Yesterday we set off early for the conference centre, and went straight into several hours of meetings.

There was a short break for lunch at the University of Cyprus, and I got chatting with the delegates from ZANU-PF and SWAPO.

I won’t talk about the work of the assembly in detail, the final declarations and decisions will be made public when it’s all over.

I made a brief speech with my greetings to the assembly.

Hello everyone 👋

And at the end of the day we joined a rally with EDON at one of the checkpoints (at the end of Ledra Street) in Nicosia. Some people made speeches, and there was music.

Today was another day of long debate. I’ve been working on academic things (and writing this, and making notes on the proceedings) in the spare moments and during the debates. Unfortunately, multi-tasking has been difficult and while I should be enjoying this, I’m definitely feeling under pressure at the moment.

I have been chatting with one of the delegates from Norway, he gave me a pin from his organisation.

And I got to relax a bit in the evening, we went to a very fancy restaurant. The president of the Cypriot parliament turned up to make a brief speech, followed by some traditional Cypriot dancing, and after a while everyone (including me) joined in the dancing.

The general assembly only happens every four years, and it occurred to me that you only really get to go to one of these, maybe two if you’re lucky. So it was a special moment, dancing with the cadres of EDON and representatives of all the major socialist movements in the world. Everyone was enjoying themselves, I think this night will stick in my memory for a long time…