Cyprus-Forum.com

[-mikkie2-]

Now, I do not wish to play American politics with you Metecyp. In the UK we have equal opportunities for all. People are chosen on ability, irrespective of their background or race.

If people are given the opportunity to learn and further themselves then that is their choice to make, or not.

Regarding Cyprus, I think that you either have a very low opinion of TC's or a very high opinion of GC's. We are a tiny country compared to the US or UK. 'Affirmitive' action just would not work. Why antagonise the situation even more by forcing such measures in Cyprus? Putting people in jobs they could not do or are not qualified for does not make sense to me. I don't have a low opinion of TC's. In fact many of them come to the UK to study just like the GC's do so I do not think there would be a problem.

I stand corrected Insan, in what you were trying to say. I thought you meant regarding government jobs.

[mehmet]

Mikkie,

in the UK equal opportunities is a policy some organisations have. It is not a law. There are other laws banning discrimination on grounds of race, sex, disability or religion (although not age). The reason for the policy is the reason why affirmative action exists in the US.....to correct past discrimination.

There are advantages and disadvantages to quotas. In Cyprus this was a problem in the 1960-63 period. What do you do? Dismiss Greek Cypriots to make way for Turkish Cypriots (the Nationalists would love that to happen to help their cause?) Or do you inflate government so that Turkish Cypriots are represented and so that no Greek Cypriots lose their jobs (MicatCyp would have something to say about this). Or do you say to the Turksih Cypriots 'we practice equal opportunities'. Although we are currently a Greek Cypriot only government body we are fair minded and little by little we will ensure that Turksih Cypriots get a fair chance to get jobs but because they are there on merit. The trouble with the last option is that it will take forever. Mikkie if you know something about UK you will know that they have been trying to recruit black people into the police for many years now yet still they are under represented.

[Piratis]

Metecyp, affirmative action is one thing, political equality between the 82% and the 18% is a totally different thing.

Affirmative action is given to communities/minorities that are
underrepresented in some sectors. For example if blacks in the US are 15% but blacks in Colleges/Universities are just 10% then affirmative action is taken to raise the number of Black students.

In general this means that people are more equal on the individual level. In our example above, after the affirmative action is taken an African American and a "white" american would have equal possibilities of getting into college.

Now imagine that they said that this equality should be between communities and they decide that 50% of College students should be black. This would mean that a Black student would have several times more chances of getting in a college than a white one. Do you think that this will happen in the US? Do you think this can happen anywhere in the world? Do you think this would be fair?

I have absolutely no problem to take affirmative actions on everything, to make sure that Turkish Cypriots are never underrepresented. Not only that, for some things I can accept that TCs can have boosted (e.g. 25%) representation.

What I can not accept is that the 18% will be promoted to 50% power, which will mean that one citizen will have 4.5 times more voting power than another, simply because one is muslim and speaks Turkish and the other is not. This not only is unfair, but goes against the most basic democratic principle.

[metecyp]

Affirmative action in the US is just an example to show that exceptions exist to protect a minority group and these exceptions are not undemocratic or against human rights, on the contrary, they make sure that democracy indeed exists.

I'm not trying to directly link affirmative action to political equality or I'm not suggesting that we should have affirmative action in Cyprus. I'm also not suggesting that TCs should have 50% in everything in Cyprus.

What I'm trying to empahise is that TCs are not simply "greedy" (as some of you claim) when they request more than 18% (in whatever). In most cases, TC demand for more than 18% is to make sure that TCs are not dominated by the GCs and this is understandable given the past and the present (Asia minor genocide law, Greek national anthem).

One man one vote is a dream that we would like to reach but it does not apply at the moment, just like there's no one man one vote in the EU, just like Cyprus has more voting power compared to its population.

[insan]

One man one vote is a dream that we would like to reach but it does not apply at the moment

I totally agree with what you think regarding the political equality. In due time, if we manage to create a genuine Cypriot identity, then one man one vote will come into our political life as a natural evolution of two communities relations; just like how US confederation have become a non-centralized federation. It depends on the relations of the members of two communities. If they manage to get along fairly good with each other; be sure of that fusing into same ideals won't take too long.

Just like there's no one man one vote in the EU, just like Cyprus has more voting power compared to its population.

I don't think it is similar with our case....

[Piratis]

Affirmative action in the US is just an example to show that exceptions exist to protect a minority group and these exceptions are not undemocratic or against human rights, on the contrary, they make sure that democracy indeed exists.

What I'm trying to emphasize is that TCs are not simply "greedy" (as some of you claim) when they request more than 18% (in whatever).

But the exceptions of the type of affirmative action are created to make sure that every citizen of the state has equal opportunities. If you request more than 18%, then what you are requesting is not to equality, but in fact the opposite.
Affirmative action is something created to give people irrespective of race, color, religion etc equal opportunities. What you are asking for is to create inequality based on race, religion etc. Don't you see that these two things have the exact opposite aim?

just like there's no one man one vote in the EU, just like Cyprus has more voting power compared to its population.

This brings up the question: Do you want a united Cyprus, or you want an association between independent countries? Because the EU is not a country.

If what you want is partition and then "south" and "north" to be associated the way that Malta and Latvia are, then just say so.

[Piratis]

I totally agree with what you think regarding the political equality. In due time, if we manage to create a genuine Cypriot identity, then one man one vote will come into our political life as a natural evolution of two communities relations; just like how US confederation have become a non-centralized federation. It depends on the relations of the members of two communities. If they manage to get along fairly good with each other; be sure of that fusing into same ideals won't take too long.

And the genuine Cypriot identity will be created by separating people into Greeks and Turks, with separate flags and citizenships and with just a loose association between them? And after part of the population is used to be given a 4.5 more power as an award for staying separate, they will then come and give up their now legal super privileges for the sake of unity? Do you think you are talking to kindergarten children?

What you are asking from us is this: "Give us part of Cyprus to legally own just for ourselves, and then later we will decide what we will do with our part. Maybe we we will decide to reunite". Or maybe, I say, you will just decide to totally take that part of Cyprus, which you never owned in the first place.

Federation (not confederation, not association) dear insan, was the last compromise. We are just waiting for you to make the same compromise. Don't expect from us more.

[antonis]

Affirmative action is something created to give people irrespective of race, color, religion etc equal opportunities. What you are asking for is to create inequality based on race, religion etc. Don't you see that these two things have the exact opposite aim?

I think you are talking about different things. Affirmative action in the US requests that, given interest from specific ethnic groups/minorities or women, they would be given special consideration in employment, education and contracting decisions. Affirmative action is not based on quotas which is the important thing.

This is unrelated to the 70-30 balance between GC and TC in the public sector, for example. That is entirely quota based, so there's no affirmative action. So what do you suggest? That no quota should exist, but affirmative action should be taken? Or change the quota to 82-18?

[metecyp]

Federation (not confederation, not association) dear insan, was the last compromise. We are just waiting for you to make the same compromise. Don't expect from us more.

You're just playing with words, as usual. There's a huge difference between the Annan plan (any version) and confederation as suggested by Denktas. If the Annan plan was crystal-clear confederation as you suggested, then Denktas would have been the first one to jump on it. But he is as opposed to it as you are (surprise surprise).

And the genuine Cypriot identity will be created by separating people into Greeks and Turks, with separate flags and citizenships and with just a loose association between them?

Does the current situation promote the Cypriot identity? I don't think so. Maybe the Annan plan would not have promoted the Cypriot identity as much as we hoped for but at least it would have done a better job than the current situation.

We cannot jump from being Turks and Greeks (as we are today) into being Cypriots in one day. We need a gradual integration which requires the security provided by some kind of seperation. Federation by its very meaning requires some degree of seperation. I'm not suggesting any type of partition but you have to realize that we cannot go back to 1960 either.

[Piratis]

You're just playing with words, as usual. There's a huge difference between the Annan plan (any version) and confederation as suggested by Denktas. If the Annan plan was crystal-clear confederation as you suggested, then Denktas would have been the first one to jump on it. But he is as opposed to it as you are (surprise surprise).

There is a huge different in everything and their "Denctash Version". If you use Denctash in order to understand things like confederation, or democracy, or fairness etc, then you are hopeless.
If you didn't notice already, Denctash always wanted the kind of partition that would let him remain the "King". This is why he was always asking for more and more and more.

A live example of confederation is the Swiss confederation on which the Annan plan was based (this is written in the plan itself). If you study the parameters of the swiss confederation and the proposed Cyprus confederation you will see that the confederation proposed by the Annan plan was even more loose than what they have in Switzerland.
For example in the Swiss confederation the central state is above the component states, but according to the Annan plan this would not be the case. So, since as you say we should stop playing with words, it is very clear that the Annan plan was nothing more than a disguised partition, and had nothing to with real federations (e.g. USA).

We cannot jump from being Turks and Greeks (as we are today) into being Cypriots in one day.

I don't know about you, but I feel more Cypriot than anything else. It wouldn't bother me to change the national anthem, and I don't want a separate "Greek component state" citizenship. The Cyprus citizenship, flag and anthem are more that enough for me.

Sure, transitional periods can exist. But this should be a transitional period that will promote unity, not the one that will award some people because they choose to stay separate.