Our View: We’re happy with the status quo, just don’t call it partition

Addressing the anti-occupation gathering in Famagusta the mayor Simos Ioannou said, “we will continue to convey in every direction that partition will never be an option for the Cypriot people.” This was because “we want a united country, free, without barbed wire and checkpoints, a country for all its people….”

How accurate a reflection is this sweeping statement of what the Cypriot people want? Is partition, really, not an option for the Cypriot people? There are many Turkish Cypriots that support partition. Greek Cypriots, meanwhile, do not openly support partition, because this goes against the official patriotic line, as the implication was that they were prepared to write off the occupied territory which is considered a treasonous position.

But Greek Cypriot backing for partition is illustrated by the lack of public support for a settlement. Apart from a small group of pro-settlement champions, who are frequently dismissed in the press and social media as unpatriotic defeatists prepared to make unacceptable concessions for the sake of reunification, the rest of the population is very content with the status quo, for a variety of reasons. And everyone knows that the status quo is partition in all but name.

The reality is that there is zero public pressure on politicians to pursue a settlement. Tassos Papadopoulos became a national hero when he urged Greek Cypriots to reject the Annan Plan and 76 per cent of the population heeded his advice. Nicos Anastasiades was comfortably re-elected in 2018 after spurning the best opportunity for a much better settlement than the Annan Plan, eight months earlier. Having boosted his popularity, by walking away from the process, Anastasiades then tried to promote the idea of partition, bringing it up in private meetings (the late Archbishop Chrysostomos revealed having such a conversation with him) but was unsuccessful.

The hardline parties publicly took a stand against partition, which perfectly highlights the absurdity prevailing among Greek Cypriots. While they were supposedly against partition, they were also against a settlement that would avert it, on the spurious grounds that it would be unfair and unworkable. As for the so-called pro-settlement parties, such as Akel and Disy, it is doubtful that this position has the backing of the majority of their respective voters.

But we carry on deluding ourselves, like the Famagusta mayor Simos Ioannou, who claims that partition will never be an option for the Cypriot people. The truth, which the politicians are aware of but will never acknowledge, is that partition is an option for many people. They prefer to promote the myth that the people want a united country, which, quite clearly, they do not. If this were the case, there would have been a modicum of public pressure on the government of the day to try to secure a settlement.

That there has been next to nothing in the last 20 years, is emphatic proof that people are happy with the status quo, as long as it is not referred to as partition.