NECM‹ BELGE, 75

NECMI Belge said he has watched the first two episodes of Bir Zamanlar Kıbrıs four times.

As a current tour guide who lived in the UK and the second youngest “mujahideen” of the 1964 Erenköy Battle, Mr Belge said he becomes upset when he speaks to people, including those from Turkey, who “incorrectly think that the Cyprus conflict began in 1974”.

“Bir Zamanlar Kıbrıs aims to shed light on the period before that, on the events that occurred in 1963. It would have been even better if they had started the script from 1955,” he said.

While he welcomes the interest in the “11year long resistance struggle of the Turkish Cypriots”, he believes that an “idea that’s good on paper was poorly executed”.

“This TV series is complete fiction. It is far from the 1963 events and, most importantly of all, of a condescending viewpoint of our leaders . . . who speak simple Turkish with slang and some foreign words in their lines.

“[It showed] the TMT being captured in a miserable and dispersed state when in reality it was a devoted, serious [force] that showed great resistance on every front; it was the locomotive behind the resistance.

“Although we are portrayed as running away from Nikos Sampson, that wouldn’t have happened.

“Another thing that hurt me was to see a married Turkish Cypriot woman being depicted as a lover of Nikos Sampson, a man who had never gotten into close relationships with Turkish Cypriots. This is an insult to Turkish Cypriot women.”

Mr Belge cited records of Nikos Sampson,

Mr Belge and his squad

who was also a journalist, killing British soldiers and then publishing their photographs in his newspaper, to profile the former leader of the Greek Cypriot community.

Historical “inaccuracies” in the series highlighted by Mr Belge include “the supposed presence of [General Georgios] Grivas in Cyprus, [giving orders] to Nikos Sampson, at a time when he was [actually] away in Greece due to internal Eoka conflict”.

Mr Belge continued: “The TMT was led by Turkish officers who were named ‘Bayraktar’ and held the highest status within the organisation.

“The first Bayraktar, Rıza Vuruşkuran, came from Turkey in 1958. It should be noted that these roles were run under disguise and only a handful of people knew who the Bayraktar was.

“Nonetheless, in the series the first Bayraktar arrives in 1963 – a historically inaccurate time – and is publicly adventurous to a degree that is comparable to Rambo. This is offensive to our Bayraktars.

“It wasn’t until 1974 that we responded to the Greek Cypriots who attacked us. We were always in defence before then and only switched to offensive mode in 1974; the series got that wrong.

“We also never confiscated weapons from the Greek Cypriots as was shown.

“In the series, a Turk from Turkey tells a [Turkish] Cypriot ‘your Turkish is like you play at the Etimesgut Sports [Club]’, a football club where a lot of foreigners played, but which was founded in the 1990s.”

When asked if there were any positives in the TV series, Mr Belge said: “The only thing that I liked, that I accepted as true because I lack the details and found it realistic, was the event regarding a mother and her children in a bathtub, that has been turned into the Museum of Barbarism.

“Something I will not emphasise too much is that the actors spoke in Istanbul Turkish, although there is an army of artists in Cyprus.

“The idea they wanted to execute was good, but it failed to pass the test.”

Necmi Belge- wearing the bullet that put a hole in his vest as a necklace

them, I went to their cemeteries, to their births . . . and then Greece came up in the middle of everything. They got in between us.”

Mrs Mamalı felt that instead of highlighting the immense difficulties Turkish Cypriots faced and overcame, the TV series “missed the point” by painting an image too similar to other Turkish TV dramas and therefore leading to a loss of meaning.

She said that “sudden outbreaks of fire” were shown rather than “Turkish Resistance Organisation (TMT) fighters being stopped in their vehicles by the Greek Cypriots and being killed”.

For her, seeing on-screen displays of the conflict that “do not accurately represent the past” is “unbearable” having lost loved ones during the troubles, she said.

“My neighbourhood [Tahtakale in Lefkoşa] lost 15 people; what pain we suffered.

“In the beginning Greek Cypriots and the British were against one another and Turkish Cypriots supported the Greek Cypriots, but then the Greek Cypriots plotted against us, it is not as what they show [in the TV series].

“Everyone is reciting what they saw, what they experienced. No Cypriot likes this series. Were we like this once upon a time? No, we weren’t.

“We used to go to bed with the doors and windows open, we were at ease and surrounded by Greek Cypriots. The good days, the bad days, only those who lived through those days know.”