Cyprus-Forum.com

[Oracle]

The moral of the story is:

It's easy enough to make a gesture when you know it does not need to, or could be, honoured.

Spoken like a true misanthropist.

And by which virtues do you consider yourself a philanthropist?

The rapidity with which you judge and condemn others that do not hold your views?

At least if I harbour misanthropic tendencies, it is because I consider myself amongst the best, and I know how bad I am ....

Anyway, I still stand by the false sentiment staring us in the face of reality from this story and reiterate the moral of the story:

"If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists."

So Bananiot, if the GC family had taken up the kind and generous offer ... what would have happened next?

[Oracle]

The moral of the story is:

It's easy enough to make a gesture when you know it does not need to, or could be, honoured.

Like it is facile to deny people an honourable motive when you know it does not suit your purposes!!

Enough romantics!

What are the motives of these settlers that are happy to come such a great distance to live in someone else's house in the first place?

How do you honour these motives? ... and how do you justify their illegal continuing occupation!

Not only are their motives foul .... but their morals indeed depraved.

Or are you going to plead stupidity and ignorance on the part of the settlers? ... that they do not fully comprehend that they have taken up residence in property, from which the rightful owners were removed by force, and are kept away by the people who brought them over?

Go on Bir, make my day! ... justify the morality behind illegal occupation.

[BirKibrisli]

The moral of the story is:

It's easy enough to make a gesture when you know it does not need to, or could be, honoured.

Like it is facile to deny people an honourable motive when you know it does not suit your purposes!!

Enough romantics!

What are the motives of these settlers that are happy to come such a great distance to live in someone else's house in the first place?

How do you honour these motives? ... and how do you justify their illegal continuing occupation!

Not only are their motives foul .... but their morals indeed depraved.

Or are you going to plead stupidity and ignorance on the part of the settlers? ... that they do not fully comprehend that they have taken up residence in property, from which the rightful owners were removed by force, and are kept away by the people who brought them over?

Go on Bir, make my day! ... justify the morality behind illegal occupation.

There is no morality about illegal occupation...
I was not justifying that,Oracle.

I was talking about one act of empathy and compassion by one individual.
No,doubt there are many like her. We simply don't know the circumstances under which this person found herself in Cyprus.
What you are doing is denying the settlers,as a whole, any possibility of human feelings. Hence reducing them to something less than human. So it becomes easy to remove them,or throw them into the sea,or just shoot them on sight. Hitler did the same with the Jews. There is nothing new about what you are doing...

[humanist]

Bananiot

Hopefully you have learned your lesson humanist. You cannot instill compassion to misanthropists.

Thank you Bananiot, thank you for giving me the opportuntiy to learn and grow as a human being. There is one thing that I value more than seeing a United Cyrus and that is my own personal growth and development.

Birkibrisli

The lesson I got from humanist's story is this: we can all be human and compassionate at an individual level...And we often forget most people(including some of the settlers) are victims in this sorry saga...It is very easy,in our bitterness and pain, to tarnish and hate a whole class of people if we ignore the above lesson...Thanks for sharing that with us,Andreas...

No worries Birkibrisli. I think on this forum we often get on our high horses and we speak of settlers as lesser human beings. Of course they are victims of circumstances and Turkey needs to take full responsibility for that, as well as any solution of the Cypro needs to think carefully about this issue.


Gabira

Thankyou for showing your humanity and loving a "settler". I never thought I'd come across such a special gc as you humanist

Your love is just so infectious

Thank you Gabira, your coments are appreciated, but there are times where I also criticise the Turkish speaking Cypriot community also. So I hope those coments are welcomed in same esteem as this one. Despite of what you may know of / or heard about Greek speaking Cypriots, most really just want to come home. So if we can find a way to allow the Turkish speaking community to gain a sense of self determination in a northern state of a united Cyprus and allow the rest of Cypriots to return to their homes there is hope that we can make it through this tough time in our history.

[Oracle]

The moral of the story is:

It's easy enough to make a gesture when you know it does not need to, or could be, honoured.

Like it is facile to deny people an honourable motive when you know it does not suit your purposes!!

Enough romantics!

What are the motives of these settlers that are happy to come such a great distance to live in someone else's house in the first place?

How do you honour these motives? ... and how do you justify their illegal continuing occupation!

Not only are their motives foul .... but their morals indeed depraved.

Or are you going to plead stupidity and ignorance on the part of the settlers? ... that they do not fully comprehend that they have taken up residence in property, from which the rightful owners were removed by force, and are kept away by the people who brought them over?

Go on Bir, make my day! ... justify the morality behind illegal occupation.

There is no morality about illegal occupation...
I was not justifying that,Oracle.

I was talking about one act of empathy and compassion by one individual.
No,doubt there are many like her. We simply don't know the circumstances under which this person found herself in Cyprus.
What you are doing is denying the settlers,as a whole, any possibility of human feelings. Hence reducing them to something less than human. So it becomes easy to remove them,or throw them into the sea,or just shoot them on sight. Hitler did the same with the Jews. There is nothing new about what you are doing...

Well done, nevertheless at having a stab at justification.

I am doubting a fourth hand story not an individual, or human feelings or any of that over-sentimentalised propaganda of yours, Bir.

... you are choosing to believe the story because it suits your agenda.

You have chosen to empathise with the settlers.

I have chosen to empathise with the GCs denied their homes.

The original victims here were the GCs.

The settlers chose their destiny.

The GCs had no choice.

Why are you so high and mighty that you decide your view is more worthy than mine?

You try to shame and emotionally blackmail me into adopting your chosen stance by bringing Hitler into this.

Hitler had his methods and the Turks have their methods, and tomes can be written on their overlaps.....

Why are the GC victims not worthy of this analogy ... why do you not cast them into the role of the Jews who also had no choice?

The Settlers had a choice ... they made an active decision to improve their lives by moving into free homes.

The GCs did not have a choice. They had to give up their homes. They were driven out.

Who is the victim and who is the victor right now Bir?.

I think you have lost your True Cypriot hat

[humanist]

Oracle

Well done, nevertheless at having a stab at justification.

I am doubting a fourth hand story not an individual, or human feelings or any of that over-sentimentalised propaganda of yours, Bir.

... you are choosing to believe the story because it suits your agenda.

You have chosen to empathise with the settlers.

I have chosen to empathise with the GCs denied their homes.

The original victims here were the GCs.

The settlers chose their destiny.

The GCs had no choice.

Why are you so high and mighty that you decide your view is more worthy than mine?

You try to shame and emotionally blackmail me into adopting your chosen stance by bringing Hitler into this.

Hitler had his methods and the Turks have their methods, and tomes can be written on their overlaps.....

Why are the GC victims not worthy of this analogy ... why do you not cast them into the role of the Jews who also had no choice?

The Settlers had a choice ... they made an active decision to improve their lives by moving into free homes.

The GCs did not have a choice. They had to give up their homes. They were driven out.

Who is the victim and who is the victor right now Bir?.

I think you have lost your True Cypriot hat

Oracle, there is a lot of truth in you comment. Certainly the GSC refugee did not have a choice and the Talat admisnitration and VP and Zan comradory probably exclude him now also, from getting back his homes. However, they too have a choice to take their situation to ECHR to move back to their homeand I think they should. Perhaps we will never know the circumstance that lead settlers to come to Cyprus perhaps we have not faced famine and poverty to trully apprecite that. Yet am sure there are situations where a greedy settler got a freebie and ecided to go for it. Whilst this woman may be an exeption the thousands of others may not care. However what this woman sais to this GSC family is significant becaue if every TSC and settler thought of this and if every GSC occupying TSC property in the south did the same good will and human essence will prevail. Perhaps is the responsibility of GSC's living in TSC property in the south that can take the firt step to reconciliation. The RoC has the wealth to re-settle this small number of GSC refugees who may be in this position. We know that the Talat adminsitration thorough its racist, political and fascist ideology will never take that step, however we can begin. We can do it by inviting international media attention to wittness GSC refugees inviting and handing over the keys to property to rightful owners and soon the Talat admisnitration will be shown for its ethnic cleansing ideology.

[BirKibrisli]

Well done, nevertheless at having a stab at justification.

I am doubting a fourth hand story not an individual, or human feelings or any of that over-sentimentalised propaganda of yours, Bir.

... you are choosing to believe the story because it suits your agenda.

You have chosen to empathise with the settlers.

I have chosen to empathise with the GCs denied their homes.

The original victims here were the GCs.

The settlers chose their destiny.

The GCs had no choice.

Why are you so high and mighty that you decide your view is more worthy than mine?

You try to shame and emotionally blackmail me into adopting your chosen stance by bringing Hitler into this.

Hitler had his methods and the Turks have their methods, and tomes can be written on their overlaps.....

Why are the GC victims not worthy of this analogy ... why do you not cast them into the role of the Jews who also had no choice?

The Settlers had a choice ... they made an active decision to improve their lives by moving into free homes.

The GCs did not have a choice. They had to give up their homes. They were driven out.

Who is the victim and who is the victor right now Bir?.

I think you have lost your True Cypriot hat

I have lost nothing,Oracle...
Nobody in this forum can deny my credentials when it comes to empathy and compassion for the GCs,least of all yourself...
I am just frustrated with people like yourself. People who are totally incapable of putting themselves in anybody else's shoes. People who just keep pointing the finger at the other side,without any real understanding of the historical and political reasons of our "little" conflict...People who bring a very complex equation to a simple formula,and insist that one and only one side is the guilty party...It is people like you who have prevented a solution all these years. People like you who impede any attempts of building trust,respect,and understanding between our communities. People like you who are totally blind to the suffering of "the other".It must be very comforting to believe what you believe,to keep your head in the sand,to dish out poison at every opportunity. But you are not helping us advance one inch on the road of peace and a just solution...Keep up the good work...And kiss goodbye to any solution in your lifetime...

[metecyp]

The lesson I got from humanist's story is this: we can all be human and compassionate at an individual level...And we often forget most people(including some of the settlers) are victims in this sorry saga...It is very easy,in our bitterness and pain, to tarnish and hate a whole class of people if we ignore the above lesson...Thanks for sharing that with us,Andreas...

Exactly right! Only if more people came to this realization...

[Piratis]

The Turkish Settlers are people like the rest of us with the same kind of human weaknesses but also with many examples of very humane and altruistic behavior. Why would they be any different? Anybody that makes an assumption that a person should be bad just because he belongs to a certain race is nothing but racist.

The problem with the Settlers is not whether they are nice people or bad people. The problem is that the Turkish State (or army if you prefer) has intentionally used these people in order to commit a crime against Cyprus and change the demographics of our island.

Cyprus can not be responsible for 10s of thousands of Turks, Chinese, Indians, Egyptians etc, no matter how nice those people are. Their own countries should take care of them, and if their own countries have acted criminally and illegally in a way that harms them, then their country should be responsible to compensate them for any harm it has caused to them.

The cases of Titina Loizidou show that Turkey not only would have to return the properties to the GC refugees, but also that she will have to compensate them for the 34 years that their properties were illegally kept away from them. That means billions of dollars in compensations that Turkey is obligated to pay to us for the 34 years of illegal occupation. Still, according to Annan plan Turkey would not pay a cent!

Well, thats fine with me. If Turkey finally piss off from our country, then we want nothing else from her. They can keep all those billions that they own us. However, at the very least, they should take their own citizens back to Turkey, somehting which they are obligated to do, and use part of the money that should have been otherwise paid to us, to compensate them in such a way that every one of them would be happy to go.

Now, if there is a settler that would accept no compensation, no matter how high it is, and he prefers to stay in Cyprus instead, then personally I would be fine if Turkey pays that very high compensation to Cyprus, and Cyprus in return will give citizenship to that Turkish citizen.

Thats the correct way to solve this issue. Not to victimize the Settlers, obviously not to victimize again the Cypriots, but for the one who committed the crime (Turkey) to take its own responsibilities.

[Oracle]

Well put Piratis ... as always a timely post to cool emotions.

I do not think it is a race issue.

The settlers could be from anywhere. It does not matter, as always people are the same ..... part of one Human Race ... It is their actions I criticise. However, I realise the settlers are merely pawns of Turkey's strategy and as such, also victims.

I was reacting to Bananiot's label of misanthropist for simply doubting a fourth-hand story and his failure to respond to the question on what would have happened next, if the two families made a personal decision to exchange.

Would Turkey allow that GC family to return simply because the settler had given it back?

Is that home considered the property of the Settler to give back, anyway?