Hamza Tzortzis – Growing up in a Greek Household

Hamza Tzortzis
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses their experiences in Greek culture, including their own experiences as a Greek parent and their daughter's Greek father. They also talk about their own experiences as a hipster and how they found their naturality through their father's "elaerous"
the word "elaerous" in Greek culture. The speaker also talks about their own struggles with domestic violence and how they found their naturality through their father's "elaerous."
AI: Transcript ©
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You many, many people may not know this because you do look Pakistani. And that's a joke that's been cracked for 10 years. But you are a revert to Islam. Yes. of Greek heritage? Yes. How was it growing up in a Greek household? And what did you believe in when you were younger?

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Interesting question. So I was born in 1980, September 21. I was born in Hackney, and brought up in Hackney, and my parents. They come from a Greek background. So my dad is Athenian. He's Greek. Well, and my mom, she is actually Greek Cypriot. So ethnically, they're both Greek. And my mom came here in 1975, I believe, as a result of the Turkish Cypriot conflict that happened in 1974. So she is actually a refugee.

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And my father, I believe, he came in 1973 or 1974. I think he had enough of Athenian life. So he came to the UK to try and explore other avenues, but that got him into homelessness, and other things. And he's had a very interesting journey as well. And throughout that journey, he's always been quite ethical, and principled, which is quite inspirational, but we could discuss that maybe later. Yeah. So I was brought up in Hackney in 1980s and 90s. I went to school there. I think I went to shackle nursery school and primary school. Do you think from what I remember, I don't know about the nursery, but definitely the the primary school so shacklewell Primary School, then I went to

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Kingston secondary school. Now it's called pece. Academy, I believe. Okay, so I'm a Hackney, bro. Right. So, yeah, that's my background. And what did I believe? Well, I wasn't brought by typical Greek family, bro. Because my dad, he was a bit of,

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you can call it like a new age, spiritual guy with humanist type values, but very spiritual, really loves God really loves Jesus, but doesn't like the dogma of religion.

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always talking about love and compassion, those kind of things. So he was very inspirational. From that point of view, I was brought up in that environment. Yeah. And,

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you know, he would like to portray himself as someone who is open minded. You know, when I look at some of his books that he's had for years, he had the book called The power of positive thinking he had books on mysticism. So my dad was entrenched in that type of thinking. So he didn't have that kind of typical Greek background. He would even teach us not to be nationalistic. He felt nationalism was almost like a disease is like a malaise. So it's safe to say that you came from like a different background as your average Muslim. And what an average Greek I would say, okay, so I wouldn't actually don't want to speak about your reverse story. Because I feel like you've spoken

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about it a lot. And I'm sure want to listen to that. That can go elsewhere. They can search it on YouTube. I'm sure they'll find many videos of that for sure. But what I do want to press on is things that made you different. And this is something I personally find very, very inspirational when we hear about stories. Yes, revert specifically. There's that cliche story.

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