DT. wrote:CopperLine wrote:It might be worth getting a sense of historical perspective and comparison here. First, the economic difficulties facing Turkey are, in the short run, nothing as severe as those which it suffered in the late 70s, in the 80s, in the late 90s, or the early part of this decade. I agree there are huge structural problems - but these are faced by all OECD economies to a greater or lesser extent. Thus Turkey is NOT less capable of supporting TRNC than before. It is a question of whether the AKP in particular wish to do so and in what way and for what purpose.
Second, whether supported by Turkey or not, does an economic crisis in TRNC more likely lead to a retrenchment of Turkish Cypriot separatism or does it more likely lead to an opening to the RoC ? (In any case it depends what kind of economic crisis and what its dynamics are).
Third, wishing for a crisis in expectation of throwing off the yoke of powerful forces is usually a daft wish in the absence of an organised movement or party. It is the already-powerful who survive crises, who suffer least, who are capable of offsetting damage, not the poor, the weak or the powerless. Just compare the size and weight of the Turkish economy with that of Cyprus, RoC or TRNC.
I'd have thought a better strategy would be to reflect on economic crises as affecting ordinary Cypriots and others and using that as a basis for common solidarity. Workers of all lands unite.
GDP per capita Cyprus: $27,429
GDP per capita Turkey: $ 9,629
Tell me again who are the poor?
Read your post copperline, you speak of the poor, the weak and the powerless. Your idea of the size and weight of an economy as an indicator (not sure which one) is a mistake. An economy may have the size of 2-3 trillion, yet remain fragile to international crisis or immaturity of the administration.
Take China and its stock exchange, up 500% then down 80%. The economy is a giant yet when the govt stops certain companies from dropping in share value then you are showing a level of immaturity as an economy.
Turkey is a vulnerable big(ish) economy. It is vulnerable in relation to its status as a candidate of the EU or not. It is vulnerable due to its debt. It is vulnerable due to its dependence on cheap labour...and many others.
Cyprus is a small compact efficient economy which has been successfully shifting its focus from tourism to services managing to bring it down to only 18% of the GDP now. The population has a higher buying power than nearly all economies in the region, it has a stable currency (as opposed to the lira) and it is completing its first round of EU infrastructure development making it much more attractive to foreign investment than ever before.
