Cyprus-Forum.com

[CBBB]

Published on August 1, 2010

IS IT not essential that neighbours intermix no matter which colour, race or nationality? Name any county of England which is not multi-cultural - no longer uniquely English as they were when I was a schoolboy in the 50s - Cornwall and Cumbria perhaps?

With a name like Hermes Euripides Solomon, God, did I get stick at school even though top boy of the year three years running - first castigated as a Jew then thumped for being the son of a back stabbing ‘Cippie’. Then, I was no darker than your average Celt, although now I look distinguishably Levantine.

I was known affectionately as ‘Solly’ by classmates seeking help with homework in return for placating those playground bigoted bullies named Taylor, White, Smith and Gates, who were intent on keeping England for the English only.

And just why was I top of the class? Was it because I was treated as an inferior by those bullies and sought to prove otherwise? Persecuted Jews of yesteryear will know.

Always top in French and English, a Mauritian lad speaking French only was sat next to me by order of Mr Lee, a Welshman and super English teacher. The following week, the headmaster, Mr Davies, another Welshman, (London schools were full of ‘em after the war) called me to his office when enrolling a lad from the Troodos mountains, who barely understood any English. I was told to keep an eye on him. I later learnt that the boy’s father had collaborated with the British and had been despatched to England with his family when Cypriots began mindlessly murdering their brothers.

Did Mr Davies deduce my origins or were they kept on a secret school file? Strange that when I sought to move to the local grammar, he recommended I stay where I was, if for no other reason than to help foreign newcomers.

Although secretly proud of all three names (a mythological god, aircraft carrier, typewriter or Paris fashion house, take your pick) an ancient Greek playwright and biblical wise king, I often wished I’d had an alias just for school; something like Jack Carter - inoffensive and exclusively British.

Now, half a century later, nobody in Cyprus questions my name or origins, automatically assuming that Solomon (shortened from Solomonides) is pronounced Solomou, and that a Greek flag is flown from a standard pole on my veranda eternally.

But I am not Greek, I don’t fly the flag nor support Apoel, a football team comprising many non Cypriots. If anything, I am an Anglo tainted Cypriot due to my upbringing and education in a north London school where, at the time, sexes were segregated - if not, I’d never have been top of the class; pubescent girls are so much cleverer.

I am nevertheless grateful for my education at a time when Britain (the school atlas was still coloured a fifth pink) was no longer a world power but on her knees and begging colonies remain calm and await their turn in the independence queue.

Yet would Cyprus ever have been given her so called independence had it not been for 55/59 struggle by islanders of both denominations - the majority seeking Enosis and minority, partition?

Cypriots now have a chance at both, and I do wonder whether the struggle was justified, since neither side purportedly seek either in this last ditch round of talks.

Is the political mess we are faced with today due to blatant racism, ignorance or that endless quest for power and wealth by a few greedy men, whose fathers spread nationalist or religious dogma during the 50s, easily indoctrinating a then poorly educated and backward people?

Archbishop Makarios was elected the island’s first president with 97 per cent of the vote, signifying a naïve electorate. Which other country elects a leader so unanimously? And today we are the only EU member state with a communist president who, like a true Cypriot, puts kitchen, car, house and hairdo above all other things?

No! The word racism can best be defined as envy engendering fear, fear of losing out, giving way, becoming a second class citizen like all migrant workers are throughout the western world. Are Cypriots masters of envy…a harmful inadequacy and indicative of a narrow mind?

A people that look down (and let’s not pretend we don’t) on Armenian Cypriots, Maronites and Jews (there are a few here believe it or not) can hardly be expected to accept Turkish speaking Cypriots as there equals, never mind mainlanders. Yet so called Greek Cypriots must first learn of their true origins, a collection of Middle Eastern settlers dating back beyond the contents of today’s school history books.

There are thousands of Cypriots married to British women, whose adult UK resident children don’t speak a word of their father’s vernacular. Yet these children can take out Cypriot nationality on landing and require an exit visa to be exempted from military service before leaving. How stupid are we who cling to this lie of origins so tenaciously as to exclude all but Greek speaking Cypriots and their mix marriage children from becoming tomorrow’s island people?

Nostra cosy government and civil service believe Cyprus is for Greek speaking Cypriots only, when it never ever was. Looking back, I realise that those bigoted bullies of my schooldays were no better. Unprepared to absorb outsiders into their society they were deserving of their own demise.

Today, British classrooms are comprised of Patels, Mohammeds, Kyriakous, Mundellas, Garcias, Changs and the odd White, not forgetting six Solomons and two Solomonides, mine and my brother’s grandchildren.

I await the day when young Eroglus sit in a classroom alongside their counterpart Christofias’ and are treated equally. Or is that too much to ask of those implacable Cypriots among us, who will want the majority of any lesson conducted in Greek, and a mathematically impossible to calculate balance, in Turkish? For how long can Cypriot Canutes hold back the tide?

Fortunately or not, depending on your standpoint, the Internet will eventually unify all peoples under one umbrella. It suffices for us all to speak the same language, and we know which language that is…15 million Greek speakers, 80 million Turkish and over 1,000 million English worldwide.

In which language do Messrs Eroglu and Christofias communicate - badly? Know your so called enemy well, speak his language then make him your friend. I learnt that much at school…

Turkish speaking Cypriots are no more or less responsible than we are for the mess we find ourselves in today. It’s time to leave the school playground, go to the assembly hall and listen to our headmaster, the USA, teachers, the UN and school prefects, the EU!

Power in the hands of schoolchildren leads to chaos in both the classroom and playground.

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/opinions/cyp ... y/20100801

[kurupetos]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

[wyoming cowboy]

Published on August 1, 2010

IS IT not essential that neighbours intermix no matter which colour, race or nationality? Name any county of England which is not multi-cultural - no longer uniquely English as they were when I was a schoolboy in the 50s - Cornwall and Cumbria perhaps?

With a name like Hermes Euripides Solomon, God, did I get stick at school even though top boy of the year three years running - first castigated as a Jew then thumped for being the son of a back stabbing ‘Cippie’. Then, I was no darker than your average Celt, although now I look distinguishably Levantine.

I was known affectionately as ‘Solly’ by classmates seeking help with homework in return for placating those playground bigoted bullies named Taylor, White, Smith and Gates, who were intent on keeping England for the English only.

And just why was I top of the class? Was it because I was treated as an inferior by those bullies and sought to prove otherwise? Persecuted Jews of yesteryear will know.

Always top in French and English, a Mauritian lad speaking French only was sat next to me by order of Mr Lee, a Welshman and super English teacher. The following week, the headmaster, Mr Davies, another Welshman, (London schools were full of ‘em after the war) called me to his office when enrolling a lad from the Troodos mountains, who barely understood any English. I was told to keep an eye on him. I later learnt that the boy’s father had collaborated with the British and had been despatched to England with his family when Cypriots began mindlessly murdering their brothers.

Did Mr Davies deduce my origins or were they kept on a secret school file? Strange that when I sought to move to the local grammar, he recommended I stay where I was, if for no other reason than to help foreign newcomers.

Although secretly proud of all three names (a mythological god, aircraft carrier, typewriter or Paris fashion house, take your pick) an ancient Greek playwright and biblical wise king, I often wished I’d had an alias just for school; something like Jack Carter - inoffensive and exclusively British.

Now, half a century later, nobody in Cyprus questions my name or origins, automatically assuming that Solomon (shortened from Solomonides) is pronounced Solomou, and that a Greek flag is flown from a standard pole on my veranda eternally.

But I am not Greek, I don’t fly the flag nor support Apoel, a football team comprising many non Cypriots. If anything, I am an Anglo tainted Cypriot due to my upbringing and education in a north London school where, at the time, sexes were segregated - if not, I’d never have been top of the class; pubescent girls are so much cleverer.

I am nevertheless grateful for my education at a time when Britain (the school atlas was still coloured a fifth pink) was no longer a world power but on her knees and begging colonies remain calm and await their turn in the independence queue.

Yet would Cyprus ever have been given her so called independence had it not been for 55/59 struggle by islanders of both denominations - the majority seeking Enosis and minority, partition?

Cypriots now have a chance at both, and I do wonder whether the struggle was justified, since neither side purportedly seek either in this last ditch round of talks.

Is the political mess we are faced with today due to blatant racism, ignorance or that endless quest for power and wealth by a few greedy men, whose fathers spread nationalist or religious dogma during the 50s, easily indoctrinating a then poorly educated and backward people?

Archbishop Makarios was elected the island’s first president with 97 per cent of the vote, signifying a naïve electorate. Which other country elects a leader so unanimously? And today we are the only EU member state with a communist president who, like a true Cypriot, puts kitchen, car, house and hairdo above all other things?

No! The word racism can best be defined as envy engendering fear, fear of losing out, giving way, becoming a second class citizen like all migrant workers are throughout the western world. Are Cypriots masters of envy…a harmful inadequacy and indicative of a narrow mind?

A people that look down (and let’s not pretend we don’t) on Armenian Cypriots, Maronites and Jews (there are a few here believe it or not) can hardly be expected to accept Turkish speaking Cypriots as there equals, never mind mainlanders. Yet so called Greek Cypriots must first learn of their true origins, a collection of Middle Eastern settlers dating back beyond the contents of today’s school history books.

There are thousands of Cypriots married to British women, whose adult UK resident children don’t speak a word of their father’s vernacular. Yet these children can take out Cypriot nationality on landing and require an exit visa to be exempted from military service before leaving. How stupid are we who cling to this lie of origins so tenaciously as to exclude all but Greek speaking Cypriots and their mix marriage children from becoming tomorrow’s island people?

Nostra cosy government and civil service believe Cyprus is for Greek speaking Cypriots only, when it never ever was. Looking back, I realise that those bigoted bullies of my schooldays were no better. Unprepared to absorb outsiders into their society they were deserving of their own demise.

Today, British classrooms are comprised of Patels, Mohammeds, Kyriakous, Mundellas, Garcias, Changs and the odd White, not forgetting six Solomons and two Solomonides, mine and my brother’s grandchildren.

I await the day when young Eroglus sit in a classroom alongside their counterpart Christofias’ and are treated equally. Or is that too much to ask of those implacable Cypriots among us, who will want the majority of any lesson conducted in Greek, and a mathematically impossible to calculate balance, in Turkish? For how long can Cypriot Canutes hold back the tide?

Fortunately or not, depending on your standpoint, the Internet will eventually unify all peoples under one umbrella. It suffices for us all to speak the same language, and we know which language that is…15 million Greek speakers, 80 million Turkish and over 1,000 million English worldwide.

In which language do Messrs Eroglu and Christofias communicate - badly? Know your so called enemy well, speak his language then make him your friend. I learnt that much at school…

Turkish speaking Cypriots are no more or less responsible than we are for the mess we find ourselves in today. It’s time to leave the school playground, go to the assembly hall and listen to our headmaster, the USA, teachers, the UN and school prefects, the EU!

Power in the hands of schoolchildren leads to chaos in both the classroom and playground.

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/opinions/cyp ... y/20100801

CBBB wrote..." with a name like Hermes Euripides Solomon"


why not just call yourself Rip

[zan]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

Thats just it! You/We haven't. We have GCs AND TCs.....Somewhere in my genes are the remnants of those neolithic "CYPRIOTS" that were.......Just the same as yours. Over the years you have migrated towards the greek culture and we to the Turkish culture. So for you to claim Cyprus as Greek is just wrong.

[kurupetos]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

Thats just it! You/We haven't. We have GCs AND TCs.....Somewhere in my genes are the remnants of those neolithic "CYPRIOTS" that were.......Just the same as yours. Over the years you have migrated towards the greek culture and we to the Turkish culture. So for you to claim Cyprus as Greek is just wrong.

Where were you before 1571? Definitely not in Cyprus.

[zan]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

Thats just it! You/We haven't. We have GCs AND TCs.....Somewhere in my genes are the remnants of those neolithic "CYPRIOTS" that were.......Just the same as yours. Over the years you have migrated towards the greek culture and we to the Turkish culture. So for you to claim Cyprus as Greek is just wrong.

Where were you before 1571? Definitely not in Cyprus.

Don't be silly Of course I wasn't but I did hear that a distant Cypriot relative of mine was crushing Greek invaders heads with a stone......

[kurupetos]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

Thats just it! You/We haven't. We have GCs AND TCs.....Somewhere in my genes are the remnants of those neolithic "CYPRIOTS" that were.......Just the same as yours. Over the years you have migrated towards the greek culture and we to the Turkish culture. So for you to claim Cyprus as Greek is just wrong.

Where were you before 1571? Definitely not in Cyprus.

Don't be silly Of course I wasn't but I did hear that a distant Cypriot relative of mine was crushing Greek invaders heads with a stone......

Was he a Choirokitian?

...and I continue...

Where are you now? Definitely not in Cyprus.

You have been replaced with real Turks from Anatolia, without any choirokitian ancestry. Gavur Turk!

[zan]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

Thats just it! You/We haven't. We have GCs AND TCs.....Somewhere in my genes are the remnants of those neolithic "CYPRIOTS" that were.......Just the same as yours. Over the years you have migrated towards the greek culture and we to the Turkish culture. So for you to claim Cyprus as Greek is just wrong.

Where were you before 1571? Definitely not in Cyprus.

Don't be silly Of course I wasn't but I did hear that a distant Cypriot relative of mine was crushing Greek invaders heads with a stone......

Was he a Choirokitian?

...and I continue...

Where are you now? Definitely not in Cyprus.

You have been replaced with real Turks from Anatolia, without any choirokitian ancestry. Gavur Turk!

How many times does this conversation have to go back and forth before you understand that what ever you throw at me it can be reversed.

[Get Real!]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

Thats just it! You/We haven't. We have GCs AND TCs.....Somewhere in my genes are the remnants of those neolithic "CYPRIOTS" that were.......Just the same as yours. Over the years you have migrated towards the greek culture and we to the Turkish culture. So for you to claim Cyprus as Greek is just wrong.

Where were you before 1571? Definitely not in Cyprus.

Where were you prior to your Greek mythological "colonization of Cyprus"?

[kurupetos]

That was a good comment from the same website:

Actually, Makarios won the 1959 election with 66% of the vote, signifying an author who doesn't know what he's talking about. If you're such an Englishman, then perhaps you should stick to talking about stuff you know about – cricket, Yorkshire pudding or darts. Leave the rest of us who are Greeks alone. We don't wish to give up or dilute our Greek identity – which we've preserved for 3,500 years – for the sake of some multicultural garbage or to placate Turks, Englishmen or whoever. What a servile, colonised mind you have. Liberate yourself.

Thats just it! You/We haven't. We have GCs AND TCs.....Somewhere in my genes are the remnants of those neolithic "CYPRIOTS" that were.......Just the same as yours. Over the years you have migrated towards the greek culture and we to the Turkish culture. So for you to claim Cyprus as Greek is just wrong.

Where were you before 1571? Definitely not in Cyprus.

Where were you prior to your Greek mythological "colonization of Cyprus"?

What are you talking about? Cyprus was uninhabited before the Greeks arrived.