Mapko wrote:DTA...The language has been around for thousands of years. The names of these places have been around for hundreds of years. They have been altered for three decades. You do the maths and work out which has the strongest pull. To go back to originality is the norm - though obviously people in the North now find these names the norm the world does not. In all fairness, I did actually concede that the island Turks should get their old houses back in the South, though your Mosques are still standing and untouched and haven't been ransacked, pillaged and burned and your Mullahs haven't been raped, circumcised, burned and murdered (unlike our Churches in the summer of 1974 Northern Cyprus).
To be honest, with the Greek Cypriots I talk to, this isn't high on the agenda. Being brought up in England, they don't talk too much of what goes on in Cyprus - which annoys me. It's our birthright.
I go back to Cyprus (but not to the familial home for obvious reasons) a couple of times a year but, because it's a relatively short stay and there are so many homes to go to over the spread of the island, it's more about family things. As I posted previously, my dad never mentioned this to any of us (my brothers or me), on growing up. Perhaps it was because he wanted us to make our own minds up about things. I have and I've seen too many pictures, read too many stores and personal accounts of what happened to make me think there are any Turks out there that I wouldn't want to see burned alive. That might sound vicious and nasty and you may want to pigeon hole me because it makes you feel better, but I have never heard a good story about any Turk being nice during 1974 (apart from the police chief I posted about previously). I'm sure there may have been others - like there were some good Nazis during WWII - but I've just never heard anything. If you can point me to anything, please do so.
With your viewpoint as it is I found it very difficult (nigh impossible) to believe that your dad never mentioned anything about the Cyprus conflicts, and that you have developed your views through your own unbiased reading. However, I decided to stay quiet and give you the benefit of the doubt until I read this.
Mapko wrote:B25...Thanks. I wondered about my sanity! How could a Greek Cypriot ever come out with the things Bananiot was coming out wiht a sleep at night, let alone look his own family in the face, is beyond me. I mistakenly asked an old relative, when I was young, about the house with the Turk police officers family found in it and it was frowned upon. He sat there stony-faced as if I'd just said the worst thing in the world, so I couldn't believe a Greek Cypriot would post anything like that. Nobody would ever betray their own. As I posted elsewhere, what about the priests who were circumcised? What about the old priests, too frail to move, who were burned in their churches? What about the priests who were raped? What about the soldiers - prisoners of war - who were mudered after surrendering? What about the use of Napalm on villagers who had no defence?
This is very telling about the sort of environment you grew up in. It's a familiar story - "the demonised other." You went into your reading of the history of Cyprus with preconceived views and ideas. I'd be interested to know your bibliography.
Actually, I think the demonised other environment is more severe in people who have grown up outside of Cyprus. Determined never to forget where they came from and how they've suffered, immigrants impose a simulated time-culture trap on their children in their new country. They do not progress with the changing culture and feelings of the new times or develop their ideas. They remain frozen in the past. Obviously, this is not good.
