I had a sleepless night tossing and turning and thinking in my mind how to deal with the problem I am faced with. ONE: write to the newspapers; TWO: Stand outside the president’s residence; THREE: Stand outside parliament; FOUR: Go to the airport with a one way ticket out of here.
So here are my grievances, objections, anguishes and complaints:
I was born in the sixties to Greek Cypriot parents. My mother left Cyprus when she was twelve and my father when he was seventeen. I was brought up as a Cypriot to value my family and their roots and of course to love Cyprus. It was very hard to accept this way of life back then but so I did and embraced my nationality and traditions and lived and obeyed the rules of our ancestors. Those of you, especially the ladies, will know what I am talking about.
Went to Greek school, went to Greek youth club, learnt how to dance traditional Cypriot dancing, and went to all the Greek evenings and dances. I bought all the newest Greek albums, only mixed with our own Cypriot neighbours, and were only allowed out with our relatives. Well I’m sure you get where I’m coming from. Hey I’m not complaining as I enjoyed it all, as I was proud to be a Greek Cypriot born and bred in England. I am proud of my dual upbringing as it structured the person I am today. I got the better of two worlds.
I came to live in Cyprus fifteen years ago. My parents had already come to live here six years before me. When I came, I had to have and applied for an obligatory ID. We never had to have one living in the UK. I did not need a Cypriot passport so never applied for one as I already had my British passport. I was given an ID that had ‘Alien’ written on it. At the time I thought it was funny. The ID also had British origin.
My then husband was put into the Cypriot army for six months TO PERFORM HIS DUTY in the military, in case of a war he would be called up to defend HIS COUNTRY. This was because he was considered Cypriot due to his parentage.
When we came, we bought with us my car along with the container full of our household things and possessions. I had purchased my car new from a showroom in the UK six years before.
At the time if you were not of Cypriot parents you were entitled to a duty free car. So if I was English I would not have been made to pay the government nearly four thousand Cyprus pounds. But as I was of Cypriot blood line, I had to pay. So I did.
My father took me to the local moktari. As an official, he was the person I had to see about a yellow slip so I and my husband could go to the local hospital for free medical care. To my shock, I was told by this person that if I needed hospital treatment then I should go back to the country of which I had come from. Up until that moment I naively believed that Cyprus was my country. The criticism to this would be that my husband may have been called in to fight for his country but at the same time his country did not recognise him as a Cypriot citizen. Or offer him or his family the status or free hospital health care.
Well I never got that yellow slip and all the years that I have been here I have never gone to the hospital. I pay for a private health insurance.
I also swore that I would never apply for a Cypriot passport nor would I ever vote. That was my way of defying the law in Cyprus towards the people like us. Like ‘us’, I mean the ‘B.B.C’ British born Cypriots. Or what the locals call us, ‘Charlies’. I always saw it as an insult not as a joke.
I have lived in Cyprus and have loved the country for its beauty, I have tried to accommodate the rules but every now and then I am faced with the same negative stance that the officials put up in our faces.
I have worked very hard to make a good life for myself. I have built my dream home, I have purchased two shops. I have been self-employed and have paid all my VAT, my national insurance, my tax and most recent the immovable property tax that was in four digits.
Three years ago, before Troika, I opened a second shop in a different town; I applied for the electricity and also for the phone line and was told that I had to pay close to one thousand euros for each amenity as a deposit.
Why, you may ask? I was told that as I am not a Cypriot, I must therefore pay a deposit. At the CYTA office I was shouting like a mad women – how dare they treat us in this way. I phoned my solicitor up there and then. He told me that it was illegal for them to ask for a deposit as we were in the European Union, and did I want to take them to court. I said no, I just wanted a telephone line and electricity for my new shop NOT AS A EUROPEAN BUT AS A CYPRIOT CITIZEN.
At the Cyprus Electricity Authority in the queue in front of me was an elderly Cypriot man, also from the UK, who was also shouting. He was responding to the large deposit he was also asked to pay so he would be allowed to get electricity. He said, “I am eighty five years old, I have come back to my country of birth to live out my remaining years and to die in MY Country, I did not come to ask for a loan.”
Nine months ago I lost my updated ID card, so I had to go A) to the local police station to sign an affidavit that I had lost it. B) Go to the court feel in a document. C) Go to the post office and get two regular stamps. D) Go back to the court and get the stamps stamped along with the document. E) Go to the Citizens Advice Center to get another document and have a photo taken. That was a special day. I, along with my sister, whom also needed an ID, went through the whole process.
We were confronted by two of the most unhelpful and rude women at the front desk. Hey, apart from the ladies who interrogate you at the car duty offices in Nicosia that is…?
They literally threw a form at us to fill in. This was in Greek and Turkish and neither of us is fluent in either. So we asked them if they could help us feel in the forms. “If you can’t read or write then why are you applying for a Cypriot ID?” Confronted yet again by an official with this kind of discriminatory remark? I let her know that this was my country even though I was born in the UK and that politeness is a virtue that they didn’t have.
My sister was helped and she was given an ID. I was told to go to another office where I might add is for people immigrating to Cyprus and are of foreign nationality. How could this be? Same mother, same father and yet she was given a choice of either Cypriot or dual nationality. I, on the other hand left with nothing.
So, on 20th December 2013, I went to try again to get an ID, together with my father for support.
I filled in the form, I was then sent to see another lady. She then told me that in order for me to get an ID, I would have to go to court and swear in. WHY I asked do I need to go to court and to swear an oath to become a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus. I’m not a foreigner; I’m a Cypriot who was born in the UK. I live here, etc. etc. etc. Where I was born is geography but my history and blood line is here.
When it suits the financial gain of this country then I am considered a Cypriot. BUT when I ask for what is rightfully mine, which is my nationality, then I am a foreigner.
This has traumatized me to such an extent that if I could leave, I would sell up and move to another country. In fact I have decided that one day, when I pass away, I would like my remains to go anywhere but Cyprus. Such is the hurt and slap in the face of the country I thought I belonged to. Now I am made to feel like a displaced person.
My mother and father have also been told that they must also go to court and swear an oath to become Cypriot citizens. Yes and why. When they left Cyprus the country was still a British colony. So what I say surly some governing body in whatever political party could see the injustice to this appalling ruling that was put into practice. It has categorized us as foreigners.
This government or any government in the past should have made allowances for its overseas Cypriots and their descendants coming back to their country.
We must not be treated like this by our own people and we must not be victimized or discriminated against and made to feel like we do not belong. I am a displaced person; I have no country no bloodline and no nationality and no ID.
Kay Costa Philippou
