Tag: Cyprus stamp

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Cyprus 1990, perhaps we should update the refugee picture, no better not

Once you have a program for dealing with refugees, they will keep coming. Greek Cyprus had a huge Greek refugee problem in 1974 after the island was divided along racial lines after the Turk invasion. A set of stamps were issued that year to financially support the fellow countrymen refugees. A nice gesture but the stamps just keep coming because so do the refugees, no longer Greek. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This is a very long lasting stamp issue. It was not a new design in 1990, and the same design still comes out today with the issue date adjusting in the bottom right corner. They also include the 1974 date to make the sad Greek girl sitting behind the barbed wire less bogus. In my research I read an article on the refugee crisis in modern day Cyprus. The refugee exemplar was a Syrian man who had been a teacher there and had paid smugglers $10,000 to get him to Cyprus in the hope that being in the EU would allow him to go on to Northern Europe and then perhaps on to Canada. He is stuck in an expensive legal limbo in Cyprus. No doubt a sad life but it is hard to make a charity stamp out of that. Wasn’t his duty as a Syrian to try to make his homeland a better place?

Todays stamp is issue PT3, a postal tax stamp issued by Cyprus shown here in it’s 1990 variation. That year it was a single stamp issue although the design has lasted so long that Cyprus has gone through three currencies with it. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 60 cents used.

In 1974 Turkey invaded and carved out a portion of southern Cyprus for the Turkish minority that they felt were not getting a fair shake from the Greek dominated government. Cyprus was and is not officially part of Greece. The aftermath was an ethnic cleansing that left 300,000 Greek Cypriots having to find a new home. There were of course also Turks that had to move, but that is a story for a different stamp. It should be remembered that there are fewer than one million Greeks on Cyprus so moving 300,000 really was a massive undertaking.

With Cyprus being set up as an ethnic state for Greeks, there are legacy refugee rules that have lasted into being in the EU. There is no legal provision for a non Greek refugee to be granted permanent residency. There is only a system for temporary deportation holds until the situation in the native country improves. Even this status only comes after a lengthy legal procedure and there is no provision for further travel to say Canada or Sweden. At some point the Cyprus government could declare the indeed slowly improving situation in Syria good enough and send them back.

You might think that perhaps harsh rules might discourage the flow of refugees. That has not been the case. Over 5 percent of the population are now non Greek refugees and that of course is a massive burden on Cyprus and one that will inevitably change the country.

This modern image wouldn’t do for a sympathetic refugee stamp. With the refugees too lazy to even mow the grass.

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

 

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Cyprus 2007, Takism wins over Enosis but the Greeks move forward

The Greek government on Cyprus has worldwide recognition but the island is still divided with 40 percent of the island an unrecognized Turkish state. A pleasant surprise is that the rivalry has not completely prevented the island from moving forward. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp issue shows a collection of neoclassic buildings on the Greek part of Cyprus. Left unstated on the stamps, is that most of the buildings featured are from the period when the whole of Cyprus was a British colony. Museums and libraries and important government buildings, built by the British and for everyone on the island. A legacy hard to replace but not adequately recognized as to how they happened. The British, who did their best to cope with the diversity that neither side wants to admit and as a result after the British left after repeated Greek attacks the island divided.

Todays stamp is issue A408, a 30 cent stamp issued by Cyprus on October 2nd,2007. This stamp featured the National Gallery of Contemporary Art and was part of a 8 stamp issue in various denominations. The stamp’s denomination is shown in both Cyprus and Euro cents as it was issued during the Greek part of the island switching to the Euro currency. The Greek part of Cyprus achieved membership in the EU separate from Greece in 2002. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.50 unused.

The British gave up on Cyprus in 1960. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/07/the-british-in-cyprus-again-having-to-stand-between/  . Greeks expressed a desire for Enosis, which was union with Greece. However there was a large Turkish minority that was facing ethnic cleansing if the Greek wishes were allowed to occur. The Greeks began attacking British targets in the island while the British tried to come up with some power sharing arraignment so they could leave. Given that situation, it is a wonder that any of the architecture on this series of stamps survived. The Turks on the island promoted Taksim, a division of the island. After independence there was a small scale guerilla war between Greeks and Turks. In the early 70s, Greece was under a right wing military government that supported a coup, that ended power sharing arrangements toward integration with Greece.

The Greeks did not fully consider the arrangements the British had left for them. If one side tried to force an end to power sharing, the other or Britain  had the right to intervene. A few days later, to Greek shock, the Turkish Army invaded and occupied 40 percent of the island. Taksim won over Enosis. The island required much ethnic cleansing to get everyone on their side of the line and Nicosia is now the only divided capital of Europe.

Greek Cyprus has done fairly well in recent years. The ancient sites and good weather attract tourists. The island as also become an offshore banking center mainly catering to Russian oligarchs. The wealth as seen some of the buildings on the stamps be replaced. The building on the stamp still houses a small art gallery but the art scene in Nicosia as a new dominant player. The A. G. Leventis gallery opened in 2014 in a large building resembling a prison with white marble walls. Though the gallery claims to feature local art, it also features a Paris collection, based on what the museum’s namesake kept in his Paris apartment. I get it, he’s rich and wants everyone to know it. My city also features a newer big gallery in white marble with some rich guy’s name on it. It is probably too late for both places to be recolonized by the British and have them build a tasteful gallery actually aimed at protecting and explaining the heritage.

Well my drink is empty and perhaps I should stop while I an ahead. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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The British in Cyprus, again having to stand between

How do big countries let themselves be dragged into these things. Cyprus contains many Greeks and many Turks. The route to peace is clearly for them to learn how to get along or partition. Instead the brilliant answer is to expensively send a disinterested army. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp today is from the period in Cyprus history when, I think to the surprise of all, it was a crown colony of Great Britain. So in it’s way it is a very typical late colonial period stamp offering. There is His Majesty King George VI looking down on a view of the colony. These stamps both try to convey to locals that they are an important part of the empire and secondarily to the many British Empire stamp collectors that Cyprus would be an interesting place to visit. I don’t think the stamp did much to further either of these goals, but I respect the effort.

Todays stamp is issue A36, a one quarter pence stamp issued by the crown colony of Cyprus in 1939. It displayed the ruins of the Vouni Palace. It was part of a 16 stamp issue showing historical sites around Cyprus. According to the Scott catalog the stamp  is worth 60 cents either mint or used. The stamp to look out for in this issue is the 1 pound portrait of King George VI that is worth $45 in mint condition.

Cyprus had belonged to the Ottoman Empire for many years. As with much of the empire it was multi ethnic, but with a majority of ethnic Greeks. When Greece won it’s independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, there was a movement to unite Cyprus with Greece. This movement was brutally put down by the Ottomans. The brutality included 486 beheadings including 4 Greek Orthodox bishops in the central square of Nicosia. In 1877, the Ottomans faired badly in a war with Russia and made a secret side deal with the British giving them control of Cyprus. This kept the island from Greek control.

World War I saw the British at war with the Ottoman empire and they formalized control over Cyprus by declaring it a crown colony. Successor state Turkey formally disclaimed any interest in Cyprus after World War I. The Greeks on the island were plotting to expel the British and to achieve political union with Greece. By the 1950s there was a full military uprising. Britain managed to give Cyprus independence with a power sharing arrangement with Greeks and Turks on the island. This lasted until 1975 when there was a Greek militant coup which threw out the coalition government. The Turkish army invaded 6 days later and occupied 40 % of the island. Many on the island had to relocate to get on their side of the line and the island remains to this day partitioned. To this day Britain retains a small peace keeping military force on the island. I could find no accounting for how much getting roped into Cyprus cost Great Britain since 1877.

The Vouni Palace was built about 500 BC by Phoenicians that were then under the influence of the Persian Empire. It sits on a mountain from which it can control the then Greek city of Kyrenia. Kyrenia and the ruins of Vouni Palace now are located in the Turk part of the island and the town is now completely Turk after the ethnic cleansing of the mid 1970s. The site was extensively dug out by a Swedish archeological team in the 1920s.

Well my drink is empty so it is time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Further reading on a similar British Quagmire. https://the-philatelist.com/2017/12/05/mosque-of-omar-the-mandate-to-try-to-stand-between/.