BirKibrisli wrote:Piratis wrote:BirKibrisli wrote:Piratis wrote:EOKA struggled to unite Cyprus with Greece. It was not a struggle for independence, let us be clear about this.
EOKA fought for our right for self-determination. Beyond that, it was up to us to democratically decide what we wanted to do with our own island.
Neither EOKA, nor TMT, nor Britain, nor Turkey, nor Greece, nor any minority - nobody - has the right to impose on Cyprus its will. The only ones who have this right are the Cypriot people themselves, and with one person one vote determine the destiny of this island among legitimate options.
According to the UN resolution about decolonization the legitimate options are: "free association with an independent State, integration into an independent State, or independence"
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/decolonizat ... ration.htm
We fought for nothing more than our rights.
The struggle for freedom in the 50s was not just EOKA, but was supported by the vast majority of the Cypriot population. It was a REVOLUTION with more public support than most other revolutions in the world.
There is something wrong with your understanding of 'self-determination',Piratis...Self determination is not about getting rid of one colonial power and replacing it with another...And 'majority rights' do not involve totally ignoring the wishes of 18 % of your population,and wanting to unite with a country they consider as their mortal enemy...
That is a recepe for disaster,as time had proved...
You are a colony under a Colonial power if this is something imposed on you. Britain was a colonial power but this doesn't mean that Manchester was a colony, because Manchester is made up by mostly British people.
Greece was not a Colonial power (not in that era), and since the majority of the population of Cyprus are Greek and they wanted to be part of Greece, then Cyprus would be as much of a "colony" as Athens or Crete or Rhodes are.
We are as much Greek as any other Greek. If you think of us as your "mortal enemy" that is not our fault, and you can't blame us for this.
The fact is that when we started our revolution we had nothing against the TCs. We lived together with TCs for many years and the "historical enmity" was just part of the past and did not affect our relationship with TCs and our daily lives. Unfortunately some in Britain and Turkey decided that it would serve their interests to re-create that kind of enmity, and that is what they did.
Piratis,
You know I agree with you on the British and American role in our conflict...And you know that I would even agree with you that ENOSIS was a legitimate desire of the GC people...But...It did not make it right...Your leaders at the time knew how the TCs felt about Enosis with Greece,and they pushed hard for it anyway..They should've known it would lead to disaster..That is the mistake I want you to admit...
Rhodes, which also has a Turkish minority, united with Greece in 1948. Not a single nose broke over this. I can guess that the Turks of Rhodes did not support enosis, but this by itself did not create a conflict or disaster.
What created the problem in Cyprus was not the disagreement of TCs with enosis, but the fact that TCs were armed and turned against GCs by the colonialists, who later used the conflict as an excuse to impose on us their terms.
You accept that enosis was a legitimate option but you say going for it was a mistake. Maybe it was but maybe it wasn't. What do you think we should have done instead? Struggle for independence? Do you think that with such an aim it would be any more difficult for the imperialists to divide us? We are Greeks, just like those of Athens, it would be just as easy to convince the TC Muslim minority that being part of a state where the majority are Greek Christians is equal to their "destruction" and "slavery", and that they should therefore fight for partition where each community would rule itself separately.
So enosis or no enosis, as long as the imperialists wanted to divide the Cypriot population, and as long as the TCs could be convinced that they deserve far more than what proportionally belongs to them on the expense of all other Cypriots (and convincing them about this is not hard at all) then the end result would have been the same.
After all "divide and rule" was not something used just in Cyprus. There are many ways to implement it, especially on a population with religious and linguistic differences. (it can even be used to divide people with far less differences, e.g. a denomination of the same religion, like Catholic and Protestant Christians, or Sunni and Shia Muslims)