The Birth Of Hate

           

The Birth Of Hate
By S J Hall

I was nine years old I remember it so bold.

We, my mother and I, were living as ex -

Pats in Cyprus in the Turkish side

The year about 1980, city of Famagusta,

Locally known and pronounced as; Mausa

I was foreign to the land by birth and blood,

Not foreign to its people, culture or language.

My memories begin with my dreadful school uniform.

It was a black and white checkered dress, long sleeves

With a rounded collar that tied at the back.

Elastic band gathers at the waist, length was long to the knees.

Hair tied up in a pony tale.

Monday morning, off I walked past the market in my neighborhood.

It was not my usual route. The driver had taken the week off.

I look around, big vans with open doors, men in white jackets and net

On their heads I stop, I stare,

Hanging feet dangling off the man's shoulders so lifeless, so red

Dead eyes staring right back at me.

No skin on the face just bone, meat and teeth.

No lips where once sound came from

No skin on the sheep, a skull that's now on sale

No life, no light, just meat for sale.

I watched the man load up again and again. Then,

He disappears from the street...But not the smell of the meat.

The sounds get louder as I walk on,

More vans and trucks unloading stock

I keep on walking, observing the herd of chickens in the small van.

Some tied in a bunch together alive

in the front window on the passengers side.

Some more at the back of the van,

Some in a cage for people to pick,

Others hanging skinned with eyes and beak

A sense of disbelief comes over me

The crowd looked like scavengers to my nine year old eyes.

Sounds of car horns around that horrified me

Loud voices, hand gestures

Scooters maneuvering through the trucks

Racing against the morning sun.

As I walk on, I see....

Boxes of lobsters being past on,

Muscles and fish, some alive,

Alive moving in front of me...

I stop, and stare, I follow them in.

I step inside the big brick market

I look around this huge warehouse

Filled by tables and products to bag, or cut

Whatever once lived, swam or crawled.

I suddenly feel my trembling knees,

The sound of voices in my mind screaming, 'help me please'.

I though... What if, they skinned me alive?

Put me up to hang like meat,

Next to the lamb with just all teeth, muscle and bone?

I would stare out there, and feel all- alone.

I would be hung like a carcass, then skinned till the bone.

I run back out horrified and scared.

I ran and reached the main road,

The Mosque in my peripheral sight - stands tall

The taxi drivers, lined up at the entrance gate

Cleaning their cars to start before daybreak.

A cigarette in their mouth, and, a coffee in hand

Radio music in each taxi, loud, clashing in sound

At a near distance, the sound of my school bell,

I run Just in time to stand in line.

Turkish anthem plays

Silently we stand as the flag goes up for the week.

Headmaster gives his monday morning speech of Turkish pride,

Importance of knowledge and finally... His blessings.

We walk to class in line and sit at our desks.

Individually we stand and say our name to start our day in class...

We open our history books page 23, Title; Our Cyprus 1973 - Header -

'Real photos and events.'

As I gaze upon the page and listen to the story

By a class boy who reads, quietly,

He is told by our teacher to read with conviction and feeling!

What was the boy to know of conviction and feeling at the age of nine?

In such a graphic story!

At the age of innocence!

An innocence that is about to be lost

By the pictures and words in this History book.

Behind me the whispering sounds of kids cursing the Greek nation.

There it was.... I stand, witness to the birth of hatred.

Each child takes turn and reads half a page.

Graphic details of soldiers killing old ladies that barely can stand.

Stories of soldiers taking over homes, lands, and burning crops

Teacher calls my name to read.

I read aloud, as I am told.

I see graphic pictures of soldiers breaking down the doors.

Pictures of a mother on her knees in the bathroom floor

Preying to Allah to spare her children.

Pictures of the children gathered in the empty bathtub,

Pictures of a mother throwing her body to shield her children

Trying to stop the bullets to save their bodies and souls

A silence....

'Read on read on' shouts my teacher.

I read in disbelief.

Pictures of a shower curtain torn,

Bullet holes in the tiles of the bathroom walls

Innocent children's blood is shed

By the love of a mother trying to save them

I see these photographs! Pictures! It is a bathroom massacre!

Not a single detail spared in this History book

For our nine-year-old eyes. A feeling of hatred arises

Within me - like the rest of the Turkish children in the classroom

I'm captured by hatred towards the Greeks and their nation.

What have they done!! I was possessed.

I was being conditioned, brain washed, molded like the rest.

Horrified with what I was witnessing

In the photographs of this history book

I stop reading. Teacher shouting,

'Read, read, this is history we must not forget'

I sit crying, crying for the animals this morning.

Crying, thinking, how can people do this to each other?

What hope do we have if we do this to each other?

My mum has Greek friends, ohh, how could she! I must warn her!

What if they kill her? I must go.

I must go now, voices screaming in my head.

I stood up and ran out the classroom balling my eyes

Running like never before i

My poor little 9-year-old feet could not keep up with the speed of my heart pounding, my mind, racing.

Most Turkish women in the neighborhood

Did not like my mum. Mother was English,

She drinks beer, she has gay friend.

Disgraceful, I was told!

She has been spotted in a bikini... On the beach!

She is the talk of the Turkish neighborhood

"The divorcee"and me? I told her I hated her

Because the girls would not play with me.

I am a "Divorced woman's child

Who's mum comes home late some nights.

Voices screaming in my head

I don't hate her, I don't!

I keep running past the market.

My mind screaming, eyes deceiving me,

The sight of the market men laughing at me

Butchers waving their knives screaming, "run, run"

OH! My mind playing tricks on me

Visions of butcher's coats soaked in blood,

Lamb's leg in one pocket, skinned headless chickens in the other

My mind still playing tricks on me!

Sounds of laughter in his high-pitched voice

Still in my Imaginary visions a

Greek soldier with skulls of skinned lamb, bulging eyes

Placed in his grenade belt.

His echoes getting louder and louder.

I run, run past them all and the smell of the meat

I don't want my mum hanging like carcass,

or bathed in blood, to rot like dead meat.

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