Suzan Ari

Suzan Ari

The Premier of North Cyprus attended her funeral… Messages poured in from university education staff in Canada, the USA and the UK, all of whom referred to her as “Auntie.” Persons knighted by Britain and those representing nations in Europe, sent in messages of commiseration…

Although she was not even a teacher, Suzan Ari's extraordinary efforts helped to advance the teaching and education of pupils and others, in a society that had previously resisted or was powerless to educate and teach at all levels of educational and cultural advancement. She was the wife of Orhan Seyfi Ari, who through his columns was a noted “vigorous, fearless defender of liberties” – a thinker who was “himself a school,” and “whose mark on the nation’s history of education is not little” and for whom a street is named. Suzan Ari is remembered and appreciated by so many: the Greek and Turkish Cypriot pupils of her husband’s at elementary schools, then Cypriot and English secondary and grammar schools, the head teachers at secondary schools and lecturers at institutes where Orhan and Suzan Ari’s efforts were known, and also the later Republic of and still later the Northern Republic of Cyprus.

She was born in Morphou on 12 July 1927. She completed her compulsory education and then her training as a dress-maker under the British system of apprenticeships. She privately studied music and educated herself in Turkish and Greek contemporary literature. She had an avid interest in current affairs (perhaps resulting from her father Mr. Uney's social activities as a successful businessman and local community leader in central Nicosia -the capital) and she was one of the first, in 1941, to show (along with her husband, who was a young idealist teacher trying to convince authorities, and the people, of the need for schools, teachers, teaching and education and that co-education was not promiscuous) the courage of her conviction in cultural education – namely that, while there might be nothing wrong with the Turkish and Greek Cypriot custom of dowries by women, marriage should be for love.

In Cyprus, the people of such cities as Paphos and the town of Loudrijina, still tell of Suzan Ari who, in the unfortunate days after the Second World War in the 1940s & 1950s, with young children and sleepless nights, would make costumes, for gratis, so that their secondary school could get a first taste of their cultural heritage (national dances, stage plays) and, by the light of an oil-lamp, take it upon herself to sew the flags for their celebrations of national days – an awareness of which her husband, teacher Ari, was instilling them.

They still tell of her opening up her home in the town of Loudrijina (even as her husband was helping with roads, electricity, and water and getting schools built. (He provided what was then considered to be with the best equipped science laboratory in the entire Middle East). They also provided teachers for those whose lack of literacy was such that many could not even see how their sons – especially daughters and women – could possibly benefit from teachers and education. Also, they invited dentists to set up equipment in the village to treat people and to host artists to put on cultural shows for the citizens. She also taught her skills for free to her husband’s students. Mr. Ari (who was dubbed by people, statesmen, writers, poets “Teacher of Teachers” and “The Teacher”) regarded Mrs. Ari as 'A Great Helper' in education and cultural social progress, in a Commonwealth nation which is now, at its current level of teaching and education, enjoying the highest percentage of university graduates in the entire European Union.

Suzan Ari had been to prayers on Wednesday night, 20 November 2002, where she had met, chatted, prayed with her neighbours and friends. The next morning, this helper to educational, cultural and social progress, was found to have peacefully passed away.

These verses of the people’s honor to “Teacher of Teachers” and “The Teacher,” Orhan Ari, also apply to Suzan Ari –a great helper in education:

“The pure in heart truly die never... Joyous be, in hearts they live forever.”

Tulips, representing donations in her honour and on her behalf to the educational trust by the people, surrounded the Great Helper in the people’s literary progress – Suzan Ari's coffin.