Cyprus-Forum.com

[erolz66]

What I am talking about is the general racist attitude of the German media which transfers to the German society.

And the American media and the French media and the British media and the Australian media and the Dutch media and no doubt the Spanish, Irish, Greek and Portuguese media as well, though I can not be arsed to search them out.

Yes, this is how it started with the Jews... some widespread negative stereotype against them that existed for a very long time which was later used by the Nazis. And again... I am not saying that this is just for Germans.

Shortening Portugal , Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain in an example of 'negative stereotyping' but saying 'Germans are smelly' or referring to Germans as 'Hitler's children' is not 'negative stereotyping' and you have the gall to talk about people being 'selectively sensitive about racism'

We are Cypriots and our ethnicity is Greek and this has been the case long before Turks invaded our island. There are many groups of "Cypriots who are not Greek"... Armenians, Latins, Maronites, people from around the world who have the the Cypriot citizenship etc and yet none of those groups of people would demand from the native majority to act as something different from what we truly are! Those who have such ridiculous demands are in fact not just "Cypriots who are not Greek", but Turks. So basically you are saying that your position would be different from the official Turkish position only if we were not what we are!! Thanks a lot! You are very generous

I am saying it is a fact that my personal expressed opinion on what would constitute for me an acceptable 'solution' is MASSIVELY and fundamentally different from the "official Turkish position" just as it is a fact you continue to try and argue it is not. None of your 'sophistry' above changes these facts.

[Sotos]

How am I selectively sensitive about racism? I just place things in their right proportion. Racism exists everywhere but calling Germans smelly in a forum is very low in the "scale" of racism when compared to far worst things said in mass media... and everything pales when compared to committing genocides.

Your view is not different from the official Turkish one. You just presented some irrelevant "alternative history" situation where the majority of Cypriots are not Greek. Given that we are what we truly are, and not what you would like us to be, is there any significant difference between yours and the official Turkish position?

[cypriotnado]

How am I selectively sensitive about racism? I just place things in their right proportion. Racism exists everywhere but calling Germans smelly in a forum is very low in the "scale" of racism when compared to far worst things said in mass media... and everything pales when compared to committing genocides.

Your view is not different from the official Turkish one. You just presented some irrelevant "alternative history" situation where the majority of Cypriots are not Greek. Given that we are what we truly are, and not what you would like us to be, is there any significant difference between yours and the official Turkish position?

Actually diseminating racism on line is classified as a hate crime and can be reported to the police. Check for yourself - google it. The smelly stuff comments, whilst offensive are just pre pubescent, illiterate and pathetic. However having looked back at other postings usually by the same small minority far more nasty and offensive comments have been made that clearly are hateful.

[erolz66]

How am I selectively sensitive about racism? I just place things in their right proportion. Racism exists everywhere but calling Germans smelly in a forum is very low in the "scale" of racism when compared to far worst things said in mass media... and everything pales when compared to committing genocides.

All you are actually saying, as far as I can see, is that someone like GiG can never be 'as racist', whatever views she espouses, as the 'mass media' because she can never have as much potential impact on others as the 'mass media' has. What makes a given view racist or not is NOT how many people may be affected by such a view. What makes a given view or opinion inherently racist is when you apply a negative trait to an entire group of people not because of their actual actions or behaviours but simply BEACUSE of their given nationality, ethnicity etc. I can think inside my own head, without ever expressing it to anyone else that, all French people are belligerent and smelly or that all Spanish people are lazy. Such thoughts are inherently racist in and off themselves and they are not magically made 'less racist' because I do not express them to anyone else. Also let us not pretend that the only racist (attribution of negative traits on a whole group of people BECAUSE of their nationality / ethnicity) comment here is GiG's 'Germans are smelly'. There is a consistent attribution of negative traits and behaviours on 'all Germans' based solely on the fact that they ARE German.

Your view is not different from the official Turkish one. You just presented some irrelevant "alternative history" situation where the majority of Cypriots are not Greek. Given that we are what we truly are, and not what you would like us to be, is there any significant difference between yours and the official Turkish position?

You inability to understand what I am saying never ceases to amaze me. Maybe it is me and my inability to explain it clearly, but in all honesty I doubt that given that you display the same with other posters and, such misunderstandings ALWAYS favour your 'narrative' over an opposing one.

I am NOT saying you are not Greek or that you are not free to consider yourself such should you wish too. I am saying is that the ONLY time I would ever want a right for my community in Cyprus to have an effective say in their own future in their own shared homeland beyond those that a 'ethnic minority' would typically have is if and when you communally CHOOSE to impose on my community in Cyprus something not regardless of the community you belong too but BECAUSE you consider yourself Greek rather than Cypriot. That if you choose to seek to impose something on ALL Cypriots BECAUSE you are Greek rather than despite it, then and ONLY then should my community have a separate and equal say in their own shared. Such a view is MASSIVELY and FUNDAMENTALY different from "the official Turkish position".

Yes yes I know your view is, your community represent the 'real' 'native' Cypriots and I am just a 'Turk invader' and as such my community can have and should have no separate and equal right as a community in Cyprus under any circumstances. My view is of course somewhat different to that but regardless of which view you take the claim that my opinions of what is necessary for an agreement to be reach in Cyprus is the same as "the official Turkish position" is just absurd.

[Sotos]

All you are actually saying, as far as I can see, is that someone like GiG can never be 'as racist', whatever views she espouses, as the 'mass media' because she can never have as much potential impact on others as the 'mass media' has. What makes a given view racist or not is NOT how many people may be affected by such a view.

Yes, a racist view is a racist view. But again there are degrees of severity. If I think inside my own head, without ever expressing the view "All Armenians are evil and I wish they were all dead" is a racist view, nobody is harmed. If I am the leader of an empire and I express that view publicly, millions of people get killed. I hope you can see the difference.

BECAUSE you consider yourself Greek rather than Cypriot.

There was never a dilemma of the kind "Greek rather than Cypriot" since "Greek" is our ethnicity while "Cypriot" is not an ethnicity. So your whole argument is based on a false premise. Furthermore your position is totally vague and practically impossible! Who will interpret the actions taken by a democratically elected government? Even worst... who will interpreted the REASONS of the actions taken? If it will be up to you to interpret it then in effect that translates veto right on anything.

[erolz66]

Add "Get Real" in the list of Cypriots who are not Greek Does his imaginary community of Chirokitians also have a right to a separate and equal voice as Cypriots who are not Greek? Or maybe that is a privilege only for the Turks, so that their "separate and equal voice" is on its own enough to block anything that the majority chooses. If we had several "separate and equal voices" then your "separate and equal" voice would be under 50% and you wouldn't be able to block anything on your own.

We have been over this some many times Sotos. I do not expect you to agree with my views, but I do have a, patently vain given the above, expectation that by now you can at least understand what I am saying.

For something to legitimately be an expression of a singular 'group' (peoples) there HAS to be some overriding commonality that binds and defines said group. A desire for Cypriot independence, by definition, can only ever be a legitimate expression of the will of a (unitary) Cypriot people. Choosing to seek a future where an independent Cypriot nation does not exist at all and where Cyprus is ruled not By Cypriots from Cyprus but by Greeks from Athens is different. You are free to want and desire and strive for such a future but you are not free to seek to impose such a future on a significant number of people for whom Cyprus is validly also their own (shared homeland) and for whom such a future to them would represents colonial rule in their own (shared homeland) in the NAME of a unitary Cypriot people. That is true (from my perspective) if that significant number of people for whom Cyprus is validly also their own (shared homeland) and for whom such a future to them would represents imposed colonial rule in their own (shared homeland) are 'Turks' or 'Chirokitians'. So if following the end of British rule there was a significant number of CYPRIOTS of greek ethnic background for whom enosis would have represented 'colonial rule' (Chirokitians) then yes I believe that they would have had a right to resist such an imposition on them in their own shared homeland against their will even if there were less of them than those who chose to be Greek rather than (independent) Cypriots. In fact there were such Cypriots leading up to the end of British rule, though who can know their numbers I do not know, and 'you' murdered (some) of them because for them enosis rather than Cypriot independence was just a change of colonial rule. Just as 'we' murdered (some) of those Cypriots of turkish ethnic background for whom taksim was just a change of colonial rule'.

If I was in a room with GR and say two others with the same 'Chirokitian' views, and as an individual and one without children, I would be prepared to 'risk' signing an agreement with them based on A unitary Cypriot state, with no bi-zonality, no bi-communality and no 'exceptional' clauses what so ever. If I were in a room with you and GiG and one other of similar outlook and in the face of your relentlessly telling me I am a Turk and that 'native' people who live in Cyprus are Greek and any resistance by me to having imposed on me against my will what would to me amount to change of colonial ruler in my own (shared) homeland can only be considered as part of an unbroken continuation of Ottoman / Turkish oppression of Greeks in Cyprus since 14xx whatever, then the best absolutely paired down agreement I could sign would be that I have already described to you elsewhere and countless times before. In neither scenario could it be rationally said that my views are the 'same as the official Turkish position', yet that is what your 'narrative' requires, so that you can continue to label me and define me as 'Turk' or no different from 'Turk' and claim over and over that I support the current division of Cyprus and support apartheid and ethnic cleansing and so on and so on, despite any and all evidence to the contrary.

I have no hope or dream or expectation that you would or could ever accept that my views are 'right. I do dream at times that you might one day be able to accept that actually in situations such as these there can be different perspectives of the same events of which neither is absolutely 'right' or 'wrong' but that are just different, but judging from you response to this thread / video I posted recently that is but a dream. I do however hope that one day I will not have to go round and round and round and round stating my position again and again, but even that feels a pretty vain hope most of the time.

[Get Real!]

If I were in a room with you and GiG and one other of similar outlook...

I would just shoot Oracle to put her out of her misery and as for Sotos... I would test his javascript skills and if he's not up to scratch he dies too!

[erolz66]

Yes, a racist view is a racist view. But again there are degrees of severity. If I think inside my own head, without ever expressing the view "All Armenians are evil and I wish they were all dead" is a racist view, nobody is harmed. If I am the leader of an empire and I express that view publicly, millions of people get killed. I hope you can see the difference.

Of course I accept that there is a difference in terms of the amount of potential 'harm' that could be done. What I do not accept is that because GiG expressing her racist views here patently will not affect anyone to any degree that those view are therefore 'less racist', which is what you were saying originally as far as I understood it. They are not 'less racist', they (the views publically espoused by Gig and yourself) are what they are which is inherently racist, regardless of how many people the expression of them harms others or potentially harms others.

There was never a dilemma of the kind "Greek rather than Cypriot" since "Greek" is our ethnicity while "Cypriot" is not an ethnicity. So your whole argument is based on a false premise.

Now you are playing semantics as far as I am concerned. We either choose to be Cypriot or we choose to be something other than Cypriot. If you choose to be something other than Cypriot then you can not claim than a desire from one group alone that has chosen to be something other than Cypriot can validly do so in the name of (or as an expression of the will of) a unitary Cypriot people.

Furthermore your position is totally vague and practically impossible! Who will interpret the actions taken by a democratically elected government? Even worst... who will interpreted the REASONS of the actions taken? If it will be up to you to interpret it then in effect that translates veto right on anything.

Actually it is pretty easy to determine if a 'desire' (wanted future that affects all Cypriots) is a valid expression of the will of a unitary Cypriot people regardless of the Cypriot community they belong , or if it is in fact only an expression of the will of one part of the communities that make up the Cypriot people. Can you imagine how such a determination might be made, without any need to know the reason why a given person votes the way they do ? If no then I'll explain it (once again) for you - but hey I think working it out for yourself is within you abilities ?

[Paphitis]

If I were in a room with you and GiG and one other of similar outlook...

I would just shoot Oracle to put her out of her misery and as for Sotos... I would test his javascript skills and if he's not up to scratch he dies too!

While you're doing all that, I will be at the pool anamesa the Swedezes!

[Sotos]

Being part of Greece would not be "colonial rule" since it would be something chosen democratically by the Cypriot people. Recently people in Scotland voted in favor for union (enosis) with non-Scottish people. The "yes" vote was just over 55%, far less than what it would have been in Cyprus in the 50s. Similar referendums were held in Gibraltar and Falklands. The ethnic minorities in Scotland were not asked for their separate approval. They got one vote each, like all the rest. And if you replace ethnicity with religion, something similar can be said for Northern Ireland. Cyprus is not the only place with a Greek majority and Turkish minority, or vice versa... according to your theory every island and city that had an ethnic minority of Greeks or Turks could not be part of Greece of Turkey, but should have been an independent country... the result would be 100s of island or city states, and not two countries - Greece and Turkey. We went over this before so no point in saying the same things again!