Tales from the Coffeeshop
THE BIG APPLE tour wound up last weekend with the Annual Dinner Dance extravaganza of the Cyprus Federation of America, at which comrade prez was the guest of honour. Despite its title, the bash did not feature any dancing – at least in the footage that we saw on our TV screens last Sunday.
But who would be in the mood for dancing, after listening to speeches about the Cyprob from the prez, the Archbishop of America and all head honchos of the Cypriot-American community all of whom were present. Talk about Turkish intransigence, international justice and bi-zonal, bi-communal federation kills any desire people may have had to get up and do their funky stuff on the dance-floor.
What the bash lacked in boogie factor was more than compensated by the intellectual stimulation offered by comrade plassie’s speech, which featured another immortal sound-bite. “We are struggling to bend the intransigence of the xerokefalous of Ankara.” It was the first time in Cyprob history that a president had referred to the members of the Turkish establishment as xerokefalous.
The closest equivalent in English would be pig-headed. The definition given by Greek dictionaries is “someone who cannot be persuaded easily nor changes his mind; someone who is very stubborn and opinionated.” In the Cypriot dialect there is a perfect word for what he meant – kkelledjis – and it was surprising the prez, who loves the local vernacular did not use it.
BUT IF the guys who pull the strings in Ankara are kkelledjides, as the comrade claims, what chance does he have of bending their intransigence. If it is in your human nature to be stubborn, no amount of struggling by people from a foreign country would suddenly turn you into a reasonable, open-minded chap. It just doesn’t happen.
We should know, because no amount of struggling by foreigners to persuade us to accept a settlement has had any effect. Does that make us kkelledjides as well, or are we different because we are idealists committed to principles of justice?
As a country we have produced more than our fair share of politicians who could have been labeled a kkelledjis. The late Tassos was a classic example of a xerokefalos – even his closest friends and associates would concede this – but if we compiled a chart it would have been topped by Rauf Denktash, the ultimate kkelledjis of Cyprus. Makarios would also be high up.
The above three, all hail from the Paphos district, which says it all.
THE IMPLICATION of the comrade’s comment is that there could never be a settlement, because Ankara’s kkelledjides are unlikely, ever, to become less intransigent.
Are we therefore to assume that our presidente is some heroic, romantic figure, who will keep on struggling against the odds, despite knowing that his efforts are doomed to failure? Human nature, after all, cannot change.
This is what right-wingers like us believe. Commie ideologues always believed that human nature was socially engineered and could therefore change – people would stop being competitive, greedy, envious etc if they were socially conditioned, differently.
The only problem is that social engineering needs decades to have an effect. And although the comrade is opposed to artificial time-frames, I do not think the UN would wait around until Ankara’s rulers cease being xerokefali.
APOLOGIES for the digression. The NewYork dinner, as we had reported a couple of months ago, honoured Hambis Nicolaou, who was given the Justice for Cyprus award.
The Akel mouthpiece, Haravghi, informed us that our prez discarded his prepared speech and “spoke from the heart”, about Hambis whom he referred to as his “second father”. He congratulated the Federation for “honouring an ordinary and lovely person, who represented and spoke for traditional Cyprus, the Cyprus of compassion, conscientiousness and hospitality.”
We still were not enlightened about the reasons for honouring Hambis. The executive vice-President of the Federation, informed guests that he started working at the age of 11 and became an active member of the trade union movement. He moved to the US in 1970, made lots of money, but always remained the same and helped other people.
There are hundreds of others who did exactly the same as Hambis, but were never considered for the Justice for Cyprus award. Was it because none of them was an “ordinary and lovely person”.
During the dinner, the prez sat next to his new bosom buddy, Supreme President of the Federation and big-shot businessman, Panicos Papanicolaou, who took the Hambis decision. Rusfeti could be ruled out because the decision was taken long before August, when the three amigos went on holiday together to a Greek island.
AFTER his triumphant stay in the Big Apple, our leader and his entourage headed southwards for his official visit of Cuba, one of the world’s few, remaining, repressive, communist states, which violates human rights on an epic scale, executes citizens who try to leave the country and imprisons its critics.
The comrade however, who had visited Castro’s communist paradise on several occasions in the past, wanted to show his solidarity with the totalitarian regime, as presidente. And he wanted to be present for the official opening of our embassy in Havana. During the visit, he repeatedly boasted about Cyprus being the first country to send a ship with supplies to Cuba, in the sixties, despite the US blockade.
This was the type of lunatic ideas the megalomaniac, Makarios came up with when he was playing the world statesman – the leader of tiny and inconsequential country showing open defiance to a Superpower, without having anything to gain.
Comrade Tof is playing more or less the same pathetic game, even though he has the mitigating circumstance that he embraces Fidel Castro’s communist ideology. As Haravghi said in an editorial the solidarity between the two countries, “not only strengthens relations between them but also strengthens the internationalist platform of peoples which support the ideals and values of freedom…”
FREEDOM is not a word many people associate with Cuba, but logic has never been allowed to poison communist propaganda and neither has reality.
The editorial’s claim that the “struggles of the two peoples are common” was especially absurd, if not a bit insulting to Cubans. The over-paid, over-fed, over-protected average Cypriot worker struggles for nothing, unless buying a holiday home or a BMW for his kid, is part of the struggle. How common is this with the Cuban workers’ struggle to put food on the family table, because Fidel took an affluent country and turned it into a beggar’s paradise?
WHEN it comes to communism our leader is as xerokefalos (we did not use kkelledjis because it almost means someone with a big head) as the hawks of Ankara – despite the overwhelming evidence, he refuses to concede that it was one of the biggest unnatural disasters to hit the modern world.
He was therefore ecstatic to be granted a two-hour audience by the Cuba’s retired dictator of 49 years, whom he had met on five previous occasions. “It gave us joy and happiness to have seen him in good health and, most importantly, with a sharp mind,” he said after the meeting.
During the two-hour meeting, he never asked Fidel (his ‘third father’?), why in his 49 years in power he had refused to ratify any international law, enshrining fundamental human rights and to sign the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights?
He objects to Turkey violating human rights but when Fidel does it, it is OK.
THE CAMPAIGN against a settlement, meanwhile, has been gathering momentum. A few Sundays ago, the Movement for Freedom and Justice in Cyprus issued a booklet, titled ‘The correct yes’, in which it outlined the provisions that any peace deal should have in order for it to be acceptable. The booklet was given out free with some newspapers.
It all sounded great, but there was one minor snag. The only way the Turks would say ‘yes’ to it would be if they suffered a crushing military defeat. However, the booklet did not suggest how this defeat would be inflicted, given that 20 per cent of our youngsters are not prepared to do guard duty for their country, let alone risk their life.
LAST Sunday, a hundred-page book, written by a Dr Takis Georgiou, was distributed free with Phil, under the headline ‘Plan B’. The book was not bothered with the correct yes, because it had no illusions about securing a perfect solution.
The author, in contrast to all other hard-liners, had the honesty to refer to the ‘solution that dare not speak its name’, as Oscar Wilde* would have said. Partition was preferable to a bizonal, bi-communal federation, argued the doctor, who had the guts to say what everyone thinks but is too scared to mention in public.
One UN official, on being told that the Greek Cypriot ‘no campaign’ had already begun, quipped: “This is not a ‘no’ campaign, it is a ‘never’ campaign.” We will not mention his name because Diko might demand that he is declared persona non grata, like Big Al.
THERE was smoke coming out of the ears of DIKO spokesman Fotis Fotiou, when he briefed TV cameras about his party’s unhappiness with the leaked UN report on DIKO’s hard-liners and the divisions within the party regarding the Cyprob.
The contents of the document were revealed on Antenna TV, which subsequently invited politicians to slam the UN’s meddlesome behaviour and call for the removal of the UN envoy.
We should expect many more such stories from Antenna – its supreme ruler, Loukis P, appears to have made the sacking of Big Al the mission of his life – because there are hundreds of e-mails and reports, from Downer’s office, in circulation.
The seething Fotiou issued a pathetic warning to the Downer team: “If, by any chance, this is how they will continue to see their role, they should pack up and leave.” His comment was way too mild and did not reflect the anger betrayed by his face.
Does he not realise that they would never pack up and leave voluntarily? Surely he should have displayed Perdikis’ patriotism, and declared Downer and his flunkeys undesirables.
LAST WEEK we forgot to mention the comrade presidente’s analysis of Cyprus-Russia relations, after his meeting in New York with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov thanked us for our stance on the UN resolution on Georgia (when we did not support the return of displaced persons to their homes, because they had been kicked out of their properties by our Russian friends) and expressed his appreciation, said comrade Tof.
As regards the rather pro-Turkish comments made by Prime Minister Putin during his visit to Turkey, Tof said there was nothing to worry about, because “the responsibility for the handling of the Cyprob belonged to the foreign ministry and Lavrov personally.” You wonder whether Tof believes the stuff he says or whether he is taking us for ride.
I would certainly sleep safer if it were the latter.
WHY IS Lavrov such a champion of the Greek Cypriot cause, when his boss has been methodically strengthening Moscow’s relations with Ankara? These relations are worth tens of billions of bucks every year and there are also the pipelines.
Apparently when Lavrov’s daughter was jobless, one of our top diplomats got her a job. He called the owner of a Cypriot company with operations in Russia which immediately hired Ms Lavrova on a generous salary. Lavrov has taken a principled position on the Cyprob ever since and forced Putin to do the same.
*Oscar Wilde never wrote about the Cyprob, but he referred to homosexuality, as “the love that dare not speak its name”. Incidentally, in Cuba, Castro traditionally imprisoned gays, whom were labeled “undesirables”. Suspicion and rumour were often adequate reason for someone to end up in prison. This fascistic practice also revealed the stupidity of the Castro regime. What sort of punishment is it for a gay to be locked up in a place full of sex-starved men?
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THE BIG APPLE tour wound up last weekend with the Annual Dinner Dance extravaganza of the Cyprus Federation of America, at which comrade prez was the guest of honour. Despite its title, the bash did not feature any dancing – at least in the footage that we saw on our TV screens last Sunday.
But who would be in the mood for dancing, after listening to speeches about the Cyprob from the prez, the Archbishop of America and all head honchos of the Cypriot-American community all of whom were present. Talk about Turkish intransigence, international justice and bi-zonal, bi-communal federation kills any desire people may have had to get up and do their funky stuff on the dance-floor.
What the bash lacked in boogie factor was more than compensated by the intellectual stimulation offered by comrade plassie’s speech, which featured another immortal sound-bite. “We are struggling to bend the intransigence of the xerokefalous of Ankara.” It was the first time in Cyprob history that a president had referred to the members of the Turkish establishment as xerokefalous.
The closest equivalent in English would be pig-headed. The definition given by Greek dictionaries is “someone who cannot be persuaded easily nor changes his mind; someone who is very stubborn and opinionated.” In the Cypriot dialect there is a perfect word for what he meant – kkelledjis – and it was surprising the prez, who loves the local vernacular did not use it.
BUT IF the guys who pull the strings in Ankara are kkelledjides, as the comrade claims, what chance does he have of bending their intransigence. If it is in your human nature to be stubborn, no amount of struggling by people from a foreign country would suddenly turn you into a reasonable, open-minded chap. It just doesn’t happen.
We should know, because no amount of struggling by foreigners to persuade us to accept a settlement has had any effect. Does that make us kkelledjides as well, or are we different because we are idealists committed to principles of justice?
As a country we have produced more than our fair share of politicians who could have been labeled a kkelledjis. The late Tassos was a classic example of a xerokefalos – even his closest friends and associates would concede this – but if we compiled a chart it would have been topped by Rauf Denktash, the ultimate kkelledjis of Cyprus. Makarios would also be high up.
The above three, all hail from the Paphos district, which says it all.
THE IMPLICATION of the comrade’s comment is that there could never be a settlement, because Ankara’s kkelledjides are unlikely, ever, to become less intransigent.
Are we therefore to assume that our presidente is some heroic, romantic figure, who will keep on struggling against the odds, despite knowing that his efforts are doomed to failure? Human nature, after all, cannot change.
This is what right-wingers like us believe. Commie ideologues always believed that human nature was socially engineered and could therefore change – people would stop being competitive, greedy, envious etc if they were socially conditioned, differently.
The only problem is that social engineering needs decades to have an effect. And although the comrade is opposed to artificial time-frames, I do not think the UN would wait around until Ankara’s rulers cease being xerokefali.
APOLOGIES for the digression. The NewYork dinner, as we had reported a couple of months ago, honoured Hambis Nicolaou, who was given the Justice for Cyprus award.
The Akel mouthpiece, Haravghi, informed us that our prez discarded his prepared speech and “spoke from the heart”, about Hambis whom he referred to as his “second father”. He congratulated the Federation for “honouring an ordinary and lovely person, who represented and spoke for traditional Cyprus, the Cyprus of compassion, conscientiousness and hospitality.”
We still were not enlightened about the reasons for honouring Hambis. The executive vice-President of the Federation, informed guests that he started working at the age of 11 and became an active member of the trade union movement. He moved to the US in 1970, made lots of money, but always remained the same and helped other people.
There are hundreds of others who did exactly the same as Hambis, but were never considered for the Justice for Cyprus award. Was it because none of them was an “ordinary and lovely person”.
During the dinner, the prez sat next to his new bosom buddy, Supreme President of the Federation and big-shot businessman, Panicos Papanicolaou, who took the Hambis decision. Rusfeti could be ruled out because the decision was taken long before August, when the three amigos went on holiday together to a Greek island.
AFTER his triumphant stay in the Big Apple, our leader and his entourage headed southwards for his official visit of Cuba, one of the world’s few, remaining, repressive, communist states, which violates human rights on an epic scale, executes citizens who try to leave the country and imprisons its critics.
The comrade however, who had visited Castro’s communist paradise on several occasions in the past, wanted to show his solidarity with the totalitarian regime, as presidente. And he wanted to be present for the official opening of our embassy in Havana. During the visit, he repeatedly boasted about Cyprus being the first country to send a ship with supplies to Cuba, in the sixties, despite the US blockade.
This was the type of lunatic ideas the megalomaniac, Makarios came up with when he was playing the world statesman – the leader of tiny and inconsequential country showing open defiance to a Superpower, without having anything to gain.
Comrade Tof is playing more or less the same pathetic game, even though he has the mitigating circumstance that he embraces Fidel Castro’s communist ideology. As Haravghi said in an editorial the solidarity between the two countries, “not only strengthens relations between them but also strengthens the internationalist platform of peoples which support the ideals and values of freedom…”
FREEDOM is not a word many people associate with Cuba, but logic has never been allowed to poison communist propaganda and neither has reality.
The editorial’s claim that the “struggles of the two peoples are common” was especially absurd, if not a bit insulting to Cubans. The over-paid, over-fed, over-protected average Cypriot worker struggles for nothing, unless buying a holiday home or a BMW for his kid, is part of the struggle. How common is this with the Cuban workers’ struggle to put food on the family table, because Fidel took an affluent country and turned it into a beggar’s paradise?
WHEN it comes to communism our leader is as xerokefalos (we did not use kkelledjis because it almost means someone with a big head) as the hawks of Ankara – despite the overwhelming evidence, he refuses to concede that it was one of the biggest unnatural disasters to hit the modern world.
He was therefore ecstatic to be granted a two-hour audience by the Cuba’s retired dictator of 49 years, whom he had met on five previous occasions. “It gave us joy and happiness to have seen him in good health and, most importantly, with a sharp mind,” he said after the meeting.
During the two-hour meeting, he never asked Fidel (his ‘third father’?), why in his 49 years in power he had refused to ratify any international law, enshrining fundamental human rights and to sign the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights?
He objects to Turkey violating human rights but when Fidel does it, it is OK.
THE CAMPAIGN against a settlement, meanwhile, has been gathering momentum. A few Sundays ago, the Movement for Freedom and Justice in Cyprus issued a booklet, titled ‘The correct yes’, in which it outlined the provisions that any peace deal should have in order for it to be acceptable. The booklet was given out free with some newspapers.
It all sounded great, but there was one minor snag. The only way the Turks would say ‘yes’ to it would be if they suffered a crushing military defeat. However, the booklet did not suggest how this defeat would be inflicted, given that 20 per cent of our youngsters are not prepared to do guard duty for their country, let alone risk their life.
LAST Sunday, a hundred-page book, written by a Dr Takis Georgiou, was distributed free with Phil, under the headline ‘Plan B’. The book was not bothered with the correct yes, because it had no illusions about securing a perfect solution.
The author, in contrast to all other hard-liners, had the honesty to refer to the ‘solution that dare not speak its name’, as Oscar Wilde* would have said. Partition was preferable to a bizonal, bi-communal federation, argued the doctor, who had the guts to say what everyone thinks but is too scared to mention in public.
One UN official, on being told that the Greek Cypriot ‘no campaign’ had already begun, quipped: “This is not a ‘no’ campaign, it is a ‘never’ campaign.” We will not mention his name because Diko might demand that he is declared persona non grata, like Big Al.
THERE was smoke coming out of the ears of DIKO spokesman Fotis Fotiou, when he briefed TV cameras about his party’s unhappiness with the leaked UN report on DIKO’s hard-liners and the divisions within the party regarding the Cyprob.
The contents of the document were revealed on Antenna TV, which subsequently invited politicians to slam the UN’s meddlesome behaviour and call for the removal of the UN envoy.
We should expect many more such stories from Antenna – its supreme ruler, Loukis P, appears to have made the sacking of Big Al the mission of his life – because there are hundreds of e-mails and reports, from Downer’s office, in circulation.
The seething Fotiou issued a pathetic warning to the Downer team: “If, by any chance, this is how they will continue to see their role, they should pack up and leave.” His comment was way too mild and did not reflect the anger betrayed by his face.
Does he not realise that they would never pack up and leave voluntarily? Surely he should have displayed Perdikis’ patriotism, and declared Downer and his flunkeys undesirables.
LAST WEEK we forgot to mention the comrade presidente’s analysis of Cyprus-Russia relations, after his meeting in New York with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov thanked us for our stance on the UN resolution on Georgia (when we did not support the return of displaced persons to their homes, because they had been kicked out of their properties by our Russian friends) and expressed his appreciation, said comrade Tof.
As regards the rather pro-Turkish comments made by Prime Minister Putin during his visit to Turkey, Tof said there was nothing to worry about, because “the responsibility for the handling of the Cyprob belonged to the foreign ministry and Lavrov personally.” You wonder whether Tof believes the stuff he says or whether he is taking us for ride.
I would certainly sleep safer if it were the latter.
WHY IS Lavrov such a champion of the Greek Cypriot cause, when his boss has been methodically strengthening Moscow’s relations with Ankara? These relations are worth tens of billions of bucks every year and there are also the pipelines.
Apparently when Lavrov’s daughter was jobless, one of our top diplomats got her a job. He called the owner of a Cypriot company with operations in Russia which immediately hired Ms Lavrova on a generous salary. Lavrov has taken a principled position on the Cyprob ever since and forced Putin to do the same.
*Oscar Wilde never wrote about the Cyprob, but he referred to homosexuality, as “the love that dare not speak its name”. Incidentally, in Cuba, Castro traditionally imprisoned gays, whom were labeled “undesirables”. Suspicion and rumour were often adequate reason for someone to end up in prison. This fascistic practice also revealed the stupidity of the Castro regime. What sort of punishment is it for a gay to be locked up in a place full of sex-starved men?
