Cyprus-Forum.com

[Biker]

Those responsible, may it be the parents, teachers or priests should all hang their heads in shame.

Couldn't we just hang them?

[MR-from-NG]

Biker,

That would be cruel. But you know the saying "give them enough rope they'll hang themselves".

[Kifeas]

I found the aricle in Phileleftheros of 30/07/2006, and I translate here the first 3 paragraphs.

http://www.phileleftheros.com/main/main ... &id=425482

Why 11 year old students were surprised when they saw T/Cs.

Graduate students of a refugee elementary school, at the age 11 and 12 years, dared with their schoolteachers to touch upon a particularly sensitive subject, i.e. to investigate the perceptions and the degree of acceptance of Turkish Cypriots by their schoolmates. It resulted that the children were suspicious towards the Turkish Cypriots, as they see them as foreigners, villains, undesirables and carriers of the problems of Cyprus. Without them knowing much about them - revealing the insufficient informing from the side of the school, family and MMM – developed negative attitudes, biases and stereotypes for the T/Cs, something which as it is characteristically reported in the research, "twist the reality, shortage thought and develop the idea of segregation".

What is perhaps comforting is that after their engagement with the subject and after taking part in a program of "resolution of conflicts and antiracist education", the students differentiated their initial positions. And shockingly enough 62% of them said that they were surprised when they saw Turkish Cypriots for the first time, because the representations they had in their brain were completely different from what they saw.

In the relative report of results presentation, it is reported that the students of the school decided to make the start “believing that peace is founded only with truths". Thus therefore the students went ahead with a “brainstorming" in order to drawn and X-ray of what exists in us in relation to the particular issue. More specifically, they were called upon to give answers in questions relating to what they feel and what they know about the Turkish Cypriots, and what about the Greek Cypriots. The answers were separated in seven categories:

[Nicole22]

I live in London and I am of GC origin married to Englishman......but when my daughter first went to secondary school, she came home upset, because the TC kids had been mocking her and she couldn't understand why. I told her that they must have heard these things from their Grandparents, because no-one really thinks like that anymore. AND I am proud to say that she and one of these children are now friends.

[souroul]

Souroul , please dont be so predudiced. If a child is a pick pocket ort hief, they are what they are - a pickpocket or thief. Being a turkish settlers child doesnt make them so. Thats like saying all Irish Catholics are part of the IRA - total rubbish!!! What do you suggest the Turkish Cypriots do - make all the "settlers" wear arm bands - like the Nazis did to the jews?
Tess

are you saying that you're willing to take whatever your government throws at you?
why dont you comment on the majority of the settlers then.

[Natty]

Hey, kids live with their parents bitterness over what happened to them 32 years ago, they think 'the Turks caused all this hurt they must be bad', they don't distinguish between TC's and the Turkish Army, how could they, they have never lived with TC's....They just know that the Turkish Army is stopping them from moving freely aroung their own country...

Although I am glad that the GC side is starting to realise that the children need to be more educated about what happened in CY all those years ago...You know I'm glad that the borders opened, because now the young from both cummunities are able to mix and re-build relations!!

Peace!

[Pyrpolizer]

Theresa,

I can assure you if you take 100 GC kids and ask them to write you 3-4 lines about the TC kids of their age, you would get 99 "I don’t know, I never met one".

Push them a little more, ask them "are you parents refugees?" the kids will immediately spark up and deliver you a nice hatred poll to present the media.
I believe the same must be true for the TC kids.

NB.Most polls serve the purpose of the one who paid for it.

[Kifeas]

Hey, kids live with their parents bitterness over what happened to them 32 years ago, they think 'the Turks caused all this hurt they must be bad', they don't distinguish between TC's and the Turkish Army, how could they, they have never lived with TC's....They just know that the Turkish Army is stopping them from moving freely aroung their own country...

Although I am glad that the GC side is starting to realise that the children need to be more educated about what happened in CY all those years ago...You know I'm glad that the borders opened, because now the young from both cummunities are able to mix and re-build relations!!

Peace!

The "boarders" were "kept" closed by the Turkish side and the Turkish occupation army, and the reason they were kept so was to produce on the one aspect the above results among the GCs, and on the other hand to pump lies and brainwash the TCs, without them having the chance to hear the other side's story. It is neither the kids fault, nor their parents, if they were born and found themselves in refugee settlements, and their parents had to explain to them why they live there, why they have no properties like all the rest and were they originally come from.

[reportfromcyprus]

Children imitate their parents.

Their parents pass on what they learn in school and in the family home.

Future generations carry the attitudes of this generation. That's a big responsibility.

No matter how hard we try, we cannot escape our limitations until the time is ripe.

[Pyrpolizer]

So ….that was not really a poll it was a refugee school project and it was awarded the 2nd prize all over Cyprus. Everything in there was done by the kids themselves!

The most interesting part is when the schoolkids visited a TC school:

Here are some extracts :

If I would ever see those people somewhere else I would never tell they were TCs.
I was impressed when we entered the classroom and saw those people. I thought "they don’t differ at all from us"
Finally we met each other and we talked.
I really did not expect the TCs to be so friendly, and kind.
I would love to visit the TC school again….

NB.So if the Ministry of Education awards 2nd prize of excellency to such a school project, what does that tell you?