through either as a subject of the Peace / Conflict Resolution process or as a peace facilitator.

Before starting my story I will show the Cyprus map with the Division / Confrontation Line, the populations of the two communities and the towns that appear in my stories, so as to help you orient yourselves as to the geographical context. I grew up in the 50-ies and 60-ies feeling proud of my Greek national identity and especially proud of my father, who fought against the British colonialists in order to unite Cyprus with Greece . Don't worry, apart from being away from his wife and children for more than 3 years in a concentration camp, thank God he didn't hurt any British citizen!

When violent inter-communal incidents exploded in 1963-64, in my early adolescence, I was running after the armed men and bulldozers, that, as I later on found out, had demolished innocent people's houses withfamilies inside, in the Turkish sector of Nicosia…That time I was cheerfully escorting those armed men on their way to looting and killing, wishing them luck…

I never happened to make a friendship with a T/Cypriot before the division of my country. Living in a purely Greek town and raised with nationalistic values, that led me consider the Greek nation as the chosen one and the Turkish nation and the barbarian one, I never felt such a need. Still, I was a bit puzzled by some stories of friendship, kindness and solidarity of T/Cypriots, told by my mother. One of the stories that had strongly impressed me had to do with my father in his own childhood: whenever his mother was ill, he and his three brothers were taken care by Hairrye, a T/Cypriot woman living next-door.

In 1969-70, I served for more than a year as a soldier in the Green Line (as the cease-fire line was called). During those long and boring days and nights, while watching the enemy hiding and moving behind barrelsand barricades, I remember myself fantasizing about war-like scenarios and at times wondering how they looked like and how much human they could possibly be!

After the 1974 war, with my brother injured in the eye and the island divided in two, I turned to leftist ideas, basically because I considered USA and GB responsible for the partition of my country and the Soviet Union as our only supporter! Along with that I accepted the belief that nationalistic ideas is rubbish and that all nations, including Turkish and Greek, have nothing to divide and should be like brothers and sisters or rather like comrades! Let me now turn to my internal split as it developed after I returned in 1977 back home from my studies: Despite my belief in comradeship with "the enemy", I never showed any active interest in contacting or learning about them…They remained an Alien to me, as to the great majority of the G/Cypriots. I think we all got into the following strange denial defence position: remember our Places in the occupied areas as they were before, not as they are now (meaning degraded and abused by the Turks)! Regarding the T/Cypriots themselves, the overt official message was that "we are ready to live again peacefully with them" but the covert message was " we don't want to know them". I started realising this political split around 1989 (interestingly, the year that the Berlin and other Walls started falling). That time me, my wife and the two children had moved into an apartment on the sixth floor of a building, a kilometre from the Division Line. To make things worse, my balcony, where half of the year I spend my afternoons and evenings (from April to October), was facing the other side. Everyday I had to face the huge enemy flags painted on the Pentadaktylos Mountain . Sometimes I could see cars moving on a road, smoke from a fire, in other words, signs of living creatures there. So I could no longer fool myself or pretend that time had stopped in 1974 and that it's a ghost-land, that everything has petrified there, waiting for us, the righteous owners to cross over! Sitting relaxed in my comfortable chair I again let myself fantasising about massive catastrophic scenarios in the other side, that would lead to the extinction of Turks and T/Cypriots (epidemics, famine, earthquakes etc.). Of course my leftist consciousness was intensely revolting against such preposterous and fascist ideas of extermination! So I reacted by elaborating very consciously and carefully a plan for dialogue and solution, whose form, however, never became concrete and convincing… Nevertheless, the fantasies were continuing, reinforced by ideas like: they are usurping our land, property and resources, we are the righteous owners etc. That is when I realised that I had a very deep split in my soul, for which I could only feel shame and distress… Looking around, watching and listening more carefully to our politicians, as well as my friends, I noticed a lot of contradictory messages like: yes, we consider T/Cypriots as equal to G/Cypriots, but Cyprus is Greek ; or that still we are superior to them! Or actions like using (e.g. for public post office cars, Cyprus Airways aeroplanes etc.) more and more the blue colour of the Greek flag, instead of the orange of the Cyprus flag. While feeling some kind of comfort that I was not alone in my split, I was also disappointed seeing our leaders as confused, or even more, than myself! That is when I started using the term "political schizophrenia" and talking about the partition being inside us as well…

In that state of mind I decided in 1994 to join a bi-communal workshop, with a curiosity to meet at last the Aliens and have the opportunity to actually see and directly talk to them, with a hidden hope that I might overcome my confusion and split… I think I had started realising that I too, as probably most G/Cypriots, were dealing more with a Mask rather than a Face of the Other… A mask that was at times becoming so dark, ugly and scaring that was resembling more to the Devil than to humans!The connection to Devil became clearer to me in that bi-communal workshop. There I was in a room full of people, not knowing who is who and how to approach them, when a man in his 30-ies, with a very dark face and a wild moustache, comes to me smiling. "There we have the first of them", I thought. To my surprise he was a G/Cypriot and to my bigger surprise he thought I was a T/Cypriot! I knew that my nose is not a typical Greek one, in the classical at least sense, but other than that… That was the first shock to my national narcissism. Later on I was using the group photo of that workshop to experiment with my G/Cypriot friends: it was interesting to find how many people tended to point to that man as a T/Cypriot!

Since then I am a regular passenger of, as I call it, the bi-communal Train for Peace and Reconciliation. Trying to explore the Face and Soul of the Other and … mine as well… This "Journey" has been much more fulfilling and richer than any other journey I had in my life, either for tourist or professional purposes. Why?Let me try to list the major gains I feel I get from this Journey:

• the more I discover the Face of the "Enemy" / the Other, the more I realise my Political Shadow and the more I overcome the split of my own Face, at least the political one or, if you prefer, "the political schizophrenia".

• the more I feel / empathise with the Other's Pain, the more I admit the mistakes / atrocities of my Side

• the more I become aware of my violent / aggressive / possessive / patronising tendencies toward the Alien and overcome them through a gradual, softer, but still sometimes painful, trust-building process, themore I appreciate and value the Anima / the feminine elements and tendencies in me and in every other human being.

I know that all these "gains" are posterior (?) assumptions or conclusions that could be meaningless,unless one had some similar experience. Therefore, I shall try to convey the spirit of that "Journey" by presenting / describing some scenes and experiences of that process, that have emotionally and spiritually touched me so powerfully, that not only I still remember them, but, as I think, had a connecting effect, not only with the Alien, but also somewhere within my Soul… In this transformation process Crying has played a major role of a catalyst, relieving me not only from an emotional burden, but acting also as an enzyme for spiritual repentance or metanoia, if you prefer the Greek religious term…

(Pierre van der Aa, 1714-1730)

During 1974 war Mustafa fought in the area of Nicosia. After a few days of fierce fighting, he, as the rest of the T/Cypriot young men in his platoon, was thrilled and proud to find that the enemy had abandoned their places and retreated a few metres. Moving cautiously they started exploring the area, when they saw a corpse of the enemy lying out in the sun. Still filled with that heroic feeling that reminded him national festivals, he moved closely to the corpse, only to pull back filled with disgust and horror: a young man of about his age, dressed in a uniform quite similar to his, with a pale and calm face and a cat next to his head eating his brain… The following days Mustafa's sleep was disturbed by nightmares. As he confessed to the group, that experience smashed that glorious feeling of victory and turned into pieces the tower of national pride that years of education had built in him…

Mustafa's courageous confession reminded me all those heroic and aggressive scenarios I was nurturing in me not only when I served as a soldier, but even later on my balcony… And I felt sorry and ashamed, thinking that I could be in Mustafa's place and he in the dead soldier's place… Or that I could be that dead soldier… Tears came to my eyes and that moment Mustafa became my brother. Seven years later I still feel the same towards him, despite the different views we have in some issues…

In 1994, during a bi-communal workshop, G/Cypriots escorted T/Cypriots and vice versa, in order to visit, for the first time after the division of the island, the family houses they abandoned. You can imagine the emotions of a person returning back after 20 years to the House he/she grew up and left as a child or adolescent…When we knocked at Beyhan's house, a G/Cypriot woman, a refugee herself, appeared at the door. As soon as she heard the reason of the visit, she asked: "Beyhan ?" When Beyhan thunderstruck nodded, the woman took her by hand and led her to her bedroom. There she opened the wardrobe and pointed to Beyhan's name and date of birth, that had been written there by her parents! That moment Beyhan couldn't take any more and started crying in the G/Cypriot woman's embrace. Tears appeared in everyone's eyes… That moment I remembered my name and date of birth in my wardrobe. Luckily I am not a refugee, but that moment I saw myself in Beyhan's place, returning to my house, with such a warm welcoming by a T/Cypriot woman. That moment I felt Beyhan as my sister… It's been years we haven't met, but I still feel that bond and I always ask about her…

• Welcoming of my Wife by a T/Cypriot Refugee who lives in her House in Kyrenia

Two years after escorting T/Cypriots to their homes in the South, I escorted my wife to her home in the North. She used to tell me wonderful stories of her life in Kyrenia, admittedly the most beloved place of most of G/Cypriots. She was 15 when she had to leave, without taking anything from her house. Twenty-two years later, there she was, outside her home, accompanied by me and a T/Cypriot couple, friends since my first bi-communal meetings. A woman in her 50-ies and her son, a physician, as we were later told, appeared at the door, shocked when they heard the reason of our visit… Refugees themselves from Limassol, in the South, not only they let us willingly inside, but also tried very hard to give good reasons for a few changes they made in the kitchen. My wife was moving very slowly, every now and then recognising, with a tense voice, a piece of furniture in the sitting room and inquiring about some others that were missing… She was leading the way and we were silently following. "This is my bedroom!", she said facing a door, standing reluctantly for some moments. She then made a step or two, turned to the right facing a small, green desk, she pointed to it, but couldn't utter a word… She then turned backwards, covered her face with her hands and burst into weeping, kneeling towards the wall…It was hard for me to hide my tears, but something that touched me as well, was when I saw the T/Cypriot woman, with tears in her eyes, coming close to my wife and putting her arm on her back… When we came back to our house, my wife looked very happy and caring for me and the children. When I asked how she felt about the visit, she told me something I never expected: "Before going back to my home, I was feeling that I wasn't completely belonging here with you and our children, that a part of myself was belonging there. When seeing Kyrenia and my house again, I realised that I don't belong there anymore - it has become Turkish. However, after going back and remembering and feeling what I felt, I now feel that I belong wholeheartedly here, to you and our children…"

Dancing has been important to me since my adolescence and especially after it became associated with erotic feelings. Apart from my first blues which I still remember very vividly, the dance that led me into, I dare say, an ecstatic experience, was the one that happened during a peace concert organised in November 1995 by a small bi-communal group I was a member. Imagine an old building in the Dead Zone, that used to be one of the famous hotels in the Middle East and since 1974 residence of UN soldiers. It's Saturday afternoon, the soldiers are resting in their rooms, outside only cats and birds can cross the barbed wires, and in the hotel's big hall, for the first time after 1974, 700 people from both communities are dancing with live music by two popular music groups, one from each community. Until that day I believed, but in secret (you see, my leftist consciousness was watching) that T/Cypriot music and culture in general was inferior to ours. But there I was, among the 700 people, glad that we had much more people than we expected, not knowing again who was who, holding hands with smiling and joyful people from the other community and getting gradually and strangely drunk, without a drop of alcohol…Being a moving member of a dancing circle, I remember feeling more and more relaxed among the Aliens of my country, feeling that it didn't matter who was who, or what kind of music was playing, Turkish, Greek, English or whatever; as long as there was a peaceful and joyful music that connected the hearts of the people in that hall, as long as there was Life in that Dead Zone…Feeling so many barriers and frontiers falling apart in my soul, feeling happy for that encounter but also sorry for all those walls I raised in my mind towards those people I was now touching and looking with trust into their smiling eyes, I let my tears pour out, while dancing…That magical union (or perhaps re-union?) of so many people and of so many parts of my soul, has powerfully marked my mind… I think it has become one of the strongest driving forces that keeps pushing me towards bi-communal work, even at hard times, when meeting with Them was synonymous to treason.

(This Cyprus map was publised by Ferrandus Bertelli’nin 1562 in Roma. It's name is "Isola di Cipro".)

Spring 2000, a park near Pyla, the only mixed village in the Buffer Zone. Hundreds of people, mostly teenagers, come from the North and the South, for a bi-communal Youth Festival. Apart from the speeches for Peace, the music and the dances, one could spot a queue of people before a table near an ambulance. The organisers, young people, some of them near the age they are expected to join the army and therefore be ready to shed their blood or kill their friends of the other community, decided to organise a campaign to save the live of Andreas, a five-year G/Cypriot boy who suffers from Leukaemia. A campaign to find donors for bon marrow transplant. The father of the boy, was standing silent next to the table and the nurse, thanking the people with a warm smile for their generous offer. Feeling sad that due to my age I could not participate in that blood donation, I chose to support that noble act at least with my presence. Watching the wet eyes of the father and of many other people, the glances of gratitude of that parent and the glances of warm support of T/Cypriots, I had the feeling that something very powerful was happening in the hearts and souls of everybody there: the father, the donors and those watching, like myself. Something magnificent and symbolic of what was coming in the near future.

A few months later, in the same park, during a re-union meeting of people, who until 1974 used to live together in mixed villages or towns, the same process took place. This time, however, not only for Andreas, but for Kemal as well, a T/Cypriot boy with the same problem. Unfortunately Kemal died a few moths later. Andreas's father managed to get a permission to cross over the Dead Zone, evidently for the first time after 74, in order to be at Kemal's funeral. The event had an extensive coverage by most media, especially TV channels, so most Cypriots that day had a chance to see the two fathers fall into each other's embrace and cry together. Andreas's father was given the privilege to speak to the people at the funeral and through the media to all Cypriots of both communities. He spoke about the common pain of the children and the parents, about the gift of Life and Health, about Peace and Love. That evening hundreds of people, I guess, were touched by the two fathers' strong bonding and shed some tears for their common pain… That evening the Alien's mask fell at least for a while and a lot of people saw the human Face behind the Mask…

Last July, a T/Cypriot friend and myself, had 12 co-existence sessions with 28 teenagers from both communities, during a three-week summer camp in USA . Until the 7 th session, and despite various techniques we had used, we failed to help the group make a breakthrough; we could feel the tension and the blocking whenever we ran into a hot or sensitive issue. The kids would then start again with the usual staff, like interrupting each other, arguing about their point of view, raising their voice, blaming the other side etc, despite

the friendship that was being created during the camp life, organised by a peace organisation. As we were coming to the end of the session I was feeling the tension tightening my stomach. Following my intuition I chose to share a few experiences / stories that I am sharing today with you. While telling them I felt my tears pushing their way to my eyes. I let them flow and remained silent. Silence expanded to the group. The following day we asked them to think of a pleasant or unpleasant story / experience of a person close to them, relating to bi-communal relations. Then we asked them to share them, one by one, to the group, not allowing any interruptions. The most impressive reaction came from a T/Cypriot girl, who until that day was the most pessimistic and negative about the possibility of that workshop to make the G/Cypriots "understand"… That day that girl shared the story of how her father, at about her age, lost his father, killed by G/Cypriots. Poor girl couldn't stop crying, even after leaving and returning to the room. Nobody could speak, only some hands, one by the G/Cypriot girl sitting close to her, reached out to comfort her pain… Similar stories continued, with stories of solidarity and friendship as well. Tears appeared in other eyes as well, including us facilitators, feeling a kind of awe one feels at events like birth… The following sessions ran very smoothly, with the group exploring in a calm and warm atmosphere very hot and sensitive issues, like the return of refugees, the recognition of the other side, the withdrawal of troops, etc. The "Wall" had fallen…

(Cyprus map of Jodocus Hondıus ve Petrus Bertius , published in 1916 in Amsterdam)

In November 2000, a few kilometres from here, I had the privilege to participate to a magnificent event and enjoy another magical experience. The Bi-communal Choir for Peace in Cyprus , came to London , invited by the Cypriot Community Centre and two other Cypriot organisations here, to give two concerts. It was the first time the members of the Choir had the chance to live together for almost a week. In Cyprus we can only meet for a few hours, always in the Buffer Zone and usually after having to face various difficulties and obstacles. To make that trip possible we had to go through even greater difficulties, especially the T/Cypriots. So you can imagine what it meant to us, after four years of working so hard, to stay in the same hotel, travel together and spend so much time as a group, without any interference…The other important element was the warm reception we had by the Cypriot organisations who invited us and the overall climate in the relations of T/ and G/Cypriots here… Something we can only visualise or dream of in Cyprus … Now imagine about 60 singers and musicians standing on a stage of a hall full of your compatriots, not knowing who is who, them also not knowing who is who among the Choir members… I remember wondering whether they could give more to us than we to them…Listening to their clapping and applause, my heart and voice was getting warmer and my spirit higher. The face of our conductor was getting brighter, her eyes shining… until we started a sad song lamenting the death of the beloved one… Her eyes got red and then tears flowed to her cheeks, despite her effort to withhold them. I found my voice being choked by a wave of crying, I could already see some women wiping their eyes and a man close to me getting pale… The voices were no longer coming out smoothly…I found myself wondering whether to continue suppressing my crying, until I felt that the whole audience was moved and touched in a similar way. Their powerful applause finally liberated me from my dilemma, so I let myself free to cry together with so many Choir members and so many people from the audience. In the meantime the lights fell in the direction of the audience and I could see many people holding hands and smiling to each other and to us of course…

Final Reflections - What is the common denominator or bottom line of these 7 stories? Is it the Fall of Psychic Walls, the overcoming of Alienation or is it the Compassion, Connection and Bonding that may be happening both within one's Soul and among Souls? Whatever are the common factors, I think there is a “Thread” that goes through all these stories and help us get out of the Labyrinth of bestiality… That is why I would call it: the Humanising Red Thread! This Humanising Thread has led me and many other friends - passengers in this wonderful Journey - from an existence limited within a small circle of people (ourselves, our family, work and close friends) to an interaction with much wider circles, including whole communities. It has created for us a new Myth that inspires us, "a sense of wider meaning to our existence", as Jung has said, "that raises a man beyond mere getting and spending" (Man and his Symbols, p.78). At the same time, while following this Humanising process, either as individuals or groups (e.g. the Bi-communal Choir), every now and then we see tangible signs and sense intangible vibrations of a powerful impact of what we do upon a significant number of people in both communities.

As a closure I would invite you to watch and listen to the Bi-communal Choir singing a song about the Division of my Country. The poem was written by a T/Cypriot girl, now a famous poet, the music by a G/Cypriot man, now a famous composer, it is sang in Turkish and Greek and is conducted by a G/Cypriot woman and a T/Cypriot man. It is about the pain of the Division, but actually, the way it has been presented to the public, it transcends the Division, by encompassing the diversity of culture, ethnicity and gender…