erolz wrote:Piratis wrote: I am simply saying you have no clue what Cypriot is, so trying to teach this to us is laughable. You should better go learn about the history of this island, which goes far deeper than what they taught you.
Actually you are attacking me as a person rather than my arguments. Not uncommon.
I simply made an observation based on what you say. Maybe you are just pretending you don't know the history because it doesn't suit you. Thats a possibility as well.
Piratis wrote:A Cypriot is just as Greek as an Athenian or a Cretan.
No he is not. Firstly not all Cypriots are Greek Cypriots. Even if you say a GC is as Greek as an Athenian or Cretan you would be wrong because those Greeks are Greek by nationality as well as culture and you are Greek only by culture despite what you may personally wish.
Your first arguments holds no water. Not all Athenians are Greeks, not all Cretans are Greeks etc. So no difference here.
Your second argument is regarding citizenship. We have already established that after 1960 we are officially committed to independence, even though this was forced on us against our rights.
Here we are talking if union with Greece had been a legitimate alternative to "independence", and the fact is that it was.
Also keep in mind though that "citizenship" just by itself is just a legal term, and doesn't change what people really are.
For example somebody could be Greek/Turkish Cypriot but have a UK citizenship, maybe this is/was the case with you?
Piratis wrote:I didn't tell you that. Be whatever you want to be.
You constantly tell me that your community alone with no regard for mine has the RIGHT not only tell what nationality I will be, but also if my homeland will exist at all as a state.
Wrong. I never said my community alone. I said Cypriots as a whole, and that includes you as well. Part of what nation Cyprus would be should have been decided democratically by the Cypriot people, and not having some minority and foreigners forcing on the Cypriot people their will again.
Piratis wrote:All I told you is that this island belongs to Cypriots, and Turkish Cypriots (or whatever you want be) are just a minority among us and therefore have no right to force their will in undemocratic ways.
We as a community are founding partners of the state of the RoC and morally as well as legally we have a right as a community to stop you imposing your purely communal will on us against ours. That is a right to STOP imposition not gain it. It is you that argues the right to impose one communities will on the other in Cyprus belongs to the GC community. I say neither has the RIGHT to impose its will, on issue that are communal in their very nature, on the other. You say GC have the right to impose their will on TC. Spot the difference?
We had the right for union with Greece, and you forced something against our will and against our rights. Your minority determining the destiny of this island in undemocratic ways has never been your right.
If you want your legal rights as per the 1960 agreements, come and take them and give us back ours. No problem.
Piratis wrote:Again, the great majority of Cypriots ARE Greeks, ...
I have no problem with the majority of Cypriots being culturally linked to Greece and Culturally Greek. I do have a problem when they tell me that my homeland will not exist as a state and my nationality will be Greek and I have no say in this at all, because that is what they want for the future of my homeland that I share with them.
And I have a problem when some group of people is trying to force its own minority opinion by brute force and change a Greek island into a Turkish controlled one, effectively continuing the Turkish rule on us and denying to us our freedom after having being oppressed by Turks and others for centuries. The Ottomans lost their colonies, now they have to either respect the will of the people they formerly occupied, or go back from where they came from.
Piratis wrote:Greeks foreign to Cyprus?
A Greek national is a foreigner in Cyprus. I am not a foreigner in Cyprus.
The great majority of Cypriots are Greeks. The Greek language is spoken in Cyprus for 3500 years and the Greek culture is everywhere. What is foreign are those invadors who are trying to change the character of this island by force.
Piratis wrote:We didn't impose anything to you.
Not only did you try and impose enosis on my community in our shared homeland you did so with violence and illegality AND you claim that you had and have the RIGHT to do so.
You were the ones who came to Cyprus to be imposed on the Greek population of this island and exploit us. We simply demanded and fought for our freedom and our self determination after centuries of being oppressed by you and others. If you didn't like the decisions that the people of Cyprus could democratically and freely make for their own island, then you should have gone from where you came from, and not trying to again impose your will on us by force.
Piratis wrote:Where is the homeland of the Kurdish minority of Turkey?
The Kurds, in Turkey or elsewhere do not have a homeland and they should have one.
And you know why the don't?
Piratis wrote:Are the African Americans a minority in the USA?
As far as African Americans are African, they do have an African homeland.
Really? Well in fact African Americans were taken to America as slaves against their will in order to be exploited. On the contrary the Turks came to Cyprus in order to enslave and exploit us. So now tell me why the Turkish Cypriot minority should have more rights than the African American minority in the USA?
Piratis wrote: Who was forcing this island it was you, for 300+ years. The Greeks did not need to send any troops here to force anything.
Well ignoring the patent ancient historical nonsense of that statement, there is the small matter of up to 20,000 mainland Greek troops illegally introduced into Cyprus, documented by the UN, to help 'defend' Cyprus by aiding in military attacks by an already numerically dominant GC community in control of all the organs of the state against the TC community in the 60's. A time when you had 'officially' forgone the pursuit of enosis as a great 'concession' !
Here I said the simple fact that Turks ruled Cyprus by force against the will of the Cypriots, while on the contrary the great majority of Cypriots wanted to be part of Greece, and Greece didn't have to force us for this. The events of the 60s were a result of not allowing Cypriots to decide their destiny of their own island in a democratic way, as it was their right and the fact that TCs, with the help of Turkey, continued to pursuit their illegal criminal aim of partition.
Piratis wrote:All that would be needed was to ask Cypriots what they want for their own island.
No Piratis what was needed was to only ask GREEK Cypriots what they wanted for their island and simply ignore that they SHARED this island with people who were not GREEK Cypriot.
No Erolz, they would ask you too, and you would have your vote as well. Thats how democracy works. Ethnic minorities exist everywhere, you are not the only ones. It is not our fault that your minority was formed on our island during the oppressive Ottoman rule. Such minorities were formed in all territories that the Ottomans ruled, and either you like it or not, there is nothing special with you.
Piratis wrote:I showed to you what the resolution said and then you start me with your own theories. We didn't need to define ourselves as anything to justify enosis. Enosis was perfectly justified for the simple fact that most Cypriots wanted it, and as the resolution shows it was one of the legitimate options.
Look Piratis I cannot be held responsible for the fact that you are unable (or more likely unwilling) to understand the right to self determination of peoples as laid out in the UN charters. If you read these charters it is absolutely clear that the right to self determination belongs to peoples and not to geographical areas or territories.
You are the one who is apparently unable to comprehend the resolution. The self - determination right belongs to all people of a territory as a whole, not to each ethnic group separately. Then all the people of the territory, with democratic procedures (one person one vote) could choose one of the three legitimate options, and integration into an independent state was one of them.
Piratis wrote:Says who? Your "common sense"?
No pirates, says the UN charters where the right to self determination of peoples are clearly and plainly laid out. One has only to find them , read them and understand them - something that apparently is beyond you.
Soon you are going to tell us that the UN charters were made in such a way that Turkish Cypriots could have more rights than any other minority in the whole world. The example with the resolution above clearly shows who has problems in understanding, and that is you.
Piratis wrote:The Turks, like the British, French and all the other colonialist empire builders transfered their population in all areas they occupied. With decolonization those colonial populations did not become "peoples" with privileged rights on their former colonial land. They either had to adapt and become part of the local people as a minority, stay foreigners, or go back from where they came from. The same goes with the Turks in Cyprus.
Let me get this straight. You are SERIOUSLY claiming that those Europeans that colonised America and Australia had to 'either adapt and become part of the local people as a minority, stay foreigners, or go back from where they came from’? Try telling that to the indigenous people of those places! Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?
Interesting that you choose 2 out of the 100s of territories that were colonized. In very few exceptions where the native people were very few in comparison to the territory the colonialists did in fact manage to become a majority. The fact is that after colonialism ended no self-determination rights were given to each ethnic group separetely. Those that wanted to continue ruling the colonies against the will of the majority (e.g. the Loyalists in the USA) had to either accept democracy, or move out of the country. Imposing their minority will against the one of the majority was obviously undemocratic and therefore not acceptable.
You can in fact divide colonisation into two sorts. Colonisation where the colonisers culturally and or physically destroyed those cultures and peoples that existed in the colonised area before the arrival of the colonisers to such an extent that those indigenous cultures and peoples could no longer function as viable people or cultures any more or even ceased to exist entirely. In such colonisation it was indeed the colonisers that went on to become the people of those colonised places. The Greek cultural and physical colonisation of Cyprus and the peoples and cultures that existed there before the arrival of this Greek cultural and physical colonisation, was of this type.
The other type of colonisation was where the colonisers did not culturally and physically destroy what was there before their arrival. This was the type of colonisation that the Ottomans did in Cyprus, during the same period of history when the Europeans were practising the former type in America and Australia and other places around the world.
Both Geek Culture and Turkish culture in Cyprus were a result of colonisation. Greek colonisation happened thousands of years before Ottoman colonisation in Cyprus and was the type of colonisation that left nothing of consequence of what went before this colonisation, culturally or as separate peoples. Ottoman colonisation happened much later and was of the type that did leave significant amounts of what went before both culturally and in terms of separate peoples.
Erolz, we don't need your Turkish propaganda nonsense that you brainwash your children with here.
Here are some facts for you:
First Greeks in Cyprus:
After 1400 B.C., Mycenaean and Mycenaean-Achaean traders from the northeastern Peloponnesus began regular commercial visits to the island. Settlers from the same areas arrived in large numbers toward the end of the Trojan War (traditionally dated about 1184 B.C.). Even in modern times, a strip of the northern coast was known as the Achaean Coast in commemoration of those early settlers. The newcomers spread the use of their spoken language and introduced a script that greatly facilitated commerce. They also introduced the potter's wheel and began producing pottery that eventually was carried by traders to many mainland markets. By the end of the second millennium B.C., a distinctive culture had developed on Cyprus. The island's culture was tempered and enriched by its position as a crossroads for the commerce of three continents, but in essence it was distinctively Hellenic.
First Turks in Cyprus:
Throughout the period of Venetian rule, Ottoman Turks raided and attacked at will. In 1489, the first year of Venetian control, Turks attacked the Karpas Peninsula, pillaging and taking captives to be sold into slavery. In 1539 the Turkish fleet attacked and destroyed Limassol. Fearing the ever-expanding Ottoman Empire, the Venetians had fortified Famagusta, Nicosia, and Kyrenia, but most other cities were easy prey.
In the summer of 1570, the Turks struck again, but this time with a full-scale invasion rather than a raid. About 60,000 troops, including cavalry and artillery, under the command of Lala Mustafa Pasha landed unopposed near Limassol on July 2, 1570, and laid siege to Nicosia. In an orgy of victory on the day that the city fell--September 9, 1570--20,000 Nicosians were put to death, and every church, public building, and palace was looted.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cytoc.html
The concept of a "country" did not exist when Greeks first came to Cyprus, and Cyprus was very sparsely inhabited (at most 5000 people in total). Greeks founded new cities in uninhabited land and due to the fact the Greek civilization was superior, slowly slowly the rest of Cypriots adopted the Greek civilization and culture, and the result were Greek Cypriots.
On the other hand, the invading Turks came in Cyprus butchering people by the 1000s, for the sole reason of enslaving and exploiting the people of Cyprus. The Ottoman era was an era of misery and depression for Cyprus, and every time we tried to revolt and demand our freedom or some rights, we have been brutally butchered by the Turks.
Piratis wrote:EU is a union of independent countries, not a country.
And the RoC as a state was formed as a union of two communites.
The communities were never separated in order to form a union. Yes, in 1960 the TCs were given several super privilages by the colonialists who forced "independence" on us against our legitimate rights, and as I told you several times, come an get every single right of yours according to those agreements as long as you give to us back our rights. Or maybe you can only demand your rights and at the same time you feel free to violate ours?
Piratis wrote: Your hate against anything Greek is remarkable.
I do not hate 'anything Greek' just because it is Greek at all. I do hate what was done to Cyprus by some GC in the name of destroying Cyprus as a state and a people in order to make it a part of Greece but I do not blame Greeks for that stupidity in the first instance I blame those Cypriots that did what they could to destroy Cyprus as a nation and in the process damaged, perhaps irreparably, the chance of all Cypriots building a Cypriot nation together.
You hatred of anything Turkish, including TC is palpable and plain Piratis.
Who are trying to destroy Cyprus and its people it is you, who is trying to force your will against the will of Cypriots, and this brute barbarian force of yours is what I hate.
Piratis wrote:This island has a Greek history of 3500 years.
And before that is had a 7000 year history of cultures and peoples that were destroyed and replaced by the Greek cultural and physical invasion of Cyprus.
You are lying, as simple as that. Can you show me your independent sources to back your claims?
See above on how Greeks came to Cyprus and how they assimilated with the few people that already existed on the island and formed Greek Cypriots.
Piratis wrote: Either you like it or not, this island is very very Greek.
I have no problem with Cyprus having majority cultural links with Greece. These cultural links are the cultural links that along with the Turkish cultural links and traces of a multitude of others are the wondrous threads that weave together to create that unique thing that is Cyprus. I like this for I am a Cypriot and this is my cultural heritage. What I do not like is when you come to me and say, Cyprus will not exist as a state only Greece will exist, Cypriots will not exist as a people only Greeks who happen to live in Cyprus, Cyprus will not exist as a nation that reflects all of the wondrous parts that make it uniquely Cypriot only the Greek nation will exist, and you have NO SAY in this, for I am Greek and I will decide alone our future in these matters. That I do have a problem with, because actually I am a Cypriot patriot, not a Turkish or Greek patriot.
Cypriots will always exist as they existed through out history regardless of where Cyprus belonged. However Cypriots don't want to just "exist". We want to be free from foreign rulers that want to impose on us their will and be finally allowed to take the decisions for our own island with democratic procedures. A Cypriot patriot is the one who supports democracy and freedom for Cypriots, and not the one who is trying to divide Cyprus, ethnically cleanses the real Cypriots and replace them with Turks, changes the names of our towns and villages and tries to destroy the heritage of our island in an effort to Turkify part of it.
Piratis wrote: Union with Greece was not a crime, but our legitimate right.
As far as it was your right, as an expression of self-determination, it was your right only as GC or Greeks. It was not your right as an expression of self-determination of a single unitary CYPRIOT people. As it was your right to want enosis, it was our right as a separate people sharing the same island as you as our mutual homeland to resist it, as an expression of OUR right to self determination as a people.
You determined the fate of this island when you enslaved us and oppressed us for 3+ centuries. Colonialism is now over and you have no right to determine the destiny of this island against the wishes of the Cypriots as they are democratically expressed.
Piratis wrote:
We were forced to sign it away and our official policy since then has been for independence and it remains so.
You resisted 3500 years of brutal oppression by foreign powers yet you were forced to sign the 60's agreements against your will as Greeks living in Cyprus. Nonsense. Makarios CHOSE to sign those agreements because he mistakenly believed they would bring him closer to his real aim and he could ignore and renege on them without serious consequence. As far as history shows an 'official policy' on the part of GC leaderships, it shows one of agreeing to forgo enosis on paper and in word, whilst at the same time in deed secretly working to achieve it regardless of any legality or consequence and this you claim was the big GC compromise!
Yes, we resisted and we protected our identity for 3500 years, and you or the British would not manage to change us by force either. What we were forced to sign was not that we are not Greeks, but that Cyprus will not be part of the Greek state but an "independent" one. This has remained our official policy since. However the TCs at no point gave up their illegal and criminal aim of partition, and this is another big factor for the problems we had in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and until today, which you conveniently ignore.
Piratis wrote:... and it is why we have survived on this island despite the many brutal and barbarian attempts by invadors like the Turks to destroy us.
If the ottomans had invaded Cyprus with the intent of destroying Greek Cypriots culturally and as a people , then they would have achieved that. You own your continued existence culturally as Greeks and as a GC people is due as much to the reality that this was NOT the Ottomans objective in invading Cyprus as to your superhuman abilities to cling to your Greek culture.
The Turks killed 10s of thousands of people, a very big part of the population back then. If the term "genocide" existed at that time, then thats exactly how the actions of Turks when they first came to Cyprus would be classified. Beyond that of course the Turks needed slaves to tax. They came to Cyprus to exploit us, and killing us all would not be very beneficial for them.
Piratis wrote: If you want your legal rights in RoC, come and get them, and give us back ours. No problem!
It is because of the GC leaderships determination to remove the TC communities legal rights as a community in Cyprus in illegal ways, ignoring its own supreme court, making secret plans for such illegal removal by deception and use of violent force where necessary and by empowering brutal thugs like Yiorjardis to recruit and run ethnic armed militias to bring ethnic based violence down on TC, in turn empowering partitionist elements within the TC community, that we are where we are today. And now you tell me, after having yourself becomes the victims of the consequences of this behaviour of your leadership, to come and get these SAME rights 'no problem'. The problem IS that you ALREADY tried to take these rights from us with no regard for legality AND you still argue that actually even though we have these right 'on paper' in reality we have no right to these rights in reality. That is the problem.
Refusing to us our legitimate rights for union with Greece and imposing your will on us by undemocratic means would obviously result to something problematic. However you seem to again ignore that the conflict back then started with your own contribution as well, since you had not abandoned your illegal and criminal demand for partition. The bloody conflict in fact was initiated by TCs, another thing you conveniently ignore.
The fact is, that today you continue the crimes and illegalities against us, just like you have been doing almost non stop since the day you set your foot on our island. Trying to use your distorted version of a mere decade to excuse yet more crimes against us is a lame excuse and can have no additional effect than the effect that the 40.000 Turkish troops that illegally occupy our island have.
Piratis wrote:I have no problem to share proportionately and in a democratic way, ...
Of course you have no problem with this because what it means is that any time you as Greeks and not Cypriots decide you want to impose something on Cyprus as Greeks, you have the right to do so with no regard for what TC as Cypriots may want for their homeland. It is exactly because you historically tried to impose purely Greek wishes on all Cypriots in the past with no regard for Cyprus as a state or a nation or a people or for those that you share Cyprus with and their wishes, that you can not ALONE as Greeks, be trusted with the future of Cyprus. Only as Cypriots (people who believe in a Cypriot nation and a Cypriot people) can you so be trusted.
Thats how democracy is. We are not in Turkey that the army can just overwrite the decisions of the majority and say that the democratic wishes of the people "can not be trusted" or that they are "wrong". You get your vote as a Cypriot, you can have your human and minority rights like in every other country, but beyond that you can not impose your version of what is "right" with brute force.
Piratis wrote:In fact, what you gave as an example for the relationship that you want between the two communities was that of the relationship between the EU countries.
I do not give it an example of a solution for Cyprus. I give it as an example where as a matter of a principal of democracy in order for there to BE democracy, there are times when the right unit of democracy is NOT simply the individual. Within the EU there is a REASON why on may issues the unit of democracy is not the individual but the state and the reason is to protect smaller states from the dominance of larger ones WITHIN a democratic framework. Just as within Cyprus, if there was the will, the same mechanism of democracy could be used for the same reason and be as democratic as a matter of principal as the EU is. In Cyprus there could be a system where for matters that are delineated on purely or almost purely communal lines the best unit of democracy would be the community (or the federal units principally representing those communities) and not the individual, that was by principal a democratic system and no more allowed the TC community to impose anything on the GC one than the ROC veto in the EU allows them to impose anything on Germany or the EU in general.
Of course you oppose such in every way you possibly can because for you it is the right of the GC community even on matters purely delineated along communal lines to impose its communal will on the TC community , even when those desires are themselves anti Cypriot (as a state, as a nation, as a people) in there very essence.
Again, you are using the relationship between countries as a model for the relationship that you want between the ethnic groups of Cyprus, instead of the relationship that ethnic groups in all other democratic countries have within their country.
The difference comes down to one single point: Territory.
A country owns a specific and well defined territory which it can independently control. If they give up a bit of their sovereignty to something like EU, thats again their choice, and in fact they have the right to withdraw from EU whenever they decide.
On the other hand, ethnic groups do not own a specific well defined part of territory. (if they do, then they have a valid point to demand independence). An ethnic group can not say "I can not agree with the other groups so I will just do whatever I want", like a country can do and withdraw from EU if she wants. This is why in all democratic countries the unit is not the ethnic group but the citizen of the country and decisions are taken not based on the wishes of the ethnic groups separately, but via majority rule over the citizens of the whole country, always with respect to the human and minority rights of people.
Piratis wrote:....then it becomes crystal clear what you want, regardless of how you choose to label it.
Actually Piratis what I really want more than anything else is a Cyprus where you were able to consider me MORE of your kinsman and compatriot than you consider a Greek from mainland Greece as such and where it was as, if not more, important to you to consider my wishes as a CYPRIOT to yours as a Greek living in Cyprus. This is what I want but I do not think it is within your as an individual to grant this wish, yet I live in hope that if not today one day it will be in enough CYPRIOTS hearts to grant this GC to TC and TC to GC.
What you want is not a united Cyprus ruled by Cypriots but a Cyprus divided along ethnic lines. If you had accepted that there will be equal Cypriots without racist or other discriminations then we would be able to solve the problem ages ago.
You need to realize that the same Cypriots you found when you first invaded Cyprus almost 500 years ago, are still here, and I am one of them. It is up to you if you will continue acting as a foreign invader who is trying to impose his will on Cyprus by force, or if you will become a real Cypriot yourself and accept that what happens in Cyprus can be decided only by Cypriots in democratic ways and with respect to each other, just like the Greek, Armenian, Maronite and Latin Cypriots agreed.
Anyway I would like to say this brief return to the forums has been fun, but I would be a liar if I said so. I will not be continuing this kind of discussion here for the foreseeable future. I may make the occasionally fun poking post now and again but for my own sanity and maintenance of hope for a better future for all Cypriots I will essentially be withdrawing from such debates like this here.
Cyprus is a country torn by conflicts and wars. What is needed to achieve peace is to follow the models of other successful multi-ethnic countries and within the framework of democracy and human rights to make mutual compromises.
Our interpretation of past events can be different, and that is acceptable. What is not acceptable is to intentionally distort the past events in an effort to excuse crimes and illegalities today.
I am saddened that any effort from our side for reconciliation is dismissed, instead of being reciprocated. I really can not see how proposals such as proportional representation for TCs, and even 1 TC President in every 5, can be dismissed and classed as an effort by GCs to supposedly rule the island without the effective participation of TCs!
However I know that those that are dismissive of such proposals are the same people who would stop in nothing short of achieving their dream of partition, regardless of how they want to disguise it. The (few?) TCs that want a truly united Cyprus without divisions along ethnic lines, I am sure they appreciate these steps and I hope they will reciprocate at some point.
You know when they have little to respond with, when they simply resort to stating that you hate Turks and TCs. 
