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it’s not effective, it’s illegal – and the Court said ‘But you haven’t tried it’.” So if not a single Greek Cypriot had gone we might’ve been okay, I point out. “But you can’t prevent people from going to the only remedy,” she counters – especially with the problem mired in stalemate, and especially for areas (like Kyrenia) that are so developed they’re unlikely to be returned in any solution. No, says Eleni, what we should’ve done was grasp the nettle and engage with the IPC: “They should’ve gone and tested it properly, and had arguments about restitution [i.e. the return of land] and the level of compensation. It wasn’t done properly”.
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ence her own case where she tried to do exactly that, refusing to settle and demanding that the case go to trial – and hence the decision of April 2, hammering the final nail in our coffin. Eleni had refused compensation and demanded the return of her land (her family’s holiday home in Kyrenia), only to be told that she couldn’t pick and choose. All three remedies are valid, ruled the Court (the third remedy is exchange of land); only if you exhaust all three – ie. if you get nothing at all, which is highly unlikely – can you claim to have been wronged. Worst of all, she says, the Court refused to exercise its supervisory role, ie. to review the IPC on its merits: “The message could not have been clearer. What we have now is that the highest European court has thrown us out on the property issue, and left us to the mercy of Turkey. Now, are we going to go and settle [the problem], or are we going to sit there and let Turkey decide?”. Is she surprised by the lack of reaction to her case? Not really, she shrugs; there’s an attitude of ‘serves her right’ and ‘we told you not to go’ – just like the negative attitude she’s faced all along in pursuing her claim (“Whoever dared say anything was supposedly a ‘traitor’, you know all that”). It’s fair to say that Eleni Meleagrou has a slightly ambivalent relationship with Cyprus – and in fact she always did, even in childhood. “I was brought up in a home that was acutely politically aware, and very progressive,” she explains, where ‘progressive’ equalled Left-wing. Her father was a doctor, her mum was (and is) an intellectual; both were socialists, demonstrating against the Greek junta at a time when many Cypriots were applauding it. Eleni marched as well, then marched against Vietnam when she went to the UK, then marched for Cyprus after the invasion – but has never, until now, actually lived in her native country as an adult. Does she still feel roots, after 40 years of being away? “Yes I do,” she replies instantly. “I very much feel part of Cyprus, I always have done”. Her children speak Cypriot, visit every year, and make a point of bringing their partners. She herself is too combustible to be sentimental – she got in a fight the other day with a young man driving his sports car onto the pavement, and whips out a photo she took on her mobile to show to the cops – but she is, I suspect, intensely loyal as a person, and attachments die hard. After all, she muses, “I married a guy who I met here in Cyprus – and, in a way, that was what we had. Otherwise
May 26, 2013 • SUNDAY MAIL
people
A family pic from before 1974 and (far right) Meleagrou’s ex husband Christopher Hitchens
I would never have met him. And he spent a lot of time talking and writing about Cyprus in the first years, it was part of my relationship with him. He loved Cyprus as well, in his way – and he loved the idea of having a Cypriot family, which was a very un-English experience for him”. ‘He’, of course, was Hitchens, who wrote a book on Cyprus (Hostage to History) in 1984 – seven years after he and Eleni met on her uncle’s verandah, her uncle being former EDEK MP Takis Hadjidemetriou. Hitchens was here for a conference; “I’d heard about him, and I was interested”. He was just a hack in those days, “but Christopher had it in him, none of [what came later] is a surprise. He was very ambitious, very intelligent, very hard-working and very knowledgeable. An exceptional guy. That’s why I fell in love with him, and had to be with him”. And what did he see in her? Well, she shrugs, being a foreigner was undoubtedly exotic: “He wasn’t someone to settle with some English…” – long pause – “girl, you know? And he liked my argumentativeness, he used to refer to me as ‘the Cypriot terrorist’ in those days. And we understood each other… We had a very good marriage. This is what I keep telling everyone, we had a very good marriage of eight years or so – which unravelled in the last year for all sorts of reasons, but it wasn’t a marriage throughout which we were quarrelling. We had a good marriage, and that is why we had a good divorce”. ‘All sorts of reasons’ is a bit diplomatic; in fact the marriage ended because Hitchens fell in love with another woman, even as his wife was pregnant with Sophia (leading to a fraught relationship with his daughter in later years). Hitchens-haters invariably use this betrayal and desertion against him – “but you know what?” says Eleni, “I don’t think they know what they’re talking about, basically. I mean yes, I was pregnant. [But] I could’ve held him back. I threw him out when he told me he was in love with someone else, I literally threw him out. I could’ve carried on and cried and so on, but I had too much pride”. Easy for outsiders to pass judgment, she adds, but “it takes two to get to that point”. Some would say that’s a bit too generous – then again, I can think of reasons why Eleni might want to be magnanimous. Firstly, of course, Hitchens is no longer with us (he died of cancer in 2011). Secondly, those years with him – her late 20s and early 30s, first in London then Washington – must’ve been exciting, a whirl of glitzy shindigs and famous faces. Martin Amis (Hitchens’ closest friend) was their best man; “Oh, Martin can be hilarious,” she replies when I ask what he’s like, which admittedly isn’t quite the same as ‘friendly’ or ‘empathetic’ (I note her throwaway
comment on Ian McEwan, another famous writer who was part of the gang: “He’s a lovely guy, and you can’t say that about any of the others!”) – but it’s still a golden memory to cling to as she sits in Nicosia, perusing the New Yorker and mulling over the disappointment of ‘Meleagrou vs. Turkey’. Yet she doesn’t seem disappointed; not at all, in fact. I could listen to the tape of our interview, but it can’t evoke the actual experience of talking to Eleni – the way she sits on a swivel chair and happily wheels herself around the room as she talks, her joie de vivre and flashes of temper as she lists all the “irritating or childish or hopeless” things about Cyprus. And besides, there’s a third reason why she’d want to be magnanimous about Christopher Hitchens: she loved the man. “One could never – or at least I could never stay angry with Christopher for very long,” she muses fondly. Even when he wrote his autobiography (Hitch-22) and devoted a grand total of eight words to her – and even those in parentheses – she eventually forgave him. “He had such charm,” she smiles. “And he had a desire to please, which was almost as huge as his desire to argue”. They argued a lot; that was part of the mutual attraction (“He’d never admit defeat. But he was also prepared to sit up all night, if need be, to do it”). Eleni Meleagrou still argues now, whether with drivers who park on the pavement or oblivious Greek Cypriots who’ve sunk into inertia and complacency – “You can’t remain stuck in the same old slogans. You can’t. You lose if you do” – just like she once argued for Marxism-Leninism with a touch of Maoism, back in her fiery youth. Yet the final impression I get isn’t of an angry or embittered person but a clannish, emotional person, one who values friends and the deep, serene bonds of home and family. Let’s go back to her darkest time: Washington DC in the early 90s, newly divorced, small kids, no real job (this was when she decided to go to law school). Things were tough – yet they also inspired her. “The kids and I became a family,” she recalls with a kind of tender pride. “And we were a happy family. It worked. I was happy with my kids, I really was. “I remember one day – because yeah, I’m a highly-strung, quite neurotic person, and I have all kinds of worries and anxieties, but I remember one day I was walking on the Mall in Washington – a wonderful open space, with monuments – and pushing a stroller with Sophia in it, and Alexandros next to it. And the weather was brilliant – and I was young! And right then I thought: ‘I am truly happy. This is a real moment of happiness. And I’ll hang on to this and I’ll remember it, because this makes me happy’.” No wonder she looks so unlawyerly.
Satellite scientists At a complex in Kofinou a group of around 10 Cypriot scientists have begun work on the design of the new HellasSat3 satellite to be launched into orbit in 2016.
New parole board
The members of a new parole board were sworn in on Monday, 11 months after the previous board’s tenure expired, leaving dozens of convicts hanging because there was nobody to examine their applications.
‘Spirit of solidarity’ President Nicos Anastasiades has asked the European Union to provide additional funding to help Cyprus get out of the mess it’s in. Speaking from Brussels, Anastasiades said he asked the EU to increase economic aid earmarked for Cyprus within the multiannual financial framework and to take a greater role in the co-financing of Cyprus-based projects.
Cyprus talent Standing in front of an audience and a panel of judges for UK show Britain’s Got Talent, Aliki Chrysochou (below) said that there was a time her mum needed to do everything for her because she could not speak, read, write or walk. The Limassol-born Cypriot diagnosed with encephalitis ten years ago impressed with her performance and was passed for the next round.
‘Christofias to blame’ The head of parliament’s finance committee Nicolas Papadopoulos told an ongoing inquiry into the country’s near-financial collapse this week that former President Demetris Christofias was primarily to blame for the country’s botched bailout. He only said what most of us have been thinking.
Sex museum close Ayia Napa mayor Yiannis Karousos has ordered the closure of a sex museum before it even opened its doors on the grounds it is not suitable and the owners never applied for permission to operate.
Court disruption Emotions were running high as a murder suspect had to be escorted from a courtroom through the judges’ chambers on Tuesday to avoid an attack from relatives of the man he shot dead in the village of Kofinou in March over a property dispute.
DIKO infighting nfighting With elections forr the DIKO party arked for this leadership earmarked wo main November, the two contenders have locked horns over the questionn ns. of party expulsions. ios GaParty leader Marios royian questionedd the point of defining people rs if as party members they act either in an official capacity or unoferests of ficially in the interests others while MP Nicolas gued Papadopoulos argued now was not the time to ay from chase people away ty but to the troubled party ity. work towards unity.