Having seen and heard of similar cases before I wondered; are we ever going to have a time when a love affair between a GC and a TC will not end with a "logical" seperation or religious conversion or expulsion from the society.
[/code]Battling a mountain of prejudice
By Alexia Saoulli
He’s a Turkish Cypriot, she’s a Greek Cypriot: happily married but facing a daily struggle to be accepted
IBRAHIM Mehmet is a 39-year-old London cabbie.
A proud and honest man he works hard to provide a good life for his wife and three children.
He is not a tramp, a criminal, a thief, or a peasant.
He has always had money in his pocket, a good education, and never asked anyone for anything.
But despite all this, his wife’s family have never acknowledged his existence.
Why? Because he is a Turkish Cypriot and she is a Greek Cypriot.
Ibrahim and Helen met in London at his family-run Wimpy Bar in the summer of 1987 when she was just 17.
For Ibrahim, it was love at first sight.
Speaking to the Sunday Mail from their home in Surrey, he said: “She was standing at the counter talking to my mother in Greek when my mother called me over to introduce us. She said, ‘look Ibrahim, it’s someone from Cyprus’. That’s when I looked into her eyes and fell in love. I told myself ‘you’re going to be my wife’.”
But for Helen it wasn’t as simple as that. Despite Ibrahim’s advances, she barely spoke to him for the first 10 months.
“I used to go in to the restaurant for my lunch break and after some time we started talking… There was something about him,” she said.
At the time Helen was living with her maternal aunt. Her father had moved back to Cyprus following her mother’s death three years previously.
“I wasn’t allowed out back then, so we’d only meet at the restaurant and sometimes he’d offer me a lift to work. We talked and got to know each other that way,” she said.
The couple told no one about their relationship, knowing it would be frowned upon by their respective families.
“I knew everyone would think what we were doing was wrong, but in the end I followed what I thought was right,” said Helen.
Ibrahim said his mother liked Helen, but wanted him to marry someone Turkish. When she sensed something was going on between the two of them she threatened her son.
“She said: I gave you life and I can take life from you as well. I told her not to make me choose because she was going to lose. It was as simple as that.”
He added: “I think it was because her village was under constant bombardment from EOKA in the 1960s and she had had family members killed, so she had very strong feelings… She could see the problems [of a mixed marriage] that I couldn’t see or didn’t want to.”
When Helen tried to tell her aunt about the relationship, the reaction was no better.
She said: “They were trying to match-make me with someone else. I told her I wasn’t interested and that I’d met someone. When I told her he was Turkish she said not to repeat those words again. I told her twice and then knew she wasn’t going to listen.”
At the end of 1988, Ibrahim and Helen were married at a registry office and moved into a flat together. Neither one’s family members were present.
Helen took on her husband’s name.
“There was never any question about it. I didn’t want to keep my maiden name, I wanted to have my husband’s name. Why shouldn’t I?”
Working for his father became difficult for Ibrahim as they were no longer on speaking terms.
“I tried to tell my family to give her a chance and not to hate her for her nationality.”
It was only after the birth of their eldest daughter three years later that his family finally broke the ice.
“My father told my mother that ‘either we accept her or we lose our son’,” he said.
“She was a model daughter-in-law; dutiful, pleasant, respectful and polite. He treated her like a daughter and she treated him like a father.”
Once his parents accepted the marriage his two sisters and brother did too.
“His parents were lovely. His dad was like a father to me. His mum is like my mum. I have two sisters-in-law that are like sisters to me. I don’t have any problems with his family,” Helen added.
But her family did not accept the marriage. In fact, by 1990 she and her father had also stopped speaking.
It took 14 years, her father-in-law’s death and a trip to Cyprus to rekindle some semblance of a relationship with him.
“After my father-in-law died, my husband encouraged me to get in touch with my father again because he said he wouldn’t want anything to happen to him with us still not speaking,” she said.
Helen flew to Cyprus in 2004 with her three children, then aged 13, 10 and three. Ibrahim followed a few days later to surprise her, not wanting her to go through the trip and the emotional meeting with her father alone.
The family met up with Helen’s father in Ayia Napa – where he owns a nightclub – for a total of 30 minutes, Ibrahim said.
“I confronted him and said if he had a problem with me I’d respect him more if he said it to my face rather than behind my back. He said he had no problem,” he said.
Nevertheless, the family have not managed to meet up again since, although Helen now calls her father once a month.
She also keeps in contact with an aunt from her father’s side, a cousin and her two brothers, one of whom lives in England.
“I don’t see anyone from my mum’s side. I don’t know their reasons. It’s been difficult. I tell myself it’s [because of] ignorance and prejudice,” she said. “My husband’s helped me though and I try and block it out I suppose and carry on.”
Ibrahim added: “I’m happy to build a relationship with my father-in-law. My wife and my children are the most important thing in my life. My children want their grandfather to be in their life and it’s in his hands. At end of the day, they’re half Greek and if their Greek side [of the family] doesn’t want them to know anything about that side then that’s up to them and it’s their loss.”
Ibrahim said he would have converted to Christianity to give his wife a traditional Church wedding to placate her family if that was what they had wanted.
“She’s my everything,” he explained. “But there was never any reason to do it because her family have never accepted that I exist. It’s no different from when we first got together.”
But he questions if their marriage would have been as strong had Helen’s family been involved in their lives.
“Their true colours came out when she married me. She obviously did the unthinkable, committed the ultimate sin.”
Both Ibrahim and Helen know they could never move to Cyprus because of the racism across both sides of the divide.
They also refuse to send their children to Greek or Turkish schools in the UK.
“I don’t like what they teach. I don’t want my children to be taught bad things about Turkish people. Their dad’s a Turk, they’re half Turkish. It’s wrong,” Helen said.
Ibrahim feels the same way.
He said: “I don’t want anyone poisoning my children’s minds. They are half Turkish and half Greek. They know something happened in Cyprus but there are too many untruths and stories. If they want to learn [more], they can do so by themselves. We’re not going to teach our kids to hate where their mum and dad come from and their people.”
In England, the couple have a lot of Greek Cypriot friends and a few Turkish Cypriot friends. Ibrahim’s best friend is a Greek Cypriot called Michalis. They also favour Greek music over Turkish music, with Ibrahim admitting to a fondness for Keti Garbi and Natasa Theodoridou.
Ibrahim said the only difference between him and his wife was language.
“We have met people who continuously want to be political and say things like they’re going to drive all the Turks into the sea, or all they talk about is the invasion and Turkish army…
“There is one nationality and that is Cypriot. There are no Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cypriots, only Turkish-speaking Cypriots and Greek-speaking Cypriots. People that feel Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot should move to Greece or Turkey and leave us [Cypriots] alone to get on with rebuilding the trust that is non-existent at the moment…
“I won’t accept propaganda. Not even from members of my own family. I’ve had family members in Cyprus try and ask me why I married a Greek. I won’t have it. My kids have a Greek mother. It’s as simple as that. If people want to talk like that they’re not welcome in my home,” he said.
Ibrahim said he felt he and Helen had the same culture and said as a family they lived as Cypriots, eating the same foods and upholding the same values.
“We live as Cypriots and want our children to marry Cypriots,” he said.
Helen said any cultural differences had never been an issue between them as a couple and although a lot of people were unhappy about their union, it was none of their business.
She said: “I don’t regret the decision I made. I love my husband very much and I love him more every day. He’s my best friend. It really doesn’t bother me if nobody ever speaks to me. I have my husband and children and that’s what makes me happy.”
Ibrahim has no regrets either, despite feeling “aggrieved” that Helen’s family have never acknowledged him.
He said: “There are a lot of good women in this world and of all the good women I made the right choice. My wife and children are everything to me. As long as they are happy and safe that’s what’s important to me.”
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
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