Mavros vs Niazi
Niazi wrote this article in Politis on 25/03/2007, in response to some previous articles and morning shows by Lazaros.
Lazaros had this to say in Simerini on 26/03/2007.
The conclusions are left to the reader.
PS: @m's question, WHAT IS NEW? Just that if one could quantify the extremism in Simerini over the last 10 years, the current articles that get published there are even more extreme than in April 2004 and probably the most extreme we have seen in the last 10 years. Coincidence, pure chance, easy way to sell newspapers or deeper reflection of society?
Lazaros had this to say in Simerini on 26/03/2007.
The conclusions are left to the reader.
PS: @m's question, WHAT IS NEW? Just that if one could quantify the extremism in Simerini over the last 10 years, the current articles that get published there are even more extreme than in April 2004 and probably the most extreme we have seen in the last 10 years. Coincidence, pure chance, easy way to sell newspapers or deeper reflection of society?
posted by apodimos Kypreos at 15:42
11 Comments:
Conclusion:
There will always be some Mavro around (no pun intended) with extreme ideas. The real problem is that there are people that listen and that he represents many, if not most, Cypriots.
Sometimes, you laugh it off. Sometimes, you want to cry. Sometimes, you get angry. Sometimes, you simply say: "so what?"
There is no way to quantify extremism in simerini, or any other newspaper. What I do know, is that 10 years ago there was no politis. So maybe, finally, there is another voice... anyways... what's new?
unfortunately can't read greek (yet, or ever?) , sounds like an interesting exchange. what is the gist?
Let's see if I can do a fair/accurate summary (probably not):
Niazi interviewed Clerides and they have written a book that is about to be published, entitled something like "Clerides: The Story of a State". Excerpts have been published in newspapers that would publish anything deviating from the official G/C positions under TeePee.
Lazaros has criticized intensively the book because on p.167 (as I recall from one of his articles) AKEL is said to have gone for remaining in power in 2004 rather than not (but probably Lazaros is incensed by the way TeePee is depicted in this page ("support me or resign your ministerial positions"), probably there are other things Mavros can find to take issue with but this does not take much). The main point is that Lazaros tried to make the book sound like a big criticism of TeePee, and the book is using/exploiting the name of Clerides to do this, therefore the book is really bad for the "national interest", whatever that is in the mind of Lazaros Mavros.
Niazi wrote the Politis article in response to this saying that there are intellectuals and there are "Organic or Banal" intellectuals. Organic are the intellectuals that try to provide support to the official state position, Banal intellectuals are the subset of Organic that do the same but for national symbols/national causes. Unfortunately, he states, both G/C and T/C have not had true intellectuals that try to question what they are given and thus generate some hope of improving things. Rather, on both sides, intellectuals have been organic/banal trying to support the official positions, in the process sucking up to the official state. Niazi finishes thus
"Organic intellectuals might be likeable to the people in power, but as history has proven, they have offered nothing to social progress."
"Just that if one could quantify the extremism in Simerini over the last 10 years, the current articles that get published there are even more extreme than in April 2004 and probably the most extreme we have seen in the last 10 years".
Now I'm convinced you haven't been paying much attention to the nineties. Cheers.
Might be true, hard to quantify these things, therefore this is highly subjective...And therefore hard to convince a sceptic, I still feel the current climate is more "extreme"...
It's definitely more frustrating now because the internal tertipkia of education/mass media/church have *also* become the formal foreign policy of the government.
Anonyme, you seem to have a thing about the 90s. Let me take a wild guess: you are too young to remember the 80s.
:-)
What's to remember if you didn't have a DHKO ID card?
I tend to agree with M. What's new? Simerini having another national moral outrage because of a perceived slight on the patriotic honour of the fighting Cyprus people.
Maybe we do give too much attention to such people and ultimately play into their hands. I am also worried that the whole political discourse in Cyprus is in bleak binary terms. Us/Them, Nationalists/Progressives, Pro-Papadopoulos/ Anti-Papadopoulos.
I am no great fan of Papadopoulos but sometimes when I read Politis I get the feeling that there are a handful of people on a crusade to prove Papadopoulos wrong. That cannot be a good thing. Mikelides and Droushiotis spring to mind plus Konstantinou's column. Of course they all have a right to their opinion but I am concerned because we don't get constructive political discussions but all sorts of monologues of people who are cock sure that they are right and everybody else is woefully wrong.
Regarding extremism, it so happened the other day that I was reading a bit about the 1970s, the National Front, EOKA B, the assassination attempts against Makarios and the culture of political violence and counter-violence by anti and pro- Makarios forces.
So yes maybe we have progressed a bit. In the 1960s and 1970s we used to shoot each other, in the 1980s we used to hound people of the wrong ideology, in the 1990s it was all about S-300 missiles and the volcano policy of Clerides. In those days everybody was in favour of a strong National Guard, capable of repelling the enemy, anyone remembers this?
Now we just have a paper war over whenever Papadopoulos wants a solution or partition. At least no one has shot anyone else - yet.
Ah, the golden 80s, preceded by the sprakling 70s; the era of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, of Wham!, Duran Duran and Boy George, η εποχή του Λαϊκού Μετώπου, της απαγωγής, της Μεγάλης Συνωμοσίας, του Εγκέφαλου, του μακροχρόνιου αγώνα, της Ένωσης Κέντρου, του ατιβάν, του μίνιμουμ προγράμματος, της Λεωφόρου Ατυχίας, η εποχή που η Σημερινή ήταν η μόνη αντικαθεστωτική φωνή και την αγόραζες στα κρυφά μπας και σε δει κανείς...
sceptic anonymous is right: we now live in uninteresting times....
το ατιβάν τρώγεται; Μπορείς να εμβαθύνεις;
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