“BEFORE WE ARE FORGOTTEN, WE WILL BE TURNED INTO KITSCH”

I’ve cited this phrase by Milan Kundera before, taken from the final pages of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Each time I do, I believe it applies even more aptly to the new case at hand – in this instance, to Nicos Anastasiades.

Perhaps this is due, in part, to the prestigious office he held as President of the Republic of Cyprus. The people elected him to this high office twice: first with 57.48% of the vote, then with 55.99%. His decade in power was undoubtedly anything but smooth sailing. One might better describe it as ten years on a knife edge.

This period saw the peak of the financial crisis, the unprecedented “haircut” of bank deposits, the behind-the-scenes drama of Eurogroup meetings, the closure of banks, internal adversities, and efforts to rebuild the economy. Meanwhile, crucial developments in the Cyprus issue unfolded, with pivotal meetings in Mont Pèlerin and Crans-Montana, the collapse of negotiations, the burial of the federal solution, and the emergence of “two states” in the subsequent political discourse.

It was also a decade marred by a series of corruption scandals and moral impropriety that tarnished the country’s international reputation, leading to its featuring in documentaries and series by international networks. Regrettably, the President’s name wasn’t merely mentioned in these scandals – in many cases, he played a central role.

Nicos Anastasiades himself isn’t a politician whose path has been strewn with roses. Borrowing from Spyros Papageorgiou’s eloquent title in his well-known book about Archbishop Makarios, and perhaps slightly overstating, one might say he was a politician who went “through fire and steel.” Fortunately, this was in a modern context, without the brutal violence of bygone eras. His journey was marked by fierce internal party challenges, political crises, machinations, political antipathies, and ideological hatred. He was a politician glorified by those who hated him and hated by those who glorified him. Yet he prevailed. Whether due to having “a shark’s stomach and crocodile skin,” as he once told me in an interview, or his ability to adapt to circumstances with a talent for persuasion, or because he had the capability, stature, and mechanisms to set up, shape, and control the political game.

In essence, if Nicos Anastasiades, with his intense and experience-rich political journey during such a crucial period for Cyprus, had chosen to record and share his memoirs – as many heads of state do after their term or final withdrawal from politics – historians, researchers, and other interested readers would have benefited greatly. We’ve seen politicians write about specific political events, like Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika.

Others, like Al Gore, have shared their concerns about humanity’s future based on their experiences. We’ve also seen leaders choose to record their life and political journey comprehensively, like Barack Obama in “A Promised Land.” Locally, Glafcos Clerides devoted his four-volume testimony to the Cyprus issue with a purely political approach, while Demetris Christofias chose to record his complete life story, both personal and political.

Nicos Anastasiades could have done both. He might have written about the unprecedented economic crisis his country faced, when his partners had metaphorically held a gun to his head. Or about the swan song of the Cyprus solution, sharing his experiences from behind closed doors and lengthy negotiations. Or indeed, a book documenting his life and political career, enriched with personal moments, starting from when the Anastasiades family travelled by motorcycle with a sidecar – his father driving, their dog perched on the fuel tank, his mother behind his father, the twins in the sidecar, and his sister in the luggage space.

Of course, everyone decides based on their true stature, their understanding of politics, and how they perceive their legacy. That’s why he’ll leave us a book titled “The Slanderer” – responding to corruption accusations from a former close associate [Editor’s note: This passage refers to the book “Mafia State” by Makarios Drousiotis which accuses Anastasiades and other members of the Greek Cypriot elite of widespread corruption]. And informing us, in his brief biographical note, that he was awarded honorary doctorates by four universities. May it fare well.

 This article was originally published on 16.02.2025