…because “divide and rule” (damn those Brits) has become our ultimate national sport, and we somehow manage to turn every serious issue into a national debate without even knowing what the actual question is. If you’re not on one side or the other, you can’t survive in this country. You have to pick a side. With Makarios or not? With the Police or with the protesters? Simply waiting to see where the investigation leads and then forming an opinion isn’t even considered an option.
…because to find the truth in a case, the Police alone are never enough. You need the FBI and Europol flown in, five analyses, three experts, one panel regular and two referees who’ve survived three APOEL–Omonia derbies.
…because our President has turned the state and its institutions into an outsourcing service. If Prountzos loses a screwdriver tomorrow, he won’t just wonder where it went — Christodoulides will call in the CIA to comb the alleys of old Nicosia. And even if it turns up, it’ll somehow be “contaminated” because it passed through the occupied areas, and no one will be able to communicate properly.
…because public opinion learns a lot, every day and in fragments, yet always ends up feeling like it’s missing the one piece that would make everything click. Just like the Cyprus problem — always on the verge of resolution, yet somehow stuck halfway. Keeps the mystery alive.
…because you start to think you’re living inside a soap like Land of the Olive Tree, watching a series that never ends. The titles change, the investigations continue, and every morning you open the news not for information, but to see whether a new episode of Cyprus’ most gripping thriller has dropped. One day you conclude it’s all fake; the next you read about hospitalisations and strange reports, and everything blurs together.
…because the phrase “we are at an advanced stage of investigations” in Cyprus usually means the real drama is just beginning — and the Police are somewhere between investigating and being speechless.
…because even when everyone agrees the truth must come out, no one seems in a hurry to meet it before making sure the ground is firm and the wording perfectly safe.
…because if you’re not operating in the uniquely Cypriot “middle-dodging” way, you simply can’t move forward. Whether you’re the Police storming a lawyer’s house in the oddest fashion, or an investigator posting photos that the internet’s Sherlock Holmeses debunk as fake the next day.
…because in Cyprus you don’t need evidence to draw conclusions — you just need Wi-Fi and an opinion. Evidence can come later, if there’s any time left.
…because as a society we turn curiosity into a political stance, gossip into analysis, and gut feeling into certainty — and then wonder how we end up with so much noise and so little understanding of what’s actually going on.
…because as long as you keep sticking wedding loukoumia on the fridge door, you’ll go on thinking everything in this place is dark and decayed, without even knowing what’s dark and what’s decayed.
And in the end, there really is nowhere like Cyprus. Because it’s the only place that can search for the truth with such intensity, discuss it with such certainty, and still be left with so much confusion.
By Michalis Stavrou