Thought for the week
Last week, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus visited Washington, D.C. amidst speculation that new talks on reunifying Cyprus are imminent. In addition to
meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry and Congressional leaders, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides made a significant proposal to move Cyprus towards peace and end the four decade occupation of the northern part of Cyprus.
(remarks by Secretary Kerry and Minister Kasoulides)
In a
public address before the Brookings Institution, Minister Kasoulides advanced two major confidence building measures. Turkey has used Cyprus' status as a member of the European Union to block NATO/EU political cooperation on the grounds that Cyprus cannot work with NATO without being affiliated with any of its institutions. Kasoulides responded to Turkey's objection by declaring the Republic of Cyprus' readiness to apply to NATO's Partnership for Peace program. Moreover, the Foreign Minister...
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Thought for the week
Orthodox Christianity’s Holy Week this year further tried the Greek psyche – which has been already been brought to a breaking point. In a particularly ironic development, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) issued its Annual Report on the protection of religious freedoms around the world. Last year,
USCIRF boldly classified Turkey as a “Country of Particular Concern,” (CPC) and thus one of the worst violators of religious rights in the world. A furious lobbying effort – by both Turkey and the U.S. Department of State itself – to reverse this classification. Never mind that the very existence of Christianity in lands controlled by Ankara (Turkey itself and occupied Cyprus) is endangered, let’s not upset our Turkish allies.
In an equally bold move in 2013, USCIRF upgraded Turkey from CPC status, and not just to the next worst level (Watch List/Tier...
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After several attempts by its followers to deny the anti-Semitic leanings of the group, Golden Dawn dropped all pretensions earlier this year by
verbally attacking the American Jewish Committee (AJC) during one of its trips of solidarity to Greece. Yesterday, in advance of further progress in Greco-Israeli relations (and in relations between the Greek and Jewish diaspora,) Golden Dawn launched yet another feeble minded attack.
In “
Συνεργασία: Ομπάμα εν όψει υποχρεώσεων Samaras …” Golden Dawn ridiculed Greek Prime Minister Samaras’ scheduled address to the AJC’s Global Forum 2013. They employed every hateful stereotype their small minds could come up with, and featured a particularly offensive cartoon. They successfully reinforced their credentials as a hate group.
This time, not only did Golden Dawn drop all pretensions of not being a neo-Nazi group, but they exposed themselves as not truly caring about protecting Greece. The strengthening relationship between Greece, Israel and Cyprus...
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March 18, 2013
"If this is successful then it will be used in the future. If this is not successful, then who cares about Cyprus."
-- Senior eurozone official on Cyprus's bank deposit levy vote
In most of Europe on Sunday, the Resurrection of Christ was celebrated. Christian faithful around the world believe through the Resurrection, humanity can overcome original sin and be granted eternal salvation. In little over a month, Easter will also arrive in Greece and Cyprus. Yet there is little expectation of salvation in either country. Indeed, last week – during the Holy Week of most of Greece’s and Cyprus’ European allies – the people of Cyprus were promised a future that would be more akin to the Passion of Christ (Τα πάθη του Χριστού) than to salvation.
Over the last two weeks, Cyprus – with an economy
roughly the size of Vermont’s and smaller than many U.S....
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Dear President Obama,
On March 25, 2012,
at a press conference with Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seoul, South Korea, you declared:
I congratulated the Prime Minister on the efforts that he's made within Turkey to protect religious minorities. I am pleased to hear of his decision to reopen the Halki Seminary.
The Orthodox world was abuzz. After a decade of promises from the Erdogan government, was Halki really going to be opened? You certainly seemed to have prioritized this particular objective. As a Senator, you advocated for the opening of Halki, and wrote to President Bush about the full religious freedom of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. You issued a position paper on the issue and referenced it in the party platform during the 2008 Presidential campaign. You personally visited with the Ecumenical Patriarch both in Turkey and in Washington, D.C. and your Administration continued high level...
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In 2010, Nicholas Carr – finalist for a Pulitzer Prize – argued that
the Internet was turning us into “shallow thinkers.” The unlimited amount of information made available via this medium – along with the lack of strict standards of research, veracity, or sobriety – make it difficult to distinguish useful information from useless analysis. The proliferation of such useless analysis, motivated by the need to “scoop” all other online commentators, has indeed baited us into becoming not only “shallower” thinkers, but just straight out dumb.
A candidate for dumbest idea of the year emerged this week in reaction to the economic crisis in Cyprus.
Slate’s Matthew Yglesias, apparently smarting from the fact that
his ill-informed cheerleading for bad bailout terms fell on deaf ears in the Cypriot parliament (which rejected the proposed bailout without a single vote in favor), came up with
another gem:
[H]ere's a plan that's...Continue reading →
The vote to approve the “bailout”/legalized bank robbery terms for Cyprus was scheduled for Sunday, but then postponed to Monday. Then on Monday, it was postponed to Tuesday. On March 19, Greek Cypriots threw a wrench into Germany’s plan to treat every southern European economy as a guinea pig during this euro crisis.
Perhaps it was fate that this vote – and the overwhelming rejection of the Troika’s terms – occurred on March 19
th. Half a world away, one of Cyprus’ greatest champions – Andrew A. Athens – was being laid to rest. The scenes of protest and then celebration in Cyprus reminded some of us of the protests in Daley Plaza organized by Mr. Athens, or the 1999 protest in Washington, D.C. where over 3,000 people formed a human chain around the Capitol building to mark the 25
th year of Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus. Analysts compared this vote to the...
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The entire worldwide Hellenic community mourns today the loss of Andrew A. Athens – the man who has been aptly described as the “patriarch” of the Greek-American community. It is with a heavy heart that I add my tribute to Mr. Athens. With the challenges facing worldwide Hellenism, it is necessary to immediately mark the legacy of this giant.
Whenever he recruited new blood to the cause, Mr. Athens was fond of recalling a telephone conversation between himself and Archbishop Iakovos in the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. His Eminence insisted that the Greek-American community had to mobilize to help Cyprus; “Πρέπει να κάνουμε κάτι!” (
We have to do something) insisted the Archbishop. Mr. Athens asked: “Τι ξέρω για πολιτική” (
but what do I know about politics)? to which the Archbishop responded: “Θα μάθεις!”
(You will learn)
And did he ever. Andy Athens led the efforts to marshal the national...
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On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Republic of Cyprus, a marvelous exhibition was unveiled at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. "Cyprus: Crossroads of Civilizations" began with seafaring peoples landing on Cyprus 11,000 years ago, traced the influences of the Minoans, Hellenes, Egyptians, Romans, and others, and detailed how Cyprus became the Eastern front of Christendom. Over 3 million visitors learned how this Eastern Mediterranean outpost has been the meeting place of East and West for centuries.
Modern day Cyprus has retained such crossroads status. Geographically, it stands along a meeting point of three continents – Europe, Asia and Africa. A member of the European Union, Cyprus has become an offshore business hub for Russia, and companies headquartered in Cyprus have become the leading investors in Russia. American companies are investing in Cyprus' energy reserves, and Chinese companies have emerged as the leading real estate investors in Cyprus....
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The 2012 Presidential campaign has been quite underwhelming with regards to traditional issues of concern for the Greek-American community. Neither
party platform placed emphasis on Greece or Cyprus. The Obama campaign
did not follow up on its impressive 2008 policy statement, and the Romney campaign was non-responsive to requests for policy statements on these issues. The only references to our issues by Romney were short and vague (
in the case of Cyprus), or negative (
with regards to the economic crisis in Greece). Greek-Americans were not given any reason whatsoever by either campaign to have the community rise up and support them.
Yet these elections are extremely consequential for issues of concern to the community, and to Greece and Cyprus. The next President of the United States – who yields great influence over the IMF – will have a very important voice in any discussion of the European...
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