By George Koumoullis
When some politicians are cornered and cannot respond to criticisms on an alpha issue, they immediately invoke the national interest and the threat to Cypriot Hellenism.
Therefore, it should not be surprising when the President Anastasiades is under fire from the opposition for his manipulations in Crans Montana to reply that “it is not the President of democracy that comes under fire but the Cypriot Hellenism that comes under fire when he is given responsibilities”. Indirectly, the President of the Republic of Greece characterizes the tactics of his critics as “anti-Greek”. In other words, by asking some questions about the talks in Crans Montana, you receive the retinue of the anti-Greek because, according to the logic of Anastasiades, such questions are “fire against the Hellenism of Cyprus”! And yet, the questions are there, unanswered. Why, for e.g., if Turkey is responsible for the sinking of the talks, Guterres in his Report of September 2017 praises Turkey’s constructive attitude and yet Anastasiades not only did not exalt but, on the contrary, allowed the Report to be turned into an official UN document? Why, if Turkey was indeed not prepared to discuss the burning issue of replacing the guarantees, Mr Christodoulides and Mr Mavroyiannis said that we had come a stone’s throw from the solution?
This sad phenomenon is timeless in Cyprus.
During the dictatorship in Greece (1967-1974), the Junta managed with its propaganda in Cyprus to identify with the nation.
Anyone who did not consider the schizophrenic G. Papadopoulos and the illiterate Pattakos as heroes were “anthelinas”. Anyone who did not consider cretinic and predatory tyranny the pride of the nation was an “ethnoprostor.” Anyone who dared to suggest that the junta’s stay in power posed a mortal danger to Cyprus was considered “ridiculous”, “quaint”, “extreme”. Now, of course, after the event, everyone realises that the plight we have fallen into is because of the rotten fruit of the dictatorial lyme.
In the period 1960-1963, before the collapse of the Republic of Cyprus, the climate was heavy because neither of the two communities considered that the conditions met its national goals or that the regime they established could be more than a transitional stage.
They were equipped for a new conflict and both of them.
In this confrontational climate, the logical voice of Nikos Lanitis stood out.
He published his views in the “Cyprus Mail” because, as it is said, no Greek-speaking newspaper was willing to publish them.
He was also stabbed as an “anthelinas”. He tried in vain to explain how the pursuit of union would end in a national tragedy.
They should, he said, be generous to the Turkish Cypriots, so that they could rid the Constitution of all its divisive elements.
He also warned the Turkish Cypriots that a Turkish state in Cyprus would be too small to survive and would become vassals to Turkey. Alas, history has fully vindicated him.
The conclusion is that the concept of “anti-Hellenism” in the Cypriot environment is changing: sometimes it may have the conventional meaning and sometimes that of reason, realism, pragmatism, the release of stupidity.
I have the feeling that a linguist of Babiniotis’ stature, with basic knowledge of the history of Cyprus, will agree completely.
And he will agree because the “anthe-Greeks” of Cyprus focused on the worship of man and free thought which, oh, irony, are the ingredients of the Greek civilization that lived and spread and drowned all over the earth.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of CypriumNews.
