STUDENTS in Cyprus’s schools do not experience any real degree of racial discrimination, according to Education Minister Andreas Demetriou.
“We do not think we have a serious problem [with racial discrimination],” he said “On occasion some minor incidents can occur, but we do not think we really have any serious problem”.
In the past year, not even one racial incident has been recorded in Cyprus’s schools.
In the year before that there was the racial incident at the Stavrou middle school, however. Demetriou went on to say that in schools where there are a large number of students from different ethnic backgrounds a harmonious relationship prevails between the students from different ethnicities and the Greek Cypriot students.
Demetriou’s comments were made during the Education Ministry’s announcement of the presentation of the project “Innovation and Creativity against Discrimination (2009)”, which is due to be exhibited in Limassol at the Evagoras Lanitis Centre as of January 12 and in Nicosia as of January 26. The project aimed to educate schoolchildren about discrimination, particularly racial discrimination, in society as a whole.
This year, that project’s aims will be combined with the EU ‘year goal’ for education in 2009, namely the battling of poverty and economic exclusion, to result in an initiative aimed at tackling all forms of discriminations in society, be that racial, ethnic, religious or due to economic or social groupings.
Zena Poulli, the Director of Secondary Education, outlined the problems which give rise to racism in Cypriot society and what this might mean and lead to. “The rapid pace of developments have led to social racism between people who live in the same society,” she said.
“Many people regard certain people as inferior beings and this regard many times leads to extreme circumstances, such as their exploitation or the exercise of violence against them”.
She attributed the causes of racism in Cypriot society to “the lack of spiritual development of some people and the economic interests of other people”.
Summing up the social marginalisation which those who are discriminated against experience, she said that someone who is continually treated unjustly ends up not trusting anybody on account of the prejudices exercised against him.
Katie Andreou, an official functionary with the Justice Ministry, who cooperated in the formulation of the project, stressed that there was a very low incidence of racial discrimination in Cyprus as a whole and in schools specifically.
The 2009 project was the second time that the Ministry of Education undertook an initiative to educate schoolchildren against racism, the first having been undertaken in 2007. “The first time, when the actions were aimed at tackling racism in schools, the results were very positive,” said Andreou.
“We should remember the following: ‘Whatever we do in the present affects the future as a consequence and the past as a release,’” said Poulli, quoting Paulo Coelho in rounding off her conclusions.
