591 - Cypriot consciousness

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

Every war has its victims. We have our missing persons and our enslaved ones. For the first, the earth is their prison, for the latter, the iron bars of occupation. But the earth is ours. And that is not forgotten by the missing people, and will not be forgotten by the enslaved. Because this earth is their life. It’s there, that they have lost everything, it’s there, that they lived everything: occupied is not merely a word, it is their stone memory, it’s their tormented life, it’s their murdered death.
Those few that society forgot, gave their stigma to the Cypriot people.
And if they didn’t exist, while nobody wanted them to exist, our nation would not have the same value. But how many of us realize the value of their contribution for our Cyprus?
Who understands that their pain is our flag?
Who looks at the enslaved past, to see the missing future ?
In order not to forget, we need to live with them! Our history needs them ,but they also need us. And this is not a matter of government, or of our political consciousness. Because, what does it mean to be a Cypriot, if you have not hurt and you do not hurt for the missing?
What does it mean to be a Cypriot if you don’t stand by the enclaved ones?
The refugee, in exile in his own country, can now demand his existence with his appeal, but we, who are neither missing, nor enslaved, nor refugees, what do we do? what should we do in oredr to feel Cypriots actively ?
Because now we know, that you are not born Cypriot, but you become one!
It is our choices that determine our destiny. And as it’s not sufficient to exist in order to live, it’s not enough to have been born in a land, not for it to belong to you, but for you to belong to it! We too, must support all efforts of our missing people, our enclaved ones and our refugees, because it is the only way that exists so that we can acquire a Cypriot consciousness.
It is our duty, both for our ancestors, and for our descendents.
The chain of time has allowed us to be the first Europeans of our homeland. This is not ours, it belongs to our past. All we have to offer to our children is our future. That future, which will be their present, their lives.
Each fighter has his own battle. We have the Cypriot issue. It was ginen to us by our history. The new data allows us to make new moves. We no longer have the right to say that there is nothing we can do for our country. The subject matter, is the European element. All we long for, is the will.
Everyone can actively help for the liberation of our country, not simply by erasing the past, not just with the eternal compromises of society, not just by criticising the successive governments, but with our personal resistance, with our personal presence in an example battle for history. Humanely, socially, but even economically, everyone can help his fellow man, in order to permanently change our history. The need exists, but the will is also required, not so we could receive praise and awards, not so we could obtain the necessary identity papers but simply so we can also obtain the Cypriot consciousness.