Stewart arrives bearing gifts - avocados (almost certainly the last of them), a large bag of oranges, the gift of a bean dish from Doğan’s mother, and - as J’s mouth begins watering - dhal he has made.
Weather forecast now saying that North African dust will remain in the air over the weekend, predicting until Monday. Does seem more likely than the overprecise estimate of noon on Thursday, which in any case we’ve already passed as the late afternoon skies darken and the sea disappears into the grey.
And, in the spirit of darkness, newly elected Republic of Cyprus [South] President Nikos Christodoulides has, as one of his first public acts, laid a wreath at the “imprisoned graves” in Nicosia. The graves are not precisely imprisoned, though they are within the precincts of the Central Jail of Nicosia. They belong to thirteen EOKA fighters, nine of them hanged by the British administration of the time in 1956 and 1957. EOKA stands for the Greek title meaning National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters
EOKA was a terrorist organisation active from the fifties to the seventies whose aim was political union with Greece, pitting it against the British, Turkish Cypriots, and many fellow Greek Cypriots. While many independence movements have involved violence, EOKA was not an independence movement and did mean death for Turkish Cypriots. Independence was granted by the British in 1960, and the government of the Republic later outlawed the organisation, which had been responsible for civilian deaths and involved with the assassination of the American ambassador.
An odd statement for Christodoulides to make immediately after being elected president, considering he had claimed a commitment to reunification, with solving “the Cyprus problem” his top priority.
Posts
