Re: Turkish 101 for all...
Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 10:46 pm
Sotos wrote:You say we were not forced, but the truth is that we were forced to be under British rule and the British denied to let us choose a post colonial future for our island in a democratic way.
I said we were not forced as Cypriots to brand other Cypriots, those in our own respective communities, as traitors and even murder such people simply because they warned of the dangers of pursuing community exclusive agendas and advocated a pan Cyprian approach to what happened after British rule. We did this.
Sotos wrote:What they did to Cyprus was a divide and rule practice that was not unique. One of the principles of this divide and rule technique is: "aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign". Germans did something similar in Rwanda: "Germany used the strategy of divide and conquer by placing members of the already dominant Tutsi minority in positions of power." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule
I am not denying that the British used divide and rule tactics in Cyprus. I am saying that those against whom such tactics are used can control the degree to which such tactics are effective by their own actions. This is as true today as it was then. A united Cyprus would have more ability to challenge and remove the British SBA's from Cyprus than a divided one.
Sotos wrote:Even if there was never any Enosis or Taksim causes, the British could have achieved the same result by promising to the TCs greater powers if they cooperated with them. The TCs aren't interested just in excluding enosis, but they are also very much interested in having as much power as possible, and they don't mind cooperating with foreign powers in order to achieve this. So it is a classic case of divide and rule in my opinion.
No I am sorry but I just do not buy this at all. Without the ideologies of enosis and taksim in Cyprus, even if the objective of the TC community was the partition of Cyprus there would have been no means by which they could have achieved this. If nothing else (and there is much else) then without enosis there would have been no coup in Cyprus in 74 and all that followed from that. However what I do not buy even more is the inherent implantation in the above claims that your average TC was inherently more greedy, evil, uncivilised or reasonable than the average GC, simply because they were TC and not GC. Just as I do not buy the same in reverse either.
Sotos wrote:Karamanlis was like our Cleredes, so pro-American that they thought that whatever the British and Americans advice was in our best interests. He is the one who said "Greece belongs to the West". Still, it is one thing to threaten "I will stop supporting you" and a whole another thing to threaten "I will ethnically cleanse you".
Sorry but I think you are just trying to believe 'Greece was not making threats against Makarios' in the same way Britain was, not because of actual evidence but despite it. Greece used the threat that was most credible and in many ways one that was more credible than those the British were using. Greece did not threaten to impose partition in Cyprus because such a threat had no credibility. Threatening to withdraw it support for Cyprus, in the face of British threats to impose recognised partition in Cyprus was a threat to 'allow others to ethnic cleanse you and we will stand by and do nothing' to put it in your own emotive terms.