So Israel has won Eurovision with Netta’s quirky Toy song, which is themed around strong women and features chicken noises. While Netta had been the favourite to win for some time, Cyprus was the unexpected frontrunner after an impressive performance in both the rehearsals and semi-final. For a time it looked like Eurovision was heading to […]
I have been a trade unionist all of my working life and would tell everyone reading this article, if you are working and not in a trade union, I urge you to join a union today. Currently, our community faces a bigger threat from the far-right than we have ever seen before and I […]
Abdullah Nihat Yılmaz is a writer and columnist. He was born in Fatsa, Turkey, in 1941 and has been living in Britain since 1981. We met recently to discuss the subject of migration literature and the notion of ‘gurbet’, which is loosely translated as ‘a place far from home’. Abdullah Ağabey*, over the years we […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I was not planning to write about my trip to Sofia, Bulgaria, where I attended a conference on Cultural Heritage in Migration. We all had an intense discussion on this issue with the conference organisers and participants, and later my personal experience of heritage in Sofia left me to conclude that I must address […]
Mark this date: 25th June 2017. It could be a highly significant date for us, diaspora Cypriot Turks. It could prove to be the date we finally started to get organised, to get noticed. But only if we know how to grasp the significance of what happened on that day. Only if we know how […]
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 […]
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 […]
