Rapprochement

So I came back from the UK on Sunday - last Sunday - and began work at a newspaper - The Cyprus Mail - on Monday. A bit crazy when you think of it (will there be no lazy pause after the examination period from hell?) but a good choice nonetheless.

One of my first assignments was to cover a talk about education and its importance for rapprochement in Cyprus. Mrs. Androulla Vassiliou (the European Union Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth) was guest of honour and the talk also featured representatives by OELMEK (the Greek-Cypriot high school teachers union), POED (the Greek-Cypriot primary school teachers union) and the two Turkish Cypriot teachers' trade unions.

All I heard was the same old recording replayed, European Union-style. Witty word play such as "Education needs peace and peace needs education" and "We must turn the wrongs of yesterday into the rights of today, and not the rights of yesterday into the wrongs of today" covered up the lack of actual substance of the discussion.

In the presence of the EU Commissioner, no Cypriot teacher, Turkish or Greek speaking, would admit to the fact that we've reached a stalemate when it comes to the Cyprus problem, and to the ability of education to stir the sinking ship that is the Cypriot society of today. As pointed out by the Polish Ambassador who was among the audience, we should have had this discussion 15 years ago.

But we probably did, one way or another. We probably have had this discussion 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 4, 3, 2, 1 year ago. What were the results? And I don't mean the intellectual, momentary glimpses of ideas that occur to the small number of people attending such events, like myself, that vanish in the thick, humid summer air in Nicosia. I'm talking about results that are tangible and have contributed to some sort of change on the island.

Of course the teachers told us all about the bi-communal events that public schools undertake in Cyprus. The OELMEK person told us about the Ayios Antonios school in Limassol that has both Turkish and Greek Cypriots in the same classes doing the same subjects. I must admit this was encouraging. But what is one school in so many? And how are we to believe that state schools will become like that, when even the English School, a private school with a longstanding bi-communal history, is so often abused by the islnd's nationalists that won't just let it be?

Am I to believe, Mr. OELMEK, that the utopian model that Ayios Antonios represents will become the blueprint for all public schools in Cyprus? You almost got me fooled there. This is a typical maneuver. We want to seem as if we're trying, we want to appear like we want a solution and so we get these conservative teacher representatives at such events that try so hard to seem liberal, willing to help in education reform, when in fact they probably go to bed at night wishing all Turkish Cypriots would vanish from the face of the earth.

Sadly, their performance is weak. The OELMEK guy, an anachronism from the eighties, with gray-tinted glasses and long, sparse hair, ungroomed, recited his little 'education for peace' poem with as much conviction as my baby brother's when he claims to be sorry for eating an entire pot of Nutella. We do not believe you, Mr. OELMEK, when you modify every single 'positive' statement with qualification such as:

"BUT it is a difficult task to bring the two communities together since the new generations of our island have lived apart for 36 years now." What you really want to say is that you don't want to see them living together ever again.

"BUT educational reform will only be achieved if such bicommunal events are carried out by both sides without, of course, each side losing its identity." What you really want to say is that 1. Greek Cypriots organize many many bicomm events whereas Turkish Cypriots don't, hence we're the good guys they're the bad guys and 2. we must remain schizophrenically loyal to the illusion that CYPRUS IS GREECE, and you want our children to continue living with the identity issues that we suffer from, foster prejudice against Turkish Cypriots and subsequently never be able to resolve the Cyprus problem.

Let's be honest. Enough with the shams, already. For the civil servants who don't want to see their ridiculously high salary decrease, and their insanely minimal working hours increase, taking the hypocrite road is the best option, but I think they should just stand up and speak the truth.

Enough with the 'teachers must be the most progressive people' chant, when we know it refers to one of the traditionally most conservative groups of people on the island.

Can we for once say what we think? Or if we MUST continue listening to the lies that civil servants, trade unions and politicians serve us with regards to their supposed willingness to solve the Cyprus problem, let's hope that they will at least experience what Plato considered one of the worst qualities of 'imitation' (the assumption of various roles by actors; mimicking; being something you are not): that they'll gradually lose their nationalistic attributes and that some qualities of the seemingly progressive roles they assume will rub onto them and become true habits.