Cyprus-Forum.com

[YFred]

APOEL’s love of the Nazi swastika
By David A. Porter

Attn: Foivos Erotokritou Chairman, Apoel FC

Mr Erotokritou,

I hope this finds you well. I doubt you have seen the swastika and the name of your organisation which, as of the morning of March 10, 2009, were spray-painted on the wall of the Soloneion Book Centre in Nicosia, since I can’t imagine you or any of your board members, your players or your fans have much interest in bookstores. Your fans are obviously interested in defacing their exterior walls with swastikas but actually entering such establishments, or even reading, are most probably beyond the purview of anyone associated with your organisation.

I am an American residing in Cyprus, a regular visitor to the island since December 2001, and this is just one of the many times I have been confronted by swastikas in the context of APOEL. As a resident of Strovolos, I see swastikas on walls throughout the greater Nicosia metropolitan area; as I am an avid cyclist, they serve as mile markers on my weekend rides southwest of the city.

During my first visit to Cyprus in December 2001, I was unfortunate enough to attend an APOEL game in Larnaca, where one of your younger fans wore a ski jacket which he had emblazoned with a swastika. It is more than sad, and more than shameful, to see Nazi iconography in a European nation more than 50 years after the defeat of the Third Reich.

What’s the Third Reich, you might ask? This was the German state under Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 until that nation’s defeat in 1945. Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, was founded in 1919, one year after the end of World War I.

You may know the National Socialist German Workers’ Party by another name, the Nazis, who formally adopted the swastika in 1920. Whatever the meaning of this ancient symbol prior to the birth of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, we can be certain of what it meant from 1920 on, per Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Troubles): “In the swastika, we see the mission for the struggle for the victory of Aryan man.”

This struggle for victory failed, thankfully, but only after the extermination of millions of gypsies, homosexuals and Jews, among others, including the mentally ill, in concentration camps throughout central and Eastern Europe. They were either shot and pushed into mass graves, or gassed to death, and their numbers don’t include the millions of Europeans killed or crippled during the war, nor do they include those left homeless and starving once the Third Reich fell.

The definition of genocide with which we are so conversant in the 21st century, which we apply to Rwanda and Sudan and even Palestine, has its provenance in the Nazi atrocities of World War II.

Had Enosis actually taken place, let’s say prior to the 1974 invasion, Cyprus would have become part of a Greek nation that saw 85 per cent of its Jewish population eradicated. Closer to home, Turkey remained neutral during World War II, but the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany during World War I. Much like its former ally, Turkey also pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing, particularly in Armenia. All of this, I think, should complicate the use of swastikas in support of APOEL.

What happens if your club makes it to the Champions League next year? Your fans will look a bit silly hoisting swastikas in a stadium in Allianz Arena or Weserstadion, since it’s illegal to do so in Germany.

If the meaning behind these swastikas is an ethnically pure Cyprus, then you folks are pissing in the wind, since the day-to-day existence of this island rides the backs of thousands of guest workers from China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka – I doubt there are any Cypriots left who pump their own gas, wash their own cars, clean their own homes, or even place their own groceries in a cart at Alpha Mega. So if we achieve an ethnically-cleansed Cyprus, who’s going to raise the kids and bring coffee to the table at Le Cafe? Who’s going to deliver pizza?

In all seriousness, you people have gone mad. Maybe it’s the Turkish occupation, but something seems to have driven you deep into a pernicious ignorance, and I worry you’ll never thrash your way out of it.

Shall I blame you, Kyrie Erotokritou, for each swastika I come across in my day-to-day travels about Nicosia? Perhaps not, as I doubt you’re zipping about in a souped-up Japanese car with a can of black Krylon in your lap – it would be as silly as blaming J.D. Salinger for the murder of John Lennon because Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye when he shot Lennon in front of the Dakota. Still, as none of your “Ultras” has been brave enough to spray his contact details alongside one of the aforementioned swastikas, I’ve no one else with whom to pursue this.

Perhaps, now that we are marching toward the close of the first decade of the 21st century, your organisation might take it upon itself to educate your fans about the true meaning of the swastika, which is the annihilation, during World War II, of anyone who wasn’t Aryan – had the Nazis made it to Cyprus, I can assure you the swastika would today inspire the dread, fear and grief it inspires in anyone who actually has an interest in history or the fading hope that we can make a finer world for our children, one in which genocide is a history lesson, rather than a fact of modern life. As George Santayana wrote, prior to World War I, in his The Life of Reason, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Maybe APOEL, in a radical change of direction, can help the people of Cyprus to bring down their false gods, like Dolce & Gabbana and the mediocre football purveyed by clubs such as yours, and raise aloft those worthy of exaltation, like integrity, knowledge and truth.

Please forgive the pomposity of the Santayana reference – you folks don’t even know who Hitler is. Perhaps if he’d been Turkish...

David A. Porter,
Nicosia



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009

[DT.]

APOEL’s love of the Nazi swastika
By David A. Porter

Attn: Foivos Erotokritou Chairman, Apoel FC

Mr Erotokritou,

I hope this finds you well. I doubt you have seen the swastika and the name of your organisation which, as of the morning of March 10, 2009, were spray-painted on the wall of the Soloneion Book Centre in Nicosia, since I can’t imagine you or any of your board members, your players or your fans have much interest in bookstores. Your fans are obviously interested in defacing their exterior walls with swastikas but actually entering such establishments, or even reading, are most probably beyond the purview of anyone associated with your organisation.

I am an American residing in Cyprus, a regular visitor to the island since December 2001, and this is just one of the many times I have been confronted by swastikas in the context of APOEL. As a resident of Strovolos, I see swastikas on walls throughout the greater Nicosia metropolitan area; as I am an avid cyclist, they serve as mile markers on my weekend rides southwest of the city.

During my first visit to Cyprus in December 2001, I was unfortunate enough to attend an APOEL game in Larnaca, where one of your younger fans wore a ski jacket which he had emblazoned with a swastika. It is more than sad, and more than shameful, to see Nazi iconography in a European nation more than 50 years after the defeat of the Third Reich.

What’s the Third Reich, you might ask? This was the German state under Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 until that nation’s defeat in 1945. Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, was founded in 1919, one year after the end of World War I.

You may know the National Socialist German Workers’ Party by another name, the Nazis, who formally adopted the swastika in 1920. Whatever the meaning of this ancient symbol prior to the birth of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, we can be certain of what it meant from 1920 on, per Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Troubles): “In the swastika, we see the mission for the struggle for the victory of Aryan man.”

This struggle for victory failed, thankfully, but only after the extermination of millions of gypsies, homosexuals and Jews, among others, including the mentally ill, in concentration camps throughout central and Eastern Europe. They were either shot and pushed into mass graves, or gassed to death, and their numbers don’t include the millions of Europeans killed or crippled during the war, nor do they include those left homeless and starving once the Third Reich fell.

The definition of genocide with which we are so conversant in the 21st century, which we apply to Rwanda and Sudan and even Palestine, has its provenance in the Nazi atrocities of World War II.

Had Enosis actually taken place, let’s say prior to the 1974 invasion, Cyprus would have become part of a Greek nation that saw 85 per cent of its Jewish population eradicated. Closer to home, Turkey remained neutral during World War II, but the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany during World War I. Much like its former ally, Turkey also pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing, particularly in Armenia. All of this, I think, should complicate the use of swastikas in support of APOEL.

What happens if your club makes it to the Champions League next year? Your fans will look a bit silly hoisting swastikas in a stadium in Allianz Arena or Weserstadion, since it’s illegal to do so in Germany.

If the meaning behind these swastikas is an ethnically pure Cyprus, then you folks are pissing in the wind, since the day-to-day existence of this island rides the backs of thousands of guest workers from China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka – I doubt there are any Cypriots left who pump their own gas, wash their own cars, clean their own homes, or even place their own groceries in a cart at Alpha Mega. So if we achieve an ethnically-cleansed Cyprus, who’s going to raise the kids and bring coffee to the table at Le Cafe? Who’s going to deliver pizza?

In all seriousness, you people have gone mad. Maybe it’s the Turkish occupation, but something seems to have driven you deep into a pernicious ignorance, and I worry you’ll never thrash your way out of it.

Shall I blame you, Kyrie Erotokritou, for each swastika I come across in my day-to-day travels about Nicosia? Perhaps not, as I doubt you’re zipping about in a souped-up Japanese car with a can of black Krylon in your lap – it would be as silly as blaming J.D. Salinger for the murder of John Lennon because Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye when he shot Lennon in front of the Dakota. Still, as none of your “Ultras” has been brave enough to spray his contact details alongside one of the aforementioned swastikas, I’ve no one else with whom to pursue this.

Perhaps, now that we are marching toward the close of the first decade of the 21st century, your organisation might take it upon itself to educate your fans about the true meaning of the swastika, which is the annihilation, during World War II, of anyone who wasn’t Aryan – had the Nazis made it to Cyprus, I can assure you the swastika would today inspire the dread, fear and grief it inspires in anyone who actually has an interest in history or the fading hope that we can make a finer world for our children, one in which genocide is a history lesson, rather than a fact of modern life. As George Santayana wrote, prior to World War I, in his The Life of Reason, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Maybe APOEL, in a radical change of direction, can help the people of Cyprus to bring down their false gods, like Dolce & Gabbana and the mediocre football purveyed by clubs such as yours, and raise aloft those worthy of exaltation, like integrity, knowledge and truth.

Please forgive the pomposity of the Santayana reference – you folks don’t even know who Hitler is. Perhaps if he’d been Turkish...

David A. Porter,
Nicosia



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009

Had he been less condescending he might had gotten a response from Erotokritou. He's a very well respected and down to earth type of guy. The way this is written however leaves little hope for a response.

[YFred]

APOEL’s love of the Nazi swastika
By David A. Porter

Attn: Foivos Erotokritou Chairman, Apoel FC

Mr Erotokritou,

I hope this finds you well. I doubt you have seen the swastika and the name of your organisation which, as of the morning of March 10, 2009, were spray-painted on the wall of the Soloneion Book Centre in Nicosia, since I can’t imagine you or any of your board members, your players or your fans have much interest in bookstores. Your fans are obviously interested in defacing their exterior walls with swastikas but actually entering such establishments, or even reading, are most probably beyond the purview of anyone associated with your organisation.

I am an American residing in Cyprus, a regular visitor to the island since December 2001, and this is just one of the many times I have been confronted by swastikas in the context of APOEL. As a resident of Strovolos, I see swastikas on walls throughout the greater Nicosia metropolitan area; as I am an avid cyclist, they serve as mile markers on my weekend rides southwest of the city.

During my first visit to Cyprus in December 2001, I was unfortunate enough to attend an APOEL game in Larnaca, where one of your younger fans wore a ski jacket which he had emblazoned with a swastika. It is more than sad, and more than shameful, to see Nazi iconography in a European nation more than 50 years after the defeat of the Third Reich.

What’s the Third Reich, you might ask? This was the German state under Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 until that nation’s defeat in 1945. Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, was founded in 1919, one year after the end of World War I.

You may know the National Socialist German Workers’ Party by another name, the Nazis, who formally adopted the swastika in 1920. Whatever the meaning of this ancient symbol prior to the birth of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, we can be certain of what it meant from 1920 on, per Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Troubles): “In the swastika, we see the mission for the struggle for the victory of Aryan man.”

This struggle for victory failed, thankfully, but only after the extermination of millions of gypsies, homosexuals and Jews, among others, including the mentally ill, in concentration camps throughout central and Eastern Europe. They were either shot and pushed into mass graves, or gassed to death, and their numbers don’t include the millions of Europeans killed or crippled during the war, nor do they include those left homeless and starving once the Third Reich fell.

The definition of genocide with which we are so conversant in the 21st century, which we apply to Rwanda and Sudan and even Palestine, has its provenance in the Nazi atrocities of World War II.

Had Enosis actually taken place, let’s say prior to the 1974 invasion, Cyprus would have become part of a Greek nation that saw 85 per cent of its Jewish population eradicated. Closer to home, Turkey remained neutral during World War II, but the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany during World War I. Much like its former ally, Turkey also pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing, particularly in Armenia. All of this, I think, should complicate the use of swastikas in support of APOEL.

What happens if your club makes it to the Champions League next year? Your fans will look a bit silly hoisting swastikas in a stadium in Allianz Arena or Weserstadion, since it’s illegal to do so in Germany.

If the meaning behind these swastikas is an ethnically pure Cyprus, then you folks are pissing in the wind, since the day-to-day existence of this island rides the backs of thousands of guest workers from China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka – I doubt there are any Cypriots left who pump their own gas, wash their own cars, clean their own homes, or even place their own groceries in a cart at Alpha Mega. So if we achieve an ethnically-cleansed Cyprus, who’s going to raise the kids and bring coffee to the table at Le Cafe? Who’s going to deliver pizza?

In all seriousness, you people have gone mad. Maybe it’s the Turkish occupation, but something seems to have driven you deep into a pernicious ignorance, and I worry you’ll never thrash your way out of it.

Shall I blame you, Kyrie Erotokritou, for each swastika I come across in my day-to-day travels about Nicosia? Perhaps not, as I doubt you’re zipping about in a souped-up Japanese car with a can of black Krylon in your lap – it would be as silly as blaming J.D. Salinger for the murder of John Lennon because Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye when he shot Lennon in front of the Dakota. Still, as none of your “Ultras” has been brave enough to spray his contact details alongside one of the aforementioned swastikas, I’ve no one else with whom to pursue this.

Perhaps, now that we are marching toward the close of the first decade of the 21st century, your organisation might take it upon itself to educate your fans about the true meaning of the swastika, which is the annihilation, during World War II, of anyone who wasn’t Aryan – had the Nazis made it to Cyprus, I can assure you the swastika would today inspire the dread, fear and grief it inspires in anyone who actually has an interest in history or the fading hope that we can make a finer world for our children, one in which genocide is a history lesson, rather than a fact of modern life. As George Santayana wrote, prior to World War I, in his The Life of Reason, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Maybe APOEL, in a radical change of direction, can help the people of Cyprus to bring down their false gods, like Dolce & Gabbana and the mediocre football purveyed by clubs such as yours, and raise aloft those worthy of exaltation, like integrity, knowledge and truth.

Please forgive the pomposity of the Santayana reference – you folks don’t even know who Hitler is. Perhaps if he’d been Turkish...

David A. Porter,
Nicosia



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009

Had he been less condescending he might had gotten a response from Erotokritou. He's a very well respected and down to earth type of guy. The way this is written however leaves little hope for a response.

I do realise that all teams have similar problems. However most at least look as though they are doing something about it.

[DT.]

there's 3 kids that happen to support apoel who go around spraying zwastika graffiti everywhere. 3 kids out of about 100,000 fans of apoel on this island. And this idiot blames the Chairman of APOEL Ltd. WHy doesn't he also request the chairman of Galatasaray to go to jail since his fans murdered a Leeds supporter?

[CBBB]

there's 3 kids that happen to support apoel who go around spraying zwastika graffiti everywhere. 3 kids out of about 100,000 fans of apoel on this island. And this idiot blames the Chairman of APOEL Ltd. WHy doesn't he also request the chairman of Galatasaray to go to jail since his fans murdered a Leeds supporter?

It sounds as though you know who they are, so why don't you shop them?

[YFred]

there's 3 kids that happen to support apoel who go around spraying zwastika graffiti everywhere. 3 kids out of about 100,000 fans of apoel on this island. And this idiot blames the Chairman of APOEL Ltd. WHy doesn't he also request the chairman of Galatasaray to go to jail since his fans murdered a Leeds supporter?

DT, this is not about three kids, its what action the teams are taking to prevent it. Galatasaray I care as much as I care for ManU. Now, Arsenal is another matter.

[DT.]

there's 3 kids that happen to support apoel who go around spraying zwastika graffiti everywhere. 3 kids out of about 100,000 fans of apoel on this island. And this idiot blames the Chairman of APOEL Ltd. WHy doesn't he also request the chairman of Galatasaray to go to jail since his fans murdered a Leeds supporter?

It sounds as though you know who they are, so why don't you shop them?

I don't know who they are but I know from the other fans that its just 3 of them. They've been banned from the stands and cannot carry the swastika into any of the games anymore. As far as graffiti goes, then what is the Chairman of APOEL meant to do? Ride around on his bicycle in Nicosia hoping to catch them?

[DT.]

there's 3 kids that happen to support apoel who go around spraying zwastika graffiti everywhere. 3 kids out of about 100,000 fans of apoel on this island. And this idiot blames the Chairman of APOEL Ltd. WHy doesn't he also request the chairman of Galatasaray to go to jail since his fans murdered a Leeds supporter?

DT, this is not about three kids, its what action the teams are taking to prevent it. Galatasaray I care as much as I care for ManU. Now, Arsenal is another matter.

Once again...they;ve been banned from the stadiums. What do you suggest the Chairman of APOEL do about Nicosia graffiti?

[YFred]

there's 3 kids that happen to support apoel who go around spraying zwastika graffiti everywhere. 3 kids out of about 100,000 fans of apoel on this island. And this idiot blames the Chairman of APOEL Ltd. WHy doesn't he also request the chairman of Galatasaray to go to jail since his fans murdered a Leeds supporter?

DT, this is not about three kids, its what action the teams are taking to prevent it. Galatasaray I care as much as I care for ManU. Now, Arsenal is another matter.

Once again...they;ve been banned from the stadiums. What do you suggest the Chairman of APOEL do about Nicosia graffiti?

Are you sure its just those 3?

[DT.]

APOEL’s love of the Nazi swastika
By David A. Porter

Attn: Foivos Erotokritou Chairman, Apoel FC

Mr Erotokritou,

I hope this finds you well. I doubt you have seen the swastika and the name of your organisation which, as of the morning of March 10, 2009, were spray-painted on the wall of the Soloneion Book Centre in Nicosia, since I can’t imagine you or any of your board members, your players or your fans have much interest in bookstores. Your fans are obviously interested in defacing their exterior walls with swastikas but actually entering such establishments, or even reading, are most probably beyond the purview of anyone associated with your organisation.

I am an American residing in Cyprus, a regular visitor to the island since December 2001, and this is just one of the many times I have been confronted by swastikas in the context of APOEL. As a resident of Strovolos, I see swastikas on walls throughout the greater Nicosia metropolitan area; as I am an avid cyclist, they serve as mile markers on my weekend rides southwest of the city.

During my first visit to Cyprus in December 2001, I was unfortunate enough to attend an APOEL game in Larnaca, where one of your younger fans wore a ski jacket which he had emblazoned with a swastika. It is more than sad, and more than shameful, to see Nazi iconography in a European nation more than 50 years after the defeat of the Third Reich.

What’s the Third Reich, you might ask? This was the German state under Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 until that nation’s defeat in 1945. Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, was founded in 1919, one year after the end of World War I.

You may know the National Socialist German Workers’ Party by another name, the Nazis, who formally adopted the swastika in 1920. Whatever the meaning of this ancient symbol prior to the birth of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, we can be certain of what it meant from 1920 on, per Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Troubles): “In the swastika, we see the mission for the struggle for the victory of Aryan man.”

This struggle for victory failed, thankfully, but only after the extermination of millions of gypsies, homosexuals and Jews, among others, including the mentally ill, in concentration camps throughout central and Eastern Europe. They were either shot and pushed into mass graves, or gassed to death, and their numbers don’t include the millions of Europeans killed or crippled during the war, nor do they include those left homeless and starving once the Third Reich fell.

The definition of genocide with which we are so conversant in the 21st century, which we apply to Rwanda and Sudan and even Palestine, has its provenance in the Nazi atrocities of World War II.

Had Enosis actually taken place, let’s say prior to the 1974 invasion, Cyprus would have become part of a Greek nation that saw 85 per cent of its Jewish population eradicated. Closer to home, Turkey remained neutral during World War II, but the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany during World War I. Much like its former ally, Turkey also pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing, particularly in Armenia. All of this, I think, should complicate the use of swastikas in support of APOEL.

What happens if your club makes it to the Champions League next year? Your fans will look a bit silly hoisting swastikas in a stadium in Allianz Arena or Weserstadion, since it’s illegal to do so in Germany.

If the meaning behind these swastikas is an ethnically pure Cyprus, then you folks are pissing in the wind, since the day-to-day existence of this island rides the backs of thousands of guest workers from China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka – I doubt there are any Cypriots left who pump their own gas, wash their own cars, clean their own homes, or even place their own groceries in a cart at Alpha Mega. So if we achieve an ethnically-cleansed Cyprus, who’s going to raise the kids and bring coffee to the table at Le Cafe? Who’s going to deliver pizza?

In all seriousness, you people have gone mad. Maybe it’s the Turkish occupation, but something seems to have driven you deep into a pernicious ignorance, and I worry you’ll never thrash your way out of it.

Shall I blame you, Kyrie Erotokritou, for each swastika I come across in my day-to-day travels about Nicosia? Perhaps not, as I doubt you’re zipping about in a souped-up Japanese car with a can of black Krylon in your lap – it would be as silly as blaming J.D. Salinger for the murder of John Lennon because Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye when he shot Lennon in front of the Dakota. Still, as none of your “Ultras” has been brave enough to spray his contact details alongside one of the aforementioned swastikas, I’ve no one else with whom to pursue this.

Perhaps, now that we are marching toward the close of the first decade of the 21st century, your organisation might take it upon itself to educate your fans about the true meaning of the swastika, which is the annihilation, during World War II, of anyone who wasn’t Aryan – had the Nazis made it to Cyprus, I can assure you the swastika would today inspire the dread, fear and grief it inspires in anyone who actually has an interest in history or the fading hope that we can make a finer world for our children, one in which genocide is a history lesson, rather than a fact of modern life. As George Santayana wrote, prior to World War I, in his The Life of Reason, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Maybe APOEL, in a radical change of direction, can help the people of Cyprus to bring down their false gods, like Dolce & Gabbana and the mediocre football purveyed by clubs such as yours, and raise aloft those worthy of exaltation, like integrity, knowledge and truth.

Please forgive the pomposity of the Santayana reference – you folks don’t even know who Hitler is. Perhaps if he’d been Turkish...

David A. Porter,
Nicosia



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009

This prick on the other hand who insults an entire Board of Directors as being illiterate should be slapped with a lawsuit for defamation