Cyprus-Forum.com

[denizaksulu]

I am getting this uncomfortable feeling that I am wasting my time here.
People seem to be more interested in tit-for-tat insults and repeating their old well-versed arguments. Pumpy is a bit of fresh air in one sense. And Nikitas of course is very well-meaning as always. But most people(Piratis excluded) are still hell bent on refusing to indulge in a bit of self-criticism, so necessary to improve the understanding, empathy and compassion ,indispensable if we want to find a just and lasting peace.
I was essentially trying to show there are two sides to every story,and what we are told or learnt from certain books are not necessarily the truth of the matter. Another of my aim was to make people realise both communities are the victims in this bloody conflict. That we have been mercilessly manipulated by The Usual Suspects into tearing each other apart. That we were guilty of allowing the big boys to divide and rule us...

Let me tell you a little story. Some years ago I was visiting my sister in Ankara. One day I went shopping at the local open-air fruit and vegetable market... Now they have no shopping trolleys there of course. What you do is to hire a hamal (porter) who comes with a huge basket on his back,follows you around till you finish your shopping,then carries it home for you. These hamals are usually boys or young men,poor and uneducated. On that day when I realised I needed a hamal I looked around and two materialised out of nowhere. They were both very keen for my custom,and began pushing and shoving each other to be the chosen one.I stopped their increasingly aggressive bickering by hiring them both.On the way home I gave them a lecture about the evils of capitalism,free-market economy,and the need for solidarity amongst workers.I said they must never fight each other as they were both victims of the liberal capitalist economy.They must've thought I was bonkers.
I was of course silly to think I could change their life-long conditioning with a few well spoken words...

Our situation here is somewhat similar. I am silly to believe I can make people stop and reconsider their well-established ideas and prejudices. It is so much easier to keep bickering about who is more guilty???,who started it first???,who betrayed whom???,who has more rights???,who won and who lost etc etc...Well,I give up. History always repeats itself anyway. Victims keep hating each other,fighting each other,trying to destroy each other,while the real culprits get to enjoy the spoils of their evil deeds...

I have one final warning for those who think they are the "winners" in this conflict.As long as there exist a grievous sense of miscarriage of justice the "losers" will lay in wait and come after you at the first opportunity. And if they manage to become "the winners" next time,the "new losers"will not rest till they have the opportunity to strike back...And the merry-go-round will keep turning...

I am off to the Jokes and Enigmas section for some sanity...

Good for you BK.

Perhaps you could ask Mr. 'Perfect' Piratis to stop barking on about 'genocide' and 1571, we might get somewhere. Please dont give up now. Sa you do provide a different insight into our predicament. At the moment we are all 'losers'. (Solomons justice!)

Regards

[DT.]

I am getting this uncomfortable feeling that I am wasting my time here.
People seem to be more interested in tit-for-tat insults and repeating their old well-versed arguments. Pumpy is a bit of fresh air in one sense. And Nikitas of course is very well-meaning as always. But most people(Piratis excluded) are still hell bent on refusing to indulge in a bit of self-criticism, so necessary to improve the understanding, empathy and compassion ,indispensable if we want to find a just and lasting peace.
I was essentially trying to show there are two sides to every story,and what we are told or learnt from certain books are not necessarily the truth of the matter. Another of my aim was to make people realise both communities are the victims in this bloody conflict. That we have been mercilessly manipulated by The Usual Suspects into tearing each other apart. That we were guilty of allowing the big boys to divide and rule us...

Let me tell you a little story. Some years ago I was visiting my sister in Ankara. One day I went shopping at the local open-air fruit and vegetable market... Now they have no shopping trolleys there of course. What you do is to hire a hamal (porter) who comes with a huge basket on his back,follows you around till you finish your shopping,then carries it home for you. These hamals are usually boys or young men,poor and uneducated. On that day when I realised I needed a hamal I looked around and two materialised out of nowhere. They were both very keen for my custom,and began pushing and shoving each other to be the chosen one.I stopped their increasingly aggressive bickering by hiring them both.On the way home I gave them a lecture about the evils of capitalism,free-market economy,and the need for solidarity amongst workers.I said they must never fight each other as they were both victims of the liberal capitalist economy.They must've thought I was bonkers.
I was of course silly to think I could change their life-long conditioning with a few well spoken words...

Our situation here is somewhat similar. I am silly to believe I can make people stop and reconsider their well-established ideas and prejudices. It is so much easier to keep bickering about who is more guilty???,who started it first???,who betrayed whom???,who has more rights???,who won and who lost etc etc...Well,I give up. History always repeats itself anyway. Victims keep hating each other,fighting each other,trying to destroy each other,while the real culprits get to enjoy the spoils of their evil deeds...

I have one final warning for those who think they are the "winners" in this conflict.As long as there exist a grievous sense of miscarriage of justice the "losers" will lay in wait and come after you at the first opportunity. And if they manage to become "the winners" next time,the "new losers"will not rest till they have the opportunity to strike back...And the merry-go-round will keep turning...

I am off to the Jokes and Enigmas section for some sanity...

Good for you BK.

Perhaps you could ask Mr. 'Perfect' Piratis to stop barking on about 'genocide' and 1571, we might get somewhere. Please dont give up now. Sa you do provide a different insight into our predicament. At the moment we are all 'losers'. (Solomons justice!)

Regards

agreed. Please keep it coming Bir if for no other reason so that the rest of us hotheads can shut up for a while.

[denizaksulu]

You are the hypocrite. You enslaved us for 3+ centuries against the will of the native Cypriot people and then you are complaining because we wanted our self determination and the right to rule our own island? We didn't fight against you. We fought against the Colonialists. You started the conflict against us, and you collaborated with the colonialists and Turkey in order for one more time to deny to Cypriots their freedom and self determination on their own island.

What nerve. The man claims Cyprus had the right to 'self determination', yet he neglects to mention how utterly immoral and untenable, not to mention dangerous, this policy was in light of the fact that a good 20% of the pop was dead against it, for obvious reasons. The minority, and this is the ultimate question here, would have floundered in a blood bath were Enosis enacted and maintained.

The right wing agitators and terrorists of Cyprus and that idiotic Junta of Greece were an utter disgrace to humanity, and no better than fascists of the Third Reich. Except the Nazis in Germany at least had a basis and groundswell of workmanship and devotion to the cause.

The Grivas supporters were a bunch of thick, violent peasants.

What a nerve! Those fuckers came to rule Cyprus when they had 0% of the population of this island, they enslave us and oppressed us, and then they tell us that we can not take decisions in a democratic way for our own island because some minority opposed it!

Let me ask you Pumpy, when you take decisions in the UK do you ask your minorities separately? When in Turkey they take decisions do they ask the Kurds separetely? Who the hell gave you the right to impose your will on our own island my friend?

The Turkish on the mainland ask the Commander in Chief of the Army and that's about it! The militaristic nationalistic thugs!

The British? Yes we do actually!

Face it, the TCs have been around for ab-so-lutely ages! You can't disown them now! How rude! Plus, they are a thoroghly lovely bunch of people and they consider themselves Cypriot. Most of them don't want mainlander involvement!

It;s right wingers like you, on both sides, that cause division.

Hi Pumpy, I cant remember greeting you. Welcome anyway. I am a TC living in the UK. I often pop over to France to buy my fav French cheese although we do find it in the UK. When I pop over the 'green line' it is merely to see some unconcreted expanse of land which you can only find in the south and to see 'my' part of the island too. (excluding towns ofcourse).

Regards

[denizaksulu]

I am getting this uncomfortable feeling that I am wasting my time here.
People seem to be more interested in tit-for-tat insults and repeating their old well-versed arguments. Pumpy is a bit of fresh air in one sense. And Nikitas of course is very well-meaning as always. But most people(Piratis excluded) are still hell bent on refusing to indulge in a bit of self-criticism, so necessary to improve the understanding, empathy and compassion ,indispensable if we want to find a just and lasting peace.
I was essentially trying to show there are two sides to every story,and what we are told or learnt from certain books are not necessarily the truth of the matter. Another of my aim was to make people realise both communities are the victims in this bloody conflict. That we have been mercilessly manipulated by The Usual Suspects into tearing each other apart. That we were guilty of allowing the big boys to divide and rule us...

Let me tell you a little story. Some years ago I was visiting my sister in Ankara. One day I went shopping at the local open-air fruit and vegetable market... Now they have no shopping trolleys there of course. What you do is to hire a hamal (porter) who comes with a huge basket on his back,follows you around till you finish your shopping,then carries it home for you. These hamals are usually boys or young men,poor and uneducated. On that day when I realised I needed a hamal I looked around and two materialised out of nowhere. They were both very keen for my custom,and began pushing and shoving each other to be the chosen one.I stopped their increasingly aggressive bickering by hiring them both.On the way home I gave them a lecture about the evils of capitalism,free-market economy,and the need for solidarity amongst workers.I said they must never fight each other as they were both victims of the liberal capitalist economy.They must've thought I was bonkers.
I was of course silly to think I could change their life-long conditioning with a few well spoken words...

Our situation here is somewhat similar. I am silly to believe I can make people stop and reconsider their well-established ideas and prejudices. It is so much easier to keep bickering about who is more guilty???,who started it first???,who betrayed whom???,who has more rights???,who won and who lost etc etc...Well,I give up. History always repeats itself anyway. Victims keep hating each other,fighting each other,trying to destroy each other,while the real culprits get to enjoy the spoils of their evil deeds...

I have one final warning for those who think they are the "winners" in this conflict.As long as there exist a grievous sense of miscarriage of justice the "losers" will lay in wait and come after you at the first opportunity. And if they manage to become "the winners" next time,the "new losers"will not rest till they have the opportunity to strike back...And the merry-go-round will keep turning...

I am off to the Jokes and Enigmas section for some sanity...

Dear Bir

I have been following your threads with great interest even though not commenting. Whether you continue posting on this subject or not, I believe your posts have made a lot of difference to our way of thinking and has shed some more light to what has happened. Thanks.
I am not a person who believes in whatever I read or see on TV etc. I want to hear the events from first hand by someone who has lived these times and tells me what happened by looking in my eyes, then I will decide myself what is true or not. I spent a few days in the mountains last week and spoke to a few older folks and I was surprised that before the fifties the locals did not call themselves Greek or Turkish Cypriots but instead they referred to each other as Christians and Non-Christians or Muslims and Non-Muslims depending on what you were. I found this most interesting as they all classed themselves as Cypriots.

Dear Kafenes, If I looked you right in your eyes and narrated things I saw, I would not be able to finish. You would have to console me.

[kafenes]

I am getting this uncomfortable feeling that I am wasting my time here.
People seem to be more interested in tit-for-tat insults and repeating their old well-versed arguments. Pumpy is a bit of fresh air in one sense. And Nikitas of course is very well-meaning as always. But most people(Piratis excluded) are still hell bent on refusing to indulge in a bit of self-criticism, so necessary to improve the understanding, empathy and compassion ,indispensable if we want to find a just and lasting peace.
I was essentially trying to show there are two sides to every story,and what we are told or learnt from certain books are not necessarily the truth of the matter. Another of my aim was to make people realise both communities are the victims in this bloody conflict. That we have been mercilessly manipulated by The Usual Suspects into tearing each other apart. That we were guilty of allowing the big boys to divide and rule us...

Let me tell you a little story. Some years ago I was visiting my sister in Ankara. One day I went shopping at the local open-air fruit and vegetable market... Now they have no shopping trolleys there of course. What you do is to hire a hamal (porter) who comes with a huge basket on his back,follows you around till you finish your shopping,then carries it home for you. These hamals are usually boys or young men,poor and uneducated. On that day when I realised I needed a hamal I looked around and two materialised out of nowhere. They were both very keen for my custom,and began pushing and shoving each other to be the chosen one.I stopped their increasingly aggressive bickering by hiring them both.On the way home I gave them a lecture about the evils of capitalism,free-market economy,and the need for solidarity amongst workers.I said they must never fight each other as they were both victims of the liberal capitalist economy.They must've thought I was bonkers.
I was of course silly to think I could change their life-long conditioning with a few well spoken words...

Our situation here is somewhat similar. I am silly to believe I can make people stop and reconsider their well-established ideas and prejudices. It is so much easier to keep bickering about who is more guilty???,who started it first???,who betrayed whom???,who has more rights???,who won and who lost etc etc...Well,I give up. History always repeats itself anyway. Victims keep hating each other,fighting each other,trying to destroy each other,while the real culprits get to enjoy the spoils of their evil deeds...

I have one final warning for those who think they are the "winners" in this conflict.As long as there exist a grievous sense of miscarriage of justice the "losers" will lay in wait and come after you at the first opportunity. And if they manage to become "the winners" next time,the "new losers"will not rest till they have the opportunity to strike back...And the merry-go-round will keep turning...

I am off to the Jokes and Enigmas section for some sanity...

Dear Bir

I have been following your threads with great interest even though not commenting. Whether you continue posting on this subject or not, I believe your posts have made a lot of difference to our way of thinking and has shed some more light to what has happened. Thanks.
I am not a person who believes in whatever I read or see on TV etc. I want to hear the events from first hand by someone who has lived these times and tells me what happened by looking in my eyes, then I will decide myself what is true or not. I spent a few days in the mountains last week and spoke to a few older folks and I was surprised that before the fifties the locals did not call themselves Greek or Turkish Cypriots but instead they referred to each other as Christians and Non-Christians or Muslims and Non-Muslims depending on what you were. I found this most interesting as they all classed themselves as Cypriots.

Dear Kafenes, If I looked you right in your eyes and narrated things I saw, I would not be able to finish. You would have to console me.

That's OK Deniz, I have big enough shoulders for you to cry on. I have seen a few things as well but the point I was trying to make is that so much bullshit is going around and most of it is either exaggerated or fabricated.

[purdey]

Kafenes has a point,the Turkish Cypriots I knew always reffered to themselves as Cypriots,and did mention that they were Christian or Muslim.Maybe if the people got together as they did for generations,they would remember they were not that different after all.

[T_C]

Maybe if the people got together as they did for generations,they would remember they were not that different after all.

Totally agree, I've always said that the best thing about unification will be the "party" bit when we all gather in one place...it'll be a historic moment that'll be remembered FOREVER in Cyprus. It'll have a biiig impact on a lot of people imo...

[denizaksulu]

Maybe if the people got together as they did for generations,they would remember they were not that different after all.

Totally agree, I've always said that the best thing about unification will be the "party" bit when we all gather in one place...it'll be a historic moment that'll be remembered FOREVER in Cyprus. It'll have a biiig impact on a lot of people imo...

Ditto