Cyprus-Forum.com

[Pyrpolizer]

was in that context that I tried to dismiss any effort to come up with a DNA or blood test of indigeneity.

I think you misunderstood what was said. Reference to DNA matching (at least by me) was not made to back up indigeneity, but to back up the concept of Cypriotness as it stands today.

[zan]

was in that context that I tried to dismiss any effort to come up with a DNA or blood test of indigeneity.

I think you misunderstood what was said. Reference to DNA matching (at least by me) was not made to back up indigeneity, but to back up the concept of Cypriotness as it stands today.

Wasn't there talk of tweaking the Genes on pigs which made them perfect doners for human transplants?

[Pyrpolizer]

was in that context that I tried to dismiss any effort to come up with a DNA or blood test of indigeneity.

I think you misunderstood what was said. Reference to DNA matching (at least by me) was not made to back up indigeneity, but to back up the concept of Cypriotness as it stands today.

Wasn't there talk of tweaking the Genes on pigs which made them perfect doners for human transplants?

Which made them??? Are you sure?

The talk was about a team of researchers who got this weird idea, just because the organs of pigs are of similar size to humans, and for some other reasons.
I am sure you know how successful they have been so far.

[Get Real!]

Why have some of you invented “indigeneity”? Ever heard of indigenousness?

[CopperLine]

A doubtless incomplete and partial effort on my part to respond to some comments and clarify some points -

1. GetReal

Indigenity - a recognised term, first recorded use in English according to OED was 1895.
Indigenousness - also a recognised term, first recorded use in English according to OED was 1846.

Both refer to the quality of being indigenous or native. Either term can be used, I prefer the former - it is easier to pronounce.

2. Pyrpolizer,

I think that I did misunderstand you and stand corrected. My argument was that genetics can't establish indigenity, and so concur with your last posting. On your other point about DNA and organ matching, in broad terms I agree with your point about probabilities of being able to match amongst, let's say, a long established relatively homogenous population. I just don't know enough about genetics and organ matching to say anything else !

3. Piratis

a)

The fact that we are native to Cyprus is undisputed.

No, that's the problem, it is disputed by many people, for many different and not necessarily consistent reasons. What is sauce for the GC goose is also sauce for the TC gander.

b) Where are your quotes from about the history of GCs and TCs ?

c) The quotation about Greek history shifts the criteria of identity from language to script, to manufacturing techniques, to culture, amongst others. Notwithstanding some recent postings on the tautology of calling something Hellenic Greek, there is massive historical dispute about the meaning of Hellenism and Hellenic culture. The quotatio about Turkish history basically uses two criteria of identity one ethnic/racial and the other imperial house/family rule.

d)

if they show that they are Cypriots, not just in terms of current location, but in terms of origin as well.

There is basic logical fallacy with your argument as expressed by the 'grandfather's hammer' story and Heraclitus' river water problem.

e)

Greeks are as indigenous to Cyprus as they are in Athens or Crete. If you claim that Greeks are not indigenous to Cyprus then you should also say that Greeks are not indigenous to Greece, Spanish to Spain, French to France and Chinese to China.

Exactly !!! Not my posting I know, but that is what I would claim with regards Greece, Spain, France and China. In another island, Great Britain, which has had fewer invasions than Cyprus, the last 'successful' one being in 1066, it is next to impossible to establish indiginity - a handful of families claim that they can trace back, irrespective of the problem of intermarriage, to the pre-Norman conquest period. If you are looking for an indigenous English person according to this criteria there effectively aren't any. Do people have any difficulty in asserting their Englishness or Britishness just because they can't establish their indigenous credentials ? No. Only the racist and fascist BNP have a problem with this. Same goes for the FN in France.

4. Kifeas

bigOz, you are free to call a whore-house, [...etc, etc ad nauseam]

What is the point of your obscenities ? I find it utterly offensive to have to read such language. There's nothing I can do about it, but as a newish member of this forum I'm astonished at the apparent lack of action by Moderators. I've participated in many Fora but have never encountered such offensive treatment of fellow participants as I've read in some of the threads here. Or is this an example of a past glorious Hellenic or Turkish culture that we should be defending to the death ? If we descend to the gutter and use the language of the gutter there's no chance we'll ever climb out of that gutter.

Might be worth throwing in some higher standard and inspiration here rather than end with despair - here's the first line of the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, (with my emphasis added) by which we could try and post to each other by :

... recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

[Kifeas]

Back to the topic of indigenous peoples!

Only an illiterate or a purely shameless and audacious person can possibly claim that the people of Cyprus, especially the Greek speaking majority, cannot as a cultural entity be regarded as an indigenous society of Cyprus! By most ways and measures, even the Turkish speaking community of Cyprus can also be regarded as an indigenous society, after 400 years of uninterrupted existence in this country -set aside the nearly 4,000 years of uninterrupted Greek Cypriot existence in all the parts and corners of Cyprus!

Even if one wants to claim that the Hellenic cultural elements of the Greek Cypriot society were once imported from elsewhere, still this doesn’t make the GC society a non-indigenous to Cyprus, simply because whatever people existed before the beginning of this gradual Hellenisation (proto-Cypriots,) have been assimilated and merged with the then new-comers into forming what is nowadays regarded as the GC community!

Kifeas you are sounding more and more redicilous by your stubborn persistance of something where you are TOTALLY WRONG in! No matter how you twist and turn, there is no way you can convince anyone of average intelligence that Greeks are indeginous to Cyprus. IT JUST DOES NOT FIT THE DESCRIPTION OF THE MEANING OF THE WORD "INDEGINOUS"! Which part of that you are having difficulty in understanding?

I neither know, nor have I ever said that Greeks are indigenous to Cyprus! What I have said, and what I am more than certain about, is that by all definitions, means and measures, modern Greek Cypriots -or more accurately modern Greek speaking Cypriots, are an indigenous human, cultural and social element of Cyprus!

bigOz, it is not my problem if your mind is fucked up! It is not my problem if your fucked up mind doesn’t allow you to understand, digest and accept the obvious fact that what can be regarded by the narrowest of definitions as the indigenous human element of Cyprus, the proto-Cypriots so to say, did not essentially disappear from Cyprus but their existence continued through the centuries under a different cultural identity, as soon as they started mixing and merging with ancient Greek colonisers, some 3,500 -4,000 years ago!

It is not my problem if you cannot digest the simple fact that the Hellenisation of Cyprus was not so much a physical but primarily a cultural one! It is not my problem if you cannot understand that the whatever number of ancient Greek colonisers came to Cyprus during all those years that the merging and the osmosis were taking place, they were certainly much less in numbers than those people already existing here (the proto-Cypriots,) but due to the fact that their civilisation and advancement at the time were weaker than that of the ancient Greek colonisers, they simply became assimilated into the new cultural environment that was brought in from outside; and without this meaning that a number of uniquely proto-Cypriot cultural characteristics were not retained into the new cultural identity that was developed after the effective Hellenisation of the island.

You seem to think that the Greek speaking Cypriots were always identifying themselves with the name “Greeks!” No, this is not the case! It is not the case, and in fact, even after their effective Hellenisation (language, religion, customs, deities, arts, etc) they continued to regard themselves as Cypriots! I am sure you are not aware that even during the Hellenistic years of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy -some 1,000 years after the beginning of the island’s Hellenisation, the people of Cyprus had (for a duration of some 200 years) a Co-Op banking system that was called in Greek the “Koinon Kyprion” (“the common of all Cypriots,”) and were issuing coins with that inscription on it (today’s Bank of Cyprus emblem.) This proves that they were accepting and identifying themselves as Cypriots, even though their prime cultural identity was a Hellenic one. If everything was just a case of proto-Cypriots having completely disappeared, and the people inhabiting Cyprus were just Greeks that came from ancient Mycenae or Athens, why didn’t they call themselves Greeks (Hellenes,) after all they spoke Greek, but instead they were referring to themselves as Cypriots (“Koinon Kypion”?)

bigOz opened a couple of dictionaries and found some lazy definitions of the word "indigenous," mainly having in mind, referring or applying to fauna and flora, and thought he had just invented the wheel. Well, even under those narrow, lazy and inappropriate dictionary definitions that bigOz had posted, one can still see that the Greek Cypriots can be perfectly covered as an indigenous population. They can be covered, even in the case in which one will hypothetically assume that GCs are not essentially the blending of ancient Greek colonisers and the (Hellenised) more indigenous proto-Cypriots; but the ancestors of only the in-sourced Greek colonisers. It is indeed very absurd for anyone to claim that after 4 millenniums of continues human and cultural presence in one place, a group of people cannot be regarded as indigenous or native to that place

[Get Real!]

bigOz opened a couple of dictionaries and found some lazy definitions of the word indigenous, mainly having in mind or referring to fauna and flora, and thought he had just invented the wheel.

[zan]

So what is your conclusion now that you have had all your answers from here and ATCA GR? Any clearer in your head...??

[Marz]

So, thats means if i live in Turkey according to the Turks on this forum i can be indigenous to Turkey and start a movement to create civl war to sperate the country, between the two indigenous peoples?

Wouldnt happen though becasue any Cypriot or Greek trying to live there
would be lucky to survive at all. Like am friend of mine who parent swerer greek living in turkey during the 50's and were wealthy, and had to flee to Australia to survive since anyone not Turkish was under threat of being killed.

[free_cyprus]

i see everyone is talking shit again in this forum, how the feck you going to solve a cyprus problem, when the problem of cyprus is in yourselves, everythign you are everythign you are protecting, goes against our own identity as cypriots, my past experiance tells me theres few hard core greeks and turks in this forum who dont alolow anyone to have their say here and now, not only are they super idiots but the tragedy is they dont even realise it themselves