Unfathomable Cypriots
Surely the Cypriots could have done much better than a noisier tuneless pop song and dance by way of contribution to the EU enlargement celebrations. For a moment I imagined it was the Eurovision Song contest I was watching, something I haven’t done for years, considering the depth to which the ‘songs for Europe’ have been allowed to sink. Modernity, I suppose.
Even though it wasn’t strictly our own, we did at least provide a spectacular fest of light, colour and (at times disjointed) excerpts from the latest in rock operas when we would have launched our Joseph Calleja to the millions of televiewers instead. Other acceding countries had a baritone, a soprano, a mezzo, folk music and dancing.
Not Cyprus, though. Shame, because it has a lot to offer which is indigenous and melodious. I couldn’t help feeling inside me ambivalence for our Mediterranean sister island, the only other acceding country not previously on the wrong side of the erstwhile Iron Curtain. A mixture of sorrow and disappointment was inevitable, perhaps because I experienced a closer companionship than the average Maltese person.
My acquaintance with Cypriots goes back to the early ‘fifties when, against the advice of nearly everyone I knew, I accepted an invitation by a pen-pal to visit the Island. It was in turmoil. Civil war, one might say.
British troops all over the place trying to enforce law and order. A British soldier with a Maltese surname had been shot dead a few days before I landed there from Luqa, via Rome and Athens. General Grivas was conducting a guerilla war from the mountains. Archbishop Makarios was under house arrest, later to be exiled. It was not simply a colony’s struggle for independence from Imperial Britain. That would have been praiseworthy and probably would not have caused the bloodshed that occurred.
It was EOKA – a fundamentalist nationalistic movement for total integration with Greece. Even this would have been understandable if all Cypriots were of one race but in disagreement politically, or if there was a general consensus among the population. After all, here in Malta that’s what our government tried to do with Britain barely a few years later in the mid-fifties. Purely for economic reasons, though. And still opposed by a sizeable minority including not only the Nationalist Opposition, but also pre-Britain Strickland party and the Church.
Cyprus and a third of its population are of Turkish origin, speak a different language and embrace a non-Christian religion. Although they did not openly advocate integration with neighbouring Turkey, they had projected a perception that it might possibly happen in the future. Past threats of invasion by Turkey had not been forgotten by the Greeks, later to be used as justification for EOKA in their way of thinking.
Britain was then on the brink of negotiating independence with most of its remaining colonies, dubiously including Malta and waiting for a non-Labour government to be elected with whom to negotiate. As actually happened later.
It was around this time that I was studying at London University and, virtually, living with the Cypriot situation as perceived by one in almost the same predicament.
Malta’s Constitution had been suspended: we were then governed directly form Whitehall, less than a mile away from where my college was. My youthful zest for political emancipation, after the let-down on integration, made me envy the Gold Coast fast transforming itself from a colony into independent Ghana, with Nigeria next in line. Instinctively, I felt drawn towards the Cypriot clan at college – a hefty dozen of them, as compared with lonely me.
But there was one Turkish Cypriot among them. Believe me, he was a veritable loner, totally cold-shouldered, if not ostracised by all the other Cypriots to the extent that it was even hinted to me that the same fate would befall me if I continued befriending him. Which, of course, I did.
The boycott, however, did not last long, because I was then president of the students’ union. But this was not enough to ‘earn’ him a seat in the ‘Cyprus Corner’ of the common room.
No wonder the Island was eventually invaded by Turkey almost 30 years ago, with the northern third in area and population still today occupied by Turkish militia, but with with no recognition as a state by any other country save Turkey. A visit to Nicosia reminds one of Berlin before the infamous wall came down, but with a no man’s land to prevent unnecessary exchanges of fire between the two factions.
Until last month most people perceived obduracy and resistance to reunification as existing merely on the Turkish side of the rence. Its absence from the negotiating table throughout the whole process of accession to EU membership was a sure sign that Cyprus was going to stay divided for a long time. It was only very recently that a final attempt at reconciliation was made by no less than the UN itself. No institution could be more impartial and fair.
When the veteran Turkish leader, Denktash, started nit-picking on minor details, everyone must have felt the same outcome was in store as had occurred several time before – a Turkish no. What a surprise it must have been to all when the Turks voted convincingly to accept the UN blueprint, whereas the Greeks rejected it even more emphatically.
How can anyone fathom such behaviour? What was really behind it all? My guess is a situation akin to that of Northern Island before the Good Friday agreement: the majority’s reluctance to let go a fraction of their hold on whatever has a claim on power, economic and political.
It is apposite to point out that Cyprus had the smoothest passage of all the ten countries towards accession. For me the hardest phenomenon to accept is that Cyprus overtook us in practically all aspects of economic performance, eg foreign direct investment, tourism, employment, GDP per capita and growth, adherence to the Maastrich disciplinary criteria in general. Despite its massive internal problems.
What on earth is wrong with us? One economic indicator sums it all up – during 2002 net foreign direct investment (FDL) in Cyprus was 74.1 million US dollars. In Malta? Don’t be shocked: it was a negative 374.9 million US dollars. Yes, a disinvestment. I can hardly believe it myself, but UNCTAD reported it. The irony is that the magazine which published such comparative details mentions our “plus points” as being “an exceptionally high productivity level.” It couldn’t have referring to the public sector, for sure.