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Education Wars in the Greek Cypriot Community

20.02.2009

Niyazi Kizilyurek

Last year during the Presidential elections in the Greek Cypriot Community, when Tassos Papadopoulos failed to reach the second round and was eliminated by Demetris Christofias and Iouannis Kassoulides, Archbishop Chrysostomos II declared war on Christofias claiming that if he won the elections: “The Cypriot Hellenic identity would be endangered” and the Orthodox-Hellenic values would be “harmed.”
Such claims by the Church continued even after the elections. Demetris Christofias won the elections and appointed the Minister of National Education without consulting the Church which was not normally done especially as it was announced that the intervention of the Church “had ended” which increased the reactions from the Church. For the first time since the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus the Church had been left out of the process of assigning Ministers, as they were always consulted and even decided who would be the minister. For the first time in its history since the Ottoman Empire the Church had lost its privileges, which is why they are fuming against Demetris Christofias and the government.

Church and state at war

Surely the only reason behind the Church campaign against Christofias cannot only based on “discussions on education” or that the Church has always been anti-communist. The reason behind the tension lies elsewhere. It is basically the policies regarding the Cyprus problem pursued by Christofias. Contrary to Tassos Papadopoulos’ views, Christofias met with Mehmet Ali Talat as soon as he got into power, which was followed by the comprehensive negotiation process between the two leaders. This has had a dramatic affect on the Church which was used to the idea of ‘unsettlement is settlement’ and ‘bit by bit’ they began to campaign against a possible settlement. The fight against the Minister of Education, Andreas Dimitriou, should be considered as one of the ‘warming-up events’ of the actual war.

New history books are garbage

The educational reforms announced by Dimitriou during Christofias’ electoral campaign beginning with an announcement that there would be a revision of history books was reacted to by the church and other nationalist groups with claims such as: “We are loosing our identity”, “our history is being changed” and campaigns that have occupied the Greek Cypriot agenda for several days. Archbishop Chrysostomos II announced that he would throw the new history books “into the garbage bin” demanding that the committee reviewing the history books had to include 2 clerics. The fight against the Minister of Education has intensified since this demand was refused. There is no surprise in seeing DIKO and EDEK on the same side as the church in this fight. Everyone knows very well that the above mentioned political parties and the Church were deeply involved in more worldly issues such as their obsessions with nationalism. However, the support of DISI for the nationalist wing, which supported Demetris Christofias during the elections, weakened the hand of the Minister of Education regarding a revision of the history books.
Minister retreats in face of Church opposition

The Minister unfortunately stepped back due to the amount of attacks. It is enough to have a glance at the names of the History Books Committee announced last week to understand the regression. Rolandos Katsaounis is not one of the names in the committee and he is known for having declared some of the massacres on the Turkish Cypriots that he also condemned which resulted in attacks on him. As a matter of fact the names in the committee are such that would help calm the nationalists including the Church, which seems to be curiously summarising the case. At the start of this column we claimed that the reason behind the Educational Wars was the Cyprus Problem. It should be kept in mind that should there be a failure to renew the History Books that those in favour of not settling the Cyprus Problem will have won yet another fight. The Educational Wars are somewhat the ‘warming rounds’ of the ‘Big War’ of being against settlement. Therefore it has become of great importance not to loose this ‘war’.

[insan]

Most probably, Christofias and his close comrades will never be able to cajole Krisostomides and his backers in Pan Hellenic world... Does brother Krisistomides sing this song everyday?


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[Bananiot]

Will the new history books tell the truth? This will be the acid test, as Nyiazi says. To the extend truths are told in the books we will see how the struggle against sick nationalism is progressing and hence how ready our society is for solution.

Here are some truths that have been hidden from people like Piratis and co and who are not complaining of course because the lies suit their vanity perfectly well.

1. By the 11th century, Attiki was deserted, due to raids by pirates (real ones, not our one), natural destruction and hunger. The people simply left. During the 12th century and the 13th, many Albanians came to replace those that left. Spata has taken its name from the Albanian warlord Boua Spata. Paparigopoulos, a nationalist historian, describes the following scene: When Mavrokordatos became Prime Minister, he asked the Admiral to gather the war ship sailors, in order to talk to them. Mavrokordatos makes a patriotic speech, but the audience do not respond. Ministro, the Admiral says to Mavrokordatos. Shall I now tell what you said in our language. He went on to explain to the sailors what Mavrokordatos said in Albanian. The sailors of the glorious navy of the Greek revolution were Albanians. So were many captains during the revolution, Bouboulina, Mpotsaris, Tziavellas were Albanian, just to mention a few. Even the women of Souli, the legendary Souliotisses, who fell to their death down the cliffs while dancing, rather than risk capture, were not Greek but Albanian. They in fact spoke only Albanian!

Can you imagine what will happen if we said these truths to our school children, after centuries of feeding them with lies and more lies?

More truths will folow.

[YFred]

Will the new history books tell the truth? This will be the acid test, as Nyiazi says. To the extend truths are told in the books we will see how the struggle against sick nationalism is progressing and hence how ready our society is for solution.

Here are some truths that have been hidden from people like Piratis and co and who are not complaining of course because the lies suit their vanity perfectly well.

1. By the 11th century, Attiki was deserted, due to raids by pirates (real ones, not our one), natural destruction and hunger. The people simply left. During the 12th century and the 13th, many Albanians came to replace those that left. Spata has taken its name from the Albanian warlord Boua Spata. Paparigopoulos, a nationalist historian, describes the following scene: When Mavrokordatos became Prime Minister, he asked the Admiral to gather the war ship sailors, in order to talk to them. Mavrokordatos makes a patriotic speech, but the audience do not respond. Ministro, the Admiral says to Mavrokordatos. Shall I now tell what you said in our language. He went on to explain to the sailors what Mavrokordatos said in Albanian. The sailors of the glorious navy of the Greek revolution were Albanians. So were many captains during the revolution, Bouboulina, Mpotsaris, Tziavellas were Albanian, just to mention a few. Even the women of Souli, the legendary Souliotisses, who fell to their death down the cliffs while dancing, rather than risk capture, were not Greek but Albanian. They in fact spoke only Albanian!

Can you imagine what will happen if we said these truths to our school children, after centuries of feeding them with lies and more lies?

More truths will folow.

I see Kizilyurek's education in Lurucina Secondary school has been put to good work.
Can we not strat a thred on this forum to tell the real history of Cyprus so everyone can be enlightened?

[Oracle]

I think Bananiot is tendering to re-write our history ... as spoken straight from his Mufti mentors' mouths!

[Bananiot]

I still think you are a silly woman, with blinkers to show for it.