A tribute to Costis Ahniotis, a truly internationalist Cypriot

[Nicos Trimikliniotis]

A tribute to Costis Ahniotis, a truly internationalist Cypriot!

http://thetrim1.blogspot.com.cy/2017/04/a-tribute-to-costis-ahniotis-truly.html

This is a small tribute to Costis Ahniotis, the internationalist Cypriot, who devoted his life to the cause of rapprochement, reconciliation, reunification and the struggles of the Left.

This is a small tribute to Costis Ahniotis, the internationalist Cypriot, who devoted his life to the cause of rapprochement, reconciliation, reunification and the struggles of the Left.

 I  am posting an excerpt from my PhD; that is when I met Costis Ahniotis. I was told: “If you want to find out something about the alternative movements in Lefkosia and reunification, you must meet Costis!”

He was the soul of the social movements since the 1980s.

I mett him in 1997-1998.  He was so warm and positive from the first time we met in Kaimakli, outside in his garden: ‘This guy is an intellectual and a devoted activist in Cyprus, a rare breed!’, I thought.

If there is one individual who has tirelessly pushed for bringing Cypriot consciousness to the fore, as both an activist and an intellectual this is Costis Ahniotis. In the excerpt that follows Costis features strongly as one of the ‘brains’ behind the bicommunal magazine Hade. Despite his enthusiasm, he never shies away from critics; he acknowledges the inherent difficulties of the creation of a common, bicommunal public sphere.

The sorrow and the loss is immense. We have lost Costis.

Last year the other great pillar of the reconciliation, Joseph Bayada, with whom he co-edited the magazine Ex Yparxis (1999-2004).  The year before that, Ali Fevzi Yeshilada, another the Cypriot committed to peace and Left-wing lawyer, unexpectedly passed away.

Cyprus is so much poorer without them.