Cyprus-Forum.com

[BirKibrisli]

Oh,dear...another history denialist/revisionist who looks around our little problem and declares the GCs to be the true and only victims...When are you people going to grow up and accept that your treacherous ENOSIS dream plus your unsupressable bitterness and hatred towards the TCs,and your vile desire to dominate them and make their lives a misery has cost you 37% of the country,and most TCs 100% of their country??? Your continuing head in the sand attitude is only ensuring there will never be a peaceful and lasting solution...It will end up in further "catastrophies" and you will have no one else to blame but yourselves...That is what Bananiot is trying to tell you,and you are displaying an immeasurably stupidity in not heeding his warnings...

[repulsewarrior]

...i cannot dismiss the suffering of Cypriots because of their ethnicity. i fight for Tolerance because it is the only Justice that we the living can provide for their sacrifice. if you label this Problem, "Greek"/ "Turkish" you are as mistaken as the extremists who put a flag above the responsibility we share as Human beings.

...if we are animals, with reason, we choose.

[Bananiot]

Hatter, were you in Cyprus in 2004 at the time of the referenda? If you were and you did not see the fascist exclusion of the YES camp, you must have a problem. One of bigotry that clouds your way of thinking. This is pressed home by your reference to "Yiorgakis" a term used by all bigots (Lazaros mavros et al) to undermine George Papandreou who along with Costas Simitis, was instrumental in getting us into the EU. RIK, the state run station, even canceled the very informative analysis of the Annan Plan by Tsielepis but you did not mind of course. Verheugen had every right to address the Cypriot people, especially he, more than the numerous foreigners, mainly from Greece, that did so but were allowed to air their view since they told us of the treachery involved in voting YES. What makes you so sure that I do not respect the NO vote? Do you infer this because I remain steadfast to my beliefs and do not put my tail between my legs and ask for forgiveness? This is another piece of convectional fallacy from you, I am afraid.

[YFred]

Hatter, were you in Cyprus in 2004 at the time of the referenda? If you were and you did not see the fascist exclusion of the YES camp, you must have a problem. One of bigotry that clouds your way of thinking. This is pressed home by your reference to "Yiorgakis" a term used by all bigots (Lazaros mavros et al) to undermine George Papandreou who along with Costas Simitis, was instrumental in getting us into the EU. RIK, the state run station, even canceled the very informative analysis of the Annan Plan by Tsielepis but you did not mind of course. Verheugen had every right to address the Cypriot people, especially he, more than the numerous foreigners, mainly from Greece, that did so but were allowed to air their view since they told us of the treachery involved in voting YES. What makes you so sure that I do not respect the NO vote? Do you infer this because I remain steadfast to my beliefs and do not put my tail between my legs and ask for forgiveness? This is another piece of convectional fallacy from you, I am afraid.

Where has my True Freedom and True Democracy loving cousins from the south to make a contribution to this thread. How proud I must be be part of such a Truly Democratic and respecting of True not just basic Human Rights country.

[repulsewarrior]

True not Basic Human Rights; please explain the difference.

is True Freedom Universal, what is True Democracy?

[YFred]

True not Basic Human Rights; please explain the difference.

is True Freedom Universal, what is True Democracy?

We'll get the lovely patriots to explain it to us because whilst I understand Basic Human Rights, I am having difficulty understanding True Human Rights and while we are at it, what about False Human Rights? don't even go there.

Is Kicks baby around? He knows all about these things. Have you read his plan yet? where he enclaves all the TCs in to 5% of the land and partitions Cyprus into two.

[Hatter]

Hatter, were you in Cyprus in 2004 at the time of the referenda? If you were and you did not see the fascist exclusion of the YES camp, you must have a problem. One of bigotry that clouds your way of thinking. This is pressed home by your reference to "Yiorgakis" a term used by all bigots (Lazaros mavros et al) to undermine George Papandreou who along with Costas Simitis, was instrumental in getting us into the EU. RIK, the state run station, even canceled the very informative analysis of the Annan Plan by Tsielepis but you did not mind of course. Verheugen had every right to address the Cypriot people, especially he, more than the numerous foreigners, mainly from Greece, that did so but were allowed to air their view since they told us of the treachery involved in voting YES. What makes you so sure that I do not respect the NO vote? Do you infer this because I remain steadfast to my beliefs and do not put my tail between my legs and ask for forgiveness? This is another piece of convectional fallacy from you, I am afraid.

I see that you are rather selective on choosing which of my points to answer. Nevertheless, it is a specious argument of yours (one of many) that by referring to "yiorgakis" it makes me a bigot. Bullshit! Basically, anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot, Bananiot. You come across as a sore loser because the majority of cypriots voted against the AP but you, instead of respecting the will of the majority, you shout "unfair", "no respect for the minority" and other such nonsense - this, towards your fellow countrymen, does not show respect for the will of the people - often demonstrated in taking every opportunity to denigrate them and their institutions. According to you, articulated outspokenness and inexorable reasoning and questioning as exemplified by L. Mavros is an indication of bigoted mentality? How quaint of you! And according to you, a EU civil servant had a right to address the cyprus people - if he felt he had something to say, he could have called a press conference or offered to be interviewed by newspapers etc. Tsielepis, hmm, interesting ... on whose behalf and in what capacity was he owed any airtime? If I want some airtime on RIK and it is denied , I should shoult "fascists" etc? Perhaps there was no airtime left after all the YES personalities had their say, from ex-presidents to MEPs, MPs, party leaders, "party" leaders to the author of the AP himself, etc etc. Your problem is that they failed to convince.
I mentioned numerous examples of the Yes proponents getting ample opportunity to argue their case. That Yiorgakis and Simitis were instrumental in getting Cyprus into the EU is a hollow argumennt - they did their job as foreign minister and prime minster respectively, and it was not predicated on the cypriot's acceptance of anything like the AP - and don't talk as if cyprus owes them such a great debt that ergo, they have a right to tell the cypriots how to vote in a referendum. Who do you think you are talking to, uninformed imbeciles? Incidentally, not that it matters much, "instrumental" is one thing, but the instigation, foundation and groundwork was done over several years by their predecessors.

On another point, show me where I said anything like you are expected to put your tail between your legs and ask for forgiveness. This is again an inference, a pharissaic one at that, on your part, put forward to create an impression. And I did not say you should respect the "no" vote as such, I said that you should respect the will of the majority. You are entitled to yoour belief, but you are not entitled to label those who disagree with YOUR solution as "not wanting a solution" - this is where I think your utterances, under the circumstances, are insulting towards your fellow countrymen (except towards those that agree with you, of course). It is for that insult, and that alone, that IMO if you had any self respect you should apologise - not for holding on to your views. Gedditt?

[BirKibrisli]

There are times when the majority opinion does not demand respect but contempt..Once upon a time Slavery was considered natural by the majority of Americans...Once upon a time Aboriginal Australians did not have the right to vote,and this was okey by the majority of Australians...One upon a time Hitler's expansionism was applauded by the majority of Germans...Majorities do not always get it right,and sometimes they get it very wrong indeed...If you strongly believe the majority opinion is disasterous for your country,you would be a shallow hypocrite to respect that opinion...If everyone "respected" majority opinions all the time,and shut up and resign themselves to their fate,the world would not be what it is today....

[Bananiot]

Birkibrisli, don't be mislead by the majority/minority rubbish Hatter is on about. The issue is not this nor is it about the way I or anyone else feels about the result of the referenda back in 2004.

However, Hatter made some interesting revelations, like the one about Simitis and "Yiorgakis" simply doing their job as PM and Foreign Minister at the time. This must be the understatement of the century. We should make banners with this and put them on mount Troodos for everyone to see. Then, he only sees an EU civil servant in Verheugen, the Commissioner for enlargement, at the time! Tsielepis did not "own any air time" he claims and the fact that this person was participating in the negotiations as a constitutional expert and supported accepting the proposed plan, obviously was not the reason for his exclusion, but rather RIK run out of air time!

If Hatter cares to become a bit more serious, just to return to the original issue, he might like to ask himself how the hell did Simitis and Papandreou along with the political leadership in Cyprus, convinced the EU to embrace Cyprus, with the Cyprus problem unsolved! Did they make any promises to the EU or did they simply say "look, here is Cyprus, made up of a nice bunch of people, put them in".

P.S. I will continue to call bigotry (and stupidity) loud and clear so get use to it Hatter. You shouldn't need me to tell you that fora, such as this one, harbour numerous fascists, bigots and all sort of disturbed people who sell their produce hiding behind anonymity.

[Kikapu]

There are times when the majority opinion does not demand respect but contempt..Once upon a time Slavery was considered natural by the majority of Americans...Once upon a time Aboriginal Australians did not have the right to vote,and this was okey by the majority of Australians...One upon a time Hitler's expansionism was applauded by the majority of Germans...Majorities do not always get it right,and sometimes they get it very wrong indeed...If you strongly believe the majority opinion is disasterous for your country,you would be a shallow hypocrite to respect that opinion...If everyone "respected" majority opinions all the time,and shut up and resign themselves to their fate,the world would not be what it is today....

The only problem with your examples, Bir, is the fact that those events were not decided by the majority in a Democratic way. Democracy means everyone being able to take part in the voting system, in which the decision made by the majority should then be respected, providing it does not violate anyone's Democratic, Constitution and Human Rights. If and when the above principles are violated with a majority vote taken Democratically, then we should expect the supreme courts as an independent body to strike down such majority vote as being unconstitutional.

I don't think 2004 Referendum on the AP violated any of the above principles. The majority said NO for the GCs and the majority said YES for the TCs, which they should both be respected as such. If all the YES votes and all the NO votes were to be added together from both sides, as a percentage, the NO votes won by 55.5%-44.5%. You cannot get anymore democratic than that.!!