Robin Lane Fox: Why Pericles Matters
Thanks to the reader who pointed me in the direction of Robin Lane Fox’s lecture Why Pericles Matters, which was recently given at Royal Holloway College, here in London. (You can see the lecture here if your computer is up to it but, if like mine, it’s not, I did manage to extract the audio and you can listen to it above).
In his lecture, Lane Fox tells us why the life, deeds and ideas of Pericles, the great Athenian statesman – or ‘the Zeus of the human pantheon of Athens’, according to Hegel – continue to matter to modern societies. Naturally, Lane Fox pays closest attention to Pericles’ funeral oration, as recalled by Thucydides, in which Pericles, on the occasion of the internment of those Athenian soldiers who fell in the early skirmishes of the war against Sparta, presents his idealised view of Athens and its citizens. It’s an oration that, for Cornelius Castoriadis is ‘the most important political monument of political thought I have ever read’, though for its detractors is an odious expression of collectivism, nationalism, militarism and totalitarianism. And, indeed, it is to these critics that Lane Fox addresses his defence of Pericles.
Lane Fox starts by telling us that Pericles’ funeral oration matters because Pericles attaches no religious meaning or connotations to the Athenian war dead being commemorated. There is no mention of gods, martyrdom or paradise. These battlefield deaths are afforded no sacred significance and there is no religious comfort – of an afterlife, for example – that Pericles can offer to the grieving relatives.
Pericles and his funeral oration also matter, Lane Fox says, because of the radical democratic ethos represented. When Pericles speaks to the gathered citizenry, he speaks not as a monarch or president might, not as the leader of an elite or vanguard, not as a general or commander-in-chief, not even as a representative, but as one citizen to another, as an equal. Indeed, Athens is its citizens; and its citizens are Athens. The relationship is symbiotic. One does not dominate or exist separately from the other.
For Athenians to be so enamoured and engaged with their city – and for Athenians to make the best decisions on issues that ranged from the mundane to the momentous – required an unceasing dedication to education and culture – to paideia; and in his funeral oration, Pericles indicates that, in Athens, paideia is intended to prepare its citizens for civic life and public duty by inculcating in them a love of beauty – without this implying ostentation; and a love of wisdom – without this implying softness, or neglect of martial skills.
As such, for Pericles, according to Lane Fox, Athens and the Athenian way of life promoted arts, festivals and athletic games; championed thought and debate, enquiry and innovation; expected versatility not uniformity from its citizens; and, though adorned with resplendent civic buildings, recommended modesty at home and in the display of private wealth. In short, Lane Fox says, Periclean Athens matters because it promotes individual freedom but, at the same time, is vigourously communitarian. The individual who wanted to live outside the community, or disparaged civic life, was not the epitome of freedom, as he is in some modern ideologies, but an idiot (ἰδιώτης), a useless and inept character, with nothing worthwhile to offer or say.
For further discussion on Why Pericles Matters, go here and here.
The Divisions of Cyprus, by Perry Anderson
Cyprus is, in truth, an anomaly in the new Europe. Not, however, for reasons Brussels cares to dwell on. This is an EU member-state a large part of which is under long-standing occupation by a foreign army. Behind tanks and artillery, a population of settlers has been planted that is relatively more numerous than the settlers on the West Bank, without a flicker of protest from the Council or Commission. From its territory are further subtracted – not leased, but held in eminent domain – military enclaves three times the size of Guantánamo, under the control of a fellow member of the EU, the United Kingdom.(Perry Anderson: The Divisions of Cyprus)
Perry Anderson has been for the last forty years one of Britain's leading left-wing intellectuals and historians. In the latest issue of the London Review of Books, he has written a breathtakingly brilliant essay on Cyprus, its modern history, from 1931 to the present day, which rejects the discourse on the Cyprus problem that views it as a spat between uncivilised rival ethnic groups in the grip of a primitive nationalism and sets the conflict in its correct colonial, post-colonial, geopolitical and cold war context.
As such, Anderson concentrates on the role in Cyprus of Britain, Greece, Turkey, the USA and, more recently, the EU and the UN – who, through a combination of malevolent conspiracy, arrogance, spite, negligence and disdain, have contributed, in one way or another, to Cyprus’ tragedy.
Anderson has produced a stunning, Thucydidean indictment of the cruelty, indifference and malice of the strong, in which he reserves his most withering criticism for Britain, its consistently destructive role in Cyprus, and for Lord David Hannay, Britain's special representative to Cyprus during the Blair government, the ‘brains’ behind the reviled Annan plan in 2004. Anderson's contempt for post-war Greek politics and politicians is only slightly less vitriolic.
Read the whole essay here. Below is a taste of what Anderson writes.
‘From the beginning, colonial rule had used the Turkish minority as a mild counterweight to the Greek majority, without giving it any particular advantages or paying overmuch attention to it. But once demands for Enosis could no longer be ignored, London began to fix its attention on the uses to which the community could be put.’
‘[For] Karamanlis, whose historical raison d’être was sentry duty in the Cold War… Hellenism was essentially for public consumption, to keep domestic opinion quiet: for the regime, it was anti-Communism that counted, and if there was a conflict between them, Enosis would be ditched without compunction.’
‘The postwar Greek state… started out as a British protectorate and continued as an American dependency, culturally and politically incapable of crossing the will of its progenitors. Greek Cypriots were often to charge its political class with betrayal, but the spinelessness of so many of its ministers and diplomats was structural: there was no inner core of autonomy to betray.’
‘The brutality of Turkey’s descent on Cyprus, stark enough, was no surprise. On previous occasions, as well as this one, Ankara had repeatedly given advance warning of its intentions. Political responsibility for the disaster lay with those who allowed or encouraged it. The chief blame is often put on the United States… but though America’s role in the dismemberment of Cyprus is clear-cut, it is Britain that bears the overwhelming responsibility for it.’
‘A fourth edition of the UN plan was adjusted to meet Turkish demands, and a final, non-negotiable version – Annan V – was announced on the last day of March. A jubilant Erdogan told his people that it was the greatest victory of Turkish diplomacy since the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, sealing Kemal’s military triumph over Greece.’
Wikileaks: the Americans abandon Ioannides after shambolic coup against Makarios
It’s clear from the cable that Ioannides believed he had American support for the coup and that he is infuriated when it becomes clear to him that, with Makarios alive and the coup a shambles, the Americans were now not prepared to defend Ioannides’ putsch in Cyprus, which meant, it must have been obvious to Ioannides, there was now nothing to stop a Turkish invasion of the island, that, indeed, the Americans were sympathetic to such a development. Ioannides desperately seeks to assure Tasca that the coup was in American interests, ranting about Makarios and the imminent prospect of Cyprus ‘falling into the hands of the communists’. The cable also confirms that, inasmuch as Ioannides had thought through the coup, his immediate aim was not annexation of Cyprus to Greece, but the removal of Makarios in order to facilitate an understanding with Turkey on the future of the island, i.e. partition of the island between Greece and Turkey.
FOR THE SECRETARY
1. I USED SECURE RELIABLE CHANNEL DIRECTLY TO GENERAL IOANNIDES TO DELIVER MESSAGE REFTEL [Reference Telegram]. HE BEGAN BY EXPLAINING HE HAD PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM USG [US government]. AFTER EMISSARY HAD READ TWO PARAGRAPHS, IOANNIDES COMMENTED MESSAGE MUST BE SAME AS THAT AMBASSADOR HAD GIVEN KYPREOS [Greece’s foreign minister],IN WHICH CASE EMISSARY WASTING HIS TIME SINCE HE WOULD RECEIVE MESSAGE ANYWAY. EMISSARY EXPLAINED HIS JOB WAS TO FINISH READING MESSAGE AND HAD IT TO HIM AND WOULD DO SO, TO WHICH GENERAL IOANNIDES SAID FINE.
2. AFTER EMISSARY COMPLETED MESSAGE, THE GENERAL LITERALLY BLEW UP, JUMPED UP, BACKED UP, KNOCKED OVER A TABLE, BROKE EMPTY GLASS AND UTTERED A STRONG OBSCENITY. HE CONTINUED THAT ONE DAY KISSINGER MAKES PUBLIC STATEMENTS REGARDING NON-INTERFERENCE IN GREEK INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND A FEW WEEKS LATER THE USG SAYS "CONSISTENT WITH THE ABOVE PRINCIPLES..." AND THREATENS INTERFERENCE. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED IN CYPUS I (IOANNIDES) WILL BE BLAMED. IF I HAD PULLED THE TROOPS OUT THE FORMER POLITICIANS WOULD HAVE BLAMED ME FOR TURNING THE ISLAND OVER TO THE COMMUNISTS. SOME DAY USG WILL REALIZE THAT ON 15 JULY 1974 CYPRUS WAS SAVED FROM FALLING INTO THE HANDS OF THE COMMUNISTS".
3. GENERAL THEN CALMED DOWN, CAME OVER TO WHERE EMISSARY WAS SITTING AND SAID HE KNEW HE UNDERSTOOD HIM: DIPLOMATIC TALK IS TIME-CONSUMING BUT HE WOULD ANSWER IN AS DIPLOMATIC FASHION AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE HE HAD DIPLOMATIC MISSION.
4. GENERAL STATED THAT GREECE ALSO BELIEVED IN NON-INTERFERENCE AND IN A FREE, INDEPENDENT, SOVEREIGN STATE OF CYPRUS; GREECE WOULD ABIDE BY THE DECISION OF THE MAJORITY OF THE GREEK CYPRIOTS, MOST OF WHOM WERE NATIONALISTS, AND THESE NATIONALISTS WERE THE ONES WHO HAD MOVED AGAINST MAKARIOS. IT WAS IMMATERIAL WHETHER THESE GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS MOVED WITH OR WITHOUT THE PRIOR BLESSING OF GREECE OR WHETHER GREEK OFFICERS SUBSEQUENTLY ASSISTED THEM. AT THIS POINT HE WENT OFF ON A TANGENT STATING THAT NEITHER GREECE NOR THE GREEK CYPRIOTS HAD ASKED FOR ENOSIS, THAT GOT [government of Turkey] HAD OBVIOUSLY ACCEPTED THESE DEVELOPMENTS IN CYPRUS, THAT TURKS UNDER STOOD THAT THE MATTER WAS AN INTERNAL GREEK CYPRIOT AFFAIR.
5. ACCORDING TO IOANNIDES ONLY REAL RESISTANCE LEFT ON CYPRUS WERE COMMUNIST SUPPORTS OF MAKARIOS IN PAPHOS;THESE SUPPORTERS WERE EVEN SINGING EAM/ELAS SONGS. MOST OF THE REST OF ISLAND WAS IN NATIONALIST HANDS. GENERAL IOANNIDES STATED THAT EVERYONE SHOULD FORGET THAT MAKARIOS WAS AN INTERNATIONAL FIGURE, THAT HE WAS A NATIONAL HERO, THAT HE HAD SERVED SEVERAL USEFUL FUNCTIONS AND THAT HE WAS A MAN OF THE CLOTH; MAKARIOS HAD BECOME A ROTTEN PRIEST HOMOSEXUAL; HE WAS PERVERTED, A TORTURER, A SEXUAL DEVIATE AND THE OWNER OF HALF THE HOTELS ON THE ISLAND. TO PRESERVE HIS POSITION AND TO CONTINUE HIS ACTIVITIES, MAKARIOS WAS WILLING TO SACRIFICE SEVENTY PER CENT OF THE GREEK CYPRIOT POPULATION (ONLY THIRTY PER CENT WERE AKEL) AND ENTIRE ANTI-COMMUNIST TURKISH CYPRIOT POPULATION. IOANNIDES ASSERTED GREEK CYPRIOTS IN NATIONAL GUARD REALIZED THESE FACTS AND HAD BEGGED MOTHERLAND FOR CHANCE TO ACT AGAINST MAKARIOS; GENERAL CLAIMED THAT HE ONLY ASSISTED AFTER BEING PRESENTED WITH A FAIT ACCOMPLI.
6. AT THIS POINT EMISSARY INTERJECTED AND TOLD IOANNIDES POINT-BLANK THAT, WITH COUP ONLY TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER HIS REPORTING TO US REGARDING A POSSIBLE OVERTHROW OF MAKARIOS THIS WAS VERY DIFFICULT FOR ANYONE TO BELIEVE. AT THIS POINT THE GENERAL AGAIN BLEW UP WITH ARMS WAVING, KNOCKED OVER SAME TABLE, BROKE A SECOND GLASS AND, BETWEEN OBSCENITIES, STATED THAT HE DID NOT PLOT AND ARRANGE THE COUP; INITIAL PLAN AND APPROACH WAS FROM GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS ON 13 JULY, AFTER LATTER LEARNED THAT GOG [government of Greece] INTENDED TO ACCEDE TO MAKARIOS' DEMANDS TO REDUCE NUMBER OF GREEK OFFICERS IN NATIONAL GUARD.GENERAL STATED HE COULD NOT ACCEPT AT LEAST 85,000 GREEK CYPRIOT REFUGEES FROM MAKARIOS' TYRANNY. THIS COUPLED WITH MAKARIOS' ANTI-REGIME EFFORTS, MADE HIM DECIDE TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS. THE GENERAL STATED THAT IF MAKARIOS SUCCEEDED IN KICKING GREEKS OUT OF CYPRUS WHAT COULD KEEP HIM FROM THINKING HE COULD NOT KICK JUNTA OUT OF GREECE. AFTER DECIDING TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOTS, THE GENERAL CLAIMED THAT HE DID NOT TELL THE ARMED FORCES LEADERSHIP NOR ANY GREEK OFFICIAL. HE LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF HIS INTENTIONS TO FEW SELECT OFFICERS ON 13/14 JULY; NO ONE ELSE KNEW AND EVEN AFTER EVENTS UNFOLDED ON 15 JULY ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE WERE AWARE OF HIS ROLE. IOANNIDES JUSTIFIED THIS ACTION BY ASSERTING THAT IF HE HAD BRIEFED NUMEROUS PEOPLE THEY WOULD HAVE RAISED SUGGESTIONS, ADVICE, ALTERNATIVES, AND POSSIBLE PROBLEMS. HE ADDED THAT HE ACTED ON SPUR OF THE MOMENT.
7. IOANNIDES DECLARED THAT GAME WAS NOW OVER FOR MAKARIOS, THAT GREEK CYPRIOTS HAD BOOTED HIM OUT, THAT NATIONAL GUARD AND GREEK OFFICERS HAD ASSISTED NATIONALIST GREEK CYPRIOT BROTHERS, AND THAT ONLY RESISTANCE NOW WAS IN PAPHOS. IN REPLY TO EMISSARY'S DIRECT QUESTION IOANNIDES STATED THAT MAKARIOS WAS STILL ALIVE "BUT WHO CARES; HE NOW HAS NO POWER AND NO ONE, IF HE BELIEVES IN PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERFERENCE IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF SOVEREIGN NATION WILL ASSIST HIM- NOT EVEN THE RUSSIANS UNLESS TURKS ASK THEM TO DO SO AND THE TURKS JUST DON'T CARE."
8. IN REPLY TO QUESTION WHETHER GREEKS WERE IN DIRECT TOUCH WITH TURKS, GENERAL STATED WE HAVE NOT BOTHERED THE TURKS; WE HAVE NOT DECLARED ENOSIS. TURKS AGREE THAT "THE PRINCIPAL THORN" (I.E., MAKARIOS) IS GONE AND, "I AM NOT IN TOUCH WITH THE TURKS." HE EXPRESSED VIEW THAT GREECE AND TURKEY COULD NOW PROCEED AT SOME FUTURE TIME TO SIT DOWN, TALK AND SOLVE THEIR DIFFERENCES. INDEED, ACCORDING TO IOANNIDES GREEKS MIGHT EVEN BE WILLING TO SHARE PROFITS OF PETROLEUM FINDS IN A JOINT EXPLORATION COMPANY; HOWEVER, GREECE WOULD NEVER SURRENDER AEGEAN CONTINENTAL SHELF BECAUSE THIS WOULD MEAN TURKISH CONTROL OF GREEK ISLANDS. HE ALSO EXPRESSED BELIEF THAT GREEK AND TURKISH CYPRIOTS COULD PROBABLY SOLVE THEIR DIFFICULTIES PEACEFULLY, QUIETLY AND AMICABLY. HE EVEN JOKED THAT IN A YEAR OR PERHAPS MORE REALISTICALLY TEN, THE TURKS MIGHT WANT TO SELL THEIR SHARE OF CYPRUS FOR INCREASED PERCENTAGE OF PETROLEUM RIGHTS. AGAIN IN REPLY TO DIRECT QUESTION, GENERAL IOANNIDES STATED THAT HE WAS NOT IN CONTACT WITH ANY TURKISH OFICIAL; HOWEVER, HE ADDED THAT TURKS WERE "OFFICIALLY AWARE" THAT ENOSIS WAS NOT THE OBJECTIVE AT THIS POINT AND THAT GREEK CYPRIOTS DID NOT INTEND ANY BLOODY ACTION AGAINST TURK CYPRIOTS.
9. WHEN ASKED FOR SPECIFICS ON MAKARIOS, IOANNIDES STATED THAT ACCORDING TO GREEK INFORMATION, MAKARIOS WAS ALIVE AND IN HANDS OF BRITISH AT EPISKOPI BASE, HE HAD GONE THERE WITH ASSISTANCE OF CANADIANS AND BRITISH ON ISLAND.
10. AT THIS POINT IOANNIDES SUMMED UP AS FOLLOWS:
A) HE STRESSED THAT HE TOO HAD A GOD; HE WAS DEFINITELY NOT ANTI-AMERICAN; "EVEN A JACKASS NEEDED A POST TO BE TIED TO" AND IN HIS CASE IT WAS THE U.S.
B) HIS HASTY DECISION ON 13 JULY MIGHT HAVE BEEN STUPID. INSTEAD OF ABANDONING CYPRUS AND LETTING U.S. WORRY ABOUT ITS FATE AND POUR MONEY DOWN ANOTHER RATHOLE, HE HAD ALLOWED LOVE OF COUNTRY, A MORAL OBLIGATION TO THE GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS AND HIS "PHILOTIMO" TO OVERRULE LOGIC AND TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOTS.
C) GREECE WOULD DO WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY TO PRESERVE ITS NATIONAL IDENTITY AND TO STAY ANTI-COMMUNIST. IF THIS MEANT KEEPING YIAROS OPEN IT WOULD STAY OPEN AS LONG AS IT WAS NECESSARY AND HE WOULD ACCEPT NO STATIC FROM ANYONE ON THIS SCORE. INDEED,HE HAD INSTRUCTED A GREEK OFFICIAL TO TELL BRITISH OFFICIALLY THAT WHENEVER THE BRITISH LET IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS OUT OF BRITISH JAILS, HE WOULD FREE THE FORTY-TWO GREEK POLITICAL PRISONERS ON YIAROS.
D) HE PERSONALLY DIDN'T LIKE NIKOS SAMPSON, BUT THAT WAS GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALIST DECISION. HE KNEW SAMPSON PERSONALLY AND IN HIS OPINION SAMPSON WAS "CRAZY." HE JOKINGLY REMARKED THAT NEW CYPRIOT MINISTER OF DEFENSE DIMITRIOU WAS VERY PRO-AMERICAN AND THAT OUR EMBASSY THERE WOULD SOON REALIZE THIS. HE ALSO KNEW DIMITRIOU PERSONALLY.
E) WHILE SHAKING HANDS AT CLOSE OF CONVERSATION IOANNIDES STATED "REMEMBER WE TOO BELIEVE IN A FREE, INDEPENDENT AND SOVEREIGN CYPRUS, WE TOO BELIEVE IN NON INTERFERENCE, ALONG WITH TURKS AND ESPECIALLY WITH KISSINGER. WE TOO BELIEVE THAT THE CYPRIOTS SHOULD BE FREE TO SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS, BE THEY GREEK CYPRIOTS, TURK CYPRIOTS OR BOTH."
The Angels of Cyprus, by Nikos Kazantzakis
'Remember that the British fought in Cyprus, and seemingly had everything in their favor. It is an island half the size of New Jersey. The Royal Navy, which can be trusted to do its job, sealed off the island from the outside. There were 40,000 British troops on Cyprus under Field Marshal Sir John Harding, and his opponent, Colonel George Grivas, had 300 Greeks in the EOKA. The ratio between regular troops and guerrillas was 110-to-1 in favor of the British! After five years the British preferred to come to terms with the rebels.' (Bernard B. Fall)
EOKA (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κυπρίων Αγωνιστών, National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters), under the leadership of Giorgos Grivas-Digenis, began its struggle to liberate Cyprus from British colonial rule and unite the island with Greece with a series of bomb attacks targeting government installations on 1 April 1955. Cypriots had been agitating for liberation and union with Greece since the Greek Enlightenment and the campaign came to a head after the Second World War, with anachronistic colonial empires collapsing and subject peoples winning their right to self-determination. The British responded to Cypriots' peaceful agitation for enosis with repression and in July 1954, the British government declared that Cyprus was too important to Britain's strategic interests and would 'never' be allowed self-determination. It is in this context of British cynicism and duplicity that EOKA was formed and in which Nikos Kazantzakis wrote in Nea Estia on 25 September, 1955, the following attack on Britain's Cyprus policy.
The Angels of Cyprus (The fate and honour of an empire)
These very days, a great people are crossing the Bridge of Trika. [The site of a heroic battle in the Greek War of Independence]. It is not only Cyprus' fate that is being judged. It is not the fate of Cyprus alone that is at stake. For the just rock is sure to devour the unjust mountain. What is at stake, what is being judged at the present moment is the fate and honour of a whole empire! The nation that had risen with such national pride and moral exaltation, as one man, to save the honour of the world in those critical hours of the war, is now undergoing one of the fatal apocalyptic trials that will reveal whether its value is genuine or counterfeit.
And at a still deeper, broader level, the fate and honour of the entire Western world is being judged. Always until now, it has boasted that it was fighting for the justice and freedom of other nations. But now we will see whether that world is worthy of using these sacred words, whether the soul of any honourable man at the present time can have confidence in world leaders such as these…
In a major island, 400,000 spirits are raising a hue and cry, demanding their liberty. And the thrice-noble nation where liberty and light were born is raising a hue and cry along with them. From the four corners of the earth (and even from English throats) voices of anger and protest are exploding. By now it is no longer possible for violence and injustice to stifle a whole people in secret, without protest. Apparently, this world we thought had gone rotten, still has spirits that dare to rear their head against hypocrisy, injustice, arrogance.
It is a critical moment. The moral salvation of the whole world depends on the answer given to the Cyprus question. And on this moral salvation, the political, social, cultural salvation of the world has always depended. Cyprus is no longer a detail now, a mere island at the extreme tip of the Mediterranean. It is becoming the fate-marked centre, where the moral value of contemporary man is at stake.
How is the British Empire facing this tragic moment where its own value is on trial? Alas! With means unworthy of a great nation; with unmanly silence at first; and then with deceit, sycophantism, violence. Shame has hidden its face, far off from the disgraced quarters of the Foreign Office.
The genuine people, though, are not despairing. They know that in this dishonourable, inconsistent world, certain fundamental principles still live and reign, daughters of man, whom he has created with his own sweat, blood, tears. And these are the immortal ones. Most of them were born in Greece: freedom, human dignity, the thirst for justice.
Great mysterious forces are multiplying and bearing fruit even while they are being pursued. Hear the words of an age-old myth: An angel came down to earth, and the ruler of the world was enraged on seeing it. And he lunged at it with his sword and split it in two. And at once the angel became two. And again, the ruler of the world lunged at them and split these two angels in two. And the two angels became four, and the four eight, and the eight sixteen, and soon the earth was filled with angels.
Who was this angel? The angel of freedom? Cyprus will soon be full of angels. And the ruler of the world will be crushed, disgraced in Tartarus, his sword shattered.
There is some mystic law in this world (for if there were not, this world would have been destroyed thousands of years ago), a harsh, inviolable law: in the beginning, evil always triumphs, and in the end it is always vanquished. Apparently, for man to buy this privilege, much effort, much sweat, many tears are imperative. And freedom is the most expensive good that can be bought. It is never given for nothing, either by human beings or by the gods. It goes from land to land, where it is summoned, from heart to heart, unsleeping, unsubduable, uncompromising. At the moment we can watch it traversing the soil of Cyprus with steady momentum. And soon its limbs will be spattered with blood. For this is the way freedom always forges its path.
For us this is a good moment to forget our passions and petty cares; for each man of us with his own God-given gifts to follow the path of freedom throughout the land of Cyprus. And we must share her grief, her upsurge, her danger, insofar as we are capable, and surely later on (for this is the law, we said) her great joy as well.
I myself represent nothing. I am not anything. Only a clear conscience. But a clear conscience weighs more in the scale of God and time than an empire. And now that Cyprus has been saved from the waves and is crying out, all clear consciences – from all the quarters of the world; wherever they may be – can hear this cry and see the injustice and cast the stone (the curse) against the ruler of the world, the wrongdoer. The ruler laughs and acts in a cynical manner. He has the power on his side, soldiers, fleets, lethal birds of the air, vast wealth and traitors – and great hubris. He laughs and acts in a cynical manner, but one day (such has always been the omnipotence of man when wronged) – one day, Clear Conscience will hurl this stone at it and it will hang around the neck of the empire and sink it. The great empires have always sunk.
Several years I went back to Cyprus, enchanted by her Greek light and pleasant air. An old man emerged from a peasant home near Famagusta. We picked up a conversation. He was discussing (what else?) the union, and his eyes flashed. And suddenly a broad smile flooded his sunburned face. He put his hand over his heart, and he said, slowly as though confiding some great secret to me:
'The foundation stones of England are shaking! They are shaking, because the human heart has stirred.'
Yes, the human heart has stirred, O great Empire!
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