THE EUPHORIA inspired by the our football triumphs gave way to gloom and despair this week as the eagerly-awaited direct talks to solve the Cyprob got off to a spectacularly bad start, before the two leaders had even begun negotiating.
The positions expressed by comrades Talat and Christofias in their respective opening statements on Wednesday suggested that they were too far apart to strike a deal, causing many of our sensitive politicians to go into a deep depression.
EDEK chief Yiannakis Omirou was inconsolable because Talat’s statement was a “repeat of the previously stated intransigent positions of the Turkish side”. DIKO’s enlightened leader Marios Garoyian was so distressed that he could not talk publicly about the matter.
He got the new DIKO spokesman, Fotis Fotiou, to express the party’s lament about Talat’s “intransigent and provocative” positions, which “did not allow any optimism about the prospects of the direct talks.”
Nei Orizontes boss Demetris Syllouris still showed admirable composure, despite his depression, to identify the problem. “We eliminated the usefulness of the July 8 agreement, which gave the opportunity for preparation before the start of negotiations,” he told journalists.
Although, for more than a year, we avoided seizing the opportunity for preparation, the agreement still allowed heaps of optimism about the prospect of direct talks never starting. Those were happy days for our politicians as they did not have to get stressed out about direct talks ending in deadlock.
It is always better to have the deadlock before the preparation of the start of the talks, as it safeguards us from the uncertainty and insecurity that cause depression.
THE PESSIMISM is totally unjustified. We should be patient for just 10 more days because then Anorthosis will play the first match in the group stages of the Champions League and we will be able to “transmit national and political messages” that will definitely strengthen our negotiating position.
Have we already forgotten our Archbishop’s words of wisdom about how the “message will be conveyed to all footballing Europe and not only in all the ties Anorthosis will play in the group stages”?
Did nobody read the column in Simerini which gave detailed, step-by-step advice on how we could capitalise on our football triumph, “with clear references that go beyond sport to carry our enlightenment about the Cyprus problem”?
Comrade Mehmet Ali may have expounded his intransigent positions on Wednesday, but once Anorthosis get our message across and Europe starts to apply pressure on Turkey, he will be forced to soften his stance and compromise. And this would allow some optimism about the prospect of the talks.
Now there’s a depressing thought.
THE EDUCATION Minister’s circular to schools, advising teachers on how to promote reconciliation, a spirit of co-operation and mutual trust between the two communities, has sparked a wave of self-righteous indignation among the guardians of patriotic correctness.
First, the secondary school teachers, through their union president, Lenia Semelidou, expressed reservations about the circular, citing a series of practical problems that could arise.
What if we teachers and students were invited to reconciliation conference at a Greek gymnasium in occupied Lapithos that was being used as a Turkish school? What if students and teachers refused to cross the line to attend reconciliation events; would they be punished by the ministry?
Mrs Semelidou also raised important concerns, relating to the political aspects of the circular. The problem of occupation should not be downgraded or “wiped out from our memory” she warned, also asking: “What will happen to Den Xechno (I do not forget),” the official slogan shoved down the throats of our students?
Perhaps it could be used to refer to other things affecting students like not forgetting handing in homework on time.
A GREATER danger was posed by changes being proposed by the minister – it could destroy our victim culture.
What if through a mistaken handling of the problem we created feelings of guilt in our students, when in fact they were victims of invasion and occupation, asked Mrs Semelidou. Surely the victim culture must not only be preserved, but celebrated because it is one of the values we share with our Turkish Cypriot brothers and sisters, who are also pretty good at playing the victims.
The ministry circular, after all, had asked teachers to focus on the two communities’ shared values.
THE GUARDIANS of patriotic correctness at DIKO were having none of it and wasted little time in rubbishing the minister’s outrageous proposals. At an urgently-called meeting, attended by the party’s intellectual heavyweights, it was decided that education “must remain devoted to strengthening our national identity and our fighting morale”.
Giorgos Colocassides told a news conference that his party would never allow changes to be made to the main objectives of education. “The impression given is that until today our education was chauvinistic and that we need to reduce its devotion to national ideals,” he said.
His DIKO comrade and former education minister Akis Kleanthous wondered if anyone actually thought that our education system promoted nationalism. Perhaps he is not the sharpest of the DIKO intellects, but the “devotion to national ideals” that his comrade took for granted, did tend to promote nationalism.
He obviously did not spot this when he was Education Minister as he was too busy developing policies that would introduce critical thinking at schools. Fortunately, he never completed the project because critical thought would have been a much bigger threat to the devotion to national ideals than the current government’s proposals.
THE FUNNY thing is that all the great and the good have been complaining that the government would distort history and misrepresent the true nature of the Cyprus problem in order to promote its objective of reconciliation without the new history books having been written. As long as the new books do not question the late Spy Kyp’s greatness, our establishment sees no reason to oppose their introduction to the schools. If the distortion of history reduces the number of teenage, flag-waving fanatics on our streets during national protest days then it cannot be that bad.
PARENTS of a man who decided to become a monk at Machairas monastery will be suing the Attorney-general, the monastery and the Archbishop, demanding damages of €2 million it was reported on Tuesday.
The parents are claiming that their son had been proselytised by Limassol Bishop Athanasios, whom he had been visiting for some time before deciding to devote his life to serving the Lord. “A man over 30, with fours masters and a PhD cannot end up in a monastery,” his father was quoted as saying by Phil. He believed his son had been “brainwashed” by the sinister Athanasios.
This is the classic Cypriot parent. His son is 35 but he still refuses to let him choose how to live his life. Surely a guy of 35 with four Masters and a PhD is smart enough to decide how to spend his life.
Personally, I would hate for my son to become a civil servant. If he defied me and took the job, would I be entitled to sue the state for proselytising my son and preventing him from having a normal life? I am sure there will be a lawyer willing to take the case once you show him the money.
I AM NOT for a minute suggesting that lawyer Christos Clerides, who has taken on the case of the monk, is doing it for the money.
His prime motivation is to enhance his credentials as a human rights lawyer, after his first attempt (representing dozens of refugees who had filed recourses at the European Court of Human Rights) was not a great professional success, despite putting a pound or two in his bank account.
For this case, he told Phil, he had found that the European convention on human rights protected the right to family life. This right was applicable to adults as much as minors, he said. The family, as a cell of society, extended from the birth to the death of its members and society had an obligation to take legal measures to protect the right of a family to remain united.
So who would the family sue if one of the daughters left home and decided never to speak to her parents? Can parents sue if their son emigrated to New Zealand because their right to a united family was violated? And what about the human right of adults to freely choose their career?
If Clerides achieves anything other than improving his bank balance with this case, then I will become a monk, even if Athanasios fails to proselytise me.
AND ANOTHER thing – what is wrong with someone becoming a monk anyway? A monk is definitely a better profession than a lawyer, a customs officer or an income tax official, all of whom spread misery and unhappiness. And since when does the Greek Orthodox Church proselytise? Surely that is what Jehovah’s Witnesses and Evangelists do.
WHAT IS the reason for DISY’s commissioner craze? At the beginning of the week the worker’s republic’s foremost populist, Lefteris Christoforou, urged the government to appoint a consumer commissioner so that he or she could clamp down on profiteering, which was rife. Our proletarian government immediately rejected this idiotic idea, having no money to waste on useless public posts.
On Wednesday, another DISY deputy, Ionas Nicolaou, proposed the establishment of a commissioner for the victims of violence, who would be in charge of government services dealing with problem. What next, a commissioner for proselytisation?
WE SHOULD not knock the commissioner posts, as these provide useful employment for out of work politicians. Take for instance poor old Fotis Fotiou, who had served as chairman of the CTO and as the minister of agriculture who did absolutely nothing about the water situation for the previous government.
After the elections, he was left post-less and in order to stay in politics had to suffer the indignity of accepting the post of DIKO spokesman, which is probably worse than becoming a monk.
OUR CLOSE ally Russia, which always takes a principled stand on international issues, apart from when it is invading neighbouring countries and recognising breakaway territories, gave us a bit of a diplomatic jolt a few days ago.
In an interview with a Turkish newspaper, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Vladimir Ivanofski, said the following when he was told that no country had recognised the ‘TRNC’: “Russia will recognise the ‘TRNC’ immediately after Turkey recognises South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It could be a mutual and simultaneous recognition.”
Most of our media avoided reporting the news. Had it been a Yank or a Brit who had said such a thing the politicians would be queuing up at TV and radio stations to condemn this latest stab in the back, but the Russians are our allies.
State news agency Tass, which also avoided reporting the story, ran a response the following day from the spokesman of the Russian embassy in Nicosia Vladimir Maistrenko. “It was a classic case of presenting the news in a distorted way,” he said, adding that the phrase had been taken out of context.
“They took a joke and tried to present it as sensational news,” Maistrenko said. So it was a joke. Russian diplomats are not renowned for their sense of humour, which may be why nobody in Nicosia was laughing after hearing Ivanofski’s joke.
ON TUESDAY, a man called up the offices of the Cyprus Football Federation KOP to ask where he could buy tickets for last night’s Cyprus-Italy World Cup qualifying tie in Larnaca. The woman informed him that tickets would be on sale at the KOP office in Nicosia, at Tsirion Satdium in Limassol and Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium in Larnaca.
He then asked for directions to the KOP office, which the employee gave him. He arrived there half an hour later and asked to buy some tickets. The same woman who had answered the phone, informed him that the tickets would not be on sale until the following day. “So why didn’t you tell me this on the phone,” the annoyed man asked.
“You never asked if tickets were on sale today,” she replied.
