Queen Elizabeth IIs death has triggered a subdued reaction in Cyprus, where the British monarch is intertwined with the islands painful history of empire, independence and division.
For some Cypriots with long memories, she is the head of state blamed for signing off on the death warrants of freedom fighters against British colonial rule in the late 1950s.
Old wounds reappeared earlier this year during the Queens jubilee celebrations organised by the British military stationed on the island.
In June, a charity concert celebrating the queens platinum jubilee was toned down and relocated to a site within the British bases, after a small but vocal group charged that the event celebrated a killer queen.
The row stemmed from Elizabeth being head of state during the Cyprus independence struggle from British rule from 1955-1959, during which nine young EOKA fighters were executed.
She was a good queen but not for Cyprus She didnt sign to give a life (pardon) the boys fighting for Cyprus, for freedom, and they hung them, said Andreas, an 83-year-old pensioner, declining to give his surname.
But another Greek Cypriot encountered around the capitals busy Ledra Street was less dismissive.
Were sad and we feel sorrow about her death. We wish that the new king will be like her. Long live the king! said Alec Ioannou.
Cyprus has traditionally close ties with its former colonial ruler, but the past sometimes gets in the way.
Although Cyprus is also an active member of the Commonwealth, which the queen headed, she got a mixed reception when visiting in 1993.
Some Greek Cypriots jeered her during an October 1993 visit to Nicosia, the worlds last divided capital.
Royal observers say it was one of the queens worst receptions on her travels.
During her first and only visit to the island to attend a Commonwealth heads of government meeting, the queen was greeted by angry demonstrators and shouts of Go home.
But many Cypriots are also pro-British with a large diaspora community in the UK; many Cypriots choose Britain for higher education, and tourists from Britain are the islands largest source of visitors.
There is also a large British expat community that calls Cyprus home.
Prince Edward and Sophie celebrated the Queens jubilee during their first royal visit to Cyprus in June.
They received a warm reception on the island without a hint of dissent.
We offer our most sincere condolences for the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. At these difficult times, our thoughts are with the Royal Family and the people of the United Kingdom, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades posted on Twitter as the world united in mourning her death.
Cyprus marked 62 years since independence from Britain this year, but the small island remains divided and home to foreign bases and a UN peacekeeping force.
Another residue of discontent with Britain is that the country was a guarantor of the islands sovereignty under the treaty of independence, but the UK did not intervene to stop the 1974 Turkish invasion.
The Mediterranean island, now home to a combined population of about 1.2 million, has been a prized strategic possession for a succession of empires through the ages.
-Murder Mile
Modern history has divided it between a Greek-speaking south and a Turkish-speaking north.
Todays busy pedestrian thoroughfare behind the capitals ancient Venetian walls, Ledra Street, was known as the Murder Mile during the bloody Greek Cypriot guerrilla war against the British army.
The islands majority Greek Cypriot community had fought in 1955-1959 for Enosis, a long-yearned union with motherland Greece.
It finally accepted Britains offer of independence in 1960, conditional on London retaining sovereignty over two coastal bases before inter-communal bloodshed and Turkeys 1974 invasion of northern Cyprus.
See the original post:
History mars ties between queen, ex-colony Cyprus - Breitbart
- 'For All Mankind' season 4 episode 1 review: Lots of moving parts ... - Space.com - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Five Surprisingly Perfect Song and Sci-Fi Book Pairings - tor.com - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Retired Apollo program physcist to speak at First Colony Branch ... - Fort Bend Star - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Have Elon Musk Been To Mars? - TickerTV News - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- What Happened to Danny in 'For All Mankind'? [Spoilers] - Pajiba Entertainment News - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Confusion mars Day 1 of parking fee hike - Times of India - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- The Bodily Indignities of the Space Life - The New York Times - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Will We See a Second Starship Launch this Week? - The Space Coast Rocket - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Can Elon Musk Buy The Moon? - TickerTV News - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- What to watch this weekend November 10, 2023: TV awards contenders - Gold Derby - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Report: SpaceX Safety Lapses Leading to Severe Staff Injuries - Gizmodo - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Luke O'Neill: 'Diverse' group needed to form Mars colony - Newstalk - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Lessons learned from first season with pitch timer, new MLB rules - MLB.com - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Start a life on Mars in Terraformers on Xbox and PlayStation - TheXboxHub - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Opinion | Elon Musk, Geoff Hinton, and the War Over A.I. - The New York Times - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- How much water is there on the Moon? Maybe not enough - Interesting Engineering - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Blueprinting Future Order in the Universe - Asgardia Space News - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Types of proposals and examples of successful business proposals, By Ruth Oji - Vanguard - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Warhammer 40K: The Imperium Is Ignoring A Lot Of STCs Sitting ... - BoLS - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- CineFest Latino Boston: a potpourri of films about the richness of ... - GBH News - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Every Major City & Town In Starfield, Ranked By Vibes - Screen Rant - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Starfield Could Learn A Lot From Fallout: New Vegas' Wild Wasteland - DualShockers - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- 'Tech Week' summer program concludes at Kurn Hattin Homes for ... - Brattleboro Reformer - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- Conspiracy, Resistance, and Rebellion: Between Planets by Robert ... - tor.com - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- Which economies will win the AI revolution? - The Business Standard - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- Moon rocket blasts off, carrying Russias hope of first successful lunar landing since 1976 - The Guardian - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- The 'Reality Check' Era Of The EV Transition Is Upon Us - The Autopian - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- Looking for your next adventure? Why not move to Venus? - The Guardian - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- Meet the Cast of Colleen Hoover's 'It Ends With Us' - PureWow - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- Humanity's Return To The Moon And The Prospect Of South Pole ... - Hackaday - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- India's moon mission sends back its first photos of the lunar landscape as the country looks to become only th - Daily Mail - August 14th, 2023 [August 14th, 2023]
- The Biggest Horror Movie Flops of the 2000s - MovieWeb - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- 31 Unexpected Quirks of Space Travel Well Need to Conquer to Get to Mars - Cracked.com - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- The Future of Space Exploration: Upcoming Missions, Technologies ... - Medium - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Steam free games: download and keep 12 titles right now - GAMINGbible - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- The Hollywood strike can and must win for all of us, not just writers and actors - The Guardian - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Was Extremely Nervous Ahead Of Starship's First Flight, Biographer Reveals: 'My Stomach Is Twis - Benzinga - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Emerges as the Wealthiest Individual on Earth - Clayton County Register - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- I'm Hooked on The Banished Vault's Bad Times Generation - Paste Magazine - July 26th, 2023 [July 26th, 2023]
- Stars on Mars while Writers are still on Strike? - Pop Geeks - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Bill Maher 'doesn't get' Elon Musk's more babies on Mars beliefs - Business Insider - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Everything We Know About Stars On Mars - Screen Rant - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- United Arab Emirates Announces New Mission to the Asteroid Belt - Sky & Telescope - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Best space settlement games: Manage bases & build cities on other ... - Space.com - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Dr. Bruce Bugbee Returns to Cannabis Conference to Share Latest ... - Cannabis Business Times - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Saudi astronauts' rain and health space experiments pave way for ... - Arabian Business - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Word Search: Welcome to the future, where you can rocket to the stars in a space elevator - Gulf News - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- 25 states Americans visit the most | | thewetumpkaherald.com - Wetumpka Herald - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- 25 Best Blockbusters of the 2010s, Ranked - Collider - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Inside Bungie's First Ship Beset by Aliens and Rogue AI - The UESC ... - BoLS - May 31st, 2023 [May 31st, 2023]
- Starship Explodes During Test Flight: What to Know About SpaceX's ... - Smithsonian Magazine - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly": Image Shows the Moment ... - Inverse - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Did the Curiosity rover find alien bones on Mars? - Syfy - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- SpaceX releases simulation video of trip to Mars - Travel Tomorrow - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Fired on Mars cast: Who stars in the animated comedy series - Hidden Remote - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Thanks to NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, you can now circumnavigate the Martian surface - Syfy - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Interpreting the space travel craze | WORLD - WORLD News Group - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- From Wall Street to the Vatican, no one has been spared Twitters paid blue tick policy - The Economic Times - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- 6 best meme coins to buy in 2023 | Bitcoinist.com - Bitcoinist - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- Ved Chirayath is on a mission to map the worlds oceans - Newswise - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- 10 Movies to Watch if You Loved 2001: A Space odyssey - MovieWeb - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- This nonprofit wants to reduce plastic waste one Austin business at ... - KUT - April 22nd, 2023 [April 22nd, 2023]
- To the countryside or into outer space? 1970s utopias about escaping the city - Domus IT - February 2nd, 2023 [February 2nd, 2023]
- Tiverton firm making more parachute fabric for Mars - January 25th, 2023 [January 25th, 2023]
- Goofy Mars Rock Spotted by NASA Rover Might Be a Meteorite - January 17th, 2023 [January 17th, 2023]
- Mars rover Perseverance spots Ingenuity helicopter resting on sand dune ... - January 17th, 2023 [January 17th, 2023]
- Newsroom Discovery, Inc. - December 26th, 2022 [December 26th, 2022]
- Nostradamus' New Year 2023 Predictions: From Cannibalism On Earth And World War 3; Heres Some Shocking Claims Made By The French Astrologer - SpotboyE - December 26th, 2022 [December 26th, 2022]
- Mars Base Simulation in Poland to Lock People in a Habitat ... - Insider - December 21st, 2022 [December 21st, 2022]
- Colonizing Mars: Practicing Other Worlds on Earth | Origins - December 21st, 2022 [December 21st, 2022]
- You Can Build Colonies On Moon, Mars, With Help From... - NDTV - December 16th, 2022 [December 16th, 2022]
- The death of Twitter has dragged on too long. Please, Elon, put us out of our misery - The Guardian - December 4th, 2022 [December 4th, 2022]
- Musk trial over Tesla pay package looks considers his attention span and his friendships with board members - Los Angeles Times - November 19th, 2022 [November 19th, 2022]
- What happens if you grow plants on the Moon? New study shows how they react - Interesting Engineering - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Visualized: The Best Universities in America - Visual Capitalist - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Build and defend a base on an alien world in this surprisingly deep survival sim - PC Gamer - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Elon Musk and ex-lover Grimes believed she was an IMAGINARY character created to be his perfect g... - The US Sun - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- SpaceX Mars program - Wikipedia - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Human mission to Mars - Wikipedia - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Underground Microbes May Have Existed in Ancient Mars [Study] - Nature World News - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]