Cyprus Mail
CM Regular ColumnistOpinion

There is always more than one truth

colette

THE WAY THINGS ARE

By Colette NiReamonn Ioannides

 

Apparently Boris Johnson, British PM of Turkish ancestry, can rattle off chunks of the Iliad – in Greek. I don’t memorise, I go back to source. In need of solace, I turn to Kahlil Gibran. Sometimes a nation offers one whose gifts transcend race or creed, tribal loyalties, dialectic differences or borders. Lebanon gifted two: Gibran and Fairuz, whose mellifluous voice enchanted millions, earning her the title, Soul of Lebanon.

I took down The Prophet and self-knowledge on page 54: ‘You would know in words what you have always known in thought.’ And ‘Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.” We often assume in thought what appears to be visually apparent not voiced in words and unconnected to reality.

There are people whose nature is to interrogate as though your life were open to enquiry while giving nothing of themselves away. Years ago, I collaborated with a group from Serbia. An Irish visitor asked sternly if I knew Serbs committed atrocities against Muslims. I did. I asked if he was aware of crimes committed against Serbs during that multi-faceted war. Some Irish and some Cypriots, on a lesser scale, I reminded him, were also capable of atrocities.

War gives license to those consumed by hatred to do under its cover acts that they would be held to account for in normal life. I had ‘collaborated’ with a group of musicians, The Orthodox Celts, a talented, young band that played great Irish music. They liked songs I had written and included them on their CDs. By assumption, I was a Serb-lover regardless of crimes committed.

Years ago a lovely person, a First Lady, had seen post-invasion poems I’d written that had deeply moved her. Leila Clerides invited me to talk with her about the poems and I treasure her sincere compliments. I mentioned the meeting to an acquaintance who then assumed I supported Disy.

I have some stick-on shamrocks, relics of a bygone St Patrick’s Day celebration, on my bike. A man remarked as I parked it at the supermarket, ‘You support Omonia!’ It wasn’t the first time my shamrock had been mistaken for the ‘trifili’ (three leaves) logo of the left-wing team. With that comes the assumption one supports Akel.

I was passing an art gallery on a grey wintery day when an exhibition there gave me an unscheduled spirit-lift as I browsed. Vivid colours stood out against clinical, white walls, Cyprus: in all its moods and seasons, people, movement of breezes on garments. I loved the wildflowers painted, I felt, with evident love of the land tied into each stroke. The name on the paintings were those of a lady with a long list of accomplishments: a chemist, an artist and politician Antigone Papadopoulou. We chatted about Art, about Cyprus, and acknowledged each other on a friend’s Facebook page. Would someone reading the nice things we said assume I was ‘with’ Diko?

When union-represented folk at CyBC were pulling sudden strikes, part-timers like me were losing payment because if permanent staff were downing tools, we were unable to work; CyBC then was the only broadcaster in Cyprus. Some affected as I was, were uneasy of complaining too loudly and consensus was reached that I had more cause to weigh in; having dependent children gives a woman a boldness she might not otherwise exercise. I attended the meeting for people without union backing. I tried several times to put my hand up and be heard. My persistence was met very politely with the assumption that as this was a union members’ meeting to discuss their rights, I shouldn’t be there. I replied that while they were exercising their rights, they were trampling over mine. A sweet person I knew stood up and told them in no uncertain manner that I was correct, and they needed to hear me out. An accommodating compromise was reached. Her name was Iro Christofidou, and I blessed her, her brother was then a Disy minister. She was to die too soon, and I have never forgotten her.

Shakespeare packaged it nicely when he said, ‘To thine own self be true.’ Having the self-knowledge to think outside of herd mentality is a start. To be able to express an opinion or political view without giving offence or triggering an aggressive reaction, one should say what one believes not cop off with what is assumed, because yes people don’t give useful input and there is more than one truth out there.

A little boy in Ireland was once asked in Gaelic, ‘Ce leis tu?’ Who do you belong to? He replied with an assertiveness beyond his years: ‘I don’t belong to anyone. I belong only to myself.’ Who knows the whole truth about most things? We probably have our version of a truth. It should not stop us tolerantly seeing other people’s truths.

 

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