Anthestiria, signs of a natural cultural awakening or comfortable neglect
What do finances, natural assets and flying elephants have in common?
HOPE! The age old tradition of Anthestiria is an inherited custom of celebrating spring. It is a quite singular form of valuing the natural assets which possesses the Island of Cyprus and a unique way of exhibiting cultural heritage.
This appreciation however and much like other popular festivals are testimonial of an ever growing gap between the needs, wants and musts of a modern society that consumes culture and attracts tourism. Granted the importance of both cultural and natural assets as evidenced by tourism and travel competitiveness reports, these come with a widely known and reported evidence of a comfortable neglect.
The comfortable neglect is first evidenced by a continued tolerance by authorities of illegal practices that negatively affect the environment and a systemic failure of certain tourism authorities in meeting strategic targets established since 2003 in adequately enforcing policies in favor of a sustainable approach to tourism and developing guiding principles of how to fully exploit singularities of a destination begging for differentiation and competitiveness.
Long before the Jonathan Franzen article, emptying the skies in the New York Magazine, it was evident that a growing negative press was already established and associated with certain culinary practices and tolerance of lawlessness.
Today, not only have efforts by Birdlife association, the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) and a dedicated list of activists enabled that the practice of killing song birds for a snack reach mainstream and consolidate a permanent visibility for Cyprus through different online media outlets such as the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The New Yorker, Huffington Post, Sunday Mirror, CBS internative network, Discovery channel among others.
Despite this media context and growing disenchantment, civil society has yet to support the total ban of a ruinous practice that reverses the negative trend established. With elections coming up and media channels awaiting, are you hopeful for a timely citizen call to action?
Photo Credit: Annual Charity event by the Bank of Cyprus for anticancer society