Cyprus-Forum.com

[city]

What I do not understand then is why you think that GC and TC working togeather to clean up cemetaries in disrepair does not even have one millionth chance of achieving a Cyprus that would be good for your grandchildren?

I didn't say this. I don't know how much chance it has. This is why I asked: Is the problem a problem of mistrust? Or is it that TCs (if we remove the nice wrappings) want to have an independent country on land stolen from us?
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Piratis, this is exactly what I was going for. If you are not willing to take part in such actions as erolz suggested (in the other thread, we are jumping back and forth here ) then you will never know what people want and how they think and feel.
And I understood as well that you said you will not take part because there was no chance of achieving your aims.

[erolz]

I didn't say this. I don't know how much chance it has. This is why I asked: Is the problem a problem of mistrust? Or is it that TCs (if we remove the nice wrappings) want to have an independent country on land stolen from us?

Well I understood your post pretty much as City explains she did below

And I understood as well that you said you will not take part because there was no chance of achieving your aims.

I can not tell you that participating in the cemetary cleanup idea will achieve a united cyprus of the type you want today. All I can say is that we need to do something. We need to start working togeather despite our differences and not use that as a reason to not work togeather. We need to get a mind set that we will not kill each other no matter how much the other side gets what it wants and we do not. That does not mean we will abandon our stuggles for what we want. Thats how I see it anyway.

[-mikkie2-]

Building confidence is not such a difficult thing to do. The issue is trust, not confidence.

To build trust we have to engage at levels which would ordinarily bring us into conflict. Many GC and TC cross the border and interact with eachother every day, so building confidence is not really a problem otherwise people would not be crossing. Its the same with going to clean up cemetaries!

Unfortunately, the issue of trust lies squarely at the hands of the politicians. It is they that every day snipe and accuse eachother, sometimes with good reason and other times for not very good reasons at all. The building of trust needs to be shown at the political level in order for it to filter down to the ordinary people. If you have a system that kind of encourages the demonisation of the other side then trust will never inherently be built.

Another way for building trust is to actually undermine the political classes of each side. For me the boldest and most productive step would be to form a cross community party that could challenge both sides of the border. If you had a like mided group of TC's and GC's that had a clear vision of a solution it would have the establishment running for cover. To me that would be the way to go. Would anyone be up to such a challenge?

[erolz]

Would anyone be up to such a challenge?

Only if we call it the cemetaries party and make the cleaning up of cemeatries by GC and TC working togeather our top policy

More seriously I would join such a party IF it had an agenda (outside of the Cyprus problem) that I supported - which would mean it would have to be pretty radical for me. I am not sure that there are enough people on either side that share a political vision (outside the cyprus problem - and its questionable that there even is any politics in Cyprus outside the cyprus problem) that would match my own close enough to make such a party practical or effective.

[Agios Amvrosios]

The subtefuge that Turkish Cypriots do not "trust' Greek Cypriots is raised to justify the ultimate Turkish goal of partition. (Taksim/Partition was Turkish Dogma as far back as the 1950's.)

No amount of tree hugging will convince Turkish hardliners to abandon their ethnically pure dreams.

[Viewpoint]

Agios Amvrosios

The subtefuge that Turkish Cypriots do not "trust' Greek Cypriots is raised to justify the ultimate Turkish goal of partition. (Taksim/Partition was Turkish Dogma as far back as the 1950's.)

No amount of tree hugging will convince Turkish hardliners to abandon their ethnically pure dreams.

Totally disagree, would you form a partnership with someone who in the past tried to stab you in the back??? building Trust between our communites is the only way forward and if this issue is not addressed the status quo will continue until the world takes small steps in removing isolation barriers for the north.