Expats and migrants: welcome to the modern world

Sir,

So, Lauren O’Hara, the word “expat” comes with connotations of wealth and glamour? What an idiotic statement! The term “expat” in the modern sense actually suggests, to most sensible minded people, working class northerners with a pension and a penchant for cheap beer, gossip and mahogany tans. Long gone are the days when foreign living evoked the image of a wealthy aristo expat and their love of cocktail parties, pretty hats and English gardening under a Mediterranean sun.

The fact of the matter is that Ms O’Hara simply wanted to have a pop at the Brits who dare have anything other than a forelock-tugging, ingratiating sense of gratitude to their host country. One undeniable truth is that a large expat community of retirees, irrespective of one’s personal opinion, brings a great deal of money into the local economy, whereas the “economic migrant” Albanian family while, I am sure, dutifully paying their “working class” taxes on their meagre earnings bring very little of anything.

Should the local businesses want some of that filthy lucre, then they simply have to ask themselves whether they should be speaking the language of their paying customer or if they, with their nationalistic hand on their nationalistic heart, can do without the cash and damn the lot of the “evil-turk-loving-brits”.

Welcome to the modern world Lauren, you don’t have to like it, but please don’t write empty, spleen-venting articles about it.

Jamie Thompson
Parekklisia, Limassol

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.