Cyprus-Forum.com

[BirKibrisli]

Dear Zan,
I know that what I say hurts people like you,and I am sorry for that.
As I wrote elsewhere,I think you have to be cruel to be kind sometimes.
We might only be writing on an internet forum,but what we are really doing is the same thing:we are trying to find our sense of identity,sense of self and belonging.You are absolutely right.What we say comes from a place of deep hurt.A deep sense of injustice we suffered as children,and we will keep suffering till we die,unless we do something about it.
We must never forget that exactly the same sense of betrayal and injustice were suffered by hundreds of thousands of GCs,some of whom are writing on these forums.

Where we differ is where we put the blame,and how we see a just and lasting solution.I put it to you that there is only one possible way to satisfy the needs of most Cypriots.Trying to forgive and forget the past,learn from our mistakes,and forge one nation out of this mess.
Any other solution will only perpetuate the sense of injustice and betrayal for a lot of our compatriots.This will not lead to an everlasting peace.Only to an enforced tolerance till circumstances change and an opportunity presents itself.What I am saying is this:if you want to make sure you will never fight with your "enemy" the best way is to make him your friend,your lover,part of your close family.Any other way will fail you in the future.

And you seem to be implying that a sense of personal safety is all we need to be happy.So you are prepared to accept the moral degradation of your country(gambling and prostitution),the indignity of being reduced to politically impotent puppets in your own land,the injustices dished out to hundreds of thousands of your compatriots(and I count lots of TCs amongst them),and the sight of those poor,uneducated,exploited settlers brought to replace the TCs who are deserting the island who,in Denktash's words are "not as Good Turks as the settlers" and so good ridance!You want to accept all this for the sake of feeling personally safe at night?Safe to be ordered about by the Turkish Army,safe to pretend that your family is living in a legitimate state where even the electricity comes from the RoC(free of charge to the government but not the people who live in TRNC).Safe to be bitten up if you dare to stage a union protest by special forces under the orders of the Turkish army?Safe to inhale the cancerous fumes of the Dikmen rubbish damp,safe to be run over on the road by some Turkish student with more money than sense?

I better stop because it is getting really depressing.If you find all this deeply hurtful please remember that you are not the only one.

[zan]

You know Birkibrisli; you might be a TC after all. Don’t take that as too much of a compliment though, because you are of the old school rather than that of the new generation that will no longer put up with all that you have listed. This is a Cyprus forum where the situation between the GCs and the TCs has to be examined and argued over. We will no longer sit back and be attacked by the nationalist GCs and say nothing because we think the world should know better. We will no longer let the new generation of GCs hear only the GC side of the story. We too have a tale to tell. You are like the old school TCs, that lethargic self-defacing bunch that will not unite and stand up for them selves. I am not going to slag them off too much because they are victims of the EOKA ENOSIS era and have been battered from pillar to post let alone hundreds of thousands of them having to set up life in a new and sometimes hostile country. We no longer are turning the psychological gun on our selves through self-loathing but are fighting back. We are standing by the real history of Cyprus. No one is saying that the GCs have not suffered. You must be careful what you read into me saying THEY because THEY start from the top and work down. The GCs have been saying what they have been saying for such a long time that they themselves believe every word of it. Some of what you say is true about the Turks but that is another fight altogether that I too am willing to fight but am not willing to mix up with the Cyprus problem. Gambling? Is there no gambling going on anywhere else in Europe? GB has just given the go ahead for three huge casinos to be built here in England. I won’t list how many other places have casinos and brothels and of course you being the champion of freedom will not be campaigning for the closure of such establishments will you? Constantly picking holes in my own race and not telling the others what they are doing wrong, hoping that they will realise is not working, only against us. We look pathetic and drained of our nationality our pride and our ability. We are waking up and fighting for all those things that you are critical of. There is a momentum that is getting me excited and it is not because I want to bash the Greeks but because I want to see the Turks do well. What you are saying does not hurt me, I know what's going on, except that I think you don’t realise what is actually happening in Turkey at the moment. I was out there this year and the place and the people are changing at such a rate that you could pull up a chair and watch it happening right before your eyes. Democracy, development, education and full blown Europeanisation and this is not in the big cities only but a small seaside town. They work so hard that they make the rest of Europe look like its going backwards, and you know what, they are happy to do so. My entire faith in the Turkish race was renewed, and, there was not a single soldier in site. Well what about the ones in Cyprus I hear you ask. My rights to sleep with safety in my bed at night will over rule any thing that you care to throw at it. My Cypriotness has been tested to the limit. Not a single TC name exists in the GC annuls except in a negative way. NO MORE.

[Kifeas]

Assuming that the views expressed by the person who made the above posting, are those shared by the majority of the TCs, I would like to ask him and /or anyone else sharing his views, to explain to us what sort of solution they would like to see in Cyprus, and how they believe this can be materialized, given the current local and international parameters and factors that define and determine the present status of the issue.

One possible answer would be for example to do absolutly nothing and live things as they are, based on Mr. Ecevit's opinion that "the Cyprus problem was solved once and for good in 1974."

What else?