Poisoning ourselves…(*)

We start the New Year with the hope that times are changing… Exchanging presents, putting up Christmas trees, lighting candles, eating and drinking and celebrating the passage of time with all its destruction and with all the beautiful things that life brings us… But it has always been like that, hasn’t it? Perhaps the only way we can move forward is to recreate hopes that things would be different this year, that perhaps life would bring us more love, more happiness, more prosperity… Because if we didn’t have hope, we would not be able to survive on this earth…

Even though the times are changing always, the politicians are late in grasping the mood of the people… Not all politicians but those who have a say in the mainstream are the same… Sometimes I am angry that we give them so much space to destroy our lives… We do not listen to alternative voices, we do not try to create space for the grassroots… When I indulge people in such a conversation about alternative voices that we could have listened to, they say `But they are in the minority!` Of course they are the minority – common sense has always been in `minority` - otherwise we would not have what is called `The Cyprus problem` today! If people had listened to `minorities` and had created space for them to express themselves, things would have been much different…

As Cypriots sometimes we look like a flock of sheep following mainstream leaders, without using our own brains to think, to judge, to really question `leaders`. Only after events happen, we start grasping what it was all about… I am angry sometimes but I do not have such a luxury, I know… My mission is not to get angry but try to understand and put forward alternative ideas of moving forward… Especially on this day, when the New Year is just beginning…

Mainstream politicians are as always – instead of making our lives easier on this earth, they are creating conflicts and making their living out of the conflicts they, themselves have created. Instead of giving us space to breathe, they are poisoning the air surrounding us… Look at Papadopoullos addressing us. Has he done anything to make our lives easier on this island? Has he taken any bold new initiatives to bring us closer, to actively indulge in a process of solution, instead of being locked in his own dream of a far-off solution? How about AKEL? And CTP? Time is passing by, clocks are ticking away, days, months, years are passing by as we look on and expect, as though expecting Godot, for things to be different… It is our own lives, no one else’s and still we do not decide about taking the initiatives ourselves, of doing something to change things… Because we do not believe in our own power of changing things… We sit and watch what’s going on as passive onlookers instead of saying exactly what’s on our mind – whatever it is. When I argue with Greek Cypriot friends, they say `But it will not be the Cypriots who will decide what will happen in Cyprus so why bother?`… When I argue with Turkish Cypriot friends, they say `But it will not be Turkish Cypriots who will decide what will happen but Turkey and the army, so what can we do really?`

If we had believed in ourselves, instead of listening to the mainstream politicians, things would start changing on this island, in harmony with the changing times in the world… But no! We listen to what the politicians say instead and wait for `Godot` to come to change things!

Look at Denktash and his son Serdar… Have you heard what they said? That if `Turkey sells Cyprus, they will take up guns to wage an armed struggle in Cyprus, like the PLO!…` Another poison in our lives…

Over dinner last night, we speak of this with my friend Sophia…

Last year, she was in Athens, in her hotel room and she sat down to watch TV… There I was on ERT, speaking:

`Denktash is finished!`

She was horrified!

`How could you say that?` she told me later, `Weren’t you afraid that he would hear it?`

`Come on Sophia… He’s been finished since the Hague… The Americans and the British have decided then and there that he’s completely finished… He does not have any support from the West anymore… He lost all his credibility, it’s only a matter of time, you will see…`

This was a conversation we had last year and last night I remind her of this…

`Do you remember Sophia what I had said? Wasn’t I right? He is finished…`

`Yes but he’s still speaking…`

`Greek Cypriots listen to him more than the Turkish Cypriots, do you understand?`

`But he said he will start an armed struggle`

`He’s just trying to frighten Greek Cypriots! No one listens to him, not even in Turkey… Only some marginal groups support him…`

This week, Engin Ardich of AKSHAM newspaper in Turkey, an outspoken journalist wrote an article about the call of Denktash and his son about `armed struggle`.

`Do you want to know the truth?` he wrote, and continued:

`No one cares about Cyprus over here except a minority… Because we’re FED UP! In Turkey the power structure changed, those who did not want a solution in Cyprus are gone and instead there are those in government now who want some sort of solution. Whether they achieve this is another subject. So under these conditions can an `armed struggle` be possible in Cyprus? No. Even if the Turkish army pulls out of Cyprus, the guns they would leave behind would not be enough. It is also not possible to give `covert` support and form another TMT and send arms and ammunition like we did at the end of the 50s and beginning of 60s. Even the name TMT is outdated… It is not possible for British and German intelligence not to hear this and start shouting…

The Turkish officers who would go from here to Cyprus in civilian clothes would have their photos in the front pages of the western media next day! The year is not 1910 and Cyprus is not Libya. There is no Enver or Mustafa Kemal to go out there. Maybe a few real civilian youngsters would go there in search of `adventure` - instead of stabbing each other in the football matches, it is more meaningful to die out there, if they really want to die! But the majority of the people there had accepted the Annan Plan out there, they have the passports of the south in their pockets, so who will fight? It is easy to find officers but how will they find the private soldiers? After this hour, such an armed struggle would put Denktash in the position of Nikos Sampson in the whole world. You could not tell your ideas to the world until now, if such a thing happens you would never be able to tell your ideas… And the door of the European Union would close forever to Turkey, never to open again! If you want to destroy both yourselves and us, go on, start a guerilla war! Of course this would please the `nationalists` who are against the EU because they would be catching two birds with one stone. But no one should believe that either our prime minister, army or the intelligence would be so gullible and blind to accept this… The Denktash family also know this but unfortunately they have no more ammunition to fire… And yet, how close a Turk was to the Nobel Peace Prize… We missed it!…`

Times are changing as always… Perhaps one day, we will really grasp that as Cypriots and start believing in ourselves, in our own power of moving things in harmony with the world around us… Perhaps one day the most important figure in our lives would be normal citizens like us, alternative voices instead of mainstream politicians… This way we could stop poisoning ourselves and our children and be free and creative to find solutions to problems we encounter in this country…

(*) Article published in ALITHIA newspaper on the 31st of December 2004.

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