Cyprus-Forum.com

[boulio]

checks and balances ofcourse,but not blockage for your own political agenda.

[Kifeas]

By staying poor? Or by depending on others? When exactly did your community ever struggled and succeeded? Do you have a precedence? All your struggles so far ended at abandoning the place....

Do you really expect that any TC will read your post and not get offended? What's the point of posting if you're not trying to communicate?

It is true MicAtCyp. The general tone of your posting was very aggressive and downgrading. It makes people act defensively and any possible essence in your message not to be taken into consideration.[/quote]

[erolz]

Come on TCs wake up do we really want or need a solution with people like this????Knowing people like this exist in the south sends chills down my back bone they would use the guns stored in their homes to shoot us in an instant and without a second thought, majority rule. Frightening thought.

and in this general spirit of 'fair critisim' - MicAtCypr post says nothing about using violence against TC. Also if you read what he posted in the section he quotes he says he say we have to accept we are a _numerical_ minority and off course we have to accpet this because it is ture. You highlight the 'indivdual' bit of his post but he also says "It doesn’t mean as a group will have less rights".

Both sides can continue trying to use passion and one sided perspectives as their guide or we can try and use logic and common sense and empathy. I know which appraoch I think is the most constructive - for all Cypriots.

[Viewpoint]

erolz the whole tone of his post was insulting and confrims what GCs think about us and that we should be put in our place as a minority in a GC dominated Cyprus.
You are obviously more calm in your approach but I love my people and cannot stand being insulted however concealed the inuendos are, I still havent gotten over the fact that many GCs keep weapons in their homes, arent these seeds of aggression??? against us...

[-mikkie2-]

erolz the whole tone of his post was insulting and confrims what GCs think about us and that we should be put in our place as a minority in a GC dominated Cyprus.
You are obviously more calm in your approach but I love my people and cannot stand being insulted however concealed the inuendos are, I still havent gotten over the fact that many GCs keep weapons in their homes, arent these seeds of aggression??? against us...

What a load of balloney. Are you a man or a mouse? Someone strongly argues some points and you call that insulting? Is there no end to the number of egg shells you scatter in front of yourself that we must not break? As to weapons in homes, this point was argued before and very valid reasons for it were given as well as the very strict rules that govern their use. All I can say to you is grow up and use logical arguments.

MicAtCyp made some very valid points and he did show that it is possible to have political equality (in the sense that Kifeas described) without having to strangle the rights of a majority. And that does not necessarily mean the GC's - I'm sure that there would be particular issues where many TC's and GC's would commonly agree and disagree and thus collectively constitute a majority.

[erolz]

erolz the whole tone of his post was insulting

I too found some elements of the post insulting (to TC in general - not to me as an indivdual). If no one else had laready poinmted this out I may well have commented on it myself. Certainly I have had my 'run ins' with MicAtCyp in the past. However responding with the heart first and the head second and in a 'tit for tat' style is almost a Cypriot disease and one that has only aggrevated the problems we have had and continue to have. I struggle (and frequently fail) to not fall victim to this disease because I believe if people on both sides do not do this then we are all doomed.

and confrims what GCs think about us and that we should be put in our place as a minority in a GC dominated Cyprus.

Look I totaly understand and sympathise with how you reach this conclusion from the post. However being as totaly dispassionate about it as is possible for me - no where in his post does MicAtCyp actualy (explicitly) say this (imo at least).

You are obviously more calm in your approach

I do not consider myself any more clam, or any more anything than other people. I can respond from my heart, with anger and with an insticitive reaction more based on my own interpretation as the next guy. I just think we should all try and avoid doing this as much as we can. I welcome people 'pulling me up' for such responses and hope that they same is true in reverse?

but I love my people

I too consider that I love my people as well as love people in general. Love takes many forms and people do not need to express it in the same wayfor it to be equally valid imo.

and cannot stand being insulted however concealed the inuendos are

I guess I take a 'Gahndian' approach to how you can create a _chance_ of defeating agression and hatred. Such a philosophy claims that hatered can only be overcome by love - hatred can not be overcome by hatred. Not an easy philosophy to practice as to say but one that is very close to my personal beliefs.

, I still havent gotten over the fact that many GCs keep weapons in their homes, arent these seeds of aggression??? against us...

Actually I was totaly aware of this fact before it 'came to light' in the forum. There was actually several new articles a few months ago about a GC stopped at the border because he had a gun or bullets in the boot of his car - which I believe was the car owners (his son or nephew?) reservist weapon or amunition. Thus the 'revelation' did not come as such a great shock to me. At the end of the day I place more importance on if there is a GC willingness and desire to use thses weapons that their actual existance. I am not 'happy' about them but then neither am I that happy about the number of Turkisg and TC guns there are in Cyprus either. I accept there is a difference between guns held by the military and guns held by citizens in their homes and certainly am a sensative to this given the history of Cyprus (an my own familys history as well with a relative killes by brutal thugs no doubt using guns that they should never have been in posseion of). I do accept however that is possible for a GC to have to have a gun in their home but not wish to kill TC or subjegate TC. At the end of the day it is the person behind the gun that is my real concern and not the gun itself. I consider myself a pacifist. I claim close to refusing to even hold an (unloaded) weapon during my two weeks military serivce - but in reality 'bottled out' in the end (though I did manage to avoid having to shoot it). If I were of GC desent and had chosen to live in the RoC no doubt I would also have a gun in my home - as those are the 'rules' there and if I chose tio live ther I must accept the rules (much as I had to accept - with difficulty my brief national serive in the North). Yes I understand that you consider the 'rule' itself an indication of a general GC attitude that scares you. Personaly I find myself less dogmatic on this issue. Certainly after any solution I would expect these guns to be removed from peoples homes.

[erolz]

MicAtCyp made some very valid points and

Yes he did make some valid points but he did also (imo and the opinion of others) make some very insulting remarks - mainly the ones refering to TC having never struggled or suffered for anything. For TC our entire existance as something other than a political minority in Cyprus - our homeland - has been a struggle and resulted in much suffering some of which continues to this day.

We must all try and put 'logic' before our knee jerk reaction to defend anything said by 'our side'. It some ways your post to me mikke, whilst containg some valid points, does this too a degree itself whilst you accuse viewpoint of the very same thing.

he did show that it is possible to have political equality (in the sense that Kifeas described) without having to strangle the rights of a majority.

If this has been shown then I have yet to see it and understand it. If some way can be found that provides the TC community with the (valid) need to have some form of political parity with the GC community that does not require any compromise from GC as individuals or as a community then no one would be happier than me or more willing to 'sieze' such an ooportuinty. I would suggest that if this was 'easy' to achieve it would have been achieved many years ago.

And that does not necessarily mean the GC's - I'm sure that there would be particular issues where many TC's and GC's would commonly agree and disagree and thus collectively constitute a majority.

Undoubtedly this is true imo - but the problem comes when it is not ture and remians a problem even if it an 'exception' senario and not the 'general' one.

[Viewpoint]

erolz you are far to tollerant just check the post before yours by -mikkie2-the aggression in the tone and belittiling attitude is a prime example of why I sometimes do respond from the heart rather than concentrating on arguements. But unfortunately this is something we all do.
It is clear from the posts that many not all GCs cannot tollerate us and the idea of having to share political equality, we are constantly referred to as thieves rapist and murders, this does nothing towards building bridges, I can not longer see the point of constantly arguing with a stone wall of attitudes which take us absoulutely nowhere.
We appear to be an inconvenience for GCs and are belittled in such a manner that I personally find difficult to swallow, this makes me retreat and the desire to associate with them goes right out of the window. Why force a marriage between the 2 communities which do not have any attraction towards each other???


-mikkie2-

Are you a man or a mouse?

Last time i checked the signs were man

[erolz]

It is clear from the posts that many not all GCs cannot tollerate us and the idea of having to share political equality, we are constantly referred to as thieves rapist and murders, this does nothing towards building bridges, I can not longer see the point of constantly arguing with a stone wall of attitudes which take us absoulutely nowhere.
We appear to be an inconvenience for GCs and are belittled in such a manner that I personally find difficult to swallow, this makes me retreat and the desire to associate with them goes right out of the window. Why force a marriage between the 2 communities which do not have any attraction towards each other???

I understand what you are saying and I believe this is the case for some GC. I am just not yet convinced it is the case for the majority of GC. This is of course a matter of 'faith' itself but I do believe that actualy there is a large majority on both sides that not only can lived togeather but really want to live togeather if a suitable frame work can be found. It seems possible to me that these people on both sides are less vocal than the 'extremists' are. I have no proof of this of course. It takes many to 'build' and few to 'destroy' imo. Thus the 'destroyers' always have an advantage of numbers. That does not mean I am willing to accept that destruction is ineviable or the only possible future for us - to me it just means that those who want to 'build' have to work harder than those that wish to 'destroy' to make up for the imbalance.

[-mikkie2-]

For TC our entire existance as something other than a political minority in Cyprus - our homeland - has been a struggle and resulted in much suffering some of which continues to this day.

And it is the same for GC's also. However, I don't get 'insulted' when people like Insan keep peddling conspiracy theories and demeaning my points of view, I just get even! As I have said before, if we constantly have to tread on eggshells then we will get knowhere. If someone says something that insults at the slightest then how can we move forward? I have to say that sometimes things are blown out of all proportion.

I think from Kifeas and MicAtCyp's post, they say that seperate majorities to pass laws common to the federal state is ok, even if senate is split 25/75 TC/GC. This is political equality is it not? He also qualified that if common agreement is not reached then the law is scraped. What is the issue regarding resorting to the Supreme Court? The issue is irrelevant because separate majorities would be required anyway to pass a law. The Supreme Court would only get involved when a law that has been passed by seperate majorities would be contested. It would not get involved in contesting a law that was not passed!

The point also being made is that a future united Cyprus must be a state of LAW and the LAW must be unpheld above all else. How the law is arrived at is down to mechanisms as described above and bounded by resposnibilities that we must uphold as members of the EU.