Cyprus-Forum.com

[bakala]

i know mate
but the eastenders i knew were the working class kind of guys nothing like the crap you see on telly.

it was about 1984 / maybe 1985
the year Charlie Nicholson played his first game for scotland aginst England at wembly, we went to the game
sorry
they kidnapped me and made me go to the game


while working there we stayed at a nice hotel the other guys i was working with stayed in the nice posh hotel and sat at the bar drinking glasses of wine and pretending to be posh with other Londoners who pretended to be posh as well . i walked along Romford road, went into the first pub i saw,
thats where i got the cobble sucker nickname, dont get me wrong. after ten minutes talking to those guys they realised i was a northern lad well out of my depth working away from home and skint most of the time.
each time they shoved a pint in my hand i was worried, coz i my northern pride said i had to pay my corner and my corner was getting more expensive with each pint they shoved at me,

by this time there were about eight guys in the gang so i ordered a round ( tried not to let them see that now i was cleaned out ) but they must have realised, next thing they got a pint pot and all threw a quid into it and the change from my round in with it , and the landlord put it on a shelf,
for a whole week that pint pot paid every time it was my round and they wouldnt have it any other way.
each night i walked back in for a solid week one of them shouted

its cobblesuckers round
down came the pint pot the landlord paid for the round and put the pint pot back on the shelf with the change
that pint pot must have been topped up every night by those guys before i arrived

Like i said for some reason they liked me and sort of adopted me dunno why ?
but i was always cobblesucker,
end of the week when i got paid i got the landlord to sneak 20 quid into that pint pot,
Like i said great memories of the working class They are truly Royal


True freedom has a hidden price,
for you to have it . everyone must have it. otherwise its just a dream you hold
For if you deny it to others, someday you will wake and realise that the dream has gone with the waking

[Alexis]

Thank you Alexis for your detailed analysis of the role of Archbishop Makarios in the events of 1963 through to 1974.

On the whole I would tend to agree with you, he played his friends in EOKA for political advantage and then moved against them when he saw a threat to his role as leader of the Greek Cypriots. He probably managed to keep his identity as a man of God quite seperate from being a man of the people in his mind, and coupled with a almost medieval Machievellian capacity to appear as all things to all men, only became undone when the Greek junta decided he was too clever by half for their liking.

I would, however, like to revisit the issue of land and the expulsion of the Greek cypriots from the north and the Turkish cypriots from the south. This is a complex and horrendously tangled issue, complicated by the presence of 40.000 Turkish troops and the Republic of Cyprus now being a member of the EU. There are two sides to this current political situation, the legal and the political.

Several on this board have used the legal argument, i.e. everything about the TRNC is illegal, the land sales, the buildings, the institutions, the deeds, all are illegal. And they are absolutely right! If I create a country, pass some laws relating to another territory next to my country then in my country, all those things as enacted by my country's government are illegal.

However, in reality, the politics of the situation may be that, because events have taken place, the law has to recognise that reality otherwise it becomes an ass. Laws are only respected if they relate to real things otherwise it leads to civil disobedience. Again laws are drafted by politicians and are repealed, amended and updated, they are not set in stone.

Other members speak of the truth of the events of 1974, and cite personal family accounts of the tragedy that befeel their relations and friends. Personal tragedy is a very difficult thing to come to terms with and it doesn't assist one to be objective about events. It has quite the opposite affect, the mind is clouded by anger, guilt, frustration, revenge and retribution. The loss of homes, possessions, friends, loved ones, ancestral lands, personal pride and dignity all affect us and our children in the most traumatic way. In fact being refugees in your own country must be the most humiliating experience of all. But yet again it makes it difficult to be ruthlessly objective about the truth, and I mean the truth in terms of reality and not interpretation, of events.

Hi rawk,

Thanks for your story about the men in the cave, it is an interesting story and shows just how different a situation can seem from other people's perspectives.

I will share with you my take on the land/property issue in Cyprus.
First of all, I think it is important to realise that realistically and for humanitarian reasons not all refugees will be able to return to their original homes. Whether this is completely fair or not given the circumstances is irrelevant I feel. The issue is far too complex, there has been selling of land to third parties, expropriation, settlers etc...
My solution is simple. In all cases where refugees cannot return to their original homes, they should at least have the right to build homes in the villages/areas from which they originally came.
This has always been my take on the issue and I still cannot see any major problem with it. The fear most TCs seem to have with this is the fact that GCs will be living amongst them and I realise that this is a big step for them, but I cannot see how Cyprus can call itself a unified country without the right of abode in all parts of the country for all its citizens, especially given that foreigners will effectively be allowed to live anywhere they like on the island.
I am all for transition periods, especially for businesses, and restrictions on the amount of property an individual can purchase, bt at the end of the day, to deny people the right to live in their own country makes a mockery of that country imo. I still think, that even with such a solution in place, there will still be large areas with an overwhelming TC majority in which TCs who do nopt want to live surrounded by GCs can live if they so choose.

[bakala]

mainsource ( lecturer )
you was pobably one of the Londoners in the hotel sipping wine and pretending to be posh

Romford Road ran through Romford funnily enough right next to hackney
we worked at the site in hackney and stayed at the hotel on Romford rd
but you can always go into hackney or Romford and tell them they are not eastenders
but you might end up trying to pick up your teeth with broken fingers,
thats what they told a guy one night who walked into the pub wearing a jap judo suit


True freedom has a hidden price,
for you to have it . everyone must have it. otherwise its just a dream you hold
For if you deny it to others, someday you will wake and realise that the dream has gone with the waking

[bakala]

YEAAAAAAAAA
alexis and rawk are awake

[bakala]

Alexis Rawk
didja see my peace poem

look back on the board a bit

[bakala]

alexis rawk look on page 27

[rawk]

bakala

I liked your poem, you speak for the common man. Your poem shows how powerful rich men use slogans to manipulate others. I also liked your stories about your experiences with working class Londoners, their comradeship and generosity.

rawk

[bakala]

Its true though isint it mate
they will even sell us the guns to kill each other
when any nation goes to war, where does it get the money from for the guns ?
from taxes
who pays the taxes ?
the people
ergo
the people pay the rich guys to buy the guns so the people can kill each other,
Obviously the people who sell the guns want to make a profit after all we are not communists,
and of course the guys selling the guns are far too busy to do any fighting

So who wins in the end ?
depressing isnt it ?

LOL
and after all the fighting is ended they take the guns off you incase you get any funny ideas

[rawk]

Hi Alexis

I fear that we are too much in agreement over the land issue, I concur completely with your propositions. However, I feel perhaps my analogy of Plato's description of the cave has been misinterpreted by some members. He was dealing with the concept of truth as pure reality and not what were men's interpretation of it. He was acutely aware that emotions, especially from those who had experienced trauma cloud judgement and perception. To Plato the escape from the cave was an exercise in philosophical training and the application of logic. As the man clears his mind of emotion and starts to rely on facts rather than opinions, the sun (ie the truth) illuminates the world and he sees things and concepts for what they are. Now he can make decisions and judgements.

My point was that resolution of the land problem required the same logical process as the man escaping the cave went through, he threw off the shackles and chains that bound his mind to flickering shadows and experienced painful reality. I fully accept the grievance and cry for justice that the Greek Cypriots who lost their homes in the north, I strongly believe that restitution where possible and compensation to enable rebuilding in the same villages should take place, but it must be dispassionate, it must have regard to the reality that exists now, it must be implemented without the baggage of revenge and all the other emotions that cloud human judgement.

All citizens of Cyprus should be able to live anywhere they prefer in their country but this process must be enabled by those who can pull away from the wall and act with the reality at hand, what is reasonably possible, recognize a painful fact and there will be many, and rely on the truth unobscured by personal opinion.

These sound like harsh terms where so many see the restitution of their properties as the simple answer to their grievances. But the alternatives are a continuing stalemate, and as the years drift by, a consolidation of the change in the north. Ironically this may be the last generation of Greek Cypriots who have a chance to reclaim their lands and properties who have living memories of residing on them. I sincerely hope that they and those Turkish Cypriots who fled their lands in the south, for whatever reason, regain their heritage or failing that recompense in recognition of what they have lost.

There is a saying that half a cake is better than no cake at all.........

rawk

[MR-from-NG]

Alexis wrote.
My solution is simple. In all cases where refugees cannot return to their original homes, they should at least have the right to build homes in the villages/areas from which they originally came.





Alexis,

Annan plan is not a lot different than your ideals. Look you have to be realistic, every day that passes makes this problem more and more difficult to solve. For example in the Annnan plan you had Omorfo, I am not sure this region will be offered to you in the next phase of the negotiations. There are millions of pounds worth of investments planned there now. This is the norm in most parts of the north now.

My point is that if your Mr Papadopulous keeps dragging his feet there will be no land left for GC's to build on.

Whatever happens, whatever you may think the next offer from the UN or EU or USA or maybe UK or even Russia may be, it isn't gonna be a lot more different than what is on the table now. WAKE UP.