By Loucas Charalambous
THE BIZARRE behaviour of all those that do not want a settlement of the Cyprus problem should be made the subject of medical research. Parties, politicians, journalists, businessmen, pseudo-patriots and all the supporters of partition seem always to be on the alert and ready to pounce.
Every time there is some encouraging development or a good prospect – even the suspicion of it – that things could move in the direction of an agreement, they react with such intensity, you’d think they were fighting for their life. Now, with the talks between the two leaders making good progress, the so-called rejectionists have gone wild.
The remarks about a new state by President Anastasiades and his foreign minister were considered criminal. One wonders what to admire first – their ignorance or their stupidity? That a new state would be formed as part of a settlement was agreed almost 40 years ago.
The new state, the federation, will be recognised internationally and represent all Cypriots who would live in one of the two statelets that would be formed and be the constituent parts of this federation. These two statelets would cede some of the powers they currently exercise to the federal state and this is how the new state will be created. Otherwise there would be no federation and therefore no settlement.
So where is the peculiarity that young Papadopoulos and the rest of our political inadequacies have been railing against? Does the federal state exist today? Of course not, it will be established once we have reached an agreement. Therefore something that does not exist now and is yet to be created will by definition be new. It is that simple and even our political demagogues should be capable of understanding this.
Papadopoulos, in particular, should be the last person entitled to complain about the ‘dissolution’ of the Cyprus Republic – that is, the unitary state of 1960 – as after 1963 this was dissolved by Makarios, Papadopoulos’ father and the first husband of his mother, in the way that has been explained many times in this column.
A couple of weeks ago, we also had the public remark by Mustafa Akinci that what happened in 1974 was not a peace operation but a war from which it was mostly the Greek Cypriot who suffered. Instead of congratulating him, DIKO, EDEK, Lillikas and Perdikis wasted no time in disparaging him, perhaps because they wanted him to declare July 20 a day of national mourning in the north.
I had a good laugh hearing a Sigma TV news presenter triumphantly pointing out that Akinci had “not dared, though, to condemn the invasion”. The presenter expected the Turkish Cypriot leader to condemn the Turkish invasion in front of President Erdogan who was in Cyprus on that day. This is the low level of journalism which is on a par with that of our politics.
It has to be said that our political demagogues and unintelligent journalists would not be who they are if they did not reflect the level of our ‘proud’ people. Example: on July 22 the community leader of the occupied village Larnakas Lapithou and representatives of the community’s clubs met Giorgos Lillikas. A member of the delegation said the meeting was useful, adding that it had asked for Lillikas’ support “for the return of the members of the community to the land of their fathers”.
Lillikas “listened carefully to their just demand” and assured the members of the delegation that he would “fight and seek a solution that would settle all the issues relating to the residents of Larnakas Lapithou.” This is why I keep repeating that we have been lucky to have suffered so little given our lack of brains.
If in 2004, Lillikas and his boss Tassos Papadopoulos had not rejected the Annan plan, the residents of Larnakas Lapithou would have returned to the land of their fathers on April 24, 2007. Today, eight years later, instead of demanding explanations from Lillikas as to why he had prevented them returning to their village back then, they are thanking him for a “useful” meeting and for his promise to “fight” for their return!
This little episode is the apogee of the irrationality which reigns supreme in our society and makes us always expect the worst.
