Cyprus and US Colonialism

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Missouri Coin dealer Wayne Sayles is "shocked" to learn (Stefanos Evripidou, 'Cypriot woman arrested in Syria', Cyprus Mail February 10, 2012) that Cyprus is forgetting its proper place in the world [which is as a colonial "source country" and petitioner of the United States of America], and instead has coin collectors and a market for ancient coins of its own. The xenophobic and colonial attitudes simply reek from the old man's recent post ('Smuggling and Cyprus') on his blog. ("Into Cyprus of all places", how dare they?)

Perhaps the ACCG will be calling on the US to mount a punitive expedition to teach those uppity islanders a thing or two with relation to their relationship with Uncle Sam?

This of course is the whole crux of the CCPIA. Instead of the USA simply applying the measures of the 1970 UNESCO Convention across the board like the rest of the civilized world, they have turned it into a competition between those states who gain US favour by becoming petitioners and client states, and those who are not. By these means they exercise a control on the objects considered as carriers of regional or even national historical identity of foreign groups as another element in its foreign policy. All the client states can do is beg and plead with them to continue to (temporarily) uphold the principles of the 1970 Convention with regard their own cultural patrimony. This is the same as the sickening spectacle of the US manipulating UNESCO in response to the vote to allow Palestinian membership. The ACCG moaning away in the background that none of these nations should be shown any favour and the US should pinch all and any antiquities that they can get their hands on and garner as much as possible on their side of the Ocean only adds to the distastefulness of the spectacle.

I think the US should withdraw from the 1970 UNESCO Convention while it has ambitions to use it and the CCPIA as a political tool against other nations.