DISTRUSTING, conservative, xenophobic, risk-averse and unimaginative are some of the personal values that we share with our Turkish Cypriot brothers and sisters, according to a survey by the Centre for European Policy Studies.
I do not want to antagonise the custodians of national purity on our island, nor am I claiming any knowledge of anthropology, but to an ignorant cynic, the survey would suggest that living on a cultural wilderness, surrounded by sea, has had more influence in the shaping of our character than our respective ethnic background.
How else could you rationally explain our shared narrow-mindedness, contempt for creativity, disdain for altruism and our paranoid inability to trust anyone outside our immediate family? How can people with different ethnic origins, different language and different religious beliefs have such similar attitudes and values?
Is it because the Turkish Cypriots are in fact Islamicised Greeks, who still carry Hellenic genes which shape their prejudices and fears? Or worse still – horror of horrors – could we, Greek Cypriots be Christianised Turks, unknowingly passing the barbaric Turkish genes to our kids?
I think it would be safer to stick to the sociological theory that environment has a bigger influence in shaping personality than genes. This theory is not entirely satisfactory either, as the two communities have been living apart for more than 40 years and people could not have been influenced by the same things.
Our establishment’s view, after years of empirical study and unreliable research, is that the similar attitudes and values were shaped by our shared love of halloumi, consumption of which, apart from high cholesterol, according to scientific evidence also produces high levels of social backwardness.
WE SHOULD not discount the possibility that respondents gave dishonest answers to the people conducting the survey. It is a bit difficult to believe a survey which found that only 17 per cent of GCs attach any importance to wealth, when we all know the figure is closer to 90 per cent. For TCs, the percentage was 28 per cent which would suggest that fewer of them lied.
And how could one third of each community have described themselves as adventurous when 90 per cent (not in the survey) of the population on both sides, dream of a career of mind-numbing boredom as public servants? This is supported by the survey’s finding that 85 per cent of people of both communities consider their sense of security of prime importance.
Another finding was suspect – that only 23 per cent of GCs (TCs 24 per cent) placed any importance on altruism. Untrue, because when the celebration of humanity, the boredom-marathon, is held we all give generously for children with special needs. When put to the test our altruism is surely 100 per cent.
THE WAR being waged by Phil against private clinics and doctors with private practices has been merciless. For two weeks now, the paper has been slamming the allegedly exorbitant prices charged by private clinics, accusing doctors of behaving like thieves and of ripping off patients for the sake of high profits.
To support its case, the campaigning paper has reproduced bills of private clinics, expressing outrage that they were even charging patients the gauze they used on them. Hospitals abroad charged less for open-heart surgery it was argued, while a new idiotic phrase was coined by the altruistic government doctors, to disparage their colleagues in the private sector, and endorsed by Phil.
The vice-chairman of the state doctors’ union said: “Some should remember that a doctor is not a business but offers services.” What is this supposed to mean? A lawyer is not a business but he routinely rips off his clients when he offers services. Why does Phil expect doctors not to do the same?
Interestingly, the motto on the paper’s mast-head reads “Daily paper at the service of the Cypriot people.” From what I know Phil charges for the service it offers the Cypriot people and makes a massive annual profit out of it, much bigger than what the private clinics, which caused the paper’s moral disgust, make.
The problem is that private clinics and doctors are not allowed to spend money on advertising in newspapers, and are therefore an easy target for a paper serving the Cypriot people. Banks also rip off people with their charges, but fail to provoke the moral indignation of campaigning newspapers by giving loads of cash in advertising.
LET’S just get one thing straight. I do not doubt that doctors fleece people, but other professionals, lawyers and accountants do the same without eliciting any comment from our public-spirited newspapers.
I suspect that behind the Phil campaign are the government doctors who are envious of their colleagues in the private sector who make a lot more money than them. Then again, the private docs do not get off work at 2.30pm every day and are usually on call 24/7 unlike their lazy colleagues who opted for the less demanding career in the public sector, with guaranteed salaries, overtime pay, long holidays and other perks.
Now the state doctors’ union is involved in a dirty war against private clinics, like the American Heart Institute, which offer medical services to the state. The union has been accusing clinics of overcharging the state, urging the government to send patients to hospitals abroad for heart operations because these charge less than profit-making Cyprus clinics.
This admirable concern for state money has nothing to do with the commissions that clinics abroad pay doctors who send patients for operations. Protecting the taxpayer is just another service our public-spirited and selfless government docs provide our society without demanding anything in exchange.
IT WAS not surprising that the health minister of our union-run People’s Republic joined the campaign against the private sector and threatened to ask for tenders from abroad for heart operations, in order to put pressure on the American Heart Institute. The Institute has been an embarrassment to the state health sector ever since it was established because the healthcare it provided, the quality of its staff and its medical standards were far superior to anything the state health sector could offer. It showed up state health, which is why the government docs have been undermining it, resisting sending patients there, telling them that they would be better off going abroad.
And with a people-friendly socialist government, which hates the private sector now in office, the doctors’ union is going for the kill.
SOMETHING very strange was going on in the north on Friday. One of our agents at the Ledra Street crossing point spotted the former Attorney-general Alecos Markides going through the checkpoint. A few minutes, later our agent suffered the shock of his life when he saw Attorney-general Petros Clerides also heading for the checkpoint.
The Turkish Cypriot pseudo-cop had obviously been waiting for him, because he was all smiles when he saw the AG. He took Clerides’ ID card and then went inside his cubicle to fill in the pseudo-entry form for him, before waving him through. What is this world coming to when one of our senior state officials happily shows ID to the pseudo-cops and crosses north?
One thing is certain – it would never have happened during the Ethnarch’s reign.
SPEAKING of AG, whatever has happened to his deputy, Akis Papasavvas, one of the first nepotistic appointments of our comrade presidente.
Before his retirement, when he was serving as senior counsel at the AG’s office, he was regularly on the Lazaros radio show, ranting and raving against the AG, disparaging the presidente (both Tassos and Glafcos) and his respective government and rubbishing their unpatriotic Cyprob policies. His hysterical fanaticism also graced hundreds of atrocious newspaper articles, which were subsequently published in a book, for posterity’s sake.
Since his appointment as deputy AG, he has lost the power of speech, giving substance to rumours that comrade presidente appointed him on condition that he stopped speaking in public. The post must have meant a hell of lot to Papasavvas, a zealous human rights campaigner, if he was willing to give up his right to free speech for the sake of it.
His sacrifice is the country’s loss, at a time when it needs its bravest sons to speak out against the unfair settlement on the cards.
BRAVERY on the air-waves is one thing, but bravery on the battlefield is quite another. On Friday Greece’s sensationalist weekly, I Sfina, revealed that we Lefkosians owe a big debt to Euroko deputy Nicos Koutsou for the fact that we are not under Turkish occupation.
The paper reported that “thanks to Koutsou the Turks did not take over Lefkosia” and explained: “Back then, in the Ayios Dhometios area, with Captain Alevromagiros, they fought, resisted and pushed the Turks out of the area and thus Lefkosia remained free.”
The saviour of Lefkosia was interviewed by the paper, which also asked him about the financial scandal involving the Vatopedi monastery, which is run by Koutsou’s brother, Father Ephrem. The revelations of the wheeler-dealing between the monks and government ministers has rocked Greece and led to the resignation of ministers.
In the interview, Koutsou revealed that the Annan plan was to blame for what was happening in Greece.
“The whole of this case, with the revelations of wheeler-dealing and thefts and everything else that is being said, was set up for one reason: to damage the trustworthiness of Ephrem and Nicos Koutsou who disagreed and would disagree again if ‘Annan plan solutions’ are brought back.”
The resistance movement may have lost Papasavvas, but with the saviour of Lefkosia in such courageously defiant mood, there is still hope for the People’s Republic.
COMRADE presidente has ordered his ministers to prepare a crisis package for dealing with the possible effects of the world recession on the Republic. These have yet to be announced, but do not be surprised if contingency plans include the nationalisation of the banks.
Our friend the finance minister assured that our banks were in perfect shape, but he had also predicted that our economy would be unaffected by the world crisis, yet now he is preparing a crisis package.
Bank head honchos are terrified of the prospect of the property market collapsing, as this would leave them seriously exposed. They could handle a gradual correction of the market, but if the bubble bursts they would be in the merde up to their necks. The security of most of the loans to developers is grossly over-valued real estate; add to this the fact the falling sales would prevent developers from servicing their bank loans and the prospects for the banks become rather gloomy.
If the merde hits the fan, our government could realise its dream of nationalising the banks without anyone protesting.
THE GOVERNMENT has avoided giving any reasons for opening an embassy in Cuba, apart from the foreign minister telling us that the decision was within its rights.
Yiannakis Colocassides, the head of an AKEL delegation which recently visited Cuba, shed some light on the issue when he said: “The people of Cuba and the people of Cyprus have the same aims and the same enemies.” Unfortunately, he did not elaborate which left us wondering what common aims we have with Cuba.
Do Cubans want to own BMWs like every Cypriot does? Do they want to live in a 10-bedroom house like we do? Do they want to share power with the Turkish Cypriots in a partnership state? Do they want to attract Chinese tourists?
As regards the common enemies, we can only guess it is the US, the West, capitalism and erectile dysfunction.
THE TRIP to Strasbourg to attend a meeting of EU agriculture ministers was not a resounding success for our publicity-mad minister, Dr Michalis Polynikis. He did not attend the gala dinner because it was only for the ministers, and he could not take his interpreter with him. The good doctor speaks only Greek.
The following day, Polynikis and his entourage of civil servants went to the airport to catch their flight home, but the minister needed to go to the toilet. His entourage waited and waited for him but no minister appeared. When he finally joined the rest of the party, it was too late to board the plane and they missed their flight.
Out of politeness, nobody dared to ask him why he took so long. As it was unlikely that he got stuck in the toilet, we can only assume that he got lost in the airport and could not ask anyone for directions to the gate.
