From The Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple Read Free Book Online Page A

Turkish flag so the rioters did not harm me; instead they just broke the windows and the furniture then moved on. Afterwards the government said it was just a few ignorant people, but that's not true: the riots were very well organised, all over Istanbul.'
    'I don't understand what the Turks would gain by organising such a pogrom,' I said.
    'The Greeks still controlled the commerce of the city,' replied Dimitrios. 'They wanted to drive us out and take over our business. They succeeded. By 1965, when I was ten, the Greek population had sunk to around seventy-five thousand. Today there are only - what? - five thousand Greeks left. All my childhood friends, everyone I grew up with, they've all moved away.'
Dimitrios shrugged his shoulders.
    'I love this city, of course: it is my home. But frankly life is impossible here if you are not a Turk. The boys get abused on their military service; they are always sent to the most dangerous postings on the Kurdish front line. Then afterwards, when they come out, they can't get government jobs. If you live here you have to spend your life pretending you are Turkish. Those Greeks who have stayed have started calling themselves Turkish names: if you're called Dimitrios, you change your name to Demir; if your name is Fedon, you ask your friends to call you Feridun.'
    Dimitrios said that the war in Bosnia - with Orthodox Serbs committing atrocities against Muslims - and the recent resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, had made everything much worse. The Phanar windows were broken by stones on an almost daily basis, while its perimeter walls were regularly covered with spray-painted threats such as 'Patriarch, you will die!' Moreover, there had been a renewed bout of grave desecration at the disused Greek cemetery at Yenikoy; blazing rags soaked in petrol had been thrown over the Phanar walls, starting a small fire; and three small firebombs had gone off a month previously in two nearby Greek girls' schools and the Church of the Panaghia.
    But the most serious problem, said Dimitrios, revolved around the Phanar gateway. In 1821 the Greeks sealed the main door of the Phanar after the Sultan had hanged the then Patriarch, Gregorios, from its lintel. The Turks always considered the sealing a snub, and recently the Refah party had revived the issue by threatening to break open the gate by force. Then last month, on the eve of the anniversary of the fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks, a huge bomb was found planted next to the gate inside the main courtyard. It was defused in time, but had it gone off not only the gate but the entire Phanar would have been reduced to a large crater.
    'They left a note near the bomb,' said Dimitrios. 'I've got a translation somewhere.'
    He rummaged around in his drawers and drew out a file. From it he took a single sheet of foolscap. 'Read this,' he said.
 
from the general headquarters of the fighters of light
Our administration has targeted the Patriarchate and its occupying leader, who behind what he considers insurmountable walls takes pleasure in the shedding of the blood of the Muslim people of the East, and to this end he is working on suspect and fiendish plans. We will fight until the Chief Devil and all the occupiers are chased off; until this place, which for years has contrived Byzantine intrigues against the Muslim peoples of the East, is exterminated. Occupiers disappear! These Lands are ours and will remain ours. We warn you one more time: there is no right to life for those who are occupiers.
Until the Greek Patriarchate and the Devil, the ridiculous Bartholomaios who wears the robes of the Patriarch, disappears from behind the thick walls where he plans his fiendish intrigues, our fight will continue. Patriarch you will perish!
Long live our Islamic Fight! Long live our Islamic Liberation War!
THE CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS OF LIGHT
     
    After this,' said Dimitrios, 'our young have finally become convinced that there is no future for them