Hearing the cry of Lebanon!… (*)

Hearing the cry of Lebanon!… (*)

Sevgul Uludag

`Stop the war Coalition-Cyprus` was in south Lebanon last week, going there at the call of the Civil Resistance Lebanon… Civil Resistance Lebanon, made a call at activists around the world, to come to Lebanon to show their support to the resistance of the Lebanese and Palestinian people… Starting from the 7th of August, 2006, alternative political groups, activists, non-governmental organizations started going to Lebanon… This was, before the cease-fire and the idea was to create an international convoy of activists traveling from Beirut to south Lebanon and challenge the assault policies of Israel… Then came the cease-fire but civilian groups from around the world continued to go to Lebanon, to see with their own eyes and to hear with their own ears, the cry of Lebanon…

`Stop the war Coalition-Cyprus`, an alternative group of left political organizations and activists from both sides of the island, has been working for about five years to raise the voice of reason and to draw attention of the public on critical moments… They have been out in the streets demonstrating against the war waged by the US in Iraq, they have been showing solidarity to Palestine and most recently, as soon as the assault of the Israeli military began on the 12th of July, they were the first to hold a demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy in Cyprus, denouncing the war-making policies of Israel and the US…

This was one of the most impressive demonstrations I had ever attended in Cyprus… It was not the numbers but the richness of the crowd, it was not the slogans but the natural way the demonstrators came to join the event… It was a type of energy you would want to experience since it was natural – people did not come there to show their presence but came from the heart… Among the crowd were Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, Lebanese and Palestinians, Syrians and Jordanians, people from other parts of the Middle East, as well as those from the Philipinnes or Sri Lanka… It was a spontaneous crowd but a crowd who knew why it was there and what it wanted… Turkish, Greek, Arabic and English slogans were shouted and some leaflets distributed in all four languages…

Later, EDON would do a bigger demonstration but it lacked the spontaneous naturalness of this one. Even though EDON had announced from the very beginning that Turkish Cypriots would also join their demonstration, all leaflets and placards were in Greek, not even in English… Slogans were also only in Greek… The hour of the demonstration was funny for Cyprus: 5 o’clock in the afternoon on a hot day of July which made walking or shouting very difficult… The reason was very clear for EDON: Buses brought members of EDON from around the island, the demonstration began from Eleftheria Square and ended in front of the Israeli embassy. Buses followed demonstrators and as soon as the demonstration ended, members of EDON got on, to go to the football match to take place… Omonia would be playing so that’s why EDON had shifted the hour of the demonstration – in order not to miss the football match… And even before the crowd left the Israeli embassy, some EDON members would change into their green t-shirts, getting ready for a hot football match…

But `Stop the war Coalition-Cyprus` is not like that… They were one of the very first groups who tried to commemorate those killed in 63 and 74 in Cyprus, together, despite all odds. They tried to go to the mass graves in Murataga-Sandallar-Atlilar (Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa) as well as those buried in the southern part of our island at the St. Constantinos and St. Helena Cemetary… Extreme right-wing groups threatened them and held press conferences to denounce such action, spreading misinformation about the commemoration and Turkish Cypriot authorities would not allow the Greek Cypriot members of the coalition to pass from the Ledra Palace checkpoint to go to the mass graves… Other mainstream left political youth organizations shied away from such action, perhaps thinking `this is too dangerous`! but the demonstrations and commemorations, in different forms, continued… They did these under the slogan `No more blood to nationalism` stressing the fact that both communities have paid a very heavy price in blood and that they must face what has happened to both communities, acknowledging the pain inflicted on each other as well as the mass murders and moving from there towards the reunification of the island. Unless both communities acknowledge what has happened in the past, in fact, it is very difficult to move anywhere forward…

The backbone of the `Stop the war Coalition-Cyprus` is Workers Democracy from the southern part of our island and YKP Youth (New Cyprus Party Youth) and Baraka Cultural Centre from the north. There are other groups and activists from both sides in Cyprus who join the coalition for activities or statements… `Stop the war Coalition-Cyprus` is part of the European Social Forum and this year in May, they were in Athens together with activists from Greece and Turkey, struggling for the same cause, getting the experience of demonstrating in international settings…

Workers’ Democracy, an alternative left group in the southern part of our island, has been saying things that the Greek Cypriot public does not hear often… They were the first group to challenge in 1984 in their newspaper what lay behind the Kofinou (Kofunye) attack of 1967, questioning the policies of Grivas. They try hard to give a vision to Cypriots about the needs, concerns and responsibilities about the whole of the island and about what concerns not only the Greek Cypriots but both communities… Since they are not part of the establishment in the south, they are `marginalized` - the challenge is too big and alternative voices are suppressed from the mainstream political agenda, including the mainstream media…

I speak with Murat Kanatli from YKP (New Cyprus Party) who has been in the team who went to Beirut… His life is one of activism – as a student at the Eastern Mediterranean University, he was one of the leaders in organizing the student movement at DAU-KOB (Cypriot students union at EMU). Later he joined YKP, to form its youth organization for doing alternative types of demonstrations for alternative ideas of what the society should fight for… Their most recent campaign was for a `Demilitarized Nicosia` where they envisioned the walled city of Nicosia to be completely demilitarized – other political parties picked up this idea but as a whole, it did not go through due to lack of vision of Cypriots for different reasons… Most of the Greek Cypriots could not see why only Nicosia should be demilitarized while a 40 thousand strong Turkish army lingered in Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots were for the idea but could not see how it could be enforced, so long as Ankara held the key to major decisions concerning the northern part of the island. YKP also challenged population policies as well as setting cornerstones in concepts like `This Country is Ours – We should rule it ourselves` which later became the slogan of 41 NGOs to hold mass demonstrations starting from the year 2000 or commemoration of left figures such as Fazil Onder, the first journalist who was killed by the Turkish Cypriot underground organization or Dervish Ali Kavazoglu, a left leader, killed together with a Greek Cypriot, Mishaulis, in the same car who later became symbols of struggle for the reunification of the island. No one had dared to commemorate them before until YKP Youth began and now other left groups are following suit…

Kanatli is horrified by what he has seen in south Lebanon… He is not depressed but rather, rebellious at the scenes he has encountered. How can a human being do such things to other humans? Doesn’t his hand shake when he is throwing bombs at the civilians or civilian targets? `This is not war` he says, `since war has to have two sides… This is just the assault of Israel on civilian Lebanese…This is state terrorism… The condition of bringing peace to the region is not disarming Hizboullah but disarming Israel… The cease-fire is being constantly broken by Israel and struggle against is Israel is inevitable since they are attacking civilians… And let us not forget that the Palestinian people are constantly under fire… And as the Lebanese Communist Party points out, let us try to differentiate between Islamic resistance and fundamentalist movements…`

The `Stop the war Coalition-Cyprus` consisted of a delegation of three: Murat Kanatli from YKP, Dinos Agiomamitis from Workers Democracy and Savvas Philippou from Cyprus Green Party. They went to Beirut via Amman and theirs was the second plane to land in Beirut after an interval of 40 days… `Even when we were in the air, it was not clear whether we would be able to land in Beirut or not… There was dead silence in the plane… Once it landed, you should have seen the joy of the passengers!`

On the first day, the Cypriot delegation went together with the Lebanese group the Green Line, to look at the damage on the environment – the Mediterranean has been polluted due to the bombing of the electrical power plant and the oozing of petrol to the sea… Even though the area concerning the hotels have been cleaned, permission has not been given by the Lebanese Ministry of Environment to the Green Line to clean the beaches used by the fishermen…

Later, the Turkish and Greek anti-war delegations joined them and they traveled together to south Lebanon to Sur (Tyre) to look at the damage inflicted by the Israeli bombing, meeting the mayor and learning in detail about the assault. In Beirut, they met one of the leaders of Hizboullah, as well as the leadership of the Lebanese Communist Party… They also held a press conference at the offices of Harakat-as-Shaab (people’s movement), giving their support to the resistance of the Lebanese people. Among their team were activists from Tunisia, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon… The coordination of the whole movement was done by Dr. Rania Masri, a lecturer at Balamand University in Lebanon, a well-known activist and a writer at zmag and Al Adab. In September, there will be a conference in Cairo and a ship, with activists will travel from Alexandria to to Beirut via Larnaca, at all costs… Travelling by sea to Lebanon is at the moment impossible, something imposed by Israel and the civilian resistance ship will try to challenge that…And in November anti-war activists from around the world will meet in Lebanon at a peace conference. The last week of September will be action week all over the world for showing solidarity with the Palestinian people, as declared by the European Social Forum.

`The type of bombs that Israel has used must also be noted… They used vacuum bombs, bombs that have the `daisy’ effect – that is as soon as it explodes, it destroys the surrounding buildings as well… The touristic part of Beirut was not affected but in southern Lebanon we saw bridges and highways destroyed, buildings where there are still bodies trapped, apartments which became rubble… Hizboullah have organized so that no one stays without a home… It is not just an armed group, it is a political organization with support from the people – therefore the left in Cyprus, must also reevaluate its attitude and try to differentiate between what is Islamic resistance and what is fundamentalist movements…`

One thing is certain: unless you have been there, you cannot fully grasp what Lebanon is going through… You can’t smell the destruction and news of so many hundreds of deaths become sort of `commonplace` when you hear it on the news… That’s why the `Stop the war Coalition-Cyprus` will be doing some sharing with photos and videos about what they saw in Lebanon starting from next week… This way, they hope, they can relay the messages from a zone where the majority of those killed have been children and civilians… And perhaps get the attention of Cypriots to something other than their own imaginary `Cyprus problem…`

(*) This article was written for the weekly newspaper Cyprus Today and was began to be published (the first part) on the issue of 26th August 2006.

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