Cyprus-Forum.com

[T_C]

"Mesmerised"

Is that a indirect way of saying BRAINWASHED??

[Natty]

This thread is really fascinating reading, thank you Bir for starting it..

Nikitas I'm interested to know what your opinion is of Makarios?

[zan]

Bir has started a thread that despite the usual slanging is bringing to the fore some useful insights.

One such insight is the difference between the two community leaders, Makarios and Denktash. Maybe I am slow and dumb, but it crossed my mind that Makarios was the type of man who mesmerised his followers. Denktash was the type of leader who manipulate and controlled his people with an iron fist. The planted bomb at the Information Bureau, after the preparations were made for a riot, a scene already tried in Istanbul. The use of the TMT, the fines on TCs who spoke Greek, the change of place names to prove that there was a "historic footprint" in Cyprus.

And to put it another way, the GCs are people who let themselves be mesmerised and the TCs let themselves be manipulated or forced. It is not flattering for either one.

And taking ENOSIS out of the equation or downgrading it as you seem to want to do will bring about what you said there. The Akritas plan states clearly that the reaction from the TCs could be violent but the GCs must not be seen to be the persecutors of the TCs. The game that was being played had to be reacted against. IF the bomb was put here by Denktas then it was to counter the effects of the Akritas Plan. Everything has a reason and you seem to be content in finding only the GC friendly version of events.

[Viewpoint]

VP, those agreements gave you things like 30% of the government civil servants positions and many other unfair gains on our loss which not only have nothing to do with your "protection from the evil GCs" but on the contrary they were clear racist discriminations against us.

The British and Turks ruled Cyprus with brute force and no democracy, no human rights and against the will of the great majority of Cypriots for centuries. It is clear that they never cared about democracy and human rights in Cyprus. The only ones who cared about those things were the Cypriot people who have been oppressed by them. Instead of allowing the Cypriot people to finally have the democracy and human rights which have been denied to us for centuries, they again found some lame excuse to deny them from us, because they were the "Good ones" and we were the "Bad ones" because we dared to demand our freedom and our rights.

Piratis, you still miss the point all together as it does not suit your blinkered vision. Due to your own mistakes only a consititution like the one in 1960 and again proposed in 2004 would create a structure to counter you actions and prevent you turning Cyprus into a Greek island. Cant you see that showing a lack of understanding and reconciliation as you continue to do so even today which the EU will only tollerate so far, will keep producing plans that will not suit your goal of total dominance of the whole island. Everyone is aware of your ultimate goal and our concerns, they have done nothing to help you todate as they do not feel you are 100% innocent in the creation of this problem, which you have sold to the EU who has turned the other cheek and told you to go to the door of the UN.

[Viewpoint]

Piratis

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.

How would you achieve this with a 80% 20% imbalance? Do you really believe what you say?

[Piratis]

Piratis, you still miss the point all together as it does not suit your blinkered vision. Due to your own mistakes only a consititution like the one in 1960 and again proposed in 2004 would create a structure to counter you actions and prevent you turning Cyprus into a Greek island.

So you butchering us by the 10s of thousands and oppressing us for centuries was not a mistake, but we had to be punished because we asked for our freedom?

Cyprus is a Hellenic island and this is a historical fact. What I am talking about is ensuring that Cyprus would not be part of the Greek state but an independent state instead.

How would you achieve this with a 80% 20% imbalance? Do you really believe what you say?

I talked about the valid fears that you could have and those fears could be removed by Cyprus becoming independent instead of being part of Greece. We sacrificed our right to make this compromise so that we could have somehting which would be acceptable to more Cypriots.

However on top of those valid fears you later added a ton of demands which had nothing to do with your security but rather were unfair and undemocratic gains on the loss of the rest of Cypriots.

We, the majority of Greek Cypriots, were willing to compromise one legitimate option (integration with Greece) and replace it with another (independence) in order to have a result that would be more widely acceptable, but this doesn't mean we were willing to sacrifice our human and democratic rights because you and the British wanted to screw us.

[Nikitas]

"IF the bomb was put here by Denktas then it was to counter the effects of the Akritas Plan."

Zan, the bomb in the Information Bureau was placed in 1958, the Akritas plan was formulated years later.

The plan to look for here is the KIP plan, the plan to regain Cyprus formulated by the Turkish General Staff. Greece did not have a coherent Cyprus policy until after 1960 when the American pushed for control of the GC community alarmed by the existence of a large communist party.

[denizaksulu]

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.

Nikitas, so far you seem to be a fair person. BK has mentioned one incident involving the TMT, and you take this ONE incident as an 'iron grip over the TC community? Where is the sense of proportion here?

[Nikitas]

Natty said:

"This thread is really fascinating reading, thank you Bir for starting it..

Nikitas I'm interested to know what your opinion is of Makarios?"

Yes, thank you Bir.

I am afraid my opinion of Makarios is not flattering to the man. He was first and foremost a priest, and not just any priest but a monk, with the characteristics that the job entails- self denial, self discipline, deep belief in the divine order and I suspect a belief in his divine destiny which was to unite Cyprus with Greece.

Makarios failed to respect the state of Cyprus. Sounds odd, but the evidence is there and I am not referring to the oft quoted speeches about Enosis that TC members like to quote. desire for Enosis does not preclude respect for your state. Details like handing over control of the National Guard to Greek officers, are a sign of lack of respect for the state.

Failing to understand the way in which states in general function and plan their course is the Makarios way. He could not perceive that Turkey is a state with long standing policies that were put in place years before and would be pursued for years to come, the same goes for the UK, the USA and Greece. He could not understand that you cannot counter such national policies with faith in the justice of your cause alone. Nor could he accept that Greece might have malevolent intentions towards Cyprus.

He did not understand military power either. The combination of these two traits are embodied in the orders given to the Tactical Reserve Force who were keeping an eye on the mainland Greek officers in 1974. They were withdrawn every morning at 6. He could not understand that tanks can be started and driven after 6 am! Nor did he believe that Greece would move against him when he challenged them with that letter of his asking for the officers to be recalled. He did not see Greece as a state with its own plans for Cyprus and for him.

He was incapable of accepting rejection. There is a book by his confidential secretary which was briefly circulated and then withdrawn. She describes how he pitied politicians who had to fight close elections. He was happy to enter elections where his share would be crushing. Had there been a candidate who could really rival him the chances are that Makarios would have withdrawn from politics.

On the plus side there is no doubt that he loved GCs and did a lot for them. I remember life before 1960 when most GCs were subsistence farmers and lived a hand to mouth existence. It was Makarios and the ministers he chose who encouraged cash crop farming and established an efficient administration that returned a lot of benefits to the people. But he loved GCs, there was not equal care for the benefits to TCs, not even during the 1967-73 period. Had there been equivalent steps to encourage TC prosperity in those years things might be different today.

Personally I find this attitude to the TCs baffling for a man of God and twice as confusing for a Cypriot. You would think that he would find the economic plight of the TCs, a considerable part of the Cypriot population, embarassing at least. Instead the hardship was used as a means to pressure the TCs and thus made them pay for the hardline tactics used by Denktash. Which brings us back to his inability to understand the function of a state. He was more a tribal leader than a president.

And no, I did not support Grivas as the alternative to Makarios.

[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.

Interesting Deniz. Take a look at this site:-

http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514277511/ ... 277511.pdf

I have only glanced at it but it looks very interesting. Details about the history of Cyprus, there's reams of it.

Thanks Jerry, I will finish reading this link later. Looks interesting. Doubtless the TC nationalism might have began earlier, it would have spread to the outlying villages at a later date. When listening to these narratives I was not taking 'contemporary notes', as I said.