Cyprus-Forum.com

[tsukoui]

PS I will phone all the leaders tonight and demand they make compromises.

See, you still view it as an ethnic conflict, believing the propaganda of Turkey, rather than the left over conflict of the Cold War that it is. The RoC shouldn't have to make any compromises. We guarantee the rights of all Cypriots. Turkey must end its occupation.

[cypriotnado]

PS I will phone all the leaders tonight and demand they make compromises.

See, you still view it as an ethnic conflict, believing the propaganda of Turkey, rather than the left over conflict of the Cold War that it is. The RoC shouldn't have to make any compromises. We guarantee the rights of all Cypriots. Turkey must end its occupation.

OK...OK ..........I won't phone

[tsukoui]

PS I will phone all the leaders tonight and demand they make compromises.

See, you still view it as an ethnic conflict, believing the propaganda of Turkey, rather than the left over conflict of the Cold War that it is. The RoC shouldn't have to make any compromises. We guarantee the rights of all Cypriots. Turkey must end its occupation.

OK...OK ..........I won't phone

It's not a joke. Oh I've no doubt you were joking when you said "phone", alla you also said "all the leaders" and that was not in jest. The Cyprus problem was about Communism vs Imperialism, the coup happened because Makarios was too much under the thumb of AKEL for the Western Powers, and Turkey, another Imperialist country took advantage. Alla you don't believe in Communism anymore, nobody does, so Turkey is free to peddle its propaganda narrative of ethnic strife until the whole world believes that we are two peoples who simply can't get along. Shame on you.

[Paphitis]

PS I will phone all the leaders tonight and demand they make compromises.

See, you still view it as an ethnic conflict, believing the propaganda of Turkey, rather than the left over conflict of the Cold War that it is. The RoC shouldn't have to make any compromises. We guarantee the rights of all Cypriots. Turkey must end its occupation.

OK...OK ..........I won't phone

It's not a joke. Oh I've no doubt you were joking when you said "phone", alla you also said "all the leaders" and that was not in jest. The Cyprus problem was about Communism vs Imperialism, the coup happened because Makarios was too much under the thumb of AKEL for the Western Powers, and Turkey, another Imperialist country took advantage. Alla you don't believe in Communism anymore, nobody does, so Turkey is free to peddle its propaganda narrative of ethnic strife until the whole world believes that we are two peoples who simply can't get along. Shame on you.

Why do you call the other side as Imperialist?

The Communist side was just as Imperialistic as the other. It would be more accurate to say Communism Vs Capitalism. But it goes a lot deeper than this even.

The Cold War or NATO had as its main purpose the Defence of the allies in Europe from possible Soviet aggression.

[tsukoui]

It's not a joke. Oh I've no doubt you were joking when you said "phone", alla you also said "all the leaders" and that was not in jest. The Cyprus problem was about Communism vs Imperialism, the coup happened because Makarios was too much under the thumb of AKEL for the Western Powers, and Turkey, another Imperialist country took advantage. Alla you don't believe in Communism anymore, nobody does, so Turkey is free to peddle its propaganda narrative of ethnic strife until the whole world believes that we are two peoples who simply can't get along. Shame on you.

Why do you call the other side as Imperialist?

The Communist side was just as Imperialistic as the other. It would be more accurate to say Communism Vs Capitalism. But it goes a lot deeper than this even.

The Cold War or NATO had as its main purpose the Defence of the allies in Europe from possible Soviet aggression.

Well some would say that Imperialism is the highest form of Capitalism, alla I've heard it said that Internationalism is the same as Imperialism, don't you believe it.

Soviet Internationalism may have ended for some with the Spanish Civil War or at least watered down, so in some sense you are right, alla we are talking about Cyprus which at the time was Non-Aligned.

Tell me though Paphitis, how deep does it go?

[Paphitis]

It's not a joke. Oh I've no doubt you were joking when you said "phone", alla you also said "all the leaders" and that was not in jest. The Cyprus problem was about Communism vs Imperialism, the coup happened because Makarios was too much under the thumb of AKEL for the Western Powers, and Turkey, another Imperialist country took advantage. Alla you don't believe in Communism anymore, nobody does, so Turkey is free to peddle its propaganda narrative of ethnic strife until the whole world believes that we are two peoples who simply can't get along. Shame on you.

Why do you call the other side as Imperialist?

The Communist side was just as Imperialistic as the other. It would be more accurate to say Communism Vs Capitalism. But it goes a lot deeper than this even.

The Cold War or NATO had as its main purpose the Defence of the allies in Europe from possible Soviet aggression.

Well some would say that Imperialism is the highest form of Capitalism, alla I've heard it said that Internationalism is the same as Imperialism, don't you believe it.

Soviet Internationalism may have ended for some with the Spanish Civil War or at least watered down, so in some sense you are right, alla we are talking about Cyprus which at the time was Non-Aligned.

Tell me though Paphitis, how deep does it go?

But the majority would say that the free market is the highest form of freedom.

It goes very deep as at the core of it, it was a war between 2 superpowers and their allies. I seriously doubt whether either side was truly spurred on by the Communist or Capitalist ideals.

Communism as you know it was destined to fail, but you couldn't say the same for the Soviet Union.

[erolz66]

I read the whole article you posted earlier. First of all, the article is a collection of opinions by various individuals. It does not represent the real world and in some cases the arguments are unrealistic... at some points they even admit that their theories are utopian or that there is no evidence that what they suggest is actually achievable.

Well you could choose to describe the link as merely a 'collection of opinions by various individuals'. However I do think a more accurate description of what it is would be along the lines of 'it is a serious scholarly study by an accredited professor and a Senior Lecture, that seeks (among other things) to look at core questions like "What is the ‘self’ to which the principle [of self determination] refers?" examining the historic philosophical, moral and legal ideas that formed these notions drawing on works of some of the worlds leading thinkers over hundreds of years. Yes it examines the theoretical concepts and ideas that underpin the notion of 'self determination' as it has been codified into law and thus can be said to be 'idealistic' or 'utopian' but that does not mean the work is 'meaningless' in a general context or in it's relevance to the situation in Cyprus.

And again to be clear I did not present the article in the context of saying 'here is the definitive absolute black and white definition of what 'self' (and nation and peoples) are in the context of 'right to self determination'. I present them to counter the argument that such things HAVE black and white absolute definitions at all but are in fact complex. I do so in the face of black and white claims that TC resistance to imposed (on them) enosis in Cyprus can in no way and no degree be said to be connected to these very ideals at all and thus can only be understood in some context of ethnicity based explanations of Turks as 'greedy' and 'demanding more than anyone else any where else because they are Turks' and all such similar assertions.

According to the article you posted: "people is still defined as the population of a territory".

The idea that the article I posted declares as some kind of absolute conclusion that "people is defined as the population of a territory" because in one single section and out of all context the words "people is still defined as the population of a territory" appear is just a distortion of what it actually says, a distortion I believe is driven by your 'narrative requirements'. As is you general obsession with the link between 'territory' (contiguous single territory) and if a group can even be said to have such rights or not even at the conceptual and theoretical levels. It is true that for a group having a single contiguous territory the MEANS by which their rights to 'self determination' can be exercised through secession, federalism or degrees of local autonomy are massively easier than when they do not. But to say the very existence of that right at all even at the conceptual and theoretical levels is solely defined by if they have 'territory' or not is to me not valid. That is before you get into what 'territory' means in this context. The TC community in the 1950's DID have territory and areas in which they were numerically greater, just not in a single contiguous region. Your thesis is that if they had had 'territory in which they were numerically dominant' in the 1950's then yes they could be considered to have had a right to resist enosis in that territory based on notions of 'the right to self determination' but if they do not then such right simply evaporates and ceases to exist, is undermined when you move into the question of 'how much territory' and 'how singular and contiguous' it needs to be before their right to resist enosis moves from 'absolutely yes they have such a right' to 'absolutely no possible way that can be considered to have such a right at all'. If you are able (or even willing) to really challenge your 'narratives requirements' on this point then I ask you to ask yourself the following. Do you really believe that if in the 1950's the TC community in Cyprus had lived in a single contiguous area of Cyprus in which they made up a numerical majority, the likes of Sampson, Grivas, Yiorjardis, Papadopulous and Makarious would have said, yes we want enosis but only for the area in Cyprus where TC are not numerically dominant and would NOT have tried to present the desire for enosis as the democratic will of all the Cypriot people and seek the union of all of Cyprus and all the people living there with Greece ? Really ? I am not asking if you think if TC had had a contiguous single territory would the eventual agreements reached in the 1960's have been different, almost certainly they would have. I am not asking you to consider if for YOU the issue of single contiguous territory would have defined then if you believed TC had a right to resist enosis based on principals of self determination or not. I am asking if you really believe for the likes of those I listed and at that time, would their position on if TC had a right to resist enosis based on principals of self determination or not, really have been defined solely on the basis of how much contiguous territory where the TC community was numerically dominant had or did not have.

And lets take this argument: "A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a Nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others". So now lets take what was the actual case in Cyprus in the 50s... not about the sympathies that you "half English, half Cypriot, born and raised abroad" have ... but about the actual people of that time in Cyprus. The undeniable fact is that in Cyprus we had a native majority that saw themselves as being part of the Greek nation and a Turkish minority that saw themselves as part of the Turkish nation. The Turkish minority did NOT have any territory of its own. Therefore, even using the article that you posted, the self-determination as far as the territory is concerned (e.g. if the territory would belong somewhere) would be decided by the majority of the territory and any rights of the Turkish minority would be non-territorial and mostly about cultural matters. So EVEN if we say that the TCs are different "peoples" and belong a different nationality it STILL doesn't give to them any territorial rights over land which they are a minority. Matters that relate to territory are decided by the majority of that territory and not any minority. Of course it would be great if we could all agree on everything. But the answer here is about what takes precedence when we can't agree and when having it both ways at the same time is not physically possible.

I am NOT saying nor have I EVER said that TC had a right to a separate state in Cyprus, not even in the face of the imposition of enosis on them. I am saying that they did (and do) have a right to struggle to resist such imposition being imposed on them without the need for any consideration at all for their communal desires that is based on and in the principals and ideals of the 'right to self determination'. I am saying it in the face of your black and white blanket assertion that the TC can not be said to have any such right at all. I say it if the 'reason' why they have no such right is they did not have the 'right' kind of territory or if the reason is 'they are invaders and oppressors and not "native" to Cyprus' or any other reason (excuse). I say it not in the hope or expectation that you agree but in that you can at least accept there is a valid basis from which I say it.

I believe it is possible for a "national minority's" rights to be expressible within the wider nation state concerned. I believe this is possible for ANY 'national minority' be it white SA in SA, Kurds in Turkey or TC in Cyprus. The degree to which this is possible is directly related to the behavior of the 'national majority' group and the degree to which they believe any regard needs to paid for the separate desires of the minority group concerned. Thus in the case of a black SA national majority that not only believes no regard at all needs to be paid to the separate desires of the white SA community but actually that white SA can not even be a part of a SA nation at all and the only 'fair' solution is they are driven from SA entirely, then there is no possibility for white SA to be able to express their right to self determination as part of a SA nation. So too in the case in Cyprus. When GiG tells me that the only 'fair' solution in Cyprus is that my community is driven from Cyprus, then obviously such a 'solution' negates the possibility for TC to be able to express their right to self determination as part of a wider nation (be that Cyprus OR Greece) at all. So too when you insist that there is no moral or legal basis at all on which TC could validly seek to resist the imposition of enosis on them in Cyprus based on the ideals and concepts of the right to self determination, it becomes near impossible for TC to be able to express their right to self determination as part of a wider nation (be that Cyprus OR Greece). If however you can come to me and say you desire something so fundamental to the very essence of what is 'self' and 'people' and 'nation' as enosis but you also accept that there is a need, a requirement, even an obligation to pays SOME degree of consideration for my communities separate wishes that is validly based, if only from my perspective, in the notions and ideals that underpin the right to self determination, THEN we can talk and potentially find a way forward that is acceptable to all.

To me getting to grips with these issues if fundamental to us finding a solution and settlement TODAY. If you can only perceive any 'concession' granted to TC to secure a 'deal' as being 'unfair' and granted only under duress and necessity and not in any way based on a necessity based on the notions and ideals of a right to self determination of TC and GC communities separately and jointly and that 'fairness' demands that actually you can and should be able to impose anything you like as the national majority community on me as a national minority community without having to pay ANY regard at all for my communities wishes, because there is on basis at all and no situation at all in which the national minority community can be said to have ANY right to self determination separate from the wider national one, the we either will never find a settlement or we will agree one that can only fail in the future sooner or later.

But it is more than obvious that what the Turkish side wants is not that kind of diluted self-determination but the kind of self-determination that arises from having your own territory ... and since they never had their own territory in Cyprus they are trying to achieve this by ethnic cleansing and stealing of our lands!

This is why for me having these discussions with you is so hard Sotos. I am arguing that in the face of the attempted imposition of enosis on the TC community at the end of British rule without any need or requirement for any consideration at all by GC for the TC communities wishes, there is a valid basis from which the TC community to struggle to resist such that is based in the ideals and notions and concepts of self determination. For you from the above to argue this is the SAME as arguing that TC can and should be allowed to steal your lands by ethnic cleansing to create a territory of their own. This is jsut NOT TRUE. I do believe that in the face of the attempted imposition of enosis on the TC community at the end of British rule without any need or requirement for any consideration at all by GC for the TC communities wishes, there is a valid basis from which the TC community to struggle to resist such that is based in the ideals and notions and concepts of self determination AND that is NOT a demand that we be allowed to create our own territory by the stealing and ethnic cleansing of your lands. You see an argument for the former as a demand for the latter and it just simply is not and that is (one reason) why these discussion with you are so 'hard'.

[GreekIslandGirl]

No western country needs to consider what its minority invaders want/prefer before advancing towards democracy!

Did the UK ask the muslim minority whether Britain could have a referendum for Scottish independence?

No!

And, unlike TCs in Cyprus, that British-muslim minority are there legally, not as leftovers from an invasion!

[Sotos]

I don't disagree with the general message of your last post. However you need to understand that the views of that article are at the "cutting edge" and they mostly don't yet apply even today in 2015. I am all for keep trying to find ways that will allow different people to live happily together in our world. And personally I am a liberal and I consider myself progressive so I would support any change that I believe brings us closer to that ideal. But we can't use our ideals of today to harshly judge what was going on in the 50s. We are not talking about Sweden of 2015 ... we are talking about Cyprus of 1950s! Imagine if I were to use those principles to judge the Ottoman rule. I hope you would agree with me that this would be way too harsh. I can judge them if what they did was brutal even by the standards of those times... but I can't be THAT strict with them... right? Now to some details...

The idea that the article I posted declares as some kind of absolute conclusion that "people is defined as the population of a territory" because in one single section and out of all context the words "people is still defined as the population of a territory" appear is just a distortion of what it actually says, a distortion I believe is driven by your 'narrative requirements'.

No, I didn't say that this sentence is the conclusion of the article. However the article presents this idea as the norm today, giving what happened to former Yugoslavia as an example. So there are two things: (1) The norm today (2) the opinion of the authors of the article. The two things differ.

As is you general obsession with the link between 'territory' (contiguous single territory) and if a group can even be said to have such rights or not even at the conceptual and theoretical levels. It is true that for a group having a single contiguous territory the MEANS by which their rights to 'self determination' can be exercised through secession, federalism or degrees of local autonomy are massively easier than when they do not. But to say the very existence of that right at all even at the conceptual and theoretical levels is solely defined by if they have 'territory' or not is to me not valid.

When I talk about "self-determination" I am talking about it in its full extent as in what most people think when they hear "self-determination". Now the authors of that article argue about different degrees of self-determination, including non-territorial one which is basically certain minority rights + control over their own cultural affairs. I have no problem with that but whenever you talk about "self-determination for TCs" you need to make clear that you are referring to this specific kind of "self-determination" to avoid any confusion.

The TC community in the 1950's DID have territory and areas in which they were numerically greater, just not in a single contiguous region. Your thesis is that if they had had 'territory in which they were numerically dominant' in the 1950's then yes they could be considered to have had a right to resist enosis in that territory based on notions of 'the right to self determination' but if they do not then such right simply evaporates and ceases to exist, is undermined when you move into the question of 'how much territory' and 'how singular and contiguous' it needs to be before their right to resist enosis moves from 'absolutely yes they have such a right' to 'absolutely no possible way that can be considered to have such a right at all'.

My thesis is not undermined. It is indeed a range from "absolutely yes they have such right" to "absolutely no possible way they have such right". Since the TCs did not have any contingent territory at all, just some villages spread around the island, then their case falls in the "no right" extreme. Another such example would be for example blacks in the USA. There are many towns and even some cities (e.g. Detroit) that are mostly inhabited by blacks, but in general the black population is spread all over the country. If we are talking about the Scottish people who have their own territory which they are the majority for 1000s of years then their case is in the "absolutely yes" extreme. Then there would be cases such as Kosovo which are somewhere between.

Do you really believe that if in the 1950's the TC community in Cyprus had lived in a single contiguous area of Cyprus in which they made up a numerical majority, the likes of Sampson, Grivas, Yiorjardis, Papadopulous and Makarious would have said, yes we want enosis but only for the area in Cyprus where TC are not numerically dominant and would NOT have tried to present the desire for enosis as the democratic will of all the Cypriot people and seek the union of all of Cyprus and all the people living there with Greece ?

That really depends on the specific details. Would the TCs be a 51% majority or a 90% majority? For how long the TCs have been the majority? 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years? How did they become a majority? A gradual process over the centuries ... or suddenly by ethnic cleansing and they would stop being the majority if GCs were allowed to return? If it was in a way that it was generally accepted that a specific part of Cyprus was Turkish and that we can't have any valid claims on that land then I don't think any of those people would insist on it being part of enosis. And by the way... you seem to put everybody in the same basket. Those people that you mention were not of a single mind.. there were great differences between them.

To me getting to grips with these issues if fundamental to us finding a solution and settlement TODAY. If you can only perceive any 'concession' granted to TC to secure a 'deal' as being 'unfair' and granted only under duress and necessity and not in any way based on a necessity based on the notions and ideals of a right to self determination of TC and GC communities separately and jointly and that 'fairness' demands that actually you can and should be able to impose anything you like as the national majority community on me as a national minority community without having to pay ANY regard at all for my communities wishes, because there is on basis at all and no situation at all in which the national minority community can be said to have ANY right to self determination separate from the wider national one, the we either will never find a settlement or we will agree one that can only fail in the future sooner or later.

Although I am glad that we more or less agree between us now I don't think that the negotiations today are based on the principles we are discussing here. The negotiations are more about balance of power, a give and take where each side is trying to take as much as possible and give as little as possible... and at this point it is a given that any agreement will be unfair for our side since our leadership has already made way more concessions than what you are asking for here. Personally I am not optimistic at all about having a long lasting solution. Hopefully our leadership... and as a last resort the people, will not accept any solution that will put us in great risks. No solution is better than a bad solution that can result in the 60s and 70s all over again.

[Lordo]

so you agree with dengtash, that was his policy too, no solution is the solution. so long as you know where you stand. thats the main thing.