The MegaZine is available in two forms!

FreE-MegaZine: Free and released via this paypal link, welcoming donations: https://paypal.me/pools/c/8xdxPltpD8
Artists’ MegaZine at £25 (+p&p)
Artists’ MegaZine is a limited edition bespoke handmade and handwritten multi-sensory haptic Zine, an object that brings to
life the postcolonial queer energies and places that feature in the words, images, and sounds. Choose from a rose scented,
jasmine scented, or no scented. To pre-order your Artists’ MegaZine email us.
All proceeds will go to the LGBTQ+ charity (Accept Cyprus & Queer Cyprus Association)
THANK YOU TO:
Taylor Alana for designing our fig-delicious front cover. Graphic designer (Instagram @tayloralanacreative)
Stella Bolaki for guidance on creating an Artist’s Book. Reader in American Literature and Medical Humanities. Scholar of
Artist’s Books. Co-editor exhibition catalogue Prescriptions: Artists’ books on wellbeing and medicine (Natrix Press 2017).

Drew Kemp for guidance on making an unacademic Zine. Zine Scholar, founder of Major Threat Academia
(punkrockacademia.com), and Associate Professor of curriculum and social justice at Augusta University College.
Tom Parkinson for his knowledge, support and tips on zines, food/history/culture, politics of music and so much more that
enriches and feeds us creative wordly humanitarians. Musician and senior lecturer in education and global disparities.
Arianna Koudounas for bringing total peace and love to this project by spreading the word to the poets who contributed to
this project. [email protected]
Henry Shaw for kindly allowing the use of her stunning artwork to illustrate sections of the MegaZine.
The MegaZine is now
available in two forms!
Get to know Everyone…

Alev Adil, Motherhood, Memory and the Impossibility of Fidelity (@alevadil twitter)

Ametis, Artwork (@ohmygoditshappeningagain instagram)

Okan Bullici and Enver Ethemer, There but not there

Koraly Dimitriadis, Red gypsy violinist, Me myself and love ( www.koralydimitriadis.com, @koraly_poet instagram @koralyd
twitter Facebook YouTube)

Anastasia Dolitsay, My wife went to war (@uvglov instagram)

Anastasia Gavalas, Fanouropita (@anastahini instagram and twitter)

Diana Georgiou, Against Privacy (Notes on Cyprus Pride)

Mine Gündüz, Gemiler

Mete Hatay & Neşe Yasin, Queer Singer Beats On Homophobic Nationalism, Behiç Gökay

Stelios Kapnisis, Danger Danger, Queer Escapades, Kahve (Instagram: alepoudelispoetry / alepoudelis)

Contents (total 35)

Stavros Stavrou Karayanni, Gardening Desire

Irene Kattou, A Rainbow of Encounters (@body.art_i instagram)

Kemal Kemal, Be you Be Venus (@photoregenerate instagram)

Alexander Koumoullis-Guest, Sheftalias among charcoals (@alexgxela instagram)

Charitini Kyriacou, African DNA (www.xaritini.com)

Leman, “Once Upon a Time” (@lemanpoetry instagram)

Despina Michaelidou, We need space, My Name is Queer

Haji Mike, Mihalakis (https://hajimike.com/)

Daniele Nunziata, We Sail in Love

Tamer Öncül, NAKED, CROW, MR. OWL

Hüseyin Özinal, Fugitive Bodies Exhibition (http://huseyinozinal.com)

Constantinos Papageorgiou, Genocide

Maria Petrides, WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON, Tendering Pink Readings (@petridesmaria instagram & facebook, @mpetrides10 on
twitter.)

Zoe Piponides, Rosy’s Formula, Ize

Lysandros Pitharas, Kavafis, Green Line

Marios Psaras, ‘Thin Green Line’

Kamil Saldun and Sholeh Zahraei, ‘The Hunt’ ([email protected];

https://www.facebook.com/TheHunt171; https://www.instagram.com/thehuntshortfilm

Serhan Salih, Depression, Anxiety – The Thoughts, see me now!, Artwork (https://sarkerink.tumblr.com/)

Lefki Savvidou, Art

Constantia Soteriou, Red Lefkosa Dreams

Emre Soykan, Bird Wall Painting and Sculptures

Valentini Stavrou, A whore named George

Ty Tzavrinou, The Last Time (@londonjersey Twitter, @kiinktini Instagram https://www.facebook.com/TyTzavri,

[email protected])

Gürkan Uluçhan, last 24 hours of the third gender in mekong

Neşe Yaşın, Rainbow Children

Marilena Zackheos, Bottleneck, Alice B Toklas on Her Way, Dancing at a Lesbian Bar
WM Minott-“Natural Justice” is what we should all search for, it is what we all deserve. Equity is still only a buzz word
spoken when it suits the game makers. No equity, no justice. It is important to encourage each person to search
for truth, for when we have found it, the world will be a safer space. The module (Right / Write to the world) emboldens
participants to join the search, to agree or to dissent - to be heard in classrooms
boardrooms, in the town halls and the halls of justice in each city.
happening.’ Rosa Luxemburg.
always to proclaim loudly what is
revolutionary thing one can do is
Diana Georgiou - ‘The most
rise above everything and anyone!
Constantia Soteriou - Democracy can and will
power and who continue to resist in spite of it. ACAB.
Anastasia Gavalas - Solidarity to all those who are fighting against state
A Message of Solidarity…
 Solidarity Continued…
Exploring the Cypriot Identity the streets of Nicosia though, we
expresses our unconditional reclaimed the one and final content,
solidarity. As an organisation the Hope we only knew through myths,
committed to free expressions of and it has now been engraved in our
Cypriot identities, we stand with all collective memory for the days to
LGBT+ Cypriots and resist anti-LGBT+ come. We will water it and nurture it,
until it lays its roots deep into our
abuse in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey.
new mythologies of being, that change
Co-signed: Ilaeira Agrotou-Georgiou,
won’t seem like a dream.
Anthony Anaxagorou,
Bahriye Kemal, Arianna
Koudounas, and Daniele
Nunziata.
Hüseyin Özinal,Our
island, which has a 15-
year history of LGBTQ +
struggle, divided by a
Collevtiva Inanna: war I have lived, north
Diversity, resistance, or south, Turkey or in
peace, honesty and the another country, will
eastern Mediterranean continue the LGBTQ +
are concepts and spaces that excite struggle until all people of
us. To see them practiced and the world are equal and
reflected in this MegaZine, through discrimination is over.
such colourful and creative
expressions, is delightful. To go
beyond the page and include music and
screenings at the live launch event is
priceless. Solidarity in person and on
the page, for now and for the future.
Collectiva Inanna is proud to stand in
solidarity with you. (Bahriye Kemal,
Maria Kouvarou, Reem Maghribi,Manuella
Mavromichalis)
http://collectivainanna.com/

Cypriots protest corruption

Protesting Artist Injured- Anastasia
Demetriadou (Nama Dama)

Now, more than ever, people

who fight tirelessly for
peace and love are becoming
stronger because we are
realizing the power we hold
when we stand together.

Ioulita Tmz, in the protests of 13 &

20 February the Cypriot people stomped
on the colonial myth that we are the
submissive people of the Mediterranean
Sea. There was a reclamation of a
voice that was always there, screaming
from the inside, screaming from our
grandma’s sealed lips for so many
years. This time we didn’t ponder into
the abyss of the past, we actively
demanded a future. Pandora’s box was
unsealed in the blood-stained island
of olive trees, propelling divisionist
policies, sexist mentalities, racist
realities, golden passports, and
golden dreams that turn into dust. In
 Solidarity Continued…

While drifting into the dizzying vortex of our accelerating

DAYANIŞMA METNİ life, a tiny virus slowed our speed and slowed the world:
"Take a moment and think," he said to us. Imperialist wars of
by Tamer Öncül interest, religious and racial conflicts, sexual and gendered
marginalization, attacks, exploitation, impoverishment, and
intolerance, all continue.

The powers that have built their empire through FEAR continue to draw on the global fear
created by the Pandemic. Using this fear, they further erode freedom, justice, peace, and all
human values; they are trying to keep alive the "Fortresses of Power" that are crumbling with
pressure and violence.

When people try to resist, they are targeted by brutal attacks.

Whilst angrily watching the violence inflicted on students at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul,
we suffer for not being able to do anything beyond messages of solidarity.

News of disproportionate violence targeted at those who rise against fascism, injustice and
discrimination are coming from all over the world.

This was what happened in Nicosia on 13 February. The violence against young people exercising
their right to legal action sent a message suggesting "The Strong is Right!"

Although the virus does not discriminate between religion, race, gender, social status, the
INEQUALITY created by raging capitalism has begun to manifest itself in the process of
prevention and treatment. While "Opportunistic Trade" has increased the production of hygienic
products, such as masks, gloves, billions of people have lost jobs, become poorer, and more
vulnerable to the virus. In reaching the vaccine, we clearly see the poor-rich distinction.
Poor countries have almost no chance of reaching the vaccine.

The virus has turned into a "Global Weapon" in the hands of the Transnational Trusts and their
fascist representatives. They have backed up their expensive war toys ever since they
discovered that this WEAPON is
cheaper and more effective than
nuclear-chemical missiles.

COLONIZER
People have (as always) two
options: Rising against the
Fascism, exploitation, racist-
discriminatory oppression,
injustice, and violence; or bow
down and join the "New Slaves"
GUILTY OF
class
FUCKING UP OUR
"The bite of conscience, like the
DANCE MOVES
bite of a dog into a stone, is a
stupidity." says Nietzsche.

In order not to regret our future,

instead of biting the stone, we
lunge it into the face of fascism.
 Cyprus:
Mo(ve)ments, Memory & Dance From Dancing Fear &
Desire Race,
Sexuality, and
Imperial Politics in
Middle Eastern Dance,
images invoke a queer Wilfrid Laurier
Moving, he gazes at
nostalgia not for a University Press,
the viewer through 2004
playful eyes, arched past that we have
over by determined lived and
eyebrows and with a experienced, but for
faintly discernible a historical moment

Photo of a hand-painted copper plate engraving from 1760-1780, representing a dancing boy playing clappers. A dancing boy was called koçek which
means “little camel colt.” He is in a yellow robe with a sash, a dagger, and a turban. Most dancing boys came from non-Turkish cultures of the Ottoman
smile. His brightly when artistic cultures, languages,
coloured robe embodiment and to imbue in us the
elegantly drapes his expression become posture of a desiring
dancing body. With possible in a context heart whose beats
his right arm raised that inspires time the choreography
and left hand creative ways of that synchronizes the
lowered, the young being in our body. body’s surge of
dancer seems to move The dancing bodies of sexual
with a lightness and dancing boys cite a transformations and
a fluidity. He gives certain creative emotions.
the impression that cosmopolitanism

Empire. (Caption by Elizabeth Artemis Mourat. Photo, courtesy of the private collection of Elizabeth Artemis Mourat.)
he is gliding through capable of intimating
space, time, history, moments that go far
sensibilities. His beyond ethnic,
clappers add rhythm cultural,
and percussive linguistic, and
articulation to a artistic
body whose longing investments in
appears palpable in cultural
the image. In the exchanges. They
second Ottoman transgress and
miniature a group of incite ways of
three dancing boys conceptualizing the
become the focus of body’s aspiration
the scene. They gaze of sexual
at different transcendence;
directions and this sensing a sexual
adds to the pulse whose passion
liveliness of the and transformative
moment, complemented qualities render it
by the gestures of indomitable. And
arms and torso that this is what these
depict the energy of images may do for
the dance. How can we us today when our
relate to these daily life is
figures in hand- assaulted
constantly by still Mo(ve)ments
painted copper plates
from centuries ago? and moving
images. Hand-painted I want Cyprus to make
How can we sense to me as an
communicate with copper plate
engravings and imaginary erotic
Ottoman miniatures of site. Why the
dancers and Ottoman miniatures
travel through time, obsession, you might
musicians? Both
private collection of Elizabeth Artemis Mourat.)
Ottoman miniature painting of dancing boys. (Courtesy of the

don’t forget”) have

solidified into a
ubiquitous slogan
encountered
everywhere from
newspapers to self-
adhesive stickers on
car windows and
shops. Unfortunately,
the inflexible and
ideological bias of
this slogan has
sought (and succeeded
largely) to fixate
Cypriot consciousness
and has obliterated
other narratives from
surfacing and
wonder. The forces of deferred necessary affecting in any
conquest and retheorizations of substantial way the
domination (colonial, nation, citizenship, cultural and
state, church and so sexuality, and political landscape.
on) must be identity. At moments In a strong sense,
understood as power when these rights “Den Xehno” has been
relations that an attempt to dictate
inscribe themselves and control the
on the body. Such subject’s memory from
power relations Do Not Homogenize
within. The following
are what William Different Dance Traditions. three moments form
Spurlin refers part of an amnesiac
to when he Perform and Play with practice that is,
argues that the for me, a site of
sexual and Them ALL. resistance and a
struggles for subversion of the
erotic autonomy form “Den xehno” slogan.
significant axes of
analysis (189. could not be Mesaoria, 4 June 2003
Moreover, dance and obliterated, they
the erotic share one were completely With Spurgeon
significant trivialized and Thompson, a friend
similarity: they are mocked with self- and colleague, we are
both endowed with righteousness. driving towards
“transformative Heteronormativity, as Famagusta to attend
powers” which, as a normalizing regime, and present at a
Spurlin again notes perpetuates its conference at the
(200), have been ideological longevity Eastern Mediterranean
completely sanctioned in its University. It is my
unrecognized by cause by the first trip here after
ideological analysts. Republic. thirty years. In
The Cyprus Republic’s 1974, the border that
anxious but insistent Since the 1974 divided the two parts
heterosexual invasion of Cyprus by of Cyprus was sealed
posturing has Turkish troops, the with blood and
obliterated the words “Den Xehno” destruction. Two
rights of sexual (which literally months before I would
minorities and translate into “I not have been able to
attend the although I do not
conference, but want to privilege

are hybrid art forms fraught with political problems. Belly dance and

the Middle East, linked to imperial soldiers’ heterosexual desire for

colonial dynamics. Raqs Sharqi, or “Dance of the East,” is an Arabic

and tsifteteli are different names with a related dance idiom. These
because of the recent it, I do need to use

dance are used interchangeably, both derive from danse du ventre of

the early Orientalists. All stereotyped and linked to exoticism and
Belly dance, danse du ventre, Middle Eastern dance, Oriental dance,

discourse. Danse du ventre denotes the French colonial conquest of

and somewhat it. How can I

colonized bodies. Oriental dance conflates auto-exoticization and

East” (also “χορός της ανατολής” in Greek). Raqs Sharqi and belly
term, especially in Egypt, linked to European term “Dance of the
unexpected inhabit a different

danse du ventre have been absorbed by Western male heterosexist

development (the ease body and attempt
of restrictions in another gaze? In the
movement between the delirium that
two parts of Cyprus) surrounds Cyprus’s
my participation at accession to the
the event becomes a European Union, and
possibility. It is an the presumption of
overwhelming those Greek Cypriots
experience. The who are keen to show
landscape speeds past off the official
us like a dream. The signature that
early morning light confirms their
spreads across the European status, I
Mesaoria plain gently insist on Mesaoria’s
urging the subtle and non-Europeanness. I
shifting hues of its long to see its body
stunning composition as a confluence of
of rocks, plants, and narratives that
earth to reveal reverberate across

Belly Dance Nomenclature

themselves and begin space and time,
their transformation. setting each Cypriot
In my eager eyes, the body into motion.
earth seems abundant,
fertile, and loving. A Gym in Nicosia,
As if the landscape September 2002

eroticism.
conceals an oracle, I
am begging it to “Wa rimshi
speak, to narrate, asmarani/Shabakna
and it indulges me— bil hawa” (“the
but only half- eyelashes of the
heartedly since it swarthy one/have their narcissistic
remains absorbed in entangled me in the self-absorption.
its vibrant nets of love”) ( Indifferent to the
intercourse with the Abdel Halif Hafez, mechanical, often
light. Mesaoria—with “Gana el Hawa.” macho gym postures,
its old villages and Mohammed Hamza, eyelids indulge
river beds dense with Baligh Hamdy) playfully and dance
eucalyptus, donkeys, away with
and with the Strangely, my focus indifference. I
Pentadaktylos on exercise allows me relish the
mountain range to observe people illicitness of such
offering generously around me more gazing at Cypriot
its imposing acutely. Cypriot men male corporeality. In
definition. I am must have the the teachings that we
thinking of Spivak thickest and most were meticulously
again: the gaze I languorous eyelashes indoctrinated by,
occupy has been I have ever set my hangings, killings,
inflected by my hungry gaze upon; and beatings have
history. It is the usually dark, been valorized and
sight/site into which playful, elongated, narrated endlessly as
I emerge and, and entangled in
 epics of remarkable “Dancing to the End designation? I also
adroitness and heroic of Love.” Zehra, a feel a strong
national sacrifice. new Cypriot friend connection between
Purity of patriotic from the Turkish “dancing to the end
feeling in the midst side, is translating of love” and memory—a
of barbarity must, we my words into certain nostalgia as
learned, prevail over Turkish. I use if we have already
the anamnesis of “dancing” in the been at this place
contaminated passions title because I but never truly
and erotic prefer the gerund experienced it. Dance
possibilities. form instead of the is very much about
imperative “Dance finding a home.
Me,” with its Perhaps not many
sang behind a wooden lattice because visibility engenders contamination.
female singers of old oral tradition linked to slave singers of pre-Islamic times, who
banishment, they adopted the Almeh (plural awâlim) meaning learned respected
term meaning dishonourable woman. When the ghawazee were subject to
homosexuals. Ghawazee is Arabic for female dancers in Egypt, now a derogatory
and Egypt, these are now derogatory terms to mean transvestites, transsexuals,
Ottoman Empire, who were mostly Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. In both Turkey
Armenian, Greek and Turkish male dancers. Koçek is a term for male dancers in the
Khawals, is an Arabic term for Arab male dancers, and Gink is for Jewish,

Male-Female Dance Nomenclature

suggestion of a people think about it

Khawals, Gink, Koçek, Ghawazee, Ghawazee Derogatory Terms today.

partner (which I in those terms, but

think Leonard Cohen it certainly helps me
has in mind for his when I do.
song “Dance Me to the
End of Love”). I am a
solo dancer and any
suggestion of leading All this questioning
a partner or being and speculation do
led freezes me not make it to the
completely. “Dancing talk. The moment at
to the End of Love” Kalem requires a
spins and undulates delicate balancing
with a power that its between gentleness
unique grace breathes and pragmatism in
forth and plagues me dealing with the
with questions issues that the
before, during, and evening sets out to
after the event. In thematize. So,
the emotional realm, adorned and hip-
where do we imagine scarfed, I am
that geographical performing to “Og‘
point where Love lan, Og‘ lan,” a
ends? And how do we tsifteteli sung in
comprehend that space Turkish by Stelios
that dance traverses Kazantzides, quite
as it carries us with possibly the most
its flow to reach beloved Greek male
that place of voice ever. I dance
ultimate fulfillment— and play finger
Kalem Restaurant in cymbals before an
that ecstatic telos
Northern Nicosia, 17 audience of Cypriots—
where we consume the
August 2003 Greek and Turkish.
sacraments of desire
and passion, in order Abruptly, presumably
In an evening of
to trans-form? And is because of some
speeches and
the point of technical problem,
performances that I the CD player stops
departure for this
organized jointly but my audience
course always marked
with Sylvia, my
and accessible? Could continues to clap the
friend and belly
we start from rhythm and sing the
dance teacher in
anywhere to “dance to lyrics in both the
Nicosia, I deliver a
the end of love” or Cypriot dialects,
talk entitled urging me to continue
does this place need
 BELLY DANCE, DANSE DU VENTRE, MIDDLE EASTERN DANCE, ORIENTAL DANCE,
ANDTSIFTETELI, DANCE OF EAST, DANSÖZ ÇIFTETELLI
dancing to their sounding distorted
singing and clapping, but dynamic,

Belly-Dancer” 350)’
and literature. (Edward Said “Homage to a
after for her company by men of law, politics,
classical poetry, to discourse wittily, to be sought
gifts; others were the ability to sing and recite
accomplishments. Dancing was only one of her
sorts, but a woman of significant
Lane and Flaubert. The almeh was a courtesan of
European visitors to the Orient such as Edward
woman), spoken of by nineteenth-century
‘the all-but-forgotten role of almeh (literally, a learned
and my finger Kazantzides’s voice
cymbals. (What the a little clipped but
Greek-Cypriots are completely new, as
singing is a familiar if the song has been
song that I have given another birth.
known but never As the curtain falls
thought of as the on my performance
Greek version of here, and separates
“O‘glan, O‘glan,” me from my virtual
always considering it audience, I will
a different song.) It hurry backstage to
becomes a rare moment change into other
in this courtyard of costumes, in those
a humble restaurant magical dressing
in old Nicosia—a rooms, which afford
performance that possibilities of
evokes a multitude of seeing and
feelings, impulses, transformations, so
desires both for that I prepare to go
dancer and audience. onstage yet again for To Know More Read: Dancing
In this constant the abuse and Fear & Desire Race, Sexuality,
shift between spaces exaltation, and Imperial Politics in
and performances lie disapprobation and Middle Eastern Dance, Wilfrid
resistance and trancing love which Laurier University Press,
meanings, useful are evoked in my 2004. ‘Anamnesis and queer
poe(/li)tics: Dissident
constructions, and Cypriot drama.
sexualities and the erotics of
deconstructions. The transgression in Cyprus.
recorded song then Journal of Greek Media &
returns and blares Culture. 2018:4/2. ‘Zone of
through the Passions: a Queer Re-imagining
loudspeakers, of Cyprus’s “No Man’s Land”
Moving identity: dance in the
negotiation of sexuality and
Stavros Stavrou Karayanni is ethnicity in Cyprus’.
Postcolonial Studies, 2006: 9/
3, pp. 251 266. ‘Gender and
Transformative Possibilities
an academic, creative writer and performer. He in Cypriot Narratives of
Displacement’, in On the Move:
is associate professor of English in the The Journey of Refugees in New
Literatures in English, ed. by
Geetha Ganapathy-Doré and
Department of Humanities at the European Helga Ramsey- Kurz. Newcastle
upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
University, Cyprus. He has published widely on Publishing, 2012, pp. 57–
75 Sexual Interactions: The
issues related to Middle Eastern dance, Social Construction of
Atypical Sexual Behaviors.
culture, gender, and sexuality. He is managing Universal Publishers (19 April
2006). Vernacular Worlds,
Cosmopolitan
editor of the journal Cadences. Imagination Cross/Cultures,
Volume: 181
Lysandros
PitharAs

Kavafis
11 o’clock, he locks the door
and into Alexandrian Streets full of commotion, makes his way
in these few hours his liberation must be complete

Oh the torment!

He roams
catches the glance of strangers betraying desire
their limbs, their lips, he follows…

First are men

then another from street corner to street corner
never once approaching them, so desperate is his love,
so complete that he stares through them,
saying nothing.

And this, one must say, is the epitaph of his inglorious love,
this dance with the city.
This ancient search,
that with each step nearer to the morning begins the possibility
of another night, another imagined kiss, leading nowhere.
The roar of traffic, the commotion,
the intoxication of the opiate of his dream as he walks
and walks going nowhere.

As he walks and the sun finally appears bidding the morning

he wrapping his coat more firmly around him
and suddenly betrayed by light
embarrassed by the pleasure of what might have been...
Green Line
I can’t see this green line.
Textures are more useful,
like the crevices this finger traces around
your masks
and the damp breathe of those still alive
and the theatre of sighs
as we post our condemnation to various
presidents,
the acid envelope’s lip

and sometimes our little towns are quiet

and only flags flutter as tributes to
silence,

and I poke my tongue

into the hole of my history
and wriggle my toes in the damp sand,
beyond the cafeteria,
and observe that I can’t see the green
line, I just can’t see it.

I can only see gold,

and the eyes of my people blacker than
embers,
and the strong smell of their lovemaking,
and secrets which they say nestle in their
breasts,
standing like monoliths looking toward the
sea,
saying nothing
as if they are chanting.
Diana Georgiou is a writer and curator based in London. Her
recent co-curated project EcoFutures (London, 2019) focused on
the implications of ecological issues on gender, race and
sexuality and involved 10 partner organisations and 7 venues with
the participation of over 70 artists, theorists, and activists.
Attentive to the sonic resonances of language, her textual work
also takes the form of recorded sound poetry and performative
live readings. She currently writes about the horrors of violence
and the difficulty of their narration. Her debut novel Other
Reflexes is forthcoming with Book Works.

Against Privacy (Notes on Cyprus Pride)

‘Aphrodite’s land is not an idyllic mythical landscape as depicted in so many

tourist guides that orientalise the island in the process of making it
attractive to Western tourists. It is, rather, a landfill of grief and inane
discourse on love’.
- Stavros Karayanni

sexuality with the same

sex. As divorce rates and
one-night stands
demonstrate, sex and love
are not always compatible,
possible or the ultimate
aim of interpersonal
relations. Yet, if love is
indeed the objective, I do
not know of any legal
consequences or of any
‘Being gay is not simply restrictions on loving a
about gay sex,’ asserts a person of the same sex.
commentator in an online It’s the sexual practice of
national newspaper. Then same sexed bodies that is
what is it about? Why were castigated and driven into
over 4500 people marching invisibility. It’s the sex
on the streets of Nicosia in homo-sex-uality that
on Saturday 31st of May flares up society’s
2014? “Same Love – Equal fantasies – fantasies of
Rights” read the slogan same sex that, for reasons
conceived by the Greek unknown to us, seem
Cypriot LGBT association intolerable.
Accept. Homo amor would be
Since so many people took a
Latin for same love. On the
stand in support of this
other hand, homosexual is
plea for (loving) equality,
not the practice of love,
exceeding the few hundred
it’s the practice of
expected to turn up, one
wonders what exactly was British Royal Air Force
made visible in the sent up their Red Arrows to
process. Evelyne Paradis, airbrush our sky with
executive director of ILGA pompous displays of heart-
Europe, stated that the shaped symbols. It was the
parade ‘sends an important fiftieth annual display of
message of hope especially the colonizer’s love for
for young people who have our island. The same empire
still to come out and need had incorporated Section
role models and should not 171 into the Cyprus
feel afraid.’ During the Criminal Code under
parade a series of visible ‘Offences Against Morality:
role models were put
Any person who (a) has
forward to address and
carnal knowledge of any
speak out for the right to
person against the order of
same sex loving and for the
nature, or (b) permits a
right to do so without
male person to have carnal
being discriminated
against. Amongst the role knowledge of him against
models, who consisted the order of nature
mainly of straight is guilty of a felony and
politicians, was the pop is liable to imprisonment
star and icon Anna Vissi. for five years.
‘If people were really
honest with themselves,’
Vissi once said in an This is the very law
interview, ‘they would penalizing homosexual
recognize their conduct that activist and
bisexuality.’ She drew huge architect Alekos Modinos
applause when she quoted battled for six years.
one of John Lennon’s lines: After appealing to the
‘Don’t hate what you don’t European Court of Human
understand’. Is the Rights, decriminalization
implication that Cypriot was finally enacted, in
society does not understand 1998. The grounds for his
love? Highly unlikely given appeal was that the
over 4,500 people present imported colonial law
in the name of (same) love, contradicted Article 8 of
and from what we hear from the Constitution of the
fellow nationals, tourists Republic of Cyprus, which
and the ex-pat community, states:
Cyprus is a lovely place,
home of the goddess of
Love, surrounded by a 1. Everyone has the right
tightly knit, bickering, to respect for his
opinionated yet loving private and family
society. Even the Cyprus life, his home and his
Tourism Organisation correspondence.
launched a campaign in 2013
with the slogan ‘Love
Cyprus’. Coincidentally,
two days before Pride, the
 2. There shall be no voluntarily engage.’ And
interference by a so, Pikis opposed the
public authority with amendment of Section 171 as
the exercise of this Article 8 (everyone has the
right except such as right to respect for his
is in accordance with private and family life),
the law and is in his judgement, comes to
necessary in a overrule it. What Mr. Pikis
democratic society in unwittingly highlighted is
the interests of that ‘private life’ is a
national security, very protected matter, at
public safety or the least according to the
economic well-being of general understanding of
the country, for the laws in Cyprus; it may
prevention of disorder come to trump any other
or crime, for the legislation as long as
protection of health national security, public
or morals, or for the safety, health and morals
protection of the remain intact. The main
rights and freedoms of concern here, as regards
others. human rights, society and
freedom, is the outdated
legal system that has
legislated our ideas of
morality. I wonder whether
lawyers could reasonably
be expected to offer a
defence ( for rapists,
paedophiles, persons held
with drugs / abusive
partners) by brandishing
the Article 8 card. Your
neighbour could then
shoot up heroin in their
veins, molest their own
In this well-argued legal
case, Judge Pikis’
child in the privacy of their
dissenting position held home and exclaim, ‘Well,
that ‘the risk of private
prosecution is inexistent’
Article 8 states that
and that ‘no private you have to respect
prosecution was ever raised
concerning homosexual acts my private life’.
in private.’ He maintained After all, it does not
that ‘adults engaged in threaten national security,
homosexual acts in private public safety, economic
cannot, under any well-being, or the
circumstances, be regarded protection of morals and
as the victims of the the rights and freedom of
conduct in which they others.’ There is an
inherent contradiction our legal system regarding
here, as paedophilia and the distinction between
homosexuality were both morality and human rights
under the umbrella of and how these are exercised
‘Offences Against both in the private and the
Morality’. Why didn’t the public sphere. Our penal
case of Modinos v Cyprus system is entirely
bring up the question of predicated upon outmoded
morality instead of respect notions of gender and
for private and family family constructs from
life? which we, non-heterosexual
and non-normative others,
I am drawing this crude
should be extremely careful
analogy to highlight four
as to how we call for
issues, namely, a) how
equality. In other words,
homosexuality, legally,
we may thereby run the risk
becomes pathologized and
of replicating an
analogous to all other acts
‘equality’ that oppresses
that call for
all the parties involved.
criminalization? b) How
Somehow ‘family’ and its
exactly do we protect ‘the
ally ‘private life’ become
rights and freedom of
contested arenas that
others’? c) What kind of
permit more violence with
equality are we demanding
less retribution. Consider,
when the structures that
as an especially telling
protect ‘the rights and
illustration, how the
freedoms of others’ do so
family operates when it
through the promotion and
discovers that one of its
protection of heterosexist
members is a homosexual.
and heteronormative morals?
They often accept their
And, most importantly, d)
homosexual as long as the
how privacy and
homosexual keeps their
privatization are construed
homosexuality in the family
as the alibis for an
– a matter of privacy. This
unethical standpoint?
demand is not a benign
request, nor does it show
respect for privacy. It’s a
Morality is a Private violation of a significant
Matter and Alekos Modinos part of a human being’s
is Guilty as Charged identity and it also
impinges on the victim’s
immediate social circle who
Bestiality, homosexuality, by proxy will have to make
prostitution, abortion, and rape are one of two decisions: keep
all filed under ‘Offences Against their friend’s sexuality a
Morality’ in our imported Criminal private matter (lie and
Code, the legacy of Victorian colonial become co-opted into the
legislation. This legal code circle of privacy/family),
largely reflects the social or disclose their friend’s
disposition of our nation. sexuality (defend their
Furthermore, it opens up a individual integrity,
huge, unaddressed gap in politics and belief system
at the cost of risking a NO to sexual advances, be
friendship and being it by family members or
excluded from the social strangers. Section 146
circle). Such notions of should be amended to read:
love and loyalty remain
within the parameters of a
close-knit network, Any male person who has
permeating our society on carnal knowledge of another
all levels starting with female person, irrespective
the legal system, precisely of whether with the[ir]
because they do not enter consent or not of such
the public sphere. I will female person, who is to
elaborate on the passages his their knowledge his a
to follow. grand daughter child,
daughter, sister or mother
Suppose we take the example
[child, sibling or parent]
of rape, which is another
– shall be guilty of the
‘offence against morality’.
offence of incest and shall
Section 145 states that
be liable to imprisonment
‘any person who commits the
for 7 years.
offence of rape is liable
to imprisonment for life.’
However, if you rape a
family member this is
defined as a different type Section 146 without consent
of offence which goes by is rape. With consent we
the name incest and only may call it incest. And a
gets you seven years. footnote here, not all
Section 146 declares: rapists are biologically
male. So let’s question the
framework of morality
Any male person who has without promoting ‘family
carnal knowledge of a life’, ‘privacy’ or gender
female person, irrespective stereotyping.
of whether with the consent
or not of such female
person, who is to his How did we ever come to
knowledge his accept that raping a family
granddaughter, daughter, member is less immoral than
sister or mother – shall be raping a stranger? And what
guilty of the offence of would happen to the victim
incest and shall be liable and the perpetrator if such
to imprisonment for 7 a crime remained within the
years. (italics mine) family? The rapist would
not be convicted, and the
victim would continue to
Framing rape as incest, suffer psychological abuse
because it is enacted through having to face,
within the private (family) live and engage with a
sphere is not the same as family member who had raped
saying that CONSENT is the them. Let’s transpose this
HUMAN RIGHT to say YES or argument to homosexuality
in order to address how we violence, sexism, poverty,
came to accept that racism, trafficking, mental
sexuality is a private health, addiction, money
matter. What happens to a laundering, gambling,
homosexual when a family ecological destruction) in
requests that they remain the big democratic ‘family
closeted? The family will closet’ cannot be
not be reprimanded for challenged on the basis of
closeting their homosexual Article 8 as they don’t
and the homosexual will threaten national security,
continue to suffer health, and so on,
psychological abuse by dint remaining as they are
of leading a semi-public within the doors of a
and contradictory life. If closed (governmental,
we insist that criminal institutional, familial,
acts such as rape be and so on) network. The
exposed in order for idea is: whatever you do in
rapists to be convicted why private is your own
is it that the families business even if it may be
that closet their family the most unethical conduct.
member’s homosexuality are Furthermore, as long as no
off the hook? Homosexuality one finds out, a number of
is not a criminal offence, officials will support such
it’s a human right. But conduct or assist in
discrimination or closeting concealing it in order to
on the premise of conceal their own
protecting ‘family life’ complicity. The same
and ‘privacy’ is, simply approach was taken towards
put, discrimination. And Mr. Modinos when he
such acts of so-called submitted that he
acceptance of diversity, as experiences ‘fear and
long as that diversity agony,’ to the ‘great
follows restrictive strain, apprehension and
conditions, should have fear of prosecution’ he had
legal consequences – be it suffered, and to the
for your family or, indeed, ‘perils to his right of
for anyone else. respect for his private
life.’ Judge Pikis revealed
So, our legal system and
exactly what is wrong with
our loving, loyal society
our legal system when he,
are deeply problematic.
almost logically, continued
Furthermore, the case of
to insist that Modinos had
Modinos v Cyprus exposes
no reason to appeal on the
the general situation of a
basis of Article 8 as:
number of social frameworks
particular to the Cypriot
context. The state and our
the applicant was never
ostensibly democratic
harassed in his private
society work quite much the
personal affairs and that
same manner. Which means
he has been able to
that our ‘private’ affairs
propagate the causes of the
(homophobia, partner
Liberation Movement of
Homosexuals in Cyprus of each and every other system
which he is the President, spiralling out of control:
without let or hindrance, brothels, trafficking,
are in themselves gambling, the smoking ban
suggestive of the absence and so on and so on…
of a valid basis for his democracy!
perceived fear of a
likelihood of breach of his
rights under Article 8 of
the Convention.
We Are All Guilty

It’s what spills and leaks

Our own Modinos was thus
from the private into the
functioning against our
public that slips into a
legal system with the
position where it may be
consent of the officials
addressed, policed,
who simply didn’t care (or
challenged and
were really into) what he
transformed. And this push
got up to in private. Until
from the inside out should
Modinos became (reasonably)
not be to the advantage of
paranoid about the fact
a conflated morality
that he was running a
premised on family life or
‘liberation movement’ that
private life. Why do we
was constitutionally
press for ‘Same Love –
breaking the law in public.
Equal Rights’ if those
In other words, our legal
rights are in favour of a
system reflects the often-
model that disregards what
unconscious mechanisms of
we are actually calling
our social reasoning:
for: the expression of
diverse sexualities, not
love, in public!
1. What you do in private
is your own business (gay While we insist on
sex) transparency when seeking
to expose the corruption
2. You can make a business
infiltrating every aspect
out of it ‘without let or
of our lives in both the
hindrance’ as long as
public and private sector
everyone is happy to do
(the state, the police,
dirty business with you
healthcare, education,
(Liberation Movement of
jurisdiction, the military,
Homosexuals in Cyprus)
tourism, agriculture,
3. If you’re going to be foreign investments) we
doing dirty business, keep need to recognize that we
it in the closet, and get are all, to some extent,
everyone into the closet complicit in this
with you. corruption. Just like the
family that accepts its
homosexual in private, the
And you can take that people who fail to speak up
analogy and apply it to about matters, that should
be in the public and not community would highlight
private sphere, are also those very differences
implicitly corrupt and instead of taking refuge in
guilty by virtue of the safety of privacy,
concealing these issues. heteronormativity and the
How may we begin to family unit. This begs the
challenge and transform question, if homosexuality
society when we are is legal, with minimal
still stuck in a checkmate recorded instances of
of protecting our family discrimination, where does
and friend’s privacy by this unjustified fear stem
closeting and/or from and what exactly will
perpetuating corruption? this sort of
Let’s not forget, on protection/closeting
establish in the long run?
such a small island, When and how did this
propensity towards privacy
almost everyone is become so compelling on an
family or friend.. island famous for its
openness and hospitality?
I am not drawing parallels
between state corruption This article arose from a
and homosexuality in order wish to address these
to suggest that these two baffling contradictions.
different dimensions are Let me reiterate, however,
social or political that pursuing matters
‘issues’ that ought to be through legislation that
dealt with in similar ways. frames human rights as an
Quite the contrary. These impingement on privacy will
juxtapositions of culture, inevitably lead to all
sexuality, corruption, sorts of rights being
crisis are different pursued and/or protected in
matters that nevertheless the very same manner.
derive from something that Consider the ninety-eight
I firmly believe has a containers of explosives
single root. The underlying that were stored (in
mechanism that binds all private) for two and a half
these problems together is years in the sun at the
a systematic push towards a naval base in Mari without
heteronormativity which is the consent of the public
typically intelligible, or any Government Control
predisposed to control and Authority (because we don’t
promote a morality based on have any such authority).
privacy when these should Yet this was public
all be public affairs. I am knowledge, and no one spoke
suggesting that all these up or even seemed to mind.
‘issues’ are already being Until the explosives blew
treated in similar ways, up and then everyone had an
even by the LBGT community, opinion. That’s what
despite the fact that they privacy gets away with. And
are different problems. I that’s why we need to
had hoped that our insist on visibility and
transparency in all areas, Coordinating Body Against
starting from our Corruption, established in
individual selves – even if 2003, never developed a
we thereby run the risk of mandate for an anti-
having the outside invade corruption strategy. In
the inside. And, I will fact, it doesn’t even have
dare say it, even if such any full-time staff. Yet we
transparency runs the risk know that the private
of exposing our own family sector will need regulation
and friends. from a public body. But how
can we insist that
In the dire situation that
privatization will be
this nation finds itself
better regulated when there
in, it might be far more
is no robust authority in
generous to actually invite
place to regulate it?
the outside into our
Simply said, if public
personal sphere. Especially
authorities are corrupt,
when we lack even the basic
then the private sector
structures that would
will inevitably be
permit us to hold our
corrupted by the very
government and society to
authorities that seek to
account. We have almost no
regulate it.
authorities in place to
ensure that the ethics of This dysfunctional
our public or private structure paradoxically
services are following ensures that everything
reasonable protocols, while continues to function in
the few that are in place the same way. Entertainment
manoeuvre through venues and leisure services
corruption. For an island rely on the exploitation of
that is now succumbing to migrant workers in order to
the promise of wealth cater to our blue blood
guaranteed by privatization Greek Cypriot citizens. As
– because the public a result, we push the
services are corrupt – can migrants outside our
someone tell me who working tax system and then
precisely is going to complain that migrants are
guarantee that the private exploiting our (corrupt)
sector will not further national benefits. Our
corrupt the resources that public health system is
we are already abusing? notorious for being a
Apparently, privatization closed system, where access
will ensure that more to appointments depends on
control will come into the size of your pocket or
effect in order to meet your family connections and
ethical business standards. not on the urgency of your
This is a result of 55% of health needs. The solution:
all companies in Cyprus privatize healthcare. Our
claiming that corruption homosexuality has now
had prevented them from become the mascot that will
being awarded contracts by earn us a pat on the back
public authorities. The from the EU because on the
surface the Pride Festival With a financial crisis
ticks the boxes of that shook and almost sank
diversity, equality and the island, we still do not
democracy. In reality we have any homeless people,
have very poor reasons to and as destitute and
justify the progress that corrupt as state welfare
such an event creates when may be, the people of the
there are no structures in island will ensure that no
place to sustain the well- one, of any race or
being of minorities. The sexuality, goes without
solution? Privatize food or shelter. That’s an
homosexuality. That is, incredible statistic for a
either co-opt it into population nearing a
heterosexual culture or million citizens. Of
closet it. course, there has been no
research based upon a
Our enchanting seafronts
representative demographic
have become overwhelmingly
sample, which would also
privatized and it may only
include the 21% of migrants
be a matter of time before
and their income level.
the owners of these marvels
But, even if there were no
restrict access to
life-threatening poverty, I
citizens. The solution is
would argue that this is
to allow citizens to buy
not a communal act of love.
their time on ‘private’
Perhaps this is the
beaches by renting
ultimate communion of
umbrellas and sunbeds. Our
National (Family) Pride.
geographical luck attracts
Where such acts of
sun-starved tourists to
compassion or empathy – and
enjoy our abundant and
you should feel free here
fresh produce even at the
to insert all the
cost of destroying our
humanitarian vocabulary you
ecosystem through poaching,
choose – are not truly acts
unregulated fishing and
of responsible citizenship
destructive harvesting.
or communal solidarity.
Furthermore, you will never
see images of our They are acts of
spectacular coral reefs violence that mask our
juxtaposed with images of
multi-million-pound illegal internalized shame.
hotels built on the graves
of our conservation areas. Because, where there
Just as you will never see
any homosexual expression
are no visible
on the one day that we were casualties, there is
permitted to display it
during the Pride Festival. no war.
Because, on the visible
level, the situation While the international
reflects the CTO’s genteel press is astounded that our
campaign: Love Cyprus! cafés and bars are bustling
despite our financial
crisis, we all sit here and are equal rights for all.
wonder why we have become Today we are proud’. We are
the butt of Slavoj Zizek’s bursting with pride in
insipid jokes: ‘The Cyprus order to blanket our
crisis is not a storm in internal homophobia and all
the teacup of a small that is actually far worse
marginal country, it is a in our non-heterosexual
symptom of what is wrong lives than the mere fact
with the entire EU system.’ that we cannot walk down
It is the European Union the aisle.
that we aspire to for our
We managed to amass over
queer (and every other)
4,500 people during that
politics. For this reason,
march but the only role
we thought Pride would be
models that we saw fit to
an emancipatory step. Yet,
represent us (or who
we are too proud to admit
stepped forward on their
to our failures, whether on
own account) were a female
a personal or a collective
pop singer of an ambiguous
level, in case we expose
sexuality and our own
our financial or queer
personal Harvey Milk: a
deficiencies, or, even
then 81 year old Alekos
worse, our affluence. We
Modinos. Did anyone see any
will remain somewhere in
same-sex couples waving
the middle until it all
their veils and wedding
passes over, which means
rings at each other? Did
until it all gets worse
anyone see any same-sex
again. We are so proud that
couples? Did anyone see any
we are borderline arrogant
gay people expressing their
when it comes to our slow
gayness? Especially at the
tempo, quick-fix, short-
Municipal Gardens where the
term vision, laissez-faire
march burst into a LOVE
temperament and our laid-
parade instead of a GAY
back attitude that will
Parade. The most well-known
soon lay us all in a coma.
area for cruising for gay
Our latest financial crisis sex was never as
was an all too accurate desexualized as it was on
depiction of our overall that evening. On our only
crisis. And (the lack of) day to be visible, we
our queer politics has led further closeted our sexual
us to make the same selves in public, out of
unconsidered leap into the respect for our straight
liberating arms of the EU. supporters who have only
We are demanding that the got as far as accepting
government passes the bill that we exist.
for same-sex civil Homosexuality has been
partnerships within a year. decriminalized for 16 years
As European Parliament now, but this means very
Building for Cyprus acting little in our dirty
head Alexandra Attalides democratic social closet.
stated, ‘A country cannot
be European unless there
Towards the Visible shames us is that A Man To
Pet opened his act by

There were many more people saying ‘You can call me

on that day worthy of our
attention. A few of them faggot, homo, lesbo,
were given the stage but
our media for its part paid
anything you like. But
them little or no
attention. Filiz Bilen of
I live my life freely and
the Turkish Cypriot NGO
Queer Cyprus Association
I do anything I want’.
delivered a moving speech
which concluded with the
rallying cry of ‘No Another jab at our social
Borders!’. Thus disrupting fabric in the full light of
our feel-good day with the day: that hate speech
realization that underlying exists and that some of us
our finally (in)visible still have the courage to
sexuality sits express our sexuality in
the repressed trauma of a public spaces where we have
divided island. This trauma no legal protection. That
has been communally is the pressing issue. Not
absorbed into an individual same-sex partnership.
level that reproduces I want my friends who
itself in the form of didn’t make it that year to
divisive thinking: us-them show up at the next Pride
/ public-private / north- without the fear that men
south / male-female / in black cloaks will stab
hetero-homo / lgbt/queer- them with crucifixes. I
non-binary. We also had as want them to show up
role models the cool knowing that if they are
representatives of the assaulted, the men in
Austrian embassy sporting cloaks will be prosecuted,
beards in honour of their
not just restrained. I don’t
recent Eurovision success
Conchita. Meanwhile, we had want to see my friends’ hearts
our own Conchita on stage, pounding on national television
a drag artist with stubble when they are being called
who goes by the name A Man
To Pet. But our artist was
‘unnatural’, ‘diseased’ and so
on without any intervention
denied any media coverage.
on the part of the TV host.
Unlike Conchita, A Man To
I don’t want my friends to
Pet is not the type of
get fired or hired because
‘clean’ act you get on
of how they express their
Eurovision: an ultra-
sexuality or gender. I
feminine, sexy human with
don’t want my role models
an angelic voice and a
to be a bunch of straight
beard. The problem in that
politicians who use my
sentence is beard. The
sexuality, without
problem with A Man To Pet
understanding it, to
is sexuality. And what
promote their individual Gender Studies to research
political interests within genders and not just white,
the EU. My friends, with middle class, heterosexual
all their flaws and women’s issues. I want
qualities, are the real- candidates applying for
life role models I have had public service positions to
in my life. And some of take exams that consist of
them weren’t there because questions regarding their
if the bill were to pass ability to deal with all
tomorrow, there would be minorities. I want the
nothing to protect them existing officers to take
from discrimination between those exams now! I want
the space of their ‘private academics to be able to
life’ and the town hall, file a complaint to a
work or education. I want disciplinary committee next
legislation to protect my time someone thinks
human right to express my ‘faggot’ is a funny word to
sexual desire (not love) use at a conference. I want
for another human being. I every school to provide a
want a diversity and sex education that includes
fluidity of sexual diverse sexualities and
identities to enrich my genders. And as for the
life with a variety of government, I want the
sexual knowledge. I want government to fund all of
role models who have had the above. If I am going to
(lots of) sex and can tell be governed, then in this
me about that sex in a way case, I want to be loved.
that does not objectify Which means, I want to be
people. I want role models respected and understood,
who have battled and are in public dammit.
still battling against
their internal and external
homophobia to have free
access to psychological
support. I want the parents
of my role models to have
free access to workshops
that deal with the
complexities of gender and
sexuality. I want NGOs like
the Family Planning
Association to provide
LGBTQIA people with
possibilities and paths for
child adoption and care,
before the bill gets
passed! I want the LGBT
Greek Cypriot association
to change its name from
Accept to Respect for
LGBTQIA-to-Z. I want the
Mediterranean Institute of
I am pleading for an
equality that demands the This is the basis upon which I
visibility of the sexual
homosexual in public.
marched on that Saturday. To be,
Sexuality is not a private to embody, to experience and
matter. Sex is not a
private matter. Government
express my sexual self with one or
is not a private matter. We more persons of any gender in
are all the result of
someone having had sex, not public. For the right to practice
necessarily love. And we sexual love for all sexualities,
all have to live in public
within the parameters set freely, in private and in public with
by our democracy and our
legal system. As Dr. Zelia
legal parameters that can protect
Gregoriou passionately ME from hate speech and
conveyed at the panel
discussion on ‘The Need for discrimination. For the
Gay Prides’ which took
place at EU House three human right to flirt, to
days in advance of Pride,
‘it’s not about sexual kiss, to touch, smile
orientation! […] it’s about
sexual expression.’ What we and fuck until the
do in ‘private’ has been
going on in private for Cypriot sun shines out
centuries. What we do in
public is what matters now.
I want the right to the
of my queer-feminist
freedom to express my
sexuality and gender in
ass.
public!
African DNA
Charitini Kyriakou
Translated by Marilena Zackheos

Your african dna now dances naked around

the fire.
The beach is figurative.
Your lips are huge – up and down – they kiss
my wet clitoris.
The lines of your hands, the african lines
on your fingers, enter me deep,
they swirl.
At last, your large erect clitoris
- like a small penis – leaps with might and nails
mine.
Flap!
I open my eyes.
I sit sweat-drenched in the armchair and it is
late,
much too late whichever way you look at it.
Firari Bedenler/Fugitive Bodies Exhibition,
November 2018
Hüseyin Özinal is an artist and LGBTQ+
activist born in Binatlı/Limassol in
1961. After the 1974 war, Hüseyin
migrated to Güzelyurt/Morphou, completed
a BA in Painting at Istanbul Marmara
University, and then returned to Cyprus
in 2004. Huseyin’s earlier exhibitions,
which include Abstract Portraits (1991),
Abstract Collage (1998), Abstracts
Untitled 1 and Untitled 2 (2001-2005),
Earthly Visions (2010) and Journey to
the End of Life (2011), focused on
colours of the ocean, fluid forms and
the shores. The images below are drawn
from the most recent exhibition, Firari
Bedenler/Fugitive Bodies (2018), which
focuses on states and policies of the
body and the incompleteness,
unwillingness, and resistance of the
body to be in ‘ideal body form’.
http://huseyinozinal.com
 GENOCIDE
Constantinos Papageorgiou
Translated by Constantinos Papageorgiou, Stalo Hadjipieri.

There was definitely something wrong;

ever since he could remember himself
he couldn’t wear his gender.

A piece of skin hanging

for so many years
a piece of skin he never wanted
and yet impossible to take off
20 years x 365 days x 24 hours!

He tried a few times to cut it off

without success;
only left with a few cuts as a reminder.

His family contributed

to the genocide of the transgender population.
“We gave birth to a son, not a daughter,
for God’s sake!”

It’s been so long

he has already gotten used
to the infanticide.

Anyway, let’s not think

about all these today.

She smiles.
“It’s about ti-me”, I said
with a shaking voice.

“Are you ready to go in?

Finally, the moment of your Gendercide
has arrived”.

Constantinos Papageorgiou has published two poetry collections:

Supernova (Melani, 2017) shortlisted for the National Poetry Prize,
and The Five Seasons (Melani, 2012) shortlisted for the Newcomer
Poet Award by the Hellenic Authors’ Society. In 2020 he was awarded
by the Cyprus Writers’ Union as the Best Young Poet for his
anecdotal collection The cart-postals I didn’t send. He represented
Cyprus at the European Championship Poetry Slam (Budapest, 2018)
after qualifying in the 2 International Poetry Slam Cyprus.
nd
 Valentini Stavrou holds a BA in
European Studies (Reading University)
and an MA in Comparative Literature
(European University Cyprus). Her
prose and poetry have appeared in
Cadences and Ideogramma’s First Step.
She has also collaborated with the
Politis newspaper for the Alice in
Wonderland CY project, featured in the
Parathyro section. She has also
featured in local free press
newspapers and her poem on turning
thirty was translated into French for
the anthology Les femmes (se)
racontent: Expériences dans les PECO,
edited by Simona Necula (Bucharest,
2017).

A whore named George

She had the look of someone themselves while pretending to
who was done with life; as if be happy. Was I ever happy?
life as a whore was plain. She I’ve had my moments. I even
had tasted the fluids of many fell in love. Four times. Four
men, heard the names of many times I believed I had found
women as they came. No one had the one who would have saved
called out hers. me from this life; that was
before I turned thirty. I
didn’t work on the night of my
“I’m not tired. I don’t feel 30th birthday. I blew out three
sorry for myself. I would have candles; one for each decade I
killed myself by now if I did. had endured. I blew out
I’m a man who wears make-up another one before I slept; it
and skirts and high-heels, I was a sort-of goodbye to my
had to sell my ass to pay lovers. And that was it. No
rent. Would I have done it more love for me. Do I love
differently? I don’t know. At someone? I loved everyone who
17, I only wanted to be free. was ever important in my life.
I didn’t feel free as George, And my parents, I love them
I didn’t feel free at home. I even though they are gone. I
was nothing more than a naïve used to go by my house in the
little boy who thought that early hours of the morning,
people wouldn’t mind that I after work. I still had my key
had a penis behind my skirt. I and sometimes when I was
feel lucky though, I’m still hungry I would sneak in and
alive at 53. None of my have a taste of my mum’s food.
friends made it. Some took Six years after I left home I
their own lives, others discovered my sister had given
overdosed, others threw away birth to a little girl; I saw
their skirts and killed
the picture in the frame. fulfilled their dream. You
There were still pictures of know, I didn’t even know that
me in the house but the one I my father had died. I sneaked
took a few weeks before in on a Saturday and there was
leaving home had a candle next no chicken. I thought my mum
to it. Every time I went in, was ill so I sneaked back in
the candle was the following
lit. I think my Saturday and there
mum knew it was was no chicken. But
me who sneaked there was another
in, she would frame and another
have changed the candle, and my
locks otherwise. father was smiling
She would still through it and I
cook my favorite smiled back and I
dish every said “I love you”. I
Saturday. I knew my mum would
mostly sneaked soon follow. My dad
in on Saturdays, was her everything.
not only because I bought a newspaper
of the chicken and I flicked
though; men went through it till I
holy on saw my dad smiling
Saturdays; they’d go to church again; the pain was
on Sundays. I sometimes went unbearable; I had been selling
to church too, I wanted to see myself for years and I had
my parents, I wished they endured abuse beyond your
would see me so they could see imagination; but my parents’
I wasn’t dead. Maybe they did death was the most horrible
think I was dead, I don’t pain I ever had to go through.
know. They never saw me, but I Sometimes I even wish I will
saw them a few times. I can’t die soon so I’ll get to see
blame them for not accepting them again. And we’ll all be
me. God had given them a son in paradise, screw God, I
and they loved me so much. deserve to be in paradise. And
They had dreams and when they see me there,
expectations; a wife and a they’ll know that it’s OK to
career and kids and love me when I’m wearing
grandchildren and family skirts.”
Sundays. At least my sister
Mine started singing on stage at 15, contributed to two recorded albums, wrote own
songs and performed in bi-communal peace concerts in Cyprus. Mine is one of the
first LGBTQ+ female singers in the north, and has performed in various projects in
Brighton, sometimes singing songs from Cyprus. In 2019, Mine performed at the Woman
Acoustic stage in Brighton Pride and is working on new projects.

Bir an için çıksam On their tanned shoulder

hayatımdan If I scream from the past, from
Yanık tenli omuzunda far away
Haykırsam maziden, Now beside them
uzaklardan The sea mixes with the wind in
Şu anda yanında the sun
Deniz rüzgara karışmış güneşte There were seagull voices in
Martı sesleri vardı, gülüşlerde the laughter
Gülüşlerde In smiles
Gülüşlerde In smiles
Sen geçerken sahilden sessizce As you pass by the beach in
Gemiler kalkar yüreğimden silence
gizlice Ships sail from my heart
Sen geçerken sahilden sessizce secretly
Gemiler kalkar yüreğimden As you pass by the beach in
gizlice silence
Bir an için çıksam hayatımdan Ships sail from my heart
Yanık tenli omuzunda secretly
Haykırsam maziden, uzaklardan If I come out of my life for a
Şu anda yanında moment
Deniz rüzgara karışmış güneşte On their tanned shoulder
Dalga sesleri vardı, gülüşlerde If I scream from the past, from
Gülüşlerde far away
Gülüşlerde Now beside them
Sen geçerken sahilden sessizce The sea mixing with the wind in
Gemiler kalkar yüreğimden the sun
gizlice There were sounds of waves in
Sen geçerken sahilden sessizce laughter
Gemiler kalkar yüreğimden In smiles
gizlice In smiles
Sen geçerken sahilden sessizce As you pass by the beach in
Gemiler kalkar yüreğimden silence
gizlice Ships sail from my heart
If I come out of my life for a secretly
moment As you pass by the beach in
silence
Ships sail from my heart
secretly
As you pass by the beach in
silence
Ships sail from my heart
secretly
Once upon a time “In our society, there

O B Μ
In a small, conservative society
Where all families are woven together are unwritten rules
intricately about who we should
& where privacy is not of the utmost

N I ι
importance; fall in love with and
I committed the biggest crime of our who we should stay
time. Oblivious to consequence:
away from. It could
I fell in love with someone
I wasn’t
“SUPPOSED TO BE”
be
speaking
a Turkish
Cypriot
C R α
E
in love with.
falling in love with a
Evvel zaman içinde,
The culture I longed to wear as a crown
Greek speaking
Cypriot, or a person
Φ
Put its iron fist around my neck
& held me down;
It trapped my hopes and dreams
When I sought change.
falling in love with
someone who shares Z ο
U A ρ
It taught me how to cry tears in the same gender.
streams
& told me I was strange-
Some love is
“forbidden”. This
P M ά
It tried to shape me and break me
At the same time, relentlessly. poem is about the
Once upon a time, struggles of standing
up for yourself, for
O A κι
I dared to run with my forbidden love,
Run from judgement-
But when I looked up above the sake of love.” -

N L Έ
It took only a moment @lemanpoetry
For the sky to shatter down
& break my mind apart

Μία φορά κι έναν καιρό,

I picked up my pen
& learnt a very important LOVE IS HARD TO FIND
A ν
lesson:
N α
A
& even harder to find again Leman is a bisexual Cypriot. For 4 years,
It’s a fight to keep - poetry has been her secret fight for the
A battle under oppression.

Once upon a time,

right to love. It’s a world of safety where
she allows myself to feel and express ν
my emotions, without control and

Κ
I discovered poetry
It made sense of the tangled mess without fear. She loves her Cypriot
of my mind & heart - community, and writing because it

T
A form of self-therapy; breaks her just as much as it shapes her.
It made me feel less
Alone, less fallen apart
So that I could walk further,
She writes about love, loss, heartbreak;
difficulties of the mind. Leman hopes α
that one day she can write about a
Talk louder,
Proving my
existence
united, loving Cyprus too.

AS A YOUNG CYPRIOT LOVER

I ι
Proving that I’ll keep
fighting M ρ
Every single day
To love
To grow words and words of love
Like a weed that resists all plucking -
E ό
Proving that my sentences will always end
In an

until your rules, dear society, finally bend…

“&” LEMAN
My wife went to war.
A sword in her left hand.
Blood dripping from the ceilings.
She said she will be coming back.
Letters never reaching me.
Lost in the signs of her presence,
I searched for her in the local museums,
on the pages of history books,
Greek mythology, newspapers,
magazines.

She was a hero.

Resurrecting the images

of our common memories.
She left and went to war.
I sit on my couch.
I lay on my bed. Waiting.
A myth I created of you
when you closed that door,
with a suitcase in your right hand.

A spectre of the past.

Do you even exist anymore?

My wife went to war

Anastasia Dolitsay
 Anastasia Dolitsay was born in Russia but spent most of her life
living in Cyprus. Anastasia is an artist who primarily works with sound
design, music composition and digital image; she is active within the
Cypriot queer community through different events, protests and artwork.
Her artwork makes use of queer social, cultural and political affairs of
modern-day partitioned Cyprus with specific focus on duality and
displacement, so as to translate it into and understand her own personal
experience, culture and philosophy.

Leman is a bisexual
Cypriot. For 4 years, poetry
has been her secret fight
for the right to love. It’s
a world of safety where she
allows myself to feel and
express my emotions, without
control and without fear.
She loves her Cypriot
community, and writing
because it breaks her just
as much as it shapes her.
She writes about love, loss,
heartbreak; difficulties of
the mind. Leman hopes that
one day she can write about
a united, loving Cyprus
too.Leman @lemanpoetry

Poem/image: Leman @lemanpoetry | Greek translation, Sophia Irene Kaniklidou

@sophia_does_stuff | Arianna Koudounas Peaceful Poetry of Cyprus,
[email protected]
 We need space
In memory of Zak Kostopoulos/Zackieoh! and all victims of fascist murders

We need space
We need space to breathe
We need space to exist, without being constantly policed by normative gaze
We need space to exist, without fear of violence, without fear, that one of us might
be killed
We need space to resist and destroy colonizing systems, which have been colonizing our
bodies. since birth
We need space to explore our fucking slutty desires shamelessly, beyond state
regulations
and non-sense papers
We need space to explore and question our queerness, our genders and sexualities
We need space to explore our masculinities and femininities and all in between
We need space for all bodies to dance freely as if there is no tomorrow
We need space to mourn
to heal our wounds
We need space to talk about our life and death drives
We need space to create our own eco-communities of humans and non humans
We need space for our own families of all kinds
We need space to embrace our failures and our vulnerabilities
We need space to embrace our kind of pride and shame, beyond rainbow capitalism
We need space to express our traumas and pain
We need space to share our queer-stories of violence
We need space to be alone and altogether
To be loud and silent
To cry and laugh
Naked or in drag
In shiny glitter or in black
At home or in a cruising spot
We need space to unlearn and re-learn
We need space to decolonize our bodies from our oppressive binary past
We need space to breathe and heal
To exist and resist as outcasts, misfits, weirdos, queers
To connect through our anti-nationalist margins as queens, kings or freaks
and step into our queertopian future

*Written for the queer international open mic night of Queer Ink. (Athens, June 2019).

Despina Michaelidou was born in Limassol. They

Despina Michaelidou
are a postgraduate student of Gender Studies at
the University of Cyprus, and has a BA in
Sociology from the University of Aegean, Lesbos.
Their interests include genders, sexualities,
desires and bodies through intersectional,
artistic, feminist, anarchist, antimilitarist and
queer collective initiatives and performances.
My name is Queer
weird …
subversive … abnormal …?
I cross sides, divisions and the order of things
If I were a colour I could be black maybe white...
or all the colours of the rainbow, shining glittery...
Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? Who is the Other?
In between death and life
I am here waiting for you
You are here waiting for me
Can you see me? Touch me?
Can you feel me? Smell me?
I am not a woman and neither are you a man
You are not a woman and I am not a man
I don’t even know if we are human
Here we are
The Other and the I the I and the Other
We look into the mirror
You think you recognize me I think I recognize you

I can see you and touch you

I can feel you. Or do I …?
We, the thousand pieces of a broken and colonized mirror
Borders and binaries of you and me the Other and the I
Imprisoned segments of trapped identities bodies masks norms ...
Does it matter if we are young old thin fat able-bodied … or not
What if we are gay bi lesbian straight transgender cisgender
single with or without children (a)sexual polyamorous monogamous
How about nationalism? Are we patriots?
capitalists socialists anarchists?
We are questioning patriarchy feminism right and left
our truths lies freedoms occupations friends enemies
Our name is queer
We are nothing and everything; traitors to the nation
Where is home?
Lefkoşa Λευκωσία Nicosia
Home reconnects the I and the Other
Scents of jasmine cinnamon lemon blossoms and songs of violin
Loud pithkiavli
Feeling my way through transcendental bodies and senses
I look again into the mirror
I am sorry I say to the I and the Other for the scars of the past

I run naked towards the unknown unapologetic

I feel broken fixed fearless hopeless
I attempt to recreate our shared times places truths lies
My name is queer
Mourning without tears
for herstory
But what about our... future?

*First published in Nicosia Beyond Barriers: Voices from a Divided City

Despina Michaelidou
SHOLEH ZAHRAEI & KAMIL SALDUN
THE HUNT
The sudden discovery of his son's
secret turns Ibrahim's traditional
world upside down. Fraught with
emotional conflict, he takes his son
Ismail on a fateful trip. The Hunt
is based on true-life events and
inspired by the biblical story of
Prophet Abraham, father of all
patriarchs, and his son Ismail; it
is set in present-day Cyprus,
unraveling the conservative façade
of the society. It is Cyprus’ first
fiction tackling homophobia and
patriarchy, told from an intersectional,
queer and feminist perspective. It is
made-up of actors and crew from Cyprus’
Turkish-speaking and Greek-speaking
communities on the divided island.

Production: It is co-produced with the

Accept LGBTI Cyprus Association and the
Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture
(Cinema advisory committee). Awards: *
Second Prize for Best Cypriot Short Film
2020 at 10th International Short Film Festival of Cyprus * Stelios Bi-Communal
Award by the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation * Pitching forum winner, FEST

Trailers: https://vimeo.com/382311490, https://vimeo.com/382311977, https://vimeo.com/382312124

Sholeh Zahraei is a filmmaker, born in Tehran/Iran, who grew up in Berlin, and studied
Digital Filmmaking in Amsterdam. Later she moved to Cyprus where she completed a BA in Radio,
Television, Film and MA in Visual Arts & Communication Design. Sholeh has worked on film sets in
Germany, Netherlands, Cuba, USA, Canada, UK, Turkey, Cyprus and Iran with renowned directors like
Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Bahram Beyzaie, Derviş Zaim. Sholeh has participated in the
Berlinale Talents 2016 as a writer and director.

Kamil Saldun is a filmmaker and film editor, a member of the Indigenous Turkish-speaking
Cypriot community, born in Famagusta, Cyprus. He has a BA in History and a Masters in Education.
Since 1999 he has been an actor, working with several theater groups in Cyprus and
internationally. Since 2011, Sholeh and Kamil have co-written, co-directed and co-produced
independent films. They also work on underwater photography and film. In 2016, Sholeh and Kamil
were selected to participate in a filmmaking workshop with
maestro Abbas Kiarostami in Cuba where they made a short film
under his mentorship. In 2018 they were selected by the
curator Nicolas Vamvouklis to be part of Imago Mundi, the art
collection of works commissioned and collected by Luciano
Benetton on his travels around the world.
Save up money to escape, of you,

daydreaming out the window

plane, what will suffer will Don’t make me shine light in

remain, just another blood trauma you wouldn’t like,

flow in novacaine, traces of places collecting

dust falling from a broken sky,

There’s an instinct, there’s a

higher cause, body trembling Danger danger, heard the

like a fish outside it’s course, news again tonight, they

just another collection of found a body and a broken

muscles to obey, another bike, stranger danger in the

human in it’s decay, night, they found a couple

beaten up and hanged outside

How I wish I was a child, a their only hope to survive, give

normal confident young man, me back all these years of

now I’m running from what I panic attacks and self-harm,

think I can’t, call it what you how I lost weight when the

want, this ain’t my only gay world sat there calm, give me

charm, back all the loving that I

cannot give, I’m so cold you

Blue eyed friends at the club, could fuck me up into a drink,

blood on their teeth but they

taste none, Danger danger now

you’re gay,

The tongue adapts to what

the world offers as nutrition, Stranger danger now you’re

rape, fear and under- too much for their sake, they’ll

recognition, there is talent in call you names they’ll spin you

sustaining this prison, this round, they’ll call you mean,

hair, this despair, these but you were just defending

clothes, and these constant your ground, you’ll see a

‘No’s, I’m nothing but a rainbow flag and seek hope,

religion that’s on fire, drown but deep down you know you

the Bible and in Hell they’ll only got yourself to float, in

hire, someone different that’s the deep Mediterranean dark

not really that far away, you and blue, just like the skin

chose distance over they hit, there’s only blood

understanding a child that inside of you,

once knew how to play. Oh there’s only blood inside

Don’t take my 20’s too, I beg of you

Stelios Kapnisiswas born in 1997 in
Limassol, Cyprus. He started writing
poetry at the age of 15 because he felt
like it was the only medium of art that
had the ability to convert his inner
struggle into something much simpler and
cognitively understandable. He pursued
his studies in Biomedical Sciences in
the University of West of England, in
Bristol. He continues to write. From
2018 he started sharing his poems on his
instagram page: @alepoudelispoetry

If my child, catches a cold of

depression, I’d let them know
this disease is not a passing
frenzy, Grow a beard or cut all hair,

If my light, gets a glimpse of Take up acting,

darkness, maybe then I’d So you can finally perform

allow the madness, take a despair,

new drive in the highway of Fish out an accent, let it run

Mediterranean sadness, and under cold water like an

make the windows fall off the open wound, one you’re not

car, so the air could clean the looking to close up soon,

misery out of this ride Watch your partner

respirate, in your arms he’ll

The queer escapades, more evaluate, what kind of

than a lifetime that money oxygen you really give,

makes, ‘cause all you do is give, just

The shameless retrograde, to watch them leave,

more like a teenager in Though London’s looking

reverse, pretty from seat 23A, we’re

Trace back my petals in the all coming back to the land

porcelain vase, where escapism rises, and

First tears in the womb as I my temper gets too hot to

show my face, to the blessed touch I know, I might not

cursed few, look happy, but I swear I’m

Watching the light approach not

not a day too soon, born into

hell every afternoon
Stelios Kapnisis
 BOTTLENECK

I would not think to touch the sky

with two arms. - Sappho

Once again
the label reads, Drink Me.

She is a rock
Ritalin-kids like to toss
into the sea:

much like sight-lovers

who bear to love a single thing
the same way twice,
I hold her up and say, Maybe next time.

I am the one of the prescription

of perceptible objects
damn horizon
too slim to separate air from water.

Loose lips
sink ships, dearie.
Dipsomaniac lips whisper,
There might not be another,

then what difference does it make

if we do or don’t stop now?

Marilena Zackheos grew up in Moscow, Beijing, Nicosia, Geneva and New

York. She studied Philosophy, Creative Writing and English Literature in
the USA and the UK, and holds a PhD from George Washington University,
Washington D.C. She is director of the Cyprus Center for Intercultural
Studies and Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at the University of
Nicosia. She has published works on postcolonial literary and cultural
studies, psychoanalysis and trauma, gender and sexuality. Her poetry
collection Carmine Lullabies (A Bookworm Publication) was published in 2016.
 Alice B. Toklas
on Her Way
on Her Way

By Marilena
Zackheos

7 March 1967

To Mr. Cuddlewuddle,
stuck in Paris traffic,
taking oh so long,
but yes like my marinade you cannot rush,
now Husband accept devotion my love,

soon I’ll tell you need be proud,

pen on page plays day by day, turned and turns,
moving again, towards the Père Lachaise,
Hubby-dearest to see you golden brown,

when all those nights

ridiculous favors I asked of your imaginary face,
to hear you say, wifey mine,
I am all thine say it,
and finally down the vault
wifey goes and though I know a poet’s mouth,
it hardly opens,
if our last-tossed roses sealed yours,
they make mine bleed the
blackest,
oh Master most ceremonious, answer
“ladies and gentlemen, it is over”
By Marilena
Zackheos
Kaan Serin
 Koraly Dimitriadis is the author of Just Give Me The Pills and
Love and F--k Poems (which has also been translated into
Greek). These poetic works form the basis of her theatre show
I say the wrong things all the time. She also makes films of
her poems. She is a freelance opinion writer who has been
published widely across the Australian media, with
international publications in The Washington Post. She was the
recipient of the UNESCO City of Literature residency
(Krakow) in 2019 for her debut fiction manuscript, Divided
Island.

Red gypsy violinist

When I first heard your I wanted you to come to me

gypsy band’s music but who could catch you?
I instantly fell in love fools that even try, fools
So I came to see you all you exist melodiously adrift
in the sorrowful lament
and there you were, of your other half
You rest on its shoulder
in your black corset tutu and it cries for you
I couldn’t stop looking at you the tears you cannot
Red ribbon flowing dark hair You live only for its sound
seductress with that stare teasing with your smile
you, with your red eye-makeup they all watched, in awe
your fishnets and soft, pale arms but I cried for you
who could possibly catch you? I cried for me
or keep you in their arms? who could catch you?
fools that even try, fools you seductress, you
you tempt with your grin what did you do to me
seductress with those eyes red gypsy violinist?
dancing them to delight
with your gypsy band I touched your hand later
they can’t help but stare and we exchanged words
with your stage presence I said you were beautiful
commanding the attention You said I was beautiful
you rightfully deserve Something stirred
Seductress, you, seductress
Red gypsy violinist Fools they all are, fools
what did you do to me? nobody can have you
solo you step off the stage you belong to your violin
casually into the crowd what did you do to me
rest your chin to your violin red gypsy violinist?
and they all watch, in awe what did you do?
they want you to come to them
 Me myself and
love

I am the only one although others will

that can love me delude and deny
I don’t know me but I resist this
How can I love you? I will not fill my canyon
I don’t know me with co-dependency
I don’t know you I will fill it with me
I may like girls getting to know me
I’m not sure standing alone with me
I’m the only one being strong with just me
who can find out and then I’ll choose
You’re a great fuck the right man for me
That’s all you are You don’t know me
I can’t like you but you want to
I don’t even know Better I do it first
what the hell I like You cannot cure
but I masturbate the sorrow in my
thinking of you stillness
You can fuck me only I can do that
better than I can I am the only one
and you touch better that can sit with me
I am the only one in a place for me
that can fuck me up love that me
but I will learn me I am free to be me
so all of you let me be to do whatever
except you, the kisser to fuck whoever
you can come over as many as I want
but you don’t whenever I want
validate me I am free to explore
I validate me because I own me
I won’t wait you don’t own me
for your messages nobody owns me
to validate me I am the only one
I am awesome that can love me
with or without them I don’t know me
I VALIDATE ME you don’t know me
Did you hear me? but you can see me
I VALIDATE ME because it serves me
Not you - ME Only me
I will sit with me Not you
alone with only me ME
that’s all we all have
 MOTHERHOOD
My sister had a wife,
a beautiful babe with six arms
and skin that shone a sheeny blue.
And she put up with so much
for the love of my sister,
to wind all her loving arms around her
and cover her with butterflies and kisses.
But my sister’s head was full
of empty spaces, gorse bushes
and tumbleweed in the wind.
Basically after a short time
my sister wanted out
of love.
So she grew a penis
by digging a little hole in the garden
and planting one of her baby teeth.
The next morning she dug up
a little brown chrysalis
placed it above her clitoris
where it attached itself and grew.
She told her wife that she was no longer a
woman,
knowing that babe could never love a man.
Broken-hearted her wife left him
alone
which is the way my sister likes it.
In time the chrysalis became a cocoon
so she planted it
at the foot of a mandarin tree.
It bore a single luminous fruit.
When she harvested it
and peeled back the skin,
there emerged a child.
Uncanny
because except for her six arms
she looked exactly like me.
It must have been fate:
to hold me in your arms
when all your life you sought to escape me
to leave me behind mirrors like bars, in bars
with roar of traffic
and the sense of killing time
in case you show.

From Venus Infers

ALEV ADIL
 From Nicosia Beyond Barriers (Saqi)
From Nicosia Beyond Barriers (Saqi)

ALEV
MEMORY AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FIDELITY
ADIL
 When was the last time you heard yourself speak?
Heard words scratch notes against the scales of
Aphrodite’s seashells,
her discarded armors varnished in jade and
black.
When was the last time you spoke?
Grating and clawing, tearing and scraping;
a speech thickening into rings of fog that
encircle olive plantations
like unfamiliar beacons slipped afar
into a world betrothed for the brave.

When was the last time you mustered a speech?

Whispering within the corners of a home that
suddenly announces you as a stranger
and where you become a dormant corpse within
walls of white and blue plaster.
When was the very last time your voice broke
aloud?
A sound rasping like a borrowed ghost,
murmuring within unlit crooks and unlit turnings
and imperialistic mirrors that veils your
authenticity.

When was the last time before the last time you
spoke?
A concentration of rage lingering within a frayed box
of vocals,
negotiating time upon an unfed soul.
When was the last of the last time, and the
last time before that?
The last that you heard your voice as crisp as winter's eve;
perhaps upon a narrow day
alongside a sanded beach or cold mountain green,
or even beside a faded swing-set where yesterday’s child had played.

When, though, did you last speak of rainbow colors and drums drumming with tolerance,
furthering a community from blinkered shadows of concealment?
Hear yourself amongst a crowd of unenlightened,
feel the veins throb within your neck;
when was the last time you carried a speech into a theatre of hate
and faced all with a wakefulness that’s generously obese.

When was the last time you spoke, wasn’t that the question?
Collecting a tempest of vowels over a sparse and withered garden
settled against soggy windows received by mountain dew.
Do you find yourself peering inside, searching for the last of your voice abandoned?
Peering through sheets of fogged glass most foreboding
wondering where your echo was mislaid;
was it left to rot within the arms of lovers torn from each other,

lovers abandoned with nil and none,

and the lovers slain within the name of Orthodoxy.

Dear, dear Cypriots of mine,

queer and dark,
savaged and reassigned,
surviving and readdressed;
young and old, of compost and wilderness stew,
of beginnings and ends, of birth and renewal;
do not remain voiceless, I plead,
for your life may depend upon it,
 as may the lives of those within our sister lands too.

I ask again, when was the last time you heard yourself bellow?
Slicing a screech across old Victorian boards
brushed with chestnut shells and leftover dust.
When was the last time you growled a word distinctively?
Was it an impossible tiding much like a two-word story
wedged within an abundant haze of darkness?

Friend, when was the last time you bawled within a field of nothingness,
when chains were broken from bodies
and bodies fell free to roam?
When was the last time someone took you by the hand and led you above ground?
When was the last time someone stretched your neck
and the mutter of words escorted you into the liberty of self-determination?

Sisters and Brothers of Pride, I bid you one last request:

when, oh, when was the last time your silence did not make you complicit;
when, oh, when was the last time you spoke out?

“Raw Copper is centered on invalidation and the disruption of something

normal, organic, and beautiful: love. It features my wife, who isn’t accepted
by my family or culture. That’s why she’s represented as incomplete, as she
often feels disembodied and voiceless by my culture. The flowers surrounding
my wife replicate my idea of the Garden of Eden. Before “sin” it was
supposedly exquisite. In my portrayal of Cyprus as Eden, it is spoiled by
“sin” (hence the snake) but instead of the sin being a crime of homosexuality,
it is the sins of homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, misogyny, and prejudice.
It is the sin of love being weaponized. The lower part of the painting is
an impression of hope. The shoots of light are the next generation coming
through the black soil with seeds of change.”
Ty Tzavrinou is a British born Greek-Cypriot
poet, who is part of the alphabet soup;
lives in the States, relocated in 2015 to be
with her wife. Ty has two poetry
collections, Twelve Seasons and Laundry, and
is currently working on her third. Both
published collections feature poems that
draw from her Greek-Cypriot heritage;
acknowledging experiences of displaced
identity, and the empowerment through the
mystical influences of Greek/Cypriot
matriarchal folklore. Her blog The Kink of
Writing can be found on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TyTzavri and may
be contacted through
[email protected]

Alev Adil is a performance

artist−poet and academic who has
performed internationally, including
at The Tate Britain and The British
Museum. Her poetry has been included
in numerous anthologies of Cypriot
poetry in English, Greek and Turkish,
and has been translated into eight
languages. She has a PhD in
multimedia poetics from Central Saint
Martin’s, and has extensive
experience of teaching Visual
Culture, Literature and Creative
Writing at BA and MA level in
universities in the UK and abroad.
She is author of Venus Infers and
co-editor to Nicosia Beyond Borders -
Voices from a Divided City (Saqi
Books, 2019)
o
 Alexander Koumoullis-Guest has worked as a wooden
toymaker, a media analyst, and an astronomer, and
has failed in all three. He lives in Tahtakallas
and his poetry is in Cypriot.

Sheftalias among charcoals

Recently we floated between minarets
We counted them from the roof,
while I kept stealing glances - eyes askance
searching for yours.

There among mosques,

after a crude compliment - which of course I returned because I'm
a slut
we kissed.

A kiss among kisses,

while on the horizon fireworks burst
leftovers from the bayram

Days among nights,

and now I think I'm bored of you
but have neither heart nor balls to tell you.
Give me an excuse, at least
to part suddenly, and not linger lazily
like two forgotten and - by now - burnt
sheftalias among charcoals
meant for different mouths.
There but not there
Authors: Enver Ethemer and Okan Bullici

Enver Ethemer is a researcher, specialising in gender, sexuality,

LGBTQI+ and human rights. He has participated in various civil
society and local community projects/platforms in north Cyprus,
where he raises awareness and fights for equality, dignity and
freedom. He worked on the Initiative Against Homophobia, which
struggled to decriminalise homosexuality. He is a founding member
of Envision Diversity, leading projects on LGBTQI+, children, and
mental and sexual health. He has also organised numerous
symposiums on LGBTQI rights and on minority stress. More recently
he co-wrote a report on LGBTQI+ rights in Cyprus funded by FES.

Homosexuality was outlawed and

penalised under the Criminal
Code in north Cyprus. This law
was inherited by the British
imperialist and it remained
until that moment in 2014, when
the coloniser’s Articles that
criminalised homosexuality were
removed. Though it has been
removed, the colonial legacy of
homophobia, transphobia, Interview:
stigmatisation and
marginalisation is still Do you feel safe or persecuted
prominent on the island. In
Cyprus, we lack legal in the north?
developments to provide equality The feeling is that there is a hidden
and anti-discrimination for eye watching over your shoulder.
LGBTQI+ people; we lack in socio- People are aware of the LGBTQI+
cultural values and the community but they ignore them or
understanding of sexual turn a blind eye to this reality.
orientation and gender identity; This nurtures their phobias which
we lack in providing legal transforms into “hate speech,
protections through inclusive violent verbal attacks or
policies in education, healthcare defamation”. It is character
and employment. We lack because assassination. Total rejection to the
of the government’s unwillingness fact we can co-exist in peace, we
to respect and respond to daily threaten their existence, and we can
life practices of the LGBTQI+ only live in the shadows. We are
community. This results in labelled evil and indecent. There is
LGBTQI+ people experiencing a no legal protection at our workplaces
life of struggle that deeply or schools. We are targeted, and
impacts their mental wellbeing. cannot afford legal fees to take the
To know more about LGBTQI+ attackers to court. We are scared of
experiences in Cyprus and its disclosing our identity as it will
impacts on mental health, we make us a victim of harassment. By
carried out a study that made use coming out people lose jobs and
of the minority stress model. For friends, are physically attacked and
this we interviewed LGBTQI+ even risk losing their life. You feel
people aged 18-30 with particular pressure and marginalisation
focus on their actual ‘lived everyday. You hide yourself.
experiences’. Below we share part
of this study. What would you like to be done
to improve things?
We need to move beyond the rhetoric
of Criminal Code, which was abolished
in 2014. We need to learn to lobby
and demand our rights beyond just the
legal rhetoric. We need a holistic
change that could lead to real rewards them. There is no policy,
transformation. The legal realm is regulations or laws that stops this.
the basis that gives us good, fertile You get crowned for being racist,
ground to demand more; however, this homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic
is not exclusively a legal problem. here.
It has to do with the Cyprus problem,
political discourses of isolation,
unrecognition, legitimacy of the Euphoria by Enver Ethemer
government institutions, and other Euphoria is the word that could
sorts of problems in political, describe the overall spirit of the
social, economic and legal domains. LGBTQI+ community on 27th January,
We need to be more integrated into 2014. Erasing the word “sodomy” from
the global political and economic the Criminal Code manifested an
changes that would have a significant outburst of triumph over chronically
domestic impact and which could embedded anti-LGBTQI+ sentiment in
provide opportunities to materialise north Cyprus. The Criminal Code
change for us. We need to change our changed and homosexuality was
education policy, social policies, decriminalized. Collectively we
our discrimination policies. shouted out “We are not criminals.”

Would you consider going to This archaic colonial ‘sodomy law’ is

the south to join any kind of our disgraceful inheritance left by
civil union for your rights? the British Empire. Articles 171-173
This may pressure the north to deal of Section 154 of Criminal Code
with the issue, but I do think that a refused the right to life for the
civil union will provide benefits. LGBTQI+ community. It considered
consensual homosexual acts as
“unnatural” and it penalized by
How do people respond to gay imprisonment. It is a concrete
pride? metaphor of the LGBTQI+ community’s
Because of the ongoing uncertainties “postcolonial prison cell”. The
in the north, the people felt moment in 2014 is indeed elevating,
elevated that we have hope for a yet the colonial legacy has left us
change and brighter future. There was with deep problems rooted at every
support for pride, especially by the level within Turkish Cypriot
media. There was however resistance community, where we struggle to
by some groups and journalists, who produce sufficient change in the
see us as a threat and tried to legal, social, public and political
provoke hatred. But you need to stand domains.
and be adamant. We are all in the
same boat. We either sink or sail
together. 1. Legal Problems
The system works against you. There
Are you discriminated against is a lack of regulations and binding
at work? policy documents in the private and
Most definitely, our society does not public sectors. If someone openly
know what discrimination is. They declares their sexual identity or
cannot distinguish between a pun/joke orientation, there is no legal safety
and discriminatory speech. They do net that protects them. If someone
not know what it is like to live uses hate speech, profane language or
differently and in diversity. They do humiliates an LGBTQI+ person, the
not know how to share their spaces. person must digest it because there
They defend their territories by is no anti-harassment or anti-
discriminating, using offensive discrimination policy to protect
language, and marginalising others. them. The sectors use discriminatory
We learnt this when we were little. practices because there are no legal
We do not learn to live with others. provisions to protect individuals.
We learn to dislike, hate and be The institutional and structural
racist. We learn only to accept mechanisms are insufficient: there
“identical”, reject “multiple”. We are no equality or regulatory bodies
tag and label people, stigmatise and
stereotype. These lead to phobias
with accumulative discriminatory
behaviour at all levels. Yes I am/we
are discriminated against in so many
ways, and those who discriminate are
not aware. The system allows and
to monitor institutional practices public
and implement punitive charges. institutions,
Hence, the amended penal is void in social rights
its impact. Any new clauses have etc). Political
failed to initiate real change yet. parties do not
have LGBTQI+
friendly political
2. Social Problems agendas and
Society’s perceptions have not policies in their
changed. The strong anti-LGBTQI+ party strategies.
attitude with widespread homophobia, LGBTQI+ or gender
transphobia and biphobia persist in politics is
public arenas. This makes life secondary and
difficult and risky for LGBTQI+ trivial.
people to live their identities fully
and freely. Instead feeling Even though north
marginalised and socially excluded, Cyprus is far from
they hide their identity. fully providing equal civil rights to
Schools and education systems are the community, this has not stopped
unforgivingly chastising diversity: the literary, artistic, and cultural
teachers and other institutional energies of the community and
actors work against LGBTQI+ people, supporters in Cyprus. Below is a list
punishing them for being themselves. of some excellent events.
Schools need policies to protect
children from forms of
discrimination, violence, harassment,
and defamation.

3. Political Problems
The political situation is even
grimmer. Political parties do not
have salient policies or direct
manifestos that tackle homophobia,
transphobia, harassment, violence,
gender disparity, nor do they have
plans to take action for structural
changes. In the latest election
process, president-elect Akinci
included gender equality and sexual
orientation into his political
programme; however, there has not
been any solid progress in focusing
on LGBTQI+ people struggles as
related to social struggles ( i.e.
work-life, school-life, family life,
UN-Covered
Cyprus’s unfinished play between past, present,
and future without colour is captured in the Nicosia
International Airport, which sits abandoned in the
middle. Silence is the feeling there. A site where time is
frozen. There “our Cyprus” is uncovered and UN-
covered. A postcolonial construction of our minds and
bodies, where we are held hostage to narratives of
heroic militarism met with concrete blocks paralyzing us. We
are the rubber dolls lying there.
Time has a special
relationship with the people
of this geography. We
constantly drift between.
Where is home? Trauma,
memory, displacement,
melancholia. This is the
Cypriots’ home
psyche. Reverberating
between past lives, present
woes, future discontent.
Yearning to go back in time!
This is a land, where
the past dominates the present, overshadows our future. Pain-past
conquers. Long present sorrow. Here the future is never vibrant and
crispy clear; it is blemished with uncertainty, captured by
irreversible destruction and torn psyches in displacement. NEVER
can they RECONCILE a way out of there.
Villagers narrate moments of co-picking olives irrespective of
ethnic-nationality. They made sweet memories. Others replaced them
with bitter black presence. Cobbled streets coloured with JASMINE
SCENTS ready for the yellow chatter. Children in Armenian shops
for BAYRAMLIK. Our minds travel to Sahin Cinema to watch the blue
breeze in Limassol and Larnaca. All accompanied by the shades of
palm trees.
Barricading minds with a knot of darkness that sails into the
future. Here time elopes nerve snapping agony.
A deformed past-time detains our memories, living rooms, our
kitchens, it haunts our existence into a turbulent future.

Words knotted in deep depression, which silently CRY OUT for

change, a parade for a bright future!A parade for new
scents of colour.
 Fanouropita

Bicommunalism is a reinforced binary

that buries dialectic complexity.
Where is the nuance in Bicommunalism?
Where is the Maronite,
the Afro-Cypriot,
the Armenian-speaking Cypriot,
the migrant
and the asylum seeker?

What even is Cypriotness?

I imagine Cypriotness as a fanouropita:

Fanouropita cannot be split back into the ingredients once it
is cooked.
You would never refer to a cake by its ingredients
so why refer to Cypriotness by its ‘ingredients’?

Nationalism is distraction-
Distraction from golden passports.
Distraction from Pournara.
Distraction from racial capitalism’s ruination.
Distraction from the death in the air and the borders in our
souls.
Distraction from the Mitsero Murders.

Distraction is death.

We can make this cake and in doing so can make the world anew.
In the hope of some kind of queer futurity
A queer Linobambaki futurity
and in the hope of something better than this colonial
sedative we find ourselves drowning in.
I want to disrupt.
I want to dream free, in an unfettered expansiveness.

Don’t you?

*See Jose Esteban Munoz’s conceptual theory on Queer futurity

*See Karl Marx’s conceptual theory on Dialectics
 Anastasia Gavalas is a creative and has found different
queer Cypriot woman who studies ways to express themselves over
transnational queer feminist lockdown, whether that be
politics at SOAS. They are through art, music, singing or
deeply invested in their Cypriot drag. This happens to be the
SWANA identity and in first poem have written outside
decolonizing what it means to be of a school context.
Cypriot. Anastasia enjoys being
Thus, throughout
Cyprus’ history
the people were
named via
separate
religious,
ethnic and/or
national
positions, which
solidified the
binary. There
was, however, an
alternative
identification
named the
Linobambakoi –
the linen-cottons – who identified with both ethnoreligious
positions, which blurred the binary. The Linobambakoi took form
during Ottoman rule, this is a historical identification that made-
up a small community excluded by the people in Cyprus as well as the
historical record.
The Linobambakoi mocked the order of naming and
knowing the people, which discomforted the Ottoman “Abnormalooo
and especially British imperialists, who named them
as a hybrid minority – defined as the Christians who ooohybridity”
converted to Islam, making them a ‘Muslim Christian-
sect’ or ‘chameleon-like-sect’ (Michell, 758) – of exotic abnormal
traitors. Consequently, they were pressured by the British to
declare one position – through which they have been confirmed
extinct.
Though considered extinct, this book will show the
Linobambakoi exist in Cyprus: first, the people of Cyprus use the
Linobambakoi, their ‘abnormal hybridity’, as a tool in their
competing narratives to define each other; second, as in the
epigraph, the ‘genuine postcolonial Cypriot is the Linobambakoi’, a
hybrid between ethnicities, geographies and cultures because of the
postcolonial partition legacy. Unfortunately, however, most people
in Cyprus fail to acknowledge their Linobambakoi identification by
forbidding names or positions that blur the binary. Here I adapt
Costas Constantinou’s statement: the most disturbing thing about
being a Cypriot is that one refuses their Linobambakoi
identification, instead surrendering to an escapist imaginary that
there can only be a Greek or Turkish-Cypriot – accepting the foolish
fallacy that Postcolonial Cypriot identity is quintessentially and
inescapably hyphenated (Constantinou, 248). And so, in solidarity
with the Cypriots, I expose and make a nonsense of such naming by
performing with it; here showing there is no identity with one name,
there is only identification with many names. [...]
The Linobambakoi were forced to select one ethno-religious
category, resulting in their extinction from official records, and a
colonial legacy towards hybridity that each community used to define
the other: cypriotgreeks define cypriotturks as hybrid Linobambakoi
Latin-Christian or Orthodox-Greek who converted to Islam; the
cypriotturks define cypriotgreeks via hybrid-mixed blood types.
Thus, hybridity is addressed via the racist colonialist discourse
(38)
In dominant British and Cypriot narratives the Linobambakoi
are commonly defined as Christians who converted to Islam, where
they become a ‘Muslim-Christian’ community of ‘crypto-believers’,
‘traitors’ and/or ‘crude opportunists’ whose ethno-religious
normalisation was forced during British rule, ending in them being
an extinct historical community excluded from official narrative.
However, Constantinou redefines the Linobambakoi as a cross ethno-
religiously hospitable community, who are true postcolonial
Cypriots: They live in Cyprus, yet without identifying with the
monumental nationalist histories […] [they] remain faithful to the
secret that their identity exceeds imperial categories and limits,
exceeds the conventional representations of political discourse […]
[–they] corrupt the purity of ethno-national identity. In support of
Constantinou, I call all Cypriots the post-Linobambakoi understood
via the postcolonial Cypriot diaspora, who negotiate with multiple
ethno-religious, national, political, historical and cultural
positions shaped by the official and unofficial, and dominant and
marginalised narratives. Because of colonialism, postcolonialism and
partition the true Cypriot identification can only be a mutable
diasporic hybrid within and beyond monumental boundaries.
Consequently, the Cypriot diaspora, like the former Linobambakoi,
have been marginalised, forbidden and eradicated from Cyprus’ grand-
narratives. This identification has, however, silently endured, and
I have understood it, from, through and with its relegated legacy,
thereby enabling the post-Linobambakoi Cypriot diaspora to have a
concrete site from which to speak to and with the different
positions determined by different places, spaces and times, which
contribute in different ways to Writing Cyprus (50)
Post-Linobambakoi hospitality, which identifies with multiple
‘positions’ that carry the weight of diasporic and Cypriot
experiences within the colonial, postcolonial and partitioned
moments; these experiences are related to the literary-lived
identifications and constructs, official and unofficial, and
dominant and marginalised narratives, which capture the making and
breaking of multiple Cypruses.
Post-Linobambakoi is an identification that extends the
Ottoman Linobambakoi’s in-between hospitable positioning and
practices, which identify with opposing positions shaped by official
and unofficial and dominant and marginalised minds so as to
prioritise the latter, thus enabling a cross-ethnoreligious, cross-
cultural and transnational production of Cyprus. (220)
Bahriye Kemal, Writing Cyprus Postcolonial and Partitioned
Literatures of Place and Space (Routledge, 2019)
Ametis is Cypriot artist who lives in North Cyprus. His Instagram name is
@ohmygoditshappeningagain as is his art

Oh
My
GOD
 It’s
ning
Happe

AGAIN!
Maria Petrides (b. UK) is an independent writer, editor and
translator. She has contributed to magazines/anthologies & art
publications, and participated as writer-in-residency in NYC, Nicosia,
Istanbul, Helsinki, Rio de Janeiro, Geneva. She’s translator of Wow, a
political comic book by Ariadni Kousela, Patakis Publishers, co-
translator of Bill Ayers To Teach the Journey, in Comics, contributing
author to the book collection A Book of Small Things, & assistant editor
of Evripides Zantides’ Semiotics: Visual Communication II (Cambridge
Scholars). She is co-editor of Literary Agency Cyprus anthology, Nicosia
Beyond Barriers - Voices from a Divided City (Saqi Books, 2019) and co-
founder of artist/research group, pick nick.

WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON

ABANDONED CONVERSATIONS

Their vestiges didn’t appear to me until I was caught mulling over the
struggles of Donna, a 33-year-old white-working-class-leftish-hetero-woman-
cum-heroine. On a habitual walk to work she notices that redbrick high-
rises look less sulky on shining days. She looks up readily at the
chuckling residents hanging from balconies, Heineken in one hand, The Sun
in the other.
“Bet there’s a story, 25 MIGRANTS FOUND DEAD IN RUBBER BOAT IN
MEDITERRANEAN”, she shrieks.
A vacant face. The echo of silence feeds back.
“Turn to page four”, she nods to a guy, head shaved, and a red hawk
tattooed on his chest. He winks at her, returns a grin, gulps down the
beer, shouts ‘yup’.
A sizzling sound travels between them.

After being fired from the public library of a South London council for
talking too much to visitors, Donna got herself a job at an Oxfam store and
in her free time began facilitating a raising of funds for political
ASYLEES. Even so, the hearty work wasn’t enough to equip her with a sense
of humanity. She carried the heftiness of a history whose reconciliation
she couldn’t come to terms with. Her monologues had grown into gross
barriers of social asymmetry. Conversations were languishing, as if their
bearing were a leftover from a bygone era. Or the breed of conversations
taking place were not reversing conditions enough because the same position
was reiterating without any recognition of the peripheral and critical
space, from which others resist and discourse.

Where were they happening, if at all, and to whom were they actually
bound?
Which position
do we occupy and how do we mislocate others
since as Iranian psychologist Fathali M. Moghaddam says,

“positioning theory is about how people use words and discourse to locate
themselves and others”.
As global infusion and public opinion (c)rises, and, spontaneous narratives
and artificial democracies spread out and root themselves, respectively,
new ways urge us to collect our actions and connect our narratives with
those most pushed out of the hastily ebbing humane social reasoning which
keeps us tender in the only world we have to live in.

EVERYDAY CHAT
“Where are you from?” the IT guy asked the owner of the computer that he
was cracking open, tipping an inquiring gaze from under his spectacles,
sideways.
The IT guy turned another sharp squint at Phily, in anticipation of a
reply.
Phily exhaled.
Silence.
“Not too far from here”, he came out with an impulse of inalienability. A
composed face that didn’t let off steam.
It never struck Phily that maybe being whiter in a largely white working-
class neighbourhood of London would make the cause for racist big talk. But
was it because he was whiter or from the E Bloc or simply because he was a
working-class bloke. He was a taxpayer who spoke English in a polished
cockney accent and had made a pact with himself since he moved to the UK
that at no time would he perform his Polishness in the presence of those
white lads. His Polish comrades had warned him.

CONVERSING TRAVERSING REHEARSING

“We don’t have any answers, but we can at least start a conversation, like
so many other people are doing right now” rumbles Nina Hoss. Interview,
theatre, performing time. Thomas Ostermeier’s stage adaptation of Didier
Eribon’s Returning to Reims? That was 2009. The German play in a French
memoir via a personal narrative of Hoss’, the lead’s communist father and
trade unionist. It’s 2019. What part of life is left. Globally left.
- why has the traditionally leftwing French working class turned
to the extreme right? Considering the production and
reproduction of class inequality and THE HIDDEN INJURIES OF
CLASS. Didier Eribon’s enduring beginnings, and Richard Sennett
in a critique of everyday life.
- anthropologists and sociologists are drawn into arcane,
meaningless discourses, dissociated from popular struggle. You
can see the impact. They indicate how the level of
irrationality that grows out of this, undermines the
opportunities for doing something significant and important.
Noam Chomsky reclaims.
- the global left has cast away the working classes. Some are
finding significance in the Age of Trump, the BOMB spewed out.

Somewhere in the midst of class loss and cheating, intellectual

impermeability, a shrinkage of white privilege, heads might like to turn
back to the historical losses-cum-trauma of Black people and People of
Colour, and consider, for the first time, how space politics have always
mattered and always will matter.

CRITICAL WHITENESS, A PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESS It

begins with seeing. Seeing one’s whiteness through someone else’s eyes.
Becoming aware of one’s own whiteness. what it performs. what it denies.
what it appropriates. This layer of whiteness bespeaks a dis- position to
shift relations of positions from that of the white middle-class subject to
that of being perceived as an overshadowing signifier of power and panic.
- We become visible through the gaze and vocabulary of the white
subject describing us: it is neither our words, nor our
subjective voices printed on the pages of the magazine, but
rather what we phantasmally represent to the white nation and
its real nationals. Enraged, Grada Kilomba SPEAKS.
- Here, we are speaking in our own name, and about our own
reality, from our own perspective, which has been silent for
too long. Stuart Hall, and Jacob Sam-La-Rose, break silence.
- Structures of domination work in one’s own life, as one
develops critical thinking and critical consciousness, as one
invents new alternative habits of being and resists from that
marginal space of difference inwardly defined. bell hooks.

AVERRING QUEERNESS
A few decades later, George Chauncey reminds us that the continuing power
relation of class and race sustains systems of social domination. The power
of sexual shame exercises its dehumanisation and violence on queer bodies.
The Queer body is visible and embodies visuality. These bodies inhabit a
shared space in which they are deliberately disregarded because of that
which they desire to aver. Queerness is willfully overlooked at home,
during discussion, after adolescence, inside the classroom, within
confrontation, in social space, under the law, on the playground, behind
bars, all over the place. AND still, the queer body performs its resistance
and preserves its distinguishability, not as a body that the white, hetero,
middle-class man makes different through a process of discrimination, and
in relation to a paradigm he has masterminded, monopolised and
memorialised. BUT the queer body performs its resistance and preserves its
distinguishability AS a body site-ing itself in an empowered space from
which it nourishes its own knowledge, invents possibilities, prevails
everywhere by bringing about its subjectivity each time through the body’s
own relationship to itself.

The female Japanese Macaque-monkey indulges in sex with other females

because she uses a greater variety of positions and movements than males
do. Discovering that more movement has maximized genital sensations for the
female Macaque!

ENABLED BODIES’ NORMATIVITY & SOCIAL STATUS

The normalisation of the body goes beyond gender.
“I can go into a coffee shop and actually pick up a cup with my mouth
and carry it to my table but then that becomes almost more difficult just
because of normalizing standards of our movements and the discomfort that
that causes when I do things with body parts that aren’t necessarily what
we assume that they’re for. That seems to be even more hard for people to
deal with”, painter and disability activist, Sunaura/Sunny Taylor tells us
while walking with a mission in San Francisco, alongside Judith Butler.

There are socially constructed ways of using and un-using the body that
“can’t” move in certain ways since the particular body has boundaries
ordered by the body itself which don’t allow it to. Yet the same body “can”
still create movement, even when conditions outside the body and its own
desires do not permit it to. It unbinds itself from oppressive social
conventions, effectively organised by enabled bodies that create disabling
effects for bodies they disfavour.

Who are the disabled?

Those whose body impairment is part of a noticeable and alienated
composition or those whose enablement allows them to authorise an
invalidation of the removed lives of others?
Instituted status
stifling
movement, mobility, motility.
Regulated system, curbing
the degree of ease to exercise your freedom
to
surge
its
bent

But Butler. Enabled bodies ought to butt out of their temporal brutality.
Impart those assumptions self-proclaimed learning cloaked in systematised
perversion.
Yes, “maybe we have a false idea that the able-bodied person is somehow
radically self-sufficient”, surmises Butler.

STAYING WITH TRANSITIONS

As part of a course on experimental writing at a northeastern state
university, Jennifer DiGrazia and Michel Boucher shared a story that came
from one of their classes which focused on queerness and writing.

We begin class with introductions. The twelve students interview each other
and introduce their partner to the class. The circle ends with us, the co-
teachers of the course. Jennifer introduces Mitch:

“This is Mitch. He’s a grad student in American Studies”.

“Wait a minute. Did you just refer to Mitch as ‘he’?” asks one
student. Directing the next question at Mitch, he asks, “Are you
transgendered?”
“Yes,” Mitch replies.

Thinking about how transgender bodies are represented visually, Jack

Halberstam aptly says:
While the transgender body has been theorized as an in-between body,
and as the place of the medical and scientific construction of
gender, when it comes time to picture the transgender body in the
flesh, it nearly always emerges as a transsexual body. But the
transgender body is not reducible to the transsexual body, and it
retains the marks of its own ambiguity and ambivalence. It performs
self as gesture not as will, as possibility not as probability, as a
relation-a wink, a handshake and as an effect of deliberate
misrecognition.

…
“A client told me that I had the roundest breasts he had seen and
that he thought I was a real woman,” Cindy trumpeted through what looked
like an affected smile.
Fixed on deleting DEAD PEOPLE from her phone, as she called them, Sheila
peered at Cindy, spurting,
“Perceptive man. Did you tell him that?”
Distant and determined at once, Cindy aimed at the door’s exit speaking
under her breath, “I was touched by what he said. Just because I didn’t
weep it doesn’t mean I wasn’t. I’m on vazepam”.
The boudoir, larger than the living room, had been
converted from a reclusive atelier to a woman’s
society, not classified. In the beginning there were a
handful of women. Later, dozens more burst forth, like
wishes unfurling by the anemochory of dandelions. They
pulled down the scarlet velvet curtains and opened the
white casement windows out onto the southern Seine,
panes translucent enough to turn what was inside out
onto the Left Bank. An invisible megaphone accompanied
them, amplifying their voices on days of low temper and
poor humour. Reticent and racy, angular and corpulent,
liberal and traditional, middle-class and lower, French
and Cypriot, Algerian and American, all posed together
in chambers and in books. Paris it was, women they
were, and the 1930s were transforming from the myriad
who wanted to thrust themselves into public view.
Depleted of their faculties for so long, they reached
the ripened moment to carve up social space for their
personal and public desires to transpire, exposing then
the disempowering gaze which contained them as those
other bodies that desire to be desired. They equipped
themselves in dress and in attitude to arouse crowds,
readers, and viewers to examine them inside and out,
and defied being reified or portrayed as mere fleeting
objects of male desire and domination. Women were, more
than ever, well versed in finding their way back into
the very selective history that had abidingly pushed
them out. Their distinct subjectivities were calling
for new articulations, to have and to hold. And their
stories, historical and figmental at the same time,
would change the present-day. From tomorrow they would
never again be forgotten from the near histories they
wanted to make: writers and dancers, designers and
entertainers, poets and painters, working women, women
caring and cooking, photographers and sculptresses,
women lovers, queer and heterosexual. The aura was such
a sensation.

Woman-to-woman and woman for woman and for man, she

thought. Do was a dreamer. Pensive and romantic. She
absorbed herself in books-cum-paintings. Entering them
she dreamed up how to cross in sundry ways. She crossed
geographies, gender and genre. From suburbs to city
centres, hamlets to landmasses, and islets to alps. The
bounds separating them were like flowerbeds woven
together into a vast web that anybody or any impalpable
thing could crisscross. They were both as imaginary to
Do. Borders and unity. Yet, for either, you had to
struggle, in warfare or undivided care.
 She loved how she could decentre stories and be
genderless inside them, dressed in a camel gabardine, an azure
blue tie in small knot, and knee-high skirt. Stolid in soaking
up her surroundings one minute, while the other, with the face
of an infant puckishly plucking the grips of adults. Or how
she could incarnate whoever she wished to be through the
characters she drew out, the colours she merged, the extra
ordinary figures she magically brought to life in her own
treatment of them.
A book, as a painting, she mused, could take you to
places deep and distant, near and far from where you were
transporting you to where, maybe you want to be. They flutter
you, call upon you to get closer to the hidden parts of the
smaller guarded world around you. Either way you meet
somewhere between then somewhere else. And you might even be
reading about the lives of others believing that you are
(re)living your own in remembrance or in a future enactment.
…

“Recline, any way you wish. I would like this to be a nude

portrait, half-nude, to be exact. Could you take the wrap and
drape it around your waist, whichever way you want,” the
painter said.
“Yes, that’s quite fine. But I have two requests: I won’t
smile or look at you or future ravenous viewers who fix their
eyes on me,” demonstrated Lyric as she glanced at the azure
ceiling.
Amused, the painter added soberly, “you’re the
protagonist now. There is only one rule: to bring out your
gestures, to vent them.”
A portrait of another woman, assumed Do. The painter had
invited Lyric to laud her liberty and Do was endeavouring to
understand this freedom by reading how Lyric articulated her
body. She then studied the way that she crossed her legs and
arms, how that crossing toppled the ogle and diffused its
intensification, while the painter was stroking her edges. How
she held the position of her arms and shoulder with such
poise. Lyric came into this modern moment and interplayed as
she felt free to do.
Do thought of the women painted by Jacqueline Marval, who
they were, how they looked and toward where they paused their
vision. Very often they turned away from the painter, glanced
at each other, into the sea, at other bathers. The intense
colour and painterly qualities suggested a certain boldness
that intrigued her. She also held the image of Lotte
Laserstein’s self-portraits and her portraits of other women
and their lived experience reflected in singular
representations, with short-cropped hair, and often looking
through a mirror, whole or compact. If male nudity exhibited
power and female nudity showed sexuality, these women painters
were creating a world wherein nudity was a manifestation of
their own power and sexuality, Do meditated.
And then she returned to Lyric. Her breasts swollen
orbited around her muscularized and fleshy torso, and her left
arm, erect, put on view the hair growing. She bearded the
stunned gazes. Underarms and breasts, the two parts of her
very own body projected, defiant. Her mahogany mouth gleamed,
her eyes arrested in subjectiveness exhibited a new type of
woman. An air of fortitude exuded. She had a waxy shimmer and
a backbone that promised to carry other women wherever they
could be emboldened, imagined Do. The new woman. She
interchanged her place with Lyric, and she longed for her
readiness to shift positions with women she had never known
but with whom she felt intimately acquainted. The subject
illustrated in this microcosm was women, their bodies, and
their sexualities.

…
Sissy remembered that halcyon day in February of 1925. It was
prematurely sticky, and it stretched out into darkness. They
jauntily sauntered through the neighbourhood park early in the
afternoon, making up stories about towns and mainlands they
had dwelled in, feeding each other fantasies from outlandish
places they would drop in.
“We’ll fall from the skies, hand in hand,” said Dida,
almost chanting.
“Promise,” Sissy said.
Their desires would not be quelled, they would acclaim
their heroic right to free themselves from dictation, decorum
and decisions that weren’t their own. That Sunday was
unusually airy like their wallowing in the balmy grass.
As night fell, they walked towards Dida’s apartment. In
front of the burgundy apartment building, Sissy stood on the
chipped footstep, Dida slightly below. The streetlamp dimmed,
as if summoned. A faint hum came to her, calling the
twinkling. She spooned Dida’s silky ear in her palm, and then
swooned.
“Stay, don’t diffuse! Just stay here with me, I’m dizzy
with madness,” she poured out, trembling.
“I’m here, there is no place to go without you,” said
Dida softly. An avowal that didn’t anticipate an echo.
“I had a dream that you floated away, from right in
front of my eyes, uncurling from my arms. I rushed to grab
you. Untiring, I was. And yet I couldn’t move.” Sissy
instantly inhaled.
“I could see myself flooded by a surge of waves and you
slipping away, farther away with each blink.”
“Oh, even so I would find my way back to you. Here,
again and again,” swore Dida.
A stomach-to-stomach stroke and they fell into a rooted
kiss. It was Sissy’s magic first. The lifelong craving
unfurled in that instant, repeated forever with Dida. She was
being born then, now, thereafter. She hadn’t existed before.
For the first time she sniffed her own body hair, a tinge of
tart crust; she liked it. She wanted to preserve the evening
in her body’s memory and in her mind.
That episode, singular and universal, was like a deeper
past knotted with the unquestionable present of Dida. She was
she. Her sanguine complexion marked her among the Parisian
crowd, the right thumb and forefinger stitched to each other
since her birth. Earlier that day when they shared enigmas,
Dida told Sissy a secret. She still recalled her mum telling
her how the doctor had announced that one of her fingers were
missing. “I gave you that, it’s your charm,” she had told her
when she was 12, and old enough to understand that the folk
custom was to convert debility into a providence as an
endowment to determine a girl’s future husband.

…
Her grandma, a writer in hiding, had run away from her native
Calvados in Normandy with the farmer’s oldest son to surrender
to the magic of metropolitan Paris. She was 26 and he 37. They
never turned back and they never married. In self-exile they
settled, topping hardships and rebuffing legalisations. They
coiled around one another, attending to each other’s craving
for love until the day they lost their last breath. When
talking became a wrestle with their rickety lungs,
correspondence through note writing ripened into the sole way
to keep their nerve bustling and to cling in carnal contact,
to finger the skin of each other for the days remaining.
She held onto those notes during tuberculosis even as the
paper deeply aged, cracked and grew sallow. She memorised the
lines like verse. There was a magnetism that drew her to the
bedside table, her grandma’s table, handed down to her from
her mum and now, cuddling it almost, she was sleeping by its
side, as if their vestiges were sealed within. It was as if
the rugged smell of wood, the damp scent of paper, and those
sentient words had wedded the withering seasons of her
grandparents’ life together. There was something noble in
their union in bed, copiously sharing love. She discerned
that. She pored over their love notes whenever she evoked
changes in her own body, or when she longed for
transformation. As she read to herself, the voices shuffled,
the words transposed. It didn’t seem to matter who was
speaking, they were interchangeable through their intensity
and realness. She read aloud.
“We nurtured each other, hand to hand as we hurdled over
troubles.”
“The number of silences are measurable on this hand that
clenches yours, melting, touching you.”
“Our love revived each extraordinary day and not one day
passed without you flowing into me.”
“We lived outside the bounds of time, made up our own rules
of loving and living.”
“Birds chirping, our mornings-awaking-thirst were quenched
when singing with them.”
“Skipping across the road to land in each other’s embrace.”

…
They were lolling on the seashore, resting at childhood
again. Free and fun, the world around them would be a player
in their personally orchestrated game. The young women wanted
to remain there, in that place and age where being nude hadn’t
yet climaxed in social tensions, which would lead in haste to
immutable regulation. Before the excessive male sexualization
of female nudity would, in effect, scapegoat you, and earlier
on, when you were quietly discovering unfairness for the first
time. They craved that age when you asked yourself, and never
really figured out what it was about you that made you so
exploitative. They knew that, now, having entered adulthood
unceremoniously. And something about the sea behind them,
eternity beside them, the curiosity inside them, created what
felt like a lasting affinity between Dora, Yasmīn, and Cadie.
As they stretched out into the surroundings, memories stirred
from their near past, and although their stories were
dispiriting, they each shared a piece of themselves,
chortling.
Yasmīn was the gregarious of the trio. She loved to chat.
If there was silence in her company, she would be overwhelmed
by a startling sense that something she had said had set the
mood. So, she grappled with silence, as if it were a leech or
a black hole equipped to blot you out of poise, and she mused
until she would eventually break the pregnant quiet with
laughter.
“Do not speak unless you are spoken to”, my mama would
warn me in the same stern tone each time she dressed me before
going out in public. I was 10, but I had a very strong sense
that this forewarning, the finger shaking, meant girls did not
initiate. “Young ladies,” as we were then called, Yasmīn
trumpeted in a wry grin, “did not lead any-thing or any-one,
they merely followed. And we were expected to model ourselves
on that nonsense.”
As Dora sucked up Yasmīn’s story, she ached to allay her
grief. Every time we went to the beach my mother would say to
me, “If you stare at the sun you’ll go blind, that’s why you
can’t look at it for too long.”
“I never quite fathomed my mum’s motive for telling me
something as minacious as that, except that all mothers had
incentives when it came to their daughters. But an event that
was to me so happy and healing became sinister, something to
be frightened of.” Dora eyed the sun as she confessed to
Yasmīn and Cadie, hearing for the first time how ludicrous her
mum’s premonition sounded, and realising that, in effect, what
had troubled her for so long now consoled her as she listened
to the triad of titters.
The sounds of their mirth reverberated as the sea breeze
stroke their faces. Cadie smiled softly as she spoke.
“My dad s/mothered me. All year round he cloaked me in
pale, pink, velveteen blankets pulled up to my neck as he
strolled me around in this immune-from-the-world baby
carriage. After I started walking, the blankets became
inflated jumpsuits that I couldn’t take off myself,” she said
with sincere affection.
“My birth mum died as I was exiting her. I never knew
what she looked like while she was carrying me into the
world,” Cadie spread her smile. “‘You were born out of earnest
love and life-threatening pain,’ my dad would routinely remind
me as I was growing up”.
Cadie occasionally had visions of her mum, the sounds of
her voice, her body’s smell, how she walked. She remained a
divine invention to her.
 …

Walking at a lingering pace a little later that night after

leaving Dida behind her, Sissy savoured the first lasting kiss
across her open face, above her a geranium halo of aftertaste.
Arrested by her aura, she was shortly interrupted by a
chilling sensation of somebody’s breath crawling down her
spine. She veered away from her route, and turned a sharp
corner to baffle the chaser and try to catch sight of him.
Alarmed by the impending moment, she bent into her stomach,
pushed her fist into her jacket’s pocket and clung onto her
penknife. She held her long-drawn-out breath, waiting to be
assaulted or at best insulted.
“Don’t…no…, keep away from me,” the words came in spurts
across her heavy breathing.
Nothing there. Nothing. No attack. No sound. Just her
panting. There was no brutal man behind her. She stood up,
huffed again, assuaging her terror. And suddenly, an abandoned
hotel loomed in front of her, raw scars of German cannons
permeated it not many years ago. Forever now, the hotel read,
as she gaped at it. She took a longer moment to compose. The
halo seemed to have dissolved. The infinite minute expired,
her voice sounded as she hasted home.
The heightened incident had awakened her. There may have
been no one there then but she felt that she bore the credence
of women’s stories, many of which have been chased by menace.
As though Sissy carried them all in a locket anchored to her
neck, sometimes caressing her and at instants, choking her.
Had she plunged into a passage of other women’s pasts on that
springy Sunday, was it just a sliver of another’s future, her
own maybe? This incorporeal necklace was saturated with tales
that were passed on to her through oral histories, those that
she recollected and (re)imagined, and now the chronicle that
befell her that very Sunday found its place there. They were
all, she felt, hemmed in that historical kiss with Dida,
ripening into an eonic kiss, ageless and monumental.
 NAKED
Serpentes

How can my venom be

compared favourably,
to that of human brain’s?

See how each tongue

stands and waits there;
biding its time to secrete
its payload of venomous words.

More lithe than I can ever be,

see how easily you slither
amongst your hellish thoughts –
and all, without hurting backs!

But then, you too have to crawl

(and that’s where we’re equal)
before those you can’t rebel against.

Forgive us, accursed Medusa;

dreading those whose lives
are no more than a living hell,
we shouldn’t have fled or sought refuge
amongst your silky blond curls.

Your Mr Owl,
CROW that unworthy yes-man,
Corvus couldn’t keep his eyes off my
throne...
I was a bird Ah! You virgin Athena;
of night, Oh! You cruel Apollo;
truth-telling, white... you found truth too much to
They cut out my tongue – bear,
hence my lack of lyricism. on your puffed-up shoulders.
But I still spoke out,
and got banished from the night
So I had to help myself
(and that’s how I became a
thief)
to a darkness I could call my
own.
You offered me the liver
of Prometheus (declined, of
course –
I’m not ignoble like the
eagle).
I held out against my exile,
and dressed up in black...
(But this too attracted
the envy of the night).
 And since when, Mister,
have you bedcome a bird?
Since the 13th month
was deleted, I presume,
to drive bad luck off
calendars?

And since when, Mister,

have you become a bird?
Who can be sure the lid
on Pandora’s Box was

MR. OWL*
Strigiformes

And since when, Mister,

have you become a bird?
Since the day you banished
the crow,
I presume, from the night
together with Athena & Co?

And since when, Mister, intact,

have you become a bird? while you were watching
Since those dark ages over it?
when,
the sun and the moon were *’Baykuş’, the Turkish
chasing each other, I word for ‘owl’, literally
presume? means ‘Mr Bird’, hence my
title.

ART BY HENNY SHAW

Tamer Öncül was born in 1960 (Nicosia, Cyprus). He graduated from the
Dentistry Faculty of Istanbul University (1984). He is a poet and
critic with over 20 book publications. He founded ‘Cyprus Turkish
Artists and Writers Union’, where he acted as general secretary. At
present, he is on the management committee and is one of the editors of
Zaman Mekan Insan, its official publication. Öncül was also one of the
founders of Pygmalion magazine (1993). Since 1990, his cultural
writings have appeared in Ekin Gündemi and he has a column at
Yenidüzen newspaper. His poetic journey started in mid-1970’s, when
‘social realism’ and ‘Cypriot sensibility’ were core, and has since
experimented with new form. His poems and writings have appeared in
Turkish, German, French and Cypriot magazines and individual texts have
been translated into English, German, Italian, French, Greek, Latvian,
Russian, Macedonian, Romanian, Azerbaijani and Arabic.
 Lefki
Savvidou
aka Lé Boob, (b.1990, Cyprus) is a visual
artist, writer and illustrator. She uses
text as her main medium for her work,
which focuses on human relationships and
life’s perceptions in the 21st century.
Since 2011 she has taken part in solo and
group exhibitions in Cyprus, the UK and
Greece and was one of Bucketfeets (US/JP)
artists whose shoe design has been selling
worldwide for the past 5 years. Her work
has also appeared in numerous magazines
and independent zines and publications.
Serhan Salih at 33 chose the name For most of my adult life, I
SarKerInk. Through writing and have been told I think too
painting, SarKerInk explores the much. All because I asked why.
journey of suffering with anxiety
and depression, exposing the harsh
truths of fear, love, and losses
from personal accounts of mental
illness. Writing and painting has
become a tool for strength and
survival: ‘using the power of
words I speak truth, and allow my
identity to be free of judgement’.
Writings can be found on his blog.
@SarKerInk tumblr.com.
24th August 2019
Depression, Anxiety – The
Thoughts, see me now! I have always loved writing,
the feeling of the pen while it
Whoever reads this book will be skims over the page leaving an
touched. Why? Because I am you, ever-lasting imprint on the
The Thoughts come directly from path to an unknown end.
my Depression and I am not good at writing
Anxiety. Fear, a timeless but today I have discovered I
common that brings us like it. Teachers always
together. encouraged the more creative
aspects. The philosophers

**If only three people in the world read this, I hope it is you, you, and you**

guided me away and advised me

to study film studies instead.
I was not good enough to write.
Several note pads have come and
gone with little or minimal
entries. I hope this one is
different.
Today I travelled outside
of the UK. My first solo trip,
something I have always been
too afraid to do alone. Now in
the city’s centre, smoking a
joint, I let go. I am becoming
content with me. Fear is the
root cause of my anxiety. Like and must deal with my shit. (I
the event horizon of a black have got my shit to deal with).
hole, fears unwillingly drag A therapist treating me
into that singular point said, ‘anxiety and depression
within. They live in my mind’s are not common’. For weeks
core, my only knowledge is that after that session, I pondered
they exist; I do not know the what she meant by this. She
substance they hold within. I later explained that we choose
will deal with these deep to be depressed and anxious in
emotional miss-connections. Is different ways. So, I could
it possible to bend the fabric choose how depression and
of time, travel back to the anxiety controls me. Live life
fears entering the fibres of my in two ways: One, enter fear,
brain. We are not born with lose control in dark places
these fears, yet these that define me; two, self-
substances build our charters. acceptance. Something triggered
How does one remove judgment, anxiety, a physical feeling in
anxiety then depression from the middle of my chest close to
their everyday processing? To my heart is very present, and
say, goodbye. It no longer as I read back I must believe
exists. To not be concerned this tightness is because of
with what other people think, the topic I choose. What is it
not waiting for change, not that causes me to feel this way
going over and over and over today?
and over the same. Contentment
right now in Amsterdam. Without
fear of the thoughts. I feel 26 August 2019
the voices following them as Today I spoke to a local (x-
they broadcast onto the page. pat), who was looking to live
Today I learn to let go of the in the city; he has only been
fear of judgment by others, it in Amsterdam for a week. The
will not hold the right to EU, as a site with open borders
control. Approached by the and freedom of movement to see
waiter working in a small café, and experience, is what I will
the tables are small with miss when the UK
bright vibrant Mosaic tiling. leaves. Through every
We exchange words on feeling at conversation I have with myself
peace when travelling alone or with a stranger, I am
writing. My insides jump out, I learning to speak. Walking
am noticed. I will not pretend from coffee shop to coffee
I am happy. Understand the shop, I accept I am weirdly
things I need to leg off, face deep, surrounded by people who
the fears I ignored for this dismissed and mocked me.
long. Repeating the same thoughts
over and over, and over...not
25 August 2019 letting go. Let go!
Same level of thought process,
different levels of 26th August 2019
questioning. Why do some people I have spent 3 days alone, but
have a desire to understand not lonely. My first sober
their emotions, and others are entry (not had a joint
just content? Does everyone yet). It’s magical walking the
have a turning point in life, a streets of another city solo.
crossroad that changes who you Exploring time, self, place.
become? I need to find peace, Now much lighter. With lesser
fears, limiting the need for Planning my next semi solo trip
confirmation from everyone. I to Amsterdam. Now not with my
applied boundaries. At 33. To own mind(s), yet wishing. I no
say, stop constantly calling or longer fear myself as much. To
messaging, I would reach out. I write on the move, mapped a
understood her concerns, lonely true reflection of the inner
and depressed in a foreign workings of my mind here and in
country. Every time my phone therapy. Lost in the ink and
buzzed, I became mum’s black pages of writing and un-
entrapped child. A picture of a writing fear.
cat. Depression halts emotions
to miss and need. So much shit My therapist once asked me:
in these woods, but with each “What was the thing you did
doggy bag it seems I’ve that made you forget to eat”.
collected and removed quite a
bit. Perhaps another get-away
?
That gay sauna on my last day
in Amsterdam. An experience!

30 August 2019
 is dub

Haij Mike, poet, radio

presenter,
DJ, writer,
academic. He has an extensive
eponymous social media presence
having featured on the BBC’s
Rhythms Of The World TV, and with
Andy Kershaw in the early ‘90s. He
has gone on to grace numerous
radio stations, host a TV show and
his dub music has appeared on many
underground artists' creations on
dub music, hip hop, acid funk and
world music. He’s toured various
countries from South Africa,
Japan, UK, Greece, USA, Ireland,
France, Portugal as a MC, DJ and
dub poet. Currently he DJs on
GreekBeat Radio in London
from Nicosia. He is also an
Associate Professor at The
University of Nicosia, where he In the process of emigration, I
teaches Digital Media and
Communications and has lectured at became known as Michael (on my
conferences throughout the world.
He edited Art And Social Justice – passport), Mike for short. But that
The Media Connection (Cambridge
name I was born with always stayed
Scholars Publishing) and recently
completed research on Bob Marley in my mind. So much so that the
Radio. In 2017 Haji Mike joined a
band, the Highgate Rockers aged first poem I performed publicly,
57. In the summer of 2018, they
recorded their debut LP RLY? at sometime in the 1980’s was called
Real World Studios. He helped
found the new studio Blind Dog, in ‘Mixalakis’…which eventually became
Nicosia, Cyprus.
a dub song, produced by Tony

MIHALAKIS Mihalakis Is a Dub Style Muttley. The poem was also

published by Apples & Snakes in

| Haji Mike (bandcamp.com) 1993.

‘Call Me Mihalakis’ is also a

Mihalakis is my name. It's how I was
drawing by my friend Sonia Joseph,
baptized. Emigrating to England in
based on the poem and knowing me….
1964, seeing snow for the first time
It’s a bit ghostly…but I really like
in my life, and concrete buildings
the facelessness of the image. That
with many floors was a big culture
feeling really captured the
shock, especially at the age of 4.
sentiment of the poem. Performing
it so many times, I would always get it’s the core thing we lack in

someone coming up to me at the end Cyprus. We are taught to hate and

and saying they went through despise each other. It is about

exactly the same things…. having a right to a name, about a

right to self, the choice of being

The LGBTQIA+ Cypriots connected
who you want ... as simple as
with this poem. It was featured at
that. We are denied that by so
one of the biggest Cypriot events
many people in our lives, who
I DJ'ed at in the late 1980s. The
define who we are according to
event was in a secret location in
their stereotype. I think this is
Elephant & Castle, an event for
why a lot of Cypriot Gay and
the Cypriot Gay and Lesbian group
Lesbian people related to the
based in Haringey. They could not
poem, because they were always
publicise the event, so it worked
denied the right to be who they
much in the same way as an illegal
wanted to be.
rave party, all word of mouth and

mobile phones. We didn’t even know

where we were DJ-ing at until we

crossed the river. This was one of

the best Cypriot events I ever

played at back then. The only

thing you felt that night was

universal love. We played back-to-

back versions of chiftetelia in

both languages and people went

mental belly dancing together.

There were about 500 people at the

event. The community with big C

was sleeping, and still is.

So, like many things I do, this is

about respect and universal love;

Mihalakis
At school

They gave us all kinds of names

Dished out on playing pitches

And over stormy dining tables

They called me many names

I had more nicknames than the Culture

years has days Said I was schizophrenic

More nick names than the sun Trapped in some kind of bi-

has rays cultural panic

Them call me colour Lost in Britain

Call me paki, diego, whop, spik And not proud of it

and darkie
Call me colour
Them call me class
Call me culture
Said I should work like my
Call me class
parents
Call me
Sweating buckets
All kinds of……
Long hard hours present past
Nothing…..
Them call me intelligence
But them never call me
Said I was good at
Mixalakis
Rugby and footie
By my name
But my maths and history was
For that
dodgy and awkward
Was all
Them also call me
I

Ever

Asked….
Marios Psaras is a Cypriot
filmmaker and scholar living in
London. He holds a BA in Education
and Philosophy and an MA and PhD in
Film Studies. He is the author of
the first book-length study on
contemporary Greek cinema, The Queer
Greek Weird Wave: Ethics, Politics
and the Crisis of Meaning (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2016). Psaras has taught
film theory at Queen Mary, King’s
College London, University of
Greenwich, and has lectured widely
across Europe. He has published
articles, reviews and book chapters
on contemporary Greek, European and
global queer cinema. Psaras has
previously worked in education, radio and TV production, and
has directed for the theatre and cinema. He has produced and
directed four short films and two short documentaries. His
most recent short film, The
Call (2020), has won Special
Mention at the 43rd Drama
International Short Film
Festival and is currently
screening at film festivals
worldwide. Psaras is a member
of the Hellenic Film Academy,
artistic director of the
annual festival Cyprus Short
Film Day, London, and a
member of the editorial board
of Filmicon: Journal of Greek
Film Studies. As of 2018,
Psaras is Cultural Counsellor
at the Cyprus High Commission
in London.

To Watch the Creative

Documentary, follow
this link:
https://vimeo.com/232222765?fbcli
d=IwAR0-
8c3kjr0eVANKiQbINBptFNJsJ6MC5XH3D
hEfjHa-93XU_tkrS7K6tT0
 Iza

She hated Isabella -

Rosy’s Formula ‘Don't call me that,’

she'd say.
It was too much of
what she wasn’t -
Gallant apple cheeks shape a ballerina, pianist,
and shade his face, flowers.
lips like cherries and hands
like fresh cream, I almost called her
a seamstress's fingers. Izabello
but bello was to much
He knows what will happen of a tree trunk.
when he raises his hand, I struggled to find a
that I’ll smile and nod name
towards the board. or use the usual
He will shift from his seat endearments.

and make his way to the She was chunky, jeans

calmer end of the room, devouring
led by the sway of his hips. checked shirts, her
His gentleman wrists hair cropped
will curl in on themselves shorter each week as
though
as if holding an umbrella, she were learning to
his footsteps pigeon-toed. walk.
In the 30 seconds it takes
to reach the board, he knows Soon, she found new
elbows will be nudged friends
whose skin she stroked
and his thumping chest will and kissed
be drowned in a stream as she sat up close. A
of sniggers. There's a smile hid
flickering light in every her face; nothing
class could stop her.
and this year it’s his turn.
Ready to play with all
I pass over the marker pen. the rules,
Hunched, unshelled, she wouldn't
he embroiders letters and concentrate -
numbers. They must fit if he wouldn’t
is to live his dream. participate. She held
meetings
in the toilets, on the
benches,
Zoe Piponides was raised in a Midlands chippy
and now lives in Larnaca. Her first poem
hugged behind the
appeared on a square of greaseproof paper. labs, immune
Since then, she has been commended in UK to guidance, warnings,
competitions and received writing/editing offers of help.
commissions. Published work includes a She left suddenly,
communal novel: ’Payback’ based on the Cyprus Izabella no more.
haircut crisis, and poems in various I wish I’d called her
anthologies. Iza.
We sail in love
moving within and between,

whispering aşk breathlessly,

passing into englishes as though
it reads
like ask
aşk, ask, aaaaask
but asking what?

deliberating over αγάπη

missing
mistranslated into agape
a gaping what?
a gape where our love should be?
the voiced velar fricative unpronounceable,
the throat unmade for such sounds.
Classicists try dissecting the past;
we cry failing to find a future
filling in the gaps of the present
sailing in sounds
mournfully late
for a love
we can never translate.

The mouth is closed.

Daniele Nunziata is a poet and a lecturer in English Literature University of Oxford. He is

the author of Colonial and Postcolonial Cyprus: Transportal Literatures of Empire, Nationalism, and
Sectarianism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). He has written several journal articles on postcolonial
literatures. As a poet, his words often draw on his familial connections to Cyprus and his upbringing
in London. He performs his poetry live and has been published in various international magazines.
 Cocaine God
Anthony Anaxagorou
from After the Formalities
you remember how it went
at the Christmas party –

I felt so man when she asked me to dance

keeping her close like the papers

I’d bring you

our bodies steady releasing music

hard loafers red-faced & my girl so make-believe

me dancing like that so feline

so vague the largeness of a man
the smallness of a boy

what was guiding us then?

a thirst a sorrow the world?

you directing mum so yes so river

provoking her feet into space
water pulled how kitchen is the dance?
how bedroom can it get? her look
exultant your expression
the latest technology owning the floor
heavy smoke disco ball for your dips
perfume skidding on breath eyes here
then there you watching how i stirred
my girl your son so deer so calf my dad
made of headlight pure petroleum another powder
the history of your head rocking mine
head-butting me clean brick on butter

the way i went spinach leaf on steam

picking pink from off the floor & why
her moisturised knee the holy hills of her dress
crouching sequins guiding me to my feet
double-eyed with music throbbing

& you dad grinning like a bucket’s handle

breathing in your body bullying what endured
your tiny feet tighter than a boxer’s lace
& mum moving less like water now
More like tar

at the table my girl handed me a beer

as if it were the end of an agonising crossword
while the rest of us watched you force yourselef
into each song
returning the years the light

bursting through us all black

as thesmoke of burning swans

Anthony Anaxagorou is a British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer,

essayist, publisher and poetry educator. In 2015 he won the Groucho
Maverick Award and was shortlisted for the Hospital Club H-100 Award for
most influential people in writing and publishing. In 2019 he was made
an honourary fellow of the University of Roehampton.
 last 24 hours of the third gender in mekong

Translated by Bahriye Kemal

From cin seli, 2004. (Flood of Gin)

at 6 in the morning mekong is furiously flowing,

under the third gender’s feet.

skin:
china’s silkworms have never created such a masterpiece.

so lustful that they seduce ancient greek gods,

invites sin to such an extent that make the devil jealous

wind, come let’s swap places with you

instead of you, let me touch their marrow

surrender my untouchability to them

so they can entrust their sins to me

mekong has fallen asleep, well it’s night

the third gender’s spirit is overjoyed on the steamy ship’s deck

the three cunning play is being staged

emptiness is applauding the steam, me, them

like the stars shining in the sky

wish they would have lost their existence’s consciousness
the wrist’s veins are meeting the noble razor
the devil’s suicide call presents a one act tragedy to the angels

silently a bent wound opening on the right wrist

fully a masochist in the final steps

ominous moment between the opening of wound and the gushing of

blood
platonic deceptions are pointless now, the blood will be emptied

as the body says farewell to the blood with pain,

the consciousness has insignificance, zero positive, well it can
be found everywhere

the seagulls become silent so to hear

the sounds of dropping blood

neither ID nor life is necessary

spirit does not need blood

however, still crying when saying farewell blood

twenty years of getting use to each other, after all

moon, the audience, their tears and blood drops into the water
moon, will rise morered in mekong

around 5 in the morning, the third gender is vulgarly throwing

their used body into mekong’s chilled water

the greedy waters are hugging them

last innocence is being taken, in this way

the pain that starts with birth contractions

is being defeated by death contractions

who said that being born alive and whole will be enough for an
identity
now that they have gone, they should find a better body for
themselves

the burglars stole their silk dresses

razor and shoes are the only thing remaining

no-one ever saw the sold body again

mekong’s waters the last to make love to them
do not drink water anymore
the water is as sinful as
the third gender.
 Gürkan Uluçhan, is a poet, novelist, short
story and script writer. Born in Lefkoşa, Gürkan
studied Law at Marmara University. Some published
works include: Cin Seli/ Flood of Gin (Poetry),
Ahna Kitabı /The Book of Ahna (Novella), Zamanın
Aşkı / Love of the Times (short story),
Keçiboynuzu / Craob (novel), Korkunç Üçlü/ The
Scary Threesome (novel) ve Medusa (poetry). In 2004
the short story Akıl hastanesi / mental asylum won
the Emaa 1. Young Story Writers award, in 2012 the
short story Peştemalin bir günü/ Pestamailin’s day
won the Defne Dergisi V. Short Story Competition
sponsored by Tourism, Environment and Cultural
Ministry, in 2013 the short story Morgue
Sokağı’ndaki morgda yaşananlar/ those aging in the
morgue on Morgue street; was mentioned in FABİSAD,
GİO. Ahna Kitabı/The Book of Ahna has been
translated into many languages and is taught in
schools across Cyprus and America.
Irene Kattou (b. A Rainbow
2000) is a multimedia
artist. Her work
explores the of
relationship of the
body, culture and the
embodiment experience. Emotions
Focusing on aesthetics,
these ideas became
important elements
within her practice.
Using surrealist
influences, she seeks
to investigate and
destabilise narratives
of ‘truth’ by making
her audience uneasy.
Her works actively
encourage raptures of
subversion to dominant
notions. Her
politically charged and
daring photo Eat Me was
featured on the Sex
Issue of Phi Magazine.
In the exhibition
Cyprus Queer
Perspectives, she
explored the emotional
turmoil of the queer
person.

Acrylics on
rice paper
29.6 X 42 cm
each

(Art work from the private collection of Evagoras Vryonides)

 Be You, Be Venus
The gaze of [p/g/b]ushing shrubs, slender the
mind
Slender the mind to think about being binary
and non-binary.
Crowds of men gazing into the beauty of men,
women, trans-men, trans-women, lesbians and
gays.
What do we see when we look at a person,
beauty or binary labels?

Venuses are rising,

Look left, right, look ahead
Venuses are rising.
Look into the eyes of your Venus, be brave,
do not be scared to hold your Venus, while
other people stare hate.

Being you, being straight, being trans, being

gay, being lesbian, and being a dyke?
Who cares what they say, love your Venus, ward
off evil.
Venus is the unattainable and most gifted
example of how to express yourself.
Be you, be anyone, but don’t be a-someone who
tags along.

Kemal Kemal is a photographer. He

completed a BA in Photography at London
Metropolitan University. Kemal’s artwork
engages with social issues by focusing on the
role water and reflection play in
understanding memory, the meditative state of
mind, and data, all inspired by the myth of
hermaphrodite. The exhibition Shadows and
Reflections (2018) was shown at The Hellenic
Centre and their most recent work is A
Conversation with Water (2020).
 is creative writer and associate professor of
Stavros Stavrou English in the Department of Humanities at
Karayanni the European University Cyprus.

moment, but all I had to give

Gardening Desire was my name, as if this could
be an offering, a humble gift
of sorts. ‘Ali Ejaz,’ he
Ali Ejaz hummed tunes familiar replied.
from Bollywood. His handsome
voice was hesitant, tentative,
but intent on making itself The Nicosia Municipal Gardens
heard in the darkling spring is a serene and pleasant park,
air of Nicosia’s Parliament the legacy of British colonial
Park. The evening breeze rule. For more than a century
carried his song across the it has existed across from the
parterres, over the hedges, Nicosia General Hospital (now
brushed it along the thorny demolished) just outside the
edges of the cactus shoots, city’s sixteenth-century
and lifted it all the way Venetian wall, its east side
through the rich rustling facing the Paphos Gate. The
foliage of the giant Parliament building, on the
eucalyptus. As dusk began to south side, adorns the
descend, the shadows in the colonial legacy with the
park multiplied, offering premises of the esteemed and
refuge to anxious promises. I venerable legislative body of
approached, fully in love with the Republic of Cyprus, and
the idea of his dark assigns its label: Parliament
complexion against the Park. Its other names,
settling evening, and traced however, are much more
the lines of his face alluring and even offer a tour
inquiringly and longingly, of the political history of
happily settling on eyes, Cyprus: the British called it,
bright with a smile that rather surprisingly, Victoria
rested within the lines on the Memorial Gardens. More
sides and on his mouth – full recently, Asian migrants,
lips and always ready for a whose personal histories are
smile. These encounters, at inherently connected with the
once magical and devastating; same colonial narrative, refer
not knowing what to relish to
foremost, the pungent flesh,
the skin that mixes strong it as Cyta Park (the Cyprus
aftershave with cigarette Telecommunications Authority
smoke – a scent that to me being the biggest
breathes the most concentrated telecommunication company
excess of sexual longing. On active in the island), a name
our way through the park and that acknowledges the island’s
out of the gate, the euphoria corporate accomplishments gone
from my fulfilment evoked a awry in March 2013 when Laiki
desire in me to offer Bank, one of the Republic’s
something from another biggest banks, collapsed. And,
dimension, I wanted to give in light of the developments
him something as a token of of the last few years, Garden
how I loved him at that of Peace is the name that
marks the ever so slight landscape that processes our
shifts in the nationalist lives. I still remember the
narratives that have ensured feeling of going to this park
that the island’s wounds are to admire the aviary (I loved
kept open. animals, birds, serpents and
always sought opportunities
for contact), but an even
Yet, the most appealing name greater impression was created
is one that I remember from my by those men who walked around
childhood and that associates the park or sat on the benches
the park with its benefactor, looking forlorn but
Princess Zena Gunther de insistently present and
Tyras, whose financial queerly purposeful. I looked
support, along with the with curiosity and fascination
architectural plans of as if I could fathom their
Neoptolemos Michaelides, extraordinary purpose despite
engendered the landscaping my young age and lack of
that we have inherited today, sexual experience.
even though its appearance
must be quite different from
the early 60s when Michaelides How much of what we remember
set about re-designing it. is actual memory and how much
What an extraordinary stroke is projection of subsequent
of camp fortune that this park thoughts and experiences
would be associated with a modelled on vague
princess whose life story recollections without solid
reveals a bruised femininity references? Did I really know
that is so appealing to men what those men looked for in
conscious of their compromised the park or did I apply this
masculinity. Zena Gunther, a knowledge in retrospect?
Tala-born girl, in the Whatever the case, years later
province of Paphos, and a when I found myself an adult
Limassol cabaret dancer who sitting on those benches
married the heir of the observing in wait, my
Gunther family and came into imaginative point of reference
extraordinary wealth, in order became those male figures that
to, among many other things, traversed the late morning
restore a park, give it her shadows of my childhood, the
name and establish a meeting present experience constructed
point for men who engage in an on those shadowy foundations.
active negotiation with the My heartbeat in my mouth that
norms of masculine behaviour first time I cruised in this
and masculine power, and, more park of Nicosia. I was
importantly, the uses of seventeen, insecure and
pleasure on the landscape of unknowing but persistent and
the male body made possible by inquisitive, and I relished
the landscape of the garden. with great guilt, shame, but
also elation the bizarre
pleasure as the electric
I used to visit this park when charge of sex surged in my
I was a little boy. Yet, youthful body. As if in
memory works in striking ways. supplication, the unknown man,
It is not merely a passive who was much older than I was
repository but an active at the time, knelt before me
catalytic building experience, with tenderness and
shaping the imaginative appreciation. I think back on
that first experience with taken by the wonderful way he
great fondness even though it offered himself and was quite
really wasn’t much in terms of shocked that he lingered for a
sexual adventure. Rather, it short while after so as to
was an unceremonious share a little about himself.
initiation to the mysteries of When we parted, I walked away
cruising, but sufficient for thinking about how this man
me to taste pleasure and sense came along to love me on this
the intoxication of a dark, cool October night,
proscribed exchange whose adding texture to my life and
contours I had already traced leaving me with a lingering
in the mysterious area that taste of desire in my mouth.
lies beyond the known frames Reaching the traffic lights of
of verbal reference. Strovolos Avenue, I observed
as if in a trance, the lights
of cars gliding up and down
‘Where should we go?’ he the busy crossroads staring
whispered as we walked away with their bright and
from the bench where he had unwavering intentness. My
been sitting surveying the mouth felt those pathways
desiring human traffic as it crafted by his presence, sadly
shadowed its way through the tracing the absence. And I
park. caressed the seat beside me
and brought my hand to my nose
‘Well’, I replied, ‘the several times, like the stray
choices are rather limited: cat that frequents my mother’s
there is Hedge A on our right, backyard and who comes and
Hedge B on our left, a shrub sniffs my car tyres
further up, and the dark deciphering with intentness
parking lot across the smells that registered and
street.’ Decisions are taken travelled on that spot. His
quickly at these moments and strong body smell is, in fact,
soon we were both headed what I found most
towards my car parked in the overpowering. What is it about
dark parking lot across the a lover’s smell that lingers
street from Parliament Park. in your nostrils and you
Once inside he wasted no time inhale it like a precious
lowering the seat and lying narcotic relishing it as if it
back in a relaxed position will induce that state of
offering himself in a way that ecstasy again or make the
was attractive and inviting, sensation of that body recur?
unlike the typical macho And the cars kept gliding
attitude that determines the around me in all directions it
motion of such poses, seemed – as if each one of
favourite with straight- them was carrying him but
identified men who expect to forbidding me to have him,
be ‘serviced’ slavishly. On goading me as this
our initial exchange I felt a insufferable absence enveloped
certain sweetness about him. me.
He had a rare disposition of
knowing what he wanted and the
confidence to request it in a There are many remarkable
manner that incited my desire. things to observe about
Yes, apart from his appealing cruising encounters, however
looks, it was the way he furtive, secretive and
composed our love encounter evanescent they may be. Almost
that charmed me. I was so
every time, despite the prejudice. The manner in which
darkness, and sometimes even a Greek Cypriot man will
the wordless character of the approach a Turkish Cypriot man
exchange, important attributes for sex during cruising will
may become apparent. Proximity be in negotiation with
is enough to offer some nationalist indoctrination and
imitation of the world that the long and systematic
the stranger’s body inhabits: cultivation of hatred.
bespeak compatibility or
otherwise. All it takes is a
shadow, a hurried or languid Apart from Turkish Cypriots,
movement in the dark, a pause Nicosia cruising has seen the
and a process. And what you appearance of immigrants
perceive often allows your looking for sex for pleasure
imagination to take you on and/or money. In the eighties,
these journeys that awaken the only non-Greek Cypriot one
secret desires and evoke that might see would be Lebanese
hunger for sensation. As if fleeing from the civil war.
caught unaware, even though it Now there are ethnic Greeks
is there for the purpose, the from the Black Sea region,
body rises to the pleasure of African asylum seekers, South
looking and welcomes the surge Asian migrant workers, Western
of emotive synaesthesia. Europeans working in offshore
companies, and men from
Eastern Europe. Without access
At present the cruising scene to internet chat lines, and
in Nicosia has seen further because cruising in person is
developments. Since April 2003 the only way to find other
the line of separation between men, these men have
Northern and Southern parts of reintroduced into cruising
the island could be crossed some of the pulse that was
for the first time in twenty- usurped by on-line meeting
nine years. Inevitably, sites.
some of the Greek Cypriots
began to cruise in Northern
Cyprus, and Turkish Cypriots The park with many names, just
ventured to the parks and on the outskirts of the
parking lots in the south. Venetian walls of a city torn
Meetings and sexual encounters apart by violence, occasions
between gay men of the two reflections on colonial and
communities have seen the postcolonial historical
materialization of what used moments, migration, global
to be an old fantasy of sexual developments and shifts
compromising contact between in sexual attitudes in Cypriot
the infidel and the society. The vegetation itself
religiously devout; the has suffered greatly in recent
insolent and the refined. years. A systematic effort to
Dissident desire (gay, lesbian eliminate all possible hiding
and so much more) often wants places has left the park
to transcend the oppressive bereft of hedges, bushes,
boundaries of dominant climbers. The trees have grown
narratives, and shows greater much taller but the park has
willingness to cross borders never looked so bare. And the
and defy prejudice. Yet, behaviour has also seen
shifts. Patriarchy, with its
dissidence does not always
presume innocence and lack of dependence on easily
recognisable sexual roles that we begin to read them to each
will attempt to perpetuate set other, tentatively and
power systems, has established haltingly at first. Steadily,
the dichotomy of the however, the reading gains in
effeminate and the passive on devotion and tenor. Soon we
the one hand and the macho and begin to apply our lips to
the active on the other. words, to whole sentences, and
Nevertheless, this dichotomy we traverse the textual
has slowly been subsumed into passages hungrily,
more complex pursuits of passionately. We take each
pleasure and negotiations of other’s words and turn them
masculinity, thus changing around in our mouths, tasting
considerably the behaviour of their every edge, tracing
cruising men in an unforgiving their pulse, their heat, their
and relentlessly ‘straight’ texture. There gardening
society. And heartbeats desire is no stopping this
continue to punctuate the articulation; so full of
humid darkness, as Nicosia ardour, so adroit, and
changes into its park gear for happening against the backdrop
pleasure pursuits. of his smell: it reminded me
of my aunt’s courtyard in her
old, now demolished house
Moving through the shadows, a where I used to play with my
glorious moon overhead as if cousins in a childhood of
it’s the only place where it smells that blended wet earth,
shines its full light – the oleander, basil and bay leaf,
rest of the planet is bitter and sweet and pungent.
completely deprived of its And when we finished our
silver overtones, smooth and passages, we put our texts
mellow bathing the landscape, away and parted, feigning a
playing with it as if to drive certain nonchalance about the
everyone and everything mad anxious moment of saying
with transcendence. The goodnight. And I walk on
corridor of tall palm trees, through the bushes, up the
the sharpness of the breeze, path, through the side
the silhouettes of the cacti entrance, across the empty
stretching upwards in the street and finally onto busy
darkness and a man, tall, Egypt Avenue. My head is
heavy, dressed in jeans, is immersed in the effort to
walking from the opposite control the flow of what I
direction. He slows down, and still can’t identify but which
as soon as he passes me he I know flows from a certain
stops and I look back and he point on the landscape of my
does too, and before long we memory, as if his desire
are in the tenuous safety of reached out and stroked that
the park’s hedges. In the point and probed it until this
shadowy light our texts of energy burst forth and danced
desire become very legible and around me, ineluctable,
wounding, and unregenerate.
 Rainbow Children
A narrative about a sweet kid. With big beautiful black eyes. He
was writing a novel set in the Greek islands. He’d never been
there, but knew it like he’d wandered the streets. We'd meet and
chat at the bookstore I often visit. It was obvious that he was
different. I felt hidden stories in his eyes and waves of sorrow
in their soul.

I had no doubts about their sexual identity. Even if he didn't

say it, it was understood. One day I said something along the
lines of "how great would it be not to drive in this Cyprus;
instead be gay, be lesbian, you will be less discriminated" he
laughed. This must have encouraged him; he pulled me into a
corner and told me his secret, which I had already realized: "You
know, I'm gay" he said. I said "I know". "Is it too obvious?" he
asked. Then he began to tell his story: as the child of a very
conservative Sunni family in Turkey, he has struggled with
carrying this identity. He had fallen in love with a Greek he met
online, saying "Pure, pure, deep love." He wanted to see his
lover, but could not go. If he jumped on a ship from the city he
lived in, he would arrive on the island. So he begged his father
to help him leave, of course, without explaining why he wanted it
so badly. But it was not possible.

Heterosexuality is the other of the dominant world

He had learned Greek by himself. With the wings given by love,he

could almost fly over to the country of the beloved. He had
learned many things and thanks to them he felt close to him. He
was in the arms of the forbidden, the wrong. “Doubled” the taboos
with his lover. He was the other of this heterosexual world that
dominates. He chose his lover from the "ethnic other". His love
was an objection against the contempt and rejection of
difference. He hated his home and family. His father's treatment
of his mother, his attitude towards women. He could come out to
his family. He was very different from their world.
Those who were interested in their own kind and in love with
someone of their own kind were cursed. It scared them. They were
considered strange. Getting close to each other was a crime that
broke the law. As if they didn't exist; they were treated like
they could not exist. His father often uttered vulgar words about
those who looked like him. When I was at a writers' house in his
town last summer, I called him. His bright black eyes were full
of concern. In this house, he knew right away that it was another
world. He was welcomed. Difference was beauty.

A world where manhood is blessed

I think he was happy too. His sexual identity was just one of his
multiple identities. Today, in many parts of the world, in homes,
small towns and in many public places, people like him are
excluded and suffering. The world is a brutal conflict zone for
those with different ethnic, sexual and class identities. In
European cities they are not as visible as foreigners and people
of different colours; however, when they expose themselves hatred
and exclusion reigns. This terrible fragility experienced by
those of sexual difference brings hell to the world. It's not a
world where we are taught to love difference. This is a world
where manhood is blessed and everyone who leaves his path is
cursed. A world where men are at the centre, and women and other
sexual identities excluded.

A world that judges the love of men to men and women to women as
perverted. Even though this is the case for now, I feel the
following: If we increase the numbers of those who support the
right to exist in difference, right of every sexual and gendered
identity to exist in equality and harmony, then maybe one day,
the sorrow buried in the sparkling black eyes, the fractures
caused by exclusion, and the cruelty of making everyone in this
brutal world look like everyone else, will also disappear.
Queer Singer Beats Homophobic Nationalism, Behiç Gökay
by Neşe Yaşın & Mete Hatay

A photograph of Behiç Gökay shared by Sotiris Savva,

Neşe Yaşın talks about Behiç Gökay: A Cypriot Queer

This is a story of Behiç Gökay, a singer beaten, marginalized,

isolated and forgotten after his death. There is, however,
consolation in how the villagers remember and speak of Behiç as a
person full of love and respect.

Behiç was gay and refused to fight the Greeks, thereby defying
local authorities. The police then subjected Behiç to beatings on
several occasions. His brother, Alpay, who also refused to fight,
took him to a doctor on the Greek side for medical treatment. The
Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı/Turkish Resistance Organization (TMT)
accused Alpay of collaborating with the Greeks, and he was also
beaten and then went missing. After this incident, fearing for
his life Behiç re-settled in the south before heading to Athens
where he began singing in taverns. When he got sick, he returned
to Cyprus and lived in a Linobambaki village, in the southern
part of Cyprus, where Turkish and Greek Cypriots continue to live
together even after the division.
Mete Hatay is a journalist and Senior Research Consultant in the
Peace Research Institute Oslo Cyprus Centre. His research focuses
primarily on Cyprus, where he has written widely on minorities and
religion, the politics of demography, displacement, and cultural
heritage.
Cyprus
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