by Damsi » Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:26 pm
Comment - Nicholas Lanitis: A man of vision, principle and charm
(archive article - Sunday, January 16, 2005)
“OUR society is sick; suffering from the tumour of intercommunal strife. What I proposed was not a sweet – the sort of thing all too often offered to the public by people in politics – but a medicine; and people do not like medicines. The present cleavage will sooner or later turn into actual hate… the result will be open conflict…”
These words were written by Nicholas C Lanitis in 1963 in the appendix to his booklet Our Destiny, a compilation of articles first published in the Cyprus Mail in March of that year. His words were to become prophetic with the outbreak of hostilities between Greek and Turkish Cypriots at the end of 1963, but few if any were listening.
Nicholas C Lanitis, businessman, author, idealist and family man passed away a week ago at the age of 87, 10 days after returning to Cyprus as was his last wish. The words he wrote 42 years go are just as relevant today to the country he loved but exiled himself from for 34 years.
Our Destiny, he wrote, was intended for those who loved Cyprus and were interested in the welfare of its people. It attempted, he said, to give a solution for bridging the gap that existed between the two communities, but “above all” to imbue to all Cypriots holding positions of responsibility with “a spirit… of true love for all Cypriots, irrespective of race or creed, which are so important in bringing about a solution to the problems at issue”.
“This for him was what it was all about,” said his daughter Evie Lanitis. “He had a tremendous love for is country and its people. Everything that comes through to me is the total love he had for his country. That was really deep inside of him”
Lanitis was born in Limassol in 1917. He was educated in Limassol and was a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in the government, as Deputy Controller of Supplies in 1941 and 1942, and submitted a number of reports on the economic problems that faced Cyprus during World War II, before founding his own company, Lanitis Brothers, in 1943, of which he remained chairman until he retired in 2001.
The company began by producing essential oils and later moved on to concentrated fruit juice and then brought Coca Cola to Cyprus.
In 1944 he published Rural Indebtedness and Agricultural Cooperation in Cyprus. Other subsequent publications included A Question of Money and Trade Unionism and the Provision of Social Services in Cyprus. He also published a large number of newspaper articles, and was the founder and first chairman of the Employers and Industrialists Federation, and the Cyprus Productivity Centre.
In the 1944 book, Lanitis said: “The true and most valuable type of entrepreneur is the one who despises subsidies and protection and is opposed to interference from above. He is also keen on solving his problems by himself and likes to be left alone. In so doing, he helps others and contributes to a great extent to the strength of the economy as a whole.”
Evie said this essentially summed up her father’s approach to business, which did not at the time ‘fit’ with the way things were done in Cyprus.
According to Andreas Mavroyiannis, Cyprus’ ambassador to the UN, who was a very close friend, the way the economy was run in Cyprus was not close to Lanitis’ philosophy, so he left Cyprus in 1970 and went to live in Greece. In 1980, he moved to Andorra.
Mavroyiannis said it was in Andorra that he first met Lanitis in 1999, when he was ambassador to France. The two became close friends.
“I had known about him since I was a student through his book on rural development, which for me was a landmark book at the time when it was written,” he said.
“Immediately we discovered we had an exceptional chemistry and we had a very deep and profound relationship, which lasted throughout the years I was ambassador to France, and concurrently to Andorra, and even until now, until his death.”
Mavroyiannis described Lanitis as one of his best friends and “one of the most prominent Cypriots of all time”.
What made him move from Cyprus and go to Andorra was his approach to the market economy and capitalism and how the state should behave towards investors, he said.
“He found the environment in Cyprus was not the right one for him and Andorra was closer to his approach and conception. It was ideological and he never changed his view of this.”
Evie said that during a brief visit to the island around three years ago Lanitis had been was asked by a local banker if he thought things had improved in his opinion. “Hoping he was going to get a raving reply, he shook his head in
dismay ‘stagnant’, he said. To the point. He couldn’t stand liars”
Despite his absence, Mavroyiannis said Lanitis still held a deep knowledge of everything that was going on in Cyprus.
“He was a very charming person. I had a very, very high respect for him as a man who put everything at the service of his ideas. One should always respect this approach to life and I think he paid a high price in order to be there. He was away from his children, his family and friends but still because of his firm beliefs, until the end of his life, he continued to try and have a way of life that was closer to his ideal,” the ambassador said.
“He was a visionary and a very deep personality. Certainly he was missing Cyprus and he loved Cyprus.”
Evie said she believed he also chose Andorra because he loved the mountains and he loved skiing. “He was very well respected and loved in Andorra,” she said.
She said that when her father was ill last year, the president of Andorra visited him and said to the doctors: “It’s people like Mr Lanitis that we want in Andorra.”
Speaking of Lanitis as a person and a father Evie said he used to have a motorbike and a pilot’s licence. “He was the first person to water ski in Limassol on planks of wood pulled by a boat driven by his cousin,” she said.
“He always brought us around to see Cyprus, to all the castles. He really wanted to share his love for the island. Every year he would take us overseas to see something different and he never held us back, and always encouraged us to try new things. He always wanted us to speak languages. He spoke Greek, English, and French like a native. He took us to Paris when I was 12 and took us to see Some Like it Hot and the next night to the opera to see Madame Butterfly. He really exposed us to so many things and insisted we all go to university at a time when girls were not encouraged to go.”
Every week throughout seven years at boarding school and four years at college, he wrote letters to them.
“He was also a fantastic dancer and taught us to dance the Charleston. He was full of fun and the life of the party when he was younger, his friends said. He was very thoughtful and a free spirit and when he was happy he would sign and hum. In Nicosia he would always walk to the factory and was a regular character in the capital.”
She said however that he was also a disciplinarian with a great regard for detail and a great admiration for ancient Greek philosophers.
“I was the first person to go to work at the factory and he used to say ‘you must be the first person at the factory at 6am and you must be the last person to leave at 10pm’. It was a hard act to follow, so when I asked him about it he said: ‘You’re giving encouragement to the people at work and you show respect for them’. He was a very low profile man, including with all the financial support he gave, and he gave a lot, very quietly.”
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