Teaching years in Cyprus

MY YEARS AS A TEACHER IN CYPRUS

On 23 september 1963 I found myself starting my teaching career at the 19^th May Lycee in Limassol,  my hometown.  The date 19^th May is a national day for modern Turks commemorating Atatürk’s landing at the port of Samsun on the Black Sea from where we proceeded inland and gradually organized the Turkish resistance to the Allied occupation o parts of Turkey including the capital Istanbul itself. He succeeded to drive out the enemy and founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Not long afterwards 19^th May became one of the Turkish national holidays by law.

By the time I was a teacher there all teachers sent from Turkey had left and been replaced by Cypriots except the headmaster. After a year he also left and a senior teacher from Limassol itself, namely late Kubilay Çaydamlı took over. His good wife İsmet was also teaching at the 19th May.

What is more, a number of teachers were my local friends from childhood or had become my friends in my late teenage years when I was able to spend a gap year ın Cyprusback in 1956-57 when I was working at the British military base near Episcopi, a Turkish village which became for about a year the back setting of my life as I intend to relate later.

Chief among my childhood pals and then present teaching collegaues can be counted  Tuncay the future wife of the Turkish Cypriot prime minister and barrister the late Mustafa Çağatay, Hasan Suat the teacher of English, Yılmaz the biology teacher and his wife and a cousin of my wife Tomris and  Özkan the philosophy teacher.  We also had teachers who had been our teachers at the primary school now serving as secondary  teachers of English on the good grounds that they were the  product of the English era in Cyprus (1878- 1960) and knew very goood English indeed. The elderly and jolly Nidai bey was one and the equally jolly but more authoritarian the late Edibe Hanım (surnamed Madi after her philosophy teacher husband the late Tahir Madi was another.  

Although I was the chemıstry teacher soon I was asked to teach also physics and mathematics  since my multiple skills became noted. Of course this was not exceptional: all students at the Faculty of Science where I had studied  had to study all these subjects at least at year one. Mind you, I had also additionally taken the maeasure of attending two year part-time teacher training course at the Faculty of Language, History and Geography of Ankara University and obtained what was called a qualification in Pedagogy (child education).   

So the teaching staff looked and felt like close relations as the pupils, about 800, all were familiar  faces from Limassol born of familiar locals and from its outlying villages like Piskobu (Episcopi), Evdim (Avdimiou) and Akıncılar (Polemidia) who often were also children of familiar faces.

I had hardly started as teacher when my family hit rock-bottom. By november our father became bed-ridden by serious heart disease and could therefore not work any more. Ertan was married with a child and away in Evdim as said while Ümran our eldest had long settled far away in Ankara with her husband lieutenant Yılmaz Gündüz and their baby daughter Ayşegül. Suzan was a science teacher away with her again teacher husband Osman Adalıer and again unable to help. In brief, my parents and all three younger siblings Oktay, Berkay and Feray became my famıly to look after on my own. What is more, unable to care properly for baby Ayşegül, Ümran sent her to Cyprus to stay with us. When father became incurably ill I remained to look after all my residual family. I was ready as ever- without hesitation I did my duty to all as the only bread winner, enjoying every moment of it. More bad news were in the offing however:  Soon the notorious intercommunal clashes and civil war erupted beween the Greek majorıity and the much smaller Turkish community which two communities had only three years ago had signed the 1959 Zurich-London Agreements under the sponsorship of their respective motherlands Greece and Turkey and Also the United Kingdom the out-going colonial masters which three powers signed as guarantor powers. Under these treaties Cyprus was becoming an independent country with its two comunities sharing power in a parliament and a government made of roughly  two third  Greek representatives and one third of Turkish. It was a doomed scenario: Greeks were far more abtious than that and had only signed when they were forced by Turkish military threats. This was because during the past century or so all Balkan nations had been embroiled in mutual nationalistic wars each claiming territories others also claimed and as a result a lot of mutual barbarities had been committed by all sides. At one point, namely in 1919 Greece had attempted at grabbing all Western Turkey by military agression and occupation until they had almost reached Ankara itself where the Turkish nationalist government under general Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) was organizing the fight-back. They were repulsed though and within less than a year they were fast evacuating Turkey with most of its civilian Greeks in tow. I was an unprecedented disaster in Greek history and only helped to make the Turkophobia of Greeks more acute and uncompromising. Now these same Greeks were about to avenge their reverse in Turkey and annex Cyprus to Greece by force which annexation they called ENOSIS (union- with Greece of course).

So, after months of bickering between the Greek and Turkish wings of the Cyprus government and parliament Greeks put into application their supposedly secret plans for the liquidation of Turks and the realization of Enosis. Guns fired everywhere and our house in Limassol was especially exposed since it was situated at the line separating the Greek and Turkish parts. Ümran made a desperate phone call (or sent a letter?) asking for Ayşegül to be sent back forthwith which was done. It was just in time- after the baby was gone hell exploded. Roads were unsafe because impromptu Greek check-points dotted them and many Turks were detained at them and never heard of again. Only now in 2008-9 they are being dug out from mass graves. The local Turkish underground army called Teşkilat (organization) called all males who had not already enrolled into their ranks to join and I was also drafted in. However my duties were technical, like preparing home-made ammunition. My companion in this was another chemist and good friend Vecdet Oktekin a few years my senior who at the time had a seat in the Turkish Communal Chamber as Limassol representative alongside Dr Cemal Özden the obstetrician. We could only find black gunpowder in the cellar of the local Evkaf (religious foundations) office which substance was there to fire the small explosion to announce the evening breakfast time in Ramadan days. As a result our success was pathetic. Actually nothing came of them. Soon however I was to find myself in a more memorable ‘military’  role.

As security deteriorated we were ordered to leave our home and settle in the rooms and corridors of the local primary school. My poor skeletal sick father could not survive such conditions and taking some risk we sent him to the capital city Nicosia which we called Lefkoşa from its Greek name Lefkosia. He was given a bed in the basic field hospital assembled impromptu where he was to die in about six months time both because he was very sick and the care was less than basic. It was 11 July 1964 then. More about the passage of my dear beautiful father later.

Back in Limassol and januray 1964. Ertan, Erdal and our grandmother Cemaliye went back to our home in the Turkish-Greek separation line seeing that there was a lull in the fighting. I for my part could not trust such cool-offs and when they did not listen to my advice to leave I picked up my few personal effects and went and settled in the Köprülü mosque. There I found another guest, a very old sufi sent over from Damascus by our Sufi grandmaster  Sheikh Abdullah Daghestani who had already prophesied for us a few months before their occurrence the approaching troubles in Cyprus.  May Allah bless his soul and raise his ranks forever our master was a terrific seer and an almost infallible assessor of men and circumstances. He was a veteran of several battles in wars in his native Caucasia (Daghestan being his country there), Balkans and the Dardanelles in the First World War and had emigrated from Turkey to Damascus in 1924 when the new leader of the new Turkey Mustafa Kemal Pasha who was his commander in the Dardanelles war sent him news to the effect that he leaves Turkey because Mustafa Kemal was intending to cut a lot of dead wood among the religious scholars and sufis  in Turkey in his pursuit of the modernization and Westernation of Turkey. “You are dear to me dear sheikh, therefore get out of harm’s way ” he said to him as he related to us.            

Now this humble and very saintly envoy of our great sheikh Daghestani was sent just before the civil war began with the instructions to warn us and then reside among us and pray day and night in the mosque until all was clear. As his guest companion we slept side by side wrapped in pieces of textiles we could find and at night I woke up many times to find him sleeping like a baby or praying ardently for divine protection for all people except the aggressors and wrongdoers. As a result I believe Limassol got away with least harm during that civil war. Day time I attended the emergency hospital set up in a public hall and occasionally also slept there helping when necessary with an laboratory tests like blood tests etc. When the turmoil ended I moved into a room I hired from a friend and classmate of my mother, an old chain-smoking but otherwise very kind woman and fan of cats, namely Fahriye Aba. She kept many beautiful cats which kept bearing kitten which she donated freely to all who asked for one.

Back at home in the danger zone my grandmother and brothers narrowly escaped death when the house was hit by a rocket and reduced it to ashes within minutes. I congratulated myself for the foresight. It was Ramadan and we were fasting; the sunset meal ‘iftar’ was supplanted by a pre-dawn meal called ‘sahur’ at which time the lights of our home were on. The Greek fighters positioned a couple hundred yards away were seeing the coming and goings of grandmother busy with laying out the sahur table and Ertan and Erdal similarly moving. Whether they suspected Turkish fighter activity at ours or not it is impossible to tell but they began shooting all the same. Grandmother was heroically religious and fearless by nature and every time a bulled whizzed past or embedded itself on a wall or something she roared with a laughter and shouted “Keep shooting you infidels, you cannot do any harm without Allah’s permission. Apparently Erdal and Ertan agreed until the shots became too frequent and missing them more narrowly that they decided enough was enough and left the house: it was just in time- soon afterwards a rocket hit the building and it went up in fire and smoke. When the next morning they told me the mosque bird  what had happened  I could not miss the satisfaction of saying “Did not I tell you so?”

The fighting in Limassol happened in February and lasted a few days. Turks stood no chance against the Greek irregulars who were armed to the teeth and had the use of a few diggers supposedly converted into tanks. I knew from personal experience that we turks had only outdated rifles from the Great War of 1914- 18, sent from ever-complacent Turkish military secter service alongside a Turkish army officer posing often as a school inspector but actually running a clandestine headquarters in the small, ghettoized Turkish areas of Cyprus which the Turkish quarter of Limassol was one. Ours was colonel Efdal Akça commonly called Efdal bey. He was rarely seen in public but seen and known all the same. He went about calmly and nodded whenever saluted. She had a daughter at the lycee who was naturally a student of mine and was a quite child difficult to identify as the daughter of the military dictator of Turkish Limassol if I may say so. Called ‘Sancaktar’ which means ‘falgbearer’ each Turkish officer posted to Cyprus to organize the Turkish Cypriot resistance to the Greeks enjoyed absolute authority within reason of course; they were not supposed to act like tyrants and they did not, simply because they were often very nice if perfectly authoritarian people. Any tyranny came from their Cypriot under-supervised Cypriot underlings who had no notion of proper military honour and discipline and could lose their heads when their meaner passions or ambitions took possession  of them. These subordinates of the Turkish officers could be educated Cypriot professionals like local teachers or doctors or lawyers but also ambitious and opportunistic local thugs with trigger-happy habits and scandalous appetites from anything to stealing or embezzling to sexual abuse and even sadistic acts towards subordinates they wanted to humiliate or even eliminate under any weak suspicion or assumption of high treason.  At this point I have a very funny if also initially terrifying example of myself in the hands of such misguided bad apples.

Because of the exposed, insecure location of our lycee building we were moved to a primary school building in-town, supplemented by a few shacks if I do not remember wrongly. It was the very school building where I had spent the first two years of my primary education. It was early 1964 with spring round the corner. In my religious zeal I would not miss any opportunity to offer religious guidance to both my colleagues and students and to all appearances they took it positively if sometimes only for politeness’ sake. But Turkish Cypriots were unlike their Mainland Turkish brethren who were at least ten times more observant of religion.  In retrospect and without meaning harm or insult I have the tentative opinion that three reasons have had made Turkish Cypriots far less religious than the mainland Turks. First was the very possible fact that some of their ancestors were Greek Cypriots who after the Turkish conquest in 571 had converted to Islam for various reasons like genuine attraction to the conquerors’ religion at the one hand a desire to evade the poll tax imposed on non-Muslim subjects of the Muslim empire or joining the winners and rising to high offices and the like. This pattern defined all conquests of Islam and there was nothing wrong or new in the case of Cyprus. Actually Anatolia the Turkish mainland since the 12^th century at the latest had gone through the same Turkification and Islamization process whereby large sections of indigenous Christian populations conquered by Turks had converted to Islam. Not only these converts freely and naturally intermarried with the originally Asiatic Turkish conquerors but also these conquerors and the converts themselves interbred with Christian women either as wives (Islam allows its men to marry non-Muslim women of Christian or Jewish faith) or concubines. Christian female slaves flooded Turkey at the end of each piece of conquering act and distributed among the fighters as art of the war booty, which fighters could either take these women as concubines or sell them to others who then could make concubines of them.  Over centuries the Turkish blood enriched itself with blood from, as far as Scandinavia and Russia to as near as Greek and Armenian and Serbian and the like as a result of which Western Turks acquired Western or Caucasian features unike their name-sakes back in Central Asia. So t should come as no surprise or constitute no offence to see Turkish Cypriots as partly Greek in origin as in fact mainland Turks are. The latter however are more varied since they have also a lot of Slavic, Nordic and Armenian blood while Turkish Cypriots look too badly Greek and their dialect sounds almost exactly like Greek to the unprepared ear in the sense that all vowels, unlike mainland Turkish are short and its ‘music’ and often also syntax is exactly like Greek. For example  Greek syntax in a sentence goes like “I want to go there for me to take my bags” like in other European languages while in Turkish the syntax shall be “To take my bags to there I to go I want”. While mainland Turks faithfully follow this latter syntax most of Turkish Cypriots and especially the less well educated or uneducated elderly follow exactly the Greek syntax as those rare Greeks who happen to know some Turkish do. What is more the music is a perfect replica of the Greek  alternative as the features of most Turkish Cypriots do, especially those older generations from the more obscure parts of Cyprus. As such it is no wonder that having abandoned Christianity for rather secular interests most Turkish Cypriots have at best been marginal Muslims with as much zeal for strong drink and merriment like their Christian brethren although a deep nationalistic differentiation descended between the two kinds of Cypriots. Of course no offence is intended to Turkish Cypriots of whom I am one and I have already admitted to the extreme diversity of my own ancestry.  I personally don’t believe in racism and even nationalism as most Greeks and Turks understand and cherish it. Still, I am a Turkish nationalist in the sense that I feel and enjoy a strong tie with those who themselves and others see them as Turks; it is a duty for each of us to put our own people’s interests first like putting our family’s first and yet I also believe that this natural instinct for communal and familial cohesion should in no way cause an infringement of other similar groups’ rights and sensibilities. For example we must respect Greeks and Greeks us, like two good neighbours or neighbouring honourable and well-mannered families.  In the past ost Turkish and Greek families both in Turkey and Cyprus favoured each other thus and it has been the poisonous injection of nationalism first on the part of the Greeks from abroad that the two great nations came to blows, a habit they never recovered from but almost always stirred by Greeks who are too self-conscious of and ambitious about the re-creation of their ancient greatness at the expense of not only Turks but other Orthodox Christian Balkan nations: witness the repeated nationalistic wars in the Balkans for the last two centuries or so. The last and one of the most brutal was the Yugoslavian civil war in 1990s initiated by the Serbian element which war could only be ended and Serbs punished by a prolonged NATO air bombardment!

Similarly the Greek nationalistic, expansive and irredentist aggression in Cyprus could only be checked a bit by Turkish air aids in 1964 and a full Turkish invasion in 1974! Were all these and their accompanying tragedies necessary? That all the twentieth century tragedies which hit Turkish Cypriots first until 1964 and rebounded on the Greek Cypriots after 1964 were entirely of Greek making- yet our Greek compatriots will never admit it or feel remorse. They only feel victimized and vengeful and unrepentant and try to act more conspiratorially and only God knows where all this will end. This habit of never seeing oneself in the wrong but aiming at exacting revenge on a hated opponent while also disparaging that opponent hysterically defines all extremist racist-nationalist movements and acts since nationalism came about two centuries ago; if its most vicious example has been the Nazi nationalism its most prolonged and unrepentant has been the Greek. Nazis were beaten and Germans repented. Greeks however have neither been magnanimous in victory nor repentant after defeat. God help us and them! 

Of course this does not mean that Greeks as individuals are less good than individuals from other nations including Turks. All of us can be as bad as devil or as good as a true saint. You see, man is one species of beast as any other and in principle can commit any savagery on other men and beast. In fact no species of beast can be as deliberate, malicious and ruthless as man in inflicting totally unjustified pain and ruin on another animal- witness the holocaust and the Balkan nationalistic atrocities before and the Yugoslav atrocities after it and the inter-communal atrocities in Cyprus in between, namely between 1963 when Greeks attempted the eviction of Turks from government by force and 1974 when Greek ultra nationalists attempted to topple the similarly ultra nationalist but more cautious Makarios administration at the cost of great fratricidal bloodshed.  At one point Makarios (then contemptuously referred to as ‘Mikhail Mouskos’ as if he was not the archbishop but a layman) was declared to be dead and union with Greece was announced. What could be more natural and legal than Turkey intervening and at least indirectly reinstating  Makarios while dismantling the hot-headed coupists. If Cyprus as it is internationally known today is where it is that is because of the Turkish intervention. Yet, as already said above, for the culturally hard-disk formatted Turkophobic Greek mind seeing Turks in any good light is out of question- so powerful has been the Greek soul’s indoctrination with Turkophobia for centuries thanks to the unceasing efforts of the supposed vicars of that most peace-loving and unconditionally forgiving Christ.

Yet, miraculously the same Greek, when not re-hypnotised and spurred on by his nationalist religious and political leaders can be not only a true gentleman but an almost saintly friend. I worked with Greeks many years in industry and in other capacities and contexts and made a lot of friends which did a lot of good to me and I to them and I am sure they still treasure me today as I do them. Average Greek gentleman or lady is warm-hearted, compassionate, often religious as well, loyal both in prosperity and adversity, tears easily and gives lavishly when a friend is in need. What a pity it is then to find a Turk and a Greek at each other’s throat simply because a journalist or politician opens his mouth to peddle the old prejudices and ignite the old oily rags of ancestral hatreds and ambitions! Shame on all such nationalists whether clerics or laymen!

Humanity shall not cease to be ignited and reignited in the resurgences of its sleeping volcanoes prejudice and  dreams of false glories  and go for each other’s throats until those who dominate the forming of public opinion stop being the lieutenants of the Devil and convert to TRUE AND ONE GOD of all mankind. May God spare Turks, Greeks and all races from falling victim to the inflammatory advice of their demagogues. Was demagogy to go away, all nations could get along well like brothers under a world federation of enlightened, adult nations. Unfortunately demagogues enjoy themselves too badly and reap rewards too sweetly for their demagogic feats for such salvation to be born for all mankind. I quote that last of all bibles from God, namely the Glorious Koran on the validity of the above diagnosis for the sufferings of nations:

“Thus We (Almighty) appointed the greats of all communities from among their criminals for them to conspire therein. They do not conspire however ultimately against themselves but are unaware” (). That sums up mankind’s eternal misfortune in the hands of the silly self-seeking and also often atrocious demagogues among them.

Now I relate my own sufferings in the hands of our demagogues and how Allah delivered me from their clutches and also delivered them to my hands. This will be in the context of my Sufi career which is next.

MY GROWTH AS A SUFI

After my first meeting with our master Sheikh Nazim at the Köprülü mosque and my almost constant association with him outside my time at school I was growing in my Sufi understanding at a fast rate and were gradually exeriencing more and more psychic states often with accurate revelations and prophetic dreams by which I mean dreams letting me see into the future in symbolic ways and also serving some warnings and guidance. Now people who have had no such psychic experiences or dismiss  them if they have any may think that I am being irrational or naive. Nothing of the sort is the case. From long experience as well as my firm, sound and insightful grounding in science as a graduate of science I have no doubts whatsoever that human nervous system is the most accomplished computer no artificial computer can ever go anywhere near to excel it in its storage, classification, projection or computation capacity. So, if I see in a lucid dream formed in me independently of my prejudices and preferences and lo and behold its message comes true after a while am I not justified to see it a feat of my nervous system whose chief of staff is my brain? We scientists know perhaps more than others that many problems we grapple with for a long time are solved for us suddenly in our unconscious mind centres and are suddenly served like a can of coke from a soft drinks machine when we do not expect. Remember the ‘eureka’ case of Archimedes: He was grappling with the problem ‘how come a cup made of metal could float in the water of his bath tub, metal being heavier than water and should therefore sink. He was none the wiser for a long time until one day his subconscious coke machine popped up the can of coke named Archimedes Law since: It was that each object immersed in water would be pushed up by a force equal to the weight of the water if displaced.  All spiritual dreams or inspirations and realizations, provided they are the result of truly pious and noble efforts at finding the noble truth are manufactured in our deepest centres of computation and cognition and therefore credible and valuable in the end. For example there is nothing wrong in dreaming that a person I admire and trust at my waking hours appear to me in my dream as a vile hypocrite and conspirator against me and that eventually proves to be the case. What happens is that many disturbing if subtle signs of his shortcomings impinge on my senses as subliminal impressions which, thanks to my mind’s focusing on the supposed and badly desired benefits I expect from associating with this person prevents my registering and considering his worrying shortcomings in my computations. Do not many men or women, driven by a desire awakened by sexual appeal of an otherwise vile person, a mean sexual exploiter  fall for that person and are ruined  as a result?

Let me tell you a funny if a bit obscene Sufi story about it- I think it in ‘Gulistan’ by sheikh Sadi, the famous Persian Sufi poet:

A rich merchant of high standing fell for a very enticing lady customer who had no apparent connections with anybody but floated in the society like a free float. He got her as his mistress and lavished on her so much so generously that in the end he was bankrupted. All his wealth was gone, his creditors were at his throat and waht is more the siren was packing up to abandon him and move away to fresh pastures. Resigned to his fate the man asked from her faithless idol a last favour “O lady! At least grant my last wish before we finally part seeing that we had a great time and I must derseve a small parting gift from you”. “What should that be?” asked the siren. He replied let me have a last glimpse of your that part once more”. She relented and consented. Looking at the part th man reminisced “All those flocks of camels, ships, goats, horses, coaches, houses, shops and stocks... went down this small hole never to come back again: Take your lesson o foolish mortal”.

This story sows that passion can make us blind to all signs of danger and all advice for our good. This wretched man, by indulging his passion and shutting of his mind to reason an his heart piety could not see the mortal danger from the siren who was possessing his soul; how could he or others like him too much indulging in this world’s vain if sickly delicious passions and promises  see spiritual and prophetic dreams while so unable to see even the signs of danger looking them in the face during their wakeful  hours?

We Sufis therefore believe and are verified in our belief that by purifying our heart and senses from the immoral and illicit attractions of this material and carnal world- but not abandoning it like hermits but selectivy going only for the essential innocent and legtimate and economical it can offer for our survival and useful functioning we can enable ourselves by God’s help to intuit or dream the answers to our problems or be promised and shown the prospects awaiting us in good time so that we can take cautionary or preparatory action. From experience I an assure my readers that even something in far future may be shown them in a prophetic dream which comes true. And that is not for sensation but for simple, level-headed practical reasons: To be warned and prepared.  Let me tell you about just one example. I was summoned to sort out the very messy affairs of a mosque charity run by a few ignorant and naive men. They were swindled by a conman who had not only milked from them about thirty thousand pounds which in today’s money (2009) equals about a hundred thousand but left them indebted to a company who had erected a fence for them in good faith. They had paid the conman posing as- of all things-  a mosque architect. I checkd his name from the archietct’s register and he was not there- in fact he had a criminal  record for swindling. He was only a good draughtsman and that was all. At the time I was also trying to help another Islamic insitution in deep trouble thanks to its chairman’s irregularities to say the least. I was invited by the sheikh to help this institution as well and I complied. The man’s irregularities were exposed and he looked repentant and was kept on as a result. He promied to keep my advice and was off the hook. But there was a lot of work to do there, not ythe leat gettung more funds for repairs and improvements. I obtained a lot of funds in the form of government and private institutional grants and during all that time the man was posing as my best friend. But I saw a dream. In it this man was in an underground torture chamber inflicting slow and meticulous torture on the conman who had conned the other mosque! This dream was obviously taking into the open the fact that the second crook was even more dangerous and ruthless than the first and eventually it proved to be exactly the case. He was a man who would stop at nothing to get his way and that included even murder.

Of course it is a very sobering fact- in fact shockingly sobering- that religious institutions are perhaps the greatest victims of self-seeking psychopaths and megalomaniacs- witness the history of papacy in Chrisianity and Caliphate in Islam for eaxmple as well as the Jewish Temple at the time of the Christ and see what coruptions and attrocities claimers to spiritual or manageial authority  could commit to satisfy their satanic egos! All my life to date passed by discovering and being made sad by ‘the facts of life’ concerning political, spiritual and economic power and realized that sainthood is the only cure for all such evils and abuses. By sainthood I mean a near-perfect faith in and obsevance of and obedinece to God as far as humanly possible and that this s what Islam and its spiritual dimension Sufism all about and all religion should in fact be. Whether it can be done or not I am sure it can but to what extent and how generally is another matter. What can I say for sure is this: All well-meaning, decent and noble souls should take the teachings of God’s messengers and their saintly followers seriously and try their best to live up to them; the more numerous and accomplished the saints among us the less trouble and more true social success and personal happiness for all of us.       

THE GREAT CONSPIRACY AGAINST ME AND HOW GOD BROUGHT MY AN HIS ENEMIES ROUND

Equipped with the aura and authority of a high school teacher as from late 1963 I was feeling that it was time to extend my Islamic and Sufi missionary effort to winning converts from among the pupils and also the teachers. Of course I was aware that Turkish Cypriots, although not denying or denouncing their Islamic heritage or identity, were otherwise too worldly and secularly oriented to value or appreciate religious instruction or spiritual inducement but try all the same I did. It soon became obvious to me that my long-standing so-called ‘law of ten percent’ stood: Only about one in ten of adults and juveniles took my teachings seriously and only ten percent of the serious were inclined to implement them. So over about five years I found about a handful of youths and no teacher who showed significant improvement in spiritual matters: interestingly the two academic champions of the lycee who later went on to become great professors, one of physics and the other of medicine were among them! This showed to me that intellectual ability and moral sensitivity (which abounded in both future professors) were great markers. Time and again this prognosis proved accurate and I ended up having a small constellation of fellow Sufi souls with whom I maintain a most delicious and mutually selfless spiritual love and comradeship. None of my such best peoples have ever been implicated in any improper act to date and for me that indicates the efficacy of spiritual growth as the best recipe for the improvement of the condition Mankind. True, I do realize that the ten percent law looks hopeless scale-wise but we need not despair: This elite ten percent of several lower ten percents are the very people who has been behind the best and most lasting moral revolutions from antiquity to recent modernity. Who can deny the value of the work of Ghandi and Mandela, to name only two? These two bright nad noble souls solved the two most intractable political-humanitarian problems of the last century which means many of the present intractable problems of today like the Cyprus need the touch of true saints away from the bloody paws of soulless politicians with their vicious wits and tricks.

Already becoming very unpopular with the secularist-nationalist elites of Limassol I was afraid that they could pounce on me which they eventually did. One day the school messenger went around told each teacher he met that our headmaster was inviting us to an emergency meeting. We all arrived and took our seats. Kubilay bey, the headmaster took to the platform and seated behind a desk gave a long tirade about the existence of a ‘gerici’ or ‘reactionary’ among the teaching staff who were, like all sensible Turkish Cypriots an ‘ilerici’/progressives. He went on to enumerate the offences committed by this subversive bad influence, citing the inculcation of reactionary ideas to school pupils among which was the praising of  the lately abolished Ottoman sultanate and caliphate, while at least implying the error of Atatürkism (better known as Kemalism in the West). The bad apple was also following the notorious gerici who had been in the habit of visiting Cyprus every now and then from his base in Damascus and in general this teacher was not worthy of teaching the Atatürkist Turkish Cypriots children. However, in view of the fact that he was still a young teacher engaged to a local girl soon to marry and he would be very much ruined in all his prospect i he was to lose his job, the educational establishment was prepared to offer to this heedless young member of staff the opportunity to offer his apologies and promise the abandonment of his reactionary activities and promise to make a full return to the mainstream. Otherwise he would have to face the dire consequences. The whole audience were all tensed-up

When it was time to reveal the name of the culprit while the obvious target me could not be more resigned to whatever was to come. “This person is Saydam Akpinar!” revealed Kubilay bey and looked at me expecting my compliance. I noticed that all teachers including the two who were actually informers and prosecutors were embarrassed and the headmaster wasn’t either too happy and in fact a bit ashamed of himself. I felt that I had great affection and respect from my pupils whom not only I taught chemistry, other science and maths and peppered my lectures with occasional historical, religious and humorous anecdotes which sent the classes roaring with laughter while most teachers, especially ladies without exception liked me and some were actually my childhood pals and classmates. I had a funny feeling that I could dismiss and defy the headmaster’s challenge and show contempt for the two teachers who were behind the conspiracy. These two were known to be close to the ‘sancaktarlık’, that is to say the local Turkish underground resistance headquarters  and sancaktarlık at least in theory was free to execute any ‘traitors’. But I had also detected a weak spot in the prosecution. The two ‘prosecutors’ who were fellow teachers did not look like able to stomach my execution: one was the brother of my elder sister Umran’s best friend and he was among the children in the family of that best friend  who, in the old good days, frequently visited us and played with us many games from swinging on the branches of the lote tree and other noisy terrestrial activities. The other accuser also had reason to be ashamed of himself. He was the husband of the lady teacher who was the next-door neighbour of the family of my fiancé  Zehra and this lady teacher was very fond of me since  was a small, very well-behaved  child in the school where she was teaching during the 1940’s. I therefore think that the prosecutionary  zeal and heroism displayed that day by the two male teachers detailing my crimes were suffering from divided loyalty while the head-teacher  did not look to happy or sure for that matter. So, despite my grave doubts and trepidations as to how I wise it was to challenge the whole assault I all the same rose to my feet and said “I am not resigning and you can do what you want” and left the meeting. But after a brief euphoria about my heroic defiance doubt and fear set in: I was realizing that I could be on the hit list of the ‘Teşkilat’/the underground organization among the members of whom I could hardly rule out the existence of enemies and trigger happy sadists. Knowing nowhere to hide I could only go to the mosque where I was staying as my ‘home’ and hid myself in the minaret. But how long could I hide? I therefore decided to remain in the open and prayed Allah to deliver me. Inspiration came that I write a letter of appeal to the sancaktar himself to be relayed to him by, of all people, the accusing headmaster! I duly wrote the letter, put it in a sealed envelope with the name of Sancaktarlık on it as the ‘address’. Kubilay bey was surprisingly delighted to see me and promised to deliver tha letter to the sancaktar Efdal bey. The very next day a man I knew to be an adjudant of Sancatarlık came to me and asked me follow him to the secret and ‘sacred’ office of the local nationalist resistance. I was taken through narrow streets and openings made in many adjoining inner walls of some houses to end up in the upper storey  of a well-furnished and laid-out hall leading to the ‘supreme office’. I was ushered in and faced a standing Efday bey who begged me to take a seat. After I sat down facing his imposing desk he also sat down behind it and asked me if I would like to have a cup of coffee. I said I was fasting because it was Ramadan and he said “So am I but these bastards here will never fast and I have to brak my fast alone. Like you Saydam bey I also am a believing Muslim and I have never seen a people more alienated from Islam than these Turkish Cypriots. I read your letter and was very impressed (I had explained that having been born as a child of and educated by Atatürkist  generation I personally liked and admired Atatürkas much as any of my contemporaries did but this did not mean that I could not and should not remain as religious as I want, not the least because Atatürk, unlike Lenin for example had not condemned  religion per se let alone ban it. In his time people were as free as before to observe their religious observances and mosques were freely operating. The chief of Staff Marshall Fevzi Paşa was praying and fasting openly and the soldiers still drilled in mock attacks shouting ‘Allahu Ekber’ with Atatürk proudly looking on etc. Efdal bey was visiby moved, rose to his feet and fuming with anger issued an ultimatum: “Saydam bey, you know how much I am frustrated with these Cypriot bastards who are so irreligious that whole Ramazans I fast alone and cannot share my table with my staff who don’t want to know about faith or religion or fasting or praying. How can a national struggle be won without some input from a national faith based on belief in God. During the darkest day of the Nazi occupation of and advances in Russia that very terrible atheist Stalin had to reinstate religion as a national rallying point and morale-buster to beat off the enemy. Of course after the victory Stalin shut down all churches as fast as he had opened them during it. I am afraid instead, whatever happens I cannot use religious faith to bolster my chances of resisting the enemy who outnumber us five to one. Now I am appointing you as Sancak Mufti (regimental military religious officer) and empowering you to indoctrinate all my regimental units throughout the district of Limassol. You will be authorized to make any plans and implement them without the need of permission from any of my staff. To begin with I am ordering you to arrange religious education classes for all my officers and make them sit examinations at the end. Those  who refuse to attend or fail to pass the examinations  I shall punish. Off you go Saydam bey and let me see you to sort these rascals out”.  Soon back in the street I was breathing again with relief and was over the clouds with euphoria and singing the glories of the Almighty, All-Gracious.

MY DAYS OF POWER AND GLORY AS A ‘MILITARY’ COMMANDER OF SORTS

The next day I went to the school wondering what welcome or otherwise awaited me. At the entrance corridor to the teachers room the first person I met was one of the two ‘prosecuting staff members of both the school and the military headquarters, namely my childhood pal by proxy as the one of the two brothers of Ümran’s classmate, a woman future doctor. This tall, thin and sickly man smiled at me broadly and saluted me warmly as if it was not the other day when he was prosecuting me and reading out my crimes all of which were capital crimes so-to-speak. I returned his salutation with its equivalent, now knowing that for all intents and purposes I was his superior and in fact of everybody else’s among the militia or military staff- reporting direct to the commander-in-chief with whom I had striken an instant friendship thanks to our unique mutual grievance. At the staff room all teacher and when I saw him the headmaster himself was extremely welcoming, deferential and even fearful. I savoured the moment of my triumph and graciously  allowed  them relax and be themselves again. I remembered my master Sheikh Nazim’s prophecy that anyone who dared to cross me by just hurting a little fingernail of me would be humbled and punished by Allah.  Now please do not get the impression that I am decalaring myself a divine saint or infallible spiritual power. What the sheikh had said was nothing more or less than what Allah had already said in His Qur’an in His Gospel He had revealed to His messenger Jesus Christ and in the Torah and in the books He revealed after Torah to His intervening prophets throughout the centuries. It was that if you believed, loved and obeyed Allah He would definitely help you in whatever situation where His enemies would try to harm you, in one way or another. Read if you wish:

“We indeed will help to victory our messengers and those who believe in this world and the Day witnesses stand up to testify (the Day of Judgment) ()

So, if I was for God then God was for me. I was vindicated by a miracle!

The next five years of my teaching career was an epic of joy and prestige: the first Friday after my appointment as Sancak Mufti (with the rank of major I was later told) I decided to test the waters. I visited the headmaster who had a few days ago put me to  my ordeal and I politely ordered him to stop all classes at 11 am and assemble all pupils in the school garden for me to talk them about Islam and then to take them to the mosque where I was teaching preaching and sermonizing on fridays. While many of the children were very happy with this surprise because while some had already been influenced by both my occasional remarks about Islam mid-class and my success in cracking jokes and  telling funny anecdotes and were therefore psycologically ready to visit a mosque and try their luck with prayer the others were equally delirious with joy for abandoning the boring classroom and have some fun doing something exotic and interesting. At the mosrue yard I made all of them to perform ablutions and then proceed to the mosque. Then I preached and then delivered the Friday sermon and lead the Friday prayers after which all proceeded back to school. But I did not try my luck to much. I did not go as far as repeat this Friday outing because I felt that given the suppressed antagonism of most of my colleagues to religion it was only a matter of time for them to seek and plot revenge if I did not tread carefully. The habit I then set was taking childern to the mosque on special sacred days like the birthday of the Prophet and days next to Lailat al Qadr, Mi’raj and the like. For five years this arrangement worked like clockwork and won me quite a number of committed believers among my pupils. While not quite impresed by religion most of the rest still liked me very much and trated me later in life with affection and respect.

Even more suprisingly and I dare say miraculously was the change of attitude in almost in all my colleagues. One of the two ‘prosecutors’ converted to Islam from his conversion to Buddhism from the agnosticism of his youth and became my insatiably intersted friend. He began to study the Qur’an and attend the mosque and even call the azan. All the rest treated me with great deference without being less familiar and intiamte with me as their childhool pal;  All-in-all I ended up like the prophet Yusuf whose jealous brothers had betrayed and nearly ruined but Allah had saved and elavated and eventually sent his formerly malicious brothers to his door as begagrs and apologizers. He had forgiven them and so did I mine brethren. This Joseph-like pattern was to continue throughout my future life and I believe has brought me incalculable spiritual benefits and great joys of heart. You see, I happen to be servant of God ‘incurably’ humble at heart and nothing I enjoy more than giving when I have and forgiving when I am apologised to. Praise be to God!