THREE CHEERS for the Cyprus University’s senate which gave a two-finger salute to the tyranny of the unions that has plagued this country for three decades and has led it to the brink of moral, economic and intellectual bankruptcy.
Its sneaky decision to accept students with international qualifications from this year was a welcome snub to the peddlers of sheep-like consensus in the government and the legislature as well as to the bullies of the secondary teachers’ union OELMEK, whose blackmail potential has been restricted by the holidays.
All the members of this self-righteous consensus gang turned against the university, for its ‘arbitrary, unilateral’ decision, which showed ‘contempt’ for democracy, the law, our institutions, Hellenism and Eleni Semelidou – the middle-aged battle-axe who has achieved celebrity status as president and spokeswoman of OELMEK.
The response of the university’s rector Stavros Zenios to the barrage of abuse from the great and the good was delightfully patronizing, exactly what you’d expect from a smart guy trying to deal with fools. The fuss was not about the new admissions policy he said.
“It was because the university dared to challenge the enemy we have inside us. While the senate spoke about international qualifications, the issue deviously developed into a ‘GCE crisis’ stirring the post-colonial syndrome,” he said. Those who “resorted to rhetoric against our positions should have displayed an open mind, in order to comprehend the modern tendencies of European universities,” he added condescendingly.
I know I will betray my low intellectual level, by asking this, but I will anyway. Who the hell is the enemy we have inside us? Do we all have the same one? I have an enemy inside me, but it has never fought with me about the admissions policy of the university.
The enemy inside torments me about other, much less intellectual, things, but a family newspaper is no place to talk about them.
IN THE FIRST round of the dispute with the university, a couple of months ago, with OELMEK having lost the support of the big parties and the parents’ associations, it played the patriotism trump card. Accepting kids with international qualifications would de-Hellenize the country, and weaken our resolve to fight an Annan-type solution.
This time Semelidou decided to strengthen her case by engaging in a bit of moral grandstanding as well, expressing her disgust at the unilateral decision taken by the university which showed lack of respect for democracy, parents, children, the government, the legislature.
She could not serve the lethal cocktail of bash-patriotism and moral superiority a few months ago, because her union had resorted to blackmail in order to unilaterally destroy the consensus and impose its arbitrary decisions. But two months after threatening to disrupt end-of-year exams and put the future of 9,000 school-leavers at risk, she regained the right to teach morality to our society.
The occupation of the moral high ground did not last long. Less than 24 hours after the Senate’s decision, the bullies of OELMEK announced a long list of retaliatory measures, none of which were directed at the University. Its decisions to withdraw from all the committees preparing the reforms for the education system and to boycott the September re-sit exams were neither arbitrary nor unilateral.
More ‘dynamic’ measures would be announced when the new school year began in September, promised Semelidou. Presumably, the blackmail would be more effective then, because they could threaten to mess up the kids’ education as well, if the university failed to obey the fascistic defenders of democracy and consensus.
THE REAL problem is not OELMEK, a bunch of losers protecting the interests of its members at the expense of kids’ education, but all the politicians and hacks who directed their fire at the university as if it had committed a crime against humanity.
All it did was implement a decision, which had the support of the legislature and the government, a year earlier. It would have been put into practice in September if the government had not given in to OELMEK’S blackmail.
On Friday, however, the House Education committee decided to vote through regulations this Thursday, by which the university would be forced to put back its decision by one year. The blackmailers were vindicated once again. Three cheers for OELMEK, our union-worshipping politicians, consensus, the autonomy of the university and Omonia.
ONE OF the biggest critics of the decision was the bash-patriotic EDEK deputy and Girogos Varnavas, who has such great faith in the state school teachers that he sends both his kids to the American Academy.
I heard a rumour that my favourite, bash-patriotic radio-show presenter Lazarus who was passionately championing the OELMEK cause on his radio show and laying into academics who appeared on his show, sends his kids to a private, English language school. Please Lazarus, tell me that this is not true, so I can carry on taking you seriously.
As for Varnavas, a Soviet Union-educated deputy turned ultra-nationalist, his hostility to the university is not exclusively shaped by the new admissions policy. He has another gripe – the wife of his first cousin applied for a job at the Biology Department and was rejected, despite Varnavas’ phone calls to faculty members.
A SENIOR academic informs us that the main reason that Cyprus University has maintained a large degree of independence and kept meddling politicians at a safe distance is because it employs a large number of academics from Greece.
The mainland Greeks who more independently-minded, are not part of the political network and the parties and politicians have no control over them.
Our Akelite government, which likes to exercise control over everyone has made sure the mistake was not repeated at the Limassol-based, applied science university Tepak. All the academics hired there, were Cypriot – mostly Akel sympathizers – who are unlikely to entertain ideas of independence.
HIGH PRICES united the union movement this week as bosses of the all the big unions met to discuss what to do about the continuously rising cost of living, which was impoverishing their members.
Bosses of white collar unions (civil servants, bank employees, teachers) were well-represented at the meeting which blamed the high prices on profiteering, high interest rates, and the operation of cartels. It called for price controls in close markets (stadiums, airports, ports etc), a more effective Commission for the Protection of Competition that would crush cartels and the creation of a Consumer Commissioner.
Union bosses’ understanding of economics is rather limited, which is why they blamed the high prices on greedy businessmen, banks and cartel. Constantly rising wages, secured by greedy unions every year for the last 30, and boosted, every six months, by the sacred Cost of Living Allowance, presumably, have no effect on prices. Increasing labour costs do not push up prices, only greedy businessmen do.
THE UNIONS also had the nerve to complain about the 3 per cent surcharge the Electricity Authority was to impose on all electricity bills, so it could pay for the CO2 emissions fines the EU would slap on it. They also called for the speeding up of procedures for the importation of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which would lower the emissions.
Again, they did not mention that the main reason we have failed to import LNG and will not do so for another five years, is the EAC unions, which threatened big strikes if the government allowed private companies to import LNG, as was originally planned. In the end, led by the then chairman Charilaos Stavrakis, they forced our weak politicians to give EAC the monopoly on importing LNG and prevented a private firm from
setting up a LNG-fueled power station off the coast.
If we lived in the fairer society that Charilaos dreams of, the EAC unions would have been forced to pay the EU emissions fines, because they are responsible for delaying the importation of LNG and not the greedy, profiteering capitalists. And perhaps their comrades in the other unions could also chip in as a show of solidarity.
WE SHOULD not worry about the higher electricity bills for now, because our caring and sensitive comrade presidente forced EAC to abandon its surcharge plan, at least for now. The Authority will be forced to pick up the emissions tab – it could rise to €100 million in coming years – until it is taken to the brink of bankruptcy.
Then our president would think of another people-friendly, short-term solution to the problem. Although the EAC board, like good placemen, accepted the decision, the EAC unions were outraged with the government. According to press reports, they fear that the fines would make EAC unworkable in the future and they would be left jobless.
There is just no pleasing these unions. Our compassionate leader, satisfies the demand of one set of union bosses only to infuriate another group of unions. We are happy that OELMEK is among the satisfied unions.
OUR GOOD friend Charilaos, the government’s master spin doctor, has come up with a range of lame excuses to defend his boss’ decision to open another 1100 public sector jobs. Charilaos often sounds like he is talking in a school debate, coming up with as many arguments as possible to defend his thesis.
Here is a list of some of his arguments. The jobs will be in the departments of health and social welfare, and would benefit low income groups who will receive a better standard of service; half the jobs created are part of the commitments made by previous governments; 300 of the appointments would be doctors and nurses at state hospital and would improve healthcare; our forests would be better protected; the cost would be ‘minimal’ for the first years as the new public servants would start on low salaries.
Yes, he agreed, the fiscal deficit would increase but this was something the government was doing consciously (did anyone accuse it of doing it unconsciously?), because for the Christofias government the welfare of the ordinary citizen was more important than “dry numbers”. He also cited the comrade boss’ words of wisdom: “the objective is the welfare of citizens not of numbers.”
I just hope he is around to put his trademark positive spin on the European Commission putting the screws on us because it is not happy with the welfare of our ‘dry numbers’.
BAD LUCK has struck our tourist industry again. Things seem to be going from bad to worse and I am not talking about the new cases of swine flu.
Just when we thought that Iranians would fill our hotel rooms and start buying the unsold holiday apartments all over Kyproulla, they decide to rebel against their government and take to the streets. I suspect that the unrest would prevent many Iranians from going abroad for holidays this summer.
Our only hope of salvaging the tourist season now, is for the government to consciously increase the fiscal deficit by sending all union members on fully paid holidays to our coastal hotels.
As Charilaos would say, this would save jobs in the hotel industry, help low-income groups who cannot afford to stay in hotels, boost the business of restaurants on our coasts thus limiting the effects of the recession and ensuring the welfare of people instead of numbers.
I WAS OUTRAGED to see the warm welcome extended by our presidente to the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso. Barroso visited Mehmet Ali Talat in his pseudo-presidential office and our government, which had prevented other foreign officials from doing so, said nothing.
Why is Barroso treated differently? OK, the government may have been too scared to defend legality and play tough with the president of the Commission, but what about our bash-patriotic politicians and newspaper columnists. They said nothing, not a word, despite Barroso’s provocative words of praise for the Turkish government and its alleged commitment to a settlement.
What is this world coming to?
