Tales from the Coffeeshop: Remarkable politicians have not lost us more of the island
TODAY marks the 51st anniversary of the Turkish invasion. Within a month, the invasion army had taken control of 40 per cent of the Cyprus Republic’s territory and kicked out of their homes some 200,000 Greek Cypriots.
In those 51 years, despite the brave words and big promises by our politicians, not a square inch of territory has been regained, and no refugee has returned to his home. Admittedly, many of the 1974 refugees have passed away, even though our politicians have managed to keep their numbers rising by making refugee status a hereditary right.
There are probably more refugees today than there were in 1974, even though, they are, strictly speaking, hereditary refugees, who had never lived in the villages or towns from which their mothers or fathers had been forced out of by the Turkish troops. Refugee production has been one of the few post-invasion successes of our politicians.
The only other major political success I can think of in these 51 years is that they have managed not to lose any more of the Republic’s territory. Given the lamentable ineptitude of our big-talking politicians, this should be regarded as a small miracle; perhaps the gods took pity on us.
IT IS NOT all doom and gloom, however, because a small ray of hope has appeared on the horizon. A new Cyprob procedure, which started with the expanded meeting under the UNSG Antonio Guterres in March, had its second instalment this week and did not collapse, a development that was greeted as a big success even though nothing was agreed.
In fact, so successful was the meeting that a third is expected to be held sometime after the October pseudo-presidential elections in the north, by which time the Turkish Cypriots might have a new leader and the sides might agree to open a crossing.
Guterres sees the opening of new crossings as a confidence-building measure, but there has been so much bickering and blame-shifting in the process that it has become more of a confidence-destroying measure. Confidence is much higher when the two sides do not engage with each other in what is always a zero-sum game.
PREZNIKTWO, who specialises in positive spin, was very happy with the latest five plus one conference in New York, saying “we see a small but important progress, step by step in the direction of the big target which is the resumption of the talks and settlement of the Cyprus problem.”
For some strange reason, the European Commission president’s Cyprob envoy, Johannes Hahn, whose appointment was sold as another major achievement of our Prez, was not in the Big Apple for the talks. EU involvement in the process was restricted to messages of support from the Commission president and the European Council president.
The involvement of the EU, said the Prez, was “expressed with their public positionings and had particular and vital importance.” Their “xekathara” public messages were more than satisfactory for the prez.
Even more welcome was the post on X by French president Emmanuel Macron, who said the new meeting and “the adoption of new cooperation initiatives announced by Antonio Guterres show a positive prospect for the restoration of confidence.”
The Prez thanked Macron on X, saying that France’s support for efforts to find a settlement were of “invaluable importance.” Which is the stronger adjective for describing the importance of everything the prez talks about – ‘vital’ or ‘invaluable’?
ONCE a den of PLO supporters, Phil has become the biggest champion of Israel’s war in Gaza and the rest of the Middle East. It does this through its columnist Costis Constantinou who comes across as the spokesman of the Bibi Netanyahu government, defending, justifying and sometimes celebrating its every act of aggression.
Some Phil writers are puzzled as to why the paper’s management has decided to have someone banging the drum for Israel almost every day. “Are Phil’s readers really so interested in what Israel is doing that they have to be informed every day, and in a totally biased way” one of them asked.
On Friday, Costis had a go at Guterres for his unsatisfactory condemnation of the mass executions in Syria by Islamists, complaining that the “inadequate” UNSG made “no mention of the continuing (real) genocide effort against the Druze, the Alevites and Christians.”
SPEAKING of Israel, you have to admire the chutzpah of Bibi Netanyahu in proposing Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Bibi does not exactly have a ‘peace’ expertise, something even Costis acknowledged.
I was very disappointed, however, that Bibi did not propose our Prez for the Nobel peace prize after everything our man has done to bring peace and stability to the Middle East, having telephone calls with all neighbouring country leaders and even mediating in the Iran Israel war.
If there is one statesman who merits the peace prize it is Nikos Christodoulides, but his legitimate claim is ignored even by his friend Bibi, because he is the president of small and inconsequential country that does not have bunker-busting bombs.
WEIGHT LOSS drug Ozempic has been included in Gesy, I was informed by my neighbourhood pharmacist. The drug is for diabetics, but it became extremely popular when people realised that they could lose weight very fast using the injection.
Before it was included on Gesy list, it was bought over the counter by overweight people but because it was quite expensive sales were not so great. Gesy has told GPs that they can only prescribe it to diabetics and not for weight loss.
“Knowing what Cypriots are like I bet the number of diabetics will increase by 500 per cent overnight, so they can get Ozempic at Gesy prices,” said my pharmacist.
STAYING on consumer issues, a bride-to-be had arranged to have her hair done and be made up at a fashionable Nicosia hair salon on the day of her wedding. She had not mentioned that she was getting married and was told this would cost €150.
When she went to the salon, she told the hairdresser that she was getting married on that day and to her surprise she was informed that she would have to pay €500 because that was what the salon charged for wedding hairdos.
No matter how much she protested, she was forced to pay three times as much for the hairdo and makeup because she was getting married. This is theft, whichever way you look at it, but the woman was forced to pay because she was not going to find another hairdresser at such short notice.