Cyprus-Forum.com

[zan]

During the heyday of the Great Idea the Greeks developed a conception of their national identity which included the following features:

(a) The Greek nation are a people who lived for millennia in their Mediterranean territory. Present-day Greeks are the descendants of the Hellenic heroes, Plato, Sophocles, Alexander and the Greek-speaking Christians of Byzantium. They are to be identified not by reference to citizenship of the existing Greek State, but by reference to a distinguished civilisation and language to which they are all the rightful heirs.

(b) The Greek nation is much larger than the modern Greek State. The latter is that part of the Hellenic and Christian Orthodox world which has been liberated from (mostly Ottoman) domination by the sacrifice and heroism of Greek people.

(c) It is the patriotic duty of all 'true' Greeks to work for the liberation of all historically Greek lands, now inhabited by Greeks under foreign rule. And it is a 'prescription of history' (a meaningless phrase which has enjoyed wide currency among history-conscious Greeks) that all foreign-dominated Greek territory will eventually become united with the free Greek State.

Thus, to be a 'true' Greek, one would have to conceive of oneself as a member of a great nation only a part of which having, as yet, been redeemed and organized as a free national State; and further, to believe that this national State must grow steadily until it encompasses the whole of the ancient and Byzantine Hellenic world. Greek children at school were taught extensively their history (or an official version of it), ancient, medieval and modern; and modern history was taught as a record of the gradual fulfilment of national aspirations, mainly, by fighting against Ottoman Turkish conquerors. So, by a combination of various historical factors, state-controlled education, propaganda and political demagogy, Greek nationalism and patriotism came to mean by the 1860s: pride in being a member of a superior nation, belief in the necessity of extending the boundaries of the Greek State to include all historically Greek lands, and consequently the assertion of the duty to support a just struggle against the Turkish conquerors who have for long held by force sacred national territory. [from Zenon Stavrinides, The Cyprus Conflict, pp 19-20]

[mehmet]

Bloody hell Zan, your postings are getting more and more prolific. Put that laptop down and enjoy your time back in Cyprus.

[Nikitas]

Superior nation, as in a better state of being than an Ottoman serf, sure, why not? Without such aspirations no nation moves forward. That is how the United States came into being, and most of the republics of the world who threw off colonial rule.

As for being direct descendants of Byzantine Greeks, well you have the records of the Ottoman empire itself as proof. They are detailed and since they are tax related record all kinds of data and prove beyond all doubt the continuity of birth, death, property devolution from the Byzantine era till the liberation.

There is also Greek language and culture in Italy, an area the Italians call Magna Grecia, Greater Greece, where the continuity is from the pre Byzantine era, and you know what, their 2000 year old dialect sounds a lot like Cypriot dialect proving that there is traceable continuity from even before the Byzantines.

[Piratis]

Only a Turk would doubt that Greeks lived for millennia in the Mediterranean area. The Greeks were among the first to build cities and create civilization in the eastern (and not only) Med sea and this is where we belong.

On the other hand, the Turks who belong somewhere around Mongolia, came much later in our territories in order to steal what we (and others) had already created. Therefor it is in fact a Turkish expansionism against our lands. We Greeks didn't invade any Turkish cities (in fact such did not exist since Turks were just barbarian nomads), it is the Turks who invaded our cities and expanded against us, and this is crystal clear.

Obviously the Turks would like all the peoples that they conquered to be their eternal slaves, so they can continue to abuse and exploit us as they did for centuries. They didn't like it that we (and all others) revolted against them and liberated ourselves and most of our lands.

When the Turks realized that they could not keep other nations under their rule they resorted to genocides and ehtnic cleansings to eliminate from the lands they continued to occupy anybody that was not a Turk so they could claim those lands as theirs. (in more recent times they did exactly that with the north part of Cyprus. They killed and ethnically cleansed the great majority of the native population, replaced them with Turks, and then claim that this part of Cyprus is supposedly Turkish)

Those that they didn't kill, they forced them to accept that they are just Turks and nothing else. For example they deny that there is such thing as an occupied Kurdistan and the nation of Kurds, and they called them "Mountain Turks"!!

I wonder, when Kurdistan is finally liberated will the Turks claim of "Kurdish expansionism" against them? Or maybe the Turks will prevent such thing happening by committing genocide against the Kurks like they did with the Armenians, the Greeks and others?

[Nikitas]

What is the implication here, that all former Ottoman subjects should be happy to live under Ottoman rule? Even the Turks themselves could not stand it anymore and changed the system in 1923!

[GreekForumer]

Zan, assume for the moment the Greeks and the other Christian subjects were pacifists and politely asked for separation from the Ottoman Empire.

1. What regions and territories would you have made into Greek Sovereign territory ?

2. What regions and territories would you have made into Turkish Sovereign territory ?

3. What regions and territories would you have made into SHARED SOVEREIGNTY between the Greeks and Turks ?

4. What rules did you use to determine the territorial assignments ?
Example : "If one group outnumbers another by 4 to 1 then the region qualifies for EXCLUSIVE sovereignty for the majority group".

5. Ultimately, whatever the territorial assignments are, each ethnic group will get their "fair share" of land according to their population numbers, right ?

[miltiades]

Bloody hell Zan, your postings are getting more and more prolific. Put that laptop down and enjoy your time back in Cyprus.

Hi Mehmet , I think Zan is desperately trying , as all extremists are- to stir up as much shit as possible .It is his way of saying to the Cypriot people that we can not live together , so that in years to come more bloody conflicts more flag waving more dead men women and children. Does he not understand that the overwhelming majority of Cypriots want nothing more than peace and tranquility on the island of Cyprus .
Show respect and you will be respected. I'm proud to say that those T/C that I have met both here and in Cyprus reciprocate the respect that I offer them . The fanatics are like flies they search for the tiniest piece of crap so that they can lay lay their rotten eggs.
Zan is on a losing battle , the end of the division is on sight , the begining of the Cypriot nation is now a reality.

[Sotos]

5. Ultimately, whatever the territorial assignments are, each ethnic group will get their "fair share" of land according to their population numbers, right ?

GreekForumer I think the way out of that would be very easy for Turks. Genocide all native people and have the Turks make children like rabbits.

[zan]

Bloody hell Zan, your postings are getting more and more prolific. Put that laptop down and enjoy your time back in Cyprus.

had to keep oput of the sun yesterday for health reasons so I got bored.

[zan]

Superior nation, as in a better state of being than an Ottoman serf, sure, why not? Without such aspirations no nation moves forward. That is how the United States came into being, and most of the republics of the world who threw off colonial rule.

As for being direct descendants of Byzantine Greeks, well you have the records of the Ottoman empire itself as proof. They are detailed and since they are tax related record all kinds of data and prove beyond all doubt the continuity of birth, death, property devolution from the Byzantine era till the liberation.

There is also Greek language and culture in Italy, an area the Italians call Magna Grecia, Greater Greece, where the continuity is from the pre Byzantine era, and you know what, their 2000 year old dialect sounds a lot like Cypriot dialect proving that there is traceable continuity from even before the Byzantines.

Should Turkey then have aspirations to all the Turkic nations then Nikitas.