Cyprus-Forum.com

[bill cobbett]

So CH was "a jew" cos his mother was a believer in the Jewish faith... gosh, even a vaguely sane person would see the fallacy in that little train of disjointed logic mate.

[bill cobbett]

Jesus showed what the Jews were as he said:-

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

So from the above we can see christianity is nothing to do with Jews and Mary (Maria) was not a Jew. In Byzantium (Christian Hellenic empire) Jews were not permitted to carry out their usury practices so true christianity is nothing to do with Judaism. In fact most atheists are Jews.

How do you know this chap Jesus said what you claim mate?? Was there someone with a tape-recorder around at the time of this alleged statement ???

I know everything.

You must have seen it on YouTube... ...

[Hermes]

The American Hellenic Institute mourns the passing of Author/Essayist, Journalist Christopher Hitchens, who died Thurs., Dec. 15, 2011. He was 62.

“Christopher Hitchens was a wonderful human being and philhellene who advocated for the rule of law and justice for Cyprus as well as the return of the Parthenon Marbles,” said AHI Founder Gene Rossides. “Christopher’s books, Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger and The Trial of Henry Kissinger, are must-reads. His voice will be truly missed.”

http://usa.greekreporter.com/2011/12/16 ... -hitchens/

[Hermes]

Christopher Hitchens Talking Turkey... Not a "bridge" between East and West but a "tunnel":

[yialousa1971]

So CH was "a jew" cos his mother was a believer in the Jewish faith... gosh, even a vaguely sane person would see the fallacy in that little train of disjointed logic mate.

To be a Jew you must be born to a Jewish mother.

cos his mother was a believer in the Jewish faith

No she was a Jew.

[Bananiot]

I admire Hitchens for what he wrote. His race, looks, sentiments about Cyprus or any other part of the world are secondary and of little importance. Perhaps some of the ignorant tweeds in this forum can get a hold of "God is not great" and make an effort to read it. At least they will get material to critisise him constructively on his views, not where his mother heralds from. By the way, he has two good kids with Eleni, his Cypriot ex wife. Despite the divorce they remained very good friends until the end.

[yialousa1971]

I admire Hitchens for what he wrote. His race, looks, sentiments about Cyprus or any other part of the world are secondary and of little importance. Perhaps some of the ignorant tweeds in this forum can get a hold of "God is not great" and make an effort to read it. At least they will get material to critisise him constructively on his views, not where his mother heralds from. By the way, he has two good kids with Eleni, his Cypriot ex wife. Despite the divorce they remained very good friends until the end.

Don't be rude

[Hermes]

I don't think his personal life, or his discovery following his mother's death that she was part-Jewish, or his well-known foibles are really an issue. It's his essays and books that are important. And he was a great writer and a great journalist.

We are fortunate that the greatest journalist of the modern era had a deep knowledge and fascination for Cyprus. His book on Cyprus, Hostage To History, is the definitive account in English of the events leading up to the appalling Turkish invasion of Cyprus. For a humanist he was especially indignant at the desecration of Cyprus's Christian and Hellenic heritage viewing its cultural treasures as a heritage of all mankind.

In his books and essays he clinically exposed the duplicity of Henry Kissinger, the US, their stooges in Greece and the British in laying the foundations for the barbaric Turkish invasion of 1974. He was unrelenting in his criticism of Turkey's ongoing actions in Cyprus. Hitchens was one of the first English writers to document the ethnic cleansing of the Greek Cypriots and the tragic partition of the island - whose consequences are still with us today.

His concern with the Turkish occupation of Cyprus tells us that his polemics whether against organised religion, Islamo-fascism (an expression he coined), Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton or the British monarchy, were not fuelled by a need to be different or controversial but because he was above all a fierce opponent of fraud, stupidity, hypocrisy and injustice.

He was provocative, learned and fearless at the same time. He despised tyranny and one of his greatest lessons on Cyprus is that under no circumstances should the consequences of the Turkish occupation of Cyprus become legitimised. "Fatalism would be the greatest betrayal" he wrote. It wouldn't just be a betrayal of Cypriots that we should acquiesce to injustice, but it would be a betrayal of all those fighting tyranny and oppression everywhere.

[kurupetos]

May God have mercy on him.

[Hermes]

Here is an article on the role of Cyprus in Christopher Hitchens' personal and political life:

Cyprus played key role in Christopher Hitchens' life

Here is an excerpt:

The island unwittingly played a huge role in his life, both professionally and personally, particularly in his formative adult years when he began exploring and experimenting with a sense of political injustice. After graduating from Oxford, and starting a career in journalism, Hitchens came to Cyprus in the 1970s to report on the conflict here for the New Statesman and New Left Review.

Apart from helping him earn his stripes in polemic debate, the island also invited him to explore love and marriage. In 1981, he married his first wife, Greek Cypriot Eleni Meleagrou, having two children, Alexander and Sophia. The marriage ended after eight years, but it is understood Hitchens remained on good terms with his Cypriot family until his death.

In 1984, he published a book on the de facto partition of Cyprus, dedicated to his wife Eleni. Hitchens’ account of the island’s division effectively points the finger at four NATO powers, Britain, the US, Greece and Turkey, and describes partition as an “absurdity” which “reflected only the strategic requirements of outside powers”.

“The Cypriots are the only Europeans to have undergone colonial rule, guerrilla war, civil war and modern technological war, on their own soil, since 1945,” he writes.

The acknowledgements section of his Cyprus book reads like a Who’s Who of the island’s key players, with thanks given to Makarios, Rauf Denktash, Dr Vassos Lyssarides, Glafcos Clerides, Tassos Papadopoulos, Alpay Durduran, Osker Ozgur and Dr Fazil Kucuk.

The former diplomat and current rector of the University of Nicosia Michael Attalides is mentioned as a ‘friend’, while the cabinet-appointed Mari blast investigator Polys Polyviou was described as “a lawyer’s lawyer”.
Polyviou met him in the late 1960s at Oxford where he started off as “an extreme left-winger”.

“Strange as it may appear we became friends at Oxford,” the Cypriot lawyer told the Cyprus Mail.

“He was a remarkable polemicist, humanist controversialist. Most of all, he loved a heated debate, discussion and enraging people, all to the good. He wanted to engage with people for the sake of engaging with people, irritating and annoying them, the mark of a democrat,” he said.

Polyviou notes that Cyprus was one of the first things he became passionate about after university. “Cyprus was one of the things he cared most about; he was genuinely interested and it was Cyprus that led him to the main hatred of Kissinger that he had.”

Attalides met him at a conference the Cypriot diplomat had organised on the Cyprus problem. “He was a fantastic person, one of the most erudite and cultured people I’ve ever met,” he said.