erolz66 wrote:Sotos wrote: You insisted that enosis was flat out not our right.
Clearly I must have done something that has given you this impression, though to be honest I remain unclear exactly what it was I said that gave you this impression.Sotos wrote: If you had said what you said now we wouldn't be arguing because I have already told you in the past that I accept that we were inconsiderate to the wishes, fears etc of the TCs and I accepted that this was wrong. So can you stop bringing this point up constantly?
I bring it up because it is for me personally the core of the issue. If you say to me you agree that GC acting not as Cypriots regardless of the type of Cypriot they are, but acting in ways that are solely defined by their ethnic differences to TC, solely by their Greekness, will never do so without any need to consider the wishes of TC who are not Greek, if they can get 'over 50%', then we are done. I will in turn agree to a unitary Cyprus with no bi zonality or Bi communality etc etc. However when you say to me that GC have an absolute democratic right to impose on my community in Cyprus that is not Greek, even things that are solely defined by your Greekness, without any requirement to consider the wishes of the TC community, just because there are more of you, well that is then why I need and require 'special protections'. That is the whole point I am making.Sotos wrote:As you said for an independent Cyprus we need to emphasize what we have in common, so lets top arguing about what seems to be a minor difference on something which is in any case irrelevant in our era!
I do not think it is irrelevant to the 'now', not in terms of the concepts of can / should a GC numerical majority be able to seek for all Cypriots things that are defined solely by their Greekness alone, without having to pay any regard to the wishes of the TC community. For me that question is still at the core of what I need in order to not require any 'special' provisions fro my community.
Having said all that I would work with any Cypriot to emphasise and strengthen and reinforce our commonality as Cypriots and stop arguing about differences and indeed have done this on many occasions.
In that case we are basically in agreement. Lets just bookmark this post and lets refer to it every time we get into the same discussion again! It is one thing to say that Cypriots did not have a right for enosis (which is what I understood you meant) and another thing to qualify that by adding "without any need to consider the wishes of TC who are not Greek". In that case I wholly agree! And I don't agree just for the TCs, but for any group of people... democracy is not just "50%+1", but those elected should try to gather the greater possible consensus for their choices, by talking to all political parties, ethnic groups, workers affected etc. Achieving a 100% consensus is not always possible, but no important choice should be made without a sincere discussion by all involved. And of course no choice should be made if the human rights, safety or well being of any group would be threatened. If for example a country wants to turn to "Green" sources of energy and stop burning coal, even though this might be a good choice overall for most people, they still need to consider the needs of the coal miners and properly accommodate them so they will not end up unemployed and have their standard of living reduced.
