the neighbour....

The last days I read a lot about Turkey, the neighbour
Apart from the political context that we follow( the Greeks I mean) a series of cultural/every day events take place in the neighbour country...whose name haunted me as a child cause I grew up with the fear of a potential war and the thought of the "bad" Turk.
It's almost 10 years now I meet Turkish people, my best friends are Turkish, I fell in love twice with Turkish men and I know that I have lost piece of my heart in Istanbul.....
There is a movie called, Guz Sancisi, The pain of Autumn and refers to the riots taking place against the non-Muslim minorities of Istanbul in September 1955 via the love story of a Turkish man and a Greek whore.
It's the first time in Turkey they deal with this taboo topic and the reaction has been unpredictable...more and more people attend the movie and leave the theatres silent.......

Yesterday it was May 1.In Istanbul 32 years ago 34 people were killed in Taxim square during the labour march. The killings were never investigated but after that it was prohibited to celebrate May 1...until this year...this year for first time the Government allowed people to march in Taxim.....several trade unions/leftist groups were there and as I read their anthem was the song Antonis of Mikis Theodorakis from his work Mauthausen.......

today I read an article for a restaurant in Istanbul called the garden of Maria..She is a Greek from Poli married to a Turkish man with origins from Crete..she speaks Turkish he speaks Greek with Cretan accent....and the food is a mixture of sea food with aroma of Anatolia...

then why did I grow up with the fear of the bad Turk, when I found love and support from my enemy, who I trust more than many co-patriots...
I smile, listening to Nil Karaibrahimgil, while in my mind are the conversations with all those Turkish friends and our hope for a better future....cause it's a matter of generations damn it....