ANYONE bemoaning the death of truth in the age of Trump and Johnson would do well to remember that it’s been hijacked throughout history.
Most famously, the ghoulish Goebbels, Hitler’s spin doctor, said: ‘Truth is the greatest enemy of the state.’
The Greek playwright, Aeschylus, wrote: ‘God is not averse to deceit in a just cause.’
But there have been causes anything but just which have leaned to deceit.
If you saw anything this week about the historic opening of Varosha, once the holiday destination of the rich and famous on Cyprus, you’d be forgiven for thinking Turkey had been the big, bad bully of the Mediterranean.
It’s the same old story promoted by right-wing Greek-speaking Cypriots. It fits their narrative of victim-hood, in the same way that Donald J Trump blames everyone and everything for anything.
The truth is a little more complex.
For Cyprus ‘that golden-green leaf thrown into the sea’ has rarely been ‘Greek’, despite the protestations of those in the south of the island.
And when the Greek-speaking peoples of the island fought for independence, they murdered their Turkish-speaking neighbours in cold blood, as well as the British troops they say as an occupying army.
The Greek-speakers, under Archbishop Makarios, won their bid for their own republic, but soon muscled out the Turkish-speakers, who they wanted gone from ‘their’ island.
This is all fact, easily checked, if you go beyond Greek and Greek Cypriot propaganda, made truth by constant propaganda.
But back to Varosha, the ghost town of Cyprus. In 1974, the Turkish Army stopped their advance here. Admittedly the British Army, and the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, stood in the way of any advance into the Sovereign Base Area of Dhekelia.
There is no doubt that the victorious advance of Turkish troops could have claimed the whole island. The Greek Cypriots and any Greek troops stationed there were beaten. Those bleating about ‘occupation’ tend to forget, or conveniently ignore, another truth.
Because Makarios, who had once ordered the killing of British troops, found himself at the centre of a Greek coup. Athens wanted him gone. He fled, ironically, to Britain for sanctuary.
Which left London and Ankara in an embarrasing situation.
Britain, Greece and Turkey were joint guarantors of the peace on Cyprus. When Greece abstained from that role with its power-grab on the island, Britain hesitated, unwilling to act without the say so of Washington, then reeling from Watergate.
Ankara responded after the desperate calls from Turkish Cypriots fearing another bloodbath and more of their land stolen.
It really is as simple as that. With Greece the enemy of Cyprus, as envisaged by its republican vision, Britain sitting on the fence, Turkey intervened.
It’s been a source of discontent among Greek speakers and many Turkish speakers on the island. Many Turkish Cypriots have been unhappy at the ‘Turkification’ that has been evident in the last two decades, with many settlers arriving from the mainland.
That has also been a big source of unhappiness from those in the South, who continue to demand Turkey quit the island and their former lands be returned to them.
‘Give Famagusta back’ or at least the Varosha part was written on protest banners.
If only life was that simple.
Back in 2004, people both sides of the divided island had their chance to reunite. It would have seen a new republic, a new start, a new era of reunification in Europe.
The Turkish Cypriots voted overwhelmingly in favour (64 per cent). The Greek Cypriots said ‘no’ in their hundreds of thousands. Only 24 per cent were in favour of the United Nations-brokered plan.
The prize for reunification offered by Brussels was membership of the European Union. When the Greek Cypriots rejected the scheme, they still won the benefits of membership.
Varosha? The hotels are standing, untouched for 46 years, crumbling in the sea air, monuments to happier times that masked misery for many Cypriots.
There is no doubting Ankara has made many mistakes when it comes to the island, and turning Varosha into a military zone all this time, was one.
But make no doubt, despite the rabble rousing and criticism from Greek Cypriots, this was an historic moment, one I thought would never come. It’s another olive branch offered by the North. There have been many. All rejected by those living in the South.
Maybe it’s time to leave history where it belongs, in the past, and look to the future. Maybe it’s time to embrace truth, learn forgiveness and forge a better life for all those whose lives are tied up in the island’s tomorrow.
Opening Varosha is another step in the right direction.
mark a forster 