We need to install a Greek language app into our phone.
Why do Cypriots speak Greek? Well, hopefully next year, we’ll know better, but for now, we’ve learned that even before Alexander the Great and the Romans adapted and spread Greek culture, the Greeks established communities throughout the Black Sea and the Levant in the East, all the way to Spain and perhaps even parts of Morocco and Portugal in the West.
Cyprus has long been a part of the Greek language community, so long that people might disagree on exactly when that started. It was a Greek speaking island, with cities developed by ethnic Greeks, long before the great Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires conquered it.
But independence day is celebrated as the 1960 independence from Great Britain.
About a week ago, the President of Cyprus spoke at the United Nations, about the “hypocricy of the highest form” of another country.
The word that sounds like “materialism” is “multilateralism.”
He spoke of hypocricy respecting “International Law, respect to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of foreign states, illegal occupation, [and] the drama of refugees.”
“Politicians are judged not by their words, but by their deeds.” That should be more true. Too many times, politicians are judged for one statement, taken out of context, rather than what they actually do. Sometimes what they do is even more horrible than what they say, but sometimes harsh words are accompanied by kind actions. (And sometimes, or perhaps even all the time, it is more important to be kind to the victims of aggression than the aggressors.)
“Change is inevitable, but the choices we make in response to changes are ours.”
“We can allow divisions to weaken the institutions we built together, or we can choose to strengthen them. We can allow differences in power to determine whose voice matters, or we can reaffirm the principles upon which this organisation [The United Nations] was founded. For Cyprus, there is no such dilema. We believe in a United Nations that protects the principles of the Charter and has the capacity to act upon them. We believe in a multilateral system, in which every state has both rights and responsibilities. And we believe that small sized states have a particular role to play. Not on the margins of international affairs, but as active participants in shaping our common future.”
We don’t notice these things in the local Press. We love to read them to find out what is going on in Cluj, but we’d also like to know what is going on in France, Holland, Cyprus, Nepal, India, and the rest of the world. We don’t really care that some has been Democrat actress criticises a Republic President of the USA, that’s not news. (And we don’t care if a has been Republican actor praises him, either.)
In any case, Happy Independence day to Cyprus. As the French say, “Courage.” And as Romanians say, “felicitare” for that powerful speech.
May your island have peace, and be an example to those trying to solve conflicts in the rest of the world (including those conflicts which affect us here in Romania).