Nikitas wrote:Erol,
Re respect, several times in past posts, I mentioned the legitimate security concerns of the TC community precisely because of the 1963 intercommunal conflict and their enclosure in enclaves. Whether these enclaves were also benefitting TMT aims is irrelevant. The fact is that the TCs were virtual prisoners in these areas.
Do you accept that the dominant GC narrative here on this forum in regards to the above is the 'standard' one, namely that the overwhelming reason so many TC ended up in these enclaves in this period is because those TC did so seeking an agenda of separation and division or because they feared physical assault by those TC that sought such an agenda if they did not ? Do you accept that this mantra is repeated here, over and over and over, relentlessly. Do you accept that such a narrative is in fact far from the truth or the only truth ?
If we are to find a better future than the past we have so far achieved then all right minded Cypriots must strive to break free of their historic dominant 'narratives' on the past. On another forum elsewhere I am arguing, passionately and vociferously, that the TC 'narrative' that describes the Akritas plan as a 'genocide plan' is not true, that the Akritas plan just plainly and simply is not such if you actually read it. I am doing my bit to strive to break free of the historic TC dominant narrative. Can you say you see similar efforts here from the 'loudest' GC voices ?
Nikitas wrote:Now we get to the respect part. If after getting the bizonality your security concerns might warrant, how does that counterbalance the ethnic cleansing of 200 000 GCs from their ancestral land? How does it justify a continued and institutionalised apartheid in the proposed settlement? How does that excuse the naturalisation of thousands of imported colonists who were never refugees, since these people came from settled areas of Turkey and have been imported for what reason exactly?
I have in the past stripped down my personal 'requirements' for a settlement to the absolute minimum possible. Namely to a settlement with NO bi-zonality at all. No bi-communality either except for a very specific senario. Namely that when the reason WHY people vote / support a given plan is based alone ON and because of their differences as GC or TC and NOT as Cypriots regardless of their differences, then and ONLY then I would want separate consent from each community for such a thing to be 'passed'. Yet even when I propose this 'minimum' requirement I am told I ask for 'too much', that I can have no such right for my community for I am not a 'native' Cypriot and I am 'invader', that I am anti democratic, that I seek to subjugate the GC community as the Ottomans did for hundreds of years, that I am Turk and thus consider myself superior etc etc etc. That is the reality of 'respect' here in this forum.
You ask "How does it justify a continued and institutionalised apartheid in the proposed settlement?" yet we do not yet know the terms of the next proposed settlement, yet even before we know such you are trotting out the 'slogans' and the emotive terms like 'apartheid'. This is not helpful or I suggest particularly respectful either. Even if we look at the plan that we DO know the details of and was rejected, then to describe that as 'institutionalised apartheid' is to me just ridiculous.
On the issue of land, everyone should have restitution for their loss. They may not all get their first preferred choice of restitution but how else can such a situation as we have now be settled by agreement ? In some cases individuals who want return and nothing but return will get it and in others they will have to instead take compensation or exchange for alternative property / land.
I am of the view that bi-zonality can not be 'protected' under the terms of a settlement indefinitely into the future, nor should it be. The Annan plan had no such 'forever' protections for bi-zonality (despite what many claim) and neither will any future settlement. It may have temporary protections for such and these may extend into the 10's of years (20 years , 30 years) but they will be temporary. On the issue of bi-communality this can easily be 'protected' simply by defining membership of a federal unit is based on 'language' and not geographical area. This can easily be done and is entirely compatible with EU aquis and ideals. In those existing EU members where such is done no one talks of such representing 'institutionalised apartheid'.
On the issue of 'settlers' in the North do you imagine that under a 'legitimate' regime, no people born in Turkey would have gained citizenship in Cyprus, through marriage or sustained residency leading to citizenship in the last 40 odd years ? Did not the RoC legitimately grant such citizenship to 10's of thousands of 'pontian' Greeks, not born in Cyprus of Cypriot parents ? Do you imagine EVERY settler in the north has full citizenship there and that none of them are their under 'resident permits' and 'work permits' that do not bestow the right to vote ? I am not pretending that there is not an issue with 'settlers' but what grinds me down is this black and white absolutism that is presented here that paints an impression that every single one of them is here for some 'nefarious' purpose to try and 'alter the demographics'. Should I say that attempting to make out that there would have been no legitimate immigration into Cyprus from Turkey in 40+ years and that every settler in the North has full citizenship rights there and the the RoC has never granted citizenship to those not born in Cyprus or of Cypriot parents but only ever granted them 'residency' status, is a typical Greek response, the kind that shows a lack of respect ? I do not say this but I could.
Nikitas wrote:Yet these concerns are treated by the TCs as way less important than their obsession with bizonality.
By which TC ? By me ? By Akini ? Who says that is so ? The president of the RoC or the demagogues like Papadopolus jnr ? We do not know what is being negotiated or agreed yet. As a TC I certainly understand and respect why a continuation of of the right of Turkey to unilaterally 'intervene' in Cyprus granted under the treaty of guarantee is a issue of the utmost importance to the GC community. I do not think your sides issues should be seen or treated with any less importance than my sides, nor do I believe they are, as I believe that the current leaders negotiating truly seek an agreement that can be accepted by both communities and any such 'degrading' of one sides issues would only be detrimental to that effort.
Nikitas wrote: It inevitably leads to the question why this happens. And one logical interpretation is that the TCs consider themselves superior, to the rest of the inhabitants of the island.
This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that got us into the mess we are in today as far as I am concerned. This notion that one community is some how genetically or culturally 'worse' than the other. It is the language of the demagogues. In the same place I argue that the Akritas plan can not be accurately describes as a 'genocide plan' I also argue that the characterisation of GC as a community that have in the past "shown distinctly wolf-pack mentality fuelled by religious hatred and a superiority complex" is nonsense and the language of demagoguery just as I do here.
Nikitas wrote: In the final count, anything not Turkish, has been disrespected to the utmost since 1974. In view of this maybe the rest of us have a legitimate reason to ask the TCs to prove they are Cypriots before we commit to any agreement.
When I first came to live in Cyprus and first started to get involved in forums such as this one I suggested and later organised a bi-communal effort to tidy up the Greek Cypriot cemetery in Kyrenia / Girne. I did not want to just 'talk' , I wante to DO something. Do you know how such an effort was met here, on this very forum, by a 'leading' GC voice of that time ? His response was that such an effort was a bad idea. The reason why it was a bad idea was that such efforts might make it harder for us to kill each other in the future and that was a bad thing because if the TC community would not accept what he considered a 'fair' solution, then killing us would be necessary. Just think on that for a moment. That any bi-communal effort to show respect to a GC cemetery in the north, despite our differences and past, was a BAD thing because it would make it HARDER for us to kill each other. This was not the view of some raving lunatic, but that of an intelligent serious GC here on this forum. None the less I went ahead and organised such an effort, jumping through the hoops to get permission for the Church in the South and the relevant people in the North and we did over several days of hard work and effort make a real material difference to the state of that cemetery. So who here REALLY needs to be asked if they have a record of showing respect for the other community and to 'prove they are Cypriot' ? Me or the 'Cypriot' who said such an effort was a bad idea because it would make it harder for us to kill each other in the future should that prove necessary ?
