Cyprus-Forum.com

[denizaksulu]

Both EOKA and TMT controlled their own people. However, from what I read in Bir's account of growing up in Cyprus and from other sources, it iseems cler that TMT had a much stronger grip on the TC community than EOKA did on the GCs.

EOKA was directly in the sights of the British, and pursued with zeal. The preventive imprisonment of thousands of GCs withouth trial in the internment camps, the hangings for even minor offences like possessing shotgun ammunition, show how the British faced EOKA men or even mere suspects. This diminished the ability of EOKA to operate within the urban areas of Cyprus.

One example is the "alatza" campaign when EOKA asked GCs to wear clothes made of the local cloth "alatza". Some obeyed, most did not and there were no repercussions simply because EOKA could not discipline them, it did not have that capability. That is not to say that EOKA did not assassinate persons it considered informants or opponents to the cause, it did.

TMT operated more freely than EOKA. There were no major operations against the TMT by the British, and the few arrests of persons for arms possession did not culminate in court cases or convictions. The most notorious case being that of sergeant Tuna who was caught with arms but somehow managed to escape from the British and end up in Turkey. This freedom of operation allowed TMT to hold the TC community under control.

A personal memory which is still vivid, was the assassination attempt against a TC by the TMT in our street in Nicosia. It happened in broad daylight and the victim ran into a neighbor's house trying to ask for help in broken Greek with blood running down his chest. The gunman ran off towards the Turkish neighborhood which was two blocks away. Our parents ran out to drag us children into the house before the British came and took us all in for questioning. Within seconds the street was totally empty.

The first sign of the TMTs existence we saw was a newspaper cartoon showing Cyprus with an axe across it and the word TAKSIM on it. Then in 1958 came the first attacks on our neighborhoods under the passive eyes of the British. Looking back on that passivity, it is clear that the British planned and wanted things that way. One night a fire was raging in a timber store in the Ermou street area and we watched from our balconies, we were under curfew and could not even open our front doors without being arrested. The sound of a mob was coming closer and one lady said to a British sergeant "Johnny, do something" and his response: "ask EOKA to help you". It was a pissed off soldier's spontaneous response but it porbably was the official intention too.

We did ask EOKA for protection and what we got were instructions to form a "civil defence" which were people with flashlights and whistles sitting on roofs watching for incursions by TC mobs from the Turkish area of Nicosia. There were many nights we got up and rushed to the roof falsely alarmed by the incessant whistling started by some whistle happy asshole.

The nett result of this was the birth of an "us and them" attitude reinforced by the TMT imposed geographical separation. We could no longer enter the Turkish area of Nicosia for shopping and we saw fewer and fewer TCs in our areas. In fact the only TCs we saw were auxiliary police officers. Like Bir said, this was the setting for the main event and it was largely planned or at least allowed to happen by the British.

A slight correction Nikitas. A few thousand young TCs, Lycee students among them were also arrested and held in 'concentration camps, at varios places around Cyprus. These were held on suspicion of belonging to 'illegal' organisations. If you delve into your vast resources, you will find reference to these.

[Nikitas]

Zan said:

"Nikitas is clearly ignoring the fact that the Megali idea had been going for hundreds of years and that ENOSIS was a very real concept then he will keep coming to the same conclusion every time which is wrong.... "

Megali Idea was a concept that died in 1923. From that time on Greece became what Greeks today call the Athens centered state" and had no desire to be involved in anything outside its borders. The German occupation and its horrible effects- on tenth of the population dead, 80 per cent of the infrastructure destroyed- followed by the Civil War with 600 000 dead, left Greece in a state that could not support adventures such as the Megali Idea even if it wanted to pursue them.

Greece turned her back on all centers of Hellenism outside Greece- the Greeks of Egypt were abandoned, their properties expropriated by the Nasser regime and they were expelled. The Greeks in the Soviet Union were treated as non existent. The material help given by Greece to Cyprus during the EOKA campaign was negligible, as is proven by the weaponry and equipment of the EOKA fighters. A visit to the National Struggle Museum in Nicosia is proof enough. The EOKA resorted to making home made guns and bombs. No mainland Greeks joined the struggle. Grivas was a Greek army officer but he was Cypriot, possibly the only Cypriot who served in the Greek army and reached officer status.

After independence there was involvement. And we will come to that soon, but it had more to do with keeping the lid on the perceived communist threat than on achieving Enosis.

If you keep insisting on this Megali Idea angle Zan you are missing the bigger picture.

[Piratis]

What happened prior to the 1960 agreements was the struggle of Cypriots for liberation so they could finally also be part of the free Greek Republic, while the TCs had collaborated with the British. I talked about this in my previous post. Apparently you missed it.

Your liberation struggle was tainted with enosis undertones which the TCs opposed and could never accept thats why they had to collaberate with whom ever would stop you from selling them out to Greece.

It was not tainted but dictated to by the Megali idea and ENOSIS.....FULL STOP>

The same was the case for the liberation of Athens, Crete, Thessaloniki, and all other Greek territories and islands. So according to Zan the idea of Greeks being liberated from their oppressors was a crime

Go on Zan, tell us that there should have never been a Greek independent state and all Greek territories should have remained under Turkish rule!

If you will distinguish Cyprus from Athens, Crete etc, then tell me whats the difference? Cyprus was not the only Greek territory where a Muslim minority existed, and in fact Cyprus was under Ottoman rule for much less time than most other Greek islands and territories. So if Athens, Crete etc should be liberated and free united in one Greek state, then why not Cyprus?

The island never belonged to the GREEKs so stop your crap....

Here we go again

Cyprus has been a Hellenic island for 3500 years, about as long as any other Greek island and just a few centuries later than the Greek mainland. Cyprus was Hellenic long before the Greek Alphabet was discovered and before the Greek civilization became the great civilization everybody knows today. Cyprus was an integral part of Hellinism since then. One of 12 Gods of Olympus was Cypriot. Cypriots spoke the earliest known dialect of Greek, Mycenaean Greek, which later became the Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek.

So Cyprus was no different than Crete, Rhodos or any other Hellenic island or territory.

Cypriotts, just like Cretans, Athenians, Rhodians and every other Greek of course they would fight to liberate their nation from foreign rule. Instead of blaming us because we wanted our freedom you should instead apologize for denying this freedom to us and oppressing us.

I said, and I repeat, I can understand why the Muslim minorities in the Greek territories didn't want the territory they were living to be part of a free Greek state. So I excuse your collaboration with the British against our liberation struggle. I am guessing the Muslim minorities in other Hellenic territories fighting for their independence did the same as you, and given the History if I was a TC I would do the same.

On the other hand you keep repeating the Turkish propaganda that "Cyprus was never Greek" and all the other totally unhistorical nonsense in your usual effort to present Cypriots as being "bad" simply because they wanted their liberation as it happened to many other Greek territories. If there was somebody "bad" in this case, those are the ones who denied to the Cypriot people their freedom, not Cypriots for fighting for it.

A true independence and a true democracy would have been the ideal solution to sutisfy both the desire of the Cypriot people for freedom and self determination, and at the same time remove any valid fears you might have had. Such true independence and true democracy would guarantee the smooth functioning of the Cyprus state, would make Cypriots appreciate the benefits of independence, and would make the small minorities of extremists that existed in both sides ineffective in their efforts to push their own agenda.

Unfortunately the British and the Turks exploited the greed among the TC minority in order to deny to the Cypriot people their self-determination, to keep Cypriots divided into two separate and conflicting sides, and in this way maintain their control and their troops on our island and reinforce the unstable, polarized environment that was ripe for more conflicts. If you can not see this, then you are either blind or you intentionally deny it.

[denizaksulu]

What happened prior to the 1960 agreements was the struggle of Cypriots for liberation so they could finally also be part of the free Greek Republic, while the TCs had collaborated with the British. I talked about this in my previous post. Apparently you missed it.

Your liberation struggle was tainted with enosis undertones which the TCs opposed and could never accept thats why they had to collaberate with whom ever would stop you from selling them out to Greece.

It was not tainted but dictated to by the Megali idea and ENOSIS.....FULL STOP>

The same was the case for the liberation of Athens, Crete, Thessaloniki, and all other Greek territories and islands. So according to Zan the idea of Greeks being liberated from their oppressors was a crime

Go on Zan, tell us that there should have never been a Greek independent state and all Greek territories should have remained under Turkish rule!

If you will distinguish Cyprus from Athens, Crete etc, then tell me whats the difference? Cyprus was not the only Greek territory where a Muslim minority existed, and in fact Cyprus was under Ottoman rule for much less time than most other Greek islands and territories. So if Athens, Crete etc should be liberated and free united in one Greek state, then why not Cyprus?

The island never belonged to the GREEKs so stop your crap....

Here we go again

Cyprus has been a Hellenic island for 3500 years, about as long as any other Greek island and just a few centuries later than the Greek mainland. Cyprus was Hellenic long before the Greek Alphabet was discovered and before the Greek civilization became the great civilization everybody knows today. Cyprus was an integral part of Hellinism since then. One of 12 Gods of Olympus was Cypriot. Cypriots spoke the earliest known dialect of Greek, Mycenaean Greek, which later became the Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek.

So Cyprus was no different than Crete, Rhodos or any other Hellenic island or territory.

Cypriotts, just like Cretans, Athenians, Rhodians and every other Greek of course they would fight to liberate their nation from foreign rule. Instead of blaming us because we wanted our freedom you should instead apologize for denying this freedom to us and oppressing us.

I said, and I repeat, I can understand why the Muslim minorities in the Greek territories didn't want the territory they were living to be part of a free Greek state. So I excuse your collaboration with the British against our liberation struggle. I am guessing the Muslim minorities in other Hellenic territories fighting for their independence did the same as you, and given the History if I was a TC I would do the same.

On the other hand you keep repeating the Turkish propaganda that "Cyprus was never Greek" and all the other totally unhistorical nonsense in your usual effort to present Cypriots as being "bad" simply because they wanted their liberation as it happened to many other Greek territories. If there was somebody "bad" in this case, those are the ones who denied to the Cypriot people their freedom, not Cypriots for fighting for it.

A true independence and a true democracy would have been the ideal solution to sutisfy both the desire of the Cypriot people for freedom and self determination, and at the same time remove any valid fears you might have had. Such true independence and true democracy would guarantee the smooth functioning of the Cyprus state, would make Cypriots appreciate the benefits of independence, and would make the small minorities of extremists that existed in both sides ineffective in their efforts to push their own agenda.

Unfortunately the British and the Turks exploited the greed among the TC minority in order to deny to the Cypriot people their self-determination, to keep Cypriots divided into two separate and conflicting sides, and in this way maintain their control and their troops on our island and reinforce the unstable, polarized environment that was ripe for more conflicts. If you can not see this, then you are either blind or you intentionally deny it.

Could you please elaborate on the 'greed' you talk about.

[Jerry]

Oh dear its turning into the usual slanging match.

It's only natural that both sides wanted to safeguard their own community. Britain only had to kick-start the dormant Greek-Turkish emnity to justify keeping the island. The Cypriots fell into the trap and that is how we find ourselves with The Cyprus Problem. The colonial power could have just as easily said to the Turkish Cypriots "don't worry we will guarantee you are not disadvantaged in any future settlement" but Britain chose to use the people of Cyprus for its own "Rule Britannia" ends.

Going back to an earlier post about the ethnic roots of Cypriots, could it be that Turkey was not too interested in Cyprus before 1954 because it knew that many "TCs" were not in fact Turkish and could this explain why Turkish Cypriots are less religious than mainlanders and their forbears were in fact Linobambaki.

[T_C]

[denizaksulu]

Oh dear its turning into the usual slanging match.

It's only natural that both sides wanted to safeguard their own community. Britain only had to kick-start the dormant Greek-Turkish emnity to justify keeping the island. The Cypriots fell into the trap and that is how we find ourselves with The Cyprus Problem. The colonial power could have just as easily said to the Turkish Cypriots "don't worry we will guarantee you are not disadvantaged in any future settlement" but Britain chose to use the people of Cyprus for its own "Rule Britannia" ends.

Going back to an earlier post about the ethnic roots of Cypriots, could it be that Turkey was not too interested in Cyprus before 1954 because it knew that many "TCs" were not in fact Turkish and could this explain why Turkish Cypriots are less religious than mainlanders and their forbears were in fact Linobambaki.

Jerry, any sort of Turkish nationalism was severely supressed by the British. Under colonial rule, Turkey was not allowed (uderstandably) to have any influence on its former subjects. My village had no Turkish school to begin with. The colonial powers were often asked for the provision of a school where TCs could go and learn to read and write. The answers they got were on the lines of, "there is agreek school2, "go and educate yourselves there". This explains why many of my village elders learnt to read and write fluent greek. On the birth of Turkish Consciosness (1920's and 1930's) some would walk everyday to the nearby Turkish village of Kophinou to attend the elementary school there. I think the current building was built in the late 1940's or early 1950's. This was narrated by my uncle who was the 9 year old walking to school to Kophinou. Later he got lodgings with the local midwife.

I hope I have the dates right. But you get the gist of the narrative.

[Nikitas]

TC

You are taking one spot in time and using it as an illustration. The idea is to get a clear picture of the context in which the problem started. I could just as easily choose 1958 when the first intercommunal attacks started, clearly initiated by TCs with no GC provocation and use that as the justification for every evil that befell us after that. Things are not that clear cut.

Bir is trying to get an overall picture of how we got into a mess. He can present things from his point of view, as a TC growing up during the first phase of the problem, and for me as a GC it is valuable to see things from hs perspective. There were things I had never suspected, like for instance the iron grip that the TMT had over the TC community, which I learn for the first time, and they are significant in the overall picture.

I was hoping that in this thread at least we could be more factual and less emotional, so we can gain some wider view of things.

[zan]

Zan said:

"Nikitas is clearly ignoring the fact that the Megali idea had been going for hundreds of years and that ENOSIS was a very real concept then he will keep coming to the same conclusion every time which is wrong.... "

Megali Idea was a concept that died in 1923. From that time on Greece became what Greeks today call the Athens centered state" and had no desire to be involved in anything outside its borders. The German occupation and its horrible effects- on tenth of the population dead, 80 per cent of the infrastructure destroyed- followed by the Civil War with 600 000 dead, left Greece in a state that could not support adventures such as the Megali Idea even if it wanted to pursue them.

Greece turned her back on all centers of Hellenism outside Greece- the Greeks of Egypt were abandoned, their properties expropriated by the Nasser regime and they were expelled. The Greeks in the Soviet Union were treated as non existent. The material help given by Greece to Cyprus during the EOKA campaign was negligible, as is proven by the weaponry and equipment of the EOKA fighters. A visit to the National Struggle Museum in Nicosia is proof enough. The EOKA resorted to making home made guns and bombs. No mainland Greeks joined the struggle. Grivas was a Greek army officer but he was Cypriot, possibly the only Cypriot who served in the Greek army and reached officer status.

After independence there was involvement. And we will come to that soon, but it had more to do with keeping the lid on the perceived communist threat than on achieving Enosis.

If you keep insisting on this Megali Idea angle Zan you are missing the bigger picture.

Simply not true or the Archbishop of Cyprus would not have to take a vow on it....I don't need to make any more points on that

[zan]

TC

You are taking one spot in time and using it as an illustration. The idea is to get a clear picture of the context in which the problem started. I could just as easily choose 1958 when the first intercommunal attacks started, clearly initiated by TCs with no GC provocation and use that as the justification for every evil that befell us after that. Things are not that clear cut.

Bir is trying to get an overall picture of how we got into a mess. He can present things from his point of view, as a TC growing up during the first phase of the problem, and for me as a GC it is valuable to see things from hs perspective. There were things I had never suspected, like for instance the iron grip that the TMT had over the TC community, which I learn for the first time, and they are significant in the overall picture.

I was hoping that in this thread at least we could be more factual and less emotional, so we can gain some wider view of things.

Again simply not true........The attacks, if any, were because of ENOSIS and the killing of the Brits and the sidelining of the TCs. You cannot possibly think that any of this did not matter. I think you can only think in terms that you accuse T_C of and that is one ting at a time. Please try and relate what effects all the other events had on the one piece of history you are starting on.....