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Hasta luego

This will be my last contribution to ACTION as Programme Manager of the UNDP initiative, Action for Cooperation and Trust. By the time the next edition comes out, I will have begun my next assignment in the Executive Office of UNDP at its headquarters in New York.

I have mixed feelings about leaving Cyprus. On the one hand, I feel very proud of the accomplishments of our Cypriot partners and our staff during my time in Cyprus, which encompassed the tail end of the Bi-communal Development Programme and the first year of our new initiative, ACT. On the other hand, as have so many others before me, I feel sad that I am leaving Cyprus with so much still left to be done.

It is, however, particularly gratifying to me that the support for (and demand for support from) ACT from a wide variety of Cypriot organizations remains very high, despite the deterioration in the overall environment for inter-communal cooperation over the past two years and, specifically, the continued efforts of some to paint those brave enough to reach across the Green Line and seek contact and collaboration with those on the other side as unpatriotic or even traitorous.

For those of us international officials who are fortunate enough to spend a few years on this beautiful island, such obstacles to cooperation are indeed a nuisance and a frustration. But, after a while, as in my case, we move on to new countries and different challenges. The many brave Cypriots I have met who can’t or won’t just pick up and leave but who stay on, working and struggling for peace and reconciliation, risking family relationships, friendships and even their careers—through the good times and the bad—are, in my opinion, this island’s true patriots and heroes. Of course, my definition of the word patriot might be somewhat different from that of others. In the Cypriot context, I believe that the true patriot is someone willing to identify with and defend the interests of all Cypriots, not just the ones from his or her own community.

A friend, Mark Gerzon, has written in his latest book Leading through Conflict that “leaders who can traverse divisive boundaries have always been vital to civilization, but today the need for this leadership capacity is even more urgent and widespread.” He goes on to argue that “leading as if the world stops at the edge of one’s tribe, religion, nation, or corporation has become impractical, and often impossible. We simply cannot manage a whole company, a whole community—and certainly not a whole planet—with leaders who identify only with one part.” I cannot agree more with these sentiments.

Perhaps this is the benchmark against which ACT should be evaluated. In other words, if this programme succeeds in creating opportunities for the development of leaders who are capable of not just leading within their community but rather across the many man-made boundaries that confront us here in Cyprus, then perhaps we have done our job. Maybe you know of someone who already fits that bill. Maybe that person is you.

If so, I’d love to know.

Yes, I am leaving Cyprus but Cyprus is not leaving me. I fully intend to stay involved with the long-term effort to build a citizen’s peace in Cyprus. So let’s stay in touch. And let’s not say “goodbye” but rather “hasta luego”.

Andrew Russell
Programme Manager
andrew.russell@undp.org

You can learn more about Mark Gerzon and the initiative he founded, the Mediators Foundation, at http://www.mediatorsfoundation.org.