A few years ago, hardly anyone would have dared to glorify Grivas. And among those few, you certainly wouldn’t have found the Speaker of Parliament or any other state official.
When mothers were still searching for their missing children at the Ledra Palace checkpoint, no one could have shamelessly commemorated the man who established EOKA B. When thousands were living in tents, no state or parliamentary official would have dared say “Grivas’s actions in the ’50s were different from those in the ’70s. EOKA was different from EOKA B” – as the government now claims.
In 2025, when we imagined we would be light years away from everything that led to the Turkish invasion and ongoing occupation, the Speaker of Parliament and DISY leader walks with a mournful expression (mourning Grivas’s death or the loss of dignity?), while DISY’s new vice-president and Famagusta regional leader, Yiannis Karousos, declares that their party “sent a strong message to those who question who Grivas really was.”
However, history has already decided who Grivas was. What’s being revealed now is the true nature of those who attended. They were driven not so much by ideology or obsession but by ambition. Yet eventually, the two become one. You can’t straddle two boats forever; at some point, you must choose. And the rise of the far-right is pushing them to jump into its boat, which has plenty of room for the ambitious. The rest of us are expected to believe that yesterday’s commemoration was about honouring EOKA’s liberation struggle because the government “wants to put this matter to rest.”
Full stops are easily made, but ceasing to discuss an issue doesn’t make it disappear. What remains is the flirtation with fascism. The legitimisation of far-right ideology. The cultivation of extreme conservatism and hatred. The normalisation of Trumpism and all it encompasses. The whitewashing of the coup.
And who’s behind this? Politicians who entered public life as ambassadors of freshness, difference, moderation, progress, consensus… A woman – young, intelligent, and presentable – is in the highest position of power ever reached by a woman. A young, well-read and well-travelled man leading the state. They’ve become nostalgic for the darkest times, thanks to their ambitions.
Instead of joining hands to create a bulwark against the far-right’s advance, they (one through proxy) attend the memorial service of a man who divided the country and brought devastation.