Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nikephoros]

Get Real!, there are no such things as Cypriot Cypriots despite your own internal stupidity. This false identity was invented after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus by leftist "intellectuals" trying to hide their past blunders.

[cypezokyli]

Get Real!, there are no such things as Cypriot Cypriots despite your own internal stupidity. This false identity was invented after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus by leftist "intellectuals" trying to hide their past blunders.

even if we assume that you are right that the cypriot left invented the term cypriot , what you dont understand is the following.
what gave them the right to say that, was the selling out of cyprus by our "right". had the ex-eoka members did not fight between them, and as a concequence causing the turkish invation, the leftist would have stayed in the margin they were in the pre-74 times. what brought them out of the margin, was precisely the catastrophic concequences of the actions of the right

and not only that.... the catastrophic concequences of 74, were the ones that forced the right to accept the term cypriot as well

[Get Real!]

Get Real!, there are no such things as Cypriot Cypriots despite your own internal stupidity. This false identity was invented after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus by leftist "intellectuals" trying to hide their past blunders.

The ancient Cypriot civilization was always there for anyone who cared to see and appreciate it.

Right up to the Turkish invasion Cypriots were never allowed to open their eyes and see for themselves what a rich and ancient inheritance they had and instead were kept busy with other country’s history and culture!

Foolish xenomaniacs (if I may invent a phrase) like George Grivas were hell-bent on undermining their own country and elevate Greece without ever questioning their actions due to their lack of education. They knew no better… Cyprus was under an evil Greek spell that could lead to nothing but disaster.

What makes you think that a bunch of contemporary people from the left, or the right for that matter who probably never even opened a book in their lives, can determine whether or not the rich millennium-old history of Cyprus is valid or not?

Who are you or anyone else to tell the millions of people that walked the island of Cyprus before us that they did not exist and that they are null and void???

You are nothing but a mere speck in time passing through so start showing a little respect for the ancestors of Cyprus before I run you over with my virtual steam-roller... now get lost!

[humanist]

your treading on egg shells Get real ........ don't upset Nikephoros by insisting you are Cypriot ..... we may have a Greek invasion for the other half of the Island and then we're fucked LOL Nikephoros you can't make Cypriots say they are Greek if that is not what they feel and identfy with.

[Nikephoros]

The most methodical formulation of the Cypriotist ideology that developed in the first post-1974 years was provided by the New Cyprus Association, an organization which was founded in March 1975, with the aim of promoting and safeguarding Cypriot independence. The Association's founding was an explicit reaction to the events of 1974, an attempt to create an atmosphere in which the mistakes that led to 1974 could not possibly be repeated. The Neocypriots proclaimed that it was high time to formulate 'the lessons that must be drawn out of the fires of Pentadaktylos', referring to the northern mountain range of Cyprus which was the site of intense fighting during the Turkish invasion (The New Cyprus Association 1975). The prevailing mood of the people who set up the Association becomes deal in their official Declaration:

Now that the tears are dry, now that the anger and despair have gone we must think: We have been happy, we have been honest, tolerant and liberal. We had been leading a serene and carefree existence and we were silent. Now we are paying for our silence. We, the silent majority. must search our mind and our conscience so that we can realize the sudden awakening of the seven days. Our children and the coming generations expect us to act so that they will not find themselves in the same position as ours (The New Cyprus Association, 1975).

Given the division of the island in 1974 - and its undeniable connection to Greek-Cypriot nationalism - it is probably true that in the immediate post-1974 years the New Cyprus Association indeed expressed the prevailing Greek-Cypriot sentiments. The Association's foremost political priority was to ensure that this 'majority' was never again to remain silent, as it had remained when the Republic of Cyprus was being under mined by nationalist extremists and the Greek junta.

The New Cyprus Association (1975) had no intention to 'deny ethnic origins and cultural links' and made it clear that 'we cannot forget our national descent'. It stressed, however, that the inhabitants of Cyprus 'must as a people consider themselves as Cypriots first and foremost and then as Greeks, Turks, or others'. And this, precisely because 'the most significant cause of our present predicament is that the two major communities were living in air-tight separateness without contact and with the wrong conceptions about each other - and that a significant cause for this has been the separate orientations and organization of Cyprus society, and the wrong slogans'. For the Neocypriots,

the danger of the partition of Cyprus or the dissolution of our state ii imminent and the responsibility for preventing this belongs mainly to us the Cypriots and no country outside Cyprus can help effectively either because it has not the power or because its interests are not always identified with ours.

In the Association's view, ethnic separation must be overcome through 'the rapprochement and continuous cultivation of understanding between the two communities so that our common features will be fully realized and emphasized and our differences confined and alleviated' (The New Cyprus Association, 1975).

Despite the small size of the Association, the Neocypriots played a prominent role in pressuring the official Greek-Cypriot leadership to denationalize the Republic of Cyprus and to assume an explicit policy of independence (Peristianis 1995). Its members were mostly intellectuals and professionals from the educated elite of the island, especially those who had studied in Europe or North America. It is interesting to note that people who belong to the Association are eager to confess that the fact that they received their education in countries other than Greece has changed their perspective considerably, enabling them to understand the importance of interethnic communication in a multicultural society. It must, of course, be pointed out that this mostly Anglo-Saxon-educated elite has definite vested interests in Cypriot independence and especially the state apparatus that developed after 1960 out of the British colonial administrative structures.

Whereas the members of the Association were drawn mostly from the broader political left and centre, the organization made a conscious effort to stay above party politics. It presented itself not as a new political party, but, rather, as a pressure group intending to gain support from a broad ideological spectrum, excluding, of course, the radical nationalist elements. The Association was relatively successful in keeping a distance from all political parties, thus managing to attract people who belonged to the traditional right. Given that the Greek-Cypriot disaster of 1974 was also a failure of democracy, the Association stressed the importance of safeguarding the democratic process. The adoption of democratic principles in all aspects of our political life and the strict adherence to them', it is stated in the Association's official declaration (1975), 'is an indispensable prerequisite for the correct evolution of our society'.

http://www.cyprus-conflict.net/www.cypr ... atsas.html

The Cypriot Cypriot false identity was invented after 1974 by these ideological gangsters:
http://www.newcyprusassociation.org.cy/

[bigOz]

Nikephoros, your quote is flawed and not in line with reality. That is not unusual lopoking at the source of the quote.

Let me explain to you that both Greek and Turkish left in Cyprus accepted and preached a "Cypriot" identity loing before 1974 invasion. If you check the annals of Southgate Technical College in London, you will find the existence of a Cypriot Society made up of dozens of TCs and GCs studying at the same college. There was also IKTOF, which was also UK TC student federation with hundreds of (leftist) members, who also insisted on being called a "Cypriot" and not TCs. Not becaue they denied their Turkish ethnic identity but they believed they were members of a different set uo and justifiably Cypriots first.

The views of the left and in fact Makarios were not different pre-1974 either. In fact the very "Cypriot" identity Makarios claimed for after having a change of heart and giving up on ENOSIS was the very reason EOKA nd Greek junta toppled him. Please lets get our facts right before such futile allegations!

[cypezokyli]

nikipfore, if i were you i wouldnt quote mavratsas work....

[Nikephoros]

If the left supported a Cypriot Cypriot identity it should be easy to prove in a way that is easier to verify than what students at Southgate did. Even if a small group in Southgate felt they were Cypriot sans adjectives does not mean in Cyprus there was such a movement.

[cypezokyli]

besides as the article sais, seeds of cypriotism existed already from before :

From the 1920s to the 1940s elements of Cypriotism can be found in declarations of the Cypriot Communist Party [KKK], which later became transformed into AKEL, and the newspapers (Torch) and New Man affiliated with the left. For the early Cypriot communists, the explicit rejection of Greek-Cypriot nationalism emanated from Marxist ideology and its internationalist stress on the primacy of the class struggle; in this view, nationalism was an instance of false consciousness, simply an ideology solidifying the dominance of the bourgeoisie, and the working classes of the two communities ought to unite and promote their common interests. In the 1940s Cypriotism was passionately expressed by the communist mayor of Famagusta, A. Adamantos, and other leftists, the most eminent of whom were P. Servas and F. Ioannou, who distanced themselves from AKEL on the ground of its shift to a pro-enosis stance. Along with the communist version of Cypriotism, however, there was also a liberal modernist Cypriotism, expressed mainly by N. Lanitis, one of the leading industrialists of the island, who had founded the Party of Progress in the 1940s. Lanitis's (1963, p. 7) views centred on the idea that the cooperation between the two communities is the sine qua non for modernization and economic development and, more generally, 'progress'. Lanitis (1963, p. maintained that 'union and only union was essentially a negative policy' and urged the Greek- Cypriots 'to apply self-restraint in (their) nationalist aspirations' and to honour their signature on the London-Zurich agreement. Despite the latter's limitations, Lanitis (1963, pp. 6-8) writes, the agreement 'is as good as the men who apply if and it is primarily the Greek-Cypriot majority's responsibility 'to gain the confidence of the Turks'

[Nikephoros]

So like the great Soviet and Yugoslav peoples the great Cypriot people was presaged by rigid authoritarian Marxists on Cyprus, the Communist party. I am sure you should be comfortable knowing what happened to alot of the other now extinct Marxist inspired fake ethnicities.