Cyprus-Forum.com

[brother]

we the cypriots i believe should aim at uniting and becoming the Cypriot nation with no labels i.e t.c, g.c etc. hence as the french revelution done in its time and then emerged as a european power.
i am not saying that we will become some power house but as a united people we would be strong and one, that is what the people who want division want to stop and that is what the future has for us if we unite a cypriot nation that is based on human rights and democracy.

So lets start today by not labeling each other and just refer to ourselves as it should be CYPRIOTS then you watch us unite .

[Piratis]

I agree 100% with what you say. Actually when I was abroad I always said I am Cypriot, not Greek Cypriot.

Partition was invented by some outsiders to serve their own interests and its execution was helped by people that were not smart enough to realize the trap. (or they were simply traitors).

I truly united Cyprus that will be able to say with one voice that this island belongs only to Cypriots and those foreigners should look for other ways to serve their interests is what would be ideal and is what would make all Cypriots better off.

Unfortunately some people are naive (to say the least) and they still fall in traps like the made to be rejected Annan partition plan that was again created by foreigners to serve their interests and not ours.

[Bananiot]

Carolina Pelendritou, won gold for herself and Cyprus in the recent Paraolympics in Athens, in swimming. On her return to Cyprus today, she had this to say, among other things:

"I thank wholeheartedly President Papadopoulos who said NO to the Anan plan and as a result the specific National Anthem was heard and the specific flag was raised of Cyprus".

Its a sad story my friends. We do not want to change our symbols. We want the TC's as minority citizens with full civil rights but we deny them the opportunity to be equal to us as a community. The young, handicapped swimmer, reflects the aspirations of our president but her word is a strong one, since it is coated with much emotion. A similar ploy was adopted my the crying President (who took his glasses off, so that all could see his wet eyes) when he spoke to the people a few days before the referendum.

These aspirations may be heroic, fighting against all odds, seemingly, but their practical value points to a divided and forever partitioned island, unless he can actually convince Turkey and the TC's that they can return to the RoC and to the 1960 constitution.

Is there anyone that can actually argue that this is possible? I am willing to be convinced, if you have the right arguments.

[mehmet]

I gave up describing myself as Cypriot in UK because British people would assume I was Greek and sympathise with me for 1974. Now I say I am Turkish Cypriot but I always have to explain that a bit more. In Turkey however I always say I am Cypriot. There the response is usually a further question "are you Greek?'. This shows me that in Turkey people do not recognise Cypriot as a term referring to a nation, you are either Greek or Turkish. I would be interested to hear how in Greece they respond to the concept of Cypriot nationality.

Whilst I agree with the promotion of Cypriot national identity, it will take more than just people saying they are Cypriot's to bring this about. You can see in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia how strong the concept of 'Yugoslav' nationality was by how quickly it ell apart after Tito died. It lasted about 10 years before war broke out. To bring this about I believe education about each other needs to be reviewed to promote a sense of unity. Bananiot's post about teaching Turkish in his school is an excellent wxample of the type of steps that need to be taken. The joint activities taken by organisations on both sides of the island are also positive as are political links between people, but in the open not in secret. What would also be helpful would be less defensiveness, to pretend RoC or TRNC is paradise on earth is a nonsense. How good is coffee without sugar? All right, maybe that's a bad analogy.

What I think helps me on this forum feel closer to other people's points of views is when they give personal accounts of events, personal reactions instead of repeating what is in the newspapers or what the 'party' line is on issues. Turkish Cypriots being honest about the failings of TRNC and Greek Cypriots of RoC assist in creating common understanding. National identity is hard work, maybe we can start off with a bi-communal football team representing Cyprus. Sometimes nations are only united for sporting events.

[brother]

Today i am going to tell you about a chapter in my life that happened 12 years ago.
Like many cypriots i worked in the rag trade buying and selling, and many of my customers were in fonthill road, one particular person i done a lot of business with was chris and his brother in law, well one day i was at his showroom when some people came which ended in coffee and chat and somewhere along the line someone asked me where i was from and i replied 'turkish cypriot' later on after these people left chris came over to me and said early on you said such and such and i said 'yes' he said that is what the people who want to divide the island want , to label us and diluite our identity we are cypriots and nothing else, if we all accept that we are cypriot with no turk or greek what would they find to divide us 'nothing' all eoke and tmt was about was division and our uneducated population fell for the trap and they not only divided us they killed our people and made us feel hate for our own kindred he said 'brother read between the lines from today and many years to come you will always see only the same people pretending to want unity but with sackfuls of excuses not to unify' how right he is.
That day my whole conception changed and i have never looked back and i will always only see cypriots and nothing else and may god bless my friend chris for waking me up to the truth.

This was a very important chapter in my life and maybe i can reach some people with the same message my friend chris gave me.

[Chrisswirl]

*Posted twice by mistake, please ignore this post*

[Chrisswirl]

In Southern England when I say I am Cypriot, people who know the Cyprus problem (usually most people) ask which side I am from. Once I have been assumed to be Turkish Cypriot, but mostly Greek Cypriot is assumed. There are quite a lot of Greek Cypriots around here so most people are familiar with the island or the people to some extent, given that many are refugees from Ammochostos and obviously have a lot to say on the subject.

I agree with Brother, it seems that one of those people has the forename "Tassos", another going by the name "Denktas".

Once again I refer to Birds Without Wings... before the population exchanges there were Muslim Greeks in Greece and Christian Ottomans in Turkey, who identified with their home peoples more than the people who they were deported to. The exchanges were based on religion, not on nationality. In truth that is what has happened in Cyprus, there are Christian Cypriots and Muslim Cypriots, and they have been labled "Greek" and "Turkish" by the presence of nationalism on both sides over the last centuary.

[brother]

So all of us start to get our voices heard as cypriots and if not today someday soon we will unify as a people and we will be known as the cypriot nation.

[Piratis]

In truth that is what has happened in Cyprus, there are Christian Cypriots and Muslim Cypriots, and they have been labled "Greek" and "Turkish" by the presence of nationalism on both sides over the last centuary.

Being Greek or Turk is not a matter of genetics. But in Cyprus we do speak more than one language and we do have more than one religion and culture. Multiculture countries are not something new, and it is not something bad. Is it bad that the blacks in the US want to be called as "African Americans" for example?

I disagree that to have unity a prerequisite is to forget and eliminate whatever connects us with the Greek or Turkish culture and forget about our history. The correct way is to realize that we are Cypriots first and above all and that our cultures are not very different. We have more common things between us than we have with anybody else, and that in Cyprus all communities, cultures, religions etc, can live peacefully and be accepted for what they are. Especially now with EU that people with totally different cultures and languages will be able to move here and have Cyprus as their home, it is crazy to try to split Cypriots based on language and culture.

[mehmet]

Piratis,

I agree with your last post 100%.