Main_Source wrote:Also, you might think im controversial for what i'm going to say but I dont care, because the British used to hang 17 and 18 year old young men, so YES, the British army should have been shot at and killed. They were never going to move from Cyprus and had previously said in the past that they would NEVER grant Cyprus her freedom.
I don't find your comments controversial, rather I find them ridiculous. The whole trend of history in the mid-1950s through the 60s and 70s was for decolonisation of sizeable colonies. It is a fallacy to say that had EOKA not existed, the British would still be overlords in Cyprus. In the 1950s, the British government was in the early stages of realising that decolonisation was inevitable, hence why statements such as 'we will never leave Cyprus' were made. In contrast, the Wilson Labour administration of the 1960s was anti-colonial and countered many of these statements with real decolonisation action.
Had there been a PEACEFUL movement against British colonial power, the young EOKA fighters who were executed would not have been murdered and there would have been no need to bring in 30,000 troops to hunt down Grivas and his gang, hence the detentions and persecution that resulted from this occupying force would not have taken place.
In Cyprus, it seems that to regard EOKA as anything other than a national liberation movement is treason. I can appreciate the reasoning behind this, but Cyprus can never really have a true appreciation of its history until the crimes committed by these men against not just British soldiers and civilians, but also against their fellow Cypriots are recognised and attoned for. Just look at the hysteria around Christofias' (someone who I'm not traditionally or ideologically fond of) comments. In a modern society, the vitriolic damnation his comments have received is truly unbelievable.
So, I'll state this for the record. Firstly, what Britain did in Cyprus was wrong. We should have put the colony on the path to independence during the late 1940s, preparing Cypriots to run their own administration and ensuring stability in the process. The overzealous reaction to EOKA's activities was also misguided, there was no need to execute EOKA agitators, this just made them into martyrs. The decolonisation of Cyprus was also a botch job, saddling Cypriots with an unworkable and inflexible Constitution that was imposed on them from the outside (with the collusion of Greece and Turkey).
Secondly, EOKA was wrong. EOKA was a terrorist organisation that depended on promoting fear in certain segments of the population in order to either gain their cooperation or their apathy (much like the IRA and various other modern-day European terrorist groups). EOKA's policy of violence was misguided and provoked the British into a massive military response. Their aspirational goal of enosis ignored the feelings of a significant minority of their fellow Cypriots. Grivas was a nationalist zealot whose aim was not solely the annexation of Cyprus to Greece but was one of self-aggrandisement. EOKA did not represent all Cypriots, neither GC nor TC. It threatened violence against anyone who opposed it. EOKA did not advance the cause of Cypriots, but generated the conditions for the later schism between the two communities on the island. It forced a hurried exit strategy for the British, rather than a gradual transition to Cypriot rule which might have established a more successful and workable post-independence system.
No doubt some of you will choose to concentrate on these criticisms of EOKA, rather than the equally damning criticism of the British. However, much of what has gone wrong in Cyprus pivots around the activities of EOKA in the 1950s. Until people recognise that fact, and recognise that EOKA is not some sort of deity that deserves national worship, many GCs will continue to have their minds in the dark ages.
