Three points and a promise – Article by Giorgos Koukoumas, AKEL MP for the free areas of Famagusta and AKEL C.C. Spokesperson

 

 

Sunday 13 November 2022, “Haravgi” newspaper

Three points arise, I believe, on the issue of the Grivas Museum that the Anastasiades government wants to create in Chloraka.

First. The entire Right of the country – from the imaginary liberal Europeanists of the ruling DISY party to the last fascist of the far-right ELAM party – will continue to worship a historical figure who has his hands drenched in the blood of Cyprus and is synonymous with chauvinism. In addition to their own Party presence at commemorations and celebrations for Grivas (and other sinister figures, such as Samson, Yiorkatzi), they do not hesitate – whenever they are in government – to exploit state funds to force Grivas to become a hero.

In the last five years, the Anastasiades-DISY government has allocated EUR 160,000 to promoting the memory of Grivas. Not EOKA in general. Of Grivas individually (guided school tours of his underground hideout, sponsorships and now the expenditure on the creation of a museum). This emerges from the reply given by the Minister of Education (29 March 2022) to a parliamentary question tabled by AKEL.

Second. The road taken by the leaderships of the Democratic Party DIKO and social democratic EDEK over the last six months has been slippery. Their excuses are pretexts in disguise, because they are well aware of the history of the issue. The budget they approved together with DISY and ELAM in the Parliamentary Finance Committee (31.10.2022) is the same one they had frozen and cut with AKEL six months ago and the same one they had cut off completely, again with AKEL, a year ago.

What has changed since then? Neither the history of Cyprus has changed, nor has the character of Grivas changed. The only thing that has indeed changed is their decision to support as their Presidential candidate a leading member of DISY and the Anastasiades government. However, the issue can also be clarified differently. They should ask Mr. Christodoulides the following question: if elected, will his government attend Grivas’ memorial services and continue to pay tribute to him?

Third. This time too, there was no shortage of comments in the journalistic sphere on AKEL’s reactions of the type like this: “You have remembered Grivas again, to rally your voters for the elections”. These comments, if they do not constitute a deliberate ‘helping hand’ to DISY, are at the very least an unforgivable depreciation of historical memory. After all, we did not remember Grivas on a good day. The DISY government has provoked the issue, with its persistence and tricks – I wonder if they are wasting so much time and attention on more useful issues – to construct a museum of shame. Indeed, apart from AKEL, a large section of society is reacting because the provocation is severe. Unless the view of all of them is that we should remain silent while the government sets up these museums. Thanks, but that’s what we won’t ever do.

Issues of historical democratic memory often occupy societies and public agendas of many countries, not only Cyprus. And when this happens, those who identify themselves in the democratic spectrum do not turn on a dime, nor are they afraid to choose sides. What happens, for example, in Greece when those nostalgic of the Junta or Hitler’s mentors in Germany present themselves in the public sphere? Are they told “let’s not dwell on the past” and change their narrative? On the contrary, there is firm condemnation from a large part of society and the political world.

After all, historical memory is not only about the past. It is – above all, I would say – about the present and the future. Who a State and a society chooses to honor from its past has to do with what it is and where it wants to go. A Cyprus that will continue to honor Grivas can hardly be convincing when it talks about democracy, about a solution of the Cyprus problem, about reunification and coexistence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

That is precisely why AKEL can promise not only to the people of the left, but to the whole democratic spectrum that it will not back down on this issue and on everything to do with historical memory. AKEL will continue to defend the memory of our murdered comrades, the fighters of the Democratic Resistance, the heroes and the dead of the Cypriot tragedy. AKEL will continue to defend the truth about what happened in our country. To teach the young generations what schools and the mass media do not teach. AKEL will continue with others and on its own when necessary. Both in and out of Parliament. And now and always.