Cyprus-Forum.com

[Boumboulina]

All peoples need family and past.

[humanist]

Boumboulina welcome to the forum

[Tim Drayton]

anyone that is in this forum anyone that is a cypriot and they put up flag of greece or turkey in this forum is a traitor to our cypriot identity,

Youmay be happy to learn that somebody in my neighbourhood (in Agios Athanasios/Limassol) is flying the Cyprus flag (on its own) from the roof of his house.

[free_cyprus]

i do not have any connection with any flag for its a peace of cloth with symbols on it,

what i'm interested in is humanity and civility

[Tim Drayton]

Get real! The genes thing is wrong. As Humans we all share the same genes. There are only variants due to individual differences.

As far as I know, there exists a specific strain of the genetic disorder beta thalassemia which is only found among Cypriots and this particular strain of the disease is not encountered in either Greece of Turkey. I haveheard that this is incontravertable scientific evidence that Cypriots derive from the same stock.
I have often thought about this fact, because mixed marriages have been very rare in the history of Cyprus. Were there perhaps far more linobambakis than people think? I wonder if there extramarital relationships going on involving members of both communities, and if this resulted in the birth of a child, everybody simply assumed that the child's father was the mother's husband, rather than her illicit lover. I don't know how it happened, but the scientific evidence points towards the shared genetic makeup of the people of this island.
I seem to recall hearing a rumour that Rauf Denktash once commissioned a DNA study to prove that Turkish Cypriots were pure members of the "Turkish race" and shared no genetic traits with Greek Cypriots. When the results showed that the reverse was true, he apparently kept the results to himself. Is this true?

[T_C]

I wouldn't be suprised if Cypriots were cheating on eachother because this is normal practice for Cypriots even today.

I seem to recall hearing a rumour that Rauf Denktash once commissioned a DNA study to prove that Turkish Cypriots were pure members of the "Turkish race" and shared no genetic traits with Greek Cypriots. When the results showed that the reverse was true, he apparently kept the results to himself. Is this true?

I heard the opposite which I mentioned last week!

[humanist]

Tim, you like creating havoc dontcha?

[Nikitas]

Tim,

In islands like Cyprus it is obvious, even though few like to admi it, that that indigenous population would form all kinds of alliances with whatever conqueror had the upper hand at any given time. In my lifetime I have observed the pheonomenon with a whole class of people, in all communities, becoming rapidly anglocised so they could claim lucrative and secure civil service positions during British rule. No doubt our forefathers did something similar during Ottoman, Venetian etc times.

The genetic pool in a small community is more than likely to be concentrated and carry forth distinct traits and diseases. In view of the rarity of mixed marriages and social contact between Greeks and Turks my view is that Linovamvakoi were probably more than we estimate today. Remember that whole villages of Turkish Cypriots did not speak Turkish, more evidence that they were Linovamvakoi who converted wholesale.

None of the above is meant to be taken as any kind of moral judgement. Looking at the photos of Thomson taken in 1878, you can see the poverty that our forefathers had to endure. In such circumstance people will clutch at straws to survive. On the other hand one must wonder about those who refused to clutch at straws and maintained the double pillars of Orthodoxy and the Greek language (which are intertwined anyway) through the oppression of Franks, Venetians and Ottomans. Perhaps it is in that community and its presumably strict customs regarding marriage that one shold look for the origins of Thalassemia.

As for genetic research, I have come across non partisan papers on the net at times, and the consensus seems to be that the Mediterranean has evolved a genetic code pretty much similar in any one region, ie eastern Med, western etc. From what I recall Cyprus, Greece and southern Italy are pretty similar. And Thalassemia is prevalent in those areas too.

[Tim Drayton]

Here is a source relating to my previous point about thalassemia. It comes from chapter 11 of the book entilted “Race Gallery” by Marek Kohn, an academic study into the way claims about race are used for political purposes.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/marek.kohn/seacoast.html

This passage describes a scene in a BBC television documentary. The Sir Walter in question is the geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer.

"Before Sir Walter leaves the metropolis, however, he has to attend to some pressing business. He must establish that the study of genetic diversity need not be tainted by racism, and indeed may oppose it. He is seen in a Greek Orthodox church speaking to Father Andreas and his son Father Constantine, two Cypriot priests. Father Andreas reveals that he lost two other sons to thalassaemia, the hereditary blood disease which resembles sickle cell anaemia, but affects Mediterranean rather than black African people. Sir Walter tells his hosts that different types of mutation cause the disease in different areas. Greek and Turkish Cypriots share a thalassaemia variant with each other, but not with people from Greece or Turkey.
"Couldn't you prove biologically that we are descended from Ancient Greeks?" asks Father Constantine. Sir Walter replies that the common mutation implies a common descent for all Cypriots, from an indigenous population who were there before the Greeks: "From a biological point of view, you are one people."
This is received with wry amusement. "It is news to us!" observes Father Andreas. "Maybe you can solve our political problems as well," suggests Father Constantine. "I hope so," answers Sir Walter, "because it's so common that people have a common biological heritage, and yet it's the cultural difference on top that causes them to have the conflict." He seems to imply that biological truth is more fundamental than cultural truth, not just to biologists but to society as a whole."

I am hoping to make a constructive point, here, rather than create havoc!

[Nikitas]

Tim,

Murat and Eric and VP will be afer you. Want to buy a cheap flakjacket?

LOL

Nikitas