The north’s ‘education minister’ Nazim Cavusoglu on Wednesday night reacted with fury to the Republic’s Education Minister Athena Michaelidou’s praise of Eoka, the paramilitary group formed with the aim of uniting Cyprus with Greece.
“I read with sorrow the statements of Athena Michaelidou … in which she stated that they teach children the ‘heroism and patriotism’ of the terrorist organisation Eoka and instil in them the ‘will to return to the occupied territories,” he began.
“The hateful language she uses is completely contrary to the culture of peace, mutual respect in education, and efforts for a solution.”
He added that educational institutions are “responsible for preparing young generations for the future in line with the principles of peace, tolerance, and coexistence”, but that Michaelidou’s “praise for a terrorist organisation which claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people in the past” is “both alarming and unacceptable”.
Eoka, he added, had “aimed to destroy the Turkish Cypriot people through ethnic cleansing”.
“Such discourse is a dangerous approach which harms peace and reconciliation efforts in Cyprus, encourages the raising of young generations with hatred and grudges, and completely politicises the field of education,” he said.
As such, he said his ‘ministry’ “condemns such discourses which threaten peace”, and “emphasises that a permanent solution and a culture of living together are only possible in the light of mutual respect, dialogue, and contemporary values and realities”.
“Our children should be raised not with grudges, but with the values of science, art, peace, and human rights. Our young generations, who are the guarantors of the future, should be taught the language of peace, not war,” he said, adding that “the seeds of hostility should never be planted in the education system”.
He concluded his statement by saying, “we call on the Greek Cypriot education ministry to act with common sense and immediately abandon hate speech”.
He was reacting to a speech Michaelidou had made at the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia on Tuesday, in which she had said Eoka’s actions “undoubtedly constitute the most important milestone on the path of Cypriot Hellenism, with the aim of achieving its freedom”.
“The entire people, people of all ages, united around the common will of ‘Enosis’, the union of Cyprus with Greece, carrying out their own heroic revolution for four years – a revolution which, by achieving the shaking off of the English yoke, highlighted models of patriotism, virtue, and dignity,” she said.
She also made reference to the modern Cyprus problem, saying that “given the ongoing illegal Turkish occupation of our land, we must set the example of the fighters of the period between 1955 and 1959 as a beacon of the path we must follow”.
This, she said, will “allow us to achieve the restoration of the human rights of our people, as well as the liberation and reunification of our homeland”.
“To this end, through the powerful means of our education, we seek to inspire in our children the unyielding will to work for the return to our occupied land,” she added.
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