THE REPUBLIC of Cyprus officially celebrates its 50th anniversary today, even though it reached this milestone a month and a half ago, on August 16. With most people being away on holiday in August it was decided that it would be better to celebrate Independence Day on October 1. Not that there were any celebrations to start with – it was only in 1979 that the legislature declared October 1 a public holiday while the military parade was introduced, to mark the occasion, three years later.
That it took almost 20 years before our society deemed it necessary to mark the birth of the Republic is indicative of its ambiguous feelings. Nobody took pride in Republic when it was first established. For the Greek Cypriots it was a constant reminder of the failure of the EOKA struggle to achieve its objective – union with Greece – while for the Turkish Cypriots it cemented their minority status and banished the aim of partition. In short, neither community felt any obligation to mark, let alone, celebrate the establishment of the new state that was seen as a thwarting of their respective national aspirations.
In fact the Republic, set up by the London and Zurich agreements had a very short life. It ceased to exist in its original form after just three-and-a-half years, inter-communal fighting leading to a parting of ways of the two communities. The Greek Cypriots took over the state while the Turkish Cypriots barricaded themselves in their enclave, north of Nicosia and ran their own affairs. Meanwhile right up to the invasion, Archbishop Makarios, the head of state, was still claiming in public that the national objective was union with Greece – in other words, the dissolution of the state.
All this changed after the Turkish invasion. In 1983, the Turkish Cypriots set up their own ‘state’, while Greek Cypriots realised that the Republic was a powerful instrument in the diplomatic war it was fighting, and the only defence against Turkeys designs. During the referendum of 2004, one of the main arguments cited against accepting the Annan plan was that it would dissolve the Cyprus Republic. President Papadopoulos – not a champion of the Republic in the sixties – made a big issue about preserving the Republic in his address urging people to vote against the plan.
The preservation of the Republic, at all costs, is now the rallying cry of all those opposed to a compromise deal, as a settlement would lead to its dissolution and the creation of a new entity. It took us close to 50 years to develop a pride in the Republic. Had we shown this sort of pride at its birth, instead of treating it with utter contempt, our country’s history would have been very different and we would not be staring partition in the face today.
