www.talkcyprus.org

[Dhavlos]

just thinking that bbf is the wrong way, just as unitary is the wrong way to go.


so, something a bit more 'radical':

local regions to have lots and lots of control, and a very loose central government.

so city regions: pafos, limasol, larnaca, nicosia, famagusta, kyrenia

non-city regions: 2 in karpasia, meseoria, tilliria, akamas, 3/4 in troodos, morfou, lefcara area and a couple around lefcosia(north and south?).

a single education system, greek/turish taught in school. with maybe lessons on 'local' history (of the region)

health and welfare to be sorted out on a local, region basis.

elected members of each region to be part of national government (with weak 'internal' powers, but power over foreign policy and finance etc).

national government would have to have at least one member of every region in its government, (maybe add: to represent the regions ethnic balance?)

only one presidential candidate from each region, and some kind of system to ensure the president in elected in all/most of the regions...same with vicepresident?



with this system i am hoping that locally/within each region, people would be conserned more on their local issues(tax/schooling/health, than that of 'ethnicity' which would more likely happen/manifest titself if you had a strong central government (as with 1960). So maybe we would consider ourselves 'karpasians/troodosians/tillirians' etc, rather tahn Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot. to ensure Turkish Cypriots participation in 'national governemtn;'...ensuring each region is represented in government is one way, or/and having some kind of clause ensuring ethnic representation? safeguardered by the constitutional court/obundsman/ EU

can people see where im going with this? I know it is a bit 'into the future', in the sense cypriots probably arent too politically mature to abide by this, but im sure if the right education was put in place beforehand, and the right political will, then it could really work. Much liek switzerland.

After all, we are all proud of where we are from, and any cypriot will fight and say his village is the best...so why not defend what region we are from? after all, im a proud dhavliotis, and im proud of being karpashiotis(from my dads side)...shouldnt this be the way rather tahn being proud of ones ethnicity?(which isnt wrong, but if we are promoting 'cypriotness' over our greek/turkish elements ;) )

[repulsewarrior]

re Doctor, a great idea in principal, and my point as well, because we need diversityamongst ourselves to remain culturally vital.

Internally, our governance is our business. Externally we need to represent ourselves as one; a people.

[cypezokyli]

from a very realist perspective, it is not possible (for many reasons).

second you skipped all the hot potatoes of the cyppro. as if we are talking about a country with no communal problem.

but for the sake of arguing (we love doing that :) ).

i think you forget how stupidly small we are. a united cyprus would be around 1m people , and the longest car drive would be 3-3.5 hours long. with these sizes we most probably wouldnt quilify as a whole to be a "region" , not to have regions inbetween us.

we already have a "lot of" goverment in cyprus, and imo AP would have brought even more.... usuless to a huge part imo. you are proposing even more goverments....in the end most cypriots will be "governors" one way or another , with noone left to govern. (ok i am exagurating a bit , but really its too much :wink: )

let me give you another example. 18 health systems! can i assume that you mean 18 hospitals (among other things) ?
who is going to pay for that ?


second, dont forget that the non-city places of cyprus are almost out of people.

[Dhavlos]

fair enough. lol, jsut seemed like a good-ish idea....but true, not enough people.

[repulsewarrior]

...not so fast...

if we are to think regionally, it is possible to rethink the repopulation of the island.

there would be a lot of government (municipal) but each component would be very small, and very close to its electorate. thus the taxpayer is better represented, being closer to their money.

each component of the two national entities (zonal) will have a function to serve the people within the territory overwhich they are sovereign.

and the government in which we are all equal, (the state), will be able to defend our individual rights, having a great deal of credibility without the bias that it now has.

[Dhavlos]

i was taking out this bit:

"each component of the two national entities (zonal) will have a function to serve the people within the territory overwhich they are sovereign."

so only two levels of government, a really local one, and weak national one.

[repulsewarrior]

no three levels of government.

A municipal level, a zonal government (turkish or greek) to which municipalities are responsible and the state (Republic of Cyprus).

[cypezokyli]

@ RW and dhav :
before we go into the practical details, could you describe shortly , what is that you dont like about the BBF and you try to achieve through the regionalisation ?

[Dhavlos]

With BBF i feel it cements the idea of 'us and them' since ther is a distinct area of 'us' and a distinct area of 'them'.

It also discourages cooperation, since poltical parties would most likely jsut define themselves to only the 'state' which they are looking for votes.

it would also most likely lead to some kind of resentment on the part of Greek Cypriots that a smaller state can have teh same number of votes as a bigger state(given the historical background as well etc etc)

It then means that we institutionalise the ethnic question, which i feel was probably one of the problems in the first place, ie who is Turkish Cypriot and who is Greek Cypriot and whether they would be able to be in a certain government position cos they are Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot. Quotas etc that are institutionalised will need reviewing, and if ever there would be a need to reduce the number of Turkish Cypriot quotas, or increase it,then one side will be unhappy about loosing 'power' and therefore we will probably be back to where we started in the 60s.

Also practically, in a modern world, there is not just 2 ethncities on the island. What if a Philipeno with cypriot citizenship etc etc wants to runfor government? would they be considered Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot? what quota would they be part of, if taken on by the civil service. Not tomention the european citizens who would be able to take part in local elections...what would theybe part of?

Basically, i think that having two zones, that are ethnically homogenous, but that are not 'forced' or have constitutional inclinations to cooperate even at the lowest level, will not work in the long run. (esp. given economic cercumstances...what if loads of Greek Cypriots are needed in thenorth,but quotas forbid them to live there...then what happens?)



Regionalisation, in my opinion will get rid of 'us and them' mentality, because there would not be a single 'state' or institution that would define 'us'or 'them'. -that is most importnat in my opinion.

It would force cooperation, since on the lowest levels, ethnic conflict will not be able to acheive anything, in fact, on the 'lowest' levels...local schooling, local hospitals, planning permission, local development etc, people i think agree on the same thing, regardless of ethnicity.

It would force political parties to represent 'all' the people of cyprus, since it would need island-wide appeal to get in power, in all 'regions' and not just be defined on an ethnic basis.

it also gets rid of 'institutionalised' ethnicity, eg, definate quotas of 'us' and definate quotas of 'them'.

People hopefully would start to define themselves more on their region, rather than their ethnicity, i would hope. ACtvities done on a regional basis, not ethnic.

Basically, i think that having mutliple zones or regions will get rid of the us and them mentality, and will force cooperation on the lowest levels, hopefully to feed further up the political chain. People hopefully will stop thinking along ethnic lines, and instead, along regional ones.

hope that sort of makes sense. I know my ideas may not be practical or work, but i feel that they are the 'right' thing to do ...i know it is hard but in an ideal world, we shouldnt be doing things on an ethnic basis, we should be doing it by merit only, but hey, its cyprus, nothing is as it seems

[pg]

I am also convinced that the Turkish Cypriot community would gain the best possible quality of live as a minority in a unitary state - basically because it would give the country its most effective way of governance and that with Cyprus in the EU and a 20% of the voters being Turkish Cypriot there is little chance to f*ck it up.

Naturally it implies that we are past the enosis era - which we are.

However, considering the recent history of Cyprus it is not unreasonable that we start off with a BBF in order for the communities to regain confidence in a future together.

[cannedmoose]

I think this thread is going over old ground that I and others have explored in the dim and distant past in proposed solutions (see Moose plan in this thread).

The way ahead for now is not to have a political settlement but to have an apolitical settlement that effectively bypasses the politicians who have their own interests in play. For Cyprus to really begin the process of reunification will require greater economic interdependence, at which point the politicians will have no choice but to consider political options.

The model for Cyprus will necessarily be the model that applies to the greater EU. A continent riven and divided by conflict slowly but surely moving closer due to mutual dependence. I think therefore we should look to discuss how to increase economic integration between the two sides before we even consider political integration. Politics alone will not reunify the island. In fact, in my opinion, if Cyprus has political reunification alone, it could just be a re-run of 1960.

[pg]

cannedmoose wrote:
The model for Cyprus will necessarily be the model that applies to the greater EU. A continent riven and divided by conflict slowly but surely moving closer due to mutual dependence. I think therefore we should look to discuss how to increase economic integration between the two sides before we even consider political integration. Politics alone will not reunify the island. In fact, in my opinion, if Cyprus has political reunification alone, it could just be a re-run of 1960.

I am sure that could be a good way forward - but how do we do it?

To start with, due to the small size of the Turkish Cypriot community - and even smaller economy - it is difficult to make the Greek Cypriot economy dependent on the small Turkish Cypriot community.

Possibly the employment of Turkish Cypriots is one way forward, although now the Turkish Cypriots compete mainly with non-Greek speaking work force from Eastern EU and third world countries.

Cooperation on energy, water, etc, can probably be useful only when privatized - although they are also sensitive areas.

Another idea is if Greek Cypriot owners of hotels in the occupied areas are allowed to run their hotels. Naturally this would mean that also the Cyprus Tourism Organization would market the product as for the rest of Cyprus, etc. Naturally it will bring in investments and tourism revenue to the north.

The problem is that the Turkish Cypriot community can run the hotels without their true owners..., in short, the commercial value of the Greek Cypriot properties is so high that it makes it difficult to design a cooperation model that gives an even higher value.

[cypezokyli]

pg wrote: I am also convinced that the Turkish Cypriot community would gain the best possible quality of live as a minority in a unitary state - basically because it would give the country its most effective way of governance and that with Cyprus in the EU and a 20% of the voters being Turkish Cypriot there is little chance to f*ck it up.

Naturally it implies that we are past the enosis era - which we are.

However, considering the recent history of Cyprus it is not unreasonable that we start off with a BBF in order for the communities to regain confidence in a future together.

i agree that we are past the enosis era (despite the fact that it suits many Turkish Cypriots to believe the contrary)
on the other hand i am not sure that both of us are past the mentality of the "us" and "them". concequently, going trhough the BBF seems like an unavoidable step. if we manage through it, perhaps it can be later on improved.

an apolitical settlement to a political problem seems rather too idealistic at the moment. that would mean a whole change of attitude, which politicians on both sides have no interest in.

[RudeGal]

I like the Canned Moose approach. Businesses more willing to take risks where ordinary people/politicians more cautious, so let this community drive things forward. In fact, nothing else has real chance of working at this stage. It's the fusion of business interests or partition.

That's why ending isolations in North so important. If Turkish Cypriot economy up, it's easier to do business with Greek Cypriots on better terms, so joint ventures more likely where each entity can bring something substantial to pot and also take away...

Greek Cypriots argue isolation essential weapon to stop Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus recognition. BS! It's to protect their own monopoly! At same time, this has made Turkish Cypriots 100% dependent on Turkey (yet whose influence on island Turkish Cypriot/Greek Cypriots want to decrease?) and - as an inhumane and unfair measure - the isolation polarises two sides into "haves" & have nots" (from Turkish Cypriot view its: 'come under Republic of Cyprus umbrella on our terms or stay without').

Greek Cypriots, as the larger eco power on island, need to take leap of faith and start looseing up to get the good vibes flowing. If Greek Cypriots end eco embargoes (e.g. don't object to Ercan as port for direct flights) then essentially now helping to improve wellbeing of Turkish Cypriots unconditionally = trust & respect up! rest will come.

or can carry on as is, which is definitely not going towards unifiying - whatever model you look at, all a waste of time as we all so wary of each other and looking for Win-Lose scenario.

All Cyprus has lost to date, but economically Greek Cypriots 3 times better off than Turkish Cypriots. They need to give a bit. And if they do, perhaps Turkish Cypriots not so bothered about political =ty. After all, I'm a minority in UK, but I know my rights are safe. Turkish Cypriots don't get that on ANY level from Republic of Cyprus.

Oh, above does not mean Turkish Cypriots have nothing to do in these developments. Just they have less to give at this stage. They need public reform & less red tape (big time!), plus land issues being processed via Property Commission need to speed up.

Once economic dependecy growing, steps for political integration more natural & likely (just like EU).

Start with what's real, not what's desirable!

[pg]

I thought we were talking about making the communities dependent on each other...

RG, do you think any of the other minorities have their rights protected by the Republic of Cyprus?