ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
By Sener Levent*
The Russians are a calm and patient people. Any Russian that you may ask will tell you that “our best characteristic is our patience”. Once I asked some of them, “why patience?” They gave me as an example the writer Alexander Solzenytsin. He also, they said, was always talking about patience. The Russians survived 300 years of Mongol and Tartar rule as well as 30 years under Stalin. “How patient is our people?”, Solzenytsin would ask. Yet, just as with many other people, the Russians are not far behind in playing the bully.
“We hope they do not force the cup of our patience to overflow, because if this people’s patience blows, then it will be hell on earth”, the Russians say. In snowcapped Moscow people start their morning by drinking a glass of vodka. The first snowfall is during October, in Moscow, while the last snow melts around May. This is a climate that makes most people melancholic. I spent 15 years there. I saw how cool headed the people were, even during the collapse of the Soviet Union. I will not forget the scene where during that time a young girl climbed up an armored tank on the day of the coup against Michael Gorbachev and read the poem to liberty by Pushkin in front of the very eyes of the stunned soldiers. The Russians are a people that is not in a hurry to make decisions. As my good friend Hasan Aksai says, they await for the proper time and day, and then they seize it. Hakan knows them much better than I do. He stayed there 26 whole years. That’s is adding up a few. He considers the shooting down of the Russian aircraft as the biggest mistake of Turkish foreign policy.
There is no doubt that Turkey shot down the plane but the order came from America. No matter what, Turkey would never dare on her own to do such a thing. From what I have read in Russian newspapers, the Russians understand this full well. Essentially Putin understands it also. Yet, do not think that if Turkey goes to war with Russia, NATO will come to Turkey’s support. Europe cannot risk a conflict with Russia. The Europeans still have the fear of “Ivan the Terrible”. This was instilled in the heart of the Europeans when the hammer and sickle was raised by the Russian soldiers over the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945. From 1945 onwards, and for as long as the Soviet Union existed, the Europeans were calculating how long it would take for the Russians to take over all of Europe. The Europeans lived with that fear. Will they now dare risk a war with this nuclear power? They are always trying to weaken Russia by other means.
When the Russian plane was shot, the pilots were paraschuted out of the hit plane. Did you see what happened afterwards in the amateur video that circulated? One of the pilots managed to escape and was saved by the Syrian Army. The other was shot by fire from jihadists while he was still up in the air. Did you see what the barbaric jihadists did to the pilot’s dead body once on the ground? These are scenes that outrage even the calm Russian people. I do not think that Russia will let such a thing go by.
There are many lessons from this incident and its aftermath for the people of Cyprus. Especially on the matter of guarantees. How can Turkey, a country that has been identified so closely with the most barbarous of terrorists, be a guarantor power in Cyprus?** Neither Turkey nor double-faced EU can be our guarantor. We need no guarantors or anything of the kind. We should force ourselves to think very hard in order to find a solution to our problems by ourselves and for ourselves.
- Editor and owner of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika. From the Greek Cypriot newspaper Politis, by permission – www.politis-news.com
** Translator’s note: the late Rauf Denktash, leader of the Turkish Cypriot community for over 50 years, had remarked that even if Turkish Cypriots did not exist, Turkey would have to invent them. This argument has been repeated by current Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu. Both are indicative of Turkey’s thinking and regard over Cyprus, and her people, be they of Greek, Turkish or other descent (Armenian, Maronite, Catholic etc.