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--- en:digital:platypus:platypus_interview [2024/12/06 14:33] – no_name12
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 **CA:** I said right from the beginning and clearly that there are no illegal people for us and the tendencies that support us. I too am a refugee by birth. But beyond that I think that Cyprus is not an ideal place for these people to come and find a better future.  No we don't want them, conditions are not apropriate. When capitalism has done its job well and left agricultural production at just two percent of GDP, where will these people come to work? Since there is no primary sector. In Greece, Albanians left the olive groves during the olive picking season and left for another country where they found better wages. Who picked the olives? They stayed on the trees. Anyway, many foreign workers both in Cyprus and in Greece cover sectors that we have abandoned or that we need or that we do not have the know-how or anyway for some reasons we do not participate in these sectors as Cypriots.
+I have always used the example of what happened in the European Parliament with the Bolkestein Directive, the Dutch MEP who was a member of the European People's Party, which is part of the Democratic Alliance. What was he telling us? That they once wanted to pass this capitalist restructuring, which said that anyone from a third country who comes to Cyprus, for example, should be rewarded with what they get in their own country, especially the EU ones. This means that the Cypriot employer would prefer the EU workers who are paid much lower in their own country and would leave the Cypriot unemployed. Whereas when the foreign worker, EU or not, comes to Cyprus and is rewarded by law the same, then the Cypriot will prefer Cypriots first and what is left and needs to be covered will be covered by foreign workers. So as not to victimize both local staff and local workers.
+I am certainly against the directive. Obviously we are not the most attractive destination because there is no room for rehabilitation for these people. But why is the European Union, through what Mr Mavroyiannis said, Frontex, the border guard and PESCO, preventing people from moving on and, on the other hand, giving them a blue card? What is the blue card? It prohibits the people of Afghanistan from crossing the border, but it gives the Afghan talented and young people the opportunity to enter with a blue card and work in the European Union as cheap labour again. An oxymoronic and contradictory scheme? For me it is not an oxymoron and contradictory. It is the normal course of events: as Nikos Boyiopoulos masterfully says, 'it's capitalism, stupid'. It is capitalism, imperialism and NATO itself that created all these problems for those peoples on the one hand and on the other hand prevent them from passing on to the countries of Europe for a better future! A very important measure within the institutions and within the European Union is to push things through in the agreement that the European Union has made with Turkey, for the European Union to put pressure on Turkey to issue travel documents so that these people can go to their countries of destination and to prevent the instrumentalisation of the migration issue by Turkey that is being talked about.
+**PC:** So this is an immediate measure that can be taken to mitigate the problem, but I guess you don't think there is a solution to immigration within capitalism, because capitalism creates the need for cheap labor and structural unemployment? In the long term I guess only under communism will there no longer be any problem at all?
+**CA:** I'm with you on that one a thousand times. But let me say this, I've said it several times. Kosovo, Croatia. Were the same problems there when there was socialist Yugoslavia? Did the people who made up the Federal Socialist Yugoslavia then have the same problems as they have with the capitalist restoration in the countries of the former Yugoslavia? No. The Chechens in Russia? The Kurdish one? What about the partitioning of the geographical space of Cyprus? Only with that vision of man's self-realization that we call communism, only at that stage will humanity be rid of them. It is an outgrowth of the capitalist system and its exacerbations that we are now experiencing the situation of immigration.
+**PC:** Can you briefly state what you would do in the short term for the Cypriot economy and workers if you were elected?
+**CA:** A very important question. We have several suggestions. For us the first and most important one is people's housing.
+**PH:** What do you have to say about the Averoff proposal for hotels for students and so on?
+**CA:** These are election tricks. We don't mean what the Cyprus Land Development Organisation says about popular housing or what the Housing Finance Corporation or the Equal Burden Sharing Agency gives. We are talking about state provision, social provision of people's housing completely free of charge to couples to make a fresh start on state land, not a low interest loan. And PEO made hotels for students but put them up and they pay - lower than the rest of us but they pay. I say the state should come within its social niceties and allocate complexes to income-qualified couples to get a fresh start.
+**PC:** Everyone would tell you that there is no money, that these are utopian proposals.
+**CA:** They gave away 204 million from the VAT on naturalizations to big business. Do you know how much we have calculated to be the cost of the first 15 blocks? Not even 30 million. Two and a half billion in unpaid taxes from -get this- from local capital. Half of that amount should go to the state, and there's money to be made. The capitalist institution that is the European Union, itself has given some guidelines on how to collect the unpaid taxes. Also the European Union for the issue of housing sends funds. Were they used? I am telling you that with 30 million you can house the whole of Cyprus. This is our proposal.
+You can house these people completely free of charge and cost the state nothing. I'm telling you that if I say to some developers, "You know, we can give you projects as a state, but my reward will be for you to build me the apartment buildings," they won't pay a cent for the apartment buildings. Since they would benefit from the convenience with the naturalizations. Did we have to give them the VAT as well? It was gluttony. And I am not the one saying it: the Eurobarometer of the capitalist institution that is the European Union says so. We are in first place in terms of corruption. But apart from that, the most important thing is that it can be done completely free of charge and within the framework of capitalism, since it is also in the economy's interest to do this thing. And that's because the working class that would give a 1000-1200 euro loan will now reinvest it back into the economy. It's a cycle in the economy. It's all about how we politicize and we politicize with the leftist, pro-populist perspective.
+**PC:** And taxing the church is another source of government revenue.
+**CA:** That's a whole discussion. I'm only talking about taxing, not taking church property, although I think socialism did very well to take church property. Socialism didn't shut down the church, on the contrary it respected it. But it did nationalize its property. God wants neither money nor hectares of land, and here I am intense. I'm not saying we should take the church's property. I say tax it, the obvious thing. By taxing the church we have solved our problems for 100 years. If it's not 100, it's 30-50 for sure.
+**PC:** In general there are things that can be done within the current economic model. I ask because, watching the debate of the other candidates -they don't invite you to the debates unfortunately- it's not being seriously discussed. I didn't hear from anyone any specific proposal for the economy and for workers. Mostly they are dealing with corruption, immigration and the Cyprus problem.
+**CA:** The thing is that here they can't say what we say. That's the difference between us. We don't have vested interests behind us. We are not afraid to say what we think should be said because we will hurt or displease some people. We are politicking under a qualitatively different point of view, if I can put it that way.
+We do not believe that this current situation can lead to a way out - not only for Cyprus but for the whole of humanity. But we have one thing in mind: we will not victimise today's and tomorrow's generations for what future generations will inevitably experience tomorrow. We want to wage class struggles and, through class struggles, to form consciences for the final vision, the final goal that interests us. To throw this system and the pathologies that plague it to the cliff and to the grave. Let some call us romantics and dreamers. I believe it is inevitable and it is proven to be inevitable. Society started from primitive communalism to end up there in a roundabout way.
+**PC:** Let's talk about an issue we haven't touched, the Cyprus problem. What is your position on the bizonal bicommunal federation? Do you consider it a workable and viable solution? You have said in several interviews that you consider the unitary state a desirable solution. But if we are going to talk about the desirable instead of the feasible, then why not also talk about a socialist federation in the Balkans and Turkey as the Communist Party of Cyprus used to say? Although I imagine in that interview it would have sounded like a very unrealistic position to them.
+**CA:** Feasible under the circumstances I said. There's a telling difference here. I don't consider socialism impracticable but inevitable. It's important that you raise it as an issue, as Skeleas and Charalambos Vatiliotis rightly put it at the time.
+**PC:** So you think they could raise the question of socialism then? It was a time when there was a movement!
+**CA:** There will be periods again when this question will be raised as a necessity. I was talking about the desirability in the sense that some people, and I will say ELAM, also talk to us about a unitary state. However, it does not really believe in a unitary state, as the Zurich agreements provided for bicommunalism.
+**PC:** When you talk about a unitary state do you mean a return to the Zurich-London agreements?
+**CA:** I didn't say, I said what ELAM says. And ELAM talks about a unitary state.
+**PC:** Yes, ELAM means a unitary state with Greek Cypriot sovereignty basically.
+**CA:** But based on the '60s there was bicommunalism...
+**PC:** They certainly don't want a return to that.
+**CA:** When Christos Christou is asked, he doesn't answer us on that. Why does he raise the issue of a unitary state though? Because those who talk vaguely about unfeasible solutions under the circumstances or even maximalist positions are just pouring water into the mill of partition. That is to say, they are doing it out of malice, is what I mean. Of course, if we had the dilemma of a unitary state or a federation, we would all choose a unitary state a thousand times. After all, the Soviet Union after the events of '64 was the first to talk about federation and AKEL brought back enosis in '68, criminally.
+**PC:** The Soviet Union would never have supported a union with a NATO member country at that time.
+**PC:** But Cyprus was already an independent state. The Soviet Union talked in the context of the solution about how to bring about that solution and felt that federation was the only feasible way. Greece dismembered Cyprus and the Soviet Union was well aware of this. In the 1960s NATO did not guarantee the newly independent Republic of Cyprus itself. Why? To let Turkey play the game. The Soviet Union knew that there was no chance of unification in centuries of centuries under this basis. The Soviet Union then spoke in terms of the feasible and not the desirable. So AKEL has criminally failed to adopt the federation position since then, that is my view. And it was still regressing in '68. Now, in a union of socialist Balkans...
+**CA:** So would you now within the realm of possibility, in the short term if elected, would you be in favor of reopening talks for a bizonal bicommunal federation?
+**PC:** You can't help but do so, but with one notable difference: not with the five permanent members of the Security Council. There should be an international conference with all the member states of the United Nations.
+**PC:** And one last question to wrap it up. Regarding the long-term part, how long-term is it and what's in it?
+**CA:** It involves the preparation of consciences and situations, as I said.
+**PC:** Do you think that in our own lifetime we may see some revolutionary effort being made in Cyprus?
+**CA:** I answered earlier with the revolution of Re Alexis, and I am not prejudiced because of my work on the subject. I am happy to tell you that the committee I set up to promote the revolution of Re Alexis managed to get it included in the curriculum, in the indicators of success and in the indicators of proficiency of the Ministry of Education. I believe that this revolution should be a beacon of light for the education, and indeed class education, of our people. How do we draw from this revolution and this example to act appropriately in the future?
+So of course there must be revolutionary processes. But revolutionary processes do not mean that we will overthrow the system in Cyprus and build the People's Republic of Cyprus. The revolutionary process is a continuous process, unstoppable. As long as there is a class struggle. So this must be the role of such a party, front, movement, whatever you want to call it. It is very important to say that Cuba cannot stand alone, it will not exist in the future. The belt is tightening dangerously. It will have to make openings, it will have to play on capitalist terms to endure and exist.
+**PC:** And it's already playing to some extent, China also played.
+**CA:** 49% of Cuba's hotels were opened and given to American companies or other large multinationals, giants, etc. to invest in. But left the 51%, that 51% invests the tourism revenue back to its people. With achievements, right? And we are talking about a country that to maintain even those buildings that are protected by UNESCO cannot because they are not given the material because of the embargo. And it's part of the world heritage, old Havana for example, or Santa Clara or whatever. Therefore, Cuba will not be able to survive unfortunately over the years. I don't disagree with what you say about the world revolution. But if there is a project in a large country like Russia and then in the wake of that revolution a world revolution breaks out, we will not say no. Would you say no?
+**PC:** I wouldn't say no. I would say we should create the conditions here and try to inspire things abroad.
+**CA:** That's right. So you want, for example, because Cuba is now under a socialist development regime, you want it to cease to exist because there is no communist system on the entire planet?
+**PC:** I didn't say that, but I know that if things don't change...
+**CA:** What we said before, so we agree. I say again that the serfs in 1426 should have taken the opportunity and let it be what it wants. At least they gave in and marched for even 10 months, even that, to the visions of the peoples of the entire world at that time. It was a huge undertaking for our people and we don't teach it in schools. And this is where your platform should also make a whole theme about the populist revolution of Re Alexis, because it was a social and a class revolution.
+**PC:** Thanks for the interview and good luck in the elections! Especially all the best after the elections because Cyprus needs a new left.
+**CA:** We all hope so, Phedias. Be well and my regards to all.