GRAVEYARD OF ANGLO- GERMAN FRIENDSHIP
There are few places for observing how Britons and Germans live side
I HAD been invited to a wine-tasting by Rosalind Edmonds, a wealthy widow who lives in Karaman, a village in Turkish Cyprus perched high in the lush Kyrenia mountains. This was odd. To begin with, Turkish wine is terrible, worth drinking perhaps, if nothing else is available, but certainly not worth tasting. The tasting, I decided, must definitely be a diversionary tactic because I did not want to talk about wine. I wanted to discuss relations between the British and Germans in Turkish Cyprus, which I had heard were bad, and Karaman is occupied almost exclusively by both. Nor had I heard of Mrs Edmonds before receiving her invitation. But Mrs Edmonds, the uncrowned queen of Kara- man, had heard of me. For as the Cypriot proverb says, 'Two things travel fast: gossip and a forest fire.' I had been asking ques- tions.
According to 'the rumours coming in', as they say in the Levant, there is mounting tension between the British and the Ger- mans. It is not exactly the second world war, but on the other hand it is not the usual poolside struggle either. Few places on earth offer the chance to study how the British and the Germans get along when confined to living in each others' midst, but Karaman is one. I was keen to investi- gate this microcosm of the future in the far-off Mediterranean on behalf of stu- dents of the European Union.
The invitation to the wine-tasting had arrived in the form of a note left at my hotel in the pretty port town of Kyrenia, ten miles from the village. It was a delight- ful piece of diplomatic fudge which care- fully avoided mention of any controversial words like 'German'. It said: 'I have heard that you are interested in writing an article on Karaman village . . . I happen to be a member of our village committee and would be able to arrange a get-together, possibly in my house . . . I do hope you will be able to come.'
Matters had come to a head, I had been told, over the death of a German — by natural causes, I hasten to add. But it was a death nevertheless, and it caused a row. The British had refused permission for the deceased, a woman, to be buried in the British cemetery in Kyrenia. The Germans were livid. 'Donner and Blitzen, bloody Britishers,' they shouted. Just because the British, by sheer fluke, had won the war, this poor German woman had to be buried in a distant cemetery in a terrible state of repair, said some. The cemetery should become international from that day on, said others. Other resentments bubbled to the surface after the cemetery row. 'Look, for example, what the British are doing in Karaman. They have taken over with that stupid village committee of theirs.'
In vain had Audrey Ellison, deputy chairman of another committee — the British Cemetery Committee — dis- patched a letter to the local English-lan- guage newspaper, Cyprus Today, in an attempt to calm things down. The letter quoted the Anglican chaplain, the Rev- erend Michael Stokes: 'Even before my time, there existed the problem that, although this service [the British Ceme- tery] was created by the British communi- ty for the British community many years ago, increasingly other expatriates expect- ed to be served by it. And, indeed, no one was refused.'
But, added the priest, 'With the faster- increasing population of expatriates of other nationalities — and the Germans, of course, form the largest core — it was felt that more direct steps must be taken to secure what land was left in the cemetery for those for whom it was intended: British nationals. . . . To calm the situation, as an interim measure, the committee some time ago made the rule that burial of all other than British nationals would be undertaken only if burial were pre-paid, that is pre- decease.' The German woman had not `pre-paid pre-decease'.
With this in mind I arrived in the village of Karaman itself, an exceptionally pretty place. Dusk was falling and the owls had started to 'beep-beep' at each other. It was a scene typical of the Levant. But, as I walked in search of Mrs Edmonds's house, I became aware that everything was neatly clipped and well-ordered. This is most unusual in Turkish Cyprus. Then I noticed the names of the tiny streets and alleys. They were all in English — Fig Tree Walk, Acacia Drive, Oleander Road. From some- where in the night — a nearby balcony per- haps — I heard the bark of German voices. I found Mrs Edmonds's house and knocked on the door. Resplendent in an evening- gown, she ushered me through the outer reaches of her lavish villa and into a scene from a Surrey dining-room: a group of peo- ple sitting around a large table discussing not filthy local wine but such venerable names as Rothschild.
There were, I observed, no Germans pre- sent. But I was assured that there was no tension at all between the British and the Germans in Karaman or anywhere else for that matter, none whatsoever. The ceme- tery affair was not an Anglo-German issue, it was about cemetery rules. The conversa- tion moved deftly to a more important subject. 'Now, Mr Farrell, have a crack at guessing what you are drinking,' said a charming Englishman. I got 'France' and `Bordeaux' right.
I was intrigued nevertheless by this vil- lage committee which had ruffled German egos. Karaman used to be called Karmi before the 1974 Turkish invasion and was a Greek Cypriot village. But when the Turkish troops arrived its inhabitants fled and, because the houses were in such a state of disrepair, no Turkish Cypriots wanted to move in. So the Turkish Cypriot government gave out leases to anyone pre- pared to spend money renovating them. The British and Germans seized the opportunity. It even allowed the residents to govern themselves by means of the com- mittee. It has elected members who run surgeries, collect water rates and organise rubbish collection. There are even civil defence meetings — not in case the Greek Cypriots should return one day to reclaim their property, but in case of an earth- quake. There are no Germans on the com- mittee, it was true, but there was nothing, I was assured, to stop them standing for election — if they wanted.
I said goodbye and moved off into the night in search of Germans. I soon found one, Peter Personn, aged 33, drinking lager in the British-owned village pub, the Crow's Nest. He did not need much coax- ing to talk about 'you bloody British'. `Some of the Germans have trouble with the procedure of how the committee works,' he explained. What did he mean? The monthly meeting is secret. It is closed to the public. The committee is not open to suggestions. In Germany we do not do things like that. They should be more open so that the residents can see what the money is being spent on beforehand, not afterwards.' Nor was there any point in a German standing for election because even if successful he would be outvoted by the rest of the committee.
Later, I was given a glimpse of the Ger- man way of doing things. Apparently, at one civil defence meeting, so persistent had the questioning of a German been that it had been like 'sitting in court'. I was also reliably informed that a German in another village with a background in engi- neering had rigged up a secret hose, which he had camouflaged, to siphon off pre- cious water — free from the mains.
In Karaman, as elsewhere in Turkish Cyprus, the British outnumber the Ger- mans four to one. I am therefore able to report that by means of our majority and our committees we have the upper hand. There are no French around either to con- fuse matters. In Europe as a whole, of course, where the Germans outnumber us and have the assistance of the French, it is a very different story.
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