erolz66 wrote:Sotos wrote: That way of thinking sounds like the "No true Scotsman Fallacy".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman What you are saying is basically: "No true Cypriot will not want Cyprus to exist as an independent entity. If you don't want Cyprus to exist as independent entity this means you are not true Cypriots". Funnily enough the same can be said for the Scottish ... i.e. those that voted against Scottish independence are not true Scotsmen and therefore the true Scotsmen (those who wanted Scottish independence) can disrespect the choice of the majority. Unfortunately you can't see how this undemocratic way of thinking leads directly to conflict.
The referendum in Scotland was a choice between if Scotland as a nation would remain part of the union of nations that make up the UK or if as a nation it would leave that union. It was NOT a choice between if Scotland as a nation would remain in the union of nations that make op the UK or cease to exist as a nation at all and simply become a region of England. If the choice had of been between staying as a nation within the UK or the non existence of Scotland as a nation at all with it becoming a region of England, then yes absolutely and without question one could say that those that supported it becoming a region of England were not true Scots.
You are grasping at straws. The fact is that the Scottish people, even though they are Celtic and a different nation from the English they voted against the independence of Scotland. The Scottish people are still truly Scottish, and the Cretans are still truly Cretans, regardless of their choices as to where their territories should belong.
Sotos wrote: The principle is a general one... it is not just about Greece. The principle is that Cyprus belongs to the Cypriot people and that the Cypriot people should be free to democratically decide what to do with their own island INCLUDING choosing NOT to be an independent state if that would serve the interests of Cypriots better. Like what the Scots did. Or like what might happen in the future if EU countries want to became a single country. Cypriots HAVE the right to take such decisions by democratic means. I accept to make an EXCEPTION specifically for Greece just to satisfy you... not because there is anything wrong with the principle.
The principal is indeed a general one. For something to validly be the will of a people there has to be something that joins all those within that group that makes them a single people / thing. The only thing that could have been and can be the commonality that made us one people, is us all being Cypriots in a Cypriot nation ahead of and despite our other differences. It is because enosis sought the non existence of the one thing that could of (and can) make us a single people, that it therefore can not be a valid expression of the will of a commonality it says does not and should not exist.
That something that joins us is our common location: Cyprus. It is the same thing that joined us during Ottoman and British rule, and it would be the same with Cyprus part of Greece. We wouldn't be any less "joined" than what we had always been. In the 50s there wasn't any "Cypriot nation" to begin with. So enosis couldn't seek the non existence of something that didn't exist... that would be an oxymoron. What existed was an island with a native Greek majority and what enosis sought was the most natural outcome for any territory which is overwhelmingly Greek.
Your EU example is a good one. If 90% of all those within the EU today voted to become a single country and yet 90% of Cypriots voted NOT to become a single country , what should happen ? Would democracy not demand that Cypriots acquiesce to the majority will of Europeans ? If not why not ?
The answer is still the same as always: What happens to Cyprus should be decided democratically by the Cypriots, those whose homeland is not Cyprus should have no say in the choices of Cyprus. Those whose homeland is Cyprus can have their one vote each in this decision. This would be the same with enosis ... it would not be enough for the majority of mainland Greeks to want enosis, the majority of Cypriots should want it also.
But according to your theories having a single EU country is not possible because even if the 99.9% of say Germans vote in favor of such thing their will wouldn't count because they wouldn't be "true Germans".
Sotos wrote: Partition is a crime Turkey committed by ethnically cleansing the majority of the population and stealing our lands and NOTHING can justify it.
I have NEVER argued otherwise. Never have I argued that what happened before 74 JUSTIFIES what happened since. Never , not once. If all we can do here is argue about things I have NOT said, then what is the point ? I have said that what happened in 74 can only be understood by understanding what happened before 74, because that is true. I have argued that we can not hope to address the 'wrong' of what has happened in Cyprus since 74 without understanding and addressing the events and actions that led up to 74, because that is true.
I quote what you said: "If there is not then we are two separate and different people and division is near inevitable". When you say that an action taken by people is "inevitable" you are basically excusing it.
Sotos wrote:If we assume that two groups of people who are different can not live on the same territory (which is wrong assumption) and that they should be divided by ethnic cleansing (which is a crime) then the least bad way to do it would be by ethnically cleansing the least possible amount of people (i.e. the minority) and who also have a far lesser history in Cyprus.
You think that because of the events of 74 no TC lost everything, their homes their livelihoods and access to lands they had lived on for generations and had to move and start over from scratch ? That so many of such TC considered such a catastrophe the lesser of two evils compared to the GC who also suffered similarly just speaks about the real state of 'unitary' Cyprus before this cataclysmic event.
TCs were demanding partition since the 50s. They didn't want independence, unity or anything else, what they wanted was partition. This is a historical fact.
And please please please can we not just bury this 'lesser Cypriot' notion once and for all. I (we) are either Cypriot or we are not. If we are then just accept that we are not 'lesser' Cypriots than you. If you can not then at least be honest enough to say I/we are not Cypriot at all as far as you are concerned.
Where did I say "lesser Cypriot"? I just used the term "native"... but "non-native" doesn't equal "lesser"... a non-native American is not a "lesser American".
Sotos wrote:I am not against creating a Cypriot identity that would "bind us together", but even if that doesn't happen (mostly because TCs don't want anything "unitary" but instead everything divided in 2) that doesn't mean you have any right to partition.
Once more I have NEVER said that we have a right to partition, even if and when you choose to act not as Cypriots (that includes us) but as Greeks that excludes us. All I have said is accept that if you CHOOSE to act not as Cypriots that includes us but as Greeks that happen to live in Cyprus , you accept that you can not then validly claim to be doing so in the name of a unitary Cypriot people that includes us. That if you choose to act as and seek objectives for yourselves that are based on your differences from us as a people, you then accept that we also have rights as a separate people from you. Such rights absolutely and explicitly do NOT confer on us in such a scenario a right to our own separate state or a right to drive you from your homes. They do however exist in such a scenario and need to be respected and considered and that is what 'you' could not accept at the end of British rule and seem unable to accept even today. It is why you continue to insist even now that there is no paradox in trying to say in the name of a unitary Cypriot people we declare there is no such thing as a unitary Cypriot people and there is just Greeks who live in Cyprus and some others who live there who are not Greek.
Earlier you claimed that I labeled you as "lesser Cypriot", but here you are now labeling the vast majority of the Cypriot people as just "Greeks that happen to live in Cyprus"! You need to understand that identity is not a matter of choice ... like a t-shirt that you choose to wear one day and then change it to something else the next day. Our identity includes BOTH Greek and Cypriot (and Christian and several other things) and we had this identity for long before any Turks came to Cyprus. Now you are trying to blame the native Cypriots because they acted as native Cypriots, and not as some imaginary Cypriot people that would have acted in a different way!! Neither the Greek Cypriots nor the Turkish Cypriots of the 1950s were anything like what you consider as the "ideal Cypriot".
It is my personal most earnest belief that there can be no better future for all of Cyprus and all Cypriots unless we can find a way to build a Cypriot identity that binds us together ahead of and despite our other differences. That there can only be division and separation in one form or another if we fail to do this. Be that the kind of separation we have now or the kind that GiG would like, namely a separation where no TC remained in Cyprus at all. Either way it would be division and separation and represent a failure. If we believe in hope of a unitary Cyprus that contains within it both GC and TC then we must WORK at creating such a shared common identity, despite out other differences and despite our past failures and do so by learning from our past failures not denying them.
I don't disagree with this but this is about the FUTURE. Modifying our identity to fit our needs is something that can be done but it takes TIME. It is not a switch that somebody could turn in the 50s. Our side has done a lot in this direction... practically nobody wants enosis anymore for example... but your side is working on the OPPOSITE direction and they demand that everything should be divided in two.
People vote based on what they believe is best for themselves and to a lesser degree to what they believe is best for the society in general. They don't vote because they consider themselves different from another group of people!!! But of course the IDENTITY of people plays a role of how they vote. The identity includes things such as "nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality etc" (
