Sometimes, words are hidden so deeply that they become silence — and silence, a habit. But the need to speak forces you to turn to those who have learned to engage with words more intimately, who have made the art of writing an act of sharing, offering first aid words for moments like this one.
Arundhati Roy writes in her novel The God of Small Things (1997):
“We are prisoners of war… Our dreams have been castrated. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on rough seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough to matter.” (pp. 81–82, Psychogios Publications, 2024 – In Greek)
And I saw this abstract fitting the day — July 20, 2025 — and my thoughts of recent days.
Having just returned from my trip to São Paulo, I carry with me words tangled and disordered, old yet reshaped, reframed, newly illuminated in my mind: the grief of refugees, grief as both national and personal heritage.
This is what I presented at the São Paulo School of Advanced Science as part of the program University, Memory, Reparation: The grief of Cypriot refugees through the eyes of children — children who gave space, time, and attention to their refugee grandparents, so they could share this experience of loss. A deeply moving experience, in its simplicity, its sorrow, and its human beauty.
It revealed a grief that had been marginalized, hidden behind grand words, window-dressing phrases, and wooden narratives that, for over half a century now, have obscured this lived experience of the people of our land. A human experience of loss, one that became entangled with property, with the measurable. A loss we never truly counted — because it cannot be quantified — and yet it does count. It counts in human relationships. Our relationships. Not elsewhere.
Not elsewhere!
You can view my presentation:
And my final text:
If I were to summarize it all in a single phrase:
Let us speak with the refugees, not about them.
Before anything else, grief needs to be heard and seen.
