Issue: 32 November - December 2012Faculty of Communication And Media Studies Student Newspaperhttp://gundem.emu.edu.tr

ENGLISH

In a panel discussion organized by Gün-dem Newspaper and the newly estab-lished Turkish Speaking MulticulturalClub, students from various cultures dis-cussed barriers to intercultural commu-nication at the Faculty ofCommunication and Media Studies(FCMS). e panel discussion, whichwas titled “Do we have barriers amongus?” was held on 11 December in theGreen Hall. e aim was to remedy thesocialization problems among studentsof different cultures studying at the East-ern Mediterranean University. e paneldiscussion was moderated by AyçaDemet Atay, the editor of GundemNewspaper and Kenan Basaran, the advi-sor of the Turkish Speaking Multicul-tural Club. e speakers included SholehZahraie, ElifCan,Abubakar

Saleh,

Seliz Bağcılar and Plodi Mizhgona.In her opening speech, Ayça Demet Ataysaid that the EMU was a multiculturaluniversity with students of 75 nationali-ties. “Every day, as students from diversecultural backgrounds we share the sameclass rooms, same canteens, and samedormitories. However, how much inter-cultural communication do we haveamong us? Or do we have barriers?” sheasked.e advisor of the Turkish SpeakingMulticultural Club Kenan Başaran artic-ulated on the aims of the club. He saidthe aim was to bring the internationalstudents and the Turkish speaking stu-dents together. “Today we live in aglobal village” he told. “Our world hasbecome smaller. In such an environment,we need to develop not only our inter-personal communication, but also ourintercultural communication skills.”

e panelists were all studentsfrom different backgrounds.

Abubakar Saleh was halfSaudi Arabian and halfNigerian. Sholeh Zahraiewas an Iranian who livedin the Netherlands beforeshe came to Cyprus; Elif

Can was a Turkwho grew up inGermany, andlater lived in Aus-tralia. SelizBağcılar was aTurkish Cypriot

and Wnally Plodi Mizhgona was fromTajikistan. e international studentsconducted their speeches in Turkish andthe Turkish-speaking students spoke inEnglish.

““CCyypprruuss bbeeccaammee aa ddiiffffeerreenntt ppllaaccee aafftteerr IIlleeaarrnneedd TTuurrkkiisshh”” e Wrst speaker was Abubakar Saleh. Hespoke eloquent and Xuent Turkish, andshared his experience in Cyprus. Whenhe Wrst came to the island, he felt iso-lated because he could not speak Turk-ish. e Turkish students and TurkishCypriots spoke Turkish among them-selves, and Abubakar decided to learnTurkish. He learned it solely by his ownefforts. Abubakar got a little notebookand started to write down each word helearned. He also watched Turkish TVchannels, especially soap operas.“Cyprus became a different place after I

learned Turkish,” he said. “It is not thatTurkish students are against us, but theproblem stems from the language.” After Abubakar, Seliz Bağcılar took theXoor. As a Turkish Cypriot, she articu-lated on the stereotypes Turkish Cypriotshad about other peoples. She said thatshe went to a student café in the EMUcampus and asked her friends what theythought about international students.Some thought that Iranian girls woreheavy make-up; and that they wouldlook better without it. Others told thatthey had difficulty in understandingNigerians accent. And they could notunderstand why Azerbaijanis were wear-ing slippers even in winter. “ese are allstereotypes”, Seliz said.Speaking Xuent Turkish, Sholeh Zahraie,an Iranian woman who grew up in Ger-many and later lived in the Netherlands,said that she felt herself at home here.

Gündem News

Sholeh Zahraei, a student atthe Radio Television and FilmStudies Department of theFaculty of the Communica-tion and Media Studies, wonthe third prize in the shortWlm category in Aydın DoğanFoundation’s 24th AnnualCompetition for Young Com-munication Majors. Zahraeiparticipated in the competi-tion with her short Wlm“Granny’s Garden”.

At the award ceremony,which took place in IstanbulHilton Convention Centeron 18 December, Zahraeisaid she was very happy thather project was found prizeworthy. She wished all herfriends to experience suchgreat happiness and excite-ment. e Dean of the Faculty Pro-fessor Süleyman İrvan also ex-pressed feelings of happiness.Prof. Dr. İrvan said he wasdelighted to see that the

EMU was represented withsuccess in this competition,which is regarded as the Os-cars for the communicationstudents. is year 1,351 students from31 universities participated inthe competition with 1,163projects. Of these, only 80projects won a prize in theWelds of written, visual, andaudio communication, as wellas in advertisement, public re-lations, and internet journal-ism.

Gündem News

Sholeh Zahraie wins the third price in Aydın Doğan competition

Sholeh Zahraei with the Dean Prof.Dr. Süleyman İrvan at the award ceremony in Istanbul

Students from different countries discussed the obstacles to intercultural communication

Do we have barriers among us?

In order to overcome isolation, Abubaker Saleh (left) learned Turkish by his own efforts

The panel discussion was organized by Gündem Newspaper and the Turkish Speaking Multicultural Club

(Cont. p.3)

November - December 2012 Gündem

e Honour and High Honour CertiWcate Cere-mony of the Faculty of Communication andMedia Studies took place on the 30th of Novem-ber at the Faculty’s Green Hall. e ceremony started with the screening of“Grandma’s Garden”, a short Wlm by SholehZahraei, a student from the Department ofRadio Television and Film Studies (RTVF).Zahraei’s short Wlm, which is on capital punish-ment, has won the third prize in Aydın DoğanFoundation’s Competition for CommunicationMajors. After the Wlm screening, the Dean of the FacultyProfessor Süleyman İrvan delivered the opening

speech of the ceremony in Turkish and English.Congratulating the students who earned honourand high honour certiWcates for their perform-ance in the last spring semester, İrvan said thatthe Faculty of Communication and Media Stud-ies (FCMS) was the best faculty of communica-tion in Northern Cyprus. “e FCMS is also themost active faculty at the EMU,” İrvan told. “Ac-cording to statistics, FCMS appeared in theTurkish Cypriot media more than any other fac-ulty. Our students and the departments organ-ized many conferences, panel sessions,workshops, and social responsibility projects.”In his speech, Prof Dr.İrvan wished success toSoner Öztürk, the FCMS student who was

elected to the presidencyof the Student Council inNovember. Prof. Dr. İrvan also gaveinformation about thecoming semester. Accord-ingly, the famous TurkishCypriot movie directorMr Derviş Zaim will con-tinue to give a course atthe faculty; and a well-known Turkish journalistMr Erdal Güven is goingto teach a course in jour-nalism. In the spring se-mester, the RTVFdepartment is going toorganize a short Wlm fes-tival, which they are working on.

ee ffaaccuullttyy ooppeennss nneeww mmaasstteerr pprrooggrraammmmeess FCMS is also preparing new master pro-

grammes with thesis and non-thesis options. eMA programmes in Integrated Marketing Com-munications and Digital Media Arts will be inEnglish. e other two programmes, the DigitalMedia Arts and Advertising Design will be non-thesis programmes, which will be taught in Turk-ish. Prof. Dr. İrvan also said that the departmentwas working on accreditation processes.

After İrvan, four high honour students from fourdifferent departments, Caney Göray from theRTVF, Erdi Erdem from Journalism, AnthoniaSlim Antia from Public Relations and Advertis-ing, and Shiva Parjizkari from Visual Art and Vi-sual Communication Design, gave short speecheson behalf of their fellow students. e studentsexpressed their gratitude to the faculty lecturers,their project supervisors and their fellow studentsfor their supports. e ceremony came to anend with the presentation of certiWcates to thirtyone honour and thirty one high honour studentsfrom the FCMS.

Nmezi Onyedikachi Uzozie

On Monday the 3rd of December, the Fac-ulty of Communication and Media Studiesheld a conference in the Green Hall underthe title of “Seeing madness, insanity, mediaand visual culture”- a talk that focuses onthe representation of mental illness inAmerica movies, primarily in the Cold Warera. e speaker of the conference was ProfessorW. J.T Mitchell from the United States, aprofessor of English and Art History at theUniversity of Chicago. Professor Mitchell isalso a well-known Wgure in Hollywoodwhere he participated in the production inmany American Wlms. e conference started by a speech made byDean, Professor SuleymanIrvan, where hethanked the Ameri-can Embassy inhelping to organizethis event. Profes-sor Irvan alsothanked ProfessorMitchell for accept-ing the univer-sity’sin-

vitation. Professor Mitchell also thankedour university for inviting him, and ex-pressed his honor and joy in being able tohave this talk in Cyprus. He also dedicatedhis work to Mariam Hansen and GabrielMitchell. Professor Mitchell gave a brief introductionon mental illness and its connection to theWlms he was going to view and talk about.He talked on the issue of why peoplewanted to see madness in Wlms and whatcharacteristics and emotions it had. He alsoshowed right after viewing a short Wlmmade by his late son Gabriel that explainsthe meaning of mental illness. e main focus of Professor Mitchell’sspeech was mental illness and its representa-tion in cinema. Professor Mitchell empha-sized the fact that all of us as humans hadsomething in common, which is our crazyside. “We are all mentally ill,” he said. Pro-fessor Mitchell also talked on the editingfactor in movies and how they always showthe ill person in a close up with a speciWckind of music used to serve the issue. Healso talked on the cinematic perspective thatcaptured the issue as a certain movement in

history and viewed it as a way of in-forming.

Professor Mitchell ended hisspeech by showing theopening scene of the Wlm

“Shutter Island” andwhat aspects this Wlm

had in showingmadness in cin-

ema.

Seeing madness in films Yazan Albarahma

e 2012 Christmas party celebration or-ganized by the International Center washeld at the Eastern Mediterranean Univer-sity Beach Club on the Christmas day.e programme was witnessed by thegreat turn out of students and the univer-sity community. e partying was colour-ful and enthusiastic. Addressing the partyattendees, the Rector, Prof. Dr. AbdullahÖztoprak welcomed all and advocated forthe spirit of good faith among the cele-brating community just as he wished allChristians an exciting Christmas celebra-tion.Earlier, the Christmas merriment was cele-brated at another grand style in FamagustaCultural Center on the 21st of December.e programme was at its best with rendi-tions of jollity. e classical solo of G.FHandel performed by Lynda Gowon was

alluring. Also hymns of Christmasepiphany, songs like joy to the world, dingdong merrily on high, choral works, andbible readings marked the celebration ofthe birth of Jesus, and the essence ofChristmas celebrations.

Nmezi Onyedikachi Uzozie

The 2012 Christmas celebration held in grand style

Honour and high honour certificateceremony at the FCMS

Christmas carols and Bible readings marked the celebration

The Christmas celebration in Famagusta Cultural Centre on 21 December

Sixty two students were awarded with honour or high honour certi@cates for their performance in the last Spring semester

Senior instructor Ahmet Goran giving Erdi Erdem (left) his high honour certi@cate

Prof Dr W.J. T. Mitchell from the University of Chicago spoke about the presentation of madness in @lms

Gündem November - December 2012

e last war on Gaza that started in November2012 left many injuries on the Palestinian peo-ple. More than 160 Palestinian have been killedas a result of the air strikes by the Israeli army.And thousands wounded and houses destroyed. e war that started when Israel assassinatedAhmad Ja’abari, the military chief of Hamas in

Gaza, left a new touch on the Israelis. For theWrst time, as Israeli officials reported, the Pales-tinian resistance was able to Wre rockets on citiesthat have never been reached before. e Pales-tinian resistance launched locally made rocketson Tel Aviv and West of Jerusalem, which re-sulted in hitting the Israeli Knesset. On the 18th of November, Israel committed amassacre that can only be reported as one of thenastiest and Wlthiest massacres in history, killing14 members of Al Dalu family, and injuring tensof others. Our university was also affected by the war,where Ahmad Al Dalu, a PHD engineering stu-dent lost his mother and 5 of his sisters as a re-sult of the massacre, as well as the injuring of hisfather and other brothers, and the loss of 8 otheruncles and cousins, when their house in Gazawas hit by an F16. Ahmad, who married a Turkish Cypriot womana year ago, was stronger than many of us whowent to stand and be with our friend during thecrises. e General Union of Palestinian Students, to-gether with the help of the Rector’s Officeopened Merkez Café in campus for three hoursfor students and teachers to share their condo-lences to Ahmad and to mourn the lives of thosekilled in Gaza.

Hundreds of students from the Arab nations,Turkey, and many other countries joined Ahmadand gave their respect. Rector Professor Abdullah Öztoprak, Vice-Rec-tor Professor Majid Hashemipour , President ofStudent Councils in Cyprus Ekrem Soyşen andmany other professors and instructors also cameto Merkez Café and stood with Ahmad and gavetheir respect to the lives of the innocent peoplekilled in Gaza.Professor Oztoprak was sincerely moved by whathappened, where he published about the ince-dent on Twitter, saying: “EMU Palestinian stu-dent Ahmad Al Dalu lost his mother and 9

members of his family in atrocious Israeli bom-bardments. We strongly condemn Israel.”Right after the event in Merkez Café Wnished,the General Union of Palestinian Students stayedwith Ahmad Al Dalu and went with him to hishouse. I had the chance to be there, when he got a callfrom Gaza saying that another one of his sisterswho was reported injured lost her life in the hos-pital. I remember seeing him looking at the sky saying“Alhamdulellah for everything, I’ll give anythingfor Palestine and its people”.

Yazan Albarahma

The EMU student lost 14 family members in the war in Gaza

She was searching for a place where therewould be no McDonalds, and she found ithere in Famagusta. “It is like a small Iraniancity. I’ve found peace here,” she said. Ac-cording to her, Northern Cyprus is a placewith a lot of potential. She told how shestarted Wlm screenings in a venue in the oldtown. “ere are lots of things that we canstart from scratch here, and this is very pre-cious” she said. However, she admitted thatlanguage constituted a barrier to intercul-tural communication. “If you don’t speak

Turkish, you don’t hear about many eventstaking place in TRNC. Cyprus becomes adifferent place depending on whether youspeak Turkish or not” she said. e fourth panelist Elif Can said that it wasthe culture what constituted the barrier forintercultural communication and not thelanguage. “Speaking a language is notenough,” Can said. “You can speak the samelanguage with someone; but it is possiblethat you talk for hours without understand-ing each other” Elif Can suggested that the

university should have intercultural com-munication classes for newly arrived stu-dents alongside the English classes.

““LLiiffee iiss ddiiffifficcuulltt iiff yyoouu ddoonn’’tt ssppeeaakk TTuurrkkiisshh””e last speaker was Plodi Mizhgona from

Tajikistan. Plodi told that language was aproblem when she Wrst came to the EMU in2008. People in Tajikistan spoke Persianlanguage, which was similar to Turkish, andhence, she had no difficulty in learningTurkish. “If you don’t speak Turkish, life

becomes difficult. Turks speak English, butthey don’t speak it very well. In classes theinstructors Wrst speak in English, then theyswitch to Turkish” she said. en she toldthe audience how she experienced a culturalshock when she Wrst came to the island. “InTajikistan friends don’t kiss each other. If awoman kisses a man on the cheek it meanssomething else than friendship. Here every-one kisses everyone else on the cheek. AtWrst it was strange to me; but now I gotused to it” she said.

Do we have barriers among us? ( Continued from the front page )

Palestine given observer state status in the UN On November the 29th, the United Nationsgranted Palestine the status of NonmemberObserver State after winning in the votingwhere Palestine got 138 votes. 9 countriesvoted against the request, and 41 other coun-tries refused to vote. In 2011 the Palestinian National Authority ap-plied for a full membership state in the UnitedNations, however, Palestinians faced the Amer-ican veto that prevented Palestine from becom-ing a state. e difference between the two applications isthat the new one is only an observer state andso the Americans weren’t able to block it orprevent the Palestinians using the veto. ousands of Palestinians went to the streetsand celebrated the United Nations victory asthey described it, expressing their happiness toWnally have a state and country of their own. e General Assembly approved and acceptedthe application despite the American and theIsraeli threats to punish the Palestinian Author-ity to withhold the funds needed for the sur-vival of the Palestinian Authority. Envoys in the United Nations said that Israel

might not take strict forms of payback to pun-ish the Palestinians as long as they are not try-ing to become a member in the InternationalCriminal Court of Justice that could lead to

the trialing of Israel for crimes against human-ity, war crimes and other important issues.e United States Secretary of State HillaryClinton has criticized the General Assembly’sapproval for Palestine to become a nonmemberstate calling it “unfortunate and counterpro-ductive” and puts more obstacles in the path topeace. e Vatican have praised the move and calledfor a special status with international guaran-tees for Jerusalem which would anger Israel,and put its policy towards the holy city in dan-ger. “65 years ago on this day, the General Assem-bly passed the United Nations resolution 181,which was dividing the land of Palestine whichresulted in the birth certiWcate of the State ofIsrael,” President Mahmoud Abbas said in hisspeech. “e General Assembly is called todayto issue the birth certiWcate of the State ofPalestine,” he added.

WWhhaatt ddooeess iitt mmeeaann ttoo bbeeccoommee aa nnoonnmmeemmbbeerroobbsseerrvveerr SSttaattee??

ere are 193 members in the United Na-tions. e observer state does not have theright to vote on applications and decisions. eobserver state can only participate in the meet-ings and the general assemblies. It has also theright to talk, raise issues and ask for amend-

ments.e observer state also has the right to ask forjoining the international organizations and toapply the international agreements on them aswell. e nonmember state can also apply to be-come a full member in the United Nations,however, America and the other superpowerscan use Veto in order to prevent Palestiniansfrom getting it. One of the most important things that willchange is that the Palestinian lands that wereoccupied in 1967 will no longer be assigned as

“disputed lands” but rather as “occupied lands”since more than 130 countries have recognizedthe Palestinian state on the 1967 borders in-cluding East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians are aware of the fact that suchthing will not affect the Israelis much, but yetthey are holding hope and trying to end thisconXict with negotiations with the help of theinternational committee and according to theUnited Nations resolutions and agreements.And this victory as president Abbas described itwill increase the possibility of achieving peace.

Yazan Albarahma

On 29 November 2012 Palestine was granted the status of non-member observer state in the United Nations

Ahmet Al Dalu is a PhD student at the Faculty of Engineering

Hundreds of students gathered at Merkez Cafeteria to offer their condolences to Ahmad

November - December 2012 Gündem

We were so glad to be taking Varieties of Sto-rytelling with Dr. Mashoed Bailie. We reallyenjoyed this course and because he believed inus it helped us to shoot our dream documen-tary. Our documentary is about street animalsin Cyprus. We named the documentary“Touchy, Bright and Ours”. We say “touchy”because animals are extremely sensitive andneed to have a great deal of care and compas-sion. Most of the animals we see around usstart out as pets that we have bought and then,when they are no longer wanted or whensomeone moves away, the poor animals are putout into the streets. ese animals need warm homes to live in andfood that they can eat and especially in the hotclimate of a Cyprus summer, they need a goodsupply of fresh water. ey also need protec-tion from cars and disease and, of course, theyneed the power of love. We say “bright” be-cause they are shining in their pure spirits andare harmless and ready to be companions withhuman beings who treat them well. eir eyestell the story of how they want to be bestfriends.If we are willing to produce these pets and topurchase them, we have to take long-term re-sponsibility for them!Unfortunately, there are many dogs and cats

suffering and Wnding it difficult to survive onthe streets. We saw that some animal lovershave tried to make a difference – some takingcare of many animals in two different sanctu-aries in Cyprus, but it is not enough. One ofthe Sanctuaries is in Nicosia, but it is so poorlymanaged and they cannot really take care ofthe 300 dogs under their care. e other sanc-tuary is just under the shade of BesparmakMountain. e Center is very nice with about200 adult dogs (and lots of puppies), 47 catsand four kittens.ere is no sanctuary in Famagusta unfortu-nately and overall, there are too few laws pro-tecting animal rights and even those that doexist are not really enforced. We want to helpstop the violence against animals. If we aresilent and do nothing, we are really part of theproblem!It was a wonderful adventure to follow the ani-mal trail in the process of making our docu-mentary. Sometimes our emotions ran sad andsometimes we were lifted up with inspirationand a powerful feeling of joy at the ways inwhich human beings and animals can work to-gether. ey are incredible living creatures andmost of them interacted with us and sharedthemselves with the camera for you. We hopethat you will have an opportunity to see thedocumentary and to enjoy sharing a little timewith our bright and touchy friends.

Peter McLaren wrote about the role ofthe teacher/student as a “liminal servant”performing in the contested spaces of thetheaters of learning. e role raises ques-tions about the production, reproductionand questioning of our “ways of seeing”the worlds around us and the ways wemake sense out of and give meaning tothose worlds.e Journalism Department Fall 2012

course “Varieties of Storytelling” inhab-ited such a space with student/teachersand teacher/students engaging, negotiat-ing, resisting, challenging and perhapseven transcending the narrow assump-tions about what it means to teach andlearn. Storytelling is about Wnding a voice

– not something that Wts neatly into a se-mester-long course! e storytellingcourse is also, though, part of a broadertheater of learning HOW to learn (andunlearn!), how to challenge preconceivedideas about each other and our social en-vironments. As part of a much broaderpedagogical environment, the course pro-vides a space, a moment, for self-reXexivepraxis: a place where theories and prac-tices can be articulated in new ways andnew ways of thinking about our relation-ships might emerge.e participants in this year’s Varieties of

Storytelling raised signiWcant concerns,celebrated difference, explored complexquestions and opened up possibilities forus to think about our environments and

ourselves in new ways. More than that,each participant was both a learner and ateacher, bringing with them their ownways of seeing and their unique experi-ences of the world as a contribution tothe storytelling process.One video story questions the way that

simple acts can change the trajectories ofour lives; another celebrates our uniquemulti-cultural EMU campus environ-ment and gives voice to students as theyexpress their ideas in their own languages(with subtitles for the rest of us!). Anotherquestions the consequences of short-livedand unplanned pet adoption and asks usto think more carefully about our respon-sibility to the animals in our environ-ments and yet another examines a

character who while alienated due to theconsequences of his own actions, has thepossibility to transcend that space by be-coming aware of the consequences of hisactions. e visual storytelling course wasa space to “tell our own stories” and ourWnal producer, director, writer and editorfound this space useful to engage with ex-periences of sadness at the passing of aloved relative. rough the processes andtechniques of storytelling in the videoarts, feelings are examined and sorrowsare embraced. Passing through the sorrowleads to a celebration of life, igniting in usagain the hope for an arrival of a new to-morrow.i: McLaren, P. (1986). Schooling as ritual performance. London: Rout-

ledge, p. 113

Bahar Zirek & Hamit Arpacı

Our dream came true: Touchy, bright and ours

In the fall of 2012 I registered for a course called“Varieties of Storytelling”: it was my graduationterm elective and I was hoping for some space to ex-plore my capacity as a videographer. I understood from the Wrst day that this coursewould be different from others as Dr. Bailie asked usto begin the process of telling our own stories. Of course, everyone has stories to tell, and I havemine too. As the course progressed, we began to tellour stories and Dr. Bailie listened and offered cri-tique. How would we use lights and sound, move-ment and camera to tell our stories? How could wehelp people to feel our stories and to use our storiesto help make sense out of their own life experiences? As the semester began, I had to face a painful eventand this painful event claimed the space in whichmy story would be told. I knew that this was thestory that had to be expressed in a way that couldhelp me to share my loss while also celebrating life.

A few months ago, I lost my uncle. He had a braintumor. Last bayram, I went to Turkey to visit my familyand my uncle Adem. He passed away before myeyes, quietly saying farewell to us. When I returnedto Cyprus, I wanted to shoot this event, I wanted tosay farewell to him...Everything is dark, sharp contrast/chiaroscuro light-ing...I am in shadow... ere are tempestuous wavespushing out, taking something from me and pullingit away. Only tears of sadness that cannot describeeverything, can they?I wanted to express my cry in a different way. Otherthan this, anyhow, life goes on...ank you, Dr. Bailie, for giving me the opportu-nity to share my farewell through this course.ank you, Arman Çerikan, for not leaving mealone while I was telling my story.And I am the one who wrote, directed, edited andproduced this story that bids farewell.

Farewell

Pınar Haşimoğlu

When we began the course Variety of Sto-rytelling, we didn’t really know muchabout the storytelling process, but bit bybit, and across the semester, we began todevelop our abilities and our skills at sto-rytelling using video and audio tech-niques. We developed a lot in the variousways that audio, video and editing tech-niques can be used to tell a story in an in-teresting and entertaining way. We alsolearned the value of pre-production plan-ning and good solid preparation before ac-tually going out into the Weld to shoot!Dr. Bailie asked us to choose a story thatmeant something to us – a story that had a

value for us as storytellers. at way, it wasmore likely that others would be interestedin the stories we had to tell. For us, the bigstory was our new environment here atEastern Mediterranean University: wecould learn more about this most popularuniversity in Cyprus while sharing whatwe learned with you!Eastern Mediterranean University is oneof a kind with its diverse natural beautyand multicultural atmosphere. ere arestudents studying at EMU from all overthe world. e environment at EMU is in-vigorating and the students are so friendlyand warm.In the beginning of the project we did

some troubleshooting and preplanningwith our instructor and we conducted re-search including work done on previousvideos about the university. We made sto-ryboards and shooting sheets and workedthrough rough plans on how the storywould hold together. We wanted to blendour ideas and get to the essence of thestory. We realized that the most effectiveway of telling this story was by sharing itwith other students on campus – allowingthem to express their experiences at EMU. rough experiment, trial and error, wefound effective ways to tell our story. Forexample, we learned the value of establish-ing shots that help to situate the viewersand give them a sense of where the scene isand what the surroundings look like. Wetook shots of students telling us their per-sonal experiences and we encouraged themto speak in their own language (we subti-tled these parts in English in the post-pro-duction process). We also took shots ofentertainment, cafes, and other aspects ofthe university – and included video fromthe “International Night Festival” wherethe huge array of Xags, from countries allover the world, was on display.We went further aWeld and took shots ofGloria Jeans Café – a regular hang-out formany EMU students and staff and we alsotook shots of sporting activities and accen-tuated the opportunities that EMU offersto students who are interested in everysporting activity. Of course we wanted to

include the bookstore and lecture halls toshare a sense of the academic opportuni-ties at our university.Preplanning paid of as we realized in thepostproduction process when we came toediting our shots together with sound tocreate our story and share it with you all.Big thanks to Eastern Mediterranean Uni-versity and to our course instructorMashoed Bailie and to the students whoshared their thoughts and their time! Bigthanks go to Gloria Jeans who let us shootinside their premises and gave us a warmand friendly welcome!

Our university: Our home away from home

Pınar Haşimoğlu

Moses Blessing

Samira Oziohu Sanni & Blessing Musa Moses

Mashoed Bailie

Conveners of customs or

cultural provocateurs?

Gündem November - December 2012

We are three students who have worked on aproject together for the course ‘Varieties ofStorytelling’ by Dr. Mashoed Bailie in the fallsemester 2012. Before attending this coursewe all had different ideas about the content.We were expecting to spend most of our timediscussing issues related to storytelling “intheory” – what a surprise to learn that wewould actually be putting our ideas into prac-tice! Dr. Bailie explained that we would workcollectively, in groups of three or four, to cre-ate a visual work of art – like a short Wlm, ex-perimental piece or documentary. e subjectwas ours to choose. e course attracted stu-dents from different departments and so Dr.Bailie suggested we form groups with oneRTVF student at least and the rest from dif-ferent departments including Journalism andVACD.Dr. Bailie was very helpful as we workedthrough the structure and content of whatwould become our short Wlm. It was very eye-opening to attend the classes and listen toeach other’s stories and have feedback andcomments from Dr. Bailie on our thoughts.ree of us, Sholeh Zahraei from Radio-TV-Film and Abtin Badie and Kaan Kırtız fromthe Department of Journalism, decided towork together on our creative storytellingproject. Although we did divide the responsi-bilities for the overall work for our Wlm, wenevertheless worked together on each part ofthe Wlmmaking process. II’’mm AAbbttiinn and this was a unique experiencefor me. I am a journalism student, but here Ihad the opportunity to experiment with videoproduction. My part was to create an idea andbuild a story around it. I also play one of thecharacters in the Wlm. It was very interestingto work on this project. It was an eye-openingexperience for me because I came to realizejust how difficult it is to produce a profes-sional Wlm – one that is pleasurable to watch!Film production consists of team work andthe work is long and hard. It needs very de-tailed preproduction planning, organization,creativity and innovation. Before, when Iwatched Wlms, I was unaware of all the hardwork that such a Wlm contains; but now I re-ally respect the people who are working pro-fessionally on Wlms of good quality. I learneda lot from working through this project andalthough I would have liked to contributeeven more, I felt that my contribution was

valuable – both to me as experience and tothe Wlm as well.HHii,, II’’mm SShhoolleehh and I worked with Abtin andKaan to develop the idea and the realizationof the Wlm. I was responsible of organizingthe production and I also played a major act-ing role. Additionally I worked through thepostproduction process which includes, ofcourse, the editing of the Wnal shots. It wasvery nice to work with my friends and I en-joyed the shooting of our Wlm. I really enjoythe process of working through the prepro-duction through to the postproductionprocess in video and Wlm, but it is mademuch more challenging when I work withpeople who have limited experiences in theWlm production area. Both of my team mem-bers are from Journalism and were experi-menting with Wlm production for the Wrsttime! ey began with virtually no apprecia-tion for the production process and over time,as I worked with each of them on site, theybecame more capable with the equipment.For example, operating a camera is not aneasy job at the best of times, and yet Kaantook up the challenge and actually managedto do a pretty good job. Both Abtin and Kaanwere helpful and enthusiastic and I really ap-preciate their support. HHii,, II’’mm KKaaaann.. I took shots for our multime-dia project. It was enjoyable and comfortableto work with Sholeh and Abtin. It was an ef-fective group work that we could easily Wnal-ize. Sholeh had more responsibility and sheedited the movie on her own. It was nice toget this course from Mashoed hoca, he wassupportive and sympathetic to us.

Peter McLaren wrote about the role ofthe teacher/student as a “liminal servant”performing in the contested spaces of thetheaters of learning. e role raises ques-tions about the production, reproductionand questioning of our “ways of seeing”the worlds around us and the ways wemake sense out of and give meaning tothose worlds.e Journalism Department Fall 2012

course “Varieties of Storytelling” inhab-ited such a space with student/teachersand teacher/students engaging, negotiat-ing, resisting, challenging and perhapseven transcending the narrow assump-tions about what it means to teach andlearn. Storytelling is about Wnding a voice

– not something that Wts neatly into a se-mester-long course! e storytellingcourse is also, though, part of a broadertheater of learning HOW to learn (andunlearn!), how to challenge preconceivedideas about each other and our social en-vironments. As part of a much broaderpedagogical environment, the course pro-vides a space, a moment, for self-reXexivepraxis: a place where theories and prac-tices can be articulated in new ways andnew ways of thinking about our relation-ships might emerge.

e participants in this year’s Varieties ofStorytelling raised signiWcant concerns,celebrated difference, explored complexquestions and opened up possibilities forus to think about our environments and

ourselves in new ways. More than that,each participant was both a learner and ateacher, bringing with them their ownways of seeing and their unique experi-ences of the world as a contribution tothe storytelling process.

One video story questions the way thatsimple acts can change the trajectories ofour lives; another celebrates our uniquemulti-cultural EMU campus environ-ment and gives voice to students as theyexpress their ideas in their own languages(with subtitles for the rest of us!). Anotherquestions the consequences of short-livedand unplanned pet adoption and asks usto think more carefully about our respon-sibility to the animals in our environ-ments and yet another examines a

character who while alienated due to theconsequences of his own actions, has thepossibility to transcend that space by be-coming aware of the consequences of hisactions. e visual storytelling course wasa space to “tell our own stories” and ourWnal producer, director, writer and editorfound this space useful to engage with ex-periences of sadness at the passing of aloved relative. rough the processes andtechniques of storytelling in the videoarts, feelings are examined and sorrowsare embraced. Passing through the sorrowleads to a celebration of life, igniting in usagain the hope for an arrival of a new to-morrow.ii:: McLaren, P. (1986). Schooling as ritual performance. London: Rout-

ledge, p. 113

Sholeh Zahraei, Abtin Badie & Kaan Kırtız

“Possible nows”

When we began the course Variety of Sto-rytelling, we didn’t really know muchabout the storytelling process, but bit bybit, and across the semester, we began todevelop our abilities and our skills at sto-rytelling using video and audio tech-niques. We developed a lot in the variousways that audio, video and editing tech-niques can be used to tell a story in an in-teresting and entertaining way. We alsolearned the value of pre-production plan-ning and good solid preparation before ac-tually going out into the Weld to shoot!Dr. Bailie asked us to choose a story thatmeant something to us – a story that had a

value for us as storytellers. at way, it wasmore likely that others would be interestedin the stories we had to tell. For us, the bigstory was our new environment here atEastern Mediterranean University: wecould learn more about this most popularuniversity in Cyprus while sharing whatwe learned with you!Eastern Mediterranean University is oneof a kind with its diverse natural beautyand multicultural atmosphere. ere arestudents studying at EMU from all overthe world. e environment at EMU is in-vigorating and the students are so friendlyand warm.In the beginning of the project we did

some troubleshooting and preplanningwith our instructor and we conducted re-search including work done on previousvideos about the university. We made sto-ryboards and shooting sheets and workedthrough rough plans on how the storywould hold together. We wanted to blendour ideas and get to the essence of thestory. We realized that the most effectiveway of telling this story was by sharing itwith other students on campus – allowingthem to express their experiences at EMU. rough experiment, trial and error, wefound effective ways to tell our story. Forexample, we learned the value of establish-ing shots that help to situate the viewersand give them a sense of where the scene isand what the surroundings look like. Wetook shots of students telling us their per-sonal experiences and we encouraged themto speak in their own language (we subti-tled these parts in English in the post-pro-duction process). We also took shots ofentertainment, cafes, and other aspects ofthe university – and included video fromthe “International Night Festival” wherethe huge array of Xags, from countries allover the world, was on display.We went further aWeld and took shots ofGloria Jeans Café – a regular hang-out formany EMU students and staff and we alsotook shots of sporting activities and accen-tuated the opportunities that EMU offersto students who are interested in everysporting activity. Of course we wanted to

include the bookstore and lecture halls toshare a sense of the academic opportuni-ties at our university.Preplanning paid of as we realized in thepostproduction process when we came toediting our shots together with sound tocreate our story and share it with you all.Big thanks to Eastern Mediterranean Uni-versity and to our course instructorMashoed Bailie and to the students whoshared their thoughts and their time! Bigthanks go to Gloria Jeans who let us shootinside their premises and gave us a warmand friendly welcome!

Our university: Our home away from home

i

Samira Oziohu Sanni

Sholeh Zahraei

Sholeh Zahraei and Abtin Badie (right)

Conveners of customs or

cultural provocateurs?

November - December 2012 Gündem

e Countrybook programme has beenlaunched. Programme coordinator ElnazNasehi, a PhD research assistant at theFaculty of Communication and MediaStudies, said that there were studentsfrom more than 20 different countriesstudying in the faculty. e idea is to pro-vide students from different nationalities acommunicative atmosphere in which thestudents present different countries fromtheir own understanding. “Now I can saythat Country Book is not merely a bookof countries but a book of different peoplewho are presenting their own countries ortheir friends’ countries not as a represen-tative of a speciWc nationality but as an in-dividuals with their own subjective pointof view. For me, Countrybook is an op-portunity to know my friends throughtheir representation of their countries”Nasehi said.e Wrst presentation in the book ofcountries was about the Turkish Republicof Northern Cyprus (TRNC). eTRNC was presented by Arzu Reis, a re-search assistant at the faculty. In her pres-entation Reis gave some information onthe history of the island, and focused onthe identity problem of Turkish Cypriots.“Before 1974, people were identifyingthemselves as Turkish, but after the divi-sion of the island and the migration fromTurkey they started to accentuate theirTurkish Cypriot identity” Reis said. In re-cent years, however, the identity issue inCyprus has become Xexible. TurkishCypriots emphasize their Turkishnesswhen they are in contact with Greeks, andtheir “Cypriot” identity, when they are incontact with people from Turkey.

NNiiggeerriiaa wwaass tthhee sseeccoonndd ppaaggee iinn tthhee CCoouunn--ttrryybbooookk

e second page in the Countrybookwas Nigeria. e Western African countrywas presented by four Nigerian students,Grace Nkem Utomi, Rasheed Daura,Hodge Candy Ifeanyi and Nasir Tahir,and a Kyrgyz student, Umsunai Rakhma-tova. Students run a power point presen-tation on Nigerian media, culture andtraditions; and served traditional Nigerianfood after the presentation. Presenting Nigeria to the participants, onemay perhaps, vividly point out several fac-tors that unite Nigerians by looking attheir cultural industry and the culture oftheir neighbouring countries. e atlas ofNigeria was positioned exactly at the heartof Africa. Nigeria the most populatedblack African nation had independence in1960 and could boast of more than 157million people. A member of the Com-monwealth of Nations with 36 states,Nigeria has three major ethnic groupsmainly dominated by the Igbo’s, Yoruba’sand the Hausa’s. It also boasts of about250 other minority group languageswhich top the rank of language speakingnations in Africa. While Abuja is believed to be the admin-istrative capital of Nigeria, Lagos is desir-ably called its commercial capital.

Nevertheless, when Nigerian is men-tioned, what comes to mind is the artisticrepresentation of bronze sculptors, ivorycarving, grass weaving, wood carving,leather and calabash making, pottery,painting, cloth weaving, glass and metalworks, various fashion, arts, music anddance styles. Several factors bring Nigeri-ans together and food is one of them.Some of the Nigerian meals are Fufu oth-erwise popularly called Akpu. Others areAbacha, Ewedu, Ogbono soup,Edikaikong and other recipes numerousto mention.Also, their cultural dance step is anotherfactor that unites Nigerians together. Inthe Hausa north, the presenters symboli-cally demonstrated video narrative ofsome ceremonial dances, predominantwith the Nigerian Hausas. eir dogged-ness and farming expertise could be ob-served in their ‘Babariga’ traditional wearsand their Fulani herdsman costumes.e presentation went further to show theIgbo women cultural groups from theSouth Eastern Nigeria whose identity canbe recognized in their use of props likeneck beads, hair plaiting, peace-loving asin the use of white handkerchiefs. emovement of the arms by the Yoruba’sand the Masquerade dance stepswhich gave meanings to their cul-tural structure was not left out.

ee tthhiirrdd pprreesseennttaattiioonn wwaass oonnAAzzeerrbbaaiijjaann

e third stage of theCountrybook was Azer-baijan. e presenta-tion was made byGunay Sadikhova,a graduate stu-dent at the fac-ulty. In herpresenta-tion

Sadikhova introduced her country, cul-ture, national dances, and the currentmedia system. e presentation consistedof two parts. Firstly, she gave general andbrief information about Azerbaijan, itsculture, national dances, cuisine, nationalholidays and information about the capi-tal city. In the second part of the presenta-tion Sadikhova talked about the mediasystem and journalism in Azerbaijan. She

highlighted major factors inmedia democracy and online

journalism.Gunay Sadikhova alsomentioned journalism ed-ucation and talked aboutthe youth who are moreinterested in online

media. At the end ofher presentation she

thanked everybodyfor coming and

participating inher native

Azeri lan-guage.

Countrybook rocks the facultyNmezi Onyedikachi Uzozie

Arzu Reis

Umsunai Rakhmatova

Günay Sadikhova

Programme coordinator Elnaz Nasehi

Nasir Tahir

The Countrybook aims to provide students from different nationalities a communicative atmosphere

Gündem November - December 2012

e Gender Advisory Team (GAT) andthe PRIO Cyprus Centre organized aconference entitled Women’s Peace: Ap-plying UNSCR 1325 to Cyprus and theRegion on the 6th of December 2012 inthe Buffer Zone.Gender has been recognized as a criticalcomponent of peace-building processessince 2000 in the UN Security CouncilResolution numbered 1325 but no sig-niWcant step made to implement it inmany countries in the region includingCyprus. is conference highlights re-gional concerns around the lack of takinginitiative by the governments. In otherwords the conference is a general call forwomen and men to take a local step torealize an international practice.e presenters of the opening session ofthe conference were Harry Tzimitras(PRIO Cyprus Centre), Elisabeth Walaas(Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway),Lisa Buttenheim (SRSG & UNFICYP,UN ), and Olga Demetriou (GATCyprus). In the opening panel partici-pants and activists from GAT discussedgender focal points in Cyprus negotia-tions. Second session examined the UNSCR1325 in the feminist agenda with theparticipation of Galia Golan (Interdisci-plinary Center, Herzliya Israel), RadaBorić (Center for Women’s Studies, Za-

greb Serbia), and Carrie Hamilton (University of Roe-hampton, London, England). e session titled“Gendering theCyprus ConXict”was held byDoğuş Derya(FEMA, Nicosia),Faika Paşa (Turk-ish CypriotHuman RightsFoundation,Nicosia), MariaKyriakidou(American Col-lege of essa-loniki), NayiaKamenou (King’sCollege, London),and Erol Kaymak (Cyprus 2015 Project)

AAccttiivviissmm aarroouunndd UUNNSSCCRR 11332255A comparative perspective session was

hosted by Sundus Abbas (Women Lead-ership Institute, Baghdad) and FotiniSianou (Centre for Research and Actionon Peace, Athens). All the participantsexpressed an urgent need for women’svoices to be heard in peace-making in theregion where many post conXict societiesare. e conference is followed by a roundtable discussion to share positive actionsin the countries initiated by peace ac-

tivists and feminists. e participantsemphasized the necessity of internationalpressure over the governments to write

and implementtheir NationalAction Plan(NAP). e rep-resentative ofTurkey noted thatTurkey has noNational ActionPlan regarding1325 but has aPosition Paperprepared byKADER, awomen’s organi-zation. Iraqi women rep-

resentatives statedthat post conXict period legitimatesmany odd cultural practices againstwomen and girls such as early marriagesand mutah marriages. On the other hand, in practice, womenare leaders of many households allaround the country. ey are carrying ona campaign for 1325 NAP in the coun-try. ey are lobbying for amendmentson the political party law to get 25%women’s quota. Women are called for monitoring thegovernment decision- making bodies’progress on National Action Plans, andmedia content about women and peace.

WWhhaatt iiss UUNNSSCCRR 11332255??e United Nations Security Council

Resolution (UNSCR) resolution num-bered 1325 recognizes women’s role inpeace-building and security and encour-ages women’s participation in decision-making and peace processes as well asreferring to the other UN documentssuch as Beijing Platform for Action,Women2000. e reason behind this res-olution is not simply to provide genderequality but also include the different ex-perience of women (and children) duringa conXict. It is acknowledged thatwomen can offer a fresh perspective andalternative ideas during conXict and postconXict situations. e resolution states the “important roleof women in the prevention of conXictsand in peace-building, and stressing theimportance of their equal participationand full involvement in all efforts for themaintenance and promotion of peaceand security, and the need to increasetheir role in decision making with regardto conXict prevention and resolution.”Countries are expected to have a Na-tional Action Plan that serves to guidethe related government bodies and stake-holders in charge with security, foreignpolicy, gender and development. How-ever, only 34 countries among the UNmembers have them so far. Cyprus is notone of them. In ten years only 8 EUcountries have a NAP.

The role of women in peace-buildingHanife Aliefendioğlu

Iranian ambassador to Cyprus Mr Ali AkbarRezaei gave a speech at the Department ofPolitical Science and International Relationson the “New Trends in the Middle East” onthe 28th of November. Mr Rezaei started his speech focusing onthe expression of the “Middle East” itself.“Middle East” is an orientalist concept thattakes ‘Europe’ as the centre and deWnes ‘us’against the ‘them’”, he said.Speaking of the recent developments in theMiddle East, Mr Rezaei contended that theMiddle East was becoming a more demo-cratic place because of the changes occur-ring with the Arab Spring. Within thiscontext, the “regional awakening” was em-powering the Islamic forces, and Israel waslosing.“At the heart of the uprising lies the searchfor socio-economic justice”, Mr Rezaei told.“e new democracies in the region, on theother hand, are under great economic risk ifthey do not fulWl the economic necessitiesin a proper way. e governments in the re-gion spend a large portion of their budgetsfor subsidies of basic goods. e depend-ence on oil and natural gas constitutes a se-rious problem with the less developedeconomies becoming dependent on foreignaid.” Speaking of the education in the region, MrAli Akbar Rezaei stated that the Middle

Eastern countries were making impressiveprogress in closing the gender gap with re-gard to access to education. Mr Rezaei also touched upon the Americanforeign policy on the region. ere has beena signiWcant change in the American foreignpolicy, the ambassador told. e UnitedStates is now supporting change and de-mocratization instead of stability. Accordingto the Mr Rezaei, the current governmentin the United States supports that demo-cratic governments in the Middle East willserve the American interests in a better way.e security dilemma in the Middle East,on the hand, will remain unsolved with Is-rael’s interests and Iranian nuclear energybeing on two opposite poles.

Iranian ambassador to Cyprus spoke at the EMUEMU News

With the aim of raising awareness on impor-tant topics such as violence against women,women’s rights, violence against women in lawand violence against women in media, stu-dents of Eastern Mediterranean UniversityCommunication Faculty Public Relations andAdvertising Department organised a panel en-titled ‘Cennet Ayaklar Altında’ (Heaven underyour feet) in the Communication FacultyGreen Hall. At the beginning of the panel, a video on vio-lence against women written and produced byCommunication Faculty Research AssistantMert Yusuf Özlük was displayed. e Wrstspeaker of the conference Business Faculty Re-search Assistant Hasan Rüstemoğlu providedinformation on the types of violence againstwomen and gave the relevant statistical infor-mation. Following Rüstemoğlu, Law Faculty ResearchAssistant Mazlum Doğan spoke about the lat-est international legal regulations and agree-ments in decreasing the violence againstwomen. Doğan added that as much as pro-tecting the rights of women exposed to vio-lence, the society should also focus on therehabilitation of the males who apply violenceagainst females.EMU Communication Faculty academic staffmember Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hanife Aliefendioğlustated that until lately, there was no data avail-able on the violence against women in North-ern Cyprus. However, in accordance with theWndings of research conducted in 2007, it was

discovered that 30% of the females are ex-posed to sexual, 80% physical and 87% of thefemales are exposed to psychological violencein Northern Cyprus. In her speech, Assoc.Prof. Dr. Hanife Aliefendioğlu also gave exam-ples of the representation methods of femalesin the news, advertisements and media whichusually reveal the female murders as “murdersof love”.At the end of the panel which was organisedby Rüveyda Fırıncıoğulları, Tuğçe Yeşilkağıtand Hakan Dinçkan under the supervision ofEMU Public Relations and Advertising De-partment academic staff member UmutAyman, Communication Faculty Dean Prof.Dr. Süleyman İrvan presented the speakerswith plaques of appreciation

EMU Social Media Unit

Panel discussion on violence against the women

WWhhaatt iiss GGAATT CCyypprruuss:: Gender AdvisoryTeam (GAT) Cyprus consists of women,activists, scholars and feminists fromboth sides of the island since 2009. emain aim of the GAT has been to iden-tify ways in which gender considerationscan be integrated into the Cyprus peaceprocess. GAT Cyrus notes that there isno woman representative in negotiationteams between the two sides of the is-land. ey also believe that war and con-Xict are gendered issues; peace is awomen’s issue and it needs women, theirneeds and concerns.

Prof.Dr.Süleyman İrvan (right) presenting a plaque to Assoc.Prof.Dr.Hanife Aliefendioğlu

Iranian Ambassador to Cyprus Mr Ali Akbar Rezaei

Eastern Mediterranean University, Faculty of

Communication and MediaStudies

Tel: 0392 630 16 42E-mail: gundem@emu.edu.tr

Printed at EMU Printing House

PUBLISHEROn behalf of Eastern Mediterranean

University, Rector Prof.Dr. Abdullah Y. Öztoprak

COMMITTEE OF ADVISORSProf. Dr.Süleyman İrvan

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hanife AliefendioğluAssist. Prof. Dr. Pembe Behçetoğulları

Assist. Prof. Dr. Metin Ersoy

EDITORAyça Atay

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITORMert Yusuf Özlük

GRAPHIC DESIGNMehmet Balyemez

REPORTERSAbtin Badie

Hussein AlrajabNmezi Onyedikachi Uzozie

Yazan Albarahma

CONTRIBUTORS Hanife Aliefendioğlu

Mashoed Bailie Bahar Zirek

Blessing Musa Moses Ghada Alraee Hamit Arpacı

Kaan Kırtız Pınar Haşimoğlu

Samira Oziohu SanniSholeh Zahraei

Education is the right of all human beings. Itis the right of Syrian citizens, as well. However,they encounter difficulties when they want tostudy abroad because of what is happening inSyria right now. Mohamed is a Syrian citizen. He tried to cometo Cyprus to study journalism, but he couldn’tcome because of the difficulty of travelling toCyprus. “Most of the countries in the worldthink that Syrian people who travel abroadwill run away from Syria because of the revolu-tion and the situation there. Cyprus is onethese countries,” Mohamed said. He tried tocome to Cyprus many times but he failed.

I asked him why he failed to come here. “Be-cause there are many problems such as gettinga passport,” he said. “Everybody knows what isgoing on in Syria and people cannot get apassport there.” Mohamed is active in the rev-olution and he is ‘wanted’. Mohamed saideven if he could pass Syria and come toCyprus, he would still have many problems.For example, the airport police make a lot ofproblems to Syrian citizens, because they thinkthat Syrians will pass from Cyprus to Europeor will work or will run away from Syria. Hetold me the story of his friend who came toCyprus to study. He arrived at the airport andthe police did not allow him to enter the

country. ey took him to a room; and theystarted to ask him too many questions anddid not allow him to call a translator. Mo-hamed’s friend said he came to Cyprus tostudy here, but the police did not allow him toenter the country, and sent him back toTurkey. Finally Mohamed said “We preferdeath to live in humiliation”. Mohamed andhis friends established a newspaper in Syria,the name of which was Enab Baladi. Mo-hamed was working for that newspaper, andhe lived in Damascus. I interviewed him onthe facebook. e end of this story is sad be-cause he was killed by Syrian police a few daysafter I conducted this interview with him.

Hussein Alrajab

Some people come to life disabled al-ready due to hard delivery problems,while others may become disabled as aresult of being exposed to an incident.Whatever the reason or the type of dis-ability is, it is an evitable reality that thedisabled person has to recognize and ac-cept. en, he or she should shapehis/her life in harmony with such a dis-ability and its implications. Trying to ig-nore or reject the disability puts thedisable in conXict with him/herself andwith the community. e situation be-comes more and more complex, whenpeople with disability are stereotypedand so maltreated or even neglected bytheir families Wrst and then by the soci-ety. Actually, such a negative attitude to-wards those with disability transformsthem to objects that have no value orrole in life. Some of them live and dieand no one hears about their suffering,while others manage to challenge the so-ciety and prove themselves. e UN deWnes the persons with disabil-ities as those who have “long-term physi-cal, mental, intellectual or sensoryimpairments which in interaction withvarious barriers may hinder their full andeffective participation in society on anequal basis with others”. For a disabled person, life is always astruggle. For those who have physicallimitations or disabilities, the extent andthe mechanism of this struggle is shapedby the disability. When a disabled personthinks about something, the Wrst ques-

tion he/she asks if such a matter isachievable considering his/her physicalcondition. So people with disability gen-erally think only about what they can do,and not what they wish to do. For exam-ple, when a disabled boy goes to school,he has to Wnd a school rehabilitated forhis needs, otherwise he might be forcedto stay home in spite of the importanceof education for him or he may Wnd al-ternative options; this depends on thesupport of his family. It is not our choice to be disabled, how-ever we have to pay the bill of disability.Everything around us reminds us: Atten-tion! You are unequal to others. Peoplewith disability are treated as secondary. e Eastern Mediterranean University isconsidered as number one in TRNC,and it is proud, as we do, of being apeaceful active international communitygathering more than fourteen thousandstudents from different countries. WhenI came here by the beginning of this se-mester, I was surprised that such an in-ternational academic place is notadequately, rehabilitated for studentswith physical disabilities. Such studentswere considered when the university wasconstructed. It seems that the engineer,or the designer has never met studentswith disability, during his education pe-riod or he excludes the disabled from thehigh education system.Let us imagine a student on a wheelchairwho needs to enter the registration officeor the rector office! Or imagine that per-son trying to reach a class in the secondor third Xoor! Of course, people here are

lovely and they are ready to help the dis-abled students but is it enough to dealwith their needs? Actually, the disabledpeople suffer from the idea of being al-ways in need of others in everything theydo, but they prefer to be supported andto be given the chance to lead their livesas possible as they can.Apart from the students, let us imagine avisitor with a wheelchair coming to at-tend a conference at EMU. Who willcarry him upstairs and downstairs? It isunderstood that rehabilitation of theuniversity involves Wnancial cost, butsuch cost is incomparable with the suf-fering of a disabled student who is un-able to reach his destination because ofsomething out of his control. A lot ofphysically disabled students are deprivedfrom joining EMU, because they cannotadopt with its infrastructure.

Education is a fundamental right forpeople with disability and it should begiven to them according to their needs.Educational institutions should be reha-bilitated for them because it is throughsuch institutions the disabled studentscan be integrated into the society andcan have the chance to communicatewith their nondisabled colleagues.If universities are not rehabilitated forthe students with disability, this impli-cates that such a group are inferior toother so they should practice their rightto education, health, entertainmentetc..in special cantons built for them. Finally, the disabled students should notbe seen as vulnerable but as promisingscholars who could inXuence historysuch as Taha Hussein and AntonioGramsci.

Ghada Alraee

Students with disability! Helpyourself at EMU!

Difficult journey

Car parking spaces reserved for disabled people are quite often occupied by the others

Mohammed was killed a few days after the interview