Compromise is considered a weakness, but heroic obstinacy serves no purpose
By Loukis Skaliotis
“Most of the time now we settle for half, and I like it better.”
The above phrase, as the whole of the closing passage in Arthur Miller’s play, “A view from the Bridge” shook me as I sat in my chair in a recent visit to a London theatre.
Alfieri (the lawyer who acts as a narrator in the play) closes with a speech to the audience telling us that he cannot help but be impressed by a man who would not compromise. He knows that it is better to settle for half, but he is not totally convinced that this is the right way to conduct one’s life. His concluding line shows the contradictory nature of his feelings for Eddie (the main character who gets killed in the final act). He admires him, but this worries him as he senses that a compromise would be the sensible thing to do – “It must be.”
This conflict between emotion and logic plays out in a multitude of circumstances in our daily life. The ‘never compromise’ approach, as we see from the above play written in 1955, is not something new, but it has been growing stronger in our societies and indeed here in Cyprus as well. I was contemplating that, when reading of the latest outcome from the Cyprus Court of Appeal decision to throw out the case brought by two individuals against Turkey for damages for the loss of use of their property in Kyrenia. Although the individuals had won their case in the District Court, which awarded them remedies of over €70 million, the individuals did not want to settle unless they won all their demands. They took the case to the Court of Appeal, essentially asking for a possession order against Turkey and a declaration that its Immovable Property Commission (IPC) accepted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was illegal. Now, not only was their case thrown out but also the original award of €70m has been extinguished.
There is this notion of moral justice that swells feelings of pride in the pursuit of the ‘never give up fight’. The idea of compromise is considered a surrender, a weakness, something that cannot be displayed under any circumstances. It is the trademark of the alpha male exemplified by US president-elect Donald Trump, our own social media commentator Christoforos Tornaritis, who always uses the phrase ‘never surrender’, and many others.
Thus, people who try to argue for a compromise solution in the Cyprus problem are dismissed as defeatist, proponents of any solution no matter what or, at best, idealist dreamers. This group is traditionally in the minority, as recently demonstrated in last week’s US elections.
One has to admit that there is indeed a clarity and simplicity in the certainty of action prescribed by the ‘never surrender’ path. Hence, the admiration shown to Eddie by Alfieri above. In its most basic form, it only requires to keep saying no, until you get what you want.
Conversely, compromise is an art not a science. ‘Getting to yes’ through compromise means ambiguity and a constant struggle in navigating conflicting pathways. Importantly, it requires effort to understand the ‘other side’ to reach a compromise that is balanced and fair, a similarly ambiguous concept. Above all, it requires courage not to allow the ‘never surrender’ feeling to kick in when the finishing line is in sight, something that our politicians have lacked consistently over the years.
One element that hinders the process of reaching a compromise is that the outcome of a ‘never surrender’ choice is often unclear, not adequately identified or quantified. In the above-mentioned legal case for example, the individuals did not contemplate that by going to the Court of Appeal they risked losing the €70m already awarded to them.
Similarly, in the case of the Cyprus problem, there is a need to put the element of a concrete alternative to the ‘no solution’ narrative, as without it, the two sides keep pushing the issue under the carpet in the pursuit of a ‘never surrender’, all or nothing approach, without seemingly suffering any consequences. If there is one thing that we need to address before any resumption of negotiations is this: to spell out the adverse circumstances facing each side in the event of torpedoing the negotiations. Otherwise we risk being faced with the same result once again.
The adoption of a ‘never surrender’ approach when the clarity of the alternative is startlingly obvious is rightly considered heroic. The women of Zalongos, who jumped to their death rather than being taken prisoners by the Turks during the 1821 Greek revolution, when by jumping off the cliff there was doubt what the outcome of their decision would be. The same with our own hero of the Eoka struggle, Gregoris Afxentiou and many other heroes throughout history. But those were decisions which were consciously made when the outcome was concrete and well known. It was not a decision made without knowing the consequences.
Conversely, our own decision to never surrender to the terms of the first proposal by the Eurogroup for our bailout in 2013 swelled our sense of pride for a few days, but is now considered colossal stupidity, and rightly so.
I fear that the Americans were also not in full knowledge of the consequences of their choice to vote Trump into office. His proposed policies have not been adequately outlined or clearly spelled out. On the economic front, the high cost of living was key in his election, yet his proposals will almost certainly be inflationary. On the international front, his much touted, “I am the only one to prevent WWIII from happening”, smells a lot like another 1938 Munich agreement. Unfortunately history has taught us how that played out.
Perhaps it will take another world war for us to come to appreciate that the art of compromise is better than the ‘never surrender’ doctrine.
Loukis Skaliotis is an economist
