Author: Ertanch Hidayettin

Columnists
Racism kills yet again
 

“I can’t breathe”. The last words George Floyd uttered, just before he was murdered in cold blood in Minneapolis, USA. George Floyd has entered into the statistics of those many killed by this cruel State. Neither his family, nor anti-racists around the world will allow him to be just another American statistic. The cries of […]

Columnists
Coronavirus and the empathy-deficient people

Two photographs, two family tragedies. The first of these show a three-year-old girl, Ayşe, wiping tears off her grandmother’s face with a tissue, oblivious to the tragedy her family has just suffered. The grandmother, also called Ayşe, is shedding tears for her daughter, little Ayşe’s mum Sonya Kaygan, who has just lost her life to […]

Columnists
The tragedy of Grenfell

One more year has flown away. Our lives shortened by one more year. A lot happened in this strange world of ours. Some happy, some crazy, some sad. A perfect example of the latter two was the election of Donald Trump as President of the USA. For us here in the UK, undoubtedly the single […]

Columnists
Rewarding success
 

I do not like the word ‘Diaspora’. Its dictionary definition is “the dispersion or spread of any people from their original homeland”. This evokes feelings of temporariness and permanent homesickness. For third, fourth generation Cypriots these feelings are meaningless. Their original homeland is Britain. These to me are negative feelings which put barriers in front […]

Columnists
The last journey
 

A lovely, crisp day. The first day of autumn. I walk through tranquil gardens with two friends in bright sunlight towards an imposing building. A large crowd had started to gather in front of the building. The place is the St. Marylebone Crematorium in East Finchley. A sense of déjà vu washes over me. Not […]

Columnists
“Missing persons” – the tragedy of Cyprus
 

He was a giant of a man. Our gentle giant. “Uncle Pasha,” we called him. “Huriye, let us take the children for a ride. Gather them round,” he would call out to Auntie Huriye, his wife. We would jump in his shiny black Dodge he had recently purchased with screams of delight. I remember he […]

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A small contribution to peace
 

My last wish When I die Is that you bury me in Cyprus Let my body be merged With the soil of my native land My head to my guts in the South My loins to my feet in the North Let me have two graves In the North and in the South For I […]

Columnists
Genco and Nâzım in church
 

On a bitterly cold January evening, I walk with trepidation towards a grand, imposing church. Why trepidation? Because I know the temperature inside this magnificent venue is not going to be that different from the outside; I spent many hours trembling inside Union Chapel attending union meetings. The choice of the venue is perhaps anathema […]

Columnists
Children of the World
 

Another year has passed. We have arrived at 2017. A new dawn, or same old, same old? We always complain that the year has passed too fast. Really, we are expressing fear of our approaching old age. Ask the children of the world if the year has passed too fast. Those children who are dodging […]