Conflict & Society review of The Make-Believe Space

South european society & politics, 2002

The context of the denial of existence of Greek Cypriot refugees by the dominant Turkish Cypriot nationalist discourse offers significant clues concerning the long-term impasse of negotiations about the future of Cyprus. Lack of acknowledgement of the suffering and deprivation caused by the pre-1974 uprooting of Turkish Cypriot civilians helped to breed an environment of a zero-sum game. In this context, within Turkish Cypriot society, post-1974 population movements on the island were largely regarded as 'war casualties'. This attitude led to the extended suffering of thousands of Greek Cypriots not involved in the atrocities or injustice that had affected Turkish Cypriots during the previous decades. The acknowledgement of the history and long-term effects of population displacements that have taken place since 1958 could thus be a crucial step in removing the Cyprus issue from the vicious circle of Greco-Turkish conflict. For scholars of Cypriot studies, with few notable exceptions, detailed analyses of the role played by the social, political and cultural make-up of the ethno-religious communities in Cyprus visa -vis Cypriots' own interpretations of war and conflict points to a necessary and yet largely lacking area of expertise. Well into the fourth decade after the physical division of the island, Cypriot society in toto has yet to come to terms with what happened during the active phases of the Cypriot conflict. A The author would like to thank Peter Loizos and Yiannis Papadakis for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this article. The original version was written during her tenure as a Past and Present fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London where she was funded for her work on modern Turkish Cypriot history between October 1998 and January 2000. She is also grateful to the balanced and nuanced guidance provided by Susannah Verney and two anonymous referees of South European Society & Politics during its revision.

2010

In 1960 the Cyprus Republic was. established as a single, ethnically mixed bicommunal state, with a single flag and an army numbering merely 2000 men. Today, Cyprus is geographicalfy, ethnically and communally divided, with foreign troops on its soil, with all the male members of the population trained as soldiers and equipped with all powerful, up to date weapons. An island of half a million inhabitants, Cyprus stands divided since 1974 into de facto two states, one legal and one illegal, and with four flags; the Cyprus Republic flag and the Greek flag in the Greek south and the Turkish flag with the flag of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" in the Turkish occupied north. And for more than thirty years, the island has been under the direct supervision of the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations. Briefly, this is the tragedy of Cyprus. For more than forty years, the history of this island has lived through successive and varied confictual relationships, even through relationships of violence. In view of this irrefutable reality, it is essential to reflect and acknowledge that as inhabitants of the island, we have all been inevitably formed in and through this history of many and different conflicts. As individuals and as political groups, as communities and as a culture, we have been haunted and stigmatised, one way or another, by this protracted, never-ending confrontation with "the others", whoever they may be, the right, the left, the Greeks or the Turks. It must also be noted that following the violent events of 1974, the various intra communal conflictual relationships, especially among the Greek-Cypriots, has been subsumed and reconstituted around the henceforth major axis of Greek-Cypriot community on the one hand and Turkish-Cypriot community and the Turkish army on the other. And by implication. due to the Turkish military invasion and the pain it induced, the adversarial attitude was generalised. espeCially through the nationalist prototypes. to one of universal animosity between Greeks and Turks."On both sides. the same nationalism which originally created the problem comesf' after the fact. and finds justification in the very historical events which itself ci;eated. It validates, in other words, the nationalist stereotype that enmity between Greeks and Turks constitutes a diachronic, invariable and existential fact, an immutable CONFLICT. ALIENAnON AND THE HOPE OF PEACE: THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE IN MIUTARISED and eternal phenomenon. This stance, or better, this perspective, whether it originates from Turk or Greek, leads to the same outcome. It precludes, in advance, the prospect for peace and reconcitiation. And under these conditions, the search for a "solution" is transformed into a vain, time-consuming preoccupation. Under the nationalist rubric, even if '''the solution" is found on the diplomatic plain. whatever it may be, even the most ideal, it becomes historically unfeasible, even most dangerous. On account of the general impact of nationalism on public culture, the mentality of "us and them" has been shaped not so much by the historical experiences of peaceful coexistence and symbiosis, which have indeed existed, but, rather, exclusively from the events of hostility and violence. The kind of events which the nationalist spirit. wherever it comes from, onesidedly and selectively prefers and utilises in constituting its historical hermeneutic, in which the values of man and civilisation become determined by conflictual prototypes (Anderson 1991, p.6; Kitromilides 1990). And this is the mentality which has tended to become an inseparable dimension of the process of socialisation in the established culture of Cypriot society, in its entirety. inclusive of both communities. By the nature of things, if peace is to be sought and pursued in Cyprus, it is imperative to begin with a diagnosis of the dynamics of conflict as they pertain to both the adversarial attitude itself, and the hostile interactive relationship between the two communities. What is of utmost significance as a starting point for peace in Cyprus is the acknowledgement that each community has its own experience of injustice and subsequently and by implication its own sense of justice. The difference between the two, hinges on the fact that the traumatic experiences that each side has reaped from the conflict refer to-and derive from different events, incidents and historical periods. For the Turkish-Cypriots, the painful memories concentrate mainly on the period 1963-1974. Their recollection concerns the constraining underdeveloped life in their enclaves, which encompassed just 3% of the territory of Cyprus, the defeats in the bloody conflicts with the Greek-Cypriots, with a loss of human life staggering in the eyes of the Turkish-Cypriots as a numerical minority. It concerns the missing persons (483 Turkish-Cypriots over 32 Greek-Cypriots in 1964) and generally the feelings that they were living under conditions of perpetual siege (Volkan 1979, pp 18-25, 119). For the Greek-Cypriots, on the other hand, the experience of injustice originates mainly from the more concentrated, but inundating events of 1974. with the Greek Junta's coup d' etat and the Turkish military intervention. The tragic memories refer to the unprecedented loss of human life, to the mass uprooting from t~ir homes, from one moment to the next, to the unrepeatable destruction 01 prop~rty, to the refugees and the 1619 missing persons. Most significant is also...the fact that the pain and injustice that resulted from the coup d' etat, with all the'mixed feelings of confusion and guilt over the civil bloodshed, were unconsciously transferred and

European journal of psychotraumatology, 2015

South European Society and Politics, 2002

2011

Paradoxically, at the root of many group conflicts are bloodlines that establish a kind of border in times of crisis that cannot be crossed. Two groups who have been neighbors for generations may suddenly be transformed into merciless enemies, and the unthinkable may become a gruesome reality. Individual values can give way to a collective will and the monstrous vision of a charismatic leader. It is difficult for us to assimilate the horror of such acts or understand the wounds suffered by both victims and survivors. Sometimes, we can only ask, 'How could this happen?' Vamik Volkan Blood Lines; From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism 1 Chapter One: Introduction "We are all exposed to different information, and we all process it in a multitude of ways because of our previous experiences and belief systems" Benjamin Broome The island of love, the birthplace of Aphrodite, warm beaches and charming villages.... This is a description of Cyprus, a popular vacation destination located in the Mediterranean off the coast of Turkey. Some consider it to be the crossroads between East and West. It is a country filled with wonderful foods, warm friendly people, beautiful mountains and a great deal of culture and history. However, when taking a stroll through Nicosia, Cyprus' capitol it is evident from the barbed wire, buildings with bullet holes, streets ending at cement walls with guard towers, vacant buildings with rotting sand bags still piled inside, that the past was not always so beautiful, or peaceful. The more recent climate could be best described as 'negative peace', as Johan Gultung describes as "the absence of violence". The most recent of violent outbreaks was in 1974. For 29 years neither the Greek Cypriots nor Turkish Cypriots were allowed to pass through the United Nation (UN) patrolled 'Green Line'. In April 2003, the restrictions were partially lifted. Still, until today, the island remains divided, and the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots must show documentation to pass to the other side of their own country. During their 29 years of separation all information about the 'other side' was given to them through the media and their leaders, almost never through personal experience. The Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have lived in close geographical proximity, but in total isolation from each other, not only physically, but also emotionally.

2011

The Cyprus Review, 2017

The state of exception has been discussed and widely analyzed in academic research, as a space where the dominant force develops its practices through the suspension of the norm. A very large part of research on this topic highlights the ways in which a space can be excluded, surrounded, isolated or converted into a state of exception, as a result of the action of the dominant power. However, the violence or the combination of forms of violence with consent constituting a state of exception produces simultaneously new, unpredictable dynamics. Building on the above theoretical framework, this article seeks to consider the production of 'unforeseen dynamics' which appear against the exceptional spaces. In this article, the epicentre is the Turkish Cypriot community and its relations with Turkey during the 1974-1981 period. It attempts to identify the way in which a colonial type strategy enables exceptional means to transform a space of war into a normal space. At the same time, the article attempts to define the oppositional dynamics generated in the Turkish Cypriot community against the normalization of Cyprus' state of exception.

Akpinar, İ.Y., Olgaç, Ö.O., ‘Being in-between’: re-reading Turkish and Turkish Cypriot identities”, Girne American University, IASS-AIS sub-auspicies Conference, 25-26-27.04.2008, North Cyprus. Since the mid-1950s, the Cyprus issue has always been a main determinant in the politics of Turkey. Following the intervention of 1974, a large number of immigrants have been settling from Turkey to North Cyprus. In this framework, trans-national immigration and its dynamics, immigration and new cultural experiences have not only been reflected into the daily life in North Cyprus, but have also created social and economic dichotomies and the confrontation of the local identity and the ‘other’. In the context of immigration from Turkey to North Cyprus, in other words, in the period of “the space of flows” as pronounced by Manuel Castells, we argue that the Cyprus conflict can be problematised as a being-in-between issue, but not between Greek and Turkish parts, in particular, but also Turkish and Turkish Cypriot parts. In this framework, our study describes the experience of ‘living-in-between’, in other words, the experience of being a Turkish citizen living in Northern Cyprus and being a Turkish Cypriot living in Turkey through the everyday discourse of transnational migrants as well as individual perception. In our study, the role of transnational migrants from Turkey in the making of stereotypes is the main point of departure. Focusing on ‘living-in-between’ in North Cyprus and in Turkey is an experimental study exploring the shift of meanings in crucial terminologies (e.g. Anavatan - the ‘motherland’; Yavruvatan - literal translation might be ‘daughterland’) through the discursive reading of everyday life. Based on our personal in-between experiences in each other’s countries, our study indicates the re-emergence of local identities in the age of globalisation / post-globalisation and unveils hidden layers of the Cyprus issue. This study may contribute to a broader understanding of the Cyprus issue and social, political conflicts in general.

Journal of Modern Greek Studies. Volume 33, Number 2, October 2015, pp.: 397-399 (Review by Pafsanias Karathanasis) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mgs/summary/v033/33.2.karathanasis.html