THIS YEAR, as on every anniversary of April 1, we heard the familiar refrain from the politicians: that we owe our independence to the EOKA struggle. This year it was recited by vice-president of EDEK Costis Efstathiou who said: “If today there are presidential and ministerial thrones, if there is a parliament, deputies, state officials, we owe this to the Cyprus Republic and to those who sacrificed their life, the martyrs, our heroes, the fighters of EOKA.”

The politicians, who repeat every national day something that even they do not really understand the substance of, are nothing more than parrots. They remind us of the popular poem ‘O papagalos’ (the parrot) by Zacharias Papantoniou that we so dearly loved in primary school. When the parrot learned to say the word ‘kalispera’ (good evening) he impressed all the birds with his human talk and convinced them he had a deep knowledge of the Greek language. They invited him to a gathering to speak to them and show off his unrivalled wisdom.

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http://cyprus-mail.com/2016/04/17/lessons-from-the-parrot-with-one-word/