cyprus problem forever?

[Kifeas]

Okay Erol, perhaps you are right!

However, are you seriously comparing the case of north Cyprus with the case of Australia, even though you may be doing it for the mere purpose of pinpointing Birkibrisli's presumed inconsistencies?

[erolz]

[Kifeas]

[erolz]

[bg_turk]

[erolz]

[Alexandros Lordos]

[Xenos 2Fan]

[cannedmoose]

[bg_turk]

[Birkibrisli]

Hello,you guys,

I am away from home so popped into an Internet cafe to check up the goings on the forum.This will be a rushed response,but I felt I needed to have some input,especially to clarify some of Erol's points.

Erol,of course I am totally ashamed at how the whites treated the aboriginees in Australia.But there is little I can do about it,since I or my nation was not involved in the displacement of the aboriginees.
The most dispickable thing about the white settlement (by the British,Erol,but please don't feel personally responsible and go to bat for the Empire now!) was that they declared the whole continent Terra Nullius (empty of human occupation) and treated the aboriginees like animals.
It was very easy to disposes Aboriginees of their lands because they had no concept of "Owning Land".For the aboiriginees it was a case of the land owning them,not the other way around.So when whites started affering them beads,mirrors,or whatever for land they thought they were on a good thing.(Imagine someone insisting that they give you something for you to sell them part of Mars!).The aboriginees had no right to own land or vote in elections till 1967,would you believe?Anyway this whole farce was somehow dispelled when in 1992 (from memory) the High Court of Australia declared the Terra Nullius null and void.Since then a lot of effort was put into compensating the aboriginees by givin them native title etc,but in my opinion the damage is done.There is no aboiriginal civilisation left in tact to salvage,most of them reduced to living in shanty towns in the bush or their equivalent in the cities.A crime against humanity,IMO,which can never be compensated.
this is considerably different to what happened in Cyprus,in the second half of the 20th century may I add.
As to the brothels and casinos,of course they exist here,but as Boomerang said they are part of the real economy and highly regulated.
And of course Australian economy does not depend on income from these activities for its prosperity,while in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus the situation is entirely different.But I really don't want to harp on it,it really distresses me to think of what has happened to my homeland.But I take solace in the thought that we did not wake up one morning and decided to kill each other because we discovered during the night in our dreams that we were Turks or Greeks instead of Cypriots.There is a whole historical and geopolitical context at work,and one day we will discover it,stop denying it,and then maybe have a chance of building our Cyprus as one multicultural nation.
But to people who talk about having to have asolution by such and such a date,I ask: "will a solution imposed on us from the outside,and resented by the majority of Cypriots (and I don't mean just Greek Cypriots,there would be very many Turkish Cypriots not happy with an imposed solution as well) be just and everlasting?Or will it be just another staging post for further conflict in the future.My whole argument rests on this point:only us Cypriots can solve our own problems if that solution is to last.We must learn to leave out ethnic identities at the door of the negotiating room fir this to happen.
I hope to find more time for the forums when I get back home. Till then
may the beautiful Cyprus sun wash away your pain and resentment,and make you happy Cypriots,amen.

[Xenos 2Fan]

[Bananiot]

Alexandros has raised some interesting and important points. He has made it clear that he believes that as long as Papadopoulos is the President, the Cyprus issue cannot be put to rest.

In February 2008 we have Presidential elections and for the moment at least I cannot see how Papadopoulos can lose these elections. Only AKEL can spoil his plans but even then, Papadopoulos has managed to erode the cohesion of AKEL and even if their marriage breaks up it might be too late to get Papadopoulos out of the way.

We had a similar scenario in 1985 when AKEL broke up with Kyprianou and in 1987 AKEL only just managed to get charismatic Vasiliou into the second round of the Presidential elections of 1987. DIKO, at the time secured 27% of the popular vote! This time round things are much tougher as Papadopoulos is a much more serious (and cleverer) contender. Christofias may need to perform a miracle in order to win back the people that listened to him and became staunch supporters of Papadopoulos. Remember, Papadopoulos was hand picked by Christofias who was desperately looking for someone to defeat the DISI candidate. Now, he seems to have been caught in his own web he has spun and he cannot get out.

Thus we may have Papadopoulos on our backs until 2013 and then of course the person that succeeds him will probably be one of his school of thought. This pessimistic scenario is the most probable in my opinion because of the week opposition to Papadopoulos and also (and more important) because of the fact that the majority now of Greek Cypriots are convinced that solution will affect their interests. Oh yes, this is our greatest evil. It has nothing to do with nationalism at the moment. This has finished its cycle. Now its the raw financial interests. Above all I place the interests of the political parties themselves. They stand to lose much of their influence on society after a solution.

Of course, one can also talk about the solution after so many years. I would just say at this instance, that for the Greek Cypriots it will be much more painful than the solution envisaged by the Annan Plan, which Papadopoulos purposefully did not negotiate so that we would get the worse possible deal and then he could be our saviour by being the pillar of the NO vote.

[Kifeas]

[Kifeas]