Greece and Cyprus

This is a summer of anniversaries. Thirty years ago yesterday the 7-year-old military dictatorship in Greece collapsed and the next day, former prime minister Constantine Karamanlis returned from exile in Paris to assume the leadership of the new civilian government. The return of democracy to Greece was a direct consequence of the Cyprus crisis, which had broken out only a week earlier, on the 15th, when the military régime in Athens had launched a coup d'état in Cyprus, overthrowing the elected government of President Makarios. Athens' clear intention was to annex Cyprus, thereby fulfilling a longstanding irredentist dream of Greek nationalists everywhere: enosis, or union, between the two countries.  This quixotic effort, clumsily instigated by an unpopular régime with a reputation for brutality, proved to be the catalyst for Cyprus' tragic division.  Turkey took the opportunity to launch an initial invasion, establishing an occupation zone between Kyrenia and Nicosia, which it subsequently expanded to include nearly 40% of the island on 14 August.

This was a frightening time for our family, as we attempted to maintain contact with relatives there. My grandparents were already elderly at the time. If they had died before 1974, they would still have lived to a ripe old age and would have been spared the ultimate indignity of losing their homes and belongings. Thank God, everyone in my father's immediate family was accounted for within a few weeks, though they had become refugees in their own country, something they could not have imagined beforehand.

The old dream of enosis, even if Turkey and Britain had been favourable, would scarcely have been workable. Cyprus and Greece are different. Greece is the Balkans; Cyprus is Europe. During my first visit to Greece, I saw beggars on the street. In Cyprus there were none to be seen. Cyprus is visibly more prosperous than Greece and its people are more cosmopolitan. Behind the wheel, Greeks view traffic signals as mere suggestions and drive accordingly; Cypriot drivers come screeching to a halt at the mere sight of a pedestrian and are unfailingly courteous. Some Cypriots still nurture the old nationalist dream, but they are now a dwindling minority. The two countries would not have got on well together. It would have been a brief marriage, ending eventually in divorce.

Now both countries are members of the European Union, finally achieving a kind of enosis, albeit on vastly different terms. Let's hope and pray that the north can finally be brought into this on equitable terms for all Cypriots, Greek and Turkish alike.