Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nikitas]

Interesting argument re the respective rights of the two communities.

However, the present attitude of Turkey, as it is expressed everyday, at every opportunity, in every type of international forum, is to deny the existence of RoC.

TCs here get indignant about an unsuccesful past process to unite Cyprus with Greece.

How do you guys think that we feel when NOW when there is a reference by a Turkish government officials at the highest level referring to the RoC as "the late RoC" or the "the non existent republic" as happened on Friday at the EU? And this while recognising the TRNC as a state.

Today any TC can walk south and claim the benefits of his citizenship in the RoC. Can a GC claim any such benefits if he was born in the territory now occupied by the TRNC? The answer is no and the criteria applied in the denial are purely racial.

So when we compare what was, it is useful to cross check with what is, and how each community and each side has behaved since 1974 and not limit it to the 50s and 60s. If Enosis had happened the TCs would have been relegated to second class citizens, probably, though by no means certainly.

Judging by what actually happened in the north since 1974 it is equally probable that if Turkey ever takes over the whole island it will erase the GCs, and in my book erasure is kind of worse than second class status.

The other point is that the GC insistence on maintaining the RoC flies in the face of any idea that they still want Enosis. For that reason alone you would think that Turkey would not be so antagonistic and hostile to the existence of the RoC. The fact that it is leads to the inference that it is hostile to any non Turkish presence on the island.

[Sotos]

We don't want to dominate anybody. The Turks came to Cyprus to dominate us ... and they did this for centuries. Now we just want democracy as it applies everywhere else. Why are you pretending that this is so hard for you to understand? You are acting as if you are the only minority in Cyprus .. or that other countries don't have minorities.

Other countries support the negotiations and what our side says would be an acceptable COMPROMISE (not your right) and would support ANY kind of agreement... and if there is no agreement they will continue to recognize only the Republic of Cyprus. So don't take their support for the peace process as meaning that they accept that you can have such rights without our agreement.

The right of the majority in a democracy is that Majority Rules. The examples that you gave of unions between states or federal states are irrelevant with Cyprus because those are separate states not a single state like Cyprus... and within those states there is again Majority Rule one person one vote even when there are many ethnic groups. Within a state the unit of democracy is the individual and what applies is one person one vote and there is no discrimination between ethnic groups or gender or anything else.

I don't like metaphors such as "men and women go to cinema" because it is hard to make a metaphor that reflects reality. Your metaphor would match closer to that of separate states in EU. There is nothing stopping the men and the women to go watch different movies but they agree to always watch the same movie based on some agreed formula of deciding the movie... if somebody doesn't like the terms then he can leave the group and go watch their own movie separably and no harm done to anybody.

But Cyprus is a single state and can go only in one direction.... unless you are a proponent of ethnic cleansing and land stealing. So a more appropriate metaphor is that of shareholders in a company. The shareholders vote (one share one vote in this case) and the company goes the direction that is decided by the majority. This is again an imperfect metaphor ... but it is closer to what happens within a state than your metaphor.

You turn 'block imposition' into 'overwrite' any you turn 'clearly defined and limited issues' into 'any issues'.

OK ... here is another imperfect metaphor... You and your friends offer to take me a trip with your car and I tell you "you can drive to any place you want unless I really really hate that place". Is that "clearly defined and limited"? It would be clearly defined and limited if I said "you can drive to any place you want except from Nicosia and Larnaca". But with the first argument I can basically reject everything you propose and accept only the one place that I want to go to.... basically imposing it to you... or forcing a stalemate where nobody goes anywhere!

[Viewpoint]

Erol I applaud you my friend your posts are clear precise and right....I applaud your patience and understanding against idiotic arguements that Sotos has been putting forward but unfortunately for such ignorant people no amount of detail and clarity will make him admit that imposition of enosis upon the TCs spawned our desire to fight back which brought to life our battle to achieve taksim. If only the GCs would have worked not for enosis but an independent Cyprus where everyones rights regardless of their ethnic backround were protected.

[Sotos]

And one more thing ... in federations what is divided is only the land... mostly for historic and administrative reasons.... they are somewhat similar to the districts that we have. The people are not divided in any way. So a person of one federal state can move to another federal state and can vote as a resident of that state.

[Viewpoint]

We don't want to dominate anybody. The Turks came to Cyprus to dominate us ... and they did this for centuries. Now we just want democracy as it applies everywhere else. Why are you pretending that this is so hard for you to understand? You are acting as if you are the only minority in Cyprus .. or that other countries don't have minorities.

Other countries support the negotiations and what our side says would be an acceptable COMPROMISE (not your right) and would support ANY kind of agreement... and if there is no agreement they will continue to recognize only the Republic of Cyprus. So don't take their support for the peace process as meaning that they accept that you can have such rights without our agreement.

The right of the majority in a democracy is that Majority Rules. The examples that you gave of unions between states or federal states are irrelevant with Cyprus because those are separate states not a single state like Cyprus... and within those states there is again Majority Rule one person one vote even when there are many ethnic groups. Within a state the unit of democracy is the individual and what applies is one person one vote and there is no discrimination between ethnic groups or gender or anything else.

I don't like metaphors such as "men and women go to cinema" because it is hard to make a metaphor that reflects reality. Your metaphor would match closer to that of separate states in EU. There is nothing stopping the men and the women to go watch different movies but they agree to always watch the same movie based on some agreed formula of deciding the movie... if somebody doesn't like the terms then he can leave the group and go watch their own movie separably and no harm done to anybody.

But Cyprus is a single state and can go only in one direction.... unless you are a proponent of ethnic cleansing and land stealing. So a more appropriate metaphor is that of shareholders in a company. The shareholders vote (one share one vote in this case) and the company goes the direction that is decided by the majority. This is again an imperfect metaphor ... but it is closer to what happens within a state than your metaphor.

You turn 'block imposition' into 'overwrite' any you turn 'clearly defined and limited issues' into 'any issues'.

OK ... here is another imperfect metaphor... You and your friends offer to take me a trip with your car and I tell you "you can drive to any place you want unless I really really hate that place". Is that "clearly defined and limited"? It would be clearly defined and limited if I said "you can drive to any place you want except from Nicosia and Larnaca". But with the first argument I can basically reject everything you propose and accept only the one place that I want to go to.... basically imposing it to you... or forcing a stalemate where nobody goes anywhere!

You are talking crap because erol has torn your arguements to shreds, do you agree with his one request?

[Sotos]

Erol I applaud you my friend your posts are clear precise and right....I applaud your patience and understanding against idiotic arguements that Sotos has been putting forward but unfortunately for such ignorant people no amount of detail and clarity will make him admit that imposition of enosis upon the TCs spawned our desire to fight back which brought to life our battle to achieve taksim. If only the GCs would have worked not for enosis but an independent Cyprus where everyones rights regardless of their ethnic backround were protected.

Why didn't you ever propose such an independent Cyprus? You ruled Cyprus for 300 years and even after you could still propose it if you wanted. Whom are you kidding? You are doing everything you can to prevent such an independent Cyprus from ever becoming a reality!

[Sotos]

We don't want to dominate anybody. The Turks came to Cyprus to dominate us ... and they did this for centuries. Now we just want democracy as it applies everywhere else. Why are you pretending that this is so hard for you to understand? You are acting as if you are the only minority in Cyprus .. or that other countries don't have minorities.

Other countries support the negotiations and what our side says would be an acceptable COMPROMISE (not your right) and would support ANY kind of agreement... and if there is no agreement they will continue to recognize only the Republic of Cyprus. So don't take their support for the peace process as meaning that they accept that you can have such rights without our agreement.

The right of the majority in a democracy is that Majority Rules. The examples that you gave of unions between states or federal states are irrelevant with Cyprus because those are separate states not a single state like Cyprus... and within those states there is again Majority Rule one person one vote even when there are many ethnic groups. Within a state the unit of democracy is the individual and what applies is one person one vote and there is no discrimination between ethnic groups or gender or anything else.

I don't like metaphors such as "men and women go to cinema" because it is hard to make a metaphor that reflects reality. Your metaphor would match closer to that of separate states in EU. There is nothing stopping the men and the women to go watch different movies but they agree to always watch the same movie based on some agreed formula of deciding the movie... if somebody doesn't like the terms then he can leave the group and go watch their own movie separably and no harm done to anybody.

But Cyprus is a single state and can go only in one direction.... unless you are a proponent of ethnic cleansing and land stealing. So a more appropriate metaphor is that of shareholders in a company. The shareholders vote (one share one vote in this case) and the company goes the direction that is decided by the majority. This is again an imperfect metaphor ... but it is closer to what happens within a state than your metaphor.

You turn 'block imposition' into 'overwrite' any you turn 'clearly defined and limited issues' into 'any issues'.

OK ... here is another imperfect metaphor... You and your friends offer to take me a trip with your car and I tell you "you can drive to any place you want unless I really really hate that place". Is that "clearly defined and limited"? It would be clearly defined and limited if I said "you can drive to any place you want except from Nicosia and Larnaca". But with the first argument I can basically reject everything you propose and accept only the one place that I want to go to.... basically imposing it to you... or forcing a stalemate where nobody goes anywhere!

You are talking crap because erol has torn your arguements to shreds, do you agree with his one request?

What is the one request?

[Nikitas]

Erol said:

"You would take me seriously and understand my 'issue' and then STILL insist you had every RIGHT to impose it on me and my community in our own homeland without any regard for our wishes and we had no RIGHT to resist such an imposition, regardless"

Is this not what happened to the GCs since 1974? In fact it happend to ALL GCs regardless of whether they resisted or sided with the coup. In other words the criteria were racially motivated, not political as to who to expel and who to let live in the occupied territory. So let us be clear here about who is the imposer and who the imposed upon. Just think about it for a minute and leave sophistry aside.

[Sotos]

Erol said:

"You would take me seriously and understand my 'issue' and then STILL insist you had every RIGHT to impose it on me and my community in our own homeland without any regard for our wishes and we had no RIGHT to resist such an imposition, regardless"

Is this not what happened to the GCs since 1974? In fact it happend to ALL GCs regardless of whether they resisted or sided with the coup. In other words the criteria were racially motivated, not political as to who to expel and who to let live in the occupied territory. So let us be clear here about who is the imposer and who the imposed upon. Just think about it for a minute and leave sophistry aside.

They have been imposing themselves on us for 400 years and they complain because we wanted the decision to be a result of democracy instead of foreign force for a change!

[Viewpoint]

Erol I applaud you my friend your posts are clear precise and right....I applaud your patience and understanding against idiotic arguements that Sotos has been putting forward but unfortunately for such ignorant people no amount of detail and clarity will make him admit that imposition of enosis upon the TCs spawned our desire to fight back which brought to life our battle to achieve taksim. If only the GCs would have worked not for enosis but an independent Cyprus where everyones rights regardless of their ethnic backround were protected.

Why didn't you ever propose such an independent Cyprus? You ruled Cyprus for 300 years and even after you could still propose it if you wanted. Whom are you kidding? You are doing everything you can to prevent such an independent Cyprus from ever becoming a reality!

We did in 1960, your signature was on it....but of course you shitted all over it.