Turgut Durduran,27 Haziran 2004

Hayvanlar Adası, 27 Haziran 2004

Turgut Durduran

Sitting Back While Time Flies By

I have neglected my column for a while. In the mean time, I defended my Ph.D and went through the painful process of wedding preparations. On the other hand, Cyprus went through the Annan-Plan referendum with the expected results and the public engaged itself in the usual intra-communal politics. For Turkish Cypriots, things have moved the way some of us have predicted but certainly not the way the new representatives of the sultanate (i.e the new court) told the public in their propaganda speeches. It is sad but true. Some people in the opposition are still willing to ignore this fact and are engaging themselves in the so-called "coalition building" process with the stated intention of throwing away the remaining few representatives of the previous court. I do not know what the Cypriots can gain from this but it seems to me that this endless cycle is what those groups have chosen to be their share of the game.

The new court, specially the grand-revolutionary Talat and his company are rapidly losing the sympathy they gathered from the international community thanks to the Greek Cypriot rejectionism during the Annan-Plan process and ofcourse, most of the gratitude goes to unlikable Denktash and his company. They are losing this sympathy because Talat no longer has to sound different than Denktash. Take a look at his party's mouthpiece Yeniduzen's first page below and notice the shiny TRNC flag.

It is an animated flag from their web-edition from June 26th 2004. They are very proud that "Turkish Cypriot state has been entered into the official records", refering to Organization of Islamic Conference summit in Istanbul. It is a statement by the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. It may sound like a pretty benign statement with no meaning to it, but let me give you one more quote "Erdogan emphasized, that step was a remarkable one for the future of TRNC, whose value would prove to be invaluable in the coming months." Now, a foreign Prime-minister, the one who represents the state that has controlled north Cyprus -- Talat's party has been complaining about its oppression of the Turkish Cypriots in that past -- speaks of a Turkish Cypriot State that Talat tries to sell as the one envisioned by the Annan-Plan (I will talk about this absurd idea more) and immediately sticks TRNC into the picture. What is TRNC? It is the state that Denktash has founded in 1983 declaring (1) independence, (2) sovereignty, (3) separation from the Republic of Cyprus and replacing another absurd idea Turkish Cypriot Federal State -- a federal state which belongs to a non-existing federation. TRNC has survived all these years under Denktash' court and Turkish Republic's tight control. Until very recently, when Denktash had his buddies in power in Turkey , they spoke of the unbreakable determination of the "Great Turkish Nation" to keep TRNC alive as an independent and sovereign state (i.e as a protectorate of Turkey under its occupation). Can we forget the three main points that I listed when listening to Erdogan? Or are we to still believe in a person's (i.e. Talat) rhetoric who promised "solution and EU membership" but succeeded in neither of them (and did not even apologize or have the guts to say "we did not succeed but we are determinted to continue our struggle.") and now says all this talk is about establishing Annan-Plan unilaterally.

It is nothing but an absurd idea. It gives me so much entertainment (a dark one) mixed with sadness to see the latest anti-status-quo fashionables like Akinci and Angolemli to talk about that suggestion. I never heard any of them tell us how this is different than the status-quo and what it means to implement the Annan-Plan unilaterally. Sounds more like an auto-erotic activity to me. Perhaps they are bitter that they missed out on the Turkish Cypriot Federal State. I can already imagine Talat declaring the "Second Republic" following another dissatisfaction with the Greek Cypriots.

Guess what, last few days some columnists have been talking about Talat admitting that Turkey also requested Russia's veto prior to the referendum which some people (I think wrongly) blame for the Greek Cypriot (atleast AKEL's) rejection. Thank you motherland they say.

Anyway, why did I pick this part of the story to elaborate on. As I said on the title, I think the Turkish Cypriot community is now sitting back idle while the time flies by. It is not exactly our fault since again and again, we are being deceived by the face-lifts that the status quo gets. After all, we did get a few pieces of bone to keep us busy. We enjoyed a world-wide sympathy, the non-existing embargos are relaxed (i.e. bureocratic ways have been declared to let us trade with the outside world, which was not an embargo anyway), we get to see new faces on the TV from the new court. But Inonu square is now empty. Eventhough the court cases against the journalists still continue. Eventhough "solution and EU membership" did not come, eventhough everyone admits that "This homeland is ours" but we still do not control it. The establishment of power of the people, atleast the image of its determination to establish itself, is gone. We are good in starting fist fights in discos, in traffic, in grocery stores but our anger does not turn to a determination to implement our will. Oh well, it is easier to buy into renewed forms of chavunism is not it?

Don't take me wrong. I am not forgetting about our other Cypriot buddies, i.e. the Greek Cypriots. It was their right and obviously choice to say "NO" to the Annan-Plan. It does not take much to empathise with them , just like it should not take them much to empathize with our "YES". They are, however, guilty of the same thing I described above. The point was not to say "YES" or "NO" to the Annan-Plan but it is to unite Cyprus in a way that people of Cyprus desires. Going back to intra-communal politicing, having mundane arguments about Euro-elections, using the referendum excuse to "clean-up" political parties and establishing new personality cults does not cut it.

It has been two months since the referendum and we are entering the "chavunist months", i.e July and August. I am looking forward to the performance of the new court and our "Papa" during these months. Let's see how much militarism and chavunism will fly this time. Let's see if there will be a strong alternative to state-sponsored brain-washing. I do not expect anything different, it has been decades that "we sat back while time flies by" but I will be in Cyprus to "enjoy" it.