Too Many Unhappy Returns....

I woke up this morning pondering the terrible irony that boatloads of evacuees should be arriving in Cyprus today—of all days—the 32nd anniversary of the outbreak of a war that would cleave the island in two.

Cyprus already struck me as suspended in a state of tragi-comic tension. On the one hand, there are the land mines, the missing persons, and the lost homes. On the other hand, I remember the public spat last summer over the “shish kebab summit” that never happened between Papadopoulos and Talat. That intrigue seems rather small today, when I compare it with the incessant Israeli shelling of Lebanon, and the magnitude of this evacuation by sea. Yet aren’t we really talking about the same stuborn refusal to coexist with our neighbors?

Today I’m remembering all of the Cypriots who I met last summer—Greek and Turkish Cypriot—as well as the third parties. It’s the height of the tourist season on the Greek side, and yet I know that somehow you’ll accomodate the thousands of British, Canadian and American evacuees who will swing through your island. Presumably they’ll only cool their heels in Larnaca long enough to catch their charter flights home. I seriously doubt that many of them will realize what occurred on Cyprus 32 years ago this week. But the irony hasn’t been lost on at least one person on my side of the pond. Here’s hoping that there aren’t too many more unhappy returns of the July 15th and July 20th anniversaries....
tCr