If you were the prime minister of Turkey

[belgian]

If we remain in the Middle east what about Cyprus. This age old problem should now be solved.

[andrewfilis-yelaghotis]

hi belgian, hope ur well. well cyprus has an ageing problem, which has its own context on both sides. i will probably be biasedreferring to this country. their are many emotions involved. those of the hellens, those of the cypriots of hellenic origin, the turkish origin and of the turkish administration. where to sstart from? the claims from turkey over the status of cyprus? the murders that are performed til 1999 summer? the continious "piss take" of the pseudo-government of the "turkish republic of northern cyprus"?
it boils all down to what i believe has been the cause. interests. international interests; britain bying the island from the turkish and then establishing treaties that manipulate feelings on both sides. divide and rule bigtime.
it is sad but this is the world we live in. aknowledging this doesnt make me accept it, but the crud power of economic interests has been making this world spin since it probably was established.
Cyprus is a republic that has been evolving its own seperate identity from liberated hellas ever since it was occupied the brits and was never "allowed" to join the republic of hellas. its tough i believe but these people have been holding onto this new subdivisitory identity (Cypriot as in cretan, mykonean, athenian, lesbian etc) since it was allowed to create its own political entity and remain in the Commonwealth.
people in hellas have varied feelings about the Cypriots. some like my parents have never differentiated them selves more than any other islanders chians, lesbians, lemnians etc, but others are envious of cyprus economic success and consider them lesser hellenes than them. off course personally i believe that the hellenic culture and identity is shared by such a diverse gathering of ppeople that i accept anyone wishing to use this identity as they will/
diaspora of melbourne differs from the diaspora in albania or switzerland or the states in many respewcts but the unifying factor is hellenism itself.
cyprus is a younger than hellas state-country and it needs to breathe in an environment without claims etc.
of course i cannot ignore the long history of violations on international treaties that turkey has. but hellas nor cyprus have the influence nor power to set issues straight, thats where the hellenophiles or the economic interest dogs come in. the united states have always shown interest in hellenic-turkish relations; no its not altruism but sheer economic interests. the aegean and south mediterranean have oil reserves. any unites states administration has had families running them (bush) etc that have been and continue to be deeeply involved in oil affairs etc. anyway the romantic side of things i.e, rights of the minorities the murders the missing people etc are concerns for the U.N amnesty international and the "plebs". i do not want to appear rude nor arrogant but these issues concern me deeply and trully, but they are pontless to be discussed in this thread as we honestly cannot undo these. realising the economic aspect of our issue and seeing it though the crued and cruel reality of it, only then using our cynisism and clear thought can we try to yield the outcome into our own interests. macchiavelism in all its colours? i dont know , possibly, though it seems it did actually work.
anyway id love to hear from u soon all the best
yours cordially,
andrew.

[andrewfilis-yelaghotis]

well any thoughts on this anyone? anyway belgian i hope ur fine speak to u soon. take care,
andrew

[belgian]

Andrew,
Sorry for my late reply but I was really busy with Academic work. As you mentioned earlier, I am disappointed by this discussion site concerning discussions on international events or human rights. No misunderstanding I’m not blaming anyone but I think that we are not at the good place for serious discussions. If you don’t add anything related to Abba sexuality or USA to your text, you have little chance to get any sound reflection on your topic. It’s normal, this is a fun oriented Swedish website. This forum site is probably designed to provide a support for discussing problems concerning Swedish homeland or collect information for…? There surely should be another Swedish site for discussing international problems. I’m looking for it; if you also find one, please let me know. If you want you can read the topic send in current events. No one dared to make any suggestion. In fact Swedish Compared with parliaments in other countries, the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) has the highest proportion in the world of female members with 43 per cent. . I can’t call a regime a democratic one if half of the population is excluded from political life. In fact I wanted to get the opinion and proposals of Swedes on the participation of women in political life. I couldn’t get it.
Indeed, I believe we have little chance to find anyone ready to spend some precious minutes of his (her) life to think about solutions to the problems of people living in remote countries. That’s why I love Greeks who always care about others. You should at least belong to the second generation of Greek immigrants in Australia as you have a British name and write in perfect English. You are still worried by problems of people living thousands of miles away of your land even though you belong to the Greek Diaspora. Isn’t that wonderful? You could easily remain in your corner and be interested in good wine spicy food and music but you don’t. Here you share a common particularity with Turks. Wherever they are, they also are interested with other people’s problem not in agreement with Greeks but they do it. Again I think we will have little chance to find any suggestions about Cyprus. Unfortunately, there is no music or fun in this age-old conflict. It’s time to find a peaceful solution I’m sure people over there will be happier than ever if motherlands nad super powers let them cooperate. Turks have a lot to learn from Greeks beginning with democracy. In fact if we can find a cooperative Swede, Turkey and Greece have a lot to learn from Sweden concerning women’s rights. Can we hope to find one day Mrs. or Mr. Right?
By the way I belong to an immigrant family. My grandparents who were Muslim converted Bosnians emigrated from Yugoslavia to the actual Turkey by fear of repression. They were always considered aliens as probably the Smyrna Greeks send to Eastern Thessalonica by agreement between Turkish and Greek government after WWI. I recently read a book about them. As my grandfathers did they always missed their homeland. According to the family tradition, I immigrated in Belgium to become a citizen and scientist.
Is it why my best friends are Greeks and Armenians?

[andrewfilis-yelaghotis]

hi belgian,
so sorry that it took me some time to reply. see i had not entered this site for at least a week. hope you are fine. anyway this site is ok. you can find people interested in some issues an d discuss. we can still continue this thread. anyway find some topic for discussion,. perhaps the naming of the skopje based government as FYROM etc.interesting subject for me. hope you find it stimulating.
yours cordially,
andrew

[belgian]

I think that we can submit together a topic on what should be done in Cyprus to find a peaceful agreement, an Australian citizen of Australia of Greek origin and a Belgian citizen of Turkish origin. I think it really can be stimulating for people of this forum to submit replies and propose wise solutions.
As you do, I'm interested in conflicts in Balkans. Those people suffered enough it's time to make peace. I was in Moscow when Kosovo was bombarded by NATO air forces as a Belgian member of European commission delegation. Security officers suggested us not to leave the hotel after 5 pm. I loved this city and I was returning to the hotel around 2 am. Other members of the delegation, all older than I, were crazy about that but I bought a fur Russian hat and people told me that I looked just like a Russian so I got in every corner of Russia without being disturbed but I should admit that I got lost in the Metro as I was unable to read the stations names. I met the dean of the faculty of Medicine of the University of Thessalonica and we played Sirtaki together with Russian gypsy band. We should visit him one day with Ioannis Antoniou our project leader.
It was a lovely trip and I got several nice Russian friends. When a missile hit a civilian train in Serbia I wrote a letter to Yugoslavian website that I felt hurt when I saw the pictures of civilians as much as Belgians or Turks or whoever and begged them to do everything to stop this war ASAP. They loved my letter and published it on their web site under a false name for a long time. Love has no nationality or borders or religion. If we can summarize the monotheist holly books in one word I think it should be: love, love, love

warm regards

[fleming]

If you are interested in how some Turkey people themselves think about human rights, go have a look at the discussion forum of http://www.belgium.com (topic human rights and international human rights).

[fleming]

although...apparently the server is down for the moment (probably a cyber-attack or some email-bombing from our dear Turkish Friends... they like to do that if you don't agree with their sayings.)

[belgian]

I couldn't get in the server belgium.com. Even though I couldn't see the comments you are talking about I can say that they shouldn't act that way, attack servers to prevent others to talk and discuss. We can only find wise solutions through discussions to our problems worldwide. They should learn to remain at least silent as Swedes do when someone talks about human rights violations toward indigenous Saamis people of Sweden. No one in this site tried to stop my topics or ban the messages I'm sending. Just take a look in the topic human rights in Sweden in http://www.sweden.com.


"Boycott Sweden and it's candidacy for the 2004 Olympic games..
Native population of Sweden urge IOC to consider other candidates.

Why arn't Sweden a worthy host for the Olympics?

Protests was held outside the agricultural departement in Stockholm, August 21.
Translation of the texts on the posters:

"Our reindeers needs to graze in peace".
"Is Sweden an worthy host for the Olympic games?"
"Swedens Agenda 21 must also include us as well!"

Sweden is a country who wishes to host the 2004 Olympic games.
This country are simultaneously not following international agreements for human rights and the indigenous peoples rights such as The Rio declaration.
Representatives for the indigenous population in Sweden, the Sami's ("Lapps") doesn't consider this country is a worthy candidate.

-The Olympic games will result in a lot of goodwill for the country which eventually will be chosen as the host. There's also no doubt that there's a connection between international and domestic politics and the world of sports.
The organisers of several sportevents have shown their dissatisfaction with dictatorships and policies of disparity such as South-africa with their former apartheid.
The relationship between Sweden and its indigenous population could hardly be said to be in accord with the legislation in other countries and would rather be a question of shame for Sweden as a nation,
according to Olof Johansson, chairman of Glen Sami community and MP of the native Sami parliament in Sweden.


If we for a moment view Sweden from an indigenous perspective, we cannot even tell if Sweden is a democracy or not. We Sami's have no control of the land from which we derive our livelihood.
We are in the hands of capricious politicians and administrators, both locally and on the government level, states Lars-Anders Baer, chairman
of SSR (National society of Swedish Sami's ).

One obvious example is the free fishing and small game hunt bill -on Sami territories- which was introduced in 1992, after preparatory work by the former rightwing government.
The agricultural department thereafter made a set of bills to regulate the hunt, the preparatory work for those bills had in turn been made by a single Swedish consultant.

The local administrative boards for the three most northern regions in Sweden was appointed to administrate this hunting and fishing on Sami territories which by a penstroke changed the legislative status of
the Sami's land into the governments possession.
An obvious violation of both the civic rights as well as international treaties.

-We Sami's are never part of the decision making process, not even when the issue is of utter importance for the Sami nation, adds Ingvar Åhrén chairman of the Sami parliament in Sweden. And it is allowed to continue even after this government has signed the Rio Declaration as well as Agenda 21. Both of which states that the government should act
to encourage the indigenous population to participate in politics, creation of new laws and program for recourcemanagement and other processes which may affect them.

-Added together we Sami's feel extremely hesitant to recommend Sweden as a host for any Olympic game states Mr Olof Johansson and adds: We ask the IOC to consider our predictament when it is time to vote for this candidature.

Place: Drottninggatan 21 outside dpt of Agriculture (Jordbruksdepartementet) Time: Thursday August 21, 9.30 am - 3 pm.

[fleming]

ah, http://www.belgium.com is back on line

[belgian]

You know what this discussion is called in Belgium. Dialogue des sourds or dialog between deaf people. That's not the way to find a solution to the problems which should be the end point of the discussions. By the way who is behind these windows of Sweden, Belgium, Turkey...and else.com? Hope we will not find ourselves one day in Guantanamo facility

[fleming]

De votre expression, j'assume que vous êtes belge-francophone, non?

[belgian]

C'est bien ça cher ami. I was thinking that you were belonging to the Dutch community of Belgium; you know Fleming Flemish seemed very close to me
To respect our Swedish friends and enable them to understand what we are talking about on this Swedish site, I suggest to write in English as French is not very popular among Swedes I knew.
After reading a little part of your long long discussions, I want to claim that to the best of my knowledge, Belgium has the best social security in the world, at least on health care. Contrary to Sweden where you should first visit a general practitioner of your district in order to be examined by a hospital(university or not) doctor, you are free to see your family doctor, a Professor of University hospital or any doctor in Belgium or even a cardiologist of Maastricht if you live in the district of Liege. Two years ago a Swedish friend of mine had a serious gut bleeding problem. She was admitted in a hospital where she was examined by a surgeon and kept hospitalized for 48 hours. She was released without any word on what had been found on her. A surgeon simply told her that she shouldn't be operated on immediately. I suspected a serious disease and mailed an assistant professor from Karolinska hospital. He agreed with me and asked to examine her in the hospital. He sent my friend a fax message attesting that a specialist in a hospital should examine her. My friend went to find a practitioner in her district in order to get the permission to go to the hospital. The young doctor laughed at what his colleague wrote and told her that she wanted to perform some diagnostic procedures himself and didn't want to sign the paper. He gave her an appointment in 3 weeks even though she was suffering all the time. Finally he performed this exam that should be performed by skilled personal with local anesthetics to prevent pain. She felt intense pain and was fainting and his nurse was afraid and told him to stop. He finally stopped the procedure without any result. He asked her to wait another week and finally signed the paper and she could get her exam in Karolinska University hospital. If the same events happened in Belgium the practitioner would be judged before a civil court, no answer had been obtained from the complaint in Stockholm.
Please no misunderstanding Swedish friends I don't tell this to blame anyone. I just believe that you are paying the highest taxes in Europe and you deserve better health care. You have much higher quality standards in food, drinking water or protection of environment why not in health care? There are so few of you if you think about China or India. I love you and consider you among endangered species. You fight for freedom of speech; you should also fight for freedom of health care.
What I love most in Sweden is the participation of woman in political life. The Swedish parlement Riksdag has the highest proportion of woman in the world with 46 %(12 % in USA). Can we call a regime democracy if half of the population is excluded from the political life?
My crazy dream is to export this model to other countries and the Muslim world beginning by Turkey who is the only candidate to become a member of EU. I believe that the only way to create a peaceful world is to create secular democratic states where all citizens will enjoy equal rights.
Just raise your heads and look around you. We are a small blue spot lost among endless dark clouds around us. Instead of finding where and who they are, the habitants of the blue planet are still fighting between themselves.

[fleming]

Well... that's because I am Flemish.

[belgian]

J'avais bien devine! There was something senseous in the messages you sent in Belgium.com that you can't see with wallons. You take care of others. Even though I speak very little flemish, if I say I love Flamands more than wallons will you believe me?