Time to call time on clock changes
THE clocks changed last Sunday morning, with the TRNC being moved back an hour for the winter, now two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This biannual occurrence brings to the fore one of my personal pet peeves about this country, and one that while being a relatively minor inconvenience is something that still irks me enough to put it in a national newspaper.
The problem I have is not so much with the changing of the clocks. These days, most of that is done automatically anyway, and on the day itself I would scarcely notice if everyone did not talk about it. I cannot remember the last time I had to physically change a clock, and even so, having travelled through Europe by bus this year I am quite used to having no idea what time it is, what with the confusion of crossing borders between two countries in different time zones. Furthermore, I felt fantastic last Sunday morning, being well-rested and ready to seize the day before breakfast time, though I am aware that the opposite effect is waiting for me in six months time.
Simply put, I am at ease with brief confusion about the time, but less than pleased with the time being what I perceive to be wrong.
I am of the belief that we are too far to the east to operate just two hours ahead of GMT, and that we should always be three hours ahead at the very least. On the day that this newspaper is published, Saturday November 6, the sun will rise in Lefkoşa where I live at 6.13am, and set at 4.46pm. This state of affairs is, to me, preposterous. Thinking purely about the way most people live their lives, there is no rational and good explanation for the sun to rise while everyone is still in bed and set while everyone is still at work.
Permanent daylight savings, or rather being three hours ahead of GMT all year round, would be in my mind a reasonable solution. Personally, I would not be averse to moving to four hours ahead of GMT in the summer and it being light past 9pm on the longest day, but simply moving to one set time all year round is probably a much more palatable change for most people than that.
The current situation of us being just two hours ahead of GMT and living in darkness in the afternoons and evenings during the winter is in my mind a problem, and one that needs solving. It makes us appear like a nation of goths, desperately trying to hide from the sunlight and effectively offsetting it from any time we are either not in bed or at work.
I do not think I am alone in believing that daylight in the afternoon is much more useful than daylight in the morning. If it remains light later into the evening, people have more freedom to take up leisure activities outdoors and be healthier and more social, rather than emerging from their offices into pitch darkness.
Simple things like going for a walk or taking one’s children to the park is much more achievable when it is not dark outside by midafternoon, as are many other outdoor activities.
It is of course possible to do things in the morning, too, but the great majority of people do not rise early in the morning ready to go on a run, as much as we all wish we had that level of commitment and discipline in our lives.
It comes down to a question of quality of life in my mind, that darkness falling well before 6pm every day for nearly five months of the year limits what one can do with one’s free time.
From a purely leisurebased point of view, therefore, our lives would be enhanced by not turning our clocks back an hour in the winter. This country’s businesses, too, would
benefit from such a move.
Turkey, this country’s only ally and the only one with which its businesses can trade directly, does not turn its clocks back an hour for winter. The completely artificial time difference between us and Turkey means that our businesses effectively lose an hour of time every single day when either Turkish businesses open in the morning and businesses here are not, or in the afternoon when Turkish businesses have closed.
With the situation in North Cyprus as it is, therefore, this time difference effectively erects a small but not insignificant barrier to trade with our largest trading partner for no good reason, especially when one considers that most of Turkey is further west than North Cyprus.
At this moment, it is fair to point out that this idea has already been tried, and that a lot of people appeared not to like it at the time.
When Turkey moved to permanent Daylight Saving Time (DST) in 2016, North Cyprus initially followed Turkey’s lead, spending that year’s winter three hours ahead of GMT, but due to
public pressure reverted to being two hours ahead of GMT the following winter.
People were upset over two things: the apparent negative impact on road safety by it being darker in the mornings, and the time difference with South Cyprus.
Road safety in North Cyprus, or rather the relative lack of it, is a serious concern, as I have written about at great length for this newspaper, and there were a spate of car accidents that seemed to be linked to the darker mornings.
However, a more logical solution to this problem would be to mend the roads themselves and invest in street lights, rather than to plunge the country into darkness early evening for five months of the year.
As for the problem of the time difference with South Cyprus, my honest recommendation is that South Cyprus also stop turning their clocks back in the winter. It is not as if the sun rises and sets any later in the south of this island than the north, and I can therefore say with certainty that the South faces
absolutely the same inconveniences of night falling early that North Cyprus does. Of course, their businesses are currently at ease with this state of being, as Greece and the rest of Europe also change their clocks on the same day, but the issue of quality of life that I described earlier will exist nonetheless.
Even if South Cyprus does not move to permanent DST immediately, I do not think that should stop North Cyprus from taking a lead on this. The confusion and annoyance that occurred in 2016 when this was last attempted would no doubt happen again, but I firmly believe that even a time difference between Cyprus’s two sides would be an inconvenience worth bearing with, in exchange for lighter afternoons and evenings. You have to break eggs in order to make an omelette, after all.
The evidence of this change working is clear to see in Turkey. Turkey saw minimal complaints about the change, and has fully adapted to its new time zone.
The argument could be made that Turkey, being a country that spans much further east than North Cyprus, was in more desperate need of a shift in its winter time zone, with cities such as Kars and Iğdır previously seeing the sun set well before 4pm during winter, but Turkey’s western-most extremities seem to have adapted equally well.
Edirne, Turkey’s
western-most major city, is closer as the crow flies to North Macedonia’s capital city Skopje, which is only a solitary hour ahead of GMT, than it is to Ankara.
The sun now sets after 5.30pm there throughout the winter, and this is a fact that no longer makes the news there.
In circumstances such as these, no news is good news, and therefore we can conclude that the time zone is working well for them.
In North Cyprus, being much further south than Edirne, we can afford to have lighter evenings without sacrificing so much morning light. With things as they currently stand, the sun will rise well before 7am every single morning this winter, which in my opinion is a waste of daylight. There would be nothing of any real value lost to society if the sun rose between 7am and 8am throughout winter, and a lot to gain in the afternoons and evenings.
I urge the government to revisit the subject of North Cyprus’s time zone, and to reconsider moving us to permanent DST for those reasons.
While it may have been an unpopular move in the first instance, I believe it would hold more long-term benefits for the quality of life for people in North Cyprus, as well as for the country’s businesses. Were those factors to be properly explained by a future government, I am sure the policy would be more popular.