Dimitri Jordan
I’ve always had trouble describing this book, personal journey, historical exposé relating to the troubles in Cyprus and the massacres of 1963 or, and, a wake-up call for Humanity?
Most people would celebrate completing their first book, I went to bed and wept myself to sleep. The experience of writing my book, in a very short time, led me to the belief that I have read of myself in the Book of Revelations, the Lamb of God, it’s a belief that’s only been enforced these last nine years since it was written and it‘s also a belief that has been accepted in a British Crown Court in 1999. A case that was kept quiet and received minimal press, probably because of the mitigating evidence, this book in its original self-published form. Many have always believed that The Lamb of God from The Book of Revelations is Christ returned.
In the Afterward section, the final chapter, you read of my life since that discovery and beyond the court case. Written as much in journal form, and at the time, you follow the story of the last nine years to bring it up to date and the final conclusion. You will discover as I do that far from being a belief I can escape from over time it is simply reinforced, until the journey’s brought right up to date and beyond.
So, I guess, you could call this book a resumé, as proof that I’m genuine in what I’m saying and, why I’m saying it. By reading this text you will understand why I can’t help but believe I am a messenger of God, as we enter the days of Judgement, and this book is my proof, you decide for yourself, as it‘s meant to be.
I sat upright and leant back to explore the table in front of me, with its loose scattering of barbers’ tools, before being drawn to the large mirror facing me. The past few months had been such an emotional roller coaster for myself with so many twists and turns. I was now thinking about Kose the shepherd. Wondering whether he’d really been a victim of Greek resentment or simply camped in an appropriate place to be observed by the High Commission staff who watched him being chased down by men, who, I now knew, could well have been British. I thought about how the British were handling the media and started to wonder just how much chaos they’d caused over that Christmas. All the treachery and deceit that I was feeling covered over by our resentment. I understood why we couldn’t answer for so many of the crimes. We didn’t believe them. We’d never been told of them from our own sources or by the British in Cyprus. Yet I could see the Turks would be living with them every day and we’d never see what they saw. I was in so much turmoil. I sat erect in the chair, with my head up, and took a few deep breaths as I explored the man I was now looking at in the mirror. It felt like it had been so long since I’d studied my own features. I explored my face first, it didn’t seem to be showing any signs of the stress that I was feeling, I draw my eyes to gaze upon their own reflection. If I was showing what I was going through, at the time, it was only in my eyes. I gently closed them and let slip a tear, before slowly opening them again, gazing across the tabletop, feeling so distant. I brought myself round and I looked across the room and over the bed before letting my eyes roam the peasant costumes and the rooms’ furnishings. Like the living museum, this felt like a living bedroom. I realised that most of the items placed around the room would have been familiar to both cultures in Cyprus. The bed was made and with its lace covering looked evermore appealing. A part of me was feeling totally drained. I slid myself off the high barbers’ chair and, first sat on the bed, gently stroking the fine lace for a moment, before slowly resting my head on the pillow. It never took me long before I brought my feet up and, brushing the dust off my soles, I lay back with my hands behind my head and explored what I could only imagine to be the history of both communities. It felt so sad knowing the damage that had been done and no one ever knowing how. Yet I was somehow soothed with the knowledge that I was looking at relics from a time when we were all so innocent of it, as I gazed, I started to feel that the Turkish Cypriot people could never see what we saw in their politicians. Nor could they have ever known how we’d react, and the sort of forces that are invoked, when it comes to that defence of our land. I couldn’t help thinking about Gibbons remarks of how English the Turkish Cypriots are and how British the Greek Cypriots appeared to be, before he redefined us, and I dare say a lot of it may have rubbed off on us under colonial rule. But Gibbons pays scant regard to even British history. I’d forgotten the Anglophile within me. But I remembered what it was like to feel proud to be British and for myself, being working class, it came from feeling that few people had suffered more at the hands of the British government than the lower classes of their own people, to make it such a great nation. Why should we have expected them to have any more regard for us? I slowly felt my Cypriot dream being eaten away by the ignorance of the likes of Gibbons, and the deceit of the British, until all we had left was fear and loathing.
