The grudge-bearers still haven’t got over the No of 2004. They drag it up even on the anniversary of the No of 1940. And they play the smart alec, mostly online, but in supposedly serious newspapers too.
They hunt for any excuse to hurl abuse and vent their spleen at those who said “no” in 2004, without once stopping to think that they are talking about the majority of the people. Our No, they write, has nothing in common with Ioannis Metaxas’s. We said No to the reunification of our homeland and to the withdrawal of the occupation army, they claim, whereas Metaxas said No to the conqueror.
Even at this distance in time, they cannot bring themselves to accept that we said No in 2004 for exactly the same reason the Greek people said No in 1940. For freedom and dignity. Not to become serfs in our own land. Not to swallow the conqueror’s ultimatum, however prettily garnished.
So, on this anniversary, to those who insist on churning out the drivel that we supposedly said No to the reunification of our country, we say it once more, in the hope that it finally sinks in:
We will say YES when our survival in our own land is guaranteed. When we are no longer asked to put up with some misshapen power structure that turns its back on Europe’s democratic achievements and values. When we are no longer asked to become the generation that uprooted the Greek presence from this island after 3,000 years, a presence that had outlasted dozens of conquerors. We will say YES when the occupier leaves our land and lets the people of Cyprus live free and independent, in a democracy that meets the standards of modern political life, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter.
Metaxas’s No was the only option, they say. So was ours. And it still is. If the choice is whether to say “yes” to the Turkification of our homeland, they shouldn’t hold their breath. And they had better stop reminding us of the germanotsoliades. They had better stop reminding us of the Security Battalions that helped the German occupiers in Greece.
Xenofon Giosmas, one of the best known of them, declared at his trial over his part in the murder of Grigoris Lambrakis: “And if I collaborated with the Germans, I did it for the good of the fatherland.” In the well-known Greek war film ‘Dawn of Victory’, screenwriter Giorgos Lazaridis captures the germanotsoliades in one pinpoint line, putting these words in the mouth of the traitor and Nazi collaborator: “The Germans love us. They came as our friends.”
We are at exactly the same point today. They are few, but they are out there, the people who say: “The Turks love us. They came as our friends.” And just as many say: “And if I collaborated with the Turks, I did it for the good of the fatherland.”
They are no different from the germanotsoliades. They pretend not to understand that the Turks are here as conquerors, and that anyone who collaborates with them, anyone who wants to talk us into accepting them as friends, is a Security Battalions collaborator, nothing less. A germanotsolias. One who wants everyone else to keep quiet so that he can air his feelings for the occupiers unchallenged.
If today’s anniversary recalls anything of the glory of that historic No, the No of 1940 and the No of 2004, it is freedom, justice and dignity. We will say it again if we have to. NO, we will not stay silent in the face of plans to enslave us. We will not legitimise the occupation. We will not accept a new apartheid in our homeland. We will not tear out half our heart and bury it in Kyrenia. However many years go by, we will not write off freedom, independence, democracy and dignity. The invader’s ultimatums will only ever strike a chord with the germanotsoliades and their kind. They too are a chapter in our history. And history will judge them.
