Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict 9780755619306, 9781780761077

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ACK NOWLEDGEMENTS

The papers in this volume were first presented at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Cyprus Centre conference, ‘One Island, Many Histories: Rethinking the Politics of the Past in Cyprus’ in November 2008. The editors wish to thank the Chrest Foundation, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and PRIO Cyprus Centre for the financial support that made that conference and this publication possible. We would like to thank Panicos Chrysanthou for providing us with the cover photo.

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INTRODUCTION Modalities of Time, History and Memory in Ethnonational Conflicts Rebecca Bryant and Yiannis Papadakis

The essays in this volume examine a long-term and intractable conflict in which the narration and memorialisation of history play a significant role in the ongoing struggle. Like the island itself, history in Cyprus has been divided, usually into sides described as Greek and Turkish, with only a few variations in between. The homogenisation of Cyprus’ history into the history of two competing sides in a conflict not only suppresses the possibility of other histories (and others’ histories) in public discourse, but has led to binary scholarship on the recent history of the island. Many authors have worked to understand the emergence of these binary categories, at the same time often unintentionally reinforcing them (cf. Demetriou 2006). Our goal in this volume is to understand the ways in which, in a particular conflict, parties to the conflict engage history as an actor in the struggle, and how the engagement of history in the struggle makes history itself resistant to questioning and change. Cyprus is a particularly powerful example of this problem, as it is a divided island that has been stuck in a stalemate for thirty-eight years – not the end of war, but its suspension. Life on the island is ‘peaceful’, to the extent that the past four decades have witnessed only rare and isolated instances of violence between persons in the two main parties to the dispute. But despite this lack of violence, or the usual

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signs of war, no Cypriot would say the island is at peace. Rather, the conflict has continued to be fought on legal and diplomatic terrains and, as in any conflict, the possibility and anticipation of violence remain. As other scholars have noted, the presence or absence of violence is often the key factor in determining whether or not a conflict has concluded, hence ignoring the many subtle ways in which a conflict continues by other means in the absence of violence (Richards 2005; Ghufran 2006; Perez 2008). In Cyprus, history has become the primary actor in battles fought on legal and diplomatic terrains; as a result, narratives of the conflict represent a continuation of the conflict. Some of these narratives have been employed to justify or contest decisions of the United Nations Security Council regarding the conflict. More recently, history has been employed in legal disputes over property initiated by dispossessed owners in both local and transnational courts. In all cases, the actors are aware of the necessity to shape and employ particular narratives that will resonate both domestically and internationally, narratives that will in turn shape the course of the conflict. A common remark by foreign diplomats visiting the island is how, upon first meeting any leader, they were subjected to the ‘history lesson’ ordeal. Writing immediately after the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes observed that war ‘consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known’ (Hobbes 1962: 100). War is not only about violence but also about the anticipation of violence, and thus involves a distinct temporality – what we might call a ‘time of war’. Although the Cyprus conflict is frozen, as though someone has pressed the ‘pause’ button, all parties are aware that the wrong trigger, the wrong button, might begin the action again; the Cyprus conflict threatens to flare up again, should any of its participants make the wrong move. This is what anthropologist Pradeep Jeganathan calls living in ‘the shadow of violence’ (Jeganathan 2000). Jeganathan deftly deploys the notion of anticipation to describe the ways in which the anticipation of violence has defined ‘Tamil-ness’ in southern Sri Lanka; it is similarly possible to note the ways in which the anticipation of violence defines the

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boundaries of community in Cyprus. What we would note here, however, is the way the anticipation of violence brings the future into the present, requiring us to ‘second-guess’, or to act in preventative mode. The future is always possible now, at this moment, viscerally present in the act of anticipation. A few years ago, before the failed 2004 referendum on a United Nations reunification plan, it was common to hear many Cypriots say it was time to forget the wrongs of the past. For many Cypriots this was the meaning of peace: allowing the present to remake old wounds in order to move forward into the future. Indeed, peace is not only the absence of war; it entails a shift in our sense of time, the possibility of ‘putting the past behind us’. Hence, if a ‘time of war’ entails the constant anticipation of violence and the continuous revival of past wounds, one of the primary harbingers of a ‘time of peace’ is a willingness to ‘let the past be past’. Cyprus certainly has not achieved a time of peace; in many ways the island is still locked in a time of war. The present is an immediate one, where one’s actions acquire significance through the anticipation of future violence and the use of the past as a site of struggle. The essays in this volume address the use of history on the island, but they are more specifically concerned with the ways in which the past is trapped in a present defined as a time of conflict. They are concerned with the ways in which history becomes a site for struggle, as well as a weapon used in the struggle. They are concerned with the ways in which challenges to these uses of history have called for a new understanding of the present and a rethinking of the future to which it should lead. And they examine these challenges in the context of an unresolved conflict which some wish to resolve by ‘putting the past behind us’. We suggest that intense ethnonational conflicts result in certain modalities of history, time and memory whose characteristics this introduction attempts to outline. Where an intense ethnonational conflict assumes the most central position as society’s primary concern, where it comes to be considered as a society’s one and only real concern, the conflict comes to colonise the emic categories of history, time and memory. This state of affairs gives rise to certain social paradoxes we

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strive to elucidate and explain: an almost-religious yet strongly secular discourse; an intense preoccupation with history leading to an outcome where nothing can belong to the past and so, in effect, there is no history; the overtly political use of history in tandem with an abhorrence for any political use of history; the overwhelming presence of an official/dominant historical narrative and the proliferation of unofficial stories; states of knowing and not knowing; states of acceptance and denial; states of remembering to forget and forgetting to remember; and states of democracy inhabited by certain widespread authoritarian social discourses. We inquire here, then, about the social factors that make historywriting in ethnonational conflict so resistant to change. Examining one important case, the essays in this volume investigate the emic categories that shape official histories, recent changes in the relationship between history and memory, and the impediments to and possibilities for coming to terms with the past. The authors herein not only examine the politics of the past in relation to the present, but they attempt to formulate new questions that will allow us to rethink the future of history on the island.

Outline of the Cyprus Problem What has come to be generically called ‘the Cyprus Problem’ has in fact gone through various phases: anti-colonial struggle, interethnic and intra-ethnic violence, postcolonial instability, war and external interventions. Since 1974 the island has been divided in its current form, in what has been a long-lasting political stalemate. But the first physical division between Greek and Turkish communities took place during the colonial period, when Nicosia was first divided due to interethnic violence. During the early twentieth century, while Cyprus was a British colony, Greek and Turkish nationalisms spread in Cyprus: Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians identified themselves as Greek, while Turkish-speaking Sunni Muslims identified themselves as Turks. The Greek Cypriots (around 80% of the total population, according to official survey figures from 1960) demanded enosis, the Union of Cyprus with Greece. During 1955, EOKA (the National

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Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) was formed to wage an armed struggle to bring about Union with Greece. Turkish Cypriots (18% of the total population) demanded taksim, the partition of Cyprus, and they set up their own armed organisation, TMT (Turkish Resistance Organisation), in 1958. Neither of these two major ethnic groups was successful, and the island became an independent republic in 1960. Yet the two communities continued to pursue their opposing goals, leading to the eruption of interethnic violence in 1963 and the withdrawal of Turkish Cypriots – who suffered most, in terms of casualties and the displacement of around a fifth of their population – into armed enclaves. The UN arrived in Cyprus in 1964 to quell the violence. The east-west axis drawn as a ceasefire line between the communities in Nicosia was called ‘the Green Line’ and retains that name today. By 1967 interethnic violence had abated, but a different conflict emerged, this time within the Greek Cypriot community. The Greek Cypriot leadership gradually edged away from enosis, especially after 1967, when a military junta grabbed power in Greece. But a small group of Greek Cypriot right-wing extremists, calling themselves EOKA B and backed by the Greek junta, insisted on enosis and instigated a coup against the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, in July 1974. In response to the coup, Turkey launched a military offensive in Cyprus that divided the island along the Green Line, which now splits the entire island. Turkey claimed its offensive was necessary for the protection of the Turkish Cypriot community and within her rights as guarantor power of the Republic of Cyprus’ integrity, a right granted to Turkey (along with Greece and Britain) by the constitution of Cyprus. While around 45,000 Turkish Cypriots were displaced from the island’s south to the north, around 165,000 Greek Cypriots were displaced from north to south. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, missing and dead, with the Greek Cypriot community bearing the greater number of both. In 1983 the Turkish Cypriot leadership declared its own state in the north, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). This state remains internationally unrecognised, except by Turkey.

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Throughout this period, Cyprus witnessed another, externally less visible conflict, between the forces of the Right and Left within each community, with significant incidents of violence against the Left. Leftists were often branded as traitors in their own communities, either for cooperating with the other ethnic group or for being communists, which was considered to lie outside the dominant definitions of Greek and Turkish identity. Moreover, as Evropi Chatzipanagiotidou and Andreas Panayiotou make clear in this volume, the Left on each side of the island has developed its own history, histories that challenge the dominant nationalist narratives. Since 1978, Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders have agreed that a solution to the Cyprus Problem should take the form of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with political equality for the two ethnic groups, and negotiations to reach a political settlement are still in process. A major watershed in these negotiations was the jointlynegotiated, UN-finalised plan for a solution, known as the ‘Annan Plan’, a version of which became available to the Cypriot public in late 2002. At approximately the same time, it became clear that the Republic of Cyprus, represented only by Greek Cypriots, would be allowed to join the European Union as a full member, despite the ongoing division of the island. Large protests by Turkish Cypriots in favour of the Annan Plan and potential EU entry, and in opposition to their own intransigent leaders, led to the opening of the checkpoints that divide the island in 2003. For twenty-nine years the ceasefire line had been almost impenetrable to Cypriots, and the immediate response to the opening was a moment of euphoria, as many Cypriots rushed across the line to see the ‘other side’ and to visit their old homes. This euphoria was dispelled only a year later, however, in 2004, when the majority of Turkish Cypriots accepted the Annan Plan at referendum while Greek Cypriots rejected it. The reunification plan failed, and the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus formally entered the EU as the sole legitimate government of the island only a week after the referendum. Although the entirety of the island is technically part of the EU, the EU’s body of laws, the acquis communautaire, is suspended in the island’s north pending the political settlement of the conflict.

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Partition as Injury Since 1974, the Cyprus Problem has been understood as the island’s division, while the partition line might be seen as a wound in the body politic. Indeed, in divided societies the marker of division is often understood as an anomalous gash that must be healed. David Lloyd, in his discussion of Ireland, notes that ‘partition, which produced Ireland’s unsettled border, operates like an unclosed wound, marking not only a past violence but one whose perpetuation in the daily practice of the state left it in a continual state of emergency’ (Lloyd 2008: 132). Division, then, both recalls past suffering and points to an uncertain future. Indeed, Elaine Scarry (1985: 121) has convincingly argued that the use of wounds is an intrinsic part of what she calls ‘the structure of war’: Injuries-as-signs point both backward and forward in time. On the one hand they make perpetually visible an activity that is past, and thus have a memorialization function. On the other hand they refer forward to the future to what has not yet occurred, and thus have an as-if function. Scarry refers specifically to wounds on the body, but we would note that in divided societies the wound on the body politic represented by an ‘anomalous’ partition is often assimilated to representations of wounded bodies. Scarry continues: The work of this second, reality-conferring function depends in turn on two attributes of injury . . . First, the visible and experienceable alteration of injury has a compelling and vivid reality because it resides in the human body, the original site of reality, and more specifically because of the ‘extremity’ and ‘endurance’ of the alteration. Second, this reality can be conferred on either set of disputed issues (or as sometimes happens, a mixture of issues from the two sides) because of the nonspecificity of reference, or the referential instability of the hurt body (Scarry 1985: 121; emphasis in original).

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It is precisely the referential instability of injury to bodies that makes it available to represent other types of wounds. Paul Sant Cassia demonstrates that in Cyprus the two main communities visually represent suffering in quite different ways. While Greek Cypriots employ a more abstract and referential form of representation, Turkish Cypriots have used a form of representation that may be seen as ‘realistic’. While the former is more evocative, utilising photographs of missing persons to refer to their absence, for instance, the latter is primarily documentary. The Greek Cypriot approach, then, ‘evokes an absence and potentially anticipates a resurrection’ (2005: 151), while the Turkish Cypriot representations ‘have the function of ensuring that the past is not forgotten, by being documented’ (2005: 150). Hence, as Bryant has argued elsewhere (2012), such wounds may be used to refer to the ‘wound’ of partition: in Greek Cypriot official discourse this wound is one that must ultimately be healed, in a future when all wrongs will be set right, while in Turkish Cypriot official discourse this wound is cast as a type of necessary amputation, both perpetually recalled and always forgotten. Importantly, this dual function of suffering as both memorialisation of the past and ambiguous anticipation of the future makes events of the past continually relevant to the immediate present. We wish to analyse here this peculiar function of the past in situations of conflict by looking briefly at the various ways in which conflict histories pervade the lives of those living in situations of conflict. In particular, we outline some of the ways in which history is remade in the present conflict, as well as some of the prospects this remaking of history presents for history’s futures.

Conflict in Histories, Histories in Conflict During a 2003 workshop in Germany on history education, one of the Greek Cypriot participants described his experience working as part of a team on the creation of a new history schoolbook for primary education. He recounted how, during one of the team’s discussions, the issue came up of ancient Cypriots who sided with the Persians against the ancient Greeks during the naval confrontation

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at Salamis in 480 BCE. One of the book’s co-authors, an older Greek Cypriot school teacher, sighed: ‘This makes me feel so ashamed’. Why should this man be ashamed for something some Cypriots did thousands of years ago? Clearly it’s because he identifies himself and those ancient Cypriots as members of the same community, the Greek nation. These strong feelings of identification, stretching back hundreds or even thousands of years, can have grave consequences. In the same way that one can feel strong personal feelings of pride, shame or joy with regard to an event in the distant past, pain can also be experienced in an equally personal manner. An injury to the national ‘self’ thousands of years ago is as relevant as one merely decades ago and can inspire calls for revenge or retribution in the present. In an important article on inter-communal killing in Cyprus, anthropologist Peter Loizos (1988), striving to understand the ‘logic’ behind the killing of a family of Turkish Cypriot civilians by a Greek Cypriot, suggests that this is one important reason for such actions. Where the socially relevant past stretches back hundreds or thousands of years, this means in effect that there is no history. Nothing can be said to be in the past, in the way one exclaims, ‘that is history!’, meaning it is over and done with and of no relevance to the present. History emerges as a pile-up of grievances, a series of injuries inflicted by one or more historical actors. We wish to suggest, however, that this is a projection into the past of current or recent grievances against specific ethnic groups with which one is currently in conflict. For example, Greek Cypriots put conquering Ottomans and present-day Turkish Cypriots into one category, ‘Turks’, while Turkish Cypriots use the generic Rum to categorise people of the Rum millet (the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire) and present-day Greek Cypriots, hence lumping Greek Cypriots together with all of the Orthodox Christians who rebelled during the end of the Ottoman period. Projecting the category of the (current) major enemy back in history turns history into a long-term conflict with the same actor. Notably, neither Turkish nor Greek Cypriots do this with other historical actors who are currently not part of the

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conflict; they do not call the Venetians ‘Italians’, nor do they call the Lusignans ‘French’. Ethnonational conflicts inevitably involve contesting land claims. This is one of the reasons for the adoption of such ‘deep histories’ as expressed through the argument, ‘historically this land is ours’ or, even more pedantically, ‘we were here first’. The Greek Cypriot strategy has been to define the arrival of ancient Greeks in Cyprus as the beginning of the History of Cyprus. Their account of history defines Cyprus as a historically Greek island, which legitimised their demands for political Union with Greece. However, the outcome of this historical logic is to treat all others (non-Greeks) as remnants of foreign conquerors, meaning, in effect, that they have no place on the island, and that their presence there is the result of historical injustices. The Turkish Cypriot strategy has been to begin histories of Cyprus with the arrival of the Ottomans in 1571 ACE, giving great importance to Ottoman martyrs during the conquest and making it appear that the only truly ‘historical’ period of the history of Cyprus begins with the Ottomans. Once again, one notices a certain selective tendency in such arguments, since neither Greek Cypriots nor Turkish Cypriots dispute the rightful presence in Cyprus of other communities like the smaller Armenian, Latin or Maronite communities. The predominance of ‘deep histories’ is an outcome of the tendency to narrativise history. The choice of the narrative form for the purpose of representing history is in fact a political choice, albeit more often an implicit or unconscious one, since history at large is considered synonymous with political history. As Hayden White (1987) explains, narrative inadvertently moralises history, turning it into stories with villains and heroes, happy or tragic ends. Narrative entails the use of a central (historical) actor, the protagonist, who occupies the story’s moral centre and from whose perspective events are evaluated. In ethnonational conflicts, this actor is invariably the nation, once again an implicit or unconscious political choice given other possibilities of addressing history qua history – for example, class or gender, among many others. For a story to work, the protagonist must be present from beginning to end, hence the projection of the national community into

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the deep and even ancient past. The story’s theme is conflict against one or more historical opponents. One classic motif of such stories in the Balkans and the Middle East has been called ‘the Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ (Papadakis 2007). The Good stands for the national self, the Bad for the historical enemy and the Ugly for the ‘West’ or the ‘Great Powers’, who should have been on the side of the Good but usually side with the Bad or at least allow the Bad to persist in his evil deeds. Hatay and Papadakis examine the narrative construction of opposing official histories of Cyprus. Their chapter analyses the different narratives used by each officialdom, Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot, and how these changed in different historical periods according to the emergent political goal. For example, when Greek Cypriots demanded Union with Greece they constructed a narrative of Cyprus as a historically Greek island whose natives were ‘Greeks’ and had struggled for centuries against various enemies, notably the ‘Turks’. Later however, especially after 1974, when a new demand for the reunification of Cyprus emerged, the plot of history changed into a past of peaceful coexistence, one that legitimised a united Cyprus, the main actors now being Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, categories that didn’t point towards unbridgeable difference, as with Greeks and Turks, but now expressed ‘natural’ affinity. This chapter indicates that the shifts in narratives were dramatic and paradigmatic in a Kuhnian sense, with changes in plot, historical actors, beginnings, etc., thus making the new historical paradigms not just different but incommensurable with previous ones. This chapter closes with a discussion on the ‘fetishism of history’, a common predicament in societies facing deep ethnonational conflicts. History is elevated to the most important form of public discourse, since even political discourse is thought to be based on an understanding of history. History is anthropomorphised and hence should be respected and not betrayed. In short, history is presented as the autonomous actor whose commands citizens should obey, rather than as a social construct. This turns historical discourse into a highly authoritarian one, like a religious dogma whose challenge should be treated as

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sacrilege. As we previously argued, this turns history into an actor in the conflict. The defining characteristic of such histories is they are narratives of victimisation. It is in the use of history to present victimisation that Scarry’s analysis of the ‘referential instability’ of wounds in war is most relevant. At first glance, the presentation of one’s own victimisation appears a peculiar strategy, in that one usually wants to present the self as active or even heroic. But presentation of the self as passive and suffering also entails its appearance as devoid of any responsibility – all responsibility and fault lies with the other side. In Rebecca Bryant’s chapter, we see the ways in which suffering has been used to justify the ‘heroic’ rescue of Turkish Cypriots by Turkish military forces. But in another Kuhnian paradigm shift, Turkish Cypriot disappointment with Turkey’s continuing presence on the island has led to a rewriting of that history, not as passive suffering, but as heroism. At the same time, such presentations of the national self remain ones in which an ethnicised ‘other’ is both the cause of suffering and, in the case of Cyprus, also on the other side of the division line. Hence official histories that present themselves as ‘the History of Cyprus’ remain ethnocentric, focused on the history of Greeks in Cyprus or the history of Turks in Cyprus. Mehmet Ratip, in his chapter in this volume, explores the ways in which such onesided histories exclude other historical explanations, such as those that incorporate Cyprus into larger regional histories or histories of global capital, as well as the category problems that impede the incorporation of large numbers of persons of non-Cypriot origin currently living on the island. When history becomes an ethnocentric story, the protagonist can only be the national community. Other kinds of history have to be sidelined and other kinds of conflicts and alliances, such as class conflicts or alliances across ethnic divides, have to be denied, erased or masqueraded as ethnic. Nationalist narratives abhor any approach that examines history along different categories, like class, as they destabilise what is most essential in the construction of the nationalist narrative: homogeneity. Once this is challenged, the notion of a well-defined

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central actor collapses, as well as any attempt to derive an unequivocal (political) meaning from the story. Panayiotou addresses the censorship of working class experience in Cyprus. His chapter on the politics of the past examines how Greek Cypriot historians systematically ignore the dimension of class in their discussions of the island’s Ottoman and post-Ottoman past, or else distort it into ethnic conflict. Panayiotou also suggests that another paradox lies at the heart of historical discourse at large in Cyprus. Speaking about Greek Cypriots, he notes that there is open acknowledgment of the instrumental use of history ‘to address and counter the effect of the Turkish occupation’, but that when opposing historical views are expressed, they are attacked as politically-motivated attempts to distort history. The discussion of history takes place as one of indisputable truths, despite evidently great dispute regarding any issue. This discussion is highly polarised, as one would expect in the presence of great divides, external or internal. Such discussions take place along binary divisions of our truth/facts/objective history and their lies/propaganda/politically-motivated accounts. This strong objectivist stance towards history is illustrated by one of the commonest mediums which parties employ as ultimate proof – usually of their victimisation – in such disputes, the realist photograph. Such photos have been abundantly employed by both sides in Cyprus though, as Paul Sant Cassia argues (1999), they have been employed in considerably different ways. Given the relation of photography with external reality, as reality’s physical (visual) imprint, the medium of photography reinforces the intended sense of unquestionable objectivity. The style of such photos, or their lack of style (some are out of focus, badly composed, technically problematic, etc.), further reinforces this sense of unmediated reality by suggesting it has not been composed or ‘staged’ but ‘taken’ – photos are taken, not made, once again suggesting the predatory notion of grasping a piece of the real – on the spur of the moment as things happen. As Sontag (2003) rightly argues, though, the intended effect of unquestionable objectivity or unshakeable evidence does not necessarily come across. For those who publicise these photos, this may

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indeed work and they may indeed regard them as unshakeable proofs. As Cornford remarks, propaganda may be ‘defined as that branch of the art of lying which consists in nearly deceiving your friends without deceiving your enemies’ (1922/1993: xv). For the others, these photos will not only be unpersuasive but will carry a certain ‘stench’ of propaganda. This may even apply to third party observers, given how savvy we have all become regarding the possibility that the camera can indeed lie, and the recognisable ‘style’ of such photographs, which immediately suggests they are political propaganda. The previous discussion was not meant as a dismissal of positivism or the goal of objectivity in history, but as a critique of simplistic notions of objectivity which are employed to present what are in effect highly dubious political claims as indisputable truths. Loizos’s chapter, which begins with the adoption by the author of a strong positivist position, indicates the complexities, revisions and ethical and theoretical considerations involved in striving for this ideal. Loizos confronts the debate between positivism and relativism by beginning his essay with the following quote by Hobsbawm (1998: ix): ‘Relativism will not do in history any more than in law courts . . . Any innocent readers who find themselves in the dock will do well to appeal to it [old fashioned positivist evidence]. It is the lawyers for the guilty ones who fall back on postmodern lines of defence’. This is an admittedly strong position to take. While Loizos structures his article around the court metaphor, closing with a legal discussion on hearsay and what constitutes admissible evidence, he cautions how difficult it is to operate by such standards. Using three case studies from his own research, each of which involved a long-term engagement trying to understand a very specific event, he describes how his understanding changed as new historical evidence became available and more witnesses were, so to speak, called to the stand. Loizos gained access to Turkish Cypriot recollections of the event; prior to this he had only been aware of Greek Cypriot perspectives. He concludes from his experience that even if one tries to understand the past for its own sake, the project is an open-ended one, and a collaborative one, meaning here that in cases of ethnic disputes evidence from all concerned sides must be made available.

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Bearing in mind Loizos’s metaphor of history as a law court, it is worth considering Koselleck’s (1985) discussion of modern and pre-modern modalities of time. While modern histories are openended, oriented towards an ever-expanding progress, pre-modern histories were teleological, leading to particular ends. During the medieval period, Koselleck argues, people of the past and present were regarded as contemporaries living in expectation of the Final Judgment. We suggest that ethnonational disputes also engage teleological histories, that people in such disputes live in a different but equally powerful expectation of a secular Final Judgment. This Final Judgment is the time of ‘the Solution’ (of the conflict), a time of reckoning, when wounds will be healed or justified. In this Final Judgment, the two sides will reach an agreement after arduous negotiations, during which each tries to maximise its gains, which also means maximising its own suffering and downplaying that of the others. This process often takes place under the watchful eye of third parties (like the UN) and is articulated in strongly legalistic language suggesting court procedures, where the evidence will be weighed and the verdict pronounced once and for all. The agreed solution is perceived as a final act of apportioning benefits, gains and losses to the concerned sides in an irreversible manner. In other words, the two opposed actors are in a state of living under what we would like to call ‘the shadow of the Final Judgment’. The use of wounds, or signs of suffering, points always to this future, a future that hasn’t yet occurred. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in the case of Cyprus, the dominant discourse on both sides for almost half a century, and repeated daily in news broadcasts, newspapers and political statements, can be summed up thusly: ‘This is a critical moment for the Cyprus Problem’. Negotiations to solve the Cyprus Problem have been taking place since the 1960s (Anastasiou 2005), negotiations that each and every time have been accompanied by hopes for achieving the Solution, but the strength of this claim hasn’t diminished, despite its longevity. By contrast, the constant failures make each new possibility appear even more critical. As in the case of the medieval period when, according to Koselleck, people of the past and present were regarded as

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contemporaries living under the shadow of the Final Judgment, so in the case of ethnonational disputes the judgment is one to fall on both the living and the dead. Past struggles and sacrifices will lose or gain meaning in the light of this solution/judgment, and a ‘bad’ or ‘unjust’ solution will be regarded as invalidating past sacrifices: in the end they sacrificed for nothing. It can thus be regarded as rendering past struggles meaningless and as an act of disrespect, a dishonour to the dead heroes who sacrificed themselves. It is not just the living upon whom the Final Judgment will bear but upon the entire national community, past and present. Living ‘under the shadow of the Final Judgment’ has significant social repercussions. If this is to be the moment of reckoning with past wrongdoings, this creates a powerful imperative to hide them. This is the source of the commonly observed yet still striking paradox in many societies in conflict: the refusal to take measures that could pave the road towards a lasting solution before a solution is reached – the implicit or explicit postponement of such measures until after a solution. We are referring here to cultures of censorship and self-censorship prohibiting the admission of mistakes or violence committed by the ‘national self’ while demonising others (Papadakis 2006). ‘It’s not time yet’, politicians and other social actors will whisper when called upon to address the atrocities committed by one’s own side. Even while engaged in negotiations, the two sides may still continue the entrenched habit of demonising the other through the commonly observed, up-to-the-last-minute blame game, the other who will soon be the partner with whom the people must cooperate if the peace process succeeds. Educational reforms which could present a more rounded view of the past in various ways (e.g., move beyond political history into social history, indicate how social groups have never been homogeneous, break down the ‘all-good self’ and ‘all-bad other’ stereotypes propagated through history books, etc.) are often postponed until after a solution, as they are considered too risky, that they carry the risk of internal strife. Indeed, those who publicly criticize the view that it is always and only the others who are the aggressors – a view which has acquired the status of quasi-sacred belief – are often

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branded as traitors or collaborators, and may end up as victims of occasional witch-hunt type campaigns to purge such unpatriotic elements. Needless to say, where internal critique has been virtually non-existent, the very word compromise is evaluated as unjustly selling out. Why should we compromise? We who are the only victims and have committed absolutely no evils? The discussion of education often focuses on history books. Yet, as Stravroula Philippou shows, this problem extends much further, into geography and civics education. Geography textbooks used by Greek Cypriots are underpinned by ‘a historical representation of Cyprus as historically Greek, monocultural and exclusive of other (old and new) communities and minorities in Cyprus, including Turkish Cypriots’. Not only are schoolbooks and curricula strongly Eurocentric, but Cyprus is presented as naturally belonging to Europe, since ‘Europe’ has been based on the ‘Greek inheritance’. It could be argued that the educational system has been collaterally-damaged by ethnic conflict and has become authoritarian as a whole, given the political implications of all humanistic and social studies subjects, from language and literature to religion and economics.1 Pattie’s chapter in this volume takes the issue of history education and identity formation one step further. Instead of focusing on the history curriculum per se, she examines poetry performances among the Armenian community in Cyprus. The affective power of such performances is described by one of her informants: ‘The former [the history lesson] was boring and most of it has not been registered whereas the latter is vivid and vibrant and touches the heart and registers’. Through collective school performances involving recitation, music and movement, a powerfully affective sense of identity and history is created, in a classic Durkheimian manner. Pattie’s analysis outlines one of the most powerful ways in which history, identity and memory can be embodied. Arguments for undertaking the necessary social reforms in education, or beyond, to pave the way for an agreement may of course be dismissed, once again through an almost shrieking whisper, ‘It’s not time yet . . . ’ It is argued that such painful processes will create

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internal ruptures, and for the sake of the ultimate good – for one’s own side, never for both sides – we have to remain united under our current leadership. After all, if people do not support the current leadership, they may not support the solution it may deliver – this is the closing point in this circular argument, an argument whose logic appears to allow no escape. Such tendencies towards censorship, however, extend to acts of internal violence; admitting that acts of internal violence were committed means that co-nationals too are capable of inflicting violence, not just those on the other side of the ethnic divide. In the case of Cyprus, for example, this has led to unwillingness to address acts of internal violence committed by the two freedom fighter organisations, Greek Cypriot EOKA and Turkish Cypriot TMT. The other side of the same coin, however, is the creation of a culture of rumours, insider jokes, quasi-underground counter-histories, or subcultures based on the divergent memories of specific social groups. These groups may have been on the receiving end of internal violence, or for certain reasons they may have expressed a muted sense of identification with the so-called enemy group, or with certain of its components. In the Cypriot context, such groups cluster around the Left, especially the two largest left-wing parties, Turkish Cypriot CTP (Republican Turkish Party) and Greek Cypriot AKEL (Progressive Party of the Working People). The most contentious events that still have an impact on the present belong to the period of 1955–1974, which means older Cypriots can still speak as witnesses. That these periods and events are so contentious means people often feel compelled to tell their version of the events in order to correct what they believe are other, incorrect versions. This powerful notion of witnessing (Sant Cassia 1996) lies at the root of the aforementioned creation of rumours and subcultures of memories. The two senses of witness can express the relationship between memory and history – witness as having firsthand knowledge, and witness as taking the stand in the law-court of history. The largest, most detailed and most-quoted Cypriot political memoir is that of the ex-President of the Republic of Cyprus, renowned politician Glafkos Clerides (1997), which is titled Cyprus: My Deposition.

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To return to our earlier discussion on the metaphors of wounding that surround the island’s division, we should also note that the national self, in the case of Cyprus, is also invested in using suffering to ‘prove’ the legitimacy of the two states on the island. While Greek Cypriot histories support the legitimacy of the Republic of Cyprus – which since 1964 has been a de facto Greek Cypriot state – and hence the reunification of the island, Turkish Cypriot histories of suffering have attempted to legitimise their de facto, unrecognised statelet in the north of the island. Even in negotiations presumably aimed at a federal solution of the Cyprus Problem, Greek Cypriot negotiators consistently push towards something that closely resembles a unified state, while Turkish Cypriot negotiators push for greater independence for the two constituent states. David Lloyd observes, regarding Ireland: The evident territorial arbitrariness of the border of the state marks insistently the equivalent ideological arbitrariness of state power, foregrounding the reliance of the state on coercive and disciplinary institutions to maintain its existence. Where both the territorial boundaries of the state and its legitimacy are in question . . . the state of emergency becomes perpetual. The liberal ideal of the state as a unifying site of reconciliation for civil society succumbs to the ceaseless and anxious repetition of foundational and performative violence (2008: 135–6). Similarly for Cyprus, we observe that the ceaseless repetition of conflict histories in the name of legitimating the state, as well as the community that it presumably represents, leaves little room for the development of civil society outside the parameters of the ‘national issue’.

Memories of Conflicts, Conflicts of Memories Since 1974, every time a Greek Cypriot pupil opens his or her writing pad, he or she faces the slogan ‘I Don’t Forget’. This means, ‘I don’t forget my home in the north, my property, that of my parents

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or grandparents, my city or village’. Turkish Cypriots show an equally strong reverence for remembering: ‘We Shall not Forget’ means we will not forget our suffering during the 1960s, the suffering of our martyrs, their sacrifices to protect us from Greek Cypriots, how Greek Cypriots treated us . . . In both cases, this call to remember is primarily a call to the youth in each community, youth with no such first-hand memories. Yet this is precisely the point. Young people have to remember in accordance with the dictates of older generations. Their parents’ homes have to become their homes; their parents’ suffering has to become their suffering, and so on. This is an example of what Hirsch calls ‘postmemory’, which she defines as: . . . the experience of those who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are evacuated by the stories of the previous generation shaped by traumatic events that can neither be understood nor recreated (1997: 22). As Connerton (2006) argues, the repression of memory in authoritarian regimes led both to an intense interest in the academic study of memory and to a generic positive stance towards memory – as the opposite of forgetting – in contemporary western societies. Memory, in short, is good; forgetting is bad. One of its most popular articulations has been Kundera’s famous quote: ‘the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting’. For our purposes here, we should note that the situation is reversed vis a vis authoritarian regimes. Conflicts exaggerate the call to remember, resulting in an authoritarianism of remembering: I Do not Forget, We Shall not Forget. Postmemory suggests precisely this violent imposition of remembering by the old upon the young, one based on traumatic memories. Yet any injunction to remember is simultaneously an equally strong injunction to forget – it means that if only ‘this’ ought to be remembered, then the rest is to be discarded in the waste-bin of amnesia. Memory always necessitates forgetting, for to remember

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all is impossible. Memory is always selective; in our case it is selective for political ends. This present use of memory, as well as the subordination of personal memory to politics, becomes especially apparent in the chapters by Evropi Chatzipanagiotidou and Aybil Göker, who examine memory in the diaspora. Chatzipanagiotidou examines Leftist discourse, noting that the ways in which diaspora Leftists write the past, and even their own memories, may be antinationalist without being counter-hegemonic. Göker, on the other hand, examines the ways in which members of the Cypriot diaspora experienced uncanniness during visits to their homes after the 2003 opening of the checkpoints, prompting them to revisit memories they had suppressed and to rewrite memory in relationship to present-day politics. Yet, as Connerton remarks, remembering carries its own risks, as the ancient Greeks were also aware. Directives not to forget are often linked to past grievances and can lead to a vicious cycle of retribution. In 403 BCE the Athenians decided to declare a general reconciliation and erected on the Acropolis their most important temple, an altar dedicated to Lethe, the Goddess of Forgetting. As Connerton (2008: 62) explains: ‘The installation of this altar meant that the injunction to forget, and the eradication of civil conflict that this was thought to engender, was seen as the very foundation of the life of the polis’. This kind of injunction – forgetting as amnesty – was also engrained in the Treaty of Westphalia, the first modern diplomatic congress and the founding moment of modern state sovereignty. In the case of Cyprus, possibly the strongest call to forget was proposed by right-wing Greek Cypriot party DISY. DISY pursued an active policy of ‘forgetting’ regarding the coup, arguing that it was a source of division between Greek Cypriots and Greeks, as well as among Greek Cypriots. However, DISY’s pledge to forget the coup risked contradicting the endlessly repeated official Greek Cypriot slogan ‘I Don’t Forget’ (Den Xehno). To avoid this glaring contradiction, DISY’s admonition to forget the coup was made using the archaic word rarely used in modern Greek, lethe (forgetting), as opposed to xehno (forget). DISY consistently advocated amnesty for the culprits

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of the coup and those who supported them, a policy it put into action after it came to power by reinstating 62 government employees who had been dismissed for their involvement in the 1974 coup. DISY’s call for forgetting, along with its reinstatement of ‘the 62’, provided an exemplary confirmation of Burke’s (1989) insight into the link between amnesia and amnesty. This state of affairs has not only created a ‘culture of witnessing’ on the island in which, as we note above, personal memory is actively employed for political ends, but it has also created large gaps in collective memory, or states of denial in which people claim knowledge and ignorance at the same time. In her chapter in this volume, psychoanalyst and historian Catia Galatariotou discusses the corrosive effect of ‘false belief’, or the pervasive interpretation of events in ways that are socially acceptable but factually doubtful. In her discussion of recent revelations about the fate of certain missing persons, Galatariotou notes: . . . while so many Greek Cypriots constantly demand to be told the truth about ‘what happened’ in 1974, when they come into close contact with a solid bit of the supposedly longed-for truth . . . many of them are repelled by it; they instantly withdraw from it while violently attacking it, as if truth itself is The Enemy. This indicates, she notes, ‘resistance to the type of insight and knowledge on which real psychosocial change is predicated’. In ongoing conflict situations, memory cannot be the antidote to history. Memory is all too frequently colonised by conflicting histories. This inspires impossible demands or results in a conformity of thought; both make social change all the more difficult.

Conclusion In his discussion of the ways in which certain histories may be forgotten, marginalised, or excluded from the canon, anthropologist MichelRolph Trouillot notes:

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. . . silence enters the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance) (Trouillot 1995: 26). While Trouillot’s observations apply to all history-making, the silencing takes on an explicitly political significance when history becomes an actor in a conflict. The chapters in this volume discuss all four of these ‘moments of silencing’, in order to better understand the ways in which history takes shape during conflict and how it becomes an important part of its substance. In the absence of continuing overt physical violence, conflict in Cyprus has been acted out on the terrain of history, using memory and accounts of particular acts as weapons in the battle. One of the primary aims of this battle has been to force one side to accept the other side’s version of history – a battle that now takes place through lawsuits in transnational courts such as the European Court of Human Rights. Thus understanding the role played by history in conflict situations is one of the keys to ‘disarming’ the combatants. The chapters in this volume, then, question the way in which history has been utilised as part of the struggle on both sides of the island; how and why histories have been written as they have, especially at particular moments, and why certain questions from the past have become ‘unmasterable’ or resistant to dialogue and debate (cf. Maier 1988). The collective result is a clearer understanding of the active role history plays in the present and of the social dynamics that reproduce history as a form of struggle, rather than as dialogue. One solution often proposed to divisive histories is the creation of a ‘common narrative’, one on which all can presumably agree. In light of the ongoing political division of the island, however, producing a single, authoritative narrative of Cyprus’ history seems neither possible nor desirable. Single narratives are often produced after conflicts have been completed and resolved, and sometimes through the

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imposition of a ‘victor’s justice’ in the form of trials and tribunals. In contrast to transitional justice frameworks, which attempt to produce a definitive truth about past violence, we may need instead to consider ‘multiple, admittedly subjective truths as a means of building an inclusive political community’ (MacDonald and Bernardo 2006: 173). Indeed, Alexander Karn has argued that finding a single, ‘true’ history is undesirable, and that historians investigating divided pasts should instead aim ‘to render the past in a way that allows rivals to maintain what is crucial to their self-identity while gently wresting away the distortions that have put them at odds’ (Karn 2006: 46). The contributions in this volume, then, aim to focus attention on the role of historians in overcoming the difficult past and in directing public attention to issues that continue to impede reconciliation. Certainly, the capacity to discuss the past in civil debate is the foundation for any future of reconciliation and of democratic inclusiveness on the island.

Notes 1.

See for example the report on the Greek Cypriot primary and secondary education systems, which criticises them as based on outdated, ethnocentric and undemocratic curricula, methodologies and books (Epitropi Ekpaideftikis Metarrythmisis 2004).

References Anastasiou, Harry. 2005. The Broken Olive Branch: Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and the Quest for Peace in Cyprus. The Impasse of Ethnonationalism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Bryant, Rebecca. 2012. ‘Partitions of memory: wounds and witnessing in Cyprus’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 54 (2), pp. 1–29. Burke, Peter. 1989. ‘History as social memory’, in T. Butler (ed.), Memory: History, Culture and the Mind. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Clerides, Glafkos.1997. Cyprus: My Deposition. Nicosia: Alithia Press. Cornford, Francis. 1922/1993. Microcosmographia Academica: Being a Guide for the Young Academic Politician. Cambridge: MainSail Press. Connerton, Paul. 2006. ‘Cultural memory’, in C. Tilley et al (ed.), Handbook of Material Culture. London: Sage.

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——. 2008. ‘Seven types of forgetting’, Memory Studies, 1 (1), pp. 59–71. Demetriou, Olga. 2006. ‘After mourning: “morning after” literature on Cyprus’, South European Society and Politics 11 (2), pp. 301–306. Epitropi Ekpaideftikis Metarrythmisis. 2004. Demokratiki kai Anthropini Paidia stin Evrokypriaki Politia. Nicosia: Ministry of Education and Culture. Ghufran, Nasreen. 2006. ‘Afghanistan in 2006: the complication of post-conflict transition’, Asian Survey 47 (1), pp. 87–98. Hirsch, Marianne. 1997. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hobbes, Thomas. 1962. Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil. New York: Collier Books. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1998. On History. London: Abacus. Jeganathan, Pradeep. 2000. ‘On the anticipation of violence: modernity and identity in southern Sri Lanka’, in A. Arce and N. Long (eds), Anthropology, Development and Modernities: Exploring Discourses, Counter-Tendencies and Violence. New York: Routledge. Karn, Alexander. 2006. ‘Depolarizing the past: the role of historical commissions in conflict mediation and reconciliation’, Journal of International Affairs 60 (1), pp. 31–50. Koselleck, Reinhart. 1985. Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time. Translated by Keith Tribe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lloyd, David. 2008. Irish Times: Temporalities of Modernity. Dublin: Field Day. Loizos, Peter. 1988. ‘Intercommunal killing in Cyprus’, Man 23 (4), pp. 639–653. MacDonald, Ross B. and Monica C. Bernardo. 2006. ‘The politics of victimhood: historical memory and peace in Spain and the Basque region’, Journal of International Affairs 60 (1), pp. 173–196. Maier, Charles. 1988. The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Papadakis, Yiannis. 2006. ‘Disclosure and censorship in divided Cyprus: towards an anthropology of ethnic autism’, in Y. Papadakis, N. Peristianis and G. Welz (eds), Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History and an Island in Conflict. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ——. 2007. ‘O Kalos, O Kakos kai o Aschimos: Senaria Kypriakis Istoriografias’, Vima Ideon, 7 December 2007, p.7. Pérez, Isaias Rojas. 2008. ‘Writing the aftermath: anthropology and “post-conflict”’, in D. Poole (ed.), A Companion to Latin American Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Richards, Paul. 2005. No Peace, No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Oxford: James Currey. Sant Cassia, Paul. 1996. ‘Diairemeno Parelthon kai Enomeno Paron’, in N. Peristianis and G. Tsaggaras (eds), Anatomia Mias Metamorphosis. Nicosia: Intercollege Press. ——. 1999. ‘Piercing transfigurations: representations of suffering in Cyprus’, Visual Anthropology 13 (1), pp. 23–46.

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——. 2005. Bodies of Evidence: Burial, Memory and the Recovery of Missing Persons in Cyprus. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press. White, Hayden 1987. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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1 A CR ITICAL COMPAR ISON OF GR EEK CYPR IOT AND TUR KISH CYPR IOT OFFICIAL HISTOR IOGR APHIES (1940S TO THE PR ESENT) Mete Hatay and Yiannis Papadakis

Introduction This chapter is a critical overview and comparison of the official historical paradigms espoused by Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot historians since the 1940s, a tumultuous period in Cyprus. By showing how different histories were written from different positions, by different authors and during different periods, and how the political conditions and political goals which these authors implicitly or explicitly espoused affected their writing of history, a necessary critical space can emerge in debates on the history of Cyprus. As we show, not only does the plot change, so do the actors and the setting of the historical drama; this applies even within the same community when one compares different periods. In short, this chapter aspires to shift the debate in Cypriot studies from history to historiography. The historical debate on the island has taken place within the parameters of a hard positivist stance due to history’s presumed role as

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the ultimate (if not also the sole) mechanism of legitimating political demands. All sides explicitly held on to the maxim ‘our (historical) truth, their (historical) propaganda’, which really meant ‘our (historically) legitimate political objectives, their (historically) false objectives’. Yet an examination of history-writing from a comparative and historical perspective starkly reveals the ways different historical narratives were constructed by employing different categories of actors (or protagonists) and by selectively choosing the periods or events to be emphasised in order to support one’s own side’s political demands. The choice of historians discussed here was predicated on their closeness to official views, whether due to their own positions in state institutions, their works being used or published by state-run public information offices, or their texts being approved as history schoolbooks. This is not to say there were no internal challenges to such histories, but these lie outside the scope of this chapter, though they are explored in other chapters in this volume (see Panayiotou and Chatzipanagiotidou).

Pre-1960 Historiographies The twentieth century witnessed the gradual rise of Greek nationalism and, later, of Turkish nationalism, with Greek Cypriots supporting enosis, the Union of Cyprus with Greece, and Turkish Cypriots demanding taksim, the partition of Cyprus. From 1955 the Greek Cypriot struggle was led by an armed organisation called EOKA [National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters], and in 1958 Turkish Cypriots set up their own armed group, TMT [Turkish Resistance Organisation]. In 1960 Cyprus became an independent state, the Republic of Cyprus, an outcome that frustrated both communities’ political goals. Its population was 80 per cent Greek Cypriots and 18 per cent Turkish Cypriots. Two Greek Cypriot historians emerge as representative of the period of the nationalist struggle for enosis – their work was published before the start of the armed EOKA struggle. Doros Alastos (1943; 1955) represents a more academic and complex vision of history, while Kleanthis Georgiades (1960 [1953]), a headmaster, represents a more popular version. Since during this period the Cypriot state had not yet been established,

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we cannot justify the choice of these historians in terms of their closeness to official views. However, the historiography of this period shows little variation in its attempt to assert the ancient Greek origins of Greek Cypriots, continuity with the ancient Greek past and the (transhistorical) inclusion of Cyprus within the Greek world (Hellenism). The implication of this, in terms of Realpolitik, was that Cyprus should be incorporated into the modern Greek state, that enosis should take place. Both writers were explicitly sympathetic to the enosis movement then gaining ground in Cyprus (Alastos 1943: pref.; Georgiades 1960: introd.). They were actually writing before the EOKA armed struggle, however, Georgiades in 1953 and Alastos in 1943 and 1955, though their works were later reprinted a number of times. Their primary aim was to prove the existence and persistence of a Greek people on the island whose natural national aim could only be their incorporation into the Greek state. The arrival of the Mycenaeans in Cyprus during the 14th century BC provided the beginning of their historical narrative, and scant attention was paid to the pre-Greek period. From that point onwards, the intention was also established. As Alastos (1955: xv-xvi) put it: ‘The central theme in this volume is persistence, the persistence of the Cypriots in their customs, beliefs and national attachments despite the many violent storms that time and again have rocked their world’. From the viewpoint of these Greek Cypriot historians, the history of Cyprus was one wherein Cyprus was represented as what Michael Given has aptly called ‘a pedigree of resistance’ (1991: 18). The story that emerged was the continuous struggle of the main actor (the Greeks) against the various rulers of Cyprus, a struggle whose end could only be the incorporation of Cyprus into the Greek state. Racial considerations were given significant weight in this stage of Greek Cypriot historiography, to establish the continuity of Greek Cypriots from the ancient to the modern period as the same actor throughout the historical narrative.1 This was not outside the prevalent historiographical spirit of the age, however, and was followed by others, including the British. The main ‘voice’ Greek Cypriot historians were trying to oppose, as Given argues, was that of the British imperialists, who were engaged in an effort to counter Greek Cypriot claims by presenting Cyprus as

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a ‘pedigree of subjection’ (1991: 6–28). They argued that the history of Cyprus proved its inhabitants were no distinct race or ethnic group but an amalgam of various peoples, making them a subject race that required guidance by a benevolent imperial authority (Given 1991: 7). This Orientalist outlook denied the existence of Greek Cypriots as a distinct historical actor and thus denied them a ‘voice’ that could posit political claims. Kitromilides and Evriviades (1982: 33), for example, in reviewing Alastos, point out that his work was a response to the colonial perspective of Hill, the major British historian of Cyprus at the time. With respect to identity, these authors argued that in Cyprus there were Greeks and Turks. The term ‘Greek Cypriot’ was hardly ever used, and the term ‘Cypriot’ was always synonymous with ‘Greek’ (Cypriot). Georgiades, for example, spoke of uprisings of ‘Cypriots and Turks’ (1960: 213) during the time Cyprus was under Ottoman control. Greeks and Turks in Cyprus were regarded as extensions of the corresponding nations of the ‘motherlands’. It was taken for granted that Turkish Cypriots must also be descendants of the Turkish soldiers and colonisers that came to the island when it became a part of the Ottoman Empire, an issue that would be fervently contested during the following period. Halil Fikret Alasya’s (1939) Cyprus History and Its Main Antiquities (Kıbrıs Tarihi ve Belli Başlı Antikiteleri) may be seen as the first history of Cyprus written by a Turkish Cypriot and published in Cyprus in the Latin alphabet. There was, in fact, an earlier book, Turks of Cyprus (Kıbrıs Türkleri), written by a Turkish Cypriot history teacher, İsmet Konur, and published in Turkey in 1938. But the British authorities apparently found this book to be controversial, possibly because of its criticism of the British administration, and they banned it on the island. Despite the insistence of the Turkish History Thesis that the Ottoman Period constituted the ‘dark ages’ of Turkish history, Alasya took a different route, probably because he could only explain the presence of Turks in Cyprus by reference to the Ottoman period. In the following sentence, Alasya explained his motivations for writing: Foreign researchers writing about Cyprus history, and especially about its Ottoman period, constantly write against it. They claim

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that an administration that lasted for 308 years was a barbaric administration. In order to demonstrate the truth, I have used [archival] evidence as much as possible (1939: 6.). He explained this aim in more detail in his final book, Cyprus in History, written in 1988 while he was an advisor to the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash: While I was still in lycee, I didn’t see any Cyprus history written in Turkish. I was very upset at reading books written by foreigners that were biased, full of claims that bore no relation to historical truth, and that portrayed the Ottoman State in a bad light. (Alasya 1988: xxiii) He describes how, in response, he went to Istanbul to study and wrote two theses on Cyprus’ Ottoman history. ‘I answered the opinionated writings of foreigners’, he said, ‘with the documents that I found in the archives’ (1988: xxiii). In his first book, Alasya (1939) dealt very briefly with the preOttoman period, and most of the book dwelled on the period of Ottoman rule. To prove the Ottoman period was not a ‘dark age’, he also included a section called ‘Main Antiquities,’ providing photographs and historical accounts of numerous monuments, the majority from the island’s Ottoman period. His apologetic and defensive history began with the Ottomans’ reasons for conquering the island. Sokollu Mehmet Paşa resisted plans to invade the island, but he was undermined by a foreign agent (whom Alasya calls a ‘typical Jew’) who convinced Selim II to conquer the island for its wine (1939: 23–24). In this case, the ‘good’ Sokollu Mehmet Paşa was undermined by the decrepitude and weakness of the Ottoman ruler and a foreign agent who used him. In similar fashion, Alasya claimed that during the conquest of Famagusta, Lala Mustafa Paşa had the commander Bragadino tortured and killed because he had broken an agreement and killed Turkish prisoners. This argument is still used today in most of the nationalist history books that deal with the period.

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Similarly, Alasya found that throughout the Ottoman ‘age of decline’ in Cyprus, most incidents of seeming Ottoman misrule could actually be attributed to the manipulation of foreign agents and to the Church of Cyprus: In the seventeenth century, at a time when the structure of the empire was shaken, the propaganda of local Christians and spies from outside the island encouraged certain soldiers who were not worthy of their positions to revolt, going so far as to draw swords on the governor and to kill some of the ağas and military officers (1939: 94). In Alasya’s version of history, the island’s Christians had the right to communicate directly with the central government about their grievances, and if they were exploited, it was by their own priests: ‘[The evidence] shows both to us and to the foreigners that those who exploited the people were not the Turks but were those of their own kind who were in charge of them’ (1939: 67). Even though Alasya kept his distance from certain claims of Kemalist historiography, he occasionally denounced Ottoman rulers as corrupt when it served his version of events on the island, or perhaps to demonstrate his secular Kemalist loyalty (1939: 23–24). In contrast, İsmet Konur’s book accepted the Turkish History Thesis, declaring that the Hittites who controlled the island in the 14th century BC were Turks, hence tracing ‘Turkish’ rule on the island to about three thousand years earlier (1938: 11). Although the book was banned on the island, it was read by the writers of later history books, who used certain of its claims. One of the most important of these was the attempt by Konur to demonstrate that the island and its people were not Greek – a theme that would recur time and again in later histories: It’s quite clear that in the Byzantine period, the fact that Greek was the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire meant that Cypriots, even though they are not Greeks, began to speak Greek and with time declared themselves Greek, forgetting

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their true identity, and these constitute the Greeks of Cyprus today (1938: 13). Both Alasya’s and Konur’s books – written in the 1930s and, in the case of Alasya’s book, used by Turkish Cypriots until the late 1950s – reflected the views of the period’s educated Turkish Cypriot elite. Alasya’s defensive writing about the Ottoman period, which cast Turkish Cypriots as the most innocent community on the island, reflected a widespread view. In terms of identity categories, Konur referred to Muslims of the island simply as ‘Turks,’ while Alasya used ‘Ottoman’ and ‘Turk’ interchangeably to refer to Muslims of the Ottoman period in Cyprus. At the same time, Alasya used ‘reaya’ (flock, or non-Muslim Ottoman subjects), ‘Christians,’ and ‘Rum’ to refer to Greek Orthodox Cypriots.

1960–1974 Official Historiographies After the 1960 declaration of Cyprus as an independent state, both ethnic groups continued to pursue their separate objectives, Union (with Greece) and Partition, and in 1963 inter-ethnic fighting broke out in Cyprus. This continued intermittently until 1967. With the rise in Greece of a military junta, the Greek Cypriot leadership gradually edged away from Union with Greece and sought instead to preserve the independence of Cyprus from attempts by Athens to dictate politics while simultaneously trying to resolve the island’s inter-communal dispute. Armed confrontations between Turkish and Greek Cypriots ceased after 1967, but a new conflict developed – this time among Greek Cypriots. With the support of the Greek junta, a small group of right-wing extremists calling itself EOKA B staged a coup in 1974 against the island’s President, Archbishop Makarios, to bring about Union. This led to a military offensive by Turkey which divided the island, followed by population displacements of most Greek Cypriots to the south and most Turkish Cypriots to the north. In the history-writing of this period, three Greek Cypriot historians expressed the official views: Konstantinos Spyridakis, Theodoros Papadopoulos and Kostas Kyrris. Spyridakis was the Minister of Education and the spokesman for the Greek Cypriot side of the House

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of Parliament of the nascent republic; Kyrris and Papadopoulos were for considerable periods the directors of the Cyprus Research Centre, a Greek Cypriot government institution established for academic research purposes, yet, as will become clear, highly politicised. As with the historians previously examined, they regarded themselves as writing both academic history and history that could be used for political purposes, to legitimise their political objectives.2 These writers felt they were defending the objective, historically entrenched rights of their community, while the other side (previously the British, now the Turkish Cypriots) was trying to deny these rights through the use of politically motivated propaganda (a view also espoused by the British and by the Turkish Cypriots). Their concern with current political problems emerged clearly in their texts.3 There was direct continuity with the historiography of the previous period, in terms of its nationalist content,4 since for a major part of this period enosis was still an important aim. If enosis was not directly or implicitly put forth as a desirable aim (e.g., Spyridakis 1972: xii, 165), there was at least a sense of historical injustice that it did not take place, so as to provide the ‘natural’ ending to the Greek Cypriot historical narrative. The general framework of analysis of the history of Cyprus was, as previously, provided by the notion of Hellenism. The most important difference with the historiography of the previous period was the preoccupation with the origins of Turkish Cypriots. While this issue had not been raised previously, it now became a major focus of historical research. The concern with the origins of Turkish Cypriots was more pronounced in the work of Papadopoulos (1965a; 1965b) and Kyrris (1969). Papadopoulos’s major work was published in 1965, under the title Social and Historical Data on the Population of Cyprus. This work posited that not only was the population that came to Cyprus from Turkey after the Ottoman conquest probably composed of ‘Greek elements’ (1965a: 24), but that the majority of the Turkish community on the island ultimately comprised non-Muslims who converted to Islam. Kyrris’s (1969) series of articles was an attempt to counter a paper by the Turkish professor, Halil İnalcık, and to explain the non-Turkish origins of Turkish Cypriots. In his analysis, Kyrris (1969

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[periodical number 284]: 11) wrote that one should not talk of Turkish Cypriots but rather of ‘Turkish Cypriots’ (i.e. not real Turkish Cypriots) or Muslims. When referring to Greek Cypriots the term Ellines (Greeks) was almost invariably used. Papadopoullos similarly spoke mostly in terms of Greeks and the Muslim community in Cyprus (1965a: 30–35). Spyridakis mostly used the terms Greeks and Turks, yet he pointed out that ‘the Turkish population was formed by the remains of the occupying army and mostly by Islamized Christians’ (1972: 135). He argued that while the Turks appear as linked to Turkey as the Greeks are to Greece, the link of the former is ‘artificial, a product of recent events and not of tradition’ (1972: 168). He often used the term Cypriot, but this referred exclusively to Greek Cypriots since, according to the historical narrative he proposed, only Greek Cypriots could be regarded as the legitimate inhabitants of Cyprus – other populations were treated as mere remains of foreign conquerors. The racial preoccupations of this historiography are quite clear, and they were always directed at the origins of Turkish Cypriots. When the origins of the Greek Cypriots were questioned, however, Greek Cypriot historiographers of this period argued that the question of blood is irrelevant.5 Among Turkish Cypriot historians, apologetic history-writing continued to prevail, along with an added emphasis on the writing of a history that always portrayed Turkish Cypriots as passive, one that focused on their victimisation and ‘innocence’. This was the second form of history writing, which could be called ‘victimisation history’. Increasingly, history writing focused on the British administration’s unfair treatment of its Muslim subjects and their Christian neighbours’ unwillingness to take them into account when considering the future of the island. A good example of this was the 1966 history of Cyprus6 written by Turkish Cypriot history teacher Vergi Bedevi, which repeated most of Konur’s and Alasya’s claims regarding Ottoman history and the ethnic makeup of Cyprus’ Christian population.7 Like Alasya, Bedevi claimed the condition of the Orthodox was better after the arrival of the Ottomans, that the Ottomans transformed their subjects from slaves into free men. Bedevi additionally claimed it was the Christians of the island who had actually requested Ottoman rule (1966: 137–138).

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One difference from Alasya is that Bedevi continuously referred to Ottomans as Turks – for example, presenting the 1571 conquest of the island as the ‘Conquest of Cyprus by Turks’ (1966: 94). He also emphasised the transfer of Turks from Anatolia to Cyprus as part of a Turkish policy to consolidate the Turkish presence on the island and to put its economic production back on its feet (1966: 119–125). By emphasising this population transfer, nationalist historians of the period tried to prove the ‘Turks’ of the island were originally from Anatolia, hence countering Greek Cypriot claims made in the same period that the Turks of the island were mainly Christian converts.8 But unlike Alasya’s book, which was written during the British period (the book ends with the arrival of the British), Bedevi’s book described the Turkish Cypriots’ unfair treatment at the hands of the British administration. For example, Bedevi claimed: Despite the fact that it was the Greeks who were responsible for the 1931 Revolt, the actions that were taken afterwards were also implemented on the Turkish Community, which had taken no part in the revolt, and this created great displeasure among the Turks (1966: 174). Although in Bedevi’s book there were some attempts to portray Turkish Cypriots as actors, the primary individual actor in his book was Dr. Fazıl Küçük, vice president of the Republic of Cyprus – the book was published by Dr. Küçük’s press (Halkın Sesi). Dr. Küçük’s successes in this book were primarily related to his success in convincing Turkey to become a part of the conflict and to help Turkish Cypriots (e.g., 1966: 182, 186, 187). The period between 1960 and 1963 was seen as one in which Greek Cypriots were still agitating and planning for enosis. But while EOKA was discussed quite a lot, TMT, which had been established in 1958, received almost no attention. The book mentioned that in 1958 25,000 Turkish youth marched through the streets of Turkey crying to be sent to fight in Cyprus, and it described the huge ‘Taksim or Death’ demonstrations, with crowds of up to 300,000, held that same year. But it primarily portrayed Turkish Cypriots as

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defenceless, giving the names of those killed but describing them as without weapons or any means to properly defend themselves. According to this history, Turkish Cypriots accepted the new republic in 1960, but Greek Cypriots always sought to undermine it in order to unite the island with Greece. ‘Since the day the Cyprus agreement was signed’, the book claimed, ‘the Turkish community has genuinely attempted to fulfil the duties that fall upon it. But contrary to this, Greek Cypriots have never acted sincerely’ (1966: 197). Hence, the collapse of the republic in 1963 was the exclusive fault of Greek Cypriot leaders. The last few pages of the book simply document what the author considered the significant events of 1964 and 1965, mostly attacks on Turkish Cypriots and important decisions taken by international bodies against them. These were almost all without comment, except for the last paragraph of the book, which deplored the United Nations Security Council’s decision in December 1965 to continue to recognise the Republic of Cyprus as the only government of the island, even though it operated without its Turkish partners. He remarked: This was the greatest injustice for the Cypriot Turks, who had been the victims of the Greek Cypriots’ cruel attacks on 21 December 1963, who had lost 434 martyrs, who had had thousands wounded, and of whom 25,000 were living the life of refugees. In this decision, injustice won, and bullying was rewarded (1966: 211).

Post-1974 Historiography After 1974 the reunification of divided Cyprus became the major Greek Cypriot aim. This led to the creation of a different paradigm of history which legitimised reunification by arguing that ‘the past proves that the two communities (or the Cypriot people) can live together in the future’ and presenting the past as one of ‘peaceful coexistence’. This historicist argument was also a direct reply to the official Turkish Cypriot stance on the past and future. On the Turkish Cypriot side, where partition continued to be the official policy, the historical model

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espoused was the opposite, thus also refuting the Greek Cypriot historical argument. It was argued that the past was one of brutal victimisation of Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriots, ‘proving that the two peoples can never live together in the future’. The Greek Cypriot ‘historiography of peaceful coexistence’ stressed the long coexistence of Muslims and Christians and the comparatively recent emergence of conflict. Our analysis concentrates on the work of two academics who wrote during this period, Michael Attalides and Paschalis Kitromilides, especially on their articles in a volume titled Cyprus Reviewed (1977). This is a selection of articles given at a conference in 1976. The participants were mostly Greek Cypriot academics, and this volume was later published at various times by the Greek Cypriot Public Information Office (PIO). One could also include Kostas Kyrris (1977), whose book, Peaceful Co-Existence in Cyprus under British Rule (1878–1959) and after Independence: An Outline, was also published by the PIO. Yet we will not dwell on this work as, despite its novel preoccupation with coexistence, it has largely remained within the historiographical genre of the previous period. This is especially so with regard to its lack of a theoretical framework of nationalism and its preoccupation with racial origins. What truly distinguished Kitromilides and Attalides is a theoretical framework9 that treated nationalism as a relatively novel historical phenomenon, rather than treating the nation as an eternal, transhistorical entity. Their broader body of writing reflects a sustained interest in the factors that have led to the origins and spread of nationalism, and on its negative effects.10 They also distanced themselves from any preoccupations with race, treating identity as a social construct.11 Their treatment of the issue of nationalism was significant in many ways. Most importantly, they delineated the divisive consequences of nationalism in a society characterised, according to their argument, by coexistence on the grassroots peasant level. They treated nationalism as a disruptive force, whether it derived from Greece or Turkey. This allowed them to operate in a different conceptual paradigm from the Greek Cypriot historians of the previous periods, for whom the relevant framework for the examination of the history of Cyprus was the transcendental and transhistorical notion of Hellenism. Rather, they viewed Cyprus as an

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independent entity, with both Greek and Turkish nationalisms as forces that infiltrated Cyprus from outside. Thus Cyprus now emerged as an independent actor and as the focal point for the analysis of its history. Attalides, the general editor of the volume, pointed out: [A]ll the papers have one characteristic strongly in common: At a time when in many quarters it appears convenient to regard the people of Cyprus as appendages of either Greece or Turkey, and the Island itself as a disposable piece of real estate to be divided in more or less ‘fair’ proportions, the writers of this volume have a strong sense of Cyprus as a recognizable historical, geographical and political entity: an actor on the world scene which will not disappear merely because it is inconvenient (Attalides 1977: vii, emphasis added). Both writers agreed: ‘It becomes therefore once again evident that the decisive factors in the escalation of conflict and the consequent distortion of ethnic relations, have been external not internal’ (Kitromilides 1977:60, author’s italics).12 The idea of ‘coexistence’ that these historians put forward was novel in a number of ways. Historical orthodoxy, both among Greek Cypriots and in Greece, presented the Turks as the historical archenemy of Greeks. Both writers pointed out that their historical analysis disproved those who argued that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots could not live together. Kitromilides (1977: 47) mainly argued against foreign observers who claimed as such, while Attalides wrote that he was also arguing against ‘nationalists of both Cypriot communities’ (1977:71, 73). A further important shift in this period was in giving much greater emphasis to ‘history from below’ and a historical outlook that did not just provide a narrative of wars and spectacles but also took into consideration periods and events of coexistence and cooperation. It became, for the first time, important to examine not only what leaders were doing, but also how people ploughed the land together and who went to whose coffee shop or wedding.13 In terms of identity ascriptions, there was a pronounced change in the terms previously utilised. When describing the time before

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nationalism, the terms ‘Muslims’ and ‘Orthodox Christians’ (or ‘Turkish-speaking Muslims’ and ‘Greek-speaking Christians’) were used, while later the terms ‘Greek Cypriots’ and ‘Turkish Cypriots’ were preferred (instead of ‘Greeks’ and ‘Turks’). The use of these terms indicated both their internal difference and their commonalities as Cypriots. It also served to distinguish them from Greeks and Turks, the inhabitants of Greece and Turkey. While one may espouse these writers’ position that there is no intrinsic impossibility in people from different ethnic groups living together, their projection from a past of peaceful coexistence to a similar future requires further scrutiny. This is because their thesis ‘from coexistence to confrontation’ is based (as they show) on the comparison of two qualitatively different periods: an age before nationalism and one after. Their argument implied that coexistence was possible in the pre-nationalist period, the time of Muslims and Christians, rather than of Greeks and Turks, as the two communities would come to regard themselves in the age of nationalism. Both writers appeared at certain points to hold positions that leaned towards the Greek Cypriot side, when they underplayed the importance of enosis among Greek Cypriots in the post-1960 period and argued that it was mainly due to coercion from their leadership that Turkish Cypriots left their homes – never to return – during the same period.14 Evidence from non-Cypriot writers casts doubt on these positions.15 This paradigm of history never reached school history books, however, which were based on the previous paradigm. The argument made by Kitromilides and Attalides is one usually expressed in Englishlanguage publications geared towards outsiders. Their edited books (Cyprus Reviewed by Attalides and Small States in the Modern World, by Kitromilides and Worsley) were subsequently republished and distributed by the Greek Cypriot Public Information Office. Within the Greek Cypriot community, the schoolbooks (in Greek) held on to the previous paradigm of a historically Hellenic island, where the term Cypriot always meant ‘Greek of Cyprus’, thus excluding Turkish Cypriots (mostly called ‘Turks’) and other minorities from belonging to Cyprus. Moreover, by labelling Turkish Cypriots ‘Turks’, the Turkish Cypriots emerge as one of the historic archenemies of the ‘Greeks’ (Papadakis 2008).

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Turkish Cypriot official historiography from the post-1974 period, including Vehbi Zeki Serter (1979, 1999) and Alasya’s later works (1977, 1988), repeated the claims made in earlier Turkish Cypriot historiography regarding the origins of Greek Cypriots but made no apologies for the Ottoman period. Instead, it glorified the Ottoman period. For example, Cyprus was described as a hideaway for pirates who were attacking Muslim ships and had to be captured, and the famous ‘Jewish conspiracy’ – regarding the Sultan’s love of wine and Joseph Nasi – was totally discredited (Serter 1979: 51–52; Alasya 1977: 50). Furthermore, Ottomans were said to have liberated Greek Cypriots from serfdom and to have bestowed many privileges upon them. These historians presented Greek Cypriots as ungrateful for the just rule of the Ottomans – they portrayed them as traitors not to be trusted. Additionally, Serter (1979: 4) and Alasya (1988: 138) included some foreign and local non-Muslim estimates from the eighteenth century to prove the population of Turks on the island was greater than the population of Greeks, thus implying that Cyprus was a Turkish island, even if Greek Cypriots later became the majority. Serter also claimed that because of their ill treatment at the hands of the British administration and the Greeks, many Turks left the island, and that there were 300,000 Cypriot Turks living in Turkey by the 1970s (1979: 4). A new form of history-writing emerged in this period, and it rewrote much of the previous version of Cypriot history as though it had inevitably led up to 1974. This is what Rebecca Bryant calls ‘apocalyptic history’, meaning it was a history with a foreordained end, in this case a history that resulted in the intervention of Turkey, the ‘messiah’ who would save the Turkish Cypriot population (Bryant 2008). In this history, Turkey was the main actor, while Turkish Cypriots appeared primarily as dead bodies, or as those to be saved (also see Bryant in this volume). Although the books occasionally mentioned Turkish Cypriots’ ‘heroic defence’ of their communities, there was no mention of the organisation of that defence, making such occasional comments seem unfounded. In order to prepare the historical ground for 1974 and to put more emphasis on the build-up to the ‘apocalypse’, much emphasis was

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placed on the victimisation of Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriots. Alasya even went so far as to fabricate evidence in this regard. For instance, in his 1988 history, Alasya claimed that on the day EOKA launched its armed struggle against the British, it published an announcement, saying: ‘We have two enemies. One is the English, and the other is the Turks. First, we will struggle against the English and remove them from the island. After this, we’ll eliminate the Turks’ (1988: 175). As the source of this supposed document, however, Alasya cited his own earlier work, his 1964 Cyprus and the Turks (Kıbrıs ve Türkler), which mentions this announcement without providing any citation for it. This historical model chronicled the years 1963–1974, which Alasya described as a period of Turkish Cypriot suffering because of inter-ethnic violence. This model legitimised the partitionist aims of the right-wing Turkish Cypriot leadership by arguing that the past proves the two peoples of Cyprus cannot live together. In Serter’s Cyprus History (1979, 1999), which was used as the standard high-school history book, Turkish Cypriot victimisation was prominent. Of the photographs in the book (1979) from the period between 1960 and 1974, four of the fourteen were graphic depictions of Turkish Cypriot dead, while six depicted the ‘glorious’ Turkish army and its airplanes. Serter also described many of the events of the period from 1963 to 1974 involving Turkish Cypriot deaths in graphic detail. For example, Serter described a massacre of Turkish Cypriots in one village as follows: ‘The Turkish bodies found in these villages had their eyes plucked out, and there were those who had been pierced with bayonets and even cut into two’ (1979: 123). This sort of writing, reminiscent of biblical descriptions of the apocalypse, laid the groundwork for the arrival of the ‘messiah’. The last chapters of the book described the history of the period up to 1974 as one leading to Turkey’s inevitable intervention – what was seen as ‘The Judgment Day’, when all scores would be settled: During the operations in the East and West, the Greek and Greek Cypriot gangs were brought to their knees, dispersed,

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and made wretched before the bayonet of the MEHMETÇİK (Turkish soldier). These were the gangs of cowardly and fainthearted Levantines that that Grivas character, who had seen the defenceless Turkish community as worthy of unprecedented torment, and the anarchist and murderer Makarios had called ‘the grandchildren of Hellenism’ (!) and that they had believed were undefeatable(!). Hadn’t the grandfathers of the same nation been pushed into the sea at Izmir on 9 September 1922? History was repeating itself. The Turkish armed forces had once again landed a blow against Greek imperialism, this time in Cyprus (1979: 140). These words were echoed in Alasya’s 1988 history, where he wrote of the Turkish intervention as ‘the Turkish Miracle’ (1988: 247). This paradigm, vehemently espoused by the Turkish Cypriot right, was radically subverted with the rise to power in 2003 of the left-wing CTP (Republican Turkish Party), its declared aim the reunification of Cyprus. This new paradigm was most evident in the changes made in school history books about the History of Cyprus (Papadakis 2008). The most important difference between the CTP-sponsored books and the older Turkish Cypriot paradigm lies in their approach to the concepts of nation, nationalism and identity. The term ‘motherland’ was never used in these books to refer to Turkey, while the terms ‘our island’ or ‘our country’ were often used for Cyprus (MEKB 2: 59, 69, 75). The more generic identifiers, ‘Cypriots’ and ‘people’, words that can include both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, were also consistently used (MEKB 2: 59). The books explained that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots share many similarities, and that what divided them were the forces of nationalism and British ‘Divide and Rule’ policies (MEKB 2: 59). Indeed, various caricatures showing ‘a Turkish Cypriot’ and ‘a Greek Cypriot’ often presented them as exactly the same (MEKB 2: 58,59,72). The word ‘Turks’ was never used for Turkish Cypriots in these books, which instead employed ‘Turkish Cypriots’ (Kıbrıslı Türkler) throughout, a term which placed more semantic emphasis on the Cypriot part. The term ‘Rum’ was still used for Greek Cypriots, but in a different form, as Kıbrıslı Rumlar (Rumcypriots, is the closest

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translation), which is analogous to the term ‘Turkish Cypriots’. These new terms of identity shared the designation ‘Cypriots’. The period 1963–1974, which the earlier history schoolbooks (written by Serter) uniformly presented as a period of Greek Cypriot barbarism (‘Dark Years’), was broken into two sections, with 1963–1967 as the ‘Difficult Years’ and 1967–1974, up to the coup, as ‘A New Period for Cyprus’(MEKB 2: 92–113, 114–121). This period emerged as only a small part of the whole (three-volume) History of Cyprus, in contrast to the previous books, where it received the most emphasis. Gruesome descriptions were avoided, and where violence against Turkish Cypriots was indicated, it was explicitly stated that it was carried out by ‘certain’ Greek Cypriots (MEKB 2: 126). Similarly, throughout the books, ethnic groups were not portrayed as homogeneous, but as often riven by internal divides and conflicts. History was no longer presented as a monolithic story of conflict; instead, conscious emphasis was placed on coexistence and cooperation, and there was a shift from political and diplomatic history towards social, cultural and economic history. The books presented many examples, from the Ottoman period to the present, when cooperation was an aspect of daily life – from common workers’ struggles to music, football and trade, and mundane events like simply eating and drinking together (MEKB 2: 32, 39; MEKB 3: 22, 32, 46–48, 51, 110–111). The similarities of this historiographical approach with the post-1974 official Greek Cypriot one, which also aimed toward reunification, are striking. These revised textbooks were attacked by nationalists on both sides of the island. On the Greek Cypriot side, certain groups charged that the books attempted to give a ‘European’ face, and hence legitimacy, to an ‘illegal regime’. They also claimed the books had still not achieved true ‘objectivity’, in that they did not explain the history of Cyprus as a Greek island.16 These changes were also met with severe criticism from the Turkish Cypriot right, which accused the CTP of psychological warfare that promoted a common ‘Cypriotism’ and laid the groundwork for the annihilation of Turkish identity in Cyprus. According to these critics, the books glorified common Cypriot struggles while ignoring the struggles of the Turkish Cypriot community and the atrocities committed against them by Greek Cypriots; they engaged in

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Christian propaganda while ignoring Turkish Cypriots’ Muslim identity; they erased Turkish Cypriots’ historical gains by ‘sly’ moves such as the inclusion of a map of the entire island that did not delineate the border of the Turkish Cypriot state (Özter 2006; 2008). Throughout the five years these textbooks were in use, dozens of articles condemning them appeared in right-wing nationalist newspapers, and several books attacked their perceived faults (Özter 2006; 2008). One such article summed up these concerns thusly: First of all everyone should get this into their heads: there is no such thing as a ‘Cyprus people’ or ‘Cypriotism’. Even if they try to make it seem like there’s such a thing, and even if they use books written by the state to make people accept this, it doesn’t change the facts. And while in these Cyprus History textbooks there are dozens of instances where terms like ‘Cypriot person’, ‘Cypriot people’, ‘Cypriot folk’, ‘Cypriot’, and ‘Cypriot Muslims’ are used, Turkishness is forgotten, and they attempt to deny it. These books are constructing the nationalism of a non-existent nation by creating a common consciousness of Cypriots (italics in original).17 Eventually, in the run-up to the Turkish Cypriot parliamentary elections of 2009, the right-wing National Unity Party (UBP) promised, if elected, to change the textbooks immediately. When UBP came to power in April 2009, the party set about keeping that promise, and by October it had produced new textbooks based on principles of ethnic nationalism. The UBP books used the newer pedagogical methods, including colourful illustrations and study questions, as did the CTP books, but the text and intent of the new books closely resemble that of the earlier books by Serter (1979, 1999). Although they chose to omit many of the more gruesome descriptions in the older books, the chronology and tone remain the same. This led some teachers to worry that the UBP-sponsored books might be more ‘dangerous’, since they now presented nationalist history in a more attractive form.18 The books were produced quite hurriedly, however, and in an apparently rather haphazard way: many of the illustrations bear only a remote resemblance to what they are supposed to, and the Turkish Cypriot

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newspapers immediately picked out some of the books’ more comic flaws.19 For instance, in describing immigration from Anatolia in 1571, the books’ authors chose an illustration showing cowboys and Native Americans, complete with covered wagons (KMGS 2009: 19).

Conclusion The overt link of history with political objectives in Cyprus, as well as in other societies, especially those facing tragic ethnonationalist disputes, can explain what has been called ‘the fetishism of history’: history should be revered as its truths acquire the force of a religious dogma whose dispute is treated as an act of sacrilege; history commands and the living should respectfully obey its commands (Papadakis 1993). History, in effect, becomes an authoritarian discourse denying living social actors the choice to determine their own political goals and choose the manner in which they may desire to identify themselves, if these are said to be historically predetermined. The examination of history-writing from a historical and comparative perspective indicates that to a large extent this takes place from the perspective of the desired future, in view of the political goal the historian espouses. History, in other words, may say more about the (desired) future than the past. It is the political goal that determines the choice of the beginning of history, the periods and events to be (selectively) emphasised, the protagonist (from whose perspective events are evaluated), the historical characters (in terms of identity ascriptions, along with the creation of boundaries between insiders and outsiders), and the plot. Contrary to the commonly held view of historians as first searching for facts and then allowing these (or arranging these) to tell their own stories, the reverse applies: the political goal determines the historical plot (e.g., one of past coexistence or past conflict) and events (or facts) are subsequently selected to build up the (pre-determined) plot.

Notes 1.

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This was especially so for Georgiades. Attalides, for example, in trying to indicate how the enosis movement ‘acquired non-rational characteristics,

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A CRITICAL COMPARISON, OFFICIAL HISTORIOGR APHIES 47 which emphasized distant descent, racial continuity, purity and religious fervour’ (1979: 32) used a quote from Georgiades (1936) as a case in point. Alastos was more careful not to make explicit racial claims. Indeed, he derided the British for ‘racial prejudices’ and likened their methods to ‘pseudo-scientific racial concoctions of Hitlerite philosophy’ (1943: 41). 2. Spyridakis, for example, in the introduction to the first publication of the Cyprus Research Centre in 1968, describes its aims as follows: The Centre aims to be a place for research . . . within the scope set by proper scientific enquiry removed from any prejudice or interests. Under these conditions there is little doubt that it will provide invaluable national service not only in Cyprus but to Hellenism as a whole (1968: intro., our translation and emphasis). 3. Spyridakis, in his Brief History of Cyprus, explained in the introduction that this edition was basically the same as the 1964 edition published by the Greek (Cypriot) Communal Chamber. It was published to ‘inform the foreigners on the history of Cyprus, in the light of the Turkish propaganda that took off after the 1963 Turkish mutiny’ (1972: ix). Kyrris’s works included a number of political recommendations, and he explicitly stated that he was writing in light of the current problems (e.g., 1964: 3). The same applies to Papadopoulos (e.g., 1964a: 3, 1964b: 204, 1969: 162). 4. Kitromilides and Evriviades (1982: 33), for example, reviewing Spyridakis, argued that his work ‘is important as an ideological statement of the historical theory of Greek Cypriot nationalism’. 5. Papadopoulos, for example, argued that the issue of the racial descent of Greek Cypriots was irrelevant as a criterion for national belonging (1964b: 205). In 1954, Spyridakis sent a letter to a British newspaper in reply to a British attempt to deny the Greek descent of Greek Cypriots. In his letter he argued that ‘Greek Cypriots are inseparably linked with the rest of the Greeks by national, racial and cultural bonds’ (Stilianou 1973: 248). 6. Bedevi’s Kıbrıs Tarihi, or The History of Cyprus, was the first Turkish Cypriot history textbook published in Cyprus. It was approved by the Turkish educational authorities in Turkey and accepted by the Turkish Department of Education as an ancillary textbook. The book was published by the Cyprus Turkish History Association in 1966. 7. Just like Alasya, Bedevi also cited some foreign historians, such as Sir George Hill, to prove that Greek Cypriots are a mixture with blurry ethnic origins (Bedevi 1966: 45). 8. Bedevi also claimed that the island’s Christians were never forced to change their religion, and that according to şeriye registrations the number of

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9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

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Christians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period was only 200 (Bedevi 1966: 139). Both had Ph.D.s, Kitromilides from Harvard and Attalides from Princeton (where they also worked for some time). See for example Attalides (1979) and Kitromilides (1979, 1989, 1990). It may be significant to note that sociologically they belong to a younger generation than the Greek Cypriot historians previously examined. They came of age in a post-independence Cypriot society, one whose independence was shattered by the actions of the extreme right-wing nationalists and ultimately led to the coup and the subsequent Turkish offensive. When Kitromilides (1977: 37) used the older idea of conversions to Islam, he stated that this was not done with the aim of doubting the Turkish Cypriots’ Turkish identity, but to explain why the two cultures were so intermingled. Neither Attalides nor Kitromilides approved of the idea of assimilation (Attalides 1977: 74; Kitromilides 1977: 57). Attalides (1977: vii) argued that the ‘essential root of the problem leads to colonialist exploitation of the ethnic situation’. Attalides (1997: 75–6), Kitromilides (1977: 37–39). On the issue of enosis, both Kitromilides (1977: 55) and Attalides (1977: 91) argued that after about 1965 a policy of independence became officially accepted. On the issue of Turkish Cypriot refugees after 1963, see Attalides (1977: 84) and Kitromilides (1977: 51). On the importance of enosis, see Loizos (1974: 125), Patrick (1976: 28, 350) and Purcell (1969: 373–4, 388–9). On the issue of Turkish Cypriot refugees, the most detailed discussion is Patrick’s (1976: 343–6), with which Purcell (1969: 321, 335) is in broad agreement. See weekly newspaper Cyprus Weekly (2005). See www.docstoc.com/docs/6981368/‘Kıbrıslı’-Tarih (last accessed 5 January 2011). Personal communication with Güven Uludağ, one of the authors of the textbooks produced by the CTP Government in 2004. See, for example, Mutluyakalı (2009).

References Alastos, Doros. 1943. Cyprus: Past and Future. London: Committee for Cyprus Affairs. ——. 1955. Cyprus in History: A Survey of 5,000 Years. London: Zeno. Alasya, Halil Fikret. 1939. Kıbrıs Tarihi ve Belli Başlı Antikiteleri. Nicosia: M. Fikri Matbaası.

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A CRITICAL COMPARISON, OFFICIAL HISTORIOGR APHIES 49 ——. 1964. Kıbrıs ve Türkler. Ankara: Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü. ——. 1977. Kıbrıs Tarihi ve Kıbrıs’da Türk Eserleri. Ankara: Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü. ——. 1988. Tarihte Kıbrıs. Nicosia: Ulus Ofset. Attalides, Michael. 1977. ‘The Turkish Cypriots, their relations to the Greek Cypriots in perspective’, in M. Attalides (ed), Cyprus Reviewed. Nicosia: Jus Cypri Association. ——. 1979. Cyprus: Nationalism and International Politics. New York: St Martin’s Press. Bedevi, Vergi. 1966. Kıbrıs Tarihi. Nicosia: Halkın Sesi. Bryant, Rebecca. 2008. ‘Writing the catastrophe: nostalgia and its histories in Cyprus’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26 (2), pp. 399–422. Cyprus Weekly. 2005. ‘Rewriting the history books’, 11–17 March, p. 5. Georgiades, Kleanthis. 1936. I Kataghoghi ton Kyprion. Nicosia: Neos Kosmos. ——. 1960 [1953]. Istoria tis Kyprou. Nicosia: n.p. Given, Michael. 1991. Symbols, Power and Construction of Identity in the City Kingdoms of Ancient Cyprus. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge University. Kitromilides, Paschalis. 1977. ‘From coexistence to confrontation: the dynamics of ethnic conflict in Cyprus’, in M. Attalides (ed), Cyprus Reviewed. Nicosia: Jus Cypri Association. ——. 1979. ‘The dialectic of intolerance: ideological dimensions of the ethnic conflict’, in P. Worsley and P. Kitromilides (eds), Small States in the Modern World: The Conditions of Survival. Nicosia: The New Cyprus Association. ——. 1989. ‘ “Imagined Communities” and the origins of the national question in the Balkans’, East European Quarterly 19 (2), pp. 149–72. ——. 1990. ‘Greek irredentism in Asia Minor and Cyprus’, Middle Eastern Studies 26 (1), pp. 3–15. Kitromilides, Paschalis, and Marios L. Evriviades. 1982. Cyprus: World Bibliographical Series. Oxford: Clio Press. KMGS 2009. Kıbrıs Türk Tarihi 9. Sınıf. Ankara: Korza Basım. Konur, İsmet. 1938. Kıbrıs Türkleri. Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi. Kyrris, Kostas. 1964. I Kypros Metaxi Anatolis ke Dysis. Nicosia: Kosmos. ——. 1969. ‘Peri tou Exislamismou Merous ton en Kypro Igetikon Taxeon kata to 1570–71 k.e., ke Peri tis Ethnikis Proelevseos tis Mousoulmanikis Koinotitos tis Nisou’, Morfosis, 14–15 (various periodical issue numbers). ——. 1977. Peaceful Coexistence in Cyprus under British Rule (1878–1959) and after Independence. Nicosia: Kosmos Press. Loizos, Peter. 1974. ‘The progress of Greek nationalism in Cyprus: 1878–1970’, in J. Davis (ed), Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair. London: Athlone. MEKB 2. 2005. Kıbrıs Tarihi 2 [History of Cyprus]. Nicosia: n.p. MEKB 3. 2005. Kıbrıs Tarihi 3 [History of Cyprus]. Nicosia: n.p.

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Mutluyakalı, Cenk. 2009. ‘Ada şenlendi,’ Yenidüzen (daily newspaper), 18 October, p. 3. Özter, Birol. 2006. Gerçekler Işığında Kıbrıs Tarihi Ders Kitapları. Nicosia: n.p. Özter, Birol. 2008. Pisikolojik Harp Kıskacında Tarihin Tahribi. Nicosia: Ajans Yay Ltd. Papadakis, Yiannis. 1993. Perceptions of History and Collective Identity: A Study of Contemporary Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Nationalism. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University. ——. 2008. History Education in Divided Cyprus: A Comparison of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Schoolbooks on the ‘History of Cyprus.’ PRIO Cyprus Centre Report 2/2008 [Online] Available: www.prio.no/cyprus [last accessed 20 August 2011]. Papadopoulos, Theodoros. 1964a. To Ethnologiko Problima tou Ellinismou is tin Kypriakin Aftou Phasin. Nicosia: Publications of Cyprus Studies no.2. ——. 1964b. ‘I Krisis tis Kypriakis Synidiseos’ Philologiki Kypros, no. 8, pp.204–209. ——. 1965a. Social and Historical Data on the Population. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre. ——. 1965b. ‘Prosfatoi Exislamismoi Aghrotikou Plithysmou en Kypro’, Kypriakes Spoudes, no. 18, pp. 29–48. Patrick, Richard. 1976. Political Geography and the Cyprus Conflict. Department of Geography Publications Series No 4. Ontario: University of Waterloo. Purcell Henry. 1969. Cyprus. Great Britain: Ernest Benn. Serter, Vehbi Zeki. 1979. Kıbrıs Tarihi. Nicosia: Halkın Sesi. ——. 1999. Kıbrıs Tarihi. Nicosia: KEMA. Spyridakis, Konstantinos. 1972 [1964]. Syntomos Istoria tis Kyprou. Nicosia: n.p. ——. 1968. ‘Introduction’, in 1st Annual Publication of Cyprus Research Centre. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre. Stilianou, Petros. 1973. ‘Mia Apantisi tou Dr Spyridaki pros ton Sir Richard Palmer’, Kypriakos Logos, n. 29–30, pp. 246–8.

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2 BEYOND THE HISTORY TEXTBOOK DEBATE Official Histories in Greek Cypriot Geography and Civics Curricula Stavroula Philippou

Introduction Textbook research, as it has been conducted over the past 50 years (and especially after World War II), was initiated by the League of Nations and later pursued by UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the Georg Eckert Institute and other organisations. The purpose of this research was to address the stereotypes, prejudice and xenophobia which underpinned the atrocities committed during the two world wars and the challenges brought about by the end of the Cold War, and to thus contribute to a ‘culture of peace’ (c.f. Pingel 1999; Bonides 2004). Such studies have mobilised both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to explore, map out and diagnose, for example, how images of ‘enemies’ and ‘others’ are constructed stereotypically in text, how prejudice and exclusion are performed, and what meanings lie between and beyond the lines and images (e.g., Pingel 1999, 2000). Such studies have also included close

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investigations of how nationalism and nationalistic historical narratives are constructed, as these are often perceived to underlie international and civil conflicts (e.g., in the Balkans; see Koulouri 2001; Kapsalis, Bonides and Sipitanou 2000). This is especially relevant for social studies subjects (in many countries these include content from history, geography and civics), which have historically held a key role in ‘officialising’ the modernist project of the nation-state, but also for societies in conflict, where social studies curricula and textbooks acquired a key role in explaining, justifying and maintaining or resolving conflict (see, for example, Pinson 2007; Soysal and Antoniou 2002). Not surprisingly, international textbook research aimed at promoting international understanding has focused exactly on history, geography and civics textbooks, ‘as these subjects in particular are relevant for an education towards democracy, human rights, and international as well as intercultural awareness’ (Pingel 1999: 8). In Europe, because democratic and active citizenship – as well as intercultural understanding – have been key educational goals supported by political organisations such as the Council of Europe and the European Union over the last decades, such textbook research remains centre stage (see, for example, Keating, et. al. 2009), based on a modernist belief in schooling as a mechanism for addressing social, political and other issues. This chapter draws upon three sets of data from geography and civics curricula and textbook research to exemplify how this has been conducted in divided Cyprus, where a (segregated) formal education has historically fuelled nationalism and conflict between the two larger communities on the island, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Mobilising analytical tools from theories of nationalism (and their implications for European citizenship), as well as analyses of Greek (Cypriot) nationalism, this chapter argues that both geography and civics curricula used in Greek Cypriot primary and secondary state schools have been officialising a Helleno-Cypriocentric historical narrative. The permeation of the curriculum by this narrative has rendered it ‘normalised’ and ‘officialised’, at the expense of the pedagogical and epistemological advances which have occurred

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in both geography and citizenship education over the last decades (as described, e.g., in Huckle 1997; Roland-Lévy and Ross 2003).

Curricula, Textbooks and Ideology The role of policy, curricula and education in constructing nationstates has long been documented (see Green 1997). History, geography and civics education have held a key role in this nation-building project in inculcating national identities and legitimising nation-states in a number of countries (Schissler and Soysal 2005). In the case of Cyprus, nationalism began to fuel both communities’ claims over the island towards the end of the nineteenth and during the first two decades of the twentieth century (Bryant 2004; Varnava 2006). During this period the official curriculum was a key forum wherein all parties – the colonial administration, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot educational authorities – sought to construct (national) identities. For example, geography, history and the English language were subjects that created great friction between the British authorities and the leadership of the Greek Cypriot community in the 1920s and 1930s; the former imposed a curriculum comprising local and imperial geography, rather than the geography of ‘motherland’ Greece as previously taught and still claimed by the latter. This was just another example of how the curriculum was perceived as a forum for developing (ethnonational) identities by the parties involved. Since then, a segregated curriculum and educational system for each community has worked to legitimise conflicting historical narratives, narratives that epitomise understandings of the Cyprus Problem today (see, for example, Philippou and Varnava 2009; Papadakis 2008). This chapter focuses on formal curricula as these are articulated in syllabi, textbooks, pupils’ books and teachers’ books. It lies theoretically and methodologically within the sociology of curriculum tradition, which examines curriculum as a forum wherein social relations and power are discursively constructed and negotiated; within this context, textbooks are examined as ‘official knowledge’ (Apple 1993) which receives great political attention across countries (Apple and Christian-Smith 1991). Even though textbooks are in interplay

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with the curriculum, teachers and students, they are extremely important not ‘as texts themselves but for what broader social and political debates, struggles, and orientations they represent’ (Soysal 2002: 280). As Schissler and Soysal (2005: 7–8) point out: Textbooks do not just convey knowledge; they represent what generations of pupils will learn about their own pasts and futures as well as the histories of others. In textbooks, we find what a society wishes to convey to the next generation . . . [T]he analysis of textbooks is an excellent means to capture the social and political parameters of a given society, its social and cultural preoccupations, its anxieties and trepidations . . . History, geography, and civic textbooks, though simplified, lay out for us the basic temporal, spatial, and discursive organisation of regions, nations and the world. Unsurprisingly, there are a number of studies of history textbooks in Cyprus (e.g., POST-RI 2004; POST-RI 2007; AKTI 2004; Papadakis 2008; Koullapis 2002; Kizilyurek 2002; Philippou 2004, 2007; Klerides 2008), all of which exemplify the use of curriculum in general, and school history curricula in particular, as ideological texts; such studies indicate the hegemonic nationalist historical narratives which underlie conflicting Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot claims over Cyprus (see Papadakis and Hatay, in this volume, for detailed analyses of these narratives). The three studies upon which this chapter draws addressed a relevant gap in the literature, since there had been no studies of geography or civics curricula in Cyprus and how these curricula might relate to the predominance of certain historical grand narratives over others, despite the widespread use of these subjects by the state to construct national identities. This chapter thus focuses on two under-explored curricular areas to address this gap and to illustrate how hegemonic and official historical grand narratives have permeated the curriculum horizontally, using geography and civics education as case studies; this permeation, and the repetition of the same narrative from one subject to the next, has contributed in legitimising and enhancing these narratives. The methodology adopted to analyse the curricula and textbooks at hand is described below.

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Methodology This chapter draws upon three studies of geography and civics curriculum and textbook research conducted between July 2007 and July 2008. In all three cases, a social constructivist perspective was adopted and qualitative methods combining content and discourse analyses were used. The tools employed to analyse the text were taken from nationalism theories and analyses of Greek (Cypriot) state and national citizenship, as well as from post-colonial and post-structuralist analyses of constructions of ‘Europe’, ‘European identity’ and ‘European citizenship’ (e.g., Coulby 1995; Delanty 1995; Cederman 2001). In the first study, all geography textbooks for primary and secondary education were analysed to explore constructions of ‘Europe’, ‘European identity and citizenship’ and Cyprus within Europe (Philippou 2008). In the second study, all civics textbooks for primary and secondary education were analysed to explore both European and Cypriot citizenship (Philippou 2009a, 2009b). In the third study, all geography, history and civics textbooks were analysed to explore how the Cyprus problem and potential solutions to it were constructed in text (Philippou and Varnava 2009). The data analysed were formal policy and curricular documents: the syllabi, textbooks, teachers’ books or guides, circulars and government reports produced by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) around geography and/or citizenship education that were in force for Greek Cypriot public schools until 2010 (the year when revised formal curricula were introduced in all subjects and sectors of education; see Philippou 2010 for a brief overview). The analysis drew simultaneously on all types of documents; all direct quotes which follow are my own translations from Greek. References to the civic textbooks are denoted with initials C5 (MoEC 2001a), C6 (MoEC 2006), C9 (MoEC 2004a) and C12 (MoEC 2004b) (for the 5th, 6th, 9th and 12th grades, respectively). References to the geography textbooks are denoted with initials G3 (MoEC 2001b), G4 (MoEC 2002), G5 (MoEC 1995a), G6 (MoEC 1995b), G7 (MoEC c.1999), G8a (MoEC 2005a) and G8b (MoEC 2005b) (for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades, respectively). The year of publication of these textbooks refers to the document actually

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analysed; the full bibliographic reference also includes the first year of publication and the revision or reprint (where available). The oldest textbook was published in the early 1980s, the most recent in the late 1990s. There has been a single textbook and mandatory national curriculum policy, which has prescribed the use of the same, official textbooks and syllabi for all state schools; in other words, the documentation analysed in the three studies has been quite central to educational practice, as it was expected to be implemented by all schools and used in every classroom in similar ways. Many of the textbooks used in Greek Cypriot schools have been imported from Greece, a century-old practice which has persisted, especially in the subjects of language, religious studies and history. The rest of the textbooks have been produced by the Curriculum Development Service in Cyprus to replace or supplement those from Greece. In both cases the textbooks have been offered free to students. The geography and civic education syllabi and textbooks, as well as the other documents analysed in the three studies, are those published in Cyprus, since the aim in all three cases was to explore official Greek Cypriot constructions of ‘Europe’ and ‘citizenship’. Qualitative and discourse analysis techniques revealed the meanings ascribed to ‘Europe’ and, by extension, how European and Cypriot citizenship were constructed discursively in the texts. Deductive analytical techniques entailed ‘traditional’ coding under two types of citizenship distinguished by Habermas (1994): the legal-political citizenship and the socio-psychological or affective citizenship. Legal citizenship consists only of political membership, i.e., state membership. Socio-psychological citizenship is derived from self-identification with a particular national group and is used to denote identities associated with nation-states (and not just states). Historically, the formation of nation-states has been based on an exclusive or ethnocultural model of community formation, a model which perceived the relation between a culture and an ethnos as linear and direct (Habermas 1996), and which, as social constructivists have argued, mobilised education – along with the media and other state mechanisms – to construct

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nation-states and national identities by inculcating a certain official historical narrative. However, inductive techniques were also mobilised in these three studies, and an analytical framework was developed to address the data itself. Two concepts which have dominated Greek Cypriot politics over the last century were found necessary for the analysis: Hellenocentrism, which emphasises the Greekness of Greek-Cypriots and has been mainly supported by the political right, and Cypriocentrism, which emphasises the Cypriot (ethnocultural and legal-political) identity which the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities share, and which has been mainly supported by the political left (Spyrou 2001). More recently, Pachoulides (2007) has identified a third discourse, that of Helleno-Cypriocentrism, which represents Cyprus as a monocultural state inhabited by citizens of Greek origin and of Greek-Orthodox religion; those who identify with this discourse perceive themselves as descendants of the first Greeks and, though they have no political agenda for ‘Union’ with Greece, their representation of Cyprus excludes Turkish Cypriots as ‘Others-Enemy’ and includes only the part of Cyprus that is under the control of the Republic of Cyprus (see also Psaltis 2008). Having mobilised both sets of analytical tools (political vs. ethnocultural citizenship; cyprio-, helleno- and hellenocyprio-centrism), a strong presence of historical narratives and historiographical elements were found in the three studies; they are brought together in this chapter.

Findings The analyses of these documents led to various findings, which are presented in detail in each of the respective publications for these studies. My objective is to pull together some common themes located in these findings, so as to address the concerns of this book. These themes are (Greek) Cypriot identity and citizenship and European identity and citizenship. The two themes were selected because both are heavily permeated by the official Greek Cypriot historical narrative regarding Cyprus and the Cyprus Problem.

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(Greek) Cypriot Citizenship as Historical Narrative Constructions of (Greek) Cypriot citizenship were permeated by Hellenocentric and Helleno-Cypriocentric elements in the three studies. Four key mechanisms were located by which this was performed in text, and each of these mechanisms fuelled the construction of a certain historical narrative. The quote which follows is quite characteristic and exemplifies the four mechanisms described below in a more succinct way than in other instances in the text: Achaeans colonised the island right after the Trojan War, and contemporary Cypriots are considered their descendants. Archaeological research and findings provide evidence of the incorporation of Cyprus to the Greek world which continued from those Classical times, to the Byzantine period and today. The Greek element, despite Ottoman occupation and rule for 300 years, comprises 80% of the population. Only 11% of the population are Turks and they are the remnants of the Ottoman conquerors and a product of Islamisation of part of the inhabitants of the island. Cyprus since 1960 is an independent state. During the last decades, Cyprus has, despite obstacles and the brutal Turkish invasion in 1974, done miracles . . . Cyprus, based on archaeological heritage, on the Christian and European tradition and culture follows its European orientation and destiny. Conquerors come and go. Nobody succeeded in changing its Greek and European character (G8a: 8–9). In this introductory section on Cyprus from a geography textbook, the presence of a historical narrative was quite strong. Firstly, the use of language in text was such that the term ‘Cypriot’, ‘Cyprus’ or ‘nation’ systematically denoted Greek Cypriot or the Greek nation in Cyprus, implying that all Cypriots are or have been Greeks and that others, including Turkish Cypriots, are not Cypriots. Indeed, in this quote, the terms ‘Greek element’ and ‘Turks’ were the norm in referring to the two communities in text; the terms ‘Greek Cypriots’ and ‘Turkish Cypriots’ are absent. Consequently, ‘the Turkish Cypriots’

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were comparatively invisible in the text, since there were more frequent references to ‘Turks’ and ‘Turks of Cyprus’ than to Turkish Cypriots. Similarly, other Cypriot minority groups were invisible in text, as Armenians, Latins and Maronites were rarely referred to; their perspectives did not inform or complement the official historical narrative in place. Secondly, this first mechanism was underpinned by a historical representation of Cyprus as historically Greek, monocultural and exclusive of other (old and new) communities and minorities of Cyprus, including Turkish Cypriots. This was supported and legitimised by a linear chronological historical narrative of victimisation, which essentialised Greek identity into blood-bonds of brotherhood and into an undifferentiated national group. Cyprus was also defined as homogeneously Christian Orthodox and Greek-speaking, respectively, in two maps in this textbook depicting religions and languages in Europe. Since Cyprus was constructed as ‘historically Greek’ and Turks were recent conquerors, then the presence of Turkish Cypriots was de-legitimised because their presence is the result of Islamicisation, or because the Turkish Cypriots were the descendants of ‘conquerors’; at best, the Turkish Cypriots were a minority, a cultural group with no political rights (note how civic and ethnocultural citizenship were conflated here so the latter de-legitimised the former for the Turkish Cypriots). This in fact formulated the third mechanism by which Cypriot citizenship was formed in text: an understanding of Greek Cypriot rights over Cyprus as legitimised by a longer historical presence and larger population. The fourth mechanism involved the content ascribed to Cypriot citizenship as compared to Greek and Turkish citizenship (when this distinction was made). Text about the ‘Greeks and Turks of Cyprus’ indicated that their identities were defined as national (ethnocultural) and distinct, each attached to a respective motherland, each using national symbols and anthems. Cypriot identity, on the other hand, was ascribed a civic-legal content, which attached Cypriots to the Republic of Cyprus as a state, as a political entity legitimised by its constitution in 1960, and as a place with no emotional or psychological appeal. In this way, Cypriocentrism was largely absent,

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whereas Hellenocentrism was performed in text when historical, economic or cultural bonds with Greece were explained (see quote below). Hellenocentrism was also performed by means of selection and emphasis; for example, there were many chapters in the geography textbooks on Greece but no clear explanation of why this is so or why Greece was taught in parallel to Cyprus. The answer was located in the narratives of identity: Since ancient times the Greeks of Cyprus have close relations with the rest of the Greeks . . . This collaboration continued in the modern era. Today Greece is our main support in the struggle for freedom of our particular [idiaiteri] homeland. The Greek people and our Greek immigrants [apodimoi] help in every way for the liberation of our occupied lands (G4a: 91). Cypriot citizenship as social-cultural identity was non-existent in the civic or geography textbooks or other documents. Indeed, when there was a reference in text to cultural elements, the distinction (made in the 1960 Constitution) between the two languages, religions, and cultures of the two communities was reiterated throughout the documents analysed; in this sense, citizenship only acquired a social-cultural content when it was used to denote a (Greek) Cypriot national identity, evidenced by the definitions of ‘nation’ and ‘state’, which were identical in both C9 and C12: [Cyprus’s] people [laos = the totality of the citizens] do not belong in the same Nation, which means that they are not linked with elements of a common civilisation, common historical past, and common achievements. The different nationality of the citizens of a state does not keep them from having the same citizenship [ypikootita = ithageneia, being a subject of the state], to be, that is, citizens of the same state. (C12: 85). The nation was thus defined as ‘the total number of individuals who are linked . . . because of a common civilization, common history and common pursuits’ (C12: 85). The paragraph continued by defining ethnocultural components of a national identity, namely common racial

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origins, common language, common religion and, in effect, identified the two ‘nations’ represented in Cyprus; the textbook rhetoric was thus inconsistent with the current frequent reference in Greek Cypriot political discourse to a ‘Cypriot people’ [kypriakos laos] comprising all of the island’s communities. This is perhaps an example of how official narratives change, or of how conflicting narratives can be present in parallel. European Citizenship as Historical Narrative The second theme that emerged and was found to be highly informed by the Greek Cypriot official historical narrative involved the contents ascribed in text to ‘Europe’ and by extent to European citizenship as both an ethnocultural and civic-political identity. As shown in the historical narrative from the first quote from G8a above, Europe frequently acquired an ethnocultural content in text, which served as a vehicle to argue for Cyprus’ ‘European-ness’. For example, in many geography and civics textbooks, ancient Greece and Rome, as well as Christian heritage, were presented as the cultural foundations of Europe: Europe was inhabited since very ancient times and its peoples progressed like nowhere else on earth. The European culture constitutes the continuation of the ancient Greek and Roman civilisation. An important element of the European cultural heritage are also the teachings of Christianity (G5: 100). European citizenship was discussed as an ethnocultural concept and, more particularly, a Greco-Roman and Christian one. Hellenocentrism and Eurocentrism reinforced each other in the text, as Greek civilisation was construed as the fount of European civilisation. For example, a paraphrased Paul Valery statement was cited in both secondary civics textbooks: ‘A European is only the one who has become a student of the Greek civilisation and has gone through the discipline of Greek thought’ (C12: 203) – other quotes from the daily press, from speeches, and from documents prepared by political organisations supported this ethnocultural (Hellenocentric) construction of a European

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citizenship. One textbook stated: ‘We have come to realise that the European continent is a carrier of civilisation . . . [W]e are inspired by the cultural and humanistic heritage of Europe, the values of which are still a living reality’ (C12: 203). Likewise, under a two-page subsection on ‘Greece and the EU’, Paul Valery’s definition of ‘Europe’ was cited at length: Europe is not only a geographical concept but it is mainly a cultural one. Many have wondered as to the elements which comprise the common European heritage. With admirable clarity Paul Valery defined the triptych of the cultural unity of Europeans. As a first element he considered the ancient Greek spirit, an outcome of the perfect Greek civilisation in the fields of philosophy and science. As a second element he defined the civilisation of Rome and particularly Roman Law, which was imposed to the whole world via the powerful at the time Imperium Romanun and the long and uninterrupted Pax Romana. The physiognomy, however, of the European civilisation, has not been completed. The third element is Christianity, which shaped the character of Europe for two millennia. (C12: 213) Thus an understanding of ‘Europe’ as a concept with ethnocultural content inherited from the Greeks, the Romans and the Christians was in place when historical and cultural representations of Europe were discussed. This definition included Cyprus because of the Greek and Christian cultural profile ascribed to it by the textbooks: Cyprus was construed as European because it was perceived as firmly associated with Greco-Roman culture and Christian heritage. Cyprus’ Europeanness was attached to its perceived Greekness, thus its European-ness is defined as monocultural and exclusive of other communities and minorities. It has been argued that ‘Europe’ has been re-interpreted diversely in the socio-political contexts of member-states, a diversity welcomed with respect to national and local particularities. In the case of Greek Cypriot geography and civic curricula, ‘Europe’ seemed to have been ‘domesticated’: linking Europe to Greco-Roman and Christian culture and construing Cyprus as historically European because of

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its perceived historical ‘Greekness’ bolstered Cyprus’ national (Greek) identity. Indeed such argumentation was prevalent during the 1990s, not only in the official Greek Cypriot discourse with regards to Cyprus’ EU membership, but also within the European Commission itself (see Philippou 2009a). This understanding has been highly problematic for the textbooks, as it has deepened divisions within Cyprus by not challenging the Helleno-Cypriocentric historical narrative discussed in the previous section of this chapter: it has reinforced the national (Greek) identity of Greek Cypriots and has excluded other, old and new, communities that do not fit the European definition of Cypriot citizenship, including Turkish Cypriots. When European citizenship as a political-legal identity was at stake, it was usually defined as a political identity which was directly linked to the European Union, of which the Republic of Cyprus has been a member-state since 2004. Given that it is recognised as the sole legitimate government on the island by the EU, the textbooks made frequent reference to the Republic’s relations with the EU as a clear-cut issue of membership despite division. Thus the official historical narrative was again present here, since European citizenship is granted to all citizens of the Republic of Cyprus. The Republic’s existence is complicated, however, because the island remains divided, and because Turkish Cypriot authorities believe the Republic only represents the Greek Cypriot community. Helleno-Cypriocentrism was also substantiated through the abundant content in the civic textbooks’ sub-sections on European (and international) organisations and how each of these organisations viewed the Cyprus problem. There were several quotes from decisions condemning the violation of Greek Cypriots’ human rights (e.g., decisions in favour of Greek Cypriots claiming their property in the north; C12: 201) or condemning the proclamation of the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (e.g., C12: 216–217). Nowhere, however, were there any references to the Republic’s turbulent past, nor were there references to the violation of Turkish Cypriot human rights by Greek Cypriot nationalists during the 1960s, or by Turkey after 1974. As European citizenship (in the context of the EU) was defined through member-state citizenship, Turkish Cypriots’ European citizenship and enjoyment of EU benefits was conditional upon recognition of

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the Republic of Cyprus. Once again, this construction of European citizenship as political identity was supported by the official Greek Cypriot historical narrative, which reduces the Cyprus Problem to a violation of an internationally recognised state (the Republic of Cyprus) in 1974, and which silences the inter-communal conflicts of the 1960s.

Discussion This chapter brings together findings from three studies to indicate how the official Greek Cypriot historical narrative informed constructions of Cypriot and European citizenship in two relatively under-researched curriculum subjects in Greek Cypriot education, geography and civics. Firstly, Cypriot citizenship was construed as exclusive of communities and groups other than the Greek Cypriot one, exactly because it was informed by an ethnocultural nationalist historical narrative which construed Cyprus as historically Greek and which attached political legitimacy to cultural ‘presence’ (in terms of length of historical presence and of population percentages). Secondly, European citizenship not only remained hostage to this narrative, but was also used to enhance it, since Cyprus’ European-ness was attributed to a perceived Greco-Roman and Christian heritage (elements which epitomise an ethnocultural understanding of ‘Europe’) and to the Republic of Cyprus’ (perceived) unproblematic membership with the EU, despite the unresolved political problem. Through the case of Greek Cypriot geography and civic curricula, the findings of these three studies contribute to our understanding of curriculum (including syllabi and textbooks) as political and ideological text, as historical and cultural constructs which reflect certain constructions of identity and ‘others’, which legitimise certain versions of the past and, by extension, the future. These are important but not new issues for curriculum theory and the sociology of curriculum. Perhaps more interestingly, this chapter demonstrates that subjects such as geography and civics remain ‘haunted’ by the nationalist role for which they were originally conceived during the modernist, nation-state building periods in nineteenth-century Europe. This has continued at the expense of the new pedagogical and epistemological

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approaches which have emerged in both geography and citizenship education. These approaches stress how pupils need to become familiar with and develop the skills by which a geographer approaches space, and human activity within that space, in a critical manner, and how an active and democratic citizen can engage with the complexities of pluralist democracies (see, for example, Huckle 1997; Roland-Lévy and Ross 2003). These skills can hardly be developed by curricula which impose knowledge (e.g., a certain historical grand narrative); a nationalist school history cannot foster historical thinking when it propagates a single, unquestionable (official) version of the past. As with all textbook research, the findings presented in this chapter are limited to the official text; there is a scarcity of research on how these texts are read and interpreted in and outside the classroom by teachers and students. Of course the textbooks analysed in this chapter have been used in changing ways in the classroom over the last 20–30 years, a period of changing political as well as social and cultural circumstances. These limitations are of course challenges for further research, an agenda which becomes all the more important as advances in the fields of geography and citizenship education call for the enhancement of students’ critical thinking in reading any texts, including textbooks. Debates in Cyprus over the Educational Reform for Greek Cypriot education, which has been in progress since 2004, have often focused on whether history textbooks should change, and how. I argue that curriculum change and innovation cannot focus sporadically only on one subject (e.g., history) or on one aspect of education (e.g., textbooks); the findings of this chapter indicate there are some equally alarming findings in two subjects other than history. I am not arguing, however, for a replacement of the history textbook debate by a ‘geography and civic textbook’ debate. By broadening the scope of critical revisits to official histories, I am arguing for a more holistic appraisal of curriculum as ideological text, and that the implications of decisions over pedagogy are an aspect of curriculum. The debates therefore would be more productive, in my view, if they focused on the whole theory of pedagogy as it is considered desirable for the curriculum. Some useful questions could be drawn from

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curriculum theory. For example, in Freire’s (1996) terms: do we want a pedagogy of oppression? Or do we want a pedagogy of critical consciousness? Do we want a pedagogy which imposes knowledge in the form of grand narratives and hegemonic, official histories? Or do we want a pedagogy that challenges ‘cultures of silence’ by allowing constructions of alternative forms of knowledge, even if these differ from the official ones? The implications of our responses to such questions for both geography, civic and history curricula are a challenge I suggest we undertake, especially within the context of the Educational Reform. This could be accomplished in a variety of ways, including the following: by allowing the complexities of Cypriot (unofficial, marginal and contradicting) histories to enter the official discourse, the textbook, and more importantly, the classroom; by recognising their very complexity; by acknowledging the huge role of teachers and students (who carry a variety of experiences and reflect a variety of social and cultural discourses), whilst in interaction with curricula and textbooks, in constructing their own ‘enacted’ curricula (which are in effect different from the official ones). These changes can strengthen the very ground upon which, to return to Freire (1996), education is supposed to be located: a ‘problem-posing’ concept of education as opposed to a ‘banking’ concept of education; an education which raises questions, as opposed to an education satisfied with official answers.

References AKTI. 2004. Ekthesi gia ta Vivlia Istorias kai Logotehnias tis 6is Demotikou se Schesi me tin Proothisi tis Vias kai tou Ethnikismou. Nicosia: AKTI Center for Studies and Research. Apple, Michael. 1993. Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age. New York: Routledge. Apple, Michael and Christian-Smith, Linda. K. 1991. ‘The politics of the textbook’, in M. Apple & L. K. Christian-Smith (eds), The Politics of the Textbook. London: Routledge. Bonides, Kyriakos. 2004. To Periehomeno tou Sholikou Vivliou os Antikeimeno Erevnas: Diahroniki Exetasi tis Shetikis Erevnas kai Methodologikes Proseggiseis. Athens: Metehmio Publications. Bryant, Rebecca. 2004. Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus. London: I.B.Taurus.

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Cederman, Lars-Eric. 2001. ‘Nationalism and bounded integration: what it would take to construct a European demos’, European Journal of International Relations, 7 (2), pp. 139–174. Coulby, David. 1995. ‘Ethnocentricity, postmodernity and European curricular systems’, European Journal of Teacher Education, 18 (2/3), pp. 143–53. Delanty, Gerard. 1995. Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality. London: McMillan Press. Freire, Paulo. 1996. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. Green, Andy. 1997. Globalisation, the Nation-State and Education. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan. Habermas, Jurgen. 1994. ‘Citizenship and national identity’, in B. Van Steenbergen (ed), The Condition of Citizenship: An Introduction. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. ——. 1996. ‘The European nation state: its achievements and its limitations: on the past and future of sovereignty and citizenship’, Ratio Juris, 9 (2), pp. 125–137. Huckle, John. 1997. ‘Towards a critical school geography’, in D. Tilbury and M. Williams (eds), Teaching and Learning Geography. London: Routledge. Kapsalis, Achilleas, Kyriakos Bonides, and Athina Sipitanou (eds). 2000. I Eikona tou ‘Allou’/Geitona sta Sholika Vivlia ton Valkanikon Horon. Athens: TypothitoGeorge Dardanos. Keating, Avril, Deborah Hinderliter Ortloff, and Stavroula Philippou. 2009. ‘Introduction to special issue: citizenship education curricula: changes and challenges in global and European integration’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41 (2), pp. 145–158. Kizilyurek, Niyazi. 2002. ‘National memory and Turkish Cypriot textbooks’, in C. Koulouri (ed), Clio in the Balkans, The Politics of History Education. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe; Southeast European Joint History Project. Klerides, Eleftherios. 2008. The Discursive (Re)construction of National Identity in Cyprus and England with Special Reference to History Textbooks: A Comparative Study. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Institute of Education, University of London. Koulouri, Christina. 2001. ‘The tyranny of history’, in C. Koulouri (ed), Teaching the History of Southeastern Europe. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe; Southeast European Joint History Project. Koullapis, Loris. 2002. ‘The subject of history in the Greek Cypriot educational system: a sub-set of the Greek nation’, in C. Koulouri (ed), Clio in the Balkans, The Politics of History Education. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe; Southeast European Joint History Project. Ministry of Education and Culture. 1992, 1st Edition; 1995a, 3rd Edition. Gnorizo ton kosmo: Evropi kai Mesi Anatoli, E’ Demotikou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service.

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Ministry of Education and Culture. 1983, 1st Edition; 2001a, 19th Edition. Ginomai Kalos Politis: Agogi tou Politi gia tin E’ taxi tou Demotikou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 1983, 1st Edition; 2004, 22nd Edition; 2006, reprinted. Ginomai Kalos Politis: Agogi tou Politi gia tin St’ Taxi tou Demotikou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 1996 1st Edition; 2004a, 3rd Edition. Politiki Agogi, C’ Gymnasiou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 1995 3rd Revised Edition; 2004b 7th Revised Edition. Politiki Agogi, B’ Lykeiou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 1986, 1st Edition; 2001b, 15th Edition. Gnorizo to Perivallon mou; Geografia Tritis Demotikou Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 2002, 6th Edition; 1998, 1st Edition. Gnorizo to Perivallon mou; Geografia Tetartis Demotikou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 1995b, 1st Edition. Gnorizo ton Kosmo (Afriki, Ameriki, Asia Okeania), St’ Taxi. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 1999, 2nd edition. Taxidi sti Gi mas, A’ Gymnasiou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 2002, 2nd Edition; reprinted 2005a. Geografia tis Kyprou, B’ Gymnasiou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture. 2004, 2nd Edition; reprinted 2005b. Taxidi stin Evropi, B’ Gymnasiou. Nicosia: Curriculum Development Service. Pachoulides, Kyriakos. 2007. I Ethniki Taytotita ton Ellinokyprion: mia Koinoniopsychologiki Genetiki Proseggisi. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Panteion University, Athens. Papadakis, Yiannis. 2008. ‘Narrative, memory and history education: a comparison of schoolbooks on the “History of Cyprus”’, History and Memory, 20 (2), pp. 128–148. Philippou, Stavroula. 2010. ‘To Egheirima tis Anamorfosis Neon Analytikon Programmaton gia ta Dimosia Sholeia tis Kypriakis Dimokratias: Proseggisi, Zitimata kai Prokliseis’, Comparative and International Education Review, 14, pp. 164–172. ——. 2009a. ‘What makes Cyprus European? Curricular responses of Greek Cypriot civic education to Europe’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41 (2), pp. 199–223. ——. 2009b. ‘European citizenship/identity and curriculum in Cyprus: exploring ways forward’, in L. Neophytou (ed), Proceedings from the International Conference ‘Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Cosmopolitanism’, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 3–4 November 2007 (Volume II), Nicosia: POLIS-Citizenship Association, pp. 444–456.

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——. 2008. ‘I “Evropi” sta Analytika Programmata kai Egheiridia Analytika Geografias: Hartografontas to Pedio kai tin Ennoia’. Paper presented at the Cyprus Pedagogical Association 10th Pancyprian Conference, ‘Quality in education: research and teaching’, 6–7 June 2008, Nicosia, Cyprus. ——. 2007. ‘Re-inventing “Europe”: the case of the European dimension in Greek Cypriot curricula of History and Geography’, The Curriculum Journal, 18 (1), pp. 57–88. ——. 2004. ‘Developing a European dimension in education: the case of Byzantine history in primary curricula in Cyprus’, in S. Philippou and C. Makriyianni (eds), What Does it Mean to Think Historically? Approaches to Teaching and Learning History. Nicosia: Association for Historical Dialogue and Research. Philippou, Stavroula and Andrekos Varnava. 2009. ‘Constructions of solution(s) to the Cyprus problem: exploring formal curricula in Greek Cypriot state schools’, in A. Varnava and H. Faustmann (eds), The Failure to Reunify Cyprus: The Annan Plan and Beyond. London: I.B.Tauris. Pingel, Falk. 2000. The European Home: Representations of 20th Century Europe in History Textbooks. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. ——. 1999. UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision. Hannover: Hahn/UNESCO/Georg Eckert Institute for International TextbookResearch. Pinson, Halleli. 2007. ‘Inclusive curriculum? Challenges to the role of civic education in a Jewish democratic state’, Curriculum Inquiry, 37 (4), pp. 351–382. POST-RI. 2007. Textual and Visual Analyses of the Lower Secondary School History Textbooks; Comparative Analysis of the Old and New History Textbooks. Education for Peace II. Nicosia: POST-Research Institute. POST-RI. 2004. Pilot Application for the History and Literature Books of the 5th Grade of Turkish Cypriot Elementary Education. Education for Peace I. Nicosia: POST-Research Institute. Psaltis, Charis. 2008. ‘Hartografontas to Pedio ton Diakoinotikon Scheseon: mia Koinonio-Psychologiki Analysi’, International and European Politics: Trimonthly Political and Economic Review, 11, pp. 133–143. Roland-Lévy, Christine and Ross, Alistair. (eds) 2003. Political Learning and Citizenship in Europe. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Schissler, Holly and Soysal, Yasemin (eds) 2005. The Nation, Europe, and the World: Textbooks and Curricula in Transition. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Soysal, Yasemin. 2002. ‘Locating Europe’, European Societies 4 (3), pp. 265–84. Soysal, Yasemin and Vasilia Antoniou. 2002. ‘A Common regional past? Portrayals of the Byzantine and Ottoman heritages from within and from without’, in C. Koulouri (ed), Clio in the Balkans; the Politics of History Education. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe; Southeast European Joint History Project.

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Spyrou, Spyros. 2001. ‘Those on the other side: ethnic identity and imagination in Greek Cypriot children’s lives’, in H. Schwartzman (ed), Children and Anthropology: Perspectives for the 21st Century. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey. Varnava, Andrekos. 2006. ‘The emergence of Greek national identity amongst the Orthodox Cypriots: British imperialism and modernity, 1878–1910’. Paper presented at conference, Nationalism in a Troubled Triangle: Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. Nicosia: University of Cyprus.

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3 HEGEMONY, PER MISSIBLE PUBLIC DISCOUR SE AND LOWER CL ASS POLITICAL CULTUR E Andreas Panayiotou

Introduction The aim of this essay is the analysis of the functioning of hegemony in relation to historiography and public discourse in Cyprus. The analysis will begin with reference to the ‘silences’ and ‘selective focus’ of official/hegemonic historiography and their effect on the culture and politics of the lower classes1 in Cyprus during the ‘long process’ to modernity that began in the middle of the eighteenth century. It will then proceed to indicate how the experience of the modern form of lower class oppositional culture, the Left, was censored and made invisible – and what we may learn if we look at this historical experience analytically. The third part of the essay is an attempt to decode the key sign of hegemonic historiography, the political-cultural claim for union with Greece in a single state, enosis, in an effort to show how the hegemonic essentialist framework leads to a coded and indirect form of public discourse with rigidly defined boundaries for permissible public discussion.

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The Censoring of Lower Class Political Culture and the Invisibility of Class Conflict The first and still most sweeping shift in Cypriot historiography occurred in the nineteenth century. By the end of the eighteenth century, Archimandrites Kyprianos had published his Chronological History of the Island of Cyprus, and by the beginning of the twentieth century a whole set of ‘histories’ (by locals and foreigners) refocused the historical narrative and the main protagonists. In Kyprianos’s book there is a strong spatial emphasis on the island as a country, while the historical narrative stretches to antiquity (in contrast to medieval Chronicles); thus the ‘ancestors’ are sought in biblical narrative – Cypriots are traced to Hettim, grandson of Noah. A century later the island’s history was refocused on the Greek national ideal, and thus Hettim disappeared and was substituted with Tefkros, a mythical hero of the Trojan War. Cyprus in this context became a branch of a broader unity (Hellenism) linked to the Greek Kingdom. This shift during the process of modernisation signified a shift in hegemonic culture from one identity model (the Romeic) to another (the Hellenic). This shift has been part of the broader transformation of identities in the eastern Mediterranean, as Kitromilides (1989) has demonstrated, and in Cyprus it provided the cultural framework for the political confrontations in the Christian community during the first decades of British rule (Attalides 1986; Katsiaounis 1996). This conflict, however, has largely disappeared from official memory. This disappearance is not the result of a lack of data; on the contrary, it is part of the structure of hegemonic discourse. Conflicts in Cyprus during modernity have reached climactic moments, but their resolution has tended to lead to reform, rather than to violent rupture or repression (Panayiotou 2006). In this context, conflicts which have led to the creation of new hegemonic frameworks (such as the one which climaxed in the period 1900–10) are made invisible so the new hegemony appears as an essentialist, trans-historical truth. Thus there is a tendency in hegemonic culture to avoid two characteristics of historical development, conflict and instances of transformation that may point to the transitory character of contemporary beliefs. These exclusions are applied much more

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comprehensively to the experience of the lower classes and to periods or instances of class conflict that reveal deeper social cleavages. The period from the middle of the eighteenth century to 1833 witnessed a major series of uprisings against Ottoman rule and local power structures, including the Church. The class composition of these uprisings seems to have been to a large extent peasant, and the ‘cause’ seems to have been the rise of a new ‘class’ of tax collectors and traders in the broader context of the incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy (Panayiotou 1999). The uprisings and the events are documented by both Ottoman and Church archives as well as by Consular reports. But even though one can find data on them, they are selectively treated as ‘moments of upheaval’ with little reference to the implications of the economic causes, such as the role of broader economic trends deriving from the relation of the Ottoman Empire to the West. There is also an avoidance of the class dimension of the revolts, both in the composition of the rebel movements and in the focus of their mobilisation. From this whole period (1760–1833), what has been codified as of key significance is the hanging of the archbishop and part of the Christian elite in 1821. The choice has an obvious instrumental dimension – it is an effort to link Cypriot history to the events in Greece, where the modern nation-state was gradually created after the 1821 uprising against Ottoman rule. Thus the uprisings of 1833, for example, which could have qualified as a Cypriot revolution, are downplayed, as are the developments in Egypt in that period and their local impact. Part of the reason for minimising the importance of many of the events of the period is that the Church was one of the key targets of rebellion.2 The reconstruction of history from the late nineteenth century has downplayed the traditional identity proposed by the church (Romeic), but this reconstruction has upgraded the Church as a sign of the alleged unity of the ‘Greco-Christian flock’. To do this, conflicts within the Church (for example, after the hanging of the archbishop in 1821, another faction took over) had to be papered over and, even more significantly, the possibility of alternative forms of culture and politics has been eclipsed. The main target here has been lower class culture and class conflict.

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As an example of this tendency, I will consider two accounts of the events of 1804 – the one from History of Cyprus by K. Georgiades, and the other from an account of the Ottoman regime by C. Kyrris. Georgiades was awarded a prize in the 1930s for a work ‘proving’ that ‘Cypriots are Greeks’,3 and his history book has been used in schools. His reference to the events of 1804 is characterised by an effort to obscure the events and transform the conflict into an ethno-religious one. The context of the presentation is revealing: the Ottoman period gets the least number of pages of any historical period prior to 1960 – 18 pages for the Ottomans versus 54 for the Latin period, for example. There is a reference to some revolts of the period, but there is a decisive absence of any reference to class elements (e.g., peasants, urban poor). It is ‘Greeks’ (Ellines) and/or ‘Turks’ (Tourkoi) who rebel, and usually those terms are used to differentiate the two communities rather than to show their cooperation, as in the uprising in 1764–66. The description of the events of 1804, the ‘revolution of 1804’, is not placed in the section discussing revolts, but rather in a section referring to a prominent Greek Cypriot of the period, H. Kornesios, who was actually the target of the uprising. Thus the ‘hero’ is presented as a man who acquired a lot of power and thus inspired the hatred of the Aghas (local Muslim elite): ‘the hatred broke out into a revolution in 1804 when the raging crowd entered the archbishopric and beat the Archbishop’ (Georgiades 1978: 236, my translation). The issue of taxes (the cause of the uprising) is totally avoided, and so is the lower class origin of the ‘mob’ which is here indirectly identified with the Aghas – it makes one wonder indeed how many Aghas existed in Cyprus who could make up a revolutionary crowd. That the ‘revolutionary crowds’ of 1833 do not get even a line of reference is indicative of the selective use of the data. Costas Kyrris was one of the most significant Greek Cypriot historians of the post-independence period,4 with considerable archival research work as a background to his writings. In his work the events are not censored, but the narrative falls captive to the need to prioritise the events of 1821. In referring to the 1804 peasant siege of Nicosia, Kyrris lays out clearly the class and mixed character of the rebellion and the cooperation of the upper classes of both religious groups. But

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in referring to the repression of the period, he notes in a surprisingly unaccounted form of rhetoric: So, this period, 1804–1805, which leads to the intensification of the differentiation of the upper classes, of the Greek and Turkish, is significant for the following reason: from then on the ethno-racial jealousy of the Turks toward the Greeks surpasses the class context of previous cooperation (Kyrris 1984: 80, my translation). The data does not support the claim in relation to the lower classes: in 1821 there was no conflict at the popular level, and during the 1833 uprisings the lower classes cooperated again. Kyrris could be right if he is referring to the resentment created among the Muslim elite by the rise of the Church and the Christian elite. But here, obviously, the careful differentiation of classes has disappeared in favour of the unaccounted cliché of ‘ethno-racial jealousy’. The expression of course is ‘useful’ as an account for the motives of the Muslim elite in 1821, but it again overshadows the rebellions of 1833 in favour of the symbolic reference to 1821. Thus the political experience of the lower classes (the cooperation and mobilisations of ‘ordinary people’, irrespective of religious differentiations) is again eclipsed on the main stage of official historiography by the prominence given to the archbishop as an elite martyr. The interpretation regarding the causes of his hanging (elite rivalry) is generalised and presented as a phenomenon covering the whole of society. The issue of historiographical class bias can be seen in a broader context if the analysis moves beyond instances of class conflict as a form of class politics and focuses also on lower class culture. The community of Linobambakoi was a prominent lower class community in this period and played an active role in the uprisings. Here the issue is not just filtered through selective references – there is an almost total eclipse. Yet there is the well known (to the authorities and historians) question of ‘population numbers’ – in Kyprianos’s historiography, there is at the end of the book a census of tax payers, according to which the ‘Christian people’ are around 45 per cent while the ‘Turkish people’ are about 55 per cent.

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Those numbers obviously have been the focus of debate by Greek Cypriot historians but, in general, available estimates indicate a shift in public religious allegiance, with the Muslims about one third around 1840 and falling to about one fifth by the 1880s (Papadopoulos 1965, 1980). The shift and relative fluidity in the numbers of each religious community are inevitably related to the phenomenon of Linobambakoi, the liminal religious community, and their shifting declarations of official identity. In Greek Cypriot historiography the Linobambakoi are treated as crypto-Christians; that they constituted a community which represented a broader fluidity in religious identities is a censored issue. To address this would touch on a deep problem for official historiography – the essentialist framework that assumes a trans-historical identity. The eclipse of the Romioi-Ellines cultural conflict is but a part of this broader censorship. But here there is also a class bias, and an opening of the issue would open the discussion on popular forms of religious faith and ritual which mixed a variety of religious traditions, as well as the discussion on the existence of alternative forms of belief to those propagated by the Church. The absence of an analytic question on possible de facto tolerance among the lower classes is interesting in itself: why not assume that some people living in a political-cultural environment (such as that of the Ottoman millets) which permitted the coexistence of faiths saw that Islam and Christianity are of the same source and belong to the same ‘family of religions’? That this popular form of religion was used also as a strategy for avoiding taxes would be logical from the perspective of the lower classes and their culture – not so, evidently, from the perspective of those who claimed to be the administrators of their souls. I suggest that the absence of an analytic interest in the Linobambakoi shows a deeper historical class and geopolitical bias. If some people today see similarities between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, this might be considered as a liberal, enlightened approach coming out of secular modern education. This could be regarded as a form of modern European multiculturalism. But the possibility of these cosmopolitan and multicultural phenomena was confined by the Western Orientalist gaze to its own world and to its own social products. The assumption that a similar approach may have existed among impoverished peasants in a distant region of Cyprus like Tylliria seems to have escaped both

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colonial and local interpretative frameworks, as Costantinou (2007) points out. The Linobambakoi were poor; the hegemonic frameworks of history seem to assume that only the intellectuals of the upper or middle classes, or western culture, can come up with such an understanding. As a matter of fact, the whole area of the Middle East has been the breeding ground for religious/cultural groups that were the products of centuries of coexistence. It may be time to reflect on the local history of cultural coexistence by looking beyond the official religious institutions (such as the Church) and their propagated dogmas. Class bias became clearly recorded in print when newspapers appeared by the end of the nineteenth century, as Katsiaounis’s (1996) pioneering work documents, and as a comparison of newspaper reports and popular poetry celebrating social banditry indicates. The emergence of the communist Left in the 1920s can thus be seen as a continuation of the tradition of lower class culture and politics expressed as class conflict and as the suspicion of upper class and Church culture. In itself this emergence points to a paradox in the hegemonic historiography: why and how would a radical movement proclaiming atheism, class struggle and resistance to the dominant nationalist hegemony gain ground if indeed the population was solidly unified under the Church and nationalist ideology? It is not just the communists who seem to be residual categories in the existing hegemonic paradigm. In 1922 the Greek Cypriot elite, with the backing of the Church, decided to organise an electoral boycott so as to press its claims for enosis. A group of candidates made up of peasants and urban, white-collar workers ignored the boycott. It has been argued that the negative votes outnumbered the positive ones. Still, if the political elite and the Church organised a boycott and a section of the population voted, this indicates a crisis of hegemony and clearly puts in question the alleged homogeneous unity of the Greek Cypriot community. That the elected representatives had some popular appeal became clear in the 1925 elections, when the most notorious of the elected peasants, Hadjiprocopis, defeated one of the traditional leaders of the nationalists, T. Theodotou, while another, N. Paschalis, who was also defeated, subsequently took up a position in the colonial government. In general the elections of 1925 proved the old elite was

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losing its grip, and that lower class resentment was rising. In this context, the emergence of the communists can be seen as an expression of lower class radicalism in a modern form – some incidents noted in autobiographical reports by the early communists are indicative (Lefkis 1984). A group of communist bakers started a cooperative and placed a star on their bread so as to indicate their ideological mark. Why would people buy bread with a communist star, flock to a ‘Workers’ Centre’ associated with atheism, and vote in municipal and legislative elections (by proportions reaching up to 16 per cent) for communist radicals who were denounced vehemently by all the ‘powers’, if there was not a popular culture which nurtured such a resistance ethos? And this did not happen only in the cities. Servas (1993), for example, recounted an incident in a Paphos village where the editorial board of the communist newspaper (which attacked the abbot of Agios Neophytos’ monastery) was welcomed by a crowd of villagers, including the local priest, and invited to ‘celebrate the victory against the abbot’.

Decoding Cypriot Communism as a Form of Class and Historical Consciousness The recognition of the existence of an autonomous lower class culture amounts to an acknowledgment that there is data which cannot be ignored. The next significant issue is how to analyse the data, what framework to apply in order to interpret it. Instrumental analysis here can lead to a strategy of trying to vindicate party policy on the part of the Left, but this strategy is the least of current problems. What dominate usually are strategies of demonisation or a peculiar strategy of transforming the politics of the lower classes, and the Left as the modern political expression of these politics, into an invisible entity. This section suggests the application of analytic categories from social science on the available data from the Left, in an effort to comprehend sociologically the ‘collective action’ of the oppressed and the historical implications of their culture and consciousness. If one looks at the origins of the Left in the 1920s and its explosive growth in the 1940s, the key causes can be easily traced to economic factors – the major external factor was actually the impact of the world

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economy in causing a process of mass proletarianisation. It was the ‘ability’ of the communists to provide the emerging working class with analytic frameworks and organisational practices that was catalytic in their success in organising the new formations among the lower classes. If we want to move beyond the invisibility of the lower classes, then we must address the phenomenon of class consciousness as a form of political culture. The term is rooted in Marxist analysis, but forms of it are central to contemporary social movement theory and research. In Marxist analysis the modern working class, by being in a key structural position, can become not only conscious of its class interests but also of the dynamics of the system itself, thus acquiring a historical consciousness. Contemporary studies on social movements have attempted to link the concept with more ‘uneventful’ (rather than only revolutionary) historical periods. As E.P. Thompson and W. Sewell have demonstrated, the emergence of working class consciousness is part of a longer process of development, adjustment and reworking of concepts and categories to be used by the working class in its struggles. In this context one has to see the modern working class not only in its historical uniqueness but also as a form of continuation and transformation of pre-modern forms of popular culture and lower class resistance, as Eric Hobsbawm’s landmark study, Primitive Rebels, suggested. As we try to interpret the experience of the lower classes, we need to see both the continuity and the moments of rupture; the forms this new consciousness takes will have to be both systemic (referring to the totality) and historical (pointing to the transitory form of the current social formation). In this context, the Left as an organisational form and a subculture of the working class can be considered the embodiment of class consciousness in ‘uneventful’ historical periods. The Cypriot Left may not be just another empirical case, but a case revealing alternative hybrid possibilities due to the borderline geopolitical status of the island. In Cyprus during the years between the two world wars, the modern working class movement had to develop between two alternatives which expressed two ‘realities’: 1. A form of reformism expressed by supporters of the Greek liberal politician, Eleftherios Venizelos, or local liberals, which attempted

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to use the available institutional framework created by colonial modernisation. 2. Spontaneous violent collective uprisings (such as the uprising at the Amiantos mine in 1929) and incidents of violent attacks against employers (which endured well into the 1940s) that expressed the long tradition of ‘pre-modern’ lower class resistance. The first socialist circles in the late 1910s emerged within a club linked to the idea of cooperatives – a novelty already adopted in the peasant sector. In this sense communism as a radical ideology and a cultural form emerged in a period of crisis and developed organisationally out of the existing political-cultural forms. There was from the beginning, however, an awareness of the ambiguities of colonial modernisation: in the first years, from 1922–4, there was actually a wavering between the model of the British Labour Party and the communist model coming from the Soviet Union, which represented the non-western world in that context. The most well-known leader and intellectual of the movement then, Fasouliotis, advocated the first alternative. The radical circles, though, chose the second alternative; the roots for this move have to be sought in systemic causes rather than in individual preferences. The communist alternative provided a clear anti-colonial option which distinguished the emerging radicalism from other forms of reformism. The dynamics of the two options can be investigated in light of Tilly’s analysis of the possibilities of the development of social movements in relation to available avenues for mobilisation and goal achievement (Tilly 1978). The British had established a legal framework which allowed for protest and claims-making. Within this framework the possibility of achieving specific goals with violent means was nonexistent, which the uprising of the miners in 1929 and the broader uprising of 1931 clearly demonstrated. On the other hand, the liberal efforts which attempted to function within the framework allowed and ‘facilitated’ by colonial modernisation seemed to offer little room for manoeuvre. The rising expectations of the colonised, after 40 years of colonial rule, resulted in their increasing frustration, particularly with the lack of progress (embodied as a promise of modernisation).

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In this context the communist alternative provided a form of mediation: as a way of organising the lower classes, it drew its energy from the trends which led to violent explosions, but its organisational structures and processes were clearly within the modern parameters introduced by colonial rule (trade unions, education, use of the legal system, mobilisation of solidarity . . . even in the colonial metropolis). One could argue that the poor, half-educated workers of Cyprus (but possessing a modern form of class consciousness) managed to outwit their educated colonial masters, as they outmanoeuvred the latter’s efforts to repress their organisations. Every time the colonial authorities moved against the Left, the activists engaged in a strategy that may be called ‘institutional guerrilla tactics’ by regrouping under new names and organisations, and by exploiting openings and possibilities for organisation according to colonial regulations. The most well-known and significant instance of the unintended consequence of colonial regulations used by the communists was the legalisation of the trade unions in the 1930s. The colonial authorities legalised the major vehicle of communist organising as instructed by the colonial metropolis. Thus organisationally the effort of the communists to channel lower class resentment into legal organising was paying off even in the repressive climate of the 1930s. When the political climate relaxed in the 1940s, the British saw with alarm the rise of a mass movement around communist organising; they tried by the end of World War II to contain it, but their means were limited by the colonial framework. When they arrested the leadership of the leftist trade unions in 1945, the unions responded with mass mobilisations, a challenge to the decision in the courts, the launch of a new union federation, and with efforts to create international solidarity, especially in London. Eventually the effort backfired, as the sweeping victory of the Left in the municipal elections of 1946 demonstrated. Similarly, when the British administration tried to outlaw the party – rather than the unions – in 1955, they again found it impossible to repress the subculture of the Left, which had become by then a form of quotidian organising, as manifested by neighbourhood ideological coffeehouses known as sillogoi. A similar failure awaited the campaign launched by Grivas, the leader of

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EOKA and subsequently of the extreme right wing, to ‘eliminate’ the Left ‘as a political entity’5 in 1958. If the above indicate there was indeed a form of class consciousness which helped the lower classes6 comprehend the dynamics of the capitalist and colonial system and use that knowledge to the benefit of their resistance, can we also say there was a historical consciousness? What did Cypriot communism mean in historical terms? Internally Cypriot communism called for the control of capitalism and modernisation. The main direction of communist activity, after the major clashes of 1948, became geopolitical, externally focused. The Soviet Union offered a model of modernisation that helped the Cypriot natives develop a resistance discourse in opposition to the hegemony propagated by their colonial masters. Even more significantly, it offered the Cypriot lower classes a vision of geopolitical strategy and analysis. It placed their experience in the framework of colonial rule and global and regional anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements. In this framework it is interesting to observe that the policy (multilateralism and alliance with the anti-colonial movements and the post-colonial nonaligned bloc) suggested by the ‘people’s movement’ from the 1940s and 1950s became practically the official policy of the Republic of Cyprus after independence – even if the Left was excluded from power. At the time, class consciousness furnished the lower classes with a historical vision which enabled them to see the dynamics of decolonisation as the key variable of its times, while the upper classes and the Church were articulating a messianic rhetoric (due precisely to their effort to contain and control the ‘people’s movement’) which eventually imprisoned them, leading to a widening gap between reality and hegemonic ideology.

The Adventures of the Sign of Enosis In order to understand the peculiarity noted above, the Left’s ability to situate the Cypriot experience in the historical dynamics of its times in opposition to the messianism of the Right, I will explore the functioning of hegemonic ideology, its historical unfolding and the way reality and ideology came into a diametrically opposed relation in the 1960s.

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This discussion will lead to an exploration of the key mechanism censoring the Left and the lower classes which was imposed after the major class conflict of the late 1940s: negative integration. Enosis was the dominant sign of Greek Cypriot hegemonic discourse from the late nineteenth century till the 1960s. As such it exhibited the two key characteristics noted above for hegemonic frameworks: it claimed to be trans-historical and to be above conflicts and diverging interpretations. As far as the first claim is concerned, nationalist historiography has been engaged in a whole series of ‘factoid’ (Maier 1985) constructions, from antiquity to modern times, in order to construct and legitimise the claim for the ‘eternal desire’ for enosis. Obvious and abundantly clear texts and data have been ignored in favour of this historical construction, which also included its own dose of ‘modern myths/factoids’. For example, Katsiaounis has demonstrated that the issue of enosis did not arise during the celebrated moment of the arrival of the British governor in 1878, when the archbishop supposedly first raised the issue of union with Greece (Katsiaounis 1996: 25–28). There was something historical (in the sense of recognising the transformative dynamic of historical development) in the nationalism expressed by enosis – it expressed as a signifier a desire for modernisation (Bryant 2004). In this framework the nationalists were nominally anti-British, but they were also anti-traditionalists. Despite their criticism of British colonialism they were to a large degree functioning within its geopolitical and temporal parameters – expressed and codified as the hope that the British would give Cyprus as a ‘present’ to the Greek state, a state which would function as a local power within Britain’s global hegemony. During the Church crisis of 1900–10, the nationalists won after a British intervention7. This may appear as a paradox in relation to the potential anti-colonial dimension of enosis, but it can be seen as an expected alliance in terms of the modernising and geopolitical framework to which both the British and the nationalists adhered. But there was another dimension to enosis, the strategic one, which was evident in the different time frames advocated by hard line adiallakti nationalists, those calling for the immediate realisation of enosis, and ‘compromisers’, diallaktiki traditionalists, those calling for its

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gradual realisation and emphasising, instead, realistic reforms. The strategic dimension became clearer with the emergence of independence as an option. In 1917, even a nationalist pro-monarchist politician, F. Zanetos, advocated autonomy or independence rather than the annexation of Cyprus by the Greek state, which was, at the time, controlled by Venizelos’s liberal supporters. In the 1920s, the emerging communist movement advocated independence. The communists advocated independence initially as an anti-hegemonic strategy, as a form of resistance to the dominant ideology (mystification, as they saw it) of enoticism, which was the ideology of the Church and bourgeois politicians, and as a tactic for avoiding the division of the lower classes into sectarian ethnic groups. After 1925, however, the issue of independence also acquired the dynamic of an alternative model of modernisation, rivalling the colonial one and the internal hegemonic one proposed by Greco-Christian nationalism. The emergence of independence – or calls for autonomy – as a form of alternative modernisation derived in part from the crisis inherent in the enoticist model. As Cyprus was modernising, enosis, as a sweeping ideology promising a magical transformation (akin to the religious ‘second coming’, as the communists indicated), had to confront the local dynamics of these modern transformations and the reality of the Greek state, where rival political factions fought life and death struggles. In the 1930s a new generation of Greek Cypriot intellectuals started exploring Cypriot cultural reality as an autonomous terrain – acknowledging ‘Greekness’ as the broader framework but claiming also a degree of autonomy (for a Cypriot ‘substratum’, as one intellectual put it) within it (Prousis 1990:22). The situation in Greece created new strategic reservations about enosis – the creation of the ‘Committee on Autonomy’, in which both communists and liberals opposed to the Metaxas regime participated, was indicative. Thus while the framework of Greekness as the modernising identity of the school-print mediated culture was reaching a moment of wide diffusion, Greekness as an imported hegemonic model was experiencing a progressive distancing from the transformations of local modern everydayness. A gap was developing which could be seen then, in part, in the selective choices of identification with Athenian governments

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or official cultural policies, a gap whose dynamic would subsequently become clearer. In the 1940s the public-political expression of Greek nationalism was tolerated in a more relatively relaxed political context, as compared to the censorship of the 1930s. But as Greekness seemed to be the obvious framework of cultural articulation, the issue of enosis acquired a multiplicity of interpretations in politics: on the Right enosis continued to be an image of modernisation associated with the geopolitical order of British global hegemony, but it also became an ideology of legitimising existing power; on the Left enosis became for the first (and last) time an image of revolution, as the communists in Greece emerged as the key organisers of the anti-fascist resistance. This shifting transitory reality was clear in August 1944 when the representative of the colonial secretary visited Cyprus: the Right was reserved and argued that the issue of enosis should be discussed after the end of the war; the Left, which until 1940 had been decisively against Greek nationalism, mobilised rallies and engaged in confrontations with the colonial authorities, demanding ‘enosis here and now’. A few months later the British provoked the Greek leftist movement into an armed confrontation and defeated it. The Left became strategically more distant again – it would remain nominally enoticist, but the slogan ‘enosis and only enosis’ would henceforth belong to the Right. And here it was equally ambiguous: the Right was the politicalcultural wing comprised of Greek Cypriots whose leaders cooperated with the British and were recruited by the colonial administration. Thus their adamant enoticism was rhetorical – it implied anti-communism, rather than a desire for anti-colonial confrontation. The moment of truth came in 1947 when the British offered to open discussions on a constitution for self-government. For the Left the offer was in part a concession by the colonial authorities to its mobilisations and demands for democratisation, but it had to weigh the value of the offer in the new geopolitical context, which was geared towards decolonisation. The Right, though, had no interest in the internal democratic process – any expansion of popular participation meant the Left would gain power at the Right’s expense. However, since, the Right was allied geopolitically with the British its leadership contemplated

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participating in the negotiations and in possible elections. The Right’s eventual decision not to participate in the discussions known as the Diaskeptiki and its refusal to adopt enosis as a slogan was used strategically against the Left. ‘Enosis and only enosis’, in this context, was part of a campaign by the Right to question the ‘Greekness’ of the leftists8 – or, to put it more broadly, of the eligibility of the poor to claim the right to power.9 And this campaign spread to a variety of realms, from the school system to soccer teams. Greekness was always a form of status claim – vis-a-vis the British it was claim of equality, vis-a-vis traditional Cypriots it was a claim of modern superiority versus traditional backwardness. But here, as Cypriot modernity was itself emerging as an experience in politics and everydayness, Greekness-as-status acquired a new dimension: it was a claim to who could rule, who could talk legitimately on behalf of the people-as-nation, who would eventually inherit colonial power. At that critical confrontation the dynamics of modernisation intersected with the strategic use of enosis to give birth to enosis as a status claim for ‘Greekness’ that signified legitimacy for power. During the period 1947–48 the Left advocated the slogan ‘self-government – enosis’, which implied that self-government would be a stage for an ultimate union with Greece, a rhetorical framework which would house the discourse of the supporters of independence in the 1960s. The Right (like the extreme Right in the 1960s) claimed in this context that the real goal of the Left was to abandon enosis.10 When the talks with the British collapsed in 1948, the Left advocated a hardening of the line of confrontation with the colonial authorities (in the midst of broader class and political conflicts) and ‘complete self-government’ (which could be seen as an allusion to the old line of independence). But as the intensity of the Greek civil war diffused into Cypriot everydayness it created cleavages in the Greek Cypriot community as the Right tried to use Greekness as a criterion for eligibility to power (as noted above). It was in the midst of those confrontations that the Left shaped its autonomous subculture and codified within it an alternative worldview (Panayiotou 2006) which can be seen as a modern form of the autonomy of lower class cultures of prior eras. And despite the nominal declaration of an alternative Greekness identified

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with the struggles of the guerrillas of the Greek ‘Democratic Army’, there was a ‘Cypriotness’ also rising within this subculture, a trend that had emerged in the 1940s. A perceptive analyst of leftist literature (Peonides 1981) noted that beginning in the late 1940s Cyprus emerged as a dominant symbol in leftist poetry; a similar trend has been observed in an analysis of the speeches of Adamantos, the orator of the Left in the 1940s (Panayiotou 2001). This subculture was not homogenous, as the divergent opinions within it about the confrontations of 1948 indicated. By the beginning of 1949, the leadership of AKEL went through a revaluation of the policies of ideological confrontation from the previous period (not only on self-government but on a variety of issues, including the ‘economic war’) and subsequently adopted a new line which emphasised the need for ‘unity’. This new line was the result of the displacement of the leadership of AKEL by a new group and the product of the transformation of the ‘social movement culture’ (as the Left was until then) into a more bureaucratically linked and organised subculture around a political party. AKEL, under attack, was closing the boundaries of the Left and opening its strategic horizon to alliances with the Right on the basis of party-platforms. In this context a new strategic slogan was adopted: ‘enosis and only enosis with any Greek government’, which indicated the Left supported unity even at the expense of its clear choice in the Greek civil war. In the same period, however, there was an increasing emphasis on supporting Turkish Cypriot participation in significant positions in the party and trade union organisations. It was an effort to accommodate, in effect, a multiplicity of trends within the leftist subculture. Clearly the new strategic enoticism of 1949, which was in stark contradiction to the concurrent vehement leftist criticism of the Athens regime, was anything but uniformly accepted within the leftist subculture. The most notorious oppositional voice codified into text was the 1952 letter of resignation of A. Adamantos, in which he declared publicly that he ‘was not willing to sacrifice even his smallest finger . . . for enosis’ in the given context (Adamantos 1952). Tensions between the party leadership and sections of the subculture resurfaced in the late 1950s after EOKA attacks on leftists. An indication of AKEL’s effort to include

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all positions was the ‘program’ of 1952 calling for a ‘unified liberation front’ (with the Right) in which enosis was laid out as the primary aim and then, secondly, ‘demilitarisation’, with AKEL opposed to any form of resolution of the ‘enosis issue’ that would include, in exchange, western military bases. But by then Greece was a country totally dependent on NATO. It has been argued that the shift from self-government to ‘enosis and only enosis’ was the product of the advice of Nicos Zachariades, the legendary leader of the Greek communists. As a matter of fact, AKEL’s delegation did not go only to Greece – it travelled to several countries and considered a variety of opinions. Fantis (1993) has demonstrated that Zachariades’s opinion probably played a role in internal party struggles, but it did not have any impact on the line of selfgovernment, since the discussions in the Diaskeptiki from the previous summer were already finished. The Left had laid down its ‘complete self-government’ position then, and this was the beginning of the split between the Left and its liberal centre allies. Enosis, subsequently, was analysed and perceived in strategic terms by the Left, which was becoming increasingly the central voice of local modernity – secular, democratic and tolerant of religious difference. AKEL’s policy change had more to do with a shift in emphasis to the anti-colonial (external) struggle than it did with domestic (internal) confrontation. As far as the Cold War was concerned, Cyprus was on the western side of the dividing border, and the experience of AKEL’s Greek comrades – as a revolution which ignored the Yalta divide – was clearly a negative example for the Cypriot leftists. But Cyprus was also on the border of colonial ‘Europe’ and the colonised ‘rest of the world’ – in this context, the rise of the anti-colonial movements globally and in the area around Cyprus heralded positive historical prospects for the Left. Thus, as Attalides (1979) observed, there was a fundamental difference between the enoticism of the Left and the Right in the early 1950s: the Left pursued a strategic enoticism situating it in the context of the anti-colonial movements of the area, while the Right pursued a messianic imagery reflecting a reaction to the results of modernisation, as Loizos (1986) interpreted the emergence of Right wing anti-colonialism.

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In 1958, after about ten years of enoticism, Makarios, a leader of the Greek Cypriot struggle, accepted independence, and a year later he came back from exile to a triumphant mass gathering proclaiming ‘we won’. The statement ‘we won’, and AKEL’s swift support for independence, despite its qualms about the British bases, was indicative of deeper trends. Enosis now no longer pointed toward modernisation (the promise of economic redemption), as the rather romantic slogan of the period acknowledged: ‘We want Greece even if we eat stones’. Cyprus had an autonomous dynamic of modernisation, and leading Greek Cypriot intellectuals would point this out in the early 1960s in a variety of forms of coded expression.11 By 1960 enosis had become a signifier with no positive signified for the Left, while for the Right it had become the key legitimising sign for post-colonial power (based on EOKA’s struggle). Attalides (1979) noted that a key paradox of the 1960s was how many supported independence (as individual opinion) and how this widespread belief (and materially justified tendency) was not expressed in public. Ignoring AKEL’s support for independence might fall in the category of the invisibility of the Left referred to in the previous section, but it is also true that AKEL felt the need to justify its position by continuing to regard enosis as a future possibility. But as Loizos (1974) noted, the results of the 1950s were not only decolonisation but also the setting of parameters for permissible public discussion. In this context, the model imposed on the Left was characteristic of the broader context: the Left was allowed to exist legally, but it was explicitly excluded from power – a model akin to what G. Roth has termed ‘negative integration’ when referring to an analogous model imposed on the German working class movement before 1918. The model of ‘negative integration’ applied also to public discourse, and especially to references to enosis. Public discussion became coded, and present-day historical interpretation risks serious inaccuracies if it does not take into account the hegemonic structure of alleged ‘conflict-less’ and the ‘eternal’ status of enosis then. For example, when Grivas returned in 1964 alongside 10,000 Greek soldiers and with a series of western plans for double-union (partition and union of each side with the ‘motherland’), local resistance (from Makarios supporters and AKEL) expressed enosis

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as its ultimate goal by demanding a series of stages and preconditions as a ‘means’ to the alleged desired end. AKEL, for example, developed a policy demanding ‘non-aligned independence, total sovereignty, territorial integrity of Cyprus, and abolition of foreign bases’. With all these demands, independence was coded as a demand that made enosis impossible. Thus enosis became a sign of multiple uses and shifting meanings as it emerged from the 1940s. Its hegemony was a product of status claims, while empirical reality was clearly moving in the opposite direction. The gap between reality and ideology in this sense underlined the difficulty of overcoming the hegemonic ideology which was the legitimating framework of the post-colonial Right wing regime. The parliamentary discussion in 1967 which produced a decision on enosis is indicative of the increasing absurdity of the sign in relation to reality. In the aftermath of the 1967 coup in Greece, there were complaints in Cyprus that the new regime was attempting to intimidate Cypriots who were opposed to it. These complaints reached the floor of the parliament in a rare acknowledgement of the ‘below the surface’ conflicts between Athens and Nicosia. But when the discussion opened, pressure from the Greek embassy resulted in the displacement of the debate. Thus a decision affirming enosis in rhetorical terms was adopted (Katsis 1976; Kranidiotis 1985) to ease ‘fears of de-hellenisation’ – a rhetorical tactic used until today to uphold the status and power of cultural-political groups drawing legitimacy for their power and status from Greek nationalism.

Epilogue: Historical Residues and Residuals The censorship of lower class experience helps to uphold hegemonic paradigms, but it also helps to homogenise the lower classes, either as a uniform mass of AKEL supporters or as ‘uneducated peasants’ who do not deserve to be discussed as historical agents. This, as I have tried to argue, limits the intellectual effort to comprehend the historical experience of modernity in Cyprus and reproduces the apparatuses limiting discussion in the public sphere. Thus discussion is often forced into coded forms, while the ‘people’ are treated like children who need

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to be ‘educated into’ the right belief. In this context, bringing the repressed to the public realm is not just an intellectual issue, but also a historical, political and ethical act.

Notes 1. The term ‘lower class’ will be used to refer to various formations of lower class groups over the past three centuries. It will thus refer to peasants, who were the primary agents of lower class uprisings in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and to the urban poor and the modern working class, which emerged as key agents in the nineteenth century and dominated class politics in the twentieth century. 2. For the conflicts and transformations in Orthodox culture, identity and institutions during modernisation, see Varnava (2009). 3. Georgiades (1935). In his autobiographical note at the end of his history book, he notes that this was his ‘most scientific work’. 4. He has been the head of the state-founded ‘Cyprus Research Centre’. 5. From a letter written by Grivas in early 1958; see Papageorgiou (1977: 595). 6. In this particular historical context the ‘historical bloc’ of the ‘lower classes’ involved an alliance of artisans, unskilled workers (especially in the mining industry in the critical decades of the formation of the movement) and poor peasants, but it also involved sections of the middle stratum of Cypriot society, like small urban shopkeepers. 7. By 1908 the Orthodox Patriarch had decided to intervene in the local crisis and proclaim the traditionalist Romeic candidate, Kyrillos of Kyrenia, as the archbishop. In the wake of the resultant uproar the British introduced a law for Church elections in the Legislative Council, and thus the nationalists won. 8. The questioning of the Greekness of communists can be traced to the 1920s, but by the 1940s the campaign targeted not just radical sections of the lower classes but a large section of society itself. 9. This rhetoric identified the lower classes with ‘communism’, thus the discourse of class discrimination was usually articulated in the form of ideological anti-communism. But at times the class biases surfaced in their old linguistic clarity: ‘Enosis and only enosis . . . even with governors like Storrs and Palmer. But never “power in the hands of the people” as comrade Fifis and Clerides demand’. These comments were made in 1948, by P. Ioannidis, leader of the extreme Right and affiliated with the Kyrenia Bishop (Katsiaounis 1996: 415–416, 487).

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10. This was the basis of the slogan ‘enosis and only enosis’. For the rhetoric of the Right, especially of Archbishop Makarios II, see Katsiaounis 1996. 11. A key text of those shifts was Th. Papadopoulos (1964), I Krisis tis Kypriakis Sinidiseos.

References Adamantos, Adam. 1952. ‘Olokliros I mi Dimosiefthisa is ton “N. Dimokrati” Apantisis tou Dimarchou Ammochostou is tin anakoinosi tis ep. Epitropis tou AKEL’, Fos, 15 September 1952, p. 1. Attalides, Michalis. 1986. ‘Ta Kommata stin Kypro’, in Kypriaka 1878–1955. Nicosia: Ekdosi Dimou Lefkosias. ——. 1979. Nationalism and International Politics. New York: St. Martin’s. Bryant, Rebecca. 2004. Imagining the Modern. London: I.B.Tauris. Costantinou, Costas. 2007. ‘Aporias of identity: bicommunalism, hybridity, and the “Cyprus Problem”’, Cooperation and Conflict 42 (3), pp. 247–270. Fantis, Andreas. 1993. Diaskeptiki. Nicosia: Printco. Georgiades, Kleanthi. 1935. I Katagogi ton Kyprion. Nicosia: Neos Kosmos. Georgiades, Kleanthis. 1978. Istoria tis Kyprou. Nicosia: Christoforou. Katsis, Aristos. 1976. Apo tin Anexartisia stin Eisvoli. Athens: Papazisi. Katsiaounis, Rolandos. 1996. Labour, Society and Politics in Cyprus During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre. Kitromilides, Paschalis. 1989. ‘“Imagined communities” and the origins of the national question in the Balkans’, European History Quarterly 19 (2), pp. 149–192. Kranidiotis, Nicos. 1985. Anochiroti Politia, Kypros 1960–1974 (Volume I). Athens: Estia. Kyrris, Costas. 1984. ‘Anatomia tou Othomanikou Kathestotos stin Kypro, 1571–1878’, in I Zoi stin Kypro ton 17–18 Aiona. Nicosia: Ekdosi Dimou Lefkosias. Lefkis, Giannis. 1984. I Rizes. Limassol: n.p. Loizos, Peter. 1986. ‘Allages stin Domi tis Koinonias’, in Kypriaka 1878–1955. Nicosia: Ekdosi Dimou Lefkosias. ——. 1974. ‘The progress of Greek nationalism in Cyprus, 1878–1955’, in J. Davis (ed), Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair. London: Athlone. Maier G. Franz. 1985. ‘Factoids in Ancient History: the Case of Fifth-Century Cyprus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 105, p. 32–39. Panayiotou, Andreas. 1999. ‘Incorporation, Geopolitics and the Process of Proletarianization’, in Island Radicals: The Emergence and Consolidation of the Cypriot Left, 1920 -1960. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Sociology department, UCSC. ——. 2001. ‘I Dimosia Ekfrasi tou Kyprokentrismou tin Dekaetia tou 40’, Ex Yparchis, no 27–28, pp. 55–62, 46–50.

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——. 2006a. ‘Models of compromise and power sharing in the experience of Cypriot modernity’, The Cyprus Review 18 (2), pp.75–103. ——. 2006b. ‘Lenin in the Coffee Shop’, Postcolonial Studies 9 (3), pp. 267–280. Papadopoulos, Theodore. 1964. ‘I Krisis tis Kypriakis Sinidiseos’, Philologiki Kypros, p. 204–209. ——. 1965. Social and Historical Data on Population. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre. ——. 1980. Consular reports of the 19th Century. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre. Servas, Ploutis. 1993. Otan Eimaste Paidia. Nicosia: Epiphaniou. Papageorgiou, Spiros. 1977. Kypriaki Thiella. Nicosia: Epifaniou. Peonides, Panikos. 1981. Tomes se Themata Logou. Nicosia: n.p. Prousis, Costas. 1990. Themata ke Prosopa tis Kypriakis Logotechnias. Nicosia: Politistiko Idrima Trapezis Kyprou. Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley. Varnava, Andrekos. 2009. ‘I Kypriaki Orthodoxi Taftotita.’ Chroniko, Politis, 29 March.

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4 THE ‘LEFTOVER S’ OF HISTORY Reconsidering the ‘Unofficial’ History of the Left in Cyprus and the Cypriot Diaspora Evropi Chatzipanagiotidou

‘Whose history’ is a question that often emerges in accounts of the past, both in academic contexts and everyday discourses. In the past few decades, there has been a growing interrogation of the ‘writing of history’ in terms of its connections to hegemonic discourses and nationalist ideologies. It is now recognised that history, as a homogenous overarching narrative, is selectively constructed, strategically canonised and conducive to the legitimisation of the projects of the state and the ruling elites. Such history adheres to a scientific ideal of objectivism and presents itself as the single source of access to the truth about the past (Appleby, Hunt and Jacob 1994). Until World War II, in most nation-states, the monolithic approach to history had systematically excluded alternative accounts/histories that diverged from the dominant narrative. After the war, however, intellectual absolutisms were highly critiqued and histories of ‘others’, those of the socially excluded and marginalised, were brought into the foreground (Hobsbawm 1998: 269). This chapter focuses on the

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dichotomy between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ history as articulated and represented in older and more recent discussions on history writing in Cyprus. The question of ‘whose history’ is considered here with particular reference to the history of the Cypriot Left, which has been defined as one of the ‘unofficial’ accounts in the debates over the past in Cyprus. The leftist narrative has been widely known amongst Cypriots through oral histories, publications and social activism; it has, however, been marginalised and excluded from public contexts dominated by the nationalist account of history (Papadakis 1998, 2003). According to Panayiotou, in this volume, official historiography in Cyprus has adopted a strategy of ‘negative integration’ towards the history of the lower classes, incorporating only parts of their history that did not contradict the hegemonic discourse. Silenced within the official historical narrative, the Left has been rendered to function outside the borders of permissible public discourse and circles of power. However, although recent discussions on history in Cyprus legitimately recognise the need to revisit alternative histories, equal attention should be paid to how ‘unofficial histories’ are authored and reproduced, and how they gain ‘authenticity’. In other words, alternative histories should not be treated as objective ‘hidden truths’ which can be unveiled under the totalising effects of official historiography: Contrary to common-sense belief, they do not give us any simple, direct access to the ‘authentic’ voice and history of subaltern groups. They are in this respect no different from other ‘sources’ for the historian: they too need to be ‘read’. For they too are shot through with contradictory, naturalizing features: the constructions of the dominant and the privileged (Pandey, 2000: 284). According to Pandey, the aim of discovering the truth in ‘unofficial’ histories, which dominated early works in Subaltern Studies, has now been questioned in more recent writings in the field (ibid.: 285).

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This chapter aims to contribute to the discussions generated by this kind of literature by arguing that the ‘unofficial’ history of the Cypriot Left is not in an oppositional relationship to the ‘official’ history of nationalism. Although the Left has traditionally defended its anti-nationalist stance on the ‘Cyprus problem’, its own version of history shares a relationship of interdependency with the nationalist narrative. Building on theoretical approaches to memory and history, I argue here that when the unofficial history of the Left is awarded the status of a ‘historical truth’, other voices, internal contestations and differing experiences within it, such as those of the diaspora, are veiled and suppressed. In such cases, the history of the Left fails to contest the dominant nationalist approach to history; on the contrary, the leftist ‘unofficial’ history may strengthen the official discourse by appearing as co-opted and confined within the same rhetoric. The findings presented here were collected during 22 months of fieldwork in the Cypriot diaspora in the UK and in Cyprus. I focus on the Cypriot Community Centre (CCC) in North London as a casestudy, and I draw on exchanges with first generation migrants1 and AKEL [Anorthotiko Komma Ergazomenou Laou (Progressive Party of the Working People)] supporters who frequent the centre.2 In the first part, I examine the relationship between memory and ‘unofficial’ history. Approaching memory as a process, I argue that ‘unofficial’ histories develop along individual and collective memories, which contests our perception of them as hidden blocks of absolute historical truth. Attention, therefore, should be diverted to specific contexts in which narratives emerge and develop. The particular experiences of AKEL supporters in the diaspora, as presented in the second section, indicate that ‘unofficial’ histories may contain and suppress their own ‘unofficial’ histories. The history of the Left is also constructed as a master narrative, and thus shares structural similarities with the official nationalist account of history. The third part argues that their constructedness renders both accounts susceptible not only to external but also to internal contestation.

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Memory and ‘Unofficial’ History at the London Cypriot Community Centre ‘Of course we talk about history and politics here. This is what we, Cypriots, do, isn’t it?’ is often repeated at the CCC in London. Although not all Cypriots in the diaspora engage with the politics at ‘home’,3 the regulars at the centre’s coffee shop are involved in discussions of Cypriot politics on an almost daily basis. Most regulars are male, and the majority of them came as migrants to the UK in the 1950s and 1960s. They have worked hard for most of their lives and are now retired, which allows them to spend large parts of their day at the centre. Their discussions are often fuelled by the wide availability of media in the centre, such as satellite TV and newspapers, which play a considerable role in connecting the diasporic community to ‘home’ (Georgiou 2001). Although the discussants at the centre come from a wide range of political backgrounds, the majority, however, identify themselves as AKEL supporters or, more generally, as leftists. This is to be expected, as the CCC, established in the early 1980s with funds from the Haringey Council, is linked to AKEL in multiple ways; the manager of the centre is the Secretary General of AKEL in the UK; many of AKEL’s events take place in the premises and, more broadly, the centre seems to promote AKEL’s political ideals of coexistence and cooperation between Greek and Turkish Cypriots for a re-united Cyprus. Papadakis (1993, 1998, 2003, 2005) has highlighted that the rhetoric of ‘past peaceful coexistence’ emerged and developed after 1974 as an ideological force behind political quests for reunification, particularly on the Greek Cypriot side. The rhetoric has, therefore, become a significant part of Cypriot public discourse and has been adopted notably by the Greek Cypriot Left, through the argument that the Left has always been at the vanguard of efforts to foster cooperation between the two communities. This kind of argument, i.e., the Left as the vanguard of cooperation and coexistence, has also been expressed by the Turkish Cypriot Left (Panayiotou 2006). An emphasis on pan-Cypriotism becomes evident upon entering the centre. Announcements and signs on the walls are written in English,

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Greek and Turkish, and there is an absence of any symbols, pictures or maps with potential Greek or Turkish nationalist connotations. Both Greek and Turkish Cypriots are members of staff and, while the majority of the regulars at the coffee shop are Greek Cypriots, there are a number of Turkish Cypriots who also visit the centre. AKEL’s political line and historical rhetoric emerge in and often dominate the everyday discussions in the centre. In addition to privileging Cypriotism (as opposed to Greek or Turkish nationalism), such rhetoric presents the organised Left as the major link that has kept the two main communities on the island connected (ibid.). Leftists from both sides have been persecuted equally by nationalists within each ethnic community and, in this sense, their class position and political ideology often unite them across ethnic divisions. For AKEL, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have not only always lived together, but they have also been united by their common interests and struggles as workers. Mr. Costas, who came to London in 1956 and frequents the CCC coffee shop almost every day, recalls his personal experience as a testimony for AKEL’s role in catering to both communities. When asked whether he has worked with Turkish Cypriots, he first refers to his working years in the UK and then to his pre-migration time in Cyprus: Not really, because the factory I worked in was a family business; we were just ten people and there weren’t any Turkish Cypriots . . . not because they didn’t want Turkish Cypriots . . . it just happened. But in Cyprus I worked many times with Turkish Cypriots. They all spoke Greek. I worked at the port in ships; most of the workers there were Turkish Cypriots. When we finished work in the afternoon, on our way home, we all looked the same; you couldn’t see any difference. Let me tell you something else. My father used to have a bus but not like the ones today; it was a semi-lorry. Our parents used to wake us up around 12 to take us with them. Before we left, a Turkish Cypriot man came to our house. There was such a big trust [between my family and the man]. He used to come to watch our house and our property.

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This is a proof that we could live together. Others did these things to us [Alloi mas ta ekaman]. To explain who was to blame, Mr. Costas shifted from a personal narrative to talking about broader historical processes: Chauvinism. Nationalism, first, from both sides. That’s the main reason. But those who planted the seeds for chauvinism are not any others but English Imperialism. Wherever the English set foot and then left, there are problems. AKEL always supported the coexistence [symviosi] between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, and we didn’t make any distinctions. There were thousands . . . thousands of Turkish Cypriots who were members of PEO [Pankypria Ergatike Omospondia (Pancyprian Federation of Labour)]. Through PEO, you could go to the doctor, you could get medicine . . . it was a great help. So PEO helped organise [politically] the Turkish Cypriots . . . or the Turkish Cypriots organised themselves within PEO. And that’s how I continued and I still continue [being politically active and supportive of the Left]. The switch between personal and party history here illustrates the tight relationship between complex mnemonic processes. As social memory comprises the individual memories of those who belong in the social group (Connerton 1989), AKEL’s narrative is patterned on the experiences of the supporters. Accounts such as Mr Costas’s, therefore, inform the leftist narrative of coexistence based on common struggles and class experiences. On the other hand, individuals also shape their memories to fit broader accounts of the past. As Lowenthal points out: . . . we treasure these connections with the wider past. Gratified that our memories are our own, we also seek to link our personal past with collective memory and public history . . . But these recollections are often as erroneous as they are vivid. Indeed, the gross inaccuracies emphasize the point: people are so eager to be

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part of ‘history’ that they falsely ‘remember’ their responses to, or even having been present at, some momentous event (1985: 197). Although Lowenthal treats individual memory here almost as a subconscious process, in which individuals are deceived by their own desire to fit the past into a broader social memory, I argue that many AKEL supporters in the centre are actively engaged in a process of negotiation between their personal memories and the party’s historical narrative. They are involved in what Daniel (1997) calls ‘deliberation’, a process of active thinking on one’s history, a moment of habit-change after something has long seemed ‘natural’. Such ‘agentive moments’, as Daniel characterises them, emerge when the regulars at the centre reflect on their party’s history and strive to position themselves within it according to their current circumstances and changing experiences. An example of this ‘deliberation’ on the past is the emphasis on the close relationship between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus before 1974, which Mr. Costas highlights in his personal story to contribute to AKEL’s discourse of pan-Cypriotism. Memory is thus selectively reconstructed to respond to the requests of the present. For the same reasons, many of the regulars at the centre stress the historical presence of Turkish Cypriots at the CCC. In the past few years, and especially after the Annan Plan, which brought tension to the relationship between the two Lefts in Cyprus (Panayiotou 2006: 278), the number of Turkish Cypriots at the centre has been diminishing; it has, therefore, become more important than ever to stress that their presence there was once considerable. ‘Deliberation’ on the past through ‘memory adjustment’ becomes necessary for Greek Cypriots to deal with the discontinuities and disruptions between the party narrative and their current experiences; this relationship will be further discussed in the next section. What is important to emphasise here is that memory – individual and collective – is about the present as much as it is about the past (Hodgkin and Radstone 2003). It is not only history that is constructed, reinvented and selectively narrated, but memory is also

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reconstituted in narrative and is significantly unpredictable (Misztal 2003: 73).4 ‘Unofficial’ histories, therefore, cannot be perceived as ‘authentic’ and ‘true’ because they draw on individual and collective memories as their direct sources of access to the past. The ‘unofficial’ history of AKEL is structured and reproduced through interactions and negotiations amongst individual, collective and party narratives. Moreover, an approach to memory as process helps us understand how memory is produced and reconstituted in the present; it also allows us to focus on individuals as active agents within the fields of production and reproduction of ‘unofficial’ history – and history in general. It therefore sheds some light on the questions of how particular histories develop and how they become accepted or contested. The following two sections deal with these questions.

‘Unofficial’ Histories of the ‘Unofficial’ History: The case of AKEL Supporters in the Diaspora To accept that historical narratives are in a dialectical relationship with individual and collective memories and experiences means we need to shift focus to the particular contexts in which this relationship is shaped. As Pandey has suggested, ‘unofficial’ histories should be examined in a situational and contextual perspective: . . . [t]he ‘text’ has no intrinsic or fixed meaning: rather, it is surrounded, infused and positioned (as in the case of acting) by the speaker’s experience, gestures, mode, as also by the audience’s placement and participation. We do not conform action simply to text or merely confirm the text by action: texts, or ‘source materials’, are inevitably shaped by the experience of the reader/ actor (2000: 285). We have, therefore, to relate the development of the leftist historical narrative among Cypriots in London to their particular memories and experiences, which are shaped by migration and by the circumstances of the diaspora. It is suggested below that the historical narratives of

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AKEL supporters in London emerge as underrepresented or as ‘unofficial’ histories within the ‘unofficial’ history of the party. The specificities of the diasporic leftist ‘unofficial’ history are articulated here in two ways: on the one hand, the AKEL historical narrative has offered a familiar framework through which migrants could make sense of their new experiences and current circumstances, and migration has facilitated the expression and communication of the ‘unofficial’ history of the party; on the other hand, due to the disruption of their individual memories after their departure from Cyprus and the gap between their current circumstances and the party narrative, some of the AKEL supporters in London experience marginalisation, both as leftists, vis-à-vis the nationalist historical narrative, and as migrants, vis-à-vis the ‘unofficial’ history of AKEL. However, the purpose here is not to essentialise and homogenise the alternative ‘unofficial’ history of the Left in the diaspora. Quite the opposite, such history or histories are employed to argue that approaching the ‘unofficial’ history of the Left as authentic reproduces an objectivist understanding of history in which other voices or voices of others are destined to be excluded and suppressed. Although it is suggested that ‘unofficial’ histories should be approached as equally constructed and authored as ‘official’ histories, they derive their power and authority through claims to ‘truth’. An emphasis on such ‘truth’ is prominent in the discussions of many of the AKEL supporters at the CCC. Similarly to Papadakis’s informants (2005), the men at the centre were often insistent on giving me information I would not be able to find in ‘official’ books. Their discussions revolve around the ‘real’ aspects of the ‘Cyprus problem’: the roots of the problem (‘the EOKA struggle for enosis’); intra-communal violence (‘EOKA killed more communists than the British’), and the recognition of the suffering of others (‘we did many bad things to Turkish Cypriots, too’). Even though analogous narratives are very popular and dominant in the centre, they are mostly labelled by the men as ‘unknown’ and ‘hidden’. This may seem contradictory, as AKEL has always been a strong political party, maintaining almost a third of the votes throughout its political history, and it has control over its own media and public

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spaces. Its presence is especially strong in the UK community, which has often been proudly described by my informants as a leftist community in its origins. ‘This is understandable’, explained the Secretary of AKEL in London, ‘as most of the migrants in the 1950s and 1960s came from a very poor, working class background; these were usually the people of AKEL’. However, the sense of marginalisation and exclusion attached to these narratives is partly because even though they have been told and heard many times in both private and public spaces, they have been conspicuously omitted in particular contexts, such as in education5 and in governmental accounts of the ‘Cyprus problem’. Many Cypriots in London would describe such contexts as the ones where nationalist history has dominated, where it has been reproduced and therefore become ‘official’. Education would very often be raised as a serious concern and presented as one of the main reasons for the maintenance and domination of nationalism in Cyprus. This was pointed out by Mr. Loizou, one of the regulars at the centre. Mr. Loizou used to be a member of the Greek Parents’ Association that operates a number of Greek Cypriot community schools in London and, unsurprisingly, he has always been interested in educational issues: One of the main problems of nationalism is the school. Look at what they teach them in Cyprus, how to hate each other. When my son was younger, I took him to a school that was part of the Church to learn the language [Greek]. But he started saying things like ‘Look what the Turks did to us’, and the boy started being full of hatred. They fanaticised him. I had never ever told him this kind of things. I hadn’t actually told him anything. But then, I took him out of that school and I took him to a school where I knew they were not fanatics. And that was only once a week.6 Imagine if this happens here, what happens in Cyprus. And then I told him many things myself, I told him about truths he would not get in books. Similar references are often made in relation to other institutions, such as the army and the Church. For some migrants, leaving Cyprus

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provided them with the possibility of escaping, to a large extent, the power and control of these institutions. Although some of these institutions have been reproduced in the diaspora, many of the AKEL supporters in the centre often implied that in the diaspora one has a greater option of choosing how close or distant one may stay to the homogenising narratives these institutions produce. With reference to the Iranian diaspora, Sullivan (2001) recognises how diasporic contexts provide individuals with more choices compared to those in the home country. Diaspora, therefore, has offered an opportunity for the ‘unofficial’ histories of the Left to be expressed and cultivated more overtly. As Mr. Loizou stated, ‘I never felt comfortable as a communist in Cyprus. But when I came here, everyone was almost like me. It was much easier to be here than in Cyprus’. In this case, being away from Cyprus can be interpreted as an empowering condition for individuals like Mr. Loizou, who claim to have a greater control over their own history and memories. At the same time, however, migration and diaspora reinforce marginalisation, which some of the AKEL supporters claim to have experienced as young leftists in Cyprus. One of the main points of reference in the ‘unofficial’ history of AKEL is the exclusion of the Left from the EOKA struggle. EOKA developed and has been perceived in the ‘official’ historical account as a patriotic anti-colonial organisation that fought for unification (enosis) with Greece. At first the Left maintained some distance from the EOKA struggle, and EOKA supporters successively labelled leftists as ‘traitors’ and ‘unpatriotic’. This ideology often led to tensions and to the persecution of members of the Left by EOKA members (Anthias and Ayres 1983; Papadakis 1998). The Left has, therefore, identified the EOKA struggle as the beginning of the dominance of nationalism on the island; a nationalism that was set to suppress and silence the leftist presence and rhetoric, as suggested by Mr. Costas: We love and honour and respect anyone who lost their life for Cyprus. But if we have to speak the truth, the countdown for Cyprus, for all this that’s happened, started with the armed

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struggle of 1955 for enosis. And you know who that Grivas was; when he was in Greece he was in a group called Chittes.7 You know that Chittes had orders not to kill leftists but to cause them problems and to torture them to the extent that they end up in a wheelchair. Death is fast, but to be in a wheelchair is torture for life. The notion of suffering and exclusion emerged very often in the narration of the men’s years as young leftists in Cyprus. These men often designate their political conviction as one of the important reasons that forced them to leave the island and migrate to the UK. Sharing these stories in the centre confirms for many of the discussants that their experience is both individual and collective. As Mr. Costas explained, ‘I find that these people understand me. On the other side, you can tell someone this is water and they can say, “No it’s not”. The best thing you have to do is leave them. They will not understand’. Whereas ‘the other side’ is commonly used by Greek or Turkish Cypriots to refer to North or South Cyprus respectively, in this case it became clear that Mr. Costas referred to something different: The people of the right. There are many here too, who don’t want the Turkish Cypriots around. They talk against them. Look, you’ll say it’s just football, but sports should unite people. There is a TV here and it shows football matches every Saturday and Sunday from Cyprus. There was a game of Anorthose – although I’ve been with Salamina since I was a child – playing against a Turkish team from Turkey, and some Turkish Cypriots came here with their wives or their families. And there were people here who started saying swear words (ksemarishes), and as a result those people left. This happened two years ago. And instead of those people reacting, they just left. And we were ready to intervene, in case something went wrong and they started arguing, you know. As the quote illustrates, the notion of ‘being silenced’ coexists with ‘being able to speak up when it is needed’. Many of the men in the

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centre explained they prefer to stay silent in some contexts, especially when they come into contact with those who do not support the Left; they pointed to years of persecution and fear, and also to their desire to avoid tension and misunderstandings (see Papadakis 2005). On the other hand, as holders of truth, they believe their voices should be heard as a challenge to mainstream discourse and the status quo. Their position at the margins of their own ethnic community allows them to reach the margins of the ‘other’, the Turkish Cypriot Left. Thus, as suggested in the previous section, the familiar leftist rhetoric of exclusion and marginalisation on one hand, and bi-communalism and coexistence on the other, provide these men with a framework within which they can negotiate interpersonal relationships and deal with ongoing experiences. The notion of marginalisation is also repeatedly used in order to deal with issues of blame and guilt. As mentioned before, people on the Left blame the Cyprus problem on the expansion of nationalism and chauvinism on the island, in which they did not take part. ‘The Left does not have any blood on their hands’ is an expression that would often be echoed by leftists during my fieldwork (although not exclusively). For the first-generation migrants in the centre, however, there was extra blame to be attached to nationalism. Young, leftist, poor, persecuted and unable to find work in Cyprus, many men felt they had been forced to migrate due to their political beliefs.8 These men identified themselves as doubly-marginalised, first as leftists, then as migrants who had to leave their country and endure much hardship to make a living on foreign soil. While there are many factors to be named and/or blamed for becoming a migrant, for the men at the centre there was a sense of guilt attached to leaving their country. This guilt has to do with being an ‘escapee of history’, of not being in Cyprus when particular historical events took place. During my fieldwork I followed some of the men from the centre to their holidays in Cyprus. In a few cases, when heated political discussions developed, they were confronted with their marginal identities as leftists and ‘escapees of history’. One of these discussions took place in a taverna in Larnaca, where I went to see

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Mr. Costas. He was sitting in a group of old friends, who had been discussing politics for hours, when a man from the group said: ‘But what have the leftists done for this country?’ When Mr. Costas tried to explain and defend the Left, he was confronted by the man: ‘How do you know, Costas? You were gone by then. You guys were lucky, you didn’t have to go through what we went through’. On our way back, Mr. Costas stated almost apologetically: ‘See? They think we had it easy. But we didn’t want to leave, we had to leave. They didn’t want us in Cyprus and now they are asking why we didn’t stay’. What is evident here is that the notion of being an ‘escapee of history’ derives from a territorial understanding of history which, as Malkki (1992) suggests, is part of the rationale of nationalism. It is also associated with issues of authority, of who has the right to speak about the past; in this particular case it contributes to a double silencing of the AKEL supporters in London vis-à-vis the official nationalist historical narrative. For some men in the centre then, like Mr. Costas, the rhetoric of marginalisation is articulated in order to deal with the blame and guilt attached to being an escapee of history. The specificities of the diasporic experiences of AKEL supporters in London force us to reconsider ‘unofficial’ histories not as homogenous and static but as continuously negotiated and developing. For some of the first-generation leftist migrants, diaspora has been an empowering experience; however, it has also contributed to their marginalisation, both as leftists and as migrants. The leftist historical rhetoric has provided a structure through which the experiences in the diaspora can be articulated; on the other hand, the ‘unofficial’ history of the Left is invested with new meaning and value as it is reworked to fit the migrants’ particular experiences and memories (or lack of them). If we are to accept the ‘unofficial’ history of the Left as a missing block of historical truth, we risk dismissing the fact that such history encompasses other ‘unofficial’ histories which may also be suppressed and silenced. The example of the diaspora is used here to argue against the homogenisation of the history of the Left. Moreover, as argued in the next section, ‘unofficial’ histories are often internally contested and resisted – they demonstrate a close dialectical relationship to the ‘official’ historical narrative, rather than an oppositional one.

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Beyond ‘Official’ and ‘Unofficial’ Narratives of History Supporters of AKEL often voice their opposition to Greek and Turkish nationalism9 in Cyprus and stress their Cypriot identity. This focus on ‘Cypriotness’ has been identified by social scientists as a form of civic nationalism against ethnic nationalism (Peristianis 2006). AKEL has generally avoided any nationalist terminology in its support for a re-unified Cyprus. As a communist party, it has spoken about ‘the people’ instead of the nation, and it presents itself as traditionally and historically against the particular nationalism that has prevailed and brought conflict and division to the island. Although leftist claims to historical truth have developed in opposition to the ‘official’ nationalist discourse, it is argued here that the two historical narratives share a relationship of mutual interdependency. I follow Appadurai’s suggestion that it is not useful to consider the past as an unlimited and infinite symbolic resource. There are norms that define the ways the past is debated, and ‘although there might be infinite substantive variation concerning such norms about the past, there is a minimal set of formal constraints on all such sets of norms’ (1981: 203; emphasis in the original). In other words, any debate about the past takes place within a culturally definable framework that must provide the structures that make the debate possible and meaningful. According to Appadurai, an important pre-condition for any deliberation over the past is the ‘interdependence’ of a version of the past with other versions; this is to secure a common ground for debating and ‘to ensure minimal credibility’ (ibid.). I therefore highlight here some of the formal similarities between the leftist account of history and the nationalist ‘official’ discourse to establish their dialectical relationship. Furthermore, the interdependence of the two historical accounts is expressed in the ways that both are employed in individual narratives. To deal with experiences and memories that cannot fit within the framework of the ‘unofficial’ history, individuals selectively use elements of the dominant ‘official’ narrative to critically engage with the ‘unofficial’ discourse. As discussed already, ‘unofficial’ histories develop dynamically and are invested with multiple meanings in relation to different contexts and individual

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memories and experiences; in this sense, they are susceptible to internal contestation as much as the ‘official’ history is. One of the structural similarities between the two accounts is the way continuity is established between the present and the past through narration. The ‘official’ historical narrative has selectively focused on particular historical periods, in its attempt to present a linear and coherent narrative in which events follow each other in a progressive and teleological order. This order is then presented as natural, ‘the natural order of things’, while alternative histories and narratives are silenced and excluded. However, the history of the Left also includes its own gaps and silences. For instance, AKEL’s ambivalent stances on enosis during the 1960s and on the Annan plan in 2004 – both causing tension between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Left – have often been avoided in political discourses within the party. In a discussion about this tension with a prominent member of the party in London, he assured me the Cypriot Centre in Haringey is for all Cypriots, and that AKEL has successfully managed to keep the Turkish and Greek Cypriots united within the premises of the centre. However, when the topic shifted to the decreasing number of Turkish Cypriot regulars at the centre, he reluctantly added: Before 2004, there were more Turkish Cypriots coming to the centre. But after the referendum, the relationships froze. The Turkish Cypriots, without thinking properly and without being adequately enlightened, thought that we should say yes. But if 76 per cent of the population says ‘no’, you have to respect their opinion. Because if the 76 per cent of the Turkish Cypriots, not the settlers, the Turkish Cypriots, said ‘no,’ could we just say ‘accept it?’ No, you can’t do these things. But Turkish Cypriots lost their trust in me personally. They would say, ‘are you now saying no to the plan?’ But I couldn’t do otherwise; they couldn’t understand that the plan was not serving our country, my Turkish Cypriot compatriots! As the quote illustrates, there are internal contradictions, confrontations and disappointments within the history of the Left, but they

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are rarely discussed publicly, as they pose potential disruptions to the coherence and continuity of the party’s historical narrative. These teleological connections with the past, through narrativisation, are particularly established through public events. Whereas public commemorations have been seen as a tool by which the nationalist narrative is injected into public memory (Connerton 1989), the Left has also established its own commemorative events. One of the most important commemorations AKEL organises every year is in honour of Mishaoulis and Kavazoglou (Papadakis 1993). Mishaoulis, a Greek Cypriot and member of AKEL, and Kavazoglou, a Turkish Cypriot and member of the central committee of AKEL, were murdered together on 11 April 1965 by members of TMT (Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı [Turkish Resistance Organisation]). They became the symbol of Greek and Turkish Cypriot friendship and, for AKEL, they came to symbolise the eternal common struggle of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot working classes. A special event is organised every year in London at the CCC to honour the two heroes of the party. During my fieldwork I attended the commemorative event twice. The second year the day had acquired even greater importance, as AKEL had come into power following the election of its secretary, Dimitris Christofias, as president of the Republic of Cyprus (February 2008). The London-based AKEL newspaper, Parikiaki, clearly made a connection between the two events and linked them historically across an imagined chronological spectrum. On its front page of 10 April 2008, the paper published an announcement of the commemorative event, along with some comments about the two murdered heroes: The fascists of TMT wanted to silence an irritating voice, which was standing as an obstacle to their divisive plans. They wanted to terrorise every patriotic Cypriot who was fighting for a united country. They wanted to terrorise AKEL. But they achieved the opposite through such an atrocious crime. The Kavazoglou-Mishaoulis sacrifice became the symbol of the shared struggle of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots for the salvation of our shared country. The anniversary of the

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Kavazoglou-Mishaoulis sacrifice coincides with developments in the ‘Cyprus problem’. The beginning of these developments was demarcated with the election of Dimitris Christofias as president of the Republic of Cyprus, who has changed the status quo with his stance, policies and flexibility. The meeting between Christofias and Talat, its results, and the opening of Ledra Street are optimistic signs. They enhance the belief that we can fight the occupation and division. Of course, we have a difficult road ahead of us. A necessary precondition for the way to a solution is for Turkey to change its political stance [on the Cyprus issue]. Our main duty is to stand next to our president Christofias in his fight for Cyprus and our people (Parikiaki, 2008, my translation). Most of the speeches at the event drew similar connections between the political developments in Cyprus and the historical past of the Left, incorporating the electoral victory of AKEL into the party’s narrative of long-term struggle and achievements. Connerton describes commemorative ceremonies as ‘collective variants’ of personal memory told in a master narrative. However, he recognises that for these ceremonies to persuade their participants, ‘then those participants must be not simply cognitively competent to execute the performance; they must be habituated to those performances’ (1989:71). Although it is useful to understand those who participate in the leftist events of the Cypriot diaspora as habituated performers, such events also provide opportunities for habit-change. To return to Daniel’s concept of ‘deliberation’, individuals have the potential to critically reflect on their past and to shift their stance on it. Commemorative events are collective expressions of individual memories; since memories are altered by different experiences, however, events also open a space wherein the master narrative they construct can be contested. At the Mishaoulis-Kavazoglou event in 2008, one of the many attendees was Mr. Faruk, a Turkish Cypriot who had come to the UK in the early 1960s and worked most of his life as a tailor. He had been

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an old member of AKEL but had eventually become less politically active: I came to find some old friends today. I don’t normally go to these things anymore. I felt quite disappointed all these years with AKEL. First, there was their support for enosis, then the Annan Plan. And look at these events. There were few Turkish Cypriots speaking, it was mostly in Greek. This happens all the time. It’s again like the 1960s. Greek Cypriots want a federation but they don’t believe in it. Although the event was organised as bi-communal, the main speeches were delivered in Greek, while the few Turkish Cypriot speakers used English. Most speakers celebrated the election of the AKEL government and expressed their hopes for a solution to the ‘Cyprus problem’ and the establishment of a bi-communal federal state in Cyprus; Mr. Faruk, however, suggested the event was reminiscent of and nostalgic for another period of Cypriot history, one in which Turkish Cypriots were suppressed and shared power unequally. Both Greek and Turkish Cypriots often comment in similar ways on the bi-communal events organised by AKEL in London. Many of these individuals are of a leftist background themselves, such as Mr. Loizos. He is one of the regulars at the centre and has been a member of AKEL for many years; nevertheless, he describes himself as a ‘critical supporter’. When asked about the event, he explained: Yes, these things have been happening in the same way for many years. AKEL talks about old friendships and stories of cooperation, but they have to talk to people about today. We have to take some responsibility, too. We have to speak about things that are happening today. And our past shows that we have made mistakes, too. For Mr. Faruk and Mr. Loizos, their participation in bi-communal events in London and their broader experiences in the diaspora contest to a great extent the historical narrative of AKEL and force them to

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revise their memories and their stance on the party’s version of the past. The interdependency between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ history makes this contestation possible. Although different accounts of the past vary, they demonstrate particular formal structures that allow them to converse (Appadurai 1981). As discussed, one of the most conspicuous structural similarities between the leftist and nationalist accounts of history is the narration of the historical past as a series of events that took place in a linear and teleological order. The ‘unofficial’ history, therefore, develops as a master narrative with its own gaps and silences. It is at commemorative events, such as the one for Mishaoulis and Kavazoglou, where this master narrative is told and gains authority. At the same time, these events, as spaces where individual memory and party narrative come into contact, offer the opportunity for debate and ‘deliberation’.

Conclusion AKEL’s history builds on the individual memories of its supporters and underlines their exclusion from the dominant nationalist accounts of the past. Members of parties, however, have multiple and complex experiences that affect their allegiance to the party line in various ways. The men at the Cypriot centre have experienced marginalisation not only as young leftists in Cyprus, but also as migrants. For them, the rhetoric of ‘marginalisation’ is a way of dealing with blame but also with the guilt they feel for leaving Cyprus and becoming ‘escapees of history’. This suggests that the ‘unofficial’ history of AKEL encompasses diverse and underrepresented narratives that also need to be studied and understood on their own terms. Moreover, the ‘unofficial’ history of the Left is dependent on the opposite ‘official’ discourse, not only in terms of form, but also in the way that rhetoric coexists in collective and individual narratives. If the ‘unofficial’ history has the potential to contest ‘official’ accounts, the ‘official’ history can also be used by individuals to contest the ‘unofficial’ rhetoric in order to match their changing experiences and memories. In short, the ‘official’ narrative of nationalism

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and the anti-nationalist historical account of the Left are not parallel lines; the boundaries between these two accounts are negotiable and permeable. Recent discussions about the improvement of the history schoolbooks in the Republic of Cyprus (see Papadakis 2008) have drawn attention to the absence of the history of the Left in official historical accounts. Although marginalised histories deserve to be heard and acknowledged, the ‘unofficial’ history of the Left should not be unreservedly included as ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ to fill gaps in the dominant historical narrative. To move away from totalising narratives and to open up the space for continuous dialogue amongst different voices, we need to recognise history as perspective (Foucault [1984] 1991) and divert our attention to wider processes of history production; to how, when and where any historical knowledge emerges, develops and dominates.

Notes 1. Cypriot migration to Britain, initially a result of urban unemployment and economic deprivation in rural Cyprus, peaked in the 1950s and continued until the mid-1960s, when it gradually decreased, mainly due to tightening immigration laws in the UK and economic developments in Cyprus. After the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, a new wave of Cypriot migrants and refugees reached the UK, but their numbers are estimated to be proportionally smaller in comparison to previous decades (Oakley 1979; King and Bridal 1982; Anthias 1992; Canefe 2002; Bertrand 2004). 2. All names have been changed to ensure the anonymity of the informants. All translations in the text are mine. 3. See also Canefe (2002:70–71) about the various trends amongst the Turkish Cypriots in London regarding history and belonging. Whereas some individuals and groups follow party politics in Cyprus, others distance themselves from Cypriot politics. 4. A wide range of literature discusses the relationship between history and memory and the debates on the intellectual, political and historical processes of separation of the two categories, especially within the context of nationalism. To refer to just a few of the numerous informative publications on the topic, see Olick (2003), Hodgkin, K. and S. Radstone (2003), Misztal (2003) and Todorova (2004).

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5. On the relationship between nationalism and education in Cyprus, see Bryant (1998a, 1998b) and Spyrou (2000, 2002). 6. Many children of Greek-Cypriot descent in the UK attend ‘Greek’ school once or twice a week, usually on Saturday. There is a similar pattern amongst Turkish Cypriots, who send their children to ‘Turkish’ schools. As part of the curriculum, children are taught the history of Cyprus and the language and history of their respective ‘motherlands’, Greece and Turkey. 7. From the Greek letter X (chi), which was the name of a para-state group. Group X was allegedly active in the 1940s in Greece and is perceived by leftists as a group with a strong anti-communist agenda (Drousiotis 1998). 8. A similar story is narrated by Loizos in his ethnography, The Heart Grown Bitter (1981). In the introductory pages, Loizos explains how his own father, who was a communist, had to migrate to the UK in order to flee the political conflicts in Cyprus. 9. The language of anti-nationalism was not used by AKEL from its inception. For some part of its history, AKEL promoted the idea of national liberation, although it is ambiguous whether this implied union (enosis) with Greece (Anthias and Ayres 1983).

References Anthias, F. 1992. Ethnicity, Class, Gender and Migration: Greek Cypriots in Britain. Aldershot: Avebury. Anthias, A. and R. Ayres. 1983. ‘Ethnicity and class in Cyprus’, Race and Class 25 (1), pp. 59–76. Appadurai, Arjun. 1981. ‘The past as a scarce resource’, Man 16 (2), pp. 201–219. Appleby, J., L. Hunt and M. Jacob. 1994. Telling the Truth about History. London: Norton. Bertrand, Gilles. 2004. ‘Cypriots in Britain: diaspora(s) committed to peace?’, Turkish Studies 5 (2), pp. 93–110. Bryant, Rebecca. 1998a. ‘An education in honor: patriotism and the schools of Cyprus’, in V. Calotychos (ed), Cyprus and its People: Nation, Identity and Experience in an Unimaginable Community, 1955–1997. Boulder, CO: Westview. ——. 1998b. Educating Ethnicity: On the Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology. Canefe, Nergis. 2002. ‘Markers of Turkish Cypriot history in the diaspora’, Rethinking History, 6 (1), pp. 57–76. Connerton, Paul. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Daniel, Val. 1997. ‘Suffering nation and alienation’, in A. Kleinman, V. Das and K. Lock (eds), Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press. Drousiotis, Makarios. 1998. EOKA: I Skoteini Opsi. Athens: Stachi. Foucault, Michel. [1984] 1991. ‘Nietzsche, genealogy, history’, in P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader. London: Penguin Books. Georgiou, M. 2001. ‘Crossing the boundaries of the ethnic home: media consumption and ethnic identity construction in the public space: the case of the Cypriot Community Centre in North London’, Gazette, 63 (4), pp. 311–329. Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1998. On History. London: Abacus. Hodgkin, K. and S. Radstone (eds). 2003. Memory, History, Nation. London: Transaction Publishers. Hodgkin, K. and S. Radstone. 2003. ‘Introduction: contested pasts’, in K. Hodgkin and S. Radstone (eds), Memory, History, Nation. London: Transaction Publishers. King, R. and J. Bridal. 1982. ‘The changing distribution of Cypriots in London’, Studi Emigrazione, 19 (65), pp. 93–12. Rome: Centro Studi Emigrazione. Loizos, Peter. 1981. The Heart Grown Bitter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lowenthal, David. 1985. The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Malkki, Lisa. 1992. ‘National geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees’, Cultural Anthropology 7 (1), pp. 24–44. Misztal, B. 2003. Theories of Social Remembering. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Oakley, R. 1979. ‘Family, kinship and patronage: the Cypriot migration to Britain’, in S. Khan (ed.), Minority Families in Britain: Support and Stress. London: Macmillan. Olick, J.K. (ed.). 2003. States of Memory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Panayiotou, Andreas. 2006. ‘Lenin in the coffee shop: the communist alternative and forms of non-Western modernity’, Postcolonial Studies 9 (3), pp. 267–280. Pandey, Gyanendra. 2000. ‘Voices from the edge: the struggle to write subaltern histories’, in V. Chaturvedi (ed.), Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial. London: Verso. Papadakis, Yiannis. 1993. ‘The politics of memory and forgetting in Cyprus’, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 3 (1), pp. 139–154. ——. 1998. ‘Greek Cypriot narratives of history and collective identity: nationalism as a contested process’, American Ethnologist 25 (2), pp. 149–165. ——. 2003. ‘Nation, narrative and commemoration: political ritual in divided Cyprus’, History and Anthropology 14 (3), pp. 253–270. ——. 2005. Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide. London: I.B.Tauris.

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——. 2008. History Education in Divided Cyprus. Nicosia: PRIO Report 2/2008. Parikiaki. 2008. ‘Ekdhiloseis mnimis kai timis Kavazoglou-Misiaouli’, 10 April, p. 1. Peristianis, Nicos. 2006. ‘Cypriot nationalism, dual identity, and politics’, in Y. Papadakis, N. Peristianis and G. Welz (eds), Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History, and an Island in Conflict. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Spyrou, Spyros. 2000. ‘Education, ideology and the national self: the social practice of identity construction in the classroom’, The Cyprus Review 12 (1), pp. 61–81. ——. 2002. ‘Images of “the Other”: “the Turk” in Greek Cypriot children’s imaginations’, Race, Ethnicity and Education 5 (3), pp. 255–272. Sullivan, Z. 2001. Exiled Memories: Stories of Iranian Diaspora. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Todorova, M. 2004. Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. London: C. Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd.

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5 SENSES OF BELONGING A ND ‘BELONGINGS’ A ND M AK ING ‘HOME’ AWAY FROM HOME Aybil Göker

‘[H]istoricity’ describes a human situation in flow, where versions of the past and future (of persons, collectives or things) assume present form in relation to events, political needs, available cultural forms and emotional dispositions . . . Historicity is a dynamic social situation open to ethnographic investigation (Hirsch and Stewart 2005: 262). My phone rang early one afternoon in London in spring 2004. It was Ayşe (all names used in this chapter are pseudonyms), a London Turkish Cypriot in her late fifties. Ayşe had been born in a mixed village in southern Cyprus, displaced twice during periods of conflict and, despite this, had remained a strong supporter of the Greek Cypriot left-wing party, AKEL, and its pro-reconciliation position on the Cyprus issue. A single mother of two daughters living in a North London ex-council house, her close relationship to a Greek Cypriot party had caused her to be labelled a ‘Rumcu,’1 someone who is close to and mixes with Greek Cypriots. On the 2nd of May, she called to invite me to her home, saying, ‘I have things to tell you’.

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On the previous day, 1 May 2004, the Republic of Cyprus had joined the European Union, and Ayşe had watched the celebrations on television feeling helpless and anxious. I went to her house, where she hugged me and said, ‘I am so upset, you cannot imagine how much I am angry with AKEL, with the EU . . . You know me and my political ideas . . . But now take your recorder out, and I will tell you what happened!’ In all of our meetings together, Ayşe had never narrated the details of her displacement experience or spoke of the things she had witnessed in 1963 and earlier. But that moment, the 2nd of May, was not a context in which her stories could be kept silent. That day, Ayşe started to tell me the stories she had been strategically hiding from me and, I also think, from herself. Her stories reveal and emphasise a crucial aspect of memory, that it is strategic and contextual, and that what is supposedly forgotten can be revived and reconstructed according to political and emotional needs in a specific time. In her own words: When I saw people rallying, struggling, I believed that peace was coming . . . They used to believe in it too, but now this happened . . . I used to wait . . . waited all my life, you know! [pause] But sometimes I think that I actually never believed in them . . . I am very angry with AKEL, this is unfair! I always believed that AKEL was with us, it was a leftist party, its main concern must have been the human . . . Turkish Cypriot, Muslim, Rum2 without any difference. It hurts me . . . my heart hurts. They did not love the Turks, never, this time I understood. They never wanted the Turks. Whomever I talk to says that AKEL did fine, I mean the AKEL supporters here in London, they say that AKEL knows best. I cannot understand this. The Turks are the poor ones, desperate ones, but they never give up, they resist. We kept silent, I wanted peace, I wanted this to be over. [pause] Who is to blame? Me? We did not know anything in 1963, they used to come, take a poor Turkish man, and kill. Why? What did you want from this man? They gathered us and we became refugees, I was 13 then, we went to another village. In eight years, we grew up; we became 20, 21, no money, no future, no clothes to wear. This may sound like a lie, or a movie, but it is true. No

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one cared about us, and then they say that the Turks are the traitors – who are the traitors here? There is a place called Geçitkale, I remember hearing that they killed young people . . . all of a sudden. [pause]. When I was at my village, a Rum man came with a check, his wife asked him ‘How did you get this?’ He said, ‘We went and killed the Turks and that’s why they send us monthly payments’. Someone was paying them! In that moment I had a cold shower, we did not know that this man was going out to kill the Turks in another village, that day I was destroyed. Maybe I did not really believe in Rums, but AKEL? I was not expecting [this] from them. Ayşe had been waiting. She had been waiting in her imprisoned life in London while thinking, imagining, dreaming of Cyprus and waiting to be ‘complete’ again. However, that day, Ayşe hastily narrated critical moments of her life history in a bitter, vengeful tone. The bitterness was not only because she was disappointed by the current social and political circumstances, and especially by how AKEL had approached the Annan Plan, but because she was extremely disappointed with herself, with her own suppression of the past. The past, which did not have immanence in her present life, suddenly haunted her. She felt helpless and ‘accepted the defeat’, she told me. Waiting was over, there was no hope left. What is significant here is that waiting refers to a liminal phase, a moment between, and it carries hope, a question mark, a perhaps. Ayşe, who was defined as a ‘Rumcu’ by many Turkish Cypriots in North London, felt abandoned by her Rum friends in AKEL. Until that day she was one of the rare characters I came across during my fieldwork who would not allow the horror stories to ruin her friendship with Rum friends, to twist her friends into potential enemies. Finding a place in AKEL’s version of Cyprus’ historical narrative (Papadakis 1998), Ayşe had to bury the stories which could potentially destroy the idealised coexistence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. She had suppressed a violent past in the interest of a future she could only anticipate. The data in this chapter was collected during fieldwork in North London, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots live, between April 2003

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and February 2005. During this period my informants in North London faced various political challenges that affected their ‘personal memories’, memories that were related to ‘turning points’ in their life histories and the way they perceived each other in the context of their lives in London. The Republic of Cyprus signed the treaty of accession to the European Union on 16 April 2003. A week later, on the 23rd of April, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), the Turkish Cypriot polity (which has not achieved international recognition), opened the checkpoints along the Green Line to Cypriots who had been unable to visit the ‘other side’ for almost three decades. Referenda for the UN’s proposed reunification plan – known as the Annan Plan – took place on 24 April 2004 in both the northern and southern parts of the island. The result of the referenda was 65 per cent acceptance in the north and 76 per cent rejection in the south. The Republic of Cyprus then acceded to the EU on 1 May 2004.3 For some London Cypriots, as for Ayşe, the rejection of the Annan Plan by Greek Cypriots played a major role in reshaping memories in the present, whereas for some other London Cypriots ‘crossing the checkpoints’ was a significant turning point to reorganise their memories and identifications. After the TRNC opened the checkpoints, Cypriots were confronted with conflicting identifications with a ‘homeland’. Crossing through the checkpoints to reach the place called ‘home’ after almost three decades was highly confusing for many Greek Cypriot informants. ‘Why do I have to show my ID in my own country?’ was the most common and angry complaint. All the crossers, including the Greek Cypriots, had to ‘accept’ the partition of the island by participating in the documentary practices of the TRNC (Navaro-Yashin 2007: 86). The dividing line or ‘dead zone’, as it is often called, which had never been crossed by Cypriots4 without an official permit, suddenly became ‘passable’ and remained so. While thousands of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots crossed the dividing line after April 2003, some did not. Some went more than once; some decided not to go more than once. Some found their ‘old’ friends and kept in touch with them, while others refused to ‘keep in touch’. Still others found Turkish settlers in their houses and regretted their experiences. Others could not

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even find their houses; in place of their childhood home, they found a grocery store. Nevertheless, there are far more reasons than these for why they might choose to cross again or not. There is a common understanding that the decision to cross the border was not and still may not be an easy one to make. This chapter discusses how London Cypriots revived and remembered displacement after the TRNC opened the checkpoints. Those who decided to cross to find the ‘homes’ of their memories experienced changes in the place in every sense; and this alienated them from their constructed past and present. The change ‘over there’ affected the ways in which London Cypriots remembered or, better, dreamt about the past ‘here’ in their London homes. This chapter examines the new kinds of displacement and estrangement that took place in the present, when the London Cypriots I spoke to sought the past through the mental and physical act of crossing. My informants experienced this ‘new displacement’ in one of two ways: from their lived and mostly intact revived memories while being in the place, or through feeling displaced without being previously displaced. In other words, this ‘displacement’ was caused by witnessing the rupture of the imagined continuity of their homes’ past and present. Being unable to identify with the place through the senses resulted in the rupture of the past from the present, in the fragmentation of the mythical continuity between the past, present and future. The traumatic event of displacement was revived by revisiting this broken continuity. The crossings sabotaged their encapsulated memories of the place and inflicted the pain of being unable to sense and revive the place through the embodied memories accumulated over the years of one’s youth. Through this loss, London Cypriots realised that only the past belonged to them; this resulted in the frustration of not being able to transfer their painful nostalgia to subsequent generations. Having the ‘choice’ of experiencing the contained memories created another emotional turmoil, and in deciding to cross many right-wing Turkish Cypriots had to challenge their political subjectivity, a subjectivity based on the existential continuity of borders, namely through the existence of the TRNC.

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Memories of an Uncanny Place Called ‘Home’ London Cypriots’ life histories guided their attachments to places, and the way they sensed particular places in Cyprus, including changes in place or perceptions of absence – felt, for example, when they remembered the scent of oranges and oregano that were no longer there. In addition, the precariousness of the ‘place’ changed from one context to another in the narratives of my informants. I wondered whether this inconsistency, and the different levels of ambiguity in defining or locating ‘the home’, was due to the heated political conditions in Cyprus, or whether they had always existed. Thus I contextualised the contradictory and ambiguous narratives of my informants within this specific time. I tried to avoid grand generalisations, since life history and the ways in which that history has been revised and remembered are dependent on a certain context and time. In relation to the circumstances of the present time, the past was re-visioned and re-remembered; it needed to be rejuvenated to guide or make sense of the present. The way the past was perceived and ‘remembered’ also depended on the way the present was perceived. For instance, the present melancholy of living in London could easily be blamed on the historical events and on the role of the ‘other’. The impossibility of return, on the other hand, was mostly denied as a personal choice; it was perceived as another entrapment by uncontrollable circumstances. As Stewart and Hirsh state, ‘to understand historicity in any particular ethnographic context, then, is to know the relevant ways in which (social) pasts and futures are implicated in present circumstances’ (2005: 262). Indeed, my informants’ continuous evaluation of questions such as who is the other, which past to recover and select, and whom to blame or praise in the present circumstances of their life was highlighted in their narratives of life histories in specific contexts. For example, some parts of the life histories were kept from certain people; their histories were tailored for the audience, filtered through some sort of censor. Informants may ‘tailor the reality to fit their stories’, as Somers argued (1994: 618). Some London Turkish Cypriots, who believe the island should remain divided and that the TRNC should keep its own flag and

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territory, became suspicious when they learned my work included both communities, rather than only London Turkish Cypriots. Then the questions were: What was my aim? Was I trying to prove that Greek and Turkish Cypriots in London can live together (see the following section)? Why did I need to talk to Greek Cypriots anyway? I could never convince some of the London Turkish Cypriots that I was not a ‘spy’, and some doors were closed to me for good. For those who were displaced at least once in their lives, this was a time when, before deciding to cross or not, they revisited memories of their place, their youth, their house, their old friends, their childhood stories, their orange trees and their stories of pain and sorrow. This aspect of the sense of place brings me to the notion of memory, and how the different aspects of memory are entangled with place, mostly as it is imagined. Until now, I have tried not to name any place as ‘home’ and/or ‘homeland’. The first reason for this approach is because sometimes some of my Turkish Cypriot informants interchanged the notions of yer (place) and ev (home) easily. The second reason is to clearly state the multilocality of the same ‘place’ within the memories and narratives of my informants, not because I believe in the neutrality of the notion of ‘place’. Additionally, after their crossing experience, those who used to say with ease, ‘my village is my home’ disappointedly confessed, ‘that place is not home any more’. Bender argues that by moving along the familiar paths, winding memories and stories around places, people create a sense of self and belonging. Sight, sound, smell and touch are all involved (2001: 5). Those Turkish Cypriots who had been displaced from their homes in the south combined their personal bitterness and disappointment with the powerful hegemonic discourse of ‘forgetting the south and focusing on life in the north’ and deliberately ‘forgot’ about their ‘home’, referring to ‘it’ as onların yeri (their place) or öteki taraf (the other side). Some of them, however, after crossing and sensing the place as their home that they had ‘forgotten’, returned to London with a different pain, and perhaps another estrangement: ‘the village was not forgotten and actually was home’. Yet some others, after crossing and walking around the home/place, did not feel anything; they felt alienated from the place, and this alienation made them feel less ‘Cypriot’. For them it was neither place nor home. The

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multi-locality and temporality of place and home was very apparent in London Cypriot narratives; the place which became home after the crossing was not destined to stay so forever. Among those who defined place as ‘home’ and those who defined it as the ‘other side’, the burden of displacement was the focal point of their life histories. My informants’ narratives of past events and the present political life of Cyprus were temporal products of how they see each other and evaluate the current situation. Halbwachs argued that our memories are constructed and reconstructed in keeping with the needs of the present (1980). However, this analysis is not enough to explain the dynamism of the present or even momentary stimulus, which could be the smell of oranges in Cyprus or the absence of it in the supermarkets of London. Not having had a life redolent of the smell of oranges could inspire significant bitterness towards those responsible for their entrapped lives in London. For many London Cypriots, the past is neither a foreign (Feeley-Harnik and Ingold 1996) nor a distant country. Their memories of displacement and killings were in the present; sometimes short accounts of these intruded while they were narrating a story, when an object, a photograph or a smell, such as oregano, triggered a memory and its embodied emotion. The moments in which my informants sighed, kept silent, laughed, cried or got very angry were moments in which ‘the past’ was taking over the present, or the present context was read only through embodied emotions. I recall a frequent comment: ‘You see, I can never forget!’ This exclamation conveyed both sadness and anxiety, and was mostly expressed after getting angry over the politics of Cyprus, or after suddenly crying over an object or scent. This sentence, which carried the burden of the past’s immanence into the present (Küchler 1996), was often produced in different contexts, when many Turkish Cypriots explained how and why, even if they wanted to, they cannot have a very intimate and trusting relationship with Greek Cypriots.

Old Friends from Cyprus in the Context of London Fatma was one of the first Turkish Cypriots who introduced me to the notion of ‘Rumcu’, meaning a Turkish Cypriot who has been ‘too friendly

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and/or intimate with Rums or who mixes easily with Rums’. She apparently was not a ‘Rumcu’, yet she was the founder of the Association of Friends of Limassol, which was established on 10 February 2002. For one of our meetings, Fatma invited me to her house. On that day she wanted to show me a video tape which her brother recorded when they ‘returned’ to Limassol in 2004. It was interesting that during the summer of 2003 Fatma did not disguise her dislike for those Turkish Cypriots who crossed to the ‘other side’. In those days, for Fatma, crossing to ‘the other side’ was almost equal to betraying the cause of the TRNC. Those who resisted crossings as Fatma did were, at that moment, openly stating that ‘there could be nothing to see “over there”’. ‘What is the purpose of going and visiting a land which we do not have anymore?’ they would ask. Others remarked, ‘this cannot be home anymore, many years passed, we divided the island, it is over’, or ‘we have our own country, I do not want to see their country’. To my knowledge, the majority of those Turkish Cypriots who initially resisted crossing never crossed to the ‘other side,’ whereas Fatma ‘shamefully’ did. Her shame over crossing is interesting, in that it is tied to her sense that the survival and power of the TRNC and Turkey somehow guarantee her own existence. This existential relationship between Fatma, the TRNC and Turkey was also visually displayed in her living room in London. The framed photographs of Bülent Ecevit and Rauf Denktash displayed on the walls of her living room5 were reminders of her routes and roots. For Fatma, the opening of the checkpoints brought suppressed private memories to the surface, and newly remembered moments of peaceful coexistence with Rums were the most challenging ones to cope with. That day in her living room, Fatma embarrassingly told me that she had to cross, as if it was not and couldn’t be her choice. She said, ‘my brother insisted a lot and that’s why we went there’. Fatma felt embarrassed by her decision to cross to the south because she considered herself to be betraying her longstanding political subjectivity, her internalised way of ‘being Turkish Cypriot in London’. This way of ‘being Turkish Cypriot in London’ meant forgetting the south, thus narrating only the conflicts between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, not mixing with Greek Cypriots, not listening to their side of the story, not remembering Rumca, having

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satellite dishes to be connected to Turkey and the TRNC, attending Turkey’s national day celebrations, celebrating the foundation of the TRNC, and listening to London Turkish Radio – but making sure the radio channel does not tune to the London Greek Radio station! Fatma inserted the video and switched on the television. There we were in Limassol, her ‘home,’ the ‘other side’, ‘there’ and her ‘birthplace’. She explained every tiny detail while the camera panned around the mosque and her house, which is now a supermarket. Then the camera arrived at the open air coffee house. Fatma was caressing one elderly woman’s cheek and speaking in Greek Cypriot dialect. I quickly intervened: ‘So you speak Rumca, eh?’ Her answer was, ‘I used to, yeah!’ Replying in past tense reveals that everything related to her childhood and adolescence, including the presence and language of Greek Cypriots, had suffered a significant censorship and ‘forgetting’. Even the language she used during her recent Limassol visit was remembered as something she used to do, but no longer. Her positive memories of coexistence with the Greek Cypriot villagers were hidden somewhere so deep that even her present knowledge of Rumca was something that only belonged to a past; it was something to be buried. Fatma’s crossing experience, and remembering the good old days with Rums, had to be accepted as ‘sinful’, events that happened under extraordinary circumstances and cannot/should not taint the real existential relationship between Fatma, the TRNC and Turkey. Fatma’s selectivity about her own past focused only on how many bad things the Rums did because, according to my observations, her present positioning and identification restrain her from embracing the other past, which includes warm, happy memories of a childhood with the Rums. In these years, like many other Denktash supporters I met throughout the fieldwork period, Fatma alienated herself from her memories, as they couldn’t coexist with her current political subjectivity. By avoiding certain pasts and engaging in a conscious selectivity toward the past, Fatma, like many others, avoided the dissolution of the internalised hegemonic discourse. The opening of borders challenged this deliberate alienation, especially that of nationalist Turkish Cypriots, who had to re-orient and reintegrate themselves after experiencing the ‘other side’ and/or ‘home’ and feeling ‘lost’. This

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re-orientation appears, paradoxically, to have resulted primarily in a comfortable retreat into hegemonic discourse. In another scene, a tanned and very slim elderly man was sitting and pointing at something and speaking in Greek to Fatma’s other brother. She said, ‘you know who this guy is? This man is my childhood friend, we used to play, and he was like my best friend. Now he lives in London. He heard that we arrived in the village – you know how the news circulates quickly in the villages – and he came to see me. I did not know that he was living in London’. This was Fani, who was a member of the Association of Friends of Limassol. Yet his Limassol is not the same as Fatma’s. They had another association. Fatma and Fani exchanged their London telephone numbers and promised to see each other as soon as they returned to London. Fatma never called Fani – he called her three times. On every call she made up an excuse not to see him. On his last call, Fani invited Fatma and her friends from the Association of Friends of Limassol to a special dinner which was particularly organised to raise money to send back to their hometown. She simply said, ‘I will call you back’. Fatma could not decide immediately what to do. Then she thought ‘logically’, as she said, and decided not to go, and not to even let her Limassol Association friends know about the invitation. This was during Ramadan, which gave her an excuse for not attending the dinner. Her friend, she thought, ‘got the message’. Fatma’s reason for not mixing with the other Association of Friends of Limassol was because she did not want to be seen mixing with Rums. Fatma thought that on such an evening the Rums would invite journalists from the local newspapers, and her presence as a Turkish Cypriot in a Rum environment would attract attention. If the journalists took pictures of her ‘mixing’ with the Rums, then they could ‘use’ these as a way of demonstrating that ‘Greek and Turkish Cypriots live together in London, why not in Cyprus?’ I asked what type of problems she would face if she were photographed by journalists. She said, ‘I have a reputation in our community. How could I explain to the rest of the community if they see me in a Greek newspaper mixing with Rums? They will immediately stigmatise me as Rumcu’. Her anxiety over being perceived as close friends with Rums by the ‘community’ was very disturbing. It was perhaps at these moments that the

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‘community’ was solidified and realised as an entity. Yet no Turkish Cypriot informant used the term ‘community’ when they mentioned their anxieties over the necessity of controlling their behaviour. Instead, they mostly used well-known idioms, such as eş dost ne der? or eşe dosta nasıl anlatırım? – What would friends and acquaintances [everybody] say? or How could I explain that to a friend? The anxiety of being noticed by somebody, and especially by a journalist who would conclude that ‘Greek and Turkish Cypriots are happily living in London and so why not in Cyprus?’ is a fear I have come across in many elderly Turkish Cypriots. Although many of them had close relations with Greek Cypriots, they certainly didn’t want me to focus on this ambiguity. My Turkish Cypriot informants constantly kept this anxiety alive, especially during interviews. My presence as a researcher, and the camera, meant potentially publicising private relations. I think once more ‘the borders’ were re-established through their political subjectivities. The borders of the TRNC were protected by not publicising the possible friendships with Rums, which meant not subscribing to the official Greek Cypriot narrative of the coexistence of Cypriots. Fatma returned to the reason for founding the ‘Turkish Cypriot version’ of such an association in London. The idea for this association came to fruition because ‘their Limassol existed only in dreams’, as Fatma told me. It would never come back; it would never be the same, even if they opened the checkpoints. Thus, by meeting with each other, they could preserve their memories while narrating their own stories of Limassol. Interestingly, the ‘narratives of good old days’ contained the memories of ‘the good old friends’ from the same place, but excluded them from the ‘present’. Not getting in touch with them in the present but remembering them as old friends from the past – a past which has to be lost, just like their former ‘homes’ in the southern part of Cyprus – prevented the intervention of the past into the present. This helped prevent any conflict between their memories of the past and their ways of being as Turkish Cypriots in London.

Erasing Traces of Memory Maria’s husband, Dimitris, was born in the north of Cyprus in 1960 and arrived in London when he was only eight years old. Dimitris and

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his family had come to London because Dimitris’s father did not like the political situation in Cyprus and preferred to raise his children in London. He did not anticipate, however, that one day they would be trapped in London and unable to go back ‘home’ to Karpassia (Karpaz). Dimitris and Maria had two children, a son and a daughter. As a family, they went to Cyprus almost every summer, but in the summer of 2003, theirs was not a simple holiday visit. Dimitris had decided, after much contemplation and deliberation, to take an emotional journey back ‘home’ to Karpassia; he was afraid to confuse his children, since he had made an amazing effort, as he told me, to keep politics and the ‘Cyprus issue’ out of his children’s lives and to have a ‘normal’ life. He continued: ‘At the end of the day, they live in London; they have and will have Turkish friends. I did not see the reason for spoiling their childhood with my issues’. For many others, crossing may mean ‘revisiting’ childhood memories, and I think Dimitris had a strong wish to revive these memories. He and his family started their holiday in Paphos, in the southwest of Cyprus. When the day arrived to visit Karpassia, Dimitris was very nervous. His friend from Paphos offered him his car, but Dimitris was very anxious about this offer, mainly because he was worried he would not be able to find his village. He could not face this possibility. So his friend drove them north to the village. Dimitris was sitting in the front of the car, trying to sense something familiar from his childhood memories. The children and Maria were quietly sitting in the back. ‘The names’, he said to me, ‘were all Turkish. I could not even understand them, though we were passing quite slowly, I did not understand anything . . . as if all the Greek existence was wiped out’. When they turned onto the road that eventually took them to the village, Dimitris at last could sense a familiarity about the place. Yet there was nobody Dimitris could remember from his childhood. This was a terrible disappointment for him, although he had not been living ‘in a dream world’, as he said – not being able to see even one familiar face in this previously mixed village triggered a sense of estrangement from the place. His expectations had developed in London, because both his Turkish and Greek Cypriot friends had returned to London after being on the ‘other side’, or ‘home’, with touching and heart-warming

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experiences about the familiar faces of their village. He had heard stories of old friends hugging each other and crying without saying a word, of going to the coffee house and meeting old family friends, with their changed figures and faces, their wrinkled hands. Such encounters did not happen for Dimitris. Dimitris walked through the village while his wife and his children waited in the car. His walk was very short because, he said, ‘I could not breathe, you know, it was so alien to me. Nothing familiar’. I wondered how the streets of the village could be so unfamiliar, but I did not have the courage to ask him directly, since his eyes were getting watery. Dimitris nodded. ‘Totally alien, it was not my village!’ He had wiped his tears away and rushed back to the car, where he told his wife and children he had had a quick walk in the village. His children were still quiet, but his daughter asked, ‘Did you find granny’s house, dad?’ He said, ‘No, I could not. We will come another time, ok?’ However, Dimitris did not look for his house in the village; he did not search for it. He left in a hurry, breathlessly. His childhood memories were not encapsulated within the streets and the houses of his village: none of the people who had made the village home for him were present in the village. This was such a painful experience that perhaps, as I argued before, this was another displacement. This displacement snatched away even the childhood memories he had preserved, the memories that had nourished his personal link to Cyprus. Dimitris was determined to find the places, people and objects from his childhood memories and introduce them to his wife and children. They drove to a site on the Karpassia peninsula where Dimitris had freely jumped into the sea with his brothers and father. This time, after not being able to revive his childhood memories in the streets of his village, Dimitris found them while, quickly again, rushing to experience this seaside place with his children. Apparently Dimitris could not find the courage to leave Karpassia with another bitter taste added to his memories, so he found this more secluded, private and untouched spot to revive the sweet memories of his childhood. This revival was a resistance to the partition/occupation/displacement/ war. It was a resistance to the rupture of the continuity between past, present and future.

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Dimitris kept the photographs of his children swimming in the small inlet of the sea where, before 1968, his father and brothers had enjoyed the hot summer days of Cyprus. ‘These photographs’, he told me, pointing at them, ‘I will frame them’. By framing them, Dimitris was actually reframing his family memories and his relationship with Cyprus in a new way, one that no one, no partition, no occupation, no war, could alter. Dimitris was determined not to go back again; it was a very painful experience, even though it had concluded with a reminder of his happy childhood. Like many others, Dimitris had entered an area where the names had been changed. Even though the streets were the same in the memories of my informants, their names were not. Dimitris’s estrangement, which had begun when he couldn’t understand or recognise the Turkified names of various places, including his own village, was the result of the reproduction of ‘Turkish-ness’ in northern Cyprus. Likewise, the large Turkish flags on the mountains were a constant reminder, for the other side, of the ‘Turkishness’ of the north. Renaming is a noticeable strategy of ownership and may convert the home of its previous owners into an uncanny place. The uncanny images alienate the previous owners of the place and transform them into visitors. Wiping out the traces of memories means rewriting and reconstructing the past and the present (Loizos 1988: 646). The main strategy of Turkification was to convince the newcomer Turks from Turkey, yerleşikler (London Turkish Cypriots called the Turks from Turkey both yerleşikler, settlers, and Türkiyeliler, persons from Turkey), and the Turkish Cypriots, as the new owners, that this is a Turkish place, both in the present and for a future that is detached from the past. In other words, the place as it was named before 1974 could not be part of this newly homogenised home, north Cyprus. Such a strategy is a symptom of the widely accepted assumption that the people and the place are naturalised and homogenised at the origin of their identity (Malkki 1997). The initial meaning my informants employed for their ‘place’ was geographical and could be pointed out on a map. However, after the crossing experience the place lost its fixed position in their minds and became a blurred reality. This was the present ‘reality’ of the place, which many London Cypriots did not prefer to return to once more.

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Those who could not revive their memories while walking around their home villages or hometowns decided not to go back again, not to depart from their memories once more. Narratives of crossing also contained the agony of not being able to ‘sense’ the place as they had recalled it for all these years. This was, I suggest, another reason for feeling alienated from the place once called ‘home’.

Narratives of ‘Senses’ from London Cypriots From Seremetakis’s discussion of embodied memory: ‘Memory is the horizon of sensory experiences, storing and restoring the experience of each sensory dimension in another, as well as dispersing and finding sensory records outside the body in a surround of entangling objects and places’ (1994: 9). Later on she adds: The memory of one sense is stored in another: that of tactility in sound, of hearing in taste, of sight in sound . . . The awakening of the sense is awakening the capacity for memory, of tangible memory; to be awake is to remember, and one remembers through the senses, via substance (1994: 28). The sensory aspects of memory are highly fluid, relational and referential. Sensing place is a mental and also a physical journey that incorporates an amalgam of various senses, like smelling while walking, seeing while hearing, eating while listening, touching while looking at the orange trees of Cyprus . . . It is a totality. This wholeness makes the place a real experience in every sense. Jackson encourages us: ‘Let us not forget the taste of Proust’s petite Madeleine, nor music, nor dance, nor sharing food, the smell of bodies, the touch of hands’ (1989: 11).6 The social actors in this chapter do not live in Cyprus anymore, and they are often designated by Cypriots living in Cyprus as ‘Charlies’ and ‘Londralı/İngilizcik’ (Londoner/Little Englishman). Yet, as they kept repeating, many think, imagine, and long for the island, which is full of beautiful smells, bright colours and light. Zeynep, a second-generation Turkish Cypriot born and raised in London, once told me, ‘How can I explain? It is so difficult, but it smells like . . . the real oranges,

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just so natural, so intense. That is Cyprus for me. I’ve never lived there, but whenever spring comes in London, I miss Cyprus . . . all this smell and the taste of the fruits’. Zeynep implied she has a ‘memory’ of the orange blossoms of Cyprus and paradoxically ‘misses’ the taste and smell of what she has not experienced herself. Zeynep ‘heard’ of the smell and the real taste of oranges via her mother’s memories. London as an urban setting has been a sharp contrast for many Cypriots from rural backgrounds. Many London Cypriot patios are home to some of the island’s plants, mnemonic attributes to enable the recreation of the past and to evoke their belonging to Cyprus. As Jepson (2006: 173) argues, ‘plants can be easily replicated, and they bring sensual as well as nostalgic memory’. However, as many Cypriots told me, the replicas are just replicas – they can never have the authentic taste and smell they have in Cyprus. Therefore, for those who grow olive trees in their London gardens, or who make their own hellim (halloumi) cheese at home, these replicas are reminders of an irreplaceably lost village.7 The lands full of orange trees or the gardens with loads of various citrus trees were crucial components of the majority of Cypriot narratives. I believe this stems not only from the longing for a lost territory (citrus production was the main source of income for many of my informants or their parents), but also from its sensory dimension. Especially the oranges, since orange trees rooted in the ‘other’ side of the island had a different meaning. They were not only the source of the juicy, full taste of a ‘real’ orange, but also the representation of the indefinitely missing part of their lives. When describing the lands they had left behind, my informants remembered ‘the smell, the colour, and the real taste of the oranges’; even those who took a journey back in the summer of 2003 and 2004 returned with stories of orange trees. Many London Cypriots literally checked whether their orange trees, those they had planted, or those that were planted by their parents or even their grandparents, were still standing. The orange trees and their lands are important extensions of a place called ‘home’, and this is the cause of their excitement at finding their orange trees untouched, or their extreme disappointment at finding them gone. The continuity from the past through the present to the future,

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the triangle of memory, is not only metaphorically but also physically embodied in these trees. In a Proustian sense, the standing orange trees, with their smell and juicy taste, gave the London Cypriots the chance to recreate ‘things from the past’ and another way to dream ‘home’ back in London. The ‘wholeness,’ though, can be captured by sensing the smell of orange trees; the smell participates in you (Howes 1991: 134): nobody can take it away from you. On one occasion Fatma pointed at a road in her video and paused the player: ‘Look! Do you see this road? This was full of orange trees. Where are they? They built a road on it. Can you believe that? They took the orange trees away’. That day Fatma, in her house in London, presented her village with its dramatic alterations and also with its unchanged features. She looked frustrated as she showed me this road that had once been lined with orange trees. Her neck flushed red and her eyes widened. The orange trees are now missing from the place where she grew up, the place she had thought of as home. The place is no longer the same as it used to be – it is certainly no longer the place her memories depict, memories that effectively make the place home. Perhaps this is Fatma’s principal frustration, the violation of memories exacted by the material extinction of the orange trees. It seems to me the trees do not solely bear a ‘sensual’ presence but also an existential one; they preserve the ownership, property, continuity, existence and analogy of the person. Olive trees have a similar meaning for Palestinians. Ben-Ze’ev (2004: 143) reminds us that olive trees are present as a national symbol in Palestinian stories and poems, especially after 1948. ‘Being rooted’ is a sign of belonging. All these arboreal features (Malkki 1997) that both the Turkish and Greek languages apply to ‘belonging there’ seem quite tangible. Yet the nostalgia for the real taste and smell of an orange is constant in my displaced informants’ London lives. Thus the orange trees represent the rootedness to their home and, with the smell and taste of oranges, create the wholeness of the memory of Cyprus. My informants ‘remember’ and ‘revive’ their senses, which come from or belong to Cyprus, while living in London, cooking in their London kitchens and reproducing flavours similar to those back in Cyprus. While being a Cypriot in London and coping

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with the comparatively ‘tasteless’ fruits or herbs of London,8 both smell and taste become tangible. What I mean by ‘sensory aspects of memory’ is having a full sense of the past in the present, sometimes through a specific smell9 which takes the person back to the past and reminds them of something missing in their present lives. Another sensory aspect of memory is being somewhere with somebody – sometimes it’s the taste and smell of homemade food. Yet there are two points that require clarification. First, since memory is not fixed and is in constant motion, since it is always in dialogue with the present, the smell, the sound and the taste of the past are not confined to the ‘past’. In the end, the aroma of a Cypriot dish is detected in the air in the kitchen in a house in London. Second, though these sensory aspects of memory can be considered individually, ‘the meaning’ of these tastes, smells and sounds is the production of an ongoing interaction with other people, other people who share the same experience of these senses – the same time, the same place, the same context.

Conclusion I have tried to highlight different versions of alienation and how both Dimitris and Fatma deliberately resisted alienation and consciously reacted against it. Their actions and reactions were efforts to ‘put things in their right places’. Fatma, with her experience of crossing and her way of life, exemplified the condition of subjection and alienation from her private memories. The ‘private memories’ she could have revived in the present with her Greek Cypriot childhood friend were inhibited by the power of her ‘ideological way of being’. I think her confusion, like that of many other Turkish Cypriot informants, as well as her indecisiveness about the decision to cross the checkpoints to go ‘home/other side/Rum’s place’ derived from the long-lasting process of naturalising and normalising the condition of subjection. This is a condition in which the person is taught to exist solely through the internalisation of hegemonic discourse; this encourages the individual to be passive and to alienate herself from her other private experiences. Under conditions in which the legitimacy and the ‘truth’ of the hegemonic discourse (Gramsci 1971) is challenged – as with the 2003 opening of the checkpoints – the

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person is expected to act right at that moment with vigilance and to deliberately protect her way of being. The hegemonic discourse, or ideology, in an Althusserian sense, transforms the individuals into subjects by the operation of interpellation (1984: 48). Fatma was deliberately ‘protecting’ her existence by not alienating herself from her political subjection. Dimitris felt alienated when he was walking around his village and found that the place he once called ‘home’ was not there anymore. His village, as an uncanny place in the present, was disorienting, and it further alienated Dimitris. One reason he wanted to visit his village with his family was to transmit his own unaltered childhood memories to his children at their locus. He found a retreat, a means to resist the estrangement, by choosing a private location which helped him recover from the painful alienation he experienced when he returned home to find a Turkish place, not a mixed village in the north of Cyprus.

Notes 1. Rumcu refers to Turkish Cypriots who mix with Greek Cypriots. This term may have both derogatory and positive meanings depending on one’s identification with Cypriot-ness. 2. Rum is the Turkish word for Romaios, a derivative of the word ‘Roman’, after ‘Eastern Roman’ or ‘Byzantine’. Throughout this article my informants’ usage of Rum refers to Greek Cypriots. 3. The involvement of the EU in the Cyprus conflict began in 1972 with the association agreement between the Republic of Cyprus and the EEC. See Demetriou’s (2004) review of the literature on relations between the EU and Cyprus. 4. Except for rarely permitted bi-communal meetings at the Ledra Palace Hotel or in the village of Pyla, both inside the dividing line, or crossings to the other side for special events. 5. Middle-class living rooms in Turkey, as Ayata (1988) suggests, are designed and kept clean not for the household but for the guests. Living rooms are display areas. They stand in the conjunction between public and private sphere, where the guests enter into this ‘publicly private area’ by crossing the threshold. 6. Proust’s Madeleine has been an inspiration for many writers who touch upon the senses (Sutton 2001, Jackson 1989).

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7. Petridou (2001) describes how the food sent from home (Greece) provides stability for Greek students in London and a sense of belonging through the experience of taste. 8. Gell (1977: 27) suggests, ‘the smell is completed, not only by the actual source, but also by the context. Because smells are so intimately bound up with the world, the context of a smell is not other smells’. As Howes (1991: 132) argued, by recognising the scent we are taken back to the moment with which it is originally associated, and we live this moment over and over again with its full emotions. 9. The way privacy is understood here is to confront its so-called opposite, the ‘public’. Though it is widely accepted that the spheres’ boundaries are blurred, here I paradoxically highlight this artificial separation of public from private and argue that this separation makes people believe in ‘their real private spheres’.

References Ayata, Sencer. 1988. ‘Statü Yarışması ve Salon Kullanımı’, Toplum ve Bilim 42, pp. 5–25. Ben-ze’ev, Efrat. 2004. ‘Politics of taste and smell: Palestinian narratives of return’, in M. Lien and M. Nerlich (eds), The Politics of Food. Oxford: Berg Publisher Demetriou, Olga. 2004. ‘EU and the Cyprus conflict: review of the literature’, in Working Chapters Series in EU Border Conflicts Studies, 5. Feeley-Harnik, Gillian and Tim Ingold. 1996. ‘Against the notion: “the past is a foreign country”’ (1992 debate), in T. Ingold (ed), Key Debates in Anthropology. New York and London: Routledge. Gell, Alfred. 1977. ‘Magic, perfume, dream’, in I. Lewis (ed), Symbols and Sentiments: Cross-Cultural Studies in Symbolism. London: Academic Press. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selection from the Prison Notebooks. Trans. Quintin Iloare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1980. The Collective Memory. New York: Harper and Row. Howes, David. 1991. ‘Olfaction and transition’, in D. Howes (ed), Varieties of Sensory Experience. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Jackson, Michael. 1998. Minima Ethnographica: Intersubjectivity and the Anthropological Project. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jepson, Anne. 2006. ‘Gardens and the nature of rootedness in Cyprus’, in Y. Papadakis, N. Peristianis, and G. Welz (eds), Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History and an Island in Conflict. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Küchler, Susanne. 1996. ‘Against the motion’, in T. Ingold (ed), Key Debates in Anthropology. New York and London: Routledge. Loizos, Peter. 1988. ‘Intercommunal killing in Cyprus.’ Man 23, pp. 639–653.

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Malkki, Liisa. 1997. ‘National geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees’, in A. Gupta and J. Ferguson (eds), Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Navaro-Yashin, Yael. 2007. ‘Make-believe chapters, legal forms, and the counterfeit: affective interactions between documents and people in Britain and Cyprus’. Anthropological Theory 7 (1), pp. 79–96. Papadakis, Yiannis. 1998. ‘Greek Cypriot narratives of history and collective identity: nationalism as a contested process’, American Ethnologist 25 (2), pp. 1–17. Petridou, Elia. 2001. ‘The taste of home’, in D. Miller (ed), Home Possessions. Oxford: Berg. Seremetakis, Nadia. 1994. The Senses Still: Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stewart, Charles and Eric Hirsch. 2005. ‘Introduction: ethnographies of historicity’, History and Anthropology 16 (3), pp. 261–74. Sutton, David. 2001. Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory. Oxford: Berg. Somers, Margaret. 1994. ‘The narrative construction of identity: a relational and network approach’, Theory and Society 23, pp. 605–635.

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6 IM AGINING HOMEL ANDS Poetics and Performance among Cypriot Armenians1 Susan Pattie

The performance of history is part of a public narrative of identity and, like all theatre, it is at least a three-way dialogue, indeed a dialectic between the text, the performer and the audience. In this regard, the traditional Armenian saying at the end of a story fits very well: ‘Three apples fell from heaven’ – one for the listeners, one for the teller, and one for the person who really understood. Throughout the twentieth century in Cyprus, Armenian history was taught not only in the classroom of both primary and secondary schools but was also learned through the recital of poetry at school and community events, through the shared singing of different kinds of songs, and through plays and skits about historical events and people. I do not suggest that this somehow replaces learning from history texts or classroom teaching, but I am certain it is a mode of learning that is incorporated more readily and perhaps remembered longer, if only because successive events and performances often repeat or complement each other with similar themes and characters. Like the creation of the art form itself, the performance of poetry is a process of distillation, of concision, of sharing emotion. In musical form, lyrics (often poetry set to melody), sung together can bring

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even more power to the words as they create the Durkheimian spirit of shared, indeed, embodied belief. In both forms, the aim is to bring certain ideas to life, to shape a theme in a form recognisable to the listener. In contrast to learning in the classroom, often remembered as dry and boring, shared listening to a strong performance can be riveting, even inspiring. Of course some teaching is also inspiring, but the message in poetry and song is in condensed form; it gives a framework for the details learned while reading, listening to lectures, or accumulated through the chaotic experience of life. As one Cypriot Armenian man explained: Yes, there was a distinct difference between the kinds of ideas and attitudes towards history taught and those conveyed through such performances. The former was boring and most of it has not registered, whereas the latter is vivid and vibrant and touches the heart and registers. I will be referring to poetry recited and songs sung by Cypriot Armenians during school events, public cultural or political evenings, and April 24 commemorations – I carried out my fieldwork between 1983 and 2000 in Cyprus and in London. Thanks to a number of oral histories, this chapter also includes earlier periods of the twentieth century. While the experiences here are grounded in Cyprus, they are also very much tied to the wider Armenian diaspora, especially that of the Middle East and Soviet (later the Republic of) Armenia. The curriculum used by schools in Cyprus – the books and materials, as well as the format and content of political and cultural events – were shared by those in communities in Beirut, Aleppo, Cairo, indeed, throughout the diaspora. As Nicola Migliorino explains in describing the reconstruction of Armenian communities in Syria and Lebanon, the schools were a priority and also a recognised sphere of influence for creating a particular kind of post-war Armenian. He notes that the standardisation of Armenian education began in the middle of the nineteenth century; this standardization was revived in the 1920s as school boards, churches and intellectual leaders tried to balance an education which provided skills for life in the new social environment

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with taking ‘into account important considerations that concerned the definition of Armenian culture itself’ (Migliorino 2008:74). Then as now, though in different ways, the Armenian population of these countries was diverse, and as Migliorino again observes, the political parties in particular were concerned that the students be inspired. He quotes N.B. Shahgaldian: The only mission of such schools was the creation of a new breed of Armenians in the image of what the party considered ‘true Armenians’, conscious of their history and culture, well-versed in their mother tongue and dedicated to the ideals of Armenian nationalism (ibid: 75).2 The three main political parties (Dashnaktsoutiune, Ramkavar and Hunchakian), with members and sympathisers in all diaspora communities, differed vehemently in their attitude towards Soviet Armenia but agreed on the need to mould a particular Armenian identity based on the mission stated above. This was aimed not only at the youth but at a diverse – sometimes non-Armenian-speaking – general public. The schools and political and cultural events in Cyprus were organised by individuals with their own particular perspectives, but all shared this fundamental link and foundation (and bank of resources) with others in the diaspora and increasingly, toward the end of the twentieth century, with the state of Armenia. Though Armenia had not been of any consequence outside its own space before the genocide (indeed, Tbilisi had been the Armenian intellectual powerhouse of the Caucasus), it grew steadily in influence and prestige in its new, transformed character and shape as Soviet Armenia, and much later as an independent Republic. Though the state of Armenia was not the physical ‘homeland’ of those Armenians living in Cyprus, it became a symbolic one, as discussed below, through the teaching and performing of a particular view of history. In the schools and in public events, the focus on an ideological Homeland grew, in contrast to the local, ancestral homelands the refugees could still taste and smell. In each of the countries of the region in which Armenians settled post-genocide, this was not an unusual development, as empires

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crumbled and new states sought to inspire citizens in a new image. In Cyprus as well, though still under British control, Cypriot schools in both Greek and Turkish communities portrayed the Homeland as something heroic, mythical and primarily elsewhere.3 The Cypriot Armenians’ introverted shaping of their own education and public events followed a pattern seen around them – in Cyprus and also in the countries where intellectuals were preparing Armenian school curricula. As other forms of education elevated a particular ethnic group (and/or religion), it became increasingly important to develop a narrative of one’s own – or, as Migliorino and Shahgaldian point out with regard to Lebanon, take the path of assimilation into one of the other groups.

The Performance of History through Poetry Though the love of poetry is a long and passionate one, shared by neighbours around the Middle East, the image of a person either creating the works or sitting and reading them is no longer one that is as esteemed as it once was.4 As popular art forms have changed, both in the medium and the genres, so too has the prestige attached to their study and creation. However, the performance of poetry remains a standard part of the public event, though these performances have decreased in number. By the end of the twentieth century, a number of changes had also taken place in the teaching of history, but the performance of history hadn’t changed as significantly. Whether in textbooks or in performance, Armenian history always places the emphasis on its own longevity, on its early mention by Herodotus and the linguistic evidence for its distant heritage. In this chapter, the focus will be on three periods within this range: (a) the early, formational period; (b) the 1915 genocide and dispersion; (c) twentieth century rebuilding, imagining of Homeland and transformation from subjects of empire to citizens of increasingly beloved home countries. Each period, such as our current one, ‘re-presents’ the past in light of the present, but certain themes and interpretations are shared: heroism in the face of overwhelming odds, an emphasis on the collective good rather than on the individual, the longevity of the

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people,5 the continuity of certain symbols of ‘people-hood’, and the importance of the original lands. In an article entitled ‘Textual Nation: Poetry and Nationalism in Armenian Political Culture’, Khachig Tölölyan presents the poem Ter Getzo (Lord Sustain) as an example and progenitor of this genre (Tölölyan 1999).6 Popular in the early to mid-twentieth century, Ter Getzo had served originally as a call to nationhood. Aimed at an already dispersed and subject people when first written and published in the mid-nineteenth century, the poem also fit the political and emotional needs of the young communities of the post-genocide diaspora, including Cyprus. I will return to this in a later section, but here note Tölölyan’s words on the role of this poem and others in the passing on of history: The words of poems are selected to make a coherent aesthetic object with its own internal logic, and simultaneously to draw into the constrained space of the poem relevant meanings from other texts and discourses, from the institutions and experience of ‘real life’. Successful poems are verbal sites where the emotions, thoughts, and discourses of past and present generations are made to intersect and sometimes to invoke a future. By that definition, ‘Ter Getzo’ is an extraordinarily successful poem. It draws both upon the Armenian past and upon emerging contemporary values; it deploys religious and other discourses to represent the redemption of dispersion, projecting an Armenian future sensitively and shrewdly (ibid, 87–88). In the following sections I will explore the ways in which this and other poems, songs and dramas indeed present the past as a resource for the present and future, guide thoughts and emotions, and serve as a powerful undercurrent of shared perceptions and kinds of knowledge about collective history.

Early History In the classrooms of Armenian schools in the twentieth century, Armenian history was presented as it often is in other schools – with

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an emphasis on pivotal moments and great characters or heroes (few heroines, again, as usual). Neighbouring kingdoms and cultures with whom they fought were presented in outline form only, and other kinds of engagement with these or other cultures were not often included. A number of Armenian Cypriots mentioned that Armenian history was presented to them in a vacuum, without context or comparison. Some people noted that until recently the Armenian schools only taught Armenian history – the concept of ‘World History’ was wholly absent.7 The early era of Armenian history frequently provided themes in dramas and skits, and as a symbolic anchor in more general cultural evenings. Several events from this period were the annual focus of commemorations, both in the schools and for the community, providing an opportunity for their importance to be repeated almost formulaically, as a ritual. Often the same poems would be recited each year; at school, it is a new class that learns the poem, while the others listen. In public, it is a matter of agreed-upon favourites. Tigran (Dikran) the Great (Medzn Dikran) The glorious age when an Armenian empire ruled the lands on which Armenians lived was that of the kingdom of Tigran, which was founded in 95 BCE and began its decline in 69 BCE.8 This and earlier legends about the mythical fathers of Armenia on the plain of Ararat underlie a basic understanding of where Armenians came from and how they grew as a people over centuries – indeed, over several thousand years. In the monumental presence of Ararat is found a symbol of timelessness and a tangible link with the distant past, both in backdrops of scenery for plays and in the poetry. Mount Ararat – by Avetik Issahakian (trans. Mischa Kudian)9 On the ancient peak of Ararat The centuries have come like seconds, And passed on. The swords of innumerable lightnings Have broken on its diamond crest, And passed on.

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The eyes of generations dreading death Have glanced at its luminous summit, And passed on. The turn is now yours for a brief while: You, too, look at its lofty brow And pass on! This popular poem is but one of many with Ararat as subject or playing a supporting role. Themes recur – longevity, victimhood, a connection with the sacred . . . Some take on a longing for the lost mountain/ homelands, while others portray it as an actor itself, as Gevorg Emin does in his popular poem, asking, ‘And you, my mountain. Will you always keep your distance? Will you never come to me?’10 Ararat is actually a set of symbols, rather than one, including the prehistoric mingling of peoples in that area which gave rise to a people who spoke Armenian and called themselves Hay. It also represents the beauty of the lost lands and, through the legend of Noah’s ark landing there, a Biblical connection. It is a potent enough symbol that the recent acclaimed film by Atom Egoyan took Ararat as its title, though it was not ‘about’ Ararat.11 Hamlet Petrossian describes the transition of the mountain, called ‘Massis’ by Armenians, from its importance in mythology and legend to becoming a national icon in modern times.12 An idealised, even sacred geographic place is, of course, not unique to Armenians, nor is the transition of that place to an icon as part of the process of nationalisation. Orvar Löfgren, writing about ‘the Good Swede’, discusses how across Europe nature was ‘nationalised’ in the nineteenth century, and adds: . . . it was in the decades around 1900 that this process really accelerated . . . Certain landscapes and scenes were selected as ‘typical’ and charged with powerful symbolic meanings, through a process of cultural condensation . . . It was a process (a collaboration between ‘painters, authors, travelers, and political debaters’) that transformed everyday natural scenes into ‘homelands’, permeated with history and national symbolism (Löfgren 1995: 266).13

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For Armenians, the condensation Löfgren discusses was particularly potent with regard to the powerful (but not everyday) image of Mt. Ararat; over the course of the twentieth century, this condensation also turned increasingly to the Republic of Armenia and to Yerevan, the capital. Early Church and Conversion of the King While the mountain provides the continuing backdrop to history, certain people and events are remembered constantly as those who set the scene for future generations. Armenian children are taught history and religion together in many ways, and the poetry and skits performed usually have elements of both. One hero in this narrative is a reluctant one, the King who at first refused to convert. When between 306 and 314 Gregory the Illuminator14 did later persuade him, King Tiridates became the first Christian monarch and St. Gregory the father of the Armenian Church, making the kingdom of Armenia the first Christian ‘nation’.15 This is something which all children are taught to be proud of; it is one of the basic tenets of history expressed in Armenian identity. Religious connections are expressed through song and through the ritual of the liturgy. During church services sermons frequently invoke historical moments that might inspire the congregation to deepen their commitment to an Armenian future. The need for selfsacrifice is often raised, appealing to the present generation to follow the example of their ancestors. Again, certain occasions can be relied on to bring this to the foreground, including the genocide-related commemorations and the destruction of the Armenian army under General Vartan in 451 CE. A reference point throughout the year, not unlike Ararat in its complex symbolism, Vartan and the Battle of Avarayr are remembered more specifically on the Saint’s annual name day, Vartanants: Hay em yes. Hay em yes. Kach Vartanin torn em yes! I am Armenian! I am Armenian! I am the grandchild of Brave Vartan!

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This simplest of verses, perhaps not quite a poem, is one which very young Armenian children learn to shout together, not only on Vartanants, but as a way to include small children in larger productions and as a way to reinforce the message of the importance of fighting against overwhelming odds. The song Garmir Vartan (Red Vartan), also sung in primary school, encourages related themes of pride and bravery. General Vartan led his troops against the Persian army, resisting the conversion of Armenians to Zoroastrianism. Newly converted to Christianity and protecting their own semi-independence, the Armenian troops fought valiantly, but lost. It was a pyrrhic victory for the Persians, however, the Armenians having destroyed enough Persian troops to prevent further invasion. Interpreted as an early sacrifice for the foundation of Christianity among Armenians and a pivotal event in Armenian history, the deaths of Vartan and his fellow soldiers are commemorated annually in church services and school assemblies.16 Khachig Tölölyan, discussing sources of motivation for the Armenian terrorists of the 1980s, describes Vartan as the ‘emblematic warrior of the Armenian nation’ (Tölöyan 1987a: 95). He notes that ‘like the narratives of the genocide, the Vartan stories enrich Armenian rhetoric with words, clichés, phrases, clusters of metaphor and analogy that together constitute a lexicon of highly charged locutions’ (ibid: 95). Mesrop Mashdots, the creator of the Armenian alphabet, is remembered each year on Translators’ Day, 19 February. Poems praising the inventor of the alphabet are fewer than those about the language itself, but the person of St. Mesrop provides again a character around whom opportunities for public remembering can be organised. Oh, my sweet mother tongue, Golden river of knowledge, Saviour of the mind, giant of hope Eternal centre of life, Store-house of unquenchable, bright torches You, our sacred relic, mother tongue! Siamanto 1878 – 1915 (trans. Mischa Kudian) This first verse of a well-loved poem shows the quality of religious adoration for this central symbol of identity, but it also brings in ideas

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of continuity, of longevity, of a past and future. Rebecca Bryant notes a similar attitude toward language among Greek Cypriots, urged on again by intellectuals: In speeches given in Ancient Greek, the content of such speeches was ontologically inseparable from the archaized language: dreams of recapturing Byzantium could only be expressed in the language that was also the historically continuous and consistent spirit of the race (Bryant 2004:144). While Armenians today reserve their classical language for church liturgy, the spirit of the connection is shared in much the same way. Reciting poetry in Armenian is not a problem in Cyprus for those raised in Armenian-speaking families, though it excludes many raised in mixed-ethnicity families whose language skills are weaker. Until recently, one of the inherent points of the poetry recitals is the public use of the language itself. Among Armenians, language is often associated with a mother figure: whatever your vernacular tongue, that of your ancestors (however long ago) is really your ‘mother tongue’ in your soul, just as those ancestors are yours in your body. This aspect is the basis for one of the poems I heard most often during my fieldwork and one a number of people remembered as important to their own understanding of Armenian identity and history. Khosk im Vordun (Lines to My Child) by Silva Gaboudikian17 ends with startling and memorable words, which I often heard the audience join the speaker in repeating: Though you might forget your own mother, you must always remember your mother tongue.18 Thus (roughly translated), the poem contrasts the importance of the Armenian language with a given of Armenian culture – the central figure of the mother. This longsuffering mother appears in other poetry (see below) as the touchstone of value, the ultimate, beyond which there is only nation.

Genocide and Dispersion As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, and the strain of its demise produced violent reactions to dissidence and protests from within, the

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Armenians were persecuted, then massacred, then deported. Four main aspects of this long process are brought to the fore through school and public events: a. The shocking arrest and decimation of the greats of Armenian intellectual life in Istanbul on 24 April 1915. b. The experience of deportation, of leaving homes, and the horrors witnessed both before leaving and en route. c. Survival and the sacrifices made by individuals for the greater collective. d. Dispersion – the longing for the old places and ways of life, and the efforts made to find family and compatriots with whom to rebuild a new life elsewhere. April 24 and the Arrests of the Intellectuals In addition to April 24 commemorations themselves, events are also often organised around the birthdays of famous poets arrested on that day. At the Nareg School in Nicosia one year, I listened as students read or recited poetry by Taniel Varoujan (1884–1915), in memory of the centenary of his birth. The final poem was recited by a whole class; I was told this was the custom for this particular poem. The Lamp19 Night of triumph, night of joy, —Daughter, fill the lamp— Victorious from war comes my boy. —Daughter, wick the lamp— A cart is grinding by the well. —Daughter, light the lamp— My boy returns with wreath and bell. —Daughter, raise the lamp— The cart bears a young body spread. —Daughter, draw the lamp— My boy lies gored, my boy lies dead. —Girl, snuff out the lamp—

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What might it mean for children to recite a poem about war and death that involves young people, even children? Boy, daughter, girl – it invites them to imagine something closer. The girl is asked to bring light, but childhood innocence and light itself are destroyed by the brutal death of the son. Many of the poems performed are far harder to bear. Perhaps the most famous of this genre, frequently heard at genocide commemorations, is The Dance by Siamanto, another poet arrested and killed on April 24, 1915. Composed in response to other atrocities in the years leading up to the genocide,20 this poem begins with a young German woman caring for a girl dying of stab wounds in an Armenian town. She is astonished to see a ‘view from hell’ from her window, twenty young women being whipped and herded into a nearby garden by a mob of men. The visitor watches, shocked, as the girls are forced to dance, half-naked, for the men, then doused and set on fire. In horror I slammed the shutters of my window as if by storm And approaching the lonely dead girl, I asked: ‘How shall I dig out these eyes of mine? Tell me, how?’21 There is no denying that such actions took place, and certainly no denying the power of the verses. In earlier times, each household of survivors was home to at least one person who could tell stories of equal horror; often, however, they chose not to tell the worst ones, choosing instead to dwell on stories of the act of survival itself, of the journey, of finding food and drink. While many memoirs exist, both published and unpublished, which do bear witness to horrific crimes against civilians, it is in the form of poetry, and some songs, that the story of these events most often reached the ears and hearts of Armenians during the twentieth century. The frisson of listening together with other survivors and survivors’ descendents is also part of the very physical bonding and marking of the group. I was told these poems were chosen for public events to prevent people from forgetting, and to demonstrate just how awful the experiences were. Other poems, no less shocking, convey a more complex message. One poem, heard twice in London and Nicosia the same year, performed

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by unrelated groups, was also by Siamanto. To summarize – a small group is hiding in a cave, listening as groups of soldiers pass nearby. A baby amongst them begins to cry and someone says – we’ll have to kill it to save the rest of us! The mother protests – kill me first and then the baby. The baby is strangled, the soldiers pass by. Later the Armenians escape. In the final scene a crazed mother wanders the countryside crying ‘I’ve killed my baby! Won’t anyone kill me?’ The greater good, the collective, the nation is elevated beyond the bond of mother and child. Of course, this also portrays the enemy as merciless and inhuman, driving people to such madness, but there is also a message of martyrdom for the nation, of achieving a greater good through sacrifice, a command to submerge one’s self in the group. Clearly there are multiple messages in these and other poems recited on the subject. Each contains an explosive emotional charge, however, capable of electrifying the audience with the right speaker and in the right atmosphere. In many cases, the word ‘Turk’ or ‘Turkish’ (or ‘Ottoman’) does not appear, and one wonders what someone utterly unconnected and unaware of the origin of the poem would make of it. Would it then be interpreted as the general futility of war or the remarkable depths of inhumanity found, sadly, everywhere? Perhaps, but not among the audiences to whom these poems are nearly always recited. Instead, such poems serve to order or shape an otherwise diffuse complex of emotions – sadness, anger and loss. The poems direct and often re-ignite grief and anger and effectively name without naming those responsible for their shared tragedy. In this way, even in families that do not speak in terms of hating ‘the Turks’, children and young people learn to fear an Other who is both anonymous and very specific. For those Armenians who knew Turkish people as neighbours and co-workers, such as in Cyprus before 1974, the poetry served to separate the everyday relationships from the arena of brutal remembrance. In contrast to this ability to hold parallel, conflicting views of Turkish people, throughout fieldwork in other countries, and particularly in the Republic of Armenia, I was struck that these same poems and stories had made an even deeper impression on those who had never met any Turkish people. With no friends or acquaintances to mitigate the constant negative imaging,

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they were left only with the portrayal of the ‘fiends’ from those catastrophic years, and some were genuinely afraid. In all the diaspora communities and in Armenia, the poems are not offered as a commentary on humanity in general but in the memory of those who died in the genocide, of those who died at the hands of Turkish soldiers and Kurdish tribesmen.22 Songs are also effective in anchoring this message, and several people mentioned the patriotic or revolutionary ones that are sung after dinners, with friends, and at political meetings of the Dashnaktsoutiune, the more ‘activist’ of the political parties mentioned earlier. In these, Turks are often mentioned by name but, again, not always.23 Dispersion and a New Homeland The notion of lost homeland (village, town or historic region) as paradise is frequently found in memoirs of survivors of the genocide and indeed in poetry composed afterward, either by well-known and published artists or by the many composing at home to come to terms with their own feelings and thoughts. The latter find their way to print sometimes but more often remain private, perhaps read by family members. Levon Zekiyan notes that this is not a new phenomenon in itself: We can say that for almost a millennium, a large part of the Armenian population has lived outside their homeland, on the border between ‘colony’ and ‘diaspora’. Their capacity for integration helped them to transform dispersion into permanent and flourishing settlements, but their deep attachment to their roots never let them forget the dream of their ‘Edenic’ homeland (Zekiyan 1999: 47). Zekiyan then adds in a footnote that a ‘very popular song’ written by Hovhan mirza Vanandetsi (1772–1840) begins with the words, ‘Armenia, Land of Paradise’ (Hayastan, erkir drakhtavayr) – a vision first articulated, he says, by the Mekhitarist Mikael Chamchian. A later member of the same brotherhood of priests, Ghevond Alishan, became

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the leader of the Romantic movement and influenced Armenian intellectuals throughout the nineteenth century, continuing this same equation of Paradise and lost homeland. This theme of lost paradise is one that both poetry and song kept in the public sphere in powerful ways throughout the twentieth century. One of the best known of the intellectuals ravaged by the 1915 roundup, priest and composer Komitas Komitas, survived but was permanently disabled and never able to work again. Komitas performed an invaluable service before the end of the Ottoman Empire, collecting, notating and arranging songs from Armenian towns and villages. His pieces are performed continually in varied forms, vocal and instrumental, solo and choral; it is indeed rare to have an event without a piece by Komitas – his very presence on the program serves as a reminder of the genocide. Some pieces in particular, however, have emerged as iconic symbols, not only of the suffering endemic to that experience, but of the aftermath, the dispersion of the survivors, and the loss of the homelands. Grong (The Crane) is heard regularly; in the poem, the exiled person asks the bird, as he returns from his own seasonal migration, what news he brings from home. Even when played as an instrumental piece, the words and meaning are already in the public memory, and the wistful, haunting melody brings the emotion to the surface. Another tune arranged by Komitas is combined with lyrics written by N. Rousinian, praising Giligia – or Cilicia – the area from which most Armenians in Cyprus come. This is the region of the last Armenian kingdom (ending 1375), in what is now central southern Turkey, an area that includes Adana, Mersin, Marash and other well-known towns. A song of nostalgia especially popular with the Dashnaktsoutiune, the piece is still popular enough to have many entries on Google, including YouTube and other performance sites. The words are those of longing, of sorrow for the lost lands and for lost innocence, of admiration for the beauty of the homeland: ‘I wish to see my Giligia, the country that gave me the sun’. The author lists other lovely places, and the poem includes the line, ‘there is no island like our Cyprus’ (the only other place that is designated as ‘ours’), but he concludes that at the end of one’s life, there is nowhere to compare

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with home – ‘I wish to fall asleep in my Giligia, the land that gave me the sun.’24 Writing and reciting poetry was until very recently a popular art form among diasporic Armenians, as it is or was with their neighbours in Cyprus, the Middle East and Armenia. In Armenia, it remains so; during Soviet times, poets were revered state artists, like composers and others. Their pieces were read and performed not only in the Soviet republic but throughout the diaspora, especially within those circles sympathetic to the country. However, the sheer volume of poetry produced, and the many ways in which poetry can be interpreted, served to bolster the strong link between the wider diaspora and Armenia. Popular poetry and songs also emerged in Beirut and other centres. In most cases, verses composed in the diaspora and in Armenia took a very negative view of the dispersion; one could not be whole away from the other parts, as an exile away from the lands. Songs and poetry exalted the historic homelands, not necessarily the space of the Soviet Republic, though sometimes this was indeed the focus. Some began to build a picture of that particular geographic place as homeland, as a place where Armenians could and should live together. A writer raised in Cyprus mentioned a favourite poem as one she heard often and which had made a deep impression on her. Yes Im Anoush Hayasdani (Of My Sweet Armenia) by Yeghishe Charents brings out the recurring themes and symbols of Armenian history and identity mentioned earlier, beginning with this animated image: ‘I love the words of Armenia, tasting of the sun’. The poem ends with a familiar evocation: ‘roam the world and you will see no other peak as white as Ararat. Like an unattainable road to glory, I love my Mount Massis’.25 Over the course of the twentieth century, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and later the independent Republic of Armenia grew progressively larger and more important in the social imagination of Armenians in diaspora. Though not in any sense the historical diaspora of that particular country, the association of land with statehood, of language with bounded territory, has drawn increasing numbers of Armenians around the world to think of it as a homeland, rather than simply another Armenian community.26 Not surprisingly, the wealth of poetry produced

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in the Republic, as mentioned above, has also stoked a yearning for the lands. Hovhannes Shiraz wrote a poem during the Soviet period that takes this a step further, insisting that there is no other way of existing as an Armenian other than living physically in that space called ‘Armenia’: To the Armenians in the Diaspora27 Not a flower will the alien soil give you, But should you blossom in alien fields, If you have not a cup in the motherland, Your wine is of tears to your lips also. The alien land will not give you a cottage, But should it give you a palace in the sun, If you have not a hut in the motherland, You are a forgotten orphan under an alien moon. You may know myriad languages in the alien world, But should your mother tongue be foreign to you, You are a bird in a cage with your tongue torn out, And you are forever lost to your mother country. Your motherland is the new Armenia, Where even the barren rocks bear flowers, Where the buried Mesrop Mashtots, through me, Inquires after your destiny every day. This poem serves as an example of one kind of conversation between the diaspora and Armenia, one that encompasses questions of belonging, questions urged on by intermittent insecurities around the new Middle Eastern diaspora centres, questions underpinned by the fear of assimilation in more comfortable countries farther away. Where can the Armenian people be safe, continue to speak Armenian, maintain a connection and conversation with the past and be assured of an Armenian future? The answer to these questions was clear enough in poetry and in the poems and songs chosen for important occasions, for school events, for political and cultural organisations. But here the dialogue between the text/speaker and the listeners begins to take a more raucous, chaotic shape. Very few in diaspora, including those in

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Cyprus, have decided to leave their home countries and communities to live in the idealised and ideological homeland.28 At the same time, an increasing number do visit and express a growing emotional attachment to the country. The poetry of this projected belonging remains popular; it is employed in teaching a sense of commitment and in the imagination of a new homeland. The works of Komitas continue to be vital markers of identity and instantly recognizable links, almost in a Proustian way, to a whole world of the senses. But other kinds of music have created more specific ties to Armenia. Mark Slobin writes: Music is central to the diaspora experience, linking homeland and here-land with an intricate network of sound. Whether through the burnished memory of childhood songs, the packaged passions of recording, or the steady traffic of live bands, people identify themselves strongly, even principally, through their music (Slobin 1994:243). For Armenians in Cyprus, the live bands are not as significant as individual singers, composers, and teachers who brought music from Soviet Armenia, from the historic homelands and from the rest of the diaspora. The chorus of the Melkonian Educational Institute (secondary school) relied heavily on works by Komitas and also on Soviet Armenian composers. These latter pieces ranged from songs extolling the beauty of Yerevan, the capital, to one remembered by a former student, ‘which is all about Soviet Armenian engineering might tunnelling through mountains to divert the river into Sevan so that its levels would not drop’. The twentieth-century transition from the home and communitybased making of music to the almost wholly performer/audience music appreciation of it (or at home, listening to recordings, radio, television, etc.) was perhaps accelerated by the period Cyprus spent as a British colony, a place where ‘educated people’ did not perform spontaneously. Instead, more and more emphasis was put on music as something taught at school and performed as a chorus, music as something performed on stage and enjoyed by an audience, as something performed by the clergy, by the deacons, by the choir at church, and so on. Indeed,

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as Slobin points out, studying the music-making and listening habits of a group highlights the differences within the group but also its connections to its neighbours and its links to similar groups around the world; the group’s music-making and listening habits ‘illuminate both the power networks that link diasporas to homelands and those that suture “minorities” to mainstreams within nation-states’ (ibid: 245).

Poetry and the Performance of Emotion For those who read Armenian poetry, there is a wide and complex variety of pieces available on many subjects; there are contrasting opinions, diverse perspectives . . . I am concentrating here on those regularly chosen as public performance pieces as part of a program of entertainment but primarily for education. In general, this Armenian poetry often refers to the pivotal historical moments mentioned earlier. Certain characters become symbols and associations, such as Vartan (pride and brave sacrifice) and Mesrop Mashdots (wisdom and uniqueness). But those chosen for performance generally do not pose questions, as much poetry does, nor are they often ambiguous or subtle, as poetry often is. Lila Abu Lughod gives a rich description of a people for whom poetry, especially its creation, serves to play with the boundaries of a social life which would otherwise be quite confining (Abu Lughod 1988:258). Here, I have focused on a situation where poetry instead helps to create borders and draw lines around a great diversity of experience and influences. Greek and Turkish Cypriots also participate in carefully selected public performance events and educational programs, aiming in a similar way to create a ‘people’, or at least a more homogenous group. Bryant discusses the ways in which education has been used (as it is indeed in other countries) to ‘make children proud – proud of their inheritance, proud of their traditions’. She notes that while Turkish nationalism depends on an education that promotes a cultural lens through which history can be viewed, it also recognises the importance of ‘crafting’ that lens: ‘in order to work together as a community, we all have to look through the same lenses’ (Bryant 1995:178). The collaboration of artists and intellectuals,29 as mentioned earlier by Löfgren, works here and within the Armenian community to help articulate

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the ‘correct’ view of the nation, to encourage people to be part of that nation-making process, and to make the connection between the spiritual and the nation. Looking at three generations of Turkish Cypriot poets in the twentieth century, Mehmet Yashin delineates the evolution of an attitude towards national or communal identity. He examines a number of poets, not just those commonly chosen for recital at public events, and is thus able to provide a broader array of positions. He notes rather starkly an example of a poet who did not fit his times, Taner Baybars, who eventually migrated to the UK. Baybars found it hard to ‘survive under the nationalist oppression on a small island. Poets are always forced to accept prevailing ethics and social roles to become a part of the collective national struggle of a minority community’30 (Baybars 1998: 228). A variation on this is found in George Syrimis’s analysis of the situation of Greek Cypriot traditional poets who try to balance ‘the ideological weight that both the tourist industry and the academic world of Cyprus attribute to the poietaridhes [folk poets]’ (Syrimis 1998:214). The social context in which performances take place has changed, while poetry has become objectified as a product to be consumed; it becomes itself more anonymous and generic, and thus less personal. However, poetry in many ways is again being used by intellectuals and nationalists to help shape identity – or perhaps, as some conceive it, to preserve identity. While there are many similarities in the creation, use (even commodification) and enjoyment of poetry amongst the communities of Cyprus, the Armenians are always left with one extra question. In spite of the enthusiasm and admiration for the Armenian homeland(s) expressed in their poetry and genuinely experienced by its audience, why do Armenian Cypriots continue to live in Cyprus and consider it their home? A similar question could be posed to Greek and Turkish Cypriots who admire Greece or Turkey and enjoy poetry that extols those places and peoples. It is not an idle question for any of those listeners/performers. While the performance and the experience of listening is clearly moving, everyday life and the attitudes which inform it do not necessarily follow directly from the emotions which are so vividly stirred by these poems. Why? These carefully shaped

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emotions can be evoked when circumstances provide an opportunity (or even, a demand), as Tölölyan notes regarding the inspiration for ASALA members. They direct, teach, and serve as markers of otherness and of demarcating another group as Other. However, as Clifford Geertz has eloquently pointed out, culture, that complex of interrelated symbols and beliefs which makes us both human and particular kinds of humans, is but a guide to life, not a distinct map to all circumstances. Those who have chosen to remain in Cyprus – and in recent years, who have returned to Cyprus to live – can point to a number of specific attractions, such as the human scale of living, the beloved scents, the sounds and scenes, the familiar people, and so on. They also feel they share a centuries-old history on the island, evidenced by certain landmarks and by written and oral history. Cyprus is even given a special mention in the popular song, Giligia, described above. Those who leave usually do so for the same reasons that some Greek and Turkish Cypriots migrate – for specific kinds of education and work, or in response to an emergency. In this way, Armenian Cypriots are not really very different from their fellow Cypriots of other backgrounds. Beyond the specific experience of Cyprus, it is important to emphasise that the poetry described here is heard around the Armenian world – in the diaspora, in Turkey, in the Republic of Armenia. Over the twentieth century, in particular, it has been part of a coordinated movement led by intellectuals, clergy and party activists to create an Armenian identity that will be familiar everywhere, one that will help to inspire future generations of Armenians. As popular and moving as these performances are said to be – and indeed as I have observed them to be – there is at the same time a settling into the home countries while the attachment to homeland, whether the historic homeland or the new version, remains one of the most potent components of the shared imagination, sustained through poetry, through song, and through performance.

Notes 1. I wish to thank those who read this manuscript at various stages and generously offered advice and ideas and asked questions that inspired me to pursue

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this further. This paper is a first attempt at understanding the ways in which poetry and performance shape the emotions of individuals and collectives. Thank you to Rebecca Bryant, Leyla Neyzi, Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian and Khachig Tölölyan. The party referred to in this passage is the Dashnaktsoutiune. Though the political parties disagreed on a number of important points, Shahgaldian’s summary of this view of education seems to have been the dominant one. Shahgaldian’s unpublished dissertation is a detailed account of the integration of Armenians into Lebanese society from 1920 and contains valuable information about the transformation of a refugee population into a thriving and influential community. See Loizos (1974) for a fuller description of what he later summarized: ‘The island’s elites from the 1880s on became increasingly oriented to Greece on the one hand and, somewhat later, to Turkey on the other, and these orientations reached into the village minds, too, as literacy increased’ (Loizos 2008:14). This discussion relates to poetry selected for events with the intention of forming social understanding and community; it is not about the creative act of writing poetry, in which boundaries can be pushed and broken, nor is it about metaphors that allow for shades of understanding and entry points across restrictions. Armenians in Cyprus do compose poetry expressing their personal views and questions, more so those of earlier generations than today. A few have published their works. The best known are probably Sempad Deroudian (Devletian), of the older generation, and Nora Nadjarian. Nadjarian’s work, composed in English, has been recognized by the Guardian newspaper and in international competitions. Deroudian’s prolific work is primarily available in Armenian though two poems, translated by his wife, Takouhy, are included in English in Step-Mother Tongue, edited by Mehmet Yashin (2000: 120–122). The kind of connection with past and future that Benedict Anderson calls ‘a secular transformation of fatality into continuity, contingency into meaning’ (Anderson 1983:19). Tölölyan writes that Ter Getzo Doo Zhyes (Lord, Sustain the Armenian People) was also known as the Song of National Benediction and was at first best known as it was published in 1847 in a Calcutta-based periodical, Askaser (Patriot – or Lover of the People). Attributed to Mesrop Daviti Taghiatiantz (1803–1853), Tölölyan notes the poem has been demonstrated to be the work of another earlier author. For an interesting journey through nineteenth century nation-building in the diaspora via the life of this poem, see 1999, pp. 80–82.

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7. One woman, now in her early seventies, said that when she transferred from the Melkonian Institute to the American Academy for her last two years of high school, she had her first lesson in ‘World History’, there taught by an Armenian, and her first exposure to such events as the French Revolution. 8. Roman victories precipitated the decline of Tigran’s empire. 9. Avetik Issahakian, (1875–1957), Mount Ararat, trans. Mischa Kudian, in Soviet Armenian Poetry. (1974). Born in the Caucasus and an early supporter of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsoutiune), Issahakian was jailed for his activities in Yerevan and Tbilisi before fleeing to Germany in 1911 (where he had already studied for some years). He returned to Armenia in 1936, where he balanced his pro-Soviet and nationalist sentiments. 10. Gevorg Emin (1918–1998), trans. Gerald Papasian: ‘We stand apart, staring at each other, not blinking an eye,’ in Sojourn at Ararat (1987). An immensely popular poet, Emin was born near Yerevan. He was widely translated and allowed to give poetry readings abroad, touring the United States with Yevteshenko. 11. In a revealing exchange in the film, the expert consultant protests to the director that Ararat would not have been visible in the scene being shot, as it was many hundreds of miles away. The director summarizes the situation neatly by saying something like, ‘it doesn’t matter as (his) mother, a survivor of the event, would have been thinking about it and imagined it there’. So the image of Ararat remained in the background of the massacre scene. 12. Petrossian describes the ways in which Ararat was regarded by Armenians and by outsiders from early times, through the medieval period to the present. He writes that the mountain was considered sacred before the introduction of Christianity to the area (Petrossian 2001: 4). 13. Löfgren adds that this was reflected eventually in the new Swedish national anthem, which focused on nature. In the Armenian case, both in Cyprus and elsewhere, this connection with nature is not as pervasive, with many people considering the cities to be important purveyors of other vital qualities, such as education (Löfgren 1995:266). 14. Krikor Lousavorich (Gregory the Illuminator) lived between circa 251 and 331 and was brought up as a Christian in Caesaria. He may have been imprisoned because his father was an enemy of the ruler or, as legend has it, because the King was not prepared to forsake the old religion. Tiridates III (or Trdat the Great) is said to have become insane during the period of Gregory’s imprisonment, but was healed when he released Gregory and consented to conversion, along with his court.

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15. The name day of Gregory is celebrated in June; other occasions also bear witness and give opportunities for this foundational piece of history to be memorialised through poetry, theatre and song. 16. The name ‘Vartan’ continues to be very popular. When Armenians celebrated ‘name days’ more regularly, Vartanants was understood to be not only the name day for those named Vartan but for all people who did not have a specific name day during the year, as so many soldiers had died sacrificing their lives for the people. One can assume the dead soldiers represent a wide variety of names which should be remembered on that day. 17. Silva Gaboudikian (Kaputikyan) (1919–2006), one of the best-known and widely quoted Soviet Armenian poets, was both a communist party member and a nationalist. 18. An article on the Gibrahayer website (12 November 2008) described the 5 November opening of the newly built Armenian Nareg Primary School in Limassol by the President of the Republic. After the greetings, ‘the Nareg schoolchildren beautifully recited two poems, one in Armenian (My Mother Tongue) and one in Greek (Build schools) . . . ’ ‘My Mother Tongue’ is a relaxed re-titling of the Gaboudikian poem, taken from the last line – the part which everyone remembers. The point here is that the poem remains popular and relevant to this argument in the twenty-first century. 19. Taniel Varoujan (1884–1915), trans. Gerald Papasian, from Sojourn at Ararat: Poems of Armenia, compiled and edited by Gerald Papasian (Pennsylvania: Publishers Choice, 1987). 20. Peter Balakian’s introduction to Bloody News from My Friend: Poems by Siamanto, gives a vivid account of the process of collaboration between his grandfather, who witnessed the massacres in Adana in 1909 while working as a doctor administering to surviving refugees, and his friend, the poet Siamanto, to whom he wrote heart-rending descriptions of the massacres. The poems were inspired by the letters and do not always narrate a precise event. Indeed, it has been stated that the second poem, Strangled, follows the same formula of many poems composed by other stricken peoples. 21. Last verse from The Dance by Siamanto, trans. Nora Armani. In Sojourn At Ararat (ibid). 22. Writing about the ‘un-mixing’ of a Cypriot village, Peter Loizos writes, ‘Woundings and killings leave forensic traces, but good deeds have often gone unrecorded, or they exist ephemerally in people’s memories’ (Loizos 2008:12). Indeed the same is true in the Armenian experience, as Loizos notes that good deeds are often passed on in oral histories and in family conversations but are rarely the subject of formal memorialisation.

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23. William Christian has written extensively about the shaping of emotions and attitudes through ritual and shared experience. In his work on visions in Spain, he analyzes issues relevant to this discussion, noting how communal and shared expectations of what is acceptable – in terms of image, location and timing – will often determine whether a Visionary is believed by the general populace (Christian 1996:314). Here the poetry itself is inspired by a reaction to the experience of horror and, after years of repetition, helps ensure that similar emotions will continue to be evoked when the listener again hears about Turkey or Turkish people. 24. In a perceptive reading of this, Dr. Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian notes that the lyrics were actually written well before the deportations, thus the nostalgia is more likely that of an individual, later transformed for communities and political parties to keep alive the longing for the lost lands after the genocide (by personal letter). 25. Yeghishe Charents, translation by Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian, who notes the poem was originally published without a title. However, the first four words were popularly used as the title and eventually for a song from the poem. For a spirited description and analysis of the controversial life and works of Charents, see Eddie Arnavoudian’s critique on the Armenian News Network/ Groong, Critical Corner 7, November 2005, Yeghishe Charents: Poet of Life as Permanent Revolution. Charents was an early supporter of communism, but he died in prison during a Stalinist purge. Arnavoudian describes the poet’s work as ‘a monument of hope and expectation following the despair of World War I and the Armenian Genocide of 1915’. 26. See Pattie, ‘New Homeland for an Old Diaspora’ (2004a) and ‘From the Centres to the Periphery’ (2004b), for more information on diaspora Armenians’ changing relationship with and attitudes towards Armenia. 27. Shiraz, Hovhannes (1915–1984), ‘To the Armenians in the Diaspora’, in Soviet Armenian Poetry, Mischa Kudian, editor and translator. Shiraz, born in northern Armenia, is seen as more ‘anti-establishment’ than many other Soviet Armenian poets; he became increasingly nationalistic, as evidenced by this poem. Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian wrote that Shiraz told him personally that Stepan-Sarkissian could not consider himself a ‘real’ Armenian if he did not migrate to Armenia (personal note). 28. Pattie, ‘From the Centres to the Periphery’ (2004b), examines the ‘repatriation’ of some Armenians from Cyprus and Syria during the Soviet period. Claire Mouradian gives more information on the wider diaspora (Mouradian 1990: chapter VII). 29. Bryant discusses the role of the aydınlar, the intellectuals, the word taken from the root ‘clear’ or ‘enlightened’. This, and the inclusion of ‘novelists,

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essayists, journalists and poets’ as part of this group, is very close to the Armenian understanding of the word (Bryant 2004:179). 30. Baybars, Yashin writes, was influenced not only by his ‘motherland Turkey’ but also by Britain and by the English language, in which he eventually wrote exclusively.

References Abu Lughod, Lila. 1988. Veiled Sentiments. Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Arnavoudian, Eddie. ‘Yeghishe Charents: Poet of Life as Permanent Revolution’, [Online], Available: http://groong.usc.edu/tcc/tcc-20050711.html [last accessed 2 September 2011]. Bryant, Rebecca. 2004. Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus. London: I.B.Tauris. Christian, William A. 1996. Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kudian, Mischa, ed. and trans. 1984. Soviet Armenian Poetry. London: Mashtots Press. Löfgren, Orvar. 1995. ‘Being a good Swede: national identity as a cultural battleground’, in Jane Schneider and Rayna Rapp (eds), Articulating Hidden histories: Exploring the Influence of Eric R. Wolf. Berkeley: University of California Press. Loizos, Peter. 1974. ‘The progress of Greek nationalism in Cyprus’, in J. Davis (ed), Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology, no. 50. London: Athlone. ——. 2008. Iron in the Soul: Displacement, Livelihood and Health in Cyprus. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Migliorino, Nicola. 2008. (Re)Constructing Armenia in Lebanon and Syria: Ethnocultural Diversity and the State in the Aftermath of a Refugee Crisis. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Mouradian, Claire. 1990. ‘L’Armenie’, in De Staline à Gorbachev, Histoire d’une Republique Sovietique, Armenia. Paris: Editions Ramsey. Papasian, Gerald, comp. and ed. 1987. Sojourn at Ararat: Poems of Armenia. Pennsylvania: Publishers Choice. ——. 2004a. ‘New homeland for an old diaspora’, in Andre Levy and Alex Weingrod (eds), Homelands and Diaspora: Holy Lands and Other Places. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ——. 2004b. ‘From the centers to the periphery: “Repatriation” to Armenia in the 20th Century’, in Fran Markowitz and Anders Stefansson (eds), Homecomings: Unsettling Paths of Return. Lexington, CT: Lexington Books.

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Petrossian, Hamlet. 2001. ‘Origins’ and ‘The sacred mountain’, in Levon Abrahamian and Nancy Sweezy (eds), Armenian Folk Arts, Culture, and Identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Shahgaldian, N.B. 1979. The Political Integration of an Immigrant Community into a Composite society: The Armenians in Lebanon, 1920–1974. Unpublished PhD dissertation. New York: Columbia University. Siamanto. 1996. Bloody News from My Friend: Poems by Siamanto. Translated by Peter Balakian and Nevart Yaghlian. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ——. 1985. ‘Mother Tongue’, translated by Mischa Kudian, in Ararat, 25th Anniversary Issue, 26 (1), p. 160. Slobin, Mark. 1994. ‘Music in diaspora: the view from Euro-America’, Diaspora 3 (3), pp. 243–251. Syrimis, George. 1998. ‘Ideology, orality and textuality: the tradition of the Poietaridhes of Cyprus’, in Vangelis Calotychos (ed), Cyprus and its People: Nation, Identity and Experience in an Un-imaginable Community, 1955–1997. Boulder: Westview Press. Tölölyan, Khachig. 1987. ‘Martyrdom as legitimacy: terrorism, religion and symbolic appropriation in the Armenian diaspora’, in P. Wilkinson and A.M. Stewart (eds), Contemporary Research on Terrorism. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. ——. 1999. ‘Textual nation: poetry and nationalism in Armenian political culture’, in Ronald Grigor Suny and Michael D. Kennedy (eds), Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Yashin, Mehmet, ed. 2000. Step-Mother Tongue: From Nationalism to Multiculturalism: Literatures of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. London: Middlesex University Press. ——. 1998. ‘Three generations, three identities, three “Patriae” within twentieth-century Cypriot poetry’, in Vangelis Calotychos (ed), Cyprus and its People: Nation, Identity and Experience in an Un-imaginable Community, 1955– 1997. Boulder: Westview Press. Zekiyan, Boghos Levon. 1999. ‘The Armenian way to enlightenment: the diaspora and its role’, in R.G. Hovannisian and D.N. Myers (eds), Enlightenment and Diaspora: The Armenian and Jewish Cases. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

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Appendix: Lyrics to Giligia by N. Rousinian, Melody by Komitas On website of St Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, Toronto.

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7 THE FR ACTUR ES OF A STRUGGLE Remembering and Forgetting Erenköy Rebecca Bryant

In the relation between myth and history myth proves to be the primary, history the secondary and derived, factor (Cassirer 1955: 5). When Ernst Renan famously spoke of nations as inherently forgetful, he noted that this was because it is a shared memory of a common history of glories and sacrifices that binds the nation together. Nations make myths for themselves, and in that myth-making process, he remarks, ‘Forgetting, and I would even say historical error, are an essential factor,’ while ‘progress in historical studies is often a danger to nationality’ (Renan 1947: 902). Renan’s suggestion, then, is that national myths are intentionally selective, and must be so, to achieve their goal of a collective, unifying memory. Some of the most common national myths are myths about war. In Samuel Hynes’s sensitive study of myth-making following World War I, he explains that he uses the term myth ‘to identify the simplified, dramatised story that has evolved in our society to contain the meanings of the war that we can tolerate’ (Hynes 1999: 207). Wars

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are also what we might call ‘originary’ events, events that produce new orders, that begin new eras. Paul Ricoeur usefully notes, in his monumental study of memory and forgetting, that while beginnings are historic, origins are mythic (Ricoeur 2004: 140). In other words, we may speculate that wars inevitably produce myths because they are not only about glory and sacrifice but also about origins. This chapter concerns the creation of a contested mythology of a particularly symbolic battle, and the ways in which myth-making around the battle has changed over time and now incorporates personal narratives that may be at odds with official state narratives. The chapter, then, examines processes of forgetting and remembering in national myth-making, as well as the roles played by those processes in constructing new senses of community. The particular focus is the battle of Erenköy (Gr., Kokkina)1 as seen through the prism of Turkish Cypriot national myth-making. While this was also a significant event in the Greek Cypriot community, it never acquired the status of legend as it did in the Turkish Cypriot community, a status that makes it an optic for understanding myth-making. My focus here is on the selective creation of a particular national myth and what this tells us about struggles over identity within a particular community. In the memoirs of those who served there, Erenköy is a bare patch of rock, treeless and lifeless, the most remote corner of the island. Today, assignment to Erenköy is most Turkish Cypriot conscripts’ nightmare, and a couple of months are shaved off their service period in compensation. In 1964, when the young men who fought there landed on its rocky shores, Erenköy and the surrounding four Turkish villages were home to only a few hundred people. In the spring of 1964, the Greek Cypriot government became increasingly aware (through intelligence reports and surveillance) that the village was a smuggling point for weapons from Turkey, while in July it became a landing-point for Turkish Cypriot student-fighters. In early August of that year Greek Cypriots began to amass troops in the mountains surrounding the village in preparation for what Greek Cypriots refer to as the Battle of Tillyria and Turkish Cypriots call the Battle of Erenköy. In the several decades that followed this battle, although the participation of young Turkish Cypriot students acquired the shape

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of local legend, it did not immediately gain the power of national myth. Indeed, although this battle became the determining event for a generation of men, the myth that surrounded the battle for several decades provided little space for their participation. This chapter explores what has been remembered and what has been forgotten about that battle, as well as the ways in which the political fractures that emerged in the trenches were later translated into the party politics of a new state. Many of the young men who fought at Erenköy went on to occupy the most important offices in the post-1974 Turkish Cypriot state established in 1983 (yet lacking international recognition). The list of those who were under fire in this remote outcrop reads like an electoral ballot: Naci Talat, Özker Özgür, Alpay Durduran, Ergün Olgun, Erdil Nami and Hüseyin Angolemli all went on to form parties in the new state or to serve in its leadership. Indeed, in an interview I conducted with him in 1995, then Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash commented that ‘those who fought at Erenköy came to represent all the political parties, not just the right, as happened in the south’. As one of the last voices in a recent collection of Erenköy fighters’ memoirs, Denktash remarked that ‘[t]he Erenköy struggle occupies the same place in the Turkish Cypriot people’s national struggle as the place of Çanakkale [Gallipoli] in the national struggle of the Turkish people. Erenköy is the rearing up of a national spirit’ (Mengüç 2005: 668). Denktash’s comparison of Erenköy to Çanakkale as symbol of national struggle is not, I think, coincidental; it was a comparison made even at the time. When a group of Turkish Cypriots studying in Istanbul went on a hunger strike in order to be sent to the island, they were called to Ankara to meet with then prime minister İsmet İnönü, who, in their own recollections, told them, ‘You’re necessary. At Çanakkale, we destroyed the cream of the society. We won’t make that mistake again. Don’t worry, if it’s necessary, we have soldiers to send to Cyprus’ (ibid.: 223). As with the Çanakkale, or Gallipoli, battle for Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, or the Battle of the Somme for Britain, men who were perceived as the best and brightest of their generation entrenched

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themselves in a struggle for which they sought meaning through poetry, song and political ideology. In the case of Erenköy, about five hundred young men left their studies in Turkey and Britain to return secretly to the island to fight. Paradoxically, though, in the writing of Turkish Cypriot national history, Erenköy has occupied almost no place. Where it has appeared, it is primarily in the form of Turkish jets and in the figure of Cengiz Topel, the Turkish pilot who was captured, tortured and killed (see, e.g., Serter 1979). To explain this seeming forgetfulness, this chapter looks first at the shape of the struggle itself, and the way in which this remote corner of the island emerged as an important battle site. I then examine the ways in which the struggle’s history was written, both then and since. My claim is that like so many aspects of the 1963–74 period, Erenköy – and the Turkish Cypriot struggle more generally – was subsumed under what I call an ‘apocalyptic history’, one that writes the future as pre-ordained. In this case, the pre-ordained history was the eventual arrival of Turkish troops. In this narrative, then, the hero is the Turkish military, while Turkish Cypriots become extras on the set of history. They appear as victims, victims killed in gruesome ways by their Greek neighbours. This narrative of their passive participation in that history is, I argue, why the enclave period more generally has not been written, even though it has certainly not been forgotten. In recent years, the attempt to reclaim a sense of community in opposition to Turkish nationalism has also entailed reclaiming this past as one in which Turkish Cypriots worked together as actors in the fight for self-determination. In this rewriting of history, Erenköy has acquired a new place as the most obvious example of Turkish Cypriot heroism. Samuel Hynes notes that ‘in the construction of a myth of war, memorials play a very small role, and personal narratives a very large one’ (Hynes 1999: 207). What he means is our understanding of the meaning of wars emerges less through monuments that commemorate them than through literature and memoirs that attempt to give them meaning. As such accounts and narratives speak to each other, they tend to cohere around a particular understanding of what happened and a particular tone.

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My focus here is on such a literature and its phases, and on what such a literature inevitably occludes. I look at the ways in which men’s memories of battle attempt to recuperate their own agency, often rejecting and undermining the official narratives that have made the battle an important symbol of victimisation. If we keep in mind the forgetfulness involved in myth-making, then, we may see the shaping of national myths not only as a form of glorification but also as a prism onto social change.

‘What Part of Cyprus Are We In?’ In his 2004 memoir of the Erenköy years, Hüseyin Laptalı describes waking in the village mosque the morning after his arrival: The cool air of morning hit my face. There wasn’t a single tree in the mosque’s garden. The sun was beginning to bite sweetly. Our surroundings were not at all familiar. Bare, yellow hills surrounded us. The morning dew had wet the ground. Yellow and green grasses and thorns covered and softened the slopes and hills, sparkling in the May sunlight. What part of Cyprus were we in? This wasn’t the Cyprus that I knew (Laptalı 2004: 42). Erenköy was familiar to very few of the young men who arrived on its beaches in 1964. It is this unfamiliarity that makes their arrival there unique in Turkish Cypriot history, since it was the only place where men did not simply fight to defend their families and villages, as they perceived it, but where they fought for a cause. The story of how they arrived there begins six years earlier, with a small group of men who came to be known as bereketçi, a word that literally means ‘bringer of blessings’; in this context the blessings were smuggled weapons. It was spring of 1958, and somewhere between Nicosia and Ankara plans were underway for the organisation of the Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı, or Turkish Defence Organisation, usually known as TMT. Before that time, Turkish Cypriots had begun arming in their villages, a movement described in detail by former TMT hit man Mehmet Ali Tremeşeli in his 2007 memoir. The young men of Erenköy had no

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knowledge of the preparations then underway, but they believed their villages were vulnerable and agreed amongst themselves that they had to find weapons somewhere. The only route that seemed viable to these men in the most remote region of Tylliria was via sea from Turkey. It was the beginning of the tourist season in Karataş, Turkey, when, early one morning, a fishing boat appeared in a bay and accidentally hit a woman out for a morning swim. One of the young Tyllirian men, Vehbi Mahmutoğlu, described the way they were immediately surrounded: When they realised that we were foreigners, they took us to the police station. A sergeant and his friends offered us tea. But at the time we didn’t know much Turkish, so we couldn’t really make ourselves understood (ibid.: 45). The officers believed these Greek-speaking men who said they were from Cyprus were political refugees, and they sent them to Mersin, where they managed to explain to the assistant governor that they were Turkish Cypriots who had come to buy weapons. From there they were sent to Adana, where they were met by Burhan Nalbantoğlu, a young Turkish Cypriot doctor who had gone to Turkey to persuade the military to aid them, and İsmail Tansu, one of the Turkish officers who had been assigned to help establish TMT. They explained to the young men about their plans for TMT and put them back on their fishing boat with an assignment: to establish a bridgehead for smuggling weapons into Cyprus. They returned from Turkey with a cache of guns and bullets, and for the next several years, fishing boats manned by these village men made their way back and forth across the rough waters between Erenköy and Anamur, one of the only routes for Turkish Cypriots to acquire weapons. One man who began working as a bereketçi when he was only eighteen years old said the English were aware of their smuggling operations but were unable to capture them, because the entire village was involved in hiding the weapons as soon as they arrived onshore: Women and children, the whole village knew that we were doing this in order for the guns and ammunition to disappear

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so quickly, women helped us a lot. Women and men both, everyone would come, and we’d take the weapons to the caves (ibid.: 57). This remote part of the island, then, became an indispensable part of the TMT underground organisation, one where operations would continue even after the independence of the island, given Turkish Cypriot uncertainty about the feasibility of the new constitution, as well as TMT’s continuing activities. The island gained independence in 1960, but the new republic was hampered by a power-sharing constitution that dissatisfied its Greek Cypriot partners. In late 1963, when President Makarios suggested changes to the constitution that would have limited Turkish Cypriots’ power in government, the Turkish Cypriot legislators walked out. Intercommunal conflict broke out, and soon reports of violence on the island began to reach Turkey and England, where Turkish Cypriot students and immigrant workers found themselves glued to their radios, waiting for word. They began to organise, in some cases engaging in protests, in other cases trying to find a way to get back to the island. One group of students in Istanbul rented six buses to get to Antalya, but when they got there they had no plan for how to reach Cyprus. They wandered the streets, protesting and drawing the governor’s attention, before they broke into a hunting store and emptied it of its weapons. They boarded a boat, but none of them knew how to operate it. The police surrounded them and sent them to the governor, who gave them a lecture and returned them to their studies. Soon, however, they got word they would be allowed to sign on for military training and would be sent to the island. After a month of training, they prepared to land in Cyprus via Erenköy, from which these young men believed that they would be sent to their own villages and neighbourhoods. What they encountered instead was quite different. Greek Cypriot journalist Makarios Droushiotis describes their arrival on the island: At the same time as the Greek troops arrived in Cyprus, there was a reinforcement of Turkish forces. The only Turkish enclave with

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access to the sea was that of Mansoura. The TMT off-loaded supplies in the evenings from Turkish ships anchored off the coast. In July 1964, they began to land troops in Mansoura [a village near Erenköy/Kokkina], mainly Turkish Cypriot students who had been trained in the use of weapons by the administration of the Turkish TMT. A representative of the United Nations stated on 11 July to the French Press Agency that during the previous five days the Turks had landed 500 men a day at Mansoura (Droushiotis 2006: 28). What is striking about Droushiotis’s account is that it bears absolutely no resemblance to the various accounts written by and about the Turkish Cypriot students who arrived at Erenköy. Rather, according to lists compiled by the Erenköy fighters themselves, a total of 437 young Turkish Cypriot men arrived in small groups between 31 March and 30 June; another 103 would arrive in two groups in August. Not only were there no troop arrivals in Erenköy in July, but their route to the island was considerably different from Droushiotis’s description, in which well-trained soldiers are off-loaded from Turkish ships. Celal Mahmutoğlu, one of the original bereketçiler, described going to fetch the students in a fishing boat, and the shock of the officer in charge. ‘They told us there were submarines, and we were going to go to Cyprus safely’, the officer apparently complained. And the officer was right to be suspicious, as the first boat began to sink once they were out to sea. They found another fishing boat and, says Mahmutoğlu, ‘It was with that fishing boat that I took the students to Erenköy!’ (Mengüç 2005: 134). Hence, a small group of young men with very little military training was taken by fishing boat across the stretch of water between Turkey and Cyprus and placed in the island’s most remote area to protect the bridgehead between the island and Turkey. But as most describe it, these inexperienced men were almost entirely abandoned, left for months without real guidance or leadership. In the memoirs of one of the young men, their disappointment manifested itself on the day of their arrival, when their commander kept them at attention for hours and lectured them on the importance of their duty, then gave

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them the command, ‘Cut your toenails straight, and your fingernails round’ (Laptalı 2003: 50). According to this commander, this was the most important advice he could give them. He would last only a couple of months, until the students rebelled against him and put him on a boat back to Turkey. On 1 August of that year, Denktash arrived in Erenköy with Ali Rıza Vuruşkan, the first military commander of TMT, Turkish journalist Ömer Salih Coşar, and a group of about sixty more students. Only a few days later, the real battle broke out, pushing the Turkish Cypriot forces back into the small space of Erenköy itself. It was at this moment that Turkish jets arrived, bombing Greek boats, positions and villages, and attacking civilian targets with napalm. This was the moment most Turkish Cypriots had expected for some months, and they believed it was the beginning of a Turkish military intervention. However, the Turkish military refrained from a full military action and suspended its operations once the safety of the Erenköy fighters had been secured. But once the battle ended, the students found themselves trapped, having lost the areas surrounding the village; they were completely cut off from their former sources of supplies and information. Pushed back into the small space of the Erenköy enclave, along with the villagers from the surrounding villages, they remained in that cramped space for the next year. Because Greek forces had cut off land routes for supplies, there were periods when the students were on the edge of starvation, reliant on the villagers for meagre supplies of food. Much of their growing anger, though, was directed at their own leadership and at Turkey. Alpay Durduran, today head of the New Cyprus Party (Yeni Kıbrıs Partisi), notes: [w]e felt a great anxiety. We were living with the feeling of being abandoned. The way we looked at things then was that Turkey hadn’t done its duty . . . We were living with the disappointment of knowing that the loss of our friends was mostly because of lack of training and care. For instance, I went there with just two days of training, and we had no chance to get training there. Anyway, there was never any feeling of a military force in Erenköy (Mengüç 2005: 598).

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By late August 1965, this disappointment became an insurrection. One veteran of the battle noted that ‘[t]he revolt had reached such a point that they began to distance themselves from every kind of military ethics and discipline and even stopped saluting the commander’ (Tolgay 2008: 8). Another veteran remarked: [s]taying shut up in Erenköy for such a long time, and finding that certain promises hadn’t been kept – for example, that support forces would arrive – were things that had a negative psychological effect. Occasionally when we would go on guard duty at night, when we were touring the trenches, we would come across our comrades crying. We saw friends who were repeating the names of their family members or sweethearts and crying. Of course, this situation affected all of us (ibid.). Indeed, within a few months after the major battle, as a result of isolation, hunger and a sense of abandonment, the morale of the fighters had thoroughly crumbled. The students had given up on military life and had begun to light fires at night, something Vuruşkan recognised as a sign the fighting force was collapsing. He sent a psychiatrist, Sezai Sezgin, to assess the situation; Sezgin spent a month in the enclave, interviewing all of the fighters and writing a report: In the investigations that I made with all the forces at Erenköy, I found that the weariness and exhaustion produced by trench life and their monotonous living conditions have resulted in sleeplessness, nervous irritation, and a decline in their endurance capabilities that in almost all of them have inclined them to indifference toward National and Holy feelings (Mengüç 2005: 629). Reflecting on that visit years later, Sezgin said: They were boys who were in a psychological state fed by songs like ‘Bekledim de gelmedin’ (I Waited and You Didn’t Come), in which their nerves were shattered, their resistance and endurance

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were weakened, and they felt in a dilemma, with patriotism on the one side, saying, ‘if we’re going to die, let’s die, if we’re going to fight, let’s fight!’ But waiting like that was very hard for them. And on the other side the feeling of being abandoned! And they were caught in between these two feelings, fighting with themselves, and they were in depression. This created a lack of discipline. And in this depression these young people began to falter (ibid.: 628). As both Durduran and Sezgin remark, the students were trapped between patriotism and a sense of having been abandoned, the sense that, as Durduran phrases it, ‘Turkey hadn’t done its duty’. When they arrived on the island, they had expected they would hold that remote corner as a bridgehead for the arrival of Turkish forces, and their first commander told them they would march on Nicosia (Laptalı 2003: 3). But after a year and a half of waiting, with only the briefest glimpse of Turkish fighter jets, they entered a depression that was fed, as Sezgin notes, by ‘songs like “I Waited and You Didn’t Come.”’ The one who didn’t come, of course, was Turkey – the mother who should have saved her children but instead abandoned them to their fate on a beach between bare rock and sea. This sense of disappointment, of having been abandoned, and of what Sezgin calls ‘indifference to National and Holy feelings’ was, I would argue, the first seed planted in the ground of anti-nationalist resistance in the community. In mid-1965, in response to the breakdown of discipline and morale, the military leadership decided to evacuate the young men, and they took advantage of a ceasefire to take them by bus to a port north of Erenköy, then by boat to Turkey. The students returned from there to their universities in England and to various parts of Turkey. Those who returned to their studies in Turkey would witness the rise of leftist movements in the late 1960’s, but many of the Erenköy veterans were too shell-shocked and weary to participate. Rüstem Köken recalls in his memoir that after he returned to Istanbul, ‘sometimes when we were walking on the street, the sounds of exhaust popping from passing cars would make us take cover’ (Köken 2004: 81).

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One of his friends committed suicide by jumping from a dormitory, another hung himself: The left-right fighting began while we were still trying to return to normal life, but after all the danger we had experienced, we just didn’t have the strength for another fight. Because of all the years we had lost at Erenköy, we didn’t take an active role in the fight, but we always supported the good side with all our hearts (ibid.: 84). A bit more than a decade later, another generation of students in Turkey would join leftist movements and bring those principles back to Cyprus. However, what is important about this experience is the way it created ideological fractures. The future leaders of the major Turkish Cypriot opposition parties were at Erenköy – Naci Talat, Özker Özgür, Alpay Durduran and Hüseyin Angolemli. They would later form the parties that would challenge Turkey’s involvement in, or de facto colonisation of, the state formed after 1974. In that initial experience, I wish to argue, not only was their trust in Turkey shattered, but so, ultimately, was an apocalyptic history in which they saw Turkey’s arrival as their destiny.

Forgetting Erenköy In the best known ‘official’ history of Cyprus produced for Turkish Cypriot schools, Vehbi Zeki Serter’s Cyprus History (Kıbrıs Tarihi), the major battle for Erenköy occupies a bit more than two pages. ‘The starting point of the Dillirga Operation’, Serter writes, ‘were the events of 6 August 1964’: Without any apparent reason, the Greek Cypriots began to fire with heavy guns on the villages of Mansura, Erenköy, Bozdağ and Alevkaya. The Turkish fighters who were waiting on alert fought back in order to defend themselves and their community . . . The Turkish fighters resisted with a courage that has never been seen, fighting with tooth and nail against thousands

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of Greek Cypriot gangs and wetting the soil with their pure blood (Serter 1979: 118). Appeals to Makarios, writes Serter, were in vain: The gangs of Greek and Greek Cypriots increased their attacks, saying, ‘We’re going to toss the Turks into the Mediterranean, and no one will be able to save them!’ The most modern war machinery was turned on only a handful of Turkish fighters. But there was one difference between them and the Turkish fighter. And that was the Turk’s strength of faith (ibid.: 119). That thing in which they had faith becomes clear in the very next line, when Serter’s prose turns apocalyptic: On 8 August 1964 steel-winged Turkish jets appeared above the Dillirga hills. The sky appeared to be split in two as the air was filled with a frightful roaring. When the Pallikaryalar2 saw the Turkish jets, they were amazed and bewildered. According to the eyewitness accounts of foreign correspondents, the Greek Cypriots dropped their weapons and ran like frightened animals. The 34 jets coming from the Motherland with their star and crescent made the Greek and Greek Cypriot Pallikaryalar vomit blood and overturned the Greek positions (ibid.). Half of the same page is then devoted to a photograph of Cengiz Topel and the story of his death or, in Turkish Cypriot parlance, his ‘martyrdom’: In the clashes on this same day, Cengiz Topel’s plane was shot down by Greek Cypriot anti-aircraft fire, but the pilot saved himself by jumping from the plane with a parachute. The Turkish airman was taken prisoner by the Greek gangs, who saw fit to martyr him with the most barbaric torture. His body was taken on 11 August to the Turkish area, and on 13 August, after a very mournful ceremony, it was sent by helicopter to the

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Motherland. The Cypriot Turk will carry with him forever the sainted memory of Cengiz Topel, and he will always remember his name with thanks and gratitude (ibid.). I have quoted at length from what may be seen as a fairly ‘official’ history, to demonstrate that this is a story with a particular narrative arc, one that leads inevitably to the arrival of Turkey, which comes to rescue Turkish Cypriots from slaughter. This narrative may be seen as apocalyptic, in that it appears from the beginning to lead to an already pre-ordained future. This is a narrative form that Michael Andre Bernstein has called foreshadowing, ‘a technique whose enactment can vary tremendously in its degree of intricacy, but whose logic must always value the present, not for itself, but as the harbinger of an already determined future’ (Bernstein 1994: 2; also Morson 1996). Such foreshadowing is a persistent theme in the years leading up to 1974, in which the constant expectation was of Turkey’s intervention and the flames of a Judgment Day, when all wrongs would be righted; stories, poetry, and songs from this period express both the expectation of and longing for the arrival of Turkish troops. The longing for a Turkish military intervention was often expressed in romantic terms, as a longing for the lover who should rescue his suffering bride. Such metaphors were even known to Greek Cypriots. Sezgin’s mention of ‘songs like “Bekledim de Gelmedin”’ referred to a type of psychological warfare apparently engaged in by Greek Cypriot forces at Erenköy who, according to Turkish Cypriot fighters’ reports, played the Turkish popular song, ‘I Waited and You Didn’t Come,’ over loudspeakers. As Sezgin notes, the reference to Turkey’s failure to arrive had a demoralising effect on the troops, who later responded with another song, ‘Bir Gece Ansızın Gelebilirim’ (One Night I May Suddenly Come). But as Bernstein also notes, and as should be clear from my reference above to a ‘suffering maiden’, the foreshadowing of events tends to foreclose the future, making actors in that history passive agents of its progress (esp. Bernstein 1994, 1998; Morson 1996; Ricoeur 1984: 206–224). In the later writing of that history, one often sees a narrative

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technique I have called elsewhere ‘retrospective apocalypticism’ (Bryant 2008) and which Bernstein calls ‘backshadowing’: . . . a kind of retroactive foreshadowing in which the shared knowledge of the outcome of a series of events by narrator and listener is used to judge the participants in those events as though they too should have known what was to come (Bernstein 1994: 16; emphasis in original). In the context of Cyprus, Turkish Cypriots foreshadowed the ‘end of history,’ which was seen as the arrival of Turkish troops, and have since used backshadowing to speak of their Greek Cypriot neighbours, who should have understood that such an end was inevitable. What I wish to show, however, is that the unintended effect of such narratives has been to make Turkish Cypriots into extras on the set of history, in which the heroes were Turkish troops. Until quite recently, Turkish Cypriots appeared in that history primarily as victims, and they are often described or shown as having suffered terrible deaths. They have become not only extras, but extras who have no speaking parts, whose roles are as suffering victims and martyrs, not heroes. Within this framework, Erenköy is also an event in which the active participation of young Turkish Cypriot men is written instead as a story of their salvation by the mighty force of Turkish jets (embodied in the person of Cengiz Topel). Indeed, although Turkish Cypriots claim Erenköy was an exceptional event in their history, it had until recently been used as a national myth primarily to symbolise Turkey’s protection. As late as 2003, the official website of the TRNC Public Information Office announced the 39th anniversary of the Erenköy struggle and summarised why the battle that ensued in 1964 might be seen as a turning point: 1. Turkey used force for the first time, leaning on the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. 2. For the first time, Cyprus experienced the danger of war. 3. It was the first definite warning that Turkey would not allow the realisation of Enosis (TRNC Foreign Ministry Press Office 2003).

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What is noteworthy about this list is that it boils down to one fact: Turkey proved it was ready to defend the Turkish Cypriots. This is given greater emphasis further down the page: Erenköy serves as a sign that Turkey will always be at the side of the Turks of Cyprus for as long as they resist, and so was not left to the Greeks but is instead the site of a memorial service every 8 August in which our martyrs are honoured and a chance is given for our young people to learn a lesson by going to see Erenköy, one of the most important turning points in the struggle for existence of the Turks of Cyprus (ibid.). Again, the actor in this story is Turkey, which will always stand beside Turkish Cypriots. This particularly neat story, however, began to fracture not long after this summary appeared on the website. It was only a few months earlier, in late 2002, that Turkish Cypriots began to rebel against long-time nationalist leader Rauf Denktash, who had proven himself unable to overcome Turkish Cypriots’ isolation and unwilling to compromise on a federal solution to the island’s division. Moreover, Denktash was the most vociferous supporter of a Turkish nationalism that negated the agency of Turkish Cypriots; he bombarded them instead with a ‘Şukran Türkiye’ye,’ or ‘thankfulness to Turkey’ campaign that emphasised the threat posed by Greek Cypriots, the need for Turkey’s protection, and the continuing necessity of partition. As many Turkish Cypriots increasingly began to blame Turkey for their continuing isolation, the demand that they ‘thank Turkey’ became increasingly absurd. Turkish Cypriots, then, engaged in a rebellion against their longtime leaders that led, in April 2003, to the opening of the checkpoints dividing the island, and a few months later to the ascendance to power of an opposition party that re-engaged the south in reunification talks. These political changes were, in turn, reflected in social changes, such as new ways of writing history and constructing identity (see also Hatay and Bryant 2008). As books, newspaper articles, and other forms of popular expression since 2003 have shown, attempting

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to reclaim a sense of community has also entailed reclaiming the past as one in which Turkish Cypriots worked together as actors in the fight for self-determination. A new literature has emerged that describes a nostalgia for the enclave past and re-assesses and memorialises a struggle in which Turkish Cypriots were active participants. It is within this context that the struggle for Erenköy has acquired new significance as the key symbol of Turkish Cypriot agency.

Remembering Erenköy In the preface to his 2008 memoir of Erenköy, Erdal Camgöz, a veteran of the battle, explains why he spent two years working on his book: This book tells the story of a cross-section of the lives of young men who, even before the flood of change brought by the ‘68 Generation, didn’t just have demonstrations in the squares but raced each other to the front for freedom, to protect their real identities, and because they heard the call of the homeland in their hearts. In 1964, 561 young men landed in Erenköy as fighters, challenging the uncertainty of the future. About 500 of these young men constituted almost the entirety of that period’s male university students. These educated Cyprus youth were the heroes of one of the most important turning-points of the Cypriot Turkish Freedom War, namely the Battle of Erenköy (Camgöz 2008: xxxi). Between 2003 and 2008, then, a change occurred, one that emphasised what they believed to be the heroic nature of the struggle and the heroism of Turkish Cypriot fighters. This change was clearly communicated in Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat’s 2008 speech in honour of the 44th anniversary of Erenköy. He first remarked: . . . this was a great and important event in which villagers participated side by side with young people who had rushed from higher education in Turkey and every corner of the world, even those who received the news as they were on ships crossing the ocean.

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Talat went on to note that Erenköy is an example of the kinds of solidarity of which the Turks of Cyprus are capable in order to ensure their existence in Cyprus (Star Kıbrıs 2008). At least after the turn of this century, then, a change had taken place. This change was reflected in the number of books that suddenly appeared to tell the story of Erenköy in the words of those who lived it. Prior to 2002 only one book about Erenköy had been published, to mark the 25th anniversary of the struggle, in 1989; since 2002 there have been ten books published about Erenköy, eight of them memoirs by men who fought there. The most comprehensive of these, Arslan Mengüc’s Anılarda Erenköy (Erenköy in Memoirs), collects interviews with men who fought in the village, people from the village and various important military and political figures of the period. I would suggest the timing of these publications is not coincidental. All of these books appeared at a particular historical conjuncture. As noted above, Turkish Cypriots had engaged in a revolution against long-time leader Rauf Denktash that led to the 2003 opening of the Green Line, which divides the island; renewed negotiations intended to reunite the island followed, as did a 2004 referendum on a negotiated plan for reunification, the Annan Plan, which was accepted by Turkish Cypriots and rejected by Greek Cypriots. It was a period in which once again Turkish Cypriots were engaged in a struggle, one many on the left perceived as a struggle for independence and self-determination, and one many on the right perceived as a struggle for existence. Turkish Cypriots perceived their earlier struggle as a fight to secure their continued existence on the island, a struggle that resulted in their own state. But after thirty years, this state had failed to gain recognition and was politically, socially and economically dependent on and dominated by Turkey. Hence, for many on the left, the struggle that began in 2002 was a renewed struggle for self-determination, this time against the perceived colonisation of Turkey. For those on the right, it soon became a struggle against those outside agitators who supposedly wanted to trick the community into making peace with their Greek neighbours. The sense of renewed struggle on both the left and the right coalesced into a renewed interest in the earlier period of struggle and nostalgia for a time when Turkish Cypriots took their fate

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into their own hands. It was at this historical juncture that Turkish Cypriots finally became the heroes of their own history. Each year, Erenköy veterans and the families of those who died there make their way from the north to this small exclave, now trapped in the south, to commemorate the battle. For many years, this was an event with little fanfare, one in which the families quietly engaged, making their way by boat to place wreaths on the graves of loved ones. In the past several years, however, commemorations of Erenköy have increased in size and importance. In 2003 only 150 people attended the ceremony; this number rose to 450 in 2005, and in 2009, after some pressure to allow travel by land, more than 1000 people attended. After the opening of the checkpoints the mosque in Erenköy became a museum where photos of the fallen fighters are displayed. Finally, while in 2005 the military officials who attended the ceremony in Erenköy were of fairly low rank, by 2009 even generals were in attendance. Indeed, for Turkish Cypriots Erenköy has gone from a site of quiet commemoration to a site of pilgrimage, one that in the new memoirs and histories of the period, as well as in the popular press, reflects the changing interpretations and uses of the 1963–74 struggle. No longer would Turkish Cypriots appear only as dead bodies, as extras on the set of history. Despite – or perhaps because of – their rebellion against military authority, the Erenköy fighters were especially suited to this role. In the opinion of their countrymen, they were perceived not only as having engaged in instinctive defence but as having sacrificed and fought selflessly. This is expressed quite well in the worlds of Tansel Fikri, in an article in the extreme-right online magazine Ufuk Ötesi, ‘The Turk of Cyprus is searching for a youth that will write a new Erenköy epic’: In the dark and hopeless conditions of 1963–64, a handful of educated youth wrote an enormous heroic epic on the golden pages of our history . . . Around 560 of our students made a landing in Erenköy in order to join our national struggle for existence . . . These young men cast aside their student fellowships and their safe careers outside Cyprus, and for the sake of the freedom,

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independence and sovereignty of the Turks of Cyprus, not only gave their best years but heroically put their lives on the line for the defence of their country . . . I believe that [in a similar way] the Cypriot Turkish youth [of today] will defend the TRNC’s geography, independence, and sovereignty with an unshakeable determination and decisiveness (Fikri N.D.). Although this is a vision from the right, it is clear also from Talat’s recent speech, quoted above, that Erenköy has recently emerged as a symbol of the Turkish Cypriot community’s ability to unite and to sacrifice in a struggle for existence.

The Recklessness of Remembrance Erenköy today is an exclave, a patch of rock the Turkish Cypriot state claims as its territory, even though it is separated from the state by a small stretch of land. Erenköy’s isolation has made it a peculiarly difficult spot for memorialisation. Unlike Gallipoli/Çanakkale or the many memorials that sprang up at the behest of local communities after World War I (Winter 1995), until recently Erenköy offered only the possibility of yearly commemoration, and that via a boat journey.3 Moreover, the history of Erenköy might not be seen as one of unadulterated heroism. In the preface to his memoir, Mehmet Albayrak declares that what he chronicles in his book ‘is not only heroism, but is also the distress, the hunger, the protest, the actions taken in order to return, and the social life there’ (Albayrak 2005: 8). His aim in writing the book, he says, ‘is to remember, to remind, and to be remembered’ (ibid.). In their memoirs, none of the Erenköy veterans shrink from their disappointments, their fears, their hunger and, ultimately, their disobedience. On the face of it, this would seem to be less than the stuff of legend. Yet in one of the best studies of the role of the Anzacs in Australian nationalism, Bruce Kapferer observes that the very rebelliousness of the Anzacs, their high-spirited lack of discipline, expressed an egalitarian individualism that many Australians perceive to be an expression of the ‘true’ Australian character. Moreover, Kapferer notes,

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the Anzacs’ ‘fighting spirit’, exhibited in their indiscipline and high spirits that were difficult to rein in, made them especially suited for a nation fighting an international war for the first time: ‘The Anzacs were not just conceived of as making history, but as creating an Australian history to be seen as such on the comparative, contestlike, world stage of war’ (1988: 134–5). These young men, however, were the victims of bad judgment and bad military planning. They went to their deaths with their eyes open, which made their sacrifice all the more pure. Similarly, Erenköy has been passed down as a period shaped by bad judgments: young men sent to fight with almost no training, a commander who was incapable of leading them, and their ultimate abandonment for more than a year. In the Anzac mythology it was British officers who made the wrong judgments and wasted the lives of young men; in Erenköy it was Turkey, which the young men had expected to save them. And it seems this is why Erenköy had until recently been a legend but not a national myth: because the key element of the story, the young men’s sense of abandonment, has no role in a history that portrays Turkey as mother and protector. However, the young men’s rebelliousness also makes the story available for other uses, namely to represent the ‘fighting spirit’ of the Turkish Cypriot people. Erenköy came to be remembered as a place of ‘pure’ sacrifice where men shed their blood not simply for their families, but for a community and an idea. As Mete Hatay and I note elsewhere (2008), the period of 1963–74 represented a turning point in the history of Turkish Cypriot nationalism. Turkish nationalism had been dominant in Cyprus since the Atatürk reforms of the 1930s, but it was a nationalism that incorporated them into the larger Turkish nation and minimised their relationship to their island home. In this nationalist imagination, Turkey was the ‘motherland’, and so the sense of Cyprus as a Turkish Cypriot patrie, a homeland, came rather late to the community. It was only in the period of the enclaves, when Turkish Cypriots began to defend their community and the places where they lived, that they developed such an attachment. Prior to this period, Turkish Cypriots (Kıbrıslı Türk) had called themselves the Turks of Cyprus (Kıbrıs Türkü), indicating only a contingent relationship to place. Turkish Cypriots

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easily emigrated to the Turkish mainland, and one of the greatest fears of Turkish nationalists in Cyprus was that the Turkish Cypriot community, once under siege, would abandon the island entirely. Even as early as 1964, one writer, Özker Yaşın, noted the change: The Greek-worshipping Europeans, who for hundreds of years in their histories depicted Turkish heroism as savagery, now see and understand what real savagery is . . . But we didn’t stain our Turkishness. We proved that we are children worthy of our ancestors. All the Turkish Cypriots, from seven to seventy, Nicosians, Larnakans, Limassolians, Paphians, Famagustans . . . Turks from all over the island without exception, even in the island’s most remote corners where there was the smallest Turkish population, bravely defended themselves against enemy hordes that were superior to them in numbers and weaponry . . . We Cypriots in the past were proud of our Turkishness and would say ‘How happy is he who can call himself a Turk.’ Now, however, we will feel pride both in being ‘a Turk’ and in being ‘a Cypriot’. From now on we’ll brag, ‘How happy is he who can call himself a Turkish Cypriot’ (Yaşın 1965: 12–13). In what they perceived to be the defence of their homes, or the process of fighting and dying for their homeland, then, the Turks of Cyprus became Turkish Cypriots.4 It was similar for the Anzacs. Kapferer remarks: [t]he Anzacs in the Dardanelles, those in Palestine, and those in France and Belgium through their death in essence ‘occupied’ the lands in which they fought and were buried . . . The Anzacs in dying resolved the contradiction between separation and belonging (Kapferer 1988: 133–4). It was, then, through sacrifice and shedding blood that lands were claimed as one’s own. It is in this sense that a place far away may still, in the case of Anzac mythology, occupy a significant role in one’s own nationalist imagination.

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Erenköy was perceived as a site of sacrifice and also represented what Yaşın called ‘the rearing up of the national spirit in Cyprus’ (op. cit.). As it is remembered, a generation of educated young men was willing to sacrifice itself not simply for its own local community but for the idea of the community; they engaged in a ‘struggle for existence’, a struggle not simply for their own families, but for their people as a whole. Thus today it is their rebelliousness rather than their obedience, their recklessness rather than their simple bravery, which makes them suitable heroes for another period of rebellion. It appears to have turned Erenköy, belatedly, into a myth in the making.

Afterthought: Other Erasures What many Turkish Cypriot writers call the ‘Erenköy epic’ (Erenköy destanı) is now remembered in new ways, as what one columnist called ‘the hidden face of an epic’ comes to light (see Tolgay 2008: 8). But even as this ‘epic’ is rewritten, yet another forgotten face of the story is being re-remembered, though in more fractured ways. After the young men – who have more and more become the heroes of this ‘epic’ – were evacuated from the Erenköy region in 1965, the villagers who had initially defended the area remained. Most of those from the small villages surrounding Erenköy had been forced to abandon their homes a year earlier, and they took refuge in that remote outcrop of rock. Many lived in caves for several years, yet it was the Erenköy villagers, and those who had taken refuge there, who were the last to abandon their weapons after the 1974 war. Indeed, despite military orders to surrender their weapons and allow themselves to be taken to the north, the villagers continued to defend the area until 1976, when they were evacuated by sea and resettled in the Karpassia village of Yialousa, which they renamed Yenierenköy, or New Erenköy. Their insistence on defending the village laid the groundwork for what has become the Erenköy exclave, a military encampment whose establishment apparently had not been part of the original strategic plan. It also meant that by the time the villagers arrived in the north, many of the central areas had already been settled by other Turkish Cypriot refugees from the island’s south, and so they traded one remote village for another.

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In early July 2009, as negotiations proceeded over a new reunification plan, the leaders of the two communities finally agreed to open the checkpoint in the Pyrgos region not far from Erenköy. Villagers in the region on both sides of the Green Line pressured their leaders to open the checkpoint, as it would significantly ease movement and trade in this remote, mountainous area. One of the conditions, though, was that the former villagers of Erenköy might be allowed to resettle in the exclave, retaking the places they had been forced to abandon more than thirty years earlier. In Yenierenköy, the villagers were divided over the prospect; some claimed they would return to their ‘ancestral lands’ at the first opportunity, while others, especially the youth, refused to relocate. Most of the older villagers emphasised their sacrifices, though there were also complaints that ‘the people of Erenköy were always used’. One villager remarked: We were always put forward when they said, ‘You’re heroes, you’re lions’. They would always talk about heroism to us, and they used us with this heroism jargon for years. They threw us here [in yet another remote area] saying ‘you’re heroes’. . . Now these heroism stories have started yet again. We’re always the lions. Are we the trial board for everyone? Unfortunately, the people of Erenköy have always been victims but have been pacified with this language of heroism (Havadis Gazetesi 2009: 16–17). Many villagers felt they received little reward for their sacrifices, as they were, as many saw it, ‘abandoned’ in yet another remote area, rather than offered the opportunity to improve their position. And so, in this villager’s summation of the situation, their heroism had doubly victimised them: they were pressured to make yet more sacrifices, even as they were unable to reap the rewards of their heroism. This villager preferred the language of the victim, emphasising failure rather than triumph, passivity rather than struggle. So even as the ‘Erenköy epic’ might be reclaimed for local nationalisms, its writing remains fractured in the crucible of local politics, where interest and ideal rarely coincide.

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Notes 1. Although the village’s original name was Kokkina, the Turkish Cypriot leadership undertook to ‘Turkify’ the names of purely Turkish villages in 1958 and changed its name to Erenköy. Villagers applied to the British administration to change the name, which was duly recorded. Although some changes never took hold, Erenköy came to be the name with which the village and the myth surrounding it are known in the Turkish Cypriot community, so much so that when the villagers migrated to the island’s north in 1976, they renamed Yialousa, the village where they settled, Yenierenköy (New Erenköy). This name change took place in an entirely Turkish village before 1974, and this is how the village is known in all Turkish Cypriot writings about the battle. 2. The word pallikarya in Greek generally means ‘brave young man’ though it may also be used to mean a ruffian. In this context, it has the meaning of ‘hoodlum’. 3. On 6 August 2009, in an agreement between the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, the checkpoint in the Pyrgos area of the island finally opened. Two days later, on 8 August, Turkish Cypriots made the trip from north Cyprus by land to the Erenköy exclave to commemorate the anniversary of the battle. 4. One common understanding of the emergence of a Turkish Cypriot identity in Cyprus dates it to the post-1974 period, when many Turkish Cypriots began to perceive their identity in opposition to settlers from Turkey, whose immigration to the island was facilitated by Turkey and by the Turkish Cypriot administration in the post-war period. However, as Mete Hatay and I demonstrate in other work (Hatay and Bryant 2008, 2011), Turkish Cypriot identity was developing in the enclave period and was expressed through music, folklore, literature and local politics. The difference with the post1974 period is the ethnic other against which this identity was also defined. While in the enclave period that identity was clearly defined against their Greek Cypriot neighbors and hence still put emphasis on their Turkishness, in the period after 1974 Turkish Cypriots began to define themselves against certain groups of settlers from Turkey and so put more emphasis on their Cypriotness.

References Albayrak, Mehmet. 2005. Bir Erenköy Mücahidinin Anıları. Famagusta: Grafik Film Matbaa.

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Bernstein, Michael Andre. 1994. Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History. Berkeley: University of California Press. ——. 1998. ‘Victims-in-waiting: backshadowing and the representation of European Jewry’, New Literary History 29 (4), pp. 625–645. Bryant, Rebecca. 2008. ‘Writing the catastrophe: nostalgia and its histories in Cyprus’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26 (2), pp. 399–422. Bryant, Rebecca, and Mete Hatay. 2011. ‘Guns and guitars: simulating sovereignty in a state of siege,’ American Ethnologist 38 (4), pp. 631–649. Camgöz, Erdal. 2008. Kıbrıs’a İlk Çıkarma 1964 Oradaydım. Ankara: Kozan Ofset. Droushiotis, Makarios. 2006. Cyprus 1974: Greek Coup and Turkish Invasion. Mannheim und Mohnesee: Bibliopolis. Fikri, Tansel. ND. ‘Kıbrıs Türkü yeni bir Erenköy destanı yazacak gençliğini arıyor’, [Online], Available: http://www.ufukotesi.com/yazigoster.asp?yazi_ no=200809107 [last accessed 3 January2010]. Hatay, Mete, and Rebecca Bryant. 2008. ‘The jasmine scent of Nicosia: on returns, revolutions, and the longing for forbidden pasts’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26 (2), pp. 423–449. Havadis Gazetesi. 2009. ‘Erenköy çıkmazı’, 11 July, pp. 16–17. Hynes, Samuel. 1999. ‘Personal narratives and commemoration’, in J. Winter and E. Sivan (eds), War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kapferer, Bruce. 1988. Legends of People, Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press. Köken, Rüstem. 2004. 64 Küşağı bir Kıbrıslı’nın Anıları. Ankara: Başak Matbaacılık. Laptalı, Hüseyin. 2003. Erenköy Sürüngeni: Özgürlüğün Bedeli, I. Cilt. Istanbul: Ufuk Matbaası. ——. 2004. Erenköy Sürüngeni: ‘Özgürlük geleceğe, gelecek ise umutlara kalmıştı . . . ,’ II. Cilt. Istanbul: Ufuk Matbaası. Mengüç, Arslan. 2005. Anılarda Erenköy. Istanbul: Bir-Mat Matbaacılık. Morson, Gary Saul. 1996. Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press. Renan, Ernst. 1947. ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’, in Henriette Psichari (ed), Oeuvres complètes de Ernest Renan. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Time and Narrative, Vol. 1. Translated by K. McLaughlin and D. Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ——. 2004. Memory, History, Forgetting. Translated by K. Blamey and D. Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Serter, Vehbi Zeki. 1979. Kıbrıs Tarihi. Nicosia: Halkın Sesi. Star Kıbrıs. 2008. ‘Şanlı Erenköy direnişi anıldı’, [Online], Available: http://www. starkibris.net/index.asp?haberID=13386, [last accessed 2 September 2011]. Tolgay, Ahmet. 2008. ‘Destanın arka yüzü’, Kıbrıs Gazetesi, 6 May, p 8.

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Tremeşeli, Mehmet Ali. 2007. Ayios Spiridon’un Çanları: Mehmet Ali Tremeşeli’nin Anıları. Prepared for publication by Remzi Halluma. Nicosia: Galeri Kültür Yayınları. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Foreign Ministry Press Office. 2004. [Online], Available: http://www.trncinfo.com/TANITMADAIRESI/ ARSIV2003/TURKCEarsiv/AGUSTOS/080803.htm#3 [last accessed 3 January 2010]. Yaşın, Özker. 1965. Oğlum Savaş’a Mektuplar: Bir Şahlanışın Destanı II. Istanbul: Çevre Yayınları. Winter, Jay. 1995. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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8 COR R ECTING THE R ECOR D Memory, Minority Insecurity and Admissible Evidence Peter Loizos

Overcoming Partisan Histories Elie Kedourie, analyst of imperialism and nationalism, suggested the dangers in trying to write partisan history, or even eyewitness accounts of contemporary conflicts. Kedourie identified three hazards: first, romanticism; next, the belief that virtue and its opposite are easily distinguishable in political quarrels; third, the belief that the historian must take the side of persecuted virtue. Kedourie suggested the best way to ‘do history’ is ‘understanding for the sake of understanding’. He did not suggest that any of us can be free from political commitments in our lives – the difficulty is in preventing these commitments from hijacking our analyses. These matters were sensitively described by Amitav Ghosh (1988), in a novel whose narrator is thinking his way past ‘official histories’ of intercommunal violence (see also Papadakis [2005], van Boeschoten [2006], Bryant [2010]). This chapter examines the difficulty in understanding the tensions in the village of Argaki prior to the flight of its Greek Cypriot residents. It has not been particularly successful in following Kedourie’s precepts, nor is saying one is an anthropologist, not a historian, a good

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defence. Certain matters recorded during my field research continue to perplex me, because of doubts I have about ethical questions of representation and the difficulties in determining what constitutes reliable and even admissible evidence. Hobsbawm suggested that in certain matters historians should proceed by ambitious criteria: Relativism will not do in history any more than in law courts. Whether the accused in a murder trial is or is not guilty depends on the assessment of old-fashioned positivist evidence, if such evidence is available. Any innocent readers who find themselves in the dock will do well to appeal to it. It is the lawyers for the guilty ones who fall back on postmodern lines of defence (Hobsbawm 1998: ix). However, Hobsbawm admits a few lines earlier that when it comes to what people thought about what had happened, things are not quite so clear cut – not that they are always clear cut in murder trials, either. There will be a little more to say on the question of evidence later on. If an anthropologist tries to contribute to historical methods, he or she risks trying to reinvent the wheel. In writing here about issues of evidence, a term with uses in both law and in history, I am not trying to promote an ‘evidence-based’ approach against a more factbased approach. It all depends on what one is trying to do and which methods seem best (if they are in fact methods, rather than mindsets). Historians do all kinds of things at once, or at least one after another. At some levels they are concerned more with establishing facts: that something did indeed happen, that it happened as previously supposed, that it happened when and where it was believed to have happened, and that certain persons were or were not involved. Rolandos Katsiaounis (1996: 25–28) re-examined a factual question: did the clergy greet the arrival of the British in July 1878 with a ‘memorable’ demand for enosis, as has been repeated by a number of commentators (including me), or was this an assertion which crept into accounts later, after the clergy had become frustrated by the British and were seeking to position themselves retrospectively as leaders of a movement against

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British rule, to which they had initially acquiesced? That is, an ‘event’ with no factual basis? Having dealt with this, Katsiaounis does something different, without the did it happen/didn’t it happen factual character: he offers a reinterpretation of Katalanos which positions him as transitional, as Katalanos apparently thought an accommodation between capital and labour was possible. But it is Katalanos’s radical potential which interests Katsiaounis: Katalanos posed a vision in which men, as natural beings, were essentially equal. He was therefore critical of those Cypriots who relied on the foreign administration to dominate their own folk (Katsaounis 199:220). This interpretation has less to do with ‘what happened’ than in answering the question, also posed by Rebecca Bryant (2004:75–78), as to how we should understand Katalanos and his place in a history of labour and nationalist movements and changing mass consciousness? This is neither an issue about basic facts, nor about the nature of evidence as such. It is all about historical judgements. Sometimes an interpretive bias can work its way into how we think about the past. About Cyprus, one temptation is to embrace a metanarrative of ‘tragic inevitability’ of the kind I thought present in John Campbell and Phillip Sherrard’s A History of Modern Greece (1969) (which I read shortly after it was published), in which the threads of association and connection seemed to lead inevitably to the arrival of the military dictatorship of 21 April 1967. But after re-reading this book in January 2010, I cannot identify tragic inevitability or path determinacy! A similar framework assumption of ‘tragic inevitability’ might result from learning that the Famagusta football club, Anorthosis, was founded in 19111 and was to take a strong position as a nationalist organisation. It might seem to ‘fit into’ a story of inevitable ethnic developments and ethnic collision, as does an anecdote about Rauf Denktash, that even when very young, he wanted football teams to be organised, not by municipalities or multi-ethnic schools, but by ethnic groups. Another danger is that in collecting fragments of such insubstantial evidential status, such as the Denktash anecdote, it is tempting

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to leave them out of one’s account. What is, and is not, admissible evidence? Here is Braudel commenting on ‘non-events’: . . . events not yet considered as such: history of the soil, of attitudes, of madness or the search for security over the ages. What will be called non-eventful is therefore the historicality we are not aware of (cited in Ricoeur 1980: 56). ‘The search for security’ will be one of my themes in this chapter. Yet another problem is the partisanship against which Kedourie rightly warned us – taking sides and supporting the morally deserving. The nationalist historians of both communities often risk all three of Kedourie’s dangers, but those of us inclined to see the nationalists as primarily responsible for the island’s ills are equally at risk. Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000: 22 and 237–255) describes this as ‘decisionist’ history-writing – revising an account of the past so as to promote a better present and future. Perhaps if we could give a more analytically truthful account of the past than the nationalists, this might contribute to a future in which intercommunal relations were more rational and, ultimately, less antagonistic. Although this will normally produce better scholarship, it may fall short of ‘understanding the past for its own sake’. Another particular difficulty of mine has been in focusing too sharply on a particular community while seeking to sift the locally particular from the island-wide picture, the meaningful from the trivial. With hindsight, I now see that for some of the issues which still perplex me, a regional perspective would have been more helpful, had I adopted it earlier in my research. But that was then, and this is now. Now, the important theoretical issues seem . . . different.

Problem 1: The Burning of the Argaki Turkish Cypriot Coffee Shop: When, and Why? In January 1968 I started anthropological field research focused on marriage, class, and kinship in Argaki, then a mixed village near the

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small town of Morphou. After less than four months, I wrote the following brief note: Violence in Village [informants, various old men, including Patriotis]. In 1912, probably sparked off by events on the mainland, three Greek boys attempted to burn the Turkish coffee shop [with Turks inside]. No one was hurt, but the shop was burned. HatziNikolas Protopapas got four years, Panjaros got 12 years, and Mikailis Ovaratzis got off. Two village men went to the Bulgarian war at the same time; one was a brother of HatziMatteos, who later, when old, died a beggar in Varosha; the other was an uncle of Thomas, called Thomas Diakou. I would now teach anthropology students to try to record more details about who their informants are – ‘various old men’ would get a poor mark. The way I named ‘Patriotis’ and ‘Thomas Diakou’ suggested I knew more about them, which did not need to be restated in that particular note. ‘Three Greek boys’, with no information about their ages, was altogether too vague and, it turned out, misleading. The Greek words used by my informants, particularly for ‘boys’, should have been included. But most important, I did not then see fit to follow up on this event and ask more people (including Turkish Cypriots) about it during my main fieldwork. It slipped away from me and remained an inert question for which I had no answers. I focused more on the ‘hot’ present than on the distant past, for plenty of other things were engaging me, including national elections, village cooperative elections, police raids against anti-Makarios elements and much more (Loizos 1975). There seemed enough to do following Greek-against-Greek violence in the years 1968–1973, and so I relegated the Argaki Turkish Cypriots and their historical relations with Argaki’s Greek Cypriots to a short appendix in my first book (putting them ‘on hold’ would be a charitable reading). Sometime later an LSE sociology colleague asked me informally and quite critically why I had done this. The question stung me, even though I was sure he understood nothing about Cyprus, because at that time I had no considered answer.

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Re-reading the historian Hill (1952) after my 1968 fieldwork, the agency of the nationalist militant Katalanos raised the coffee shop incident in my mind. The British had considered expelling him in 1912, and would later do so. It was clearly at odds with frequent statements made by Greek Cypriot leaders, particularly after 1974, about how well Greek and Turkish Cypriots had got on until the British arrived. Not only did politicians say such things, but something similar was also discernible in the emphases of a number of scholarly papers at that time (Attalides 1976, Kyrris 1976, Kitromilides 1977; see also Hatay and Papadakis, this volume). Here the point was to insist that earlier conflicts were not properly understood as ethnic or nationalist, and so could not have contributed directly to post-1955 antagonisms. Once the Argaki Greek Cypriots became refugees/IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), my chosen task was to document their misfortunes, but the issue of Greek-Turkish relations on the island, and in the Eastern Mediterranean region, became much more pressing and returned me to questions about Argaki, and about Cyprus, in the more distant past. The Argaki Turkish Cypriots were now promoted to a section of chapter two in my 1981 study (an overview of the century in the village, based largely on interviews); various aspects of Greek-Turkish relations took more prominent positions in the rest of the book. The next source of light to be cast on the Argaki Turkish coffee shop incident was by Christodoulos Pipis, who had served EOKA as a dentist and laboured, as a refugee, to produce a 650-page book to commemorate Argaki (Pipis 2000). It is a revealing text.2 Pipis went to some trouble to include the Turkish Cypriots in his lists of families, their marriages and their children, but he ignored a number of potentially helpful colonial censuses. There are also photographs taken on various post-1974 UN days, in which Pipis is seen warmly embracing his Turkish Cypriot co-villagers. On p. 4 Pipis writes, ‘Turks and Greeks lived peacefully for many years without serious frictions and there was esteem and respect between them’. This statement caught my attention, as did the following: In 1963, when the Turkish rebellion started, the Turkish residents of the village sought protection from the police because

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they did not wish to flee from the village and reside among the Turkish wedge-areas, as Denktash had ordered (Pipis 2000:4). We shall see that this view is inconsistent with what Argaki Turkish Cypriots themselves have subsequently reported; of course, a historian would point out that memories keep shifting as wider collective interpretations change, whereas documents, with any luck, are stable and thus ‘reliable’ in this respect. We should note also that Pipis, in a manner completely consistent with official Greek Cypriot positions, describes what he terms the Turkish Cypriot ‘rebellion’ of 1963 (Greek, antarsia), a term which many Turkish Cypriots would reject. Most interestingly, Pipis writes about the coffee shop fire – his version of the fire contradicts the statement that ‘Turks and Greeks lived peacefully’, but it adds considerably to what I myself had learned about the event. On p. 487, Pipis writes about the Diakourtis family. He says his informants are his father, Ioannis Pipis, Polydoros Kneknas and Argyris Pavlou Varella – he gets full marks from me for specifying his sources! Pipis starts the family story with an account of an old man, Koutoumpis, who was born in 1810, became rich, hid money in his house, and was killed by a ‘bad Turk’ from the village during a robbery in 1897. The Turk was hunted, captured and beaten so badly that he became deaf. But this paragraph ends with the intriguing story of the sister of Koutoumpis, who married a local Argaki ‘Ottoman’ called Haloftas. More surprises, then – a Christian-Muslim marriage in my ‘study’ village! But now, back to the coffee shop . . . One of Koutoumpis’s descendants was a man named Thomas: . . . who when young fought against the Turks, in the Balkan wars. He was a very fine young man and sickened and died unmarried in 1916 as a result of the war. He was one of those who in 1912 set fire to Ibrahimi’s coffee shop, next door to Kyriakos Samaras Kambouris’s grocer’s shop. The Turks were inside the coffee shop. Loizos Pantzaros, Karanikolas Protopapayianni and Mikail Abaratzis, as well as Thomas Diakaourtis (then a child,

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Greek paidhi) were involved. Relevant to the event I must add that about this time a secondary school head, whose name was probably Katalanos, and a teacher called Spyros Matsoukas had visited. The reason for their visit was probably to find volunteers for the war. They spoke to the Argaki villagers about the GrecoTurkish war and they performed a patriotic play which set forth the spirit of the nation, an event which led some of them to proceed with this action: sprinkling the coffee shop door with combustible spirit and setting light to it. The Turks who were inside got out by opening a window which had been closed with mudand-straw, escaping through the back part of the coffee shop. A trial followed and the guilty men were condemned to prison: Pantzaros got 15 years, Aravatzis got four, and Karanikolas, who had charge of the spirits, got three months . . . The specificity of this report is much better than the shreds of material I had gleaned in 1968. Clearly, Pipis’s spelling of Aravatzis is to be preferred over mine. He refers to ‘guilty men’; this is important because in my original field note, written in English, I had described them as ‘boys’. I cannot now check what my informants said which inspired me to write ‘boys’. It might have been ‘paidhia’; it might have been ‘pallikaria’, but the implication was young, unmarried men who were not old enough to behave responsibly. This may have been how my informants had rationalised their memories, or it may have been what they had been told about something that had happened more than fifty years earlier. We will return to this later. Pipis makes a distinction between Thomas, ‘very young’, and the ‘men’ who received prison sentences. He was right to do so, but he died soon after completing his book, so there is no way I can find out if he had sources other than the informants he lists. The suggestion that Thomas Diakou participated in this incident isn’t supported by my notes, nor is it supported by newspaper reports, but that does not mean he didn’t take part. In terms of how the informants’ memories might simplify and merge certain events, that Diakou was ‘patriotic’ enough to volunteer to fight the Ottomans in the Balkan wars makes it entirely consistent that he took part in the coffee shop incident.

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Much later, with the assistance of Zenon Papaloizou, an Argakiborn engineer who took great trouble to construct an excellent genealogy of the villagers (based partly on copies of birth registers I had made during my fieldwork), the following ages in 1911 were extracted: Loizos Pantzaros was at least 35; Michalis Aravatzis was at least 30, with a number of sons. Kara Nikolas’s birth could not be dated, but he was probably born after 1875. We could find no birth date for Diakou. Rolandos Katsiaounis (1996), Rebecca Bryant (2004), Jan Asmussen (1996, 1999, 2004), Altay Nevzat (2005) and the 2006 book by Robert Holland and Diana Markides, The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean 1850–1960, all describe significant, non-trivial tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, at intervals, from before the British arrived and continuously during the first forty years of British rule. There is a tendency to write of a short, violent episode, followed by a return to calmer relations, and there has been agreement that the two communities remained relatively quiet, even in 1897 during the Greco-Turkish war, in spite of the 1000 Christian volunteers who were encouraged to go (Holland & Markides 2006: 170). It was 1912 when intercommunal tensions spilled over into serious violence (see also Sophocleous 2003). I had searched in an amateurish fashion for some record of the court case in the National Archives, as well as in Greek Cypriot newspapers from 1912 and 1913. I didn’t find what I was looking for; it turned out I was looking in the wrong year. However, in Altay Nevzat’s (2005) thesis, I chanced upon evidence (a footnote on page 200) suggesting the Argaki coffee shop fire had occurred earlier than my informants or Pipis’s informants had reported – it had been reported in Vatan newspaper on 18 September 1911, not in 1912. How much did this change its apparent significance? It even preceded the official outbreak of the Italo-Turkish war, 29 September 1911. My intuition is that island-wide research would show mounting intercommunal tensions in 1911, if evidence could be adduced. 1912 is the ‘overflow’ year, the one that made it into the history books, but the volcano had been rumbling for some years previously. Events in Crete

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and the Balkans were reported and discussed in Cyprus by nationalist newspapers in both communities: out of sight was not out of mind for nationalists – on the contrary. As Papadakis has observed, that so few scholars of Cyprus read the language of ‘the other side’ has set major limits on the writing of a more nuanced history. With the assistance of Altay Nevzat, and Tozun Issa, I obtained a translation of the Vatan article: The Arkaca Incident As we were getting ready to go into print some news has reached us. Two days ago (some) Greeks from Arkaca village, having stoned a Muslim coffee house for two hours decided to attack it, trapping 5–6 Muslims inside by barricading the entrance with a pile of chairs and setting them alight. Desperate to find a way out, the Muslims forcibly broke a window overlooking the back of the coffee house to save their lives. The building was soon burned to the ground. After the incident policemen from a nearby village came and arrested two persons. The total cost of the damage is estimated to be one hundred and seventy (170) pounds. We expect that the culprits are put on trial and convicted under the ‘arson law’ so that the punishment for ill-mannered acts such as this can serve as a deterrent for any similar attempts in the future. Arkaca is one of several alternative spelling of Argaki. It was still remotely possible that the Vatan report was about a village called Arkaca in Paphos, but it was highly unlikely that Turkish coffee shops in both villages were attacked on the same date. But now that I had a date, I was able to check Greek Cypriot newspapers for confirmation that we now had the right village and the right date. Phoni tis Kyprou, 23 September 1911, had the following report: Arson in Argaki On the night of Thursday of last week the Ottoman coffeeshop and a grocery in Argaki belonging to Hatan Ibrahimi was set

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on fire. They were reduced to ashes and the damage amounted to 160 pounds. Loizos Yianni was arrested as perpetrator and charged with setting the fire alight, because before this he broke the furniture in the coffeeshop and spread it with paraffin. Also arrested as complicit were Nikolas Protopapas and Mikail Petri. Here was basic factual corroboration within days of the event. Unlike the Vatan report, it named names and gave a specific date. But there were more surprising linkages: Phoni tis Kyprou of 30 September was headlined: Attempted Arson Christian houses in Lefka. We are informed from Lefka that last Friday unknown evil-doers started fires by dousing paraffin on the windows of the shops in the neighbourhood inhabited by Christians threatening damage to properties worth in total roughly 900 pounds. Fortunately, a wagon-driver, X. Stasis, arriving at the critical moment, discovered the fire. He awakened those who were in danger. Mr Ph. Sazeidin, the police and Mr K. Isakin, and Mr X. Ionios who with superhuman struggles managed to contain the fire and kept the damage down to only 2–3 pounds. Unfortunately, since suspicions arise that this was a pre-considered plan, it is necessary that there is the greatest efforts at discovery and punishment of the perpetrators, and a reinforcement of the police there by the appropriate agencies. The Police Records for 1911 list only seven reports of arson for the whole of Cyprus. The Turkish Cypriots in Argaki were a relatively isolated and numerically small group, only one-fifth of the village. The position of the Christians in Lefka was similarly vulnerable. Lefka was about twenty kilometres cross-country from Argaki, so it seems possible the reported Lefka arson attempt against the Christians was a tit-for-tat response to the earlier events in Argaki.

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Another Greek Cypriot newspaper reported the progress of the Patriotikos Omilos (Patriotic Association) meetings in the region. The 3 September 1911 issue mentions there would be a meeting in Upper Zodia on Saturday, and one in Argaki on Monday. This is a possible source for Pipis’s assertion that the Argaki arson was provoked by a speech by Katalanos. Incidentally, another Argaki-born Greek Cypriot told me that in her youth she heard that Katalanos, and Spyros Matsoukas, both mainland Greeks, had visited the region, and that Matsoukas baptised a child in Argaki who subsequently took his name [Informant: Giorgia Fyrilla, nee Pelavas, 22 May 2009]. There are all kinds of unresolved difficulties in making these inferences. Not knowing how long it took to produce these newspapers, the exact timing of the two events is uncertain. In the account of ‘Arson in Argaki’, with a publication date of 30 September, a Saturday, does ‘last Friday’ mean 29 September, or does it mean 22 September? I would guess it means the 22nd. Similarly, when Phone tis Kyprou, publication date 3 September, a Sunday, says there should be a visit by the Patriotic Association on Monday, is the visit 4 September or 11 September? It would be more attractive, in the logic of narrative cause-and-effect, if the speech (by Katalanos?) preceded the fire by only three days. Clearly, at this point, police and trial records would have been helpful, but so far none have been found. I cannot leave the incident without mentioning the opinion of one other informant, one born after 1911, who told me the incident was not ‘about politics’ at all, but because a Turkish Cypriot had been looking at young Christian girls in a sexually aggressive way as they came out of church. The church and the coffee shop were very close together. But given the demographic vulnerability of the Turkish Cypriots in Argaki, this seems to me highly improbable, unless this unnamed Turkish Cypriot was mentally unbalanced. Neither the Greek nor Turkish newspapers hint at such a motive, nor would such a motive suggest why a whole coffee shop was attacked, rather than a single individual. Pipis was convinced the incident was about politics, and he would have had every reason to ignore politics and ‘reduce’ the incident to an ‘honour crime’ if possible, since it would have fit more comfortably into his retrospective assertion of ‘good relations’ between

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the two communities. This version suggests how politically septic incidents can be re-worked unconsciously to conform to stronger currents of mainstream, hegemonic official positions, such as ‘Greeks and Turks lived together like brothers’. Such an incident could, of course, in practice and in theory, have been simultaneously ‘about politics’ and ‘about honour slights’ (real or assumed!). Although the demographics seem to be against a sane Turkish Cypriot risking an honour insult, they favour a touchy Greek Cypriot imagining one.

Problem 2: How one Incident is Remembered by Some Greeks and Turks from Argaki Between 1968–72, when I spent nearly eighteen months in Argaki (over four visits), the Argaki Turkish Cypriots were quiet and unobtrusive in village political life (see Papadakis 2005: 232, for a discussion of how one ethnic group typically avoided ‘talking politics’ in the coffee shops of the other). One reason was that not only were they a very small minority in the village, but there were very few Turkish Cypriots in the wider region of the surrounding villages, all satellites of the market town of Morphou – the Argaki Turkish Cypriots were at least ten kilometres removed in any direction from any area of major Turkish Cypriot concentration. Peristerona, a mixed village, lay in one direction, while the Turkish Cypriot village of Ghaziveran [Kazivera] lay 15 kilometres away in another direction; the demography of the region was overwhelmingly Greek Cypriot. I had the distinct impression the Argaki Turkish Cypriots were anxious and apprehensive; the recent island-wide intercommunal conflicts had done nothing to calm them. I became aware of an important contrast between public discourses and private words – often uttered in whispers – about social and political relations, as might be expected in a village where clandestine armed groups intent on subversion were forming once again. And here we get to the main point. After 1974, when Argaki Greek Cypriots remembered how they lived with the Turkish Cypriots, they emphasised peace, and that the Turkish Cypriots had had nothing to fear from them. They particularly stressed that ‘nothing [bad] happened in Argaki’. Referring to the EOKA

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period, 1955–1964, they added, ‘there were no traitors in the village, and not even the Turkish Cypriots betrayed EOKA to the British’. No deaths, no betrayals, so ‘nothing happened’. Thus, the village appears in Greek Cypriot memories as a zone of Turkish Cypriot security, and Pipis managed to write this version into his book; these memories, perceptions and descriptions present the village as a moral community and give this assumed morality an all-important prominence. But this version does not consider how the Turkish Cypriots experienced the situation, which was a dynamic one that extended over many years. Did they share this crucial perception? What is most relevant to an understanding of their feelings? Was it only, as some Greek Cypriots from Argaki suggested, the quality of generally good social relations in Argaki? Or were Argaki Turkish Cypriot perceptions affected by events throughout Cyprus and across the Eastern Mediterranean, in which Christians and Muslims, and later Greeks and Turks, were sometimes violently dividing their communities? Did the Argaki Turkish Cypriots confine their anxieties to the boundaries of the village? I did not formulate, still less pursue, these questions during my first fieldwork, 1968–69, because my reading of the island-wide situation was that intercommunal relations were too tense. There were militia roadblocks all over the island, and in the previous year (Henn 2004: 24), 27 Turkish Cypriots had been killed by the Greek Cypriot National Guard at Kophinou, an event which nearly precipitated a military intervention by Turkey that could have easily become a fullscale invasion. Additionally, former EOKA activists from Argaki were highly suspicious of me, and my intuition was that questions with a political edge put to the Argaki Turkish Cypriots would not be in their best interests, or in mine. Later, when the Greek Cypriots had left Argaki as refugees/IDPs, my Greek name meant I would have been admitted to Turkishoccupied northern Cyprus only under strictest supervision, if at all (see Papadakis 2005 for an account of the conditions imposed on his field research). But I did not feel like pursuing these issues then, because my main concern was to describe and analyse how the Argaki Greek Cypriots had confronted the pains of their displacement.

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A research opportunity arose after 2003 when an Argaki-raised Turkish Cypriot, Mr. Eral Akartürk, decided to study sociology at Intercollege, Nicosia, where I was then Director of the Master’s Program. Akartürk chose to write his dissertation on the perceptions of the Argaki Turkish Cypriots during the period 1955–1974. I offered him some guidance, and encouraged him to correct my one-sided account of how life had been in Argaki. I draw freely on his research, and with his permission. The picture Akartürk draws, based on his in-depth interviews, is much more nuanced than the Argaki Greek Cypriots’ ‘nothing happened, everything was fine between us’ version. It also differs from the picture I was able to sketch with my hesitant gleanings. So how did Argaki Turkish Cypriots remember the troubled past? First, and crucially, virtually all of Akartürk’s informants made a clear and consistent distinction between those Greeks they trusted, who were good neighbours and who helped them in difficult times, and those they feared, who were strong EOKA supporters. The village had a significant group of communist party members, roughly a third of all voters, who were predisposed to be sympathetic to their Turkish Cypriot co-villagers. There were all kinds of reports of specific help offered by these Greek Cypriots in troubled times. The Argaki Turks were nervous about the EOKA supporters. During my fieldwork, I heard casual insults tossed at Turkish Cypriots, but these insults were always described to me as ‘just jokes’ – but jokes can be very wounding, particularly if they include epithets such as vromoschille, ‘smelly-dog’, or schillopellos, ‘crazy-dog’ (Cypriot Greek dialect). Remarks such as these were made by the more thoughtless Greek nationalists in the village. I have reported elsewhere some of the minor troubles, and how some individuals in the village tried to right the wrongs suffered by individual Turkish Cypriots (Loizos 1975:143–150). Jan Asmussen and Rebecca Bryant have documented continuing protests made by Turkish Cypriots to the colonial authorities about insults and threats from (often juvenile) Greek Cypriot nationalists. The ‘juvenility’ is an interesting research issue in itself, and one which helped to mislead me when I originally described the people who torched the coffee shop as ‘boys’.

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Boys’ misconduct is easy – too easy – to ignore. By describing the perpetrators as boys, the significance of the attack on the coffee shop was diminished in the memories of my Argaki Greek informants – who had either been children at the time or hadn’t even been born – and rendered something more trivial than serious. (Note: I am writing this paragraph at the time of the youth riots in Greece in 2008). Whether the work of youngsters or adults, neither insults nor arson are bricks with which strong social relations can be built. Eral Akartürk was told that between 1958 and 1964 two Turkish Cypriots were killed in Morphou, three miles away, by an EOKA unit. The first was Erol Ahmet, who was studying to be a doctor, in Turkey, and his father, Ahmet Bahçeci. These killings further contributed to increased levels of anxiety among Argaki’s Turkish Cypriots. Looking back on these events, it was not necessary for something bad to happen ‘in Argaki’ itself. People often went to Morphou to the market or the cinema, they had relatives there. If there had been killings in Morphou, who knew where the next ones would be? To make matters worse, one Argaki Greek Cypriot had been heard to say he thought the Argaki Turkish Cypriots should be killed and thrown into a well. Other Argaki Greeks had rebuked and silenced him, but this reported threat was remembered by several people. Akartürk’s interviews established that during 1958, 1963–64, and in 1974, when there were island-wide disturbances and vengeance killings, Argaki Turkish Cypriots had become fearful that they too might be targets. Several recalled that in 1974, after the coup against President Makarios, and with Turkish troops fighting on the island, this fear became more acute. After the ‘second round’ of fighting, when mainland Greek and Greek Cypriot National Guard soldiers retreating from the Turkish advance stopped in Argaki for some days, this fear became intense. Greek Cypriot friends warned the Turkish Cypriots to stay out of sight, and brought them food while they did so. At one point the Turkish Cypriots grouped together in a single house, in the spirit of ‘sticking together’. They reportedly feared massacre, although no specific attempt was made. Argaki Greek Cypriots, they said, put an armed man outside the house for their protection, from ‘outsiders’.

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Eral’s research also recorded specific memories of some highly supportive and sympathetic actions: a small Turkish boy in the village had cut himself badly, was bleeding and needed stitches. One of the family’s neighbours, a Greek woman, helped the boy’s mother carry him to a bus, journeyed with her to a Greek doctor, and stayed with them while the boy was stitched up. This powerful memory was adduced as evidence of the goodness of some Greeks. Another woman remembered fearing for her life at a roadblock, but Fanis Varellas, the Argaki Greek driver of her car, told the gunmen they should not harm her, that she was his co-villager and not a political activist. The village was remembered as a haven by another Turkish woman whose husband had been taken from a bus and killed on the far side of the island, in a revenge killing (very possibly the event mentioned in Papadakis 2005: 233) – she was brought to Argaki as a place of safety. She spent the rest of her life in Argaki and had only good words to say about her Greek neighbours, but her son, who remembered as a child waiting for many hours for his father to return the day he was killed, insisted that he himself would never again feel safe living among Greeks. In a way these linked memories and feelings about the ‘other’ ethnic group contain a great deal of compressed meaning. Mother and son, both bereaved, drew different conclusions about trust, insecurity and the boundaries between groups. Incidentally, when two of my Greek Cypriot informants, husband and wife, recalled how that death had affected this particular Turkish Cypriot, they had exchanged angry words about the bus incident: the husband described it as an isolated incident, while the wife insisted it had been part of a chain of revenge killings, started, she insisted, by ‘the other side’. My own inquiries, both in 1975 and between 2000 and 2004, produced a description of an incident which was remembered rather differently by my key Greek Cypriot informant than it was by some of Eral Akartürk’s Turkish Cypriot informants (and differently from Chr. Pipis’s brief reference, cited earlier). In 1964 (but possibly also in 1958, according to some Turkish Cypriot informants), Turkish Cypriot nationalists sought to gather isolated groups of Turkish Cypriots into areas of major Turkish Cypriot concentration. Their aim was twofold. There were plans to establish zones of Turkish Cypriot political

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administration which would be stepping stones towards a separate state (Strong 1999); their other objective was collective defence during a period of uncertainty, one that saw attacks by Greek Cypriot irregulars and reprisal killings by Turkish Cypriot TMT fighters. In many parts of Cyprus there was insecurity, and anyone in a local demographic minority had reason to be fearful (Sant Cassia 2005). Accordingly, the Turkish Cypriot leadership sent lorries to encourage the Argaki Turkish Cypriots to leave Argaki and join other Turkish Cypriots elsewhere. In some parts of the island such lorries, according to reports in the Cyprus Mail, were met by joint committees of Greek and Turkish Cypriots who told them to go away, as local relations were good. These lorries arrived in Argaki, by chance, on a Sunday, when Greek Cypriots were leaving church in large numbers. My Greek informant, one of the leaders of the Argaki communists, reached the lorries and found some of his Turkish Cypriot co-villagers preparing to leave. He recalled making a speech telling them they would be safe from harm in Argaki and that the Argaki Greeks wanted them to stay. He repeated this story many times later in his life, clearly proud of what he had done. As he told it, the Turkish Cypriots decided to stay in the village because of his persuasiveness and his guarantee of their safety; this guarantee was reinforced by the local EOKA leader, whom he approached to reassure his Turkish Cypriot co-villagers (the EOKA leader gave the Argaki Turkish Cypriots his personal assurance of their safety). But some of Eral Akartürk’s informants remembered the incident somewhat differently. They said that given the climate of island-wide and regional insecurity, a number of the Argaki Turkish Cypriots did indeed wish to leave for places where they would find safety in greater numbers, but the lorries arrived at what was tactically a very inopportune time – when the masses of Greek Cypriots leaving church were numerous enough to have stopped their departure. This picture, then, is different from that painted by my Greek Cypriot informant: the exit of the Argaki Turkish Cypriots was blocked, and the moment passed. It is altogether a less positive account of GreekTurkish relations in the village because, in this version, many of the Argaki Turkish Cypriots were afraid, and some of them were ready to leave.

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Problem 3: What Constitutes ‘Admissible Evidence’? Anthropologists like to keep on good terms with their informants. But if they have informants who span the political spectrum, they inevitably find they must make difficult choices about some issues. Argaki IDPs have developed a strong collective belief in the moral goodness of their pre-1974 community. This view tends to be coherent and to deny contradictions or incidents that disrupt this coherence (Van Boeschoten 2006); in this they are like many refugees and IDPs all over the world. Many would prefer that no one raises the issue I am about to raise, even though, in my view, it doesn’t reflect badly on many of them. Date: 15 August 1974. Most Greek Cypriot families have already left Argaki, as the Turkish army can be seen advancing across the Morphou plains. My informant, Thomas Diakou, is in the cooperative grocery, when a man comes in and asks him to cash a cheque, which he does. This man, associated with the more extreme nationalists, then asks Thomas: ‘What should we do about the Turks here, now that we are leaving?’ ‘What do you mean – do about them?’ ‘Well, shouldn’t we kill them?’ ‘Why? They have done nothing to us! That’s a really crazy idea. And if you think the Turkish army will leave one stone of the village on another if they come here and find we have done such a thing . . . don’t do anything to them.’ Fortunately Diakou’s advice was taken; otherwise Argaki might have been added to the grim list of places in Cyprus where massacres of Turkish or Greek Cypriots occurred, a list which is too long with even one name on it (for details, see Sant Cassia 2005 and several documentary films by Panikos Chrysanthou and collaborators). We know that Argaki Turkish Cypriots were fearful that something violent might occur. The village was every hour closer to being in a war zone. Thomas

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first told me this story early in the period of his exile, in 1975. In his old age, twenty-five years later, after major heart surgery from which it took him months to recover, he did not repeat it. He seemed to have forgotten the incident, but when I prompted him he remembered the incident clearly, although he added that he did not think his interlocutor had been particularly serious. He had repeated the story about persuading the Turks to come down from the lorry in 1964 many times, and perhaps in some way it had displaced the conversation at the cooperative grocery. Yet what he said, what he did and did not do in August 1974, a massacre proposed and rejected, adds up to an ‘incident’, a ‘non-event’ of great significance. The massacres that took place in 1974 and earlier were the kind which the EOKA B people would later want forgotten, massacres the Greek Cypriot state did its best to encourage everyone to forget in the years from 1980 onwards. These issues of collective remembering and forgetting have been analysed in detail by Papadakis (1993, 2005: 232–233) and Bryant (2010). Perhaps the silence that surrounded Greek Cypriot-led massacres slowly came to influence Diakou’s memory, to the point that he forgot his own good deed because the enormity of what had been proposed became ‘unthinkable’. It may also be that he regarded it as an angry outburst with no serious intention behind it. Perhaps I should have treated it as such and left it unwritten? This is a difficult call. Why am I prepared to take this reported conversation seriously, as something which really happened when, in his story about the lorries in 1964, Diakou’s account seems to have limitations, to be less than ‘the whole truth’? Ideally, it would have been more scholarly to have asked the man who allegedly suggested killing Turkish Cypriots in Argaki, to get his version of the story, but here my scholarship falls far short of the ideal. In my 1981 monograph I reported a first-hand but anonymous account (which I tape-recorded) by an EOKA B militant of his part in the unit’s attack in 1974 on Ghaziveran, a Turkish Cypriot village near Argaki between Morphou and Xeros where, in a berserk rage over the death of a fellow villager in his unit, he had killed a number of women and a child. I later made this incident the focus of a paper, published in 1988, which I sent to President George Vasiliou, so he could be

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prepared for possible exploitation of the material by Denktash supporters. President Vasiliou asked the military to investigate the event. The inquiries got down to my informant, who predictably denied everything. I was then criticised by some Argaki Greek Cypriots for having brought these matters into print, but this has already been discussed at length elsewhere (see Loizos 1981, 1988, 1994). Silence about human rights abuses and criminal acts by ‘one’s own side’, or their denial, has enabled the writing of partisan accounts of political conflict in Cyprus (Cohen 2001, Stavrinides 2009). This silence and denial have contributed to public misperceptions, have helped certain actors manipulate misunderstandings, and have increased existing intercommunal mistrust. Generations of school children have been encouraged to disdain any new relationship with the ‘other’ ethnic group. Cognitively inaccurate accounts of the recent past keep citizens in the dark, both about how key crises developed and how their reoccurrence might be avoided in the future. Shortterm solidarity within the ethnic community is energised, but in a way that keeps antagonism with the other group ‘topped up’ in malevolent collective batteries. Returning for a moment to Hobsbawm’s suggestions about a hypothetical historian on trial for his or her life, preferring ‘positivist’ lawyers to ‘post-modern’ lawyers, I must take the reader very briefly into the issue of ‘hearsay’ in British law. Hearsay evidence is a statement not made in oral evidence as evidence of any ‘matter stated’ – that is, in my crude paraphrasing, where no primary witness is available to report the matter in court. It has been much discussed, with many revisions. The UK Criminal Justice Act (2003) allows hearsay evidence to be admissible under various circumstances. The issue of admissibility might turn on whether the court believes its admissibility is in the interests of justice, whether the person reporting is a normally reliable witness, or whether the person said to have made the statement is a normally reliable witness – issues of motive and context might also be admitted. In US Federal courts, one ground for the admissibility of hearsay evidence is if the matter to which it refers took place at a time of heightened tension. 15 August 1974, Argaki, must surely qualify as a time of heightened tension.

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So, I have inserted this twice-reported conversation for the record and for future historians to ponder. Things that did not happen yet might have happened, things mentioned in angry outbursts but not acted upon, things said and later withdrawn, or denied . . . all of them are important in terms of what they can tell us about social relations and commonplace human decency. They are as important as the regrettable, exceptional things that did happen. But unless we set them down in writing, they are lost. It would be a mistake Kedourie warned us about, to write a history of communal relations that is either too dark or too bright. The assumptions behind this conversation are also important, if implicit. The man who considers killing some of his co-villagers believes that when some of ‘them’ have harmed some of ‘us’, any of ‘them’ are legitimate targets for ‘our’ revenge. I have drawn attention to the work done by the inclusive pronouns ‘us’ and ‘them’ in rhetorical justifications for violence (Loizos 1988). Diakou’s replies, which underline ideas about the particularity and specificity of innocence and guilt, are worthy of any modern criminal code. Now, what sort of ‘evidence’ is my report? The man who made the proposal would certainly deny having made it, if asked, and indeed is very likely to have completely forgotten it. That is how lots of memories ‘work’, particularly when there are personal interests involved. Diakou himself, the ‘hero’, had half-forgotten it. I had put it in my notebook, back in 1975, when it made a strong impression on me, and as I came to understand more about what had happened elsewhere in 1974, its significance, especially after reading Stanley Cohen’s (2001) States of Denial, grew. ‘Nothing happened in Argaki’. Did something ‘nearly’ happen? When we reflect on advancing and retreating armies, of civilians preparing to flee, we must use our historical imagination about what might have happened and what did not. If you doubt this, you need only consider the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Conclusion In my ethnography there are instances of individuals who seem to see themselves as acting in continuity with their ancestors – for example,

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a grandson of Pantzaros, who was imprisoned for the arson attack on the Turkish coffee shop in 1911, tried to repeat the act after an evening of heavy drinking and had to be forcibly restrained (the exact year of his attempt is uncertain). Other closely related individuals react in very different ways to the same event, as with the wife and son of the Turkish Cypriot killed by Greek Cypriots after being pulled off a bus on the far side of the island. In general, it appears neither Greek nor Turkish Cypriots have kinship systems which create compulsory political solidarity; although political party preferences are often inherited by children from their parents, the general view is that an individual is free to make his or her own individual commitments. That said, it is clear that among Argaki families there were those with long-standing nationalist commitments and others with equally venerable leftist commitments. With regard to the latter, it seems personal biography and character count for as much as social structures and institutions in shaping responses. This chapter has no major conclusion except to reiterate the point that to live by the evidential standards of Kedourie and Hobsbawm is hard. Indeterminacy can be frustrating, but it is wise – and more modest – to leave questions open, rather than to insist one has definitively settled an issue. I am open to challenge on anything I have written about Cyprus, and I am always ready to consider new evidence. The project of understanding for the sake of understanding is both open-ended and collaborative. Ironically, Greek and Turkish analysts need to communicate with each other precisely because so much of significance exists in one language or the other, and sometimes, as in the case of the 1911 fire, in one language and the other. Historians who pose questions about which political interest groups seek to impose silence run risks; anthropologists who raise the anger of living informants are no less at risk than such historians. Both anthropology and history can engage with ‘cold’ issues, or with ‘hot’ ones – the choice lies with individual scholars, and is not determined by the disciplines themselves. And the interpretation of texts can be just as troublesome as compiling oral reports from living persons.

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Notes 1. I am grateful to Nicos Philippou for information about Anorthosis. 2. Pipis showed no sign of having read my monographs, and some of the things he wrote strongly suggest he didn’t, but this in some ways makes his book more straightforward and uncomplicatedly evidential.

References Asmussen, Jan. 1996. ‘Life and strife in mixed villages: some aspects of interethnic relations in Cyprus under British rule’, The Cyprus Review 8 (1), pp. 101–110. ——. 1999. ‘“Leaving the past”: the 1964 exodus of the Cyprus mixed villages – the social and historical dimension’, in I. Bozkurt, H. Ateshin, and M. Kansu (eds), Proceedings of the Second International Congress for Cyprus Studies; 24–27 November 1998, Volume Ia, Papers Presented in English, Cyprus Issue History. ——. 2004. ‘Early conflicts between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities in Cyprus’, The Cyprus Review 16 (1), pp. 87–106. Attalides, Michael. 1976. ‘Relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in perspective’, in Proceedings: International Symposium on Political Geography, 27–29 February. Nicosia: Cyprus Geographical Association. Bryant, Rebecca. 2004. Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus. London & New York: I.B.Tauris. ——. 2010. The Past in Pieces: Belonging in the New Cyprus. Philadelphia and Oxford: University of Pennsylvania Press. Campbell, John.K. 1969. A History of Modern Greece. London: Benn. Cohen, Stanley. 2001. States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering. Cambridge: Polity. Chrysanthou, Panicos. 1987. A Detail in Cyprus. 16mm documentary film. Chrysanthou, Panicos, and Niyazi Kizilyurek. 1993. Our Wall. 16mm documentary film. Chrysanthou, Panicos, and Derviş Zaim. 2004. Parallel Trips. 16 mm documentary film. Hill, Sir George 1952. A History of Cyprus, Volume 4, The Ottoman Province. The British Colony. 1571–1948. Cambridge: The University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1997. On History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Holland, Robert, and Diana Markides. 2006. The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean 1850–1960. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Katsiaounis, Rolandos. 1996. Labour, Society and Politics in Cyprus during the Second Half of the Nineteenth century. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre. Kedourie, Elie. 1992. ‘Politics and the Academy’, Commentary 94 (2), pp. 50–55.

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Kitromilides, Paschalis. 1977. ‘From coexistence to confrontation: the dynamics of ethnic conflict in Cyprus’, in M. Attalides (ed), Cyprus Reviewed. Nicosia: Jus Cypri. Kyrris, Costas P. 1976. ‘Symbiotic elements in the history of the two communities in Cyprus’, in International Symposium on Political Geography, 27–29 February. Nicosia: Cyprus Geographical Association. Loizos, Peter. 1975. The Greek Gift: Politics in a Cypriot Village. Oxford: Blackwell. ——. 1981. The Heart Grown Bitter: A Chronicle of Cypriot War Refugees. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——. 1988. ‘Intercommunal killing in Cyprus’, Man: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23 (3), pp. 639–653. ——. 1994. ‘Confessions of a vampire anthropologist’, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 3 (2), pp. 39–53. Nevzat, Altay. 2005. Nationalism Amongst the Turks of Cyprus: The First Wave, Ph.D. thesis, [Online], Available: herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514277511/ [last accessed 20 January 2008]. Papadakis, Yiannis. 1993 ‘The politics of memory and forgetting in Cyprus’, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 3 (1), pp. 139–154. ——. 2005. Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide. London and New York: I.B.Tauris. Pipis, Chr. 2000. Argaki 1800–1974 [in Greek]. Nicosia: Kassoulides and Sons. Sant Cassia, Paul. 2005. Bodies of Evidence: Burial, Memory and the Recovery of Missing Persons in Cyprus. London & New York: Berghahn Books. Sophocleous, Andreas Cl. 2003. ‘The intercommunal clashes in Cyprus in 1912’, in THETIS: Mannheimer Beitrage zur Klassischen Archaologie und Geschichte Griechenlands und Zypern, no. 10, pp. 187–190. Stavrinides, Zenon. 2009. ‘Dementia Cypria: on the social psychological environment of the intercommunal negotiations’, The Cyprus Review 21 (1), pp. 175–186. Van Boeschoten, Riki. 2006. ‘Broken bonds and divided memories: war time massacres reconsidered in comparative perspective’, Oral History, Autumn, pp. 1–12.

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9 ON THE NEED TO BELONG TO A NON-CYPR IOT HISTORY Mehmet Ratip

History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead. George W. Bush Anyone can create the future, but only a wise man can create the past. Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister . . . history is the privileged place where the gaze becomes unsettled, even if it is only that. Michel de Certeau, ‘The Beauty of the Dead: Nisard’ in Heterologies: Discourse on the Other What follows is a set of philosophical intuitions that will hopefully guide the task of gathering historical facts for an open (material and immaterial) book of non-Cypriot history.

We, A Singular-Plural of Denial We, the human inhabitants of Cyprus . . . Before addressing the extent of our humanity, we must take a closer look at this we. This indistinct

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pronoun, ‘we’ as the ‘first person plural’, represents the site of a fruitful tension between singularity and plurality, the possibility of being simultaneously singular and plural. It is safe to suggest that, here in Cyprus, we have got so much used to the respective singularities of a comforting ‘we’ and a threatening ‘they’ that ‘we have not even begun to discover what it is to be many’ (Nancy 2000: xiv). What is not very difficult to notice, however, is that this ‘we’, whatever rigid form it might take, and even when it is opposed to the most hateful hostility of a ‘they’, is only possible through ‘being-with-them’ – that is, ‘being-with-one-another’ (Nancy 2000: xiv). Therefore, we, the human inhabitants of Cyprus, are not simply and solely Cypriots, Turks, Greeks, Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots . . . We are whoever happens to be in Cyprus, at any time whatsoever. As originary accidents, as the perfectly accidental inhabitants of this island, we can measure the truly immeasurable extent of our humanity thanks to the sentiment of the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy: We are humans, those beings ‘who expose sharing and circulation as such by saying “we”, by saying we to themselves’ (Nancy 2000: 3).1 When we define humans as ‘sharing beings’, we must always remember the secondary meanings of what is being ‘shared’, as preserved in the French equivalent of the word used by Nancy; partagé: ‘the adjective partagé is used to describe, among other things, a requited love, a shared meal, and a divided country’ (Nancy 2000: 194). We must open up the polysemy offered for our case. When we share Cyprus, we share not only the fact of a divided country, but also the potential of a requited love or a shared meal. Nevertheless, these rather pleasant images should not engrave on our minds the illusory semblance of a (past or future) peaceful coexistence. After all, we know only too well that even a requited love is never free from pain and that there is no such thing as a ‘free’ shared meal. Someone has to pay for sharing, and someone has to endure the pain of sharing, and we who share a divided island should not live in peace until we adequately account for the war that unites us. Our common war is waged by our militarised existence. Our common debt is to a global capitalism that provides us our shared meals. And our common pain is inflicted by the histories we repress.

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At this point, we must take note of Roger Scruton’s suggestion that ‘we should distinguish two forms of the first person plural: the “we” of affirmation, and the “we” of denial’ (Scruton in Beiner 1999: 290). The ‘we’ of affirmation is ‘the principal way in which the community represents (or “imagines”) itself as enduring through time’ (290). We need only look around ourselves to see that Cyprus is crowded with affirmative ‘we’s. Transhistorical myths of rootedness not only construct the historically violent Turkish and Greek nationalisms, which did not hesitate to create their respective Cypriot variants, but also nurture the generic notion of ‘Cypriotism’ that is most adept to utilise a popular mix of demography and chrono-politics to detect and affirm the ‘pure Cypriot people’ in space-time. The quest for any sort of political emancipation in Cyprus, therefore, must go hand in hand with the realisation that we need to deny the affirmation of any ‘we’ and analyse our common (not Cypriot-common, but worldly-common) deracination, our plural rootlessness in a world of politico-economic and logistic accidents. Hence our need for ‘a “we” of denial, which grows as the bond of membership [to Cyprus – MR] weakens’ (Scruton in Beiner 1999: 291). In Scruton’s words, the conception of a ‘we of denial’ as opposed to a ‘we of affirmation’ helps us realise: [p]erhaps we do not have a right to this territory; perhaps our ancestors gained possession of it by unjust and cruel acts; perhaps there is nothing of value in the institutions that they have passed to us; perhaps law, religion, and morality as we know them are merely the masks for usurping power’ (Scruton in Beiner 1999: 291). This line of reasoning, in our name, we who dare to deny ourselves the warm shelter of traditional nativism, offers us the opportunity to tell our history as ‘a “narrative in deconstruction”, in which the whole story is told again as a story of crime’ (Scruton in Beiner 1999: 291). In deconstructed history, we find ourselves moving inside a new kind of community, a community without identity which affirms its roots only to the extent that they are entirely uprooted; that is, only for the purpose of achieving a radical deracination, a community which:

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[asserts] relations of obligation and responsibility between the living and the dead; asking us to bear the burden of our ancestors’ misdeeds, and to recognise moral bonds for which we never contracted, toward victims who were no victims of ours (Scruton in Beiner 1999: 291). When we deny, we must deny the urge to live in peace with our criminal, ‘all-too-Cypriot’ history, and when we affirm, we must affirm the need to understand the worldliness of our concerns and demands. We must put this island in a cosmopolitan perspective, devoid of any localist fixation, and connect the dots to see the outlines of the bigger picture in which a world forms Cyprus and in which Cyprus is nothing but a microcosmopolis, a site of world-forming.

Belonging to a World in Cyprus (Against Globalisation) Belonging to a non-Cypriot history requires both belonging to the world and non-belonging to Cyprus, insofar as we misconceive Cyprus as an island whose problems are detached from the world and unique in its own space. We should not belong to Cyprus as long as we misrepresent it as disconnected from a ‘process in expansion’, from ‘a space of meaning held in common’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 2). Nevertheless, belonging to the world does not suggest belonging to a ‘globality as a “totality grasped as a whole”’, because the world is never an ‘indistinct totality’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 2). The idea of worldliness I will formulate and expose to the singular space of Cyprus is diametrically opposed to the phenomenon of globalisation. The dominant meaning of globalisation today is a ‘hyperbolic accumulation’ of weapons and capital. This globalisation destroys the world and becomes, ironically, an anti-worldliness (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 3). The world of worldliness, unlike the globe of globalisation, ‘divides itself and coexists: it is the movement, the agitation and general diversity of the worlds that make up the world (and unmake it as well)’ (Nancy 2000: 189). In this sense, belonging to a world against globalisation and achieving this within the open space-time of Cyprus necessitates a conceptual renovation of our political thinking.

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Nancy’s concept of ‘ecotechnics’ offers a good starting point in this regard. According to Nancy, the anti-world of globalisation: has behind it all the effectiveness of what we call “planetary technology” and “world economy”: the double sign of a single network of the reciprocity of causes and effects, of the circularity of ends and means. In fact, this network or order is what is without-end . . . in terms of millions of dollars and yen, in terms of millions of therms, kilowatts, optical fibers, megabytes. If the world is a world today, then it is primarily a world according to this double sign . . . [called] ecotechnics (Nancy 2000: 133). Put in somewhat more direct terms, ecotechnics is nothing other than the globality of militarism and capitalism, which attain their perfect sense of coexistence in the phenomenon of war. The strong bond between war and technology is difficult to comprehend if ‘war is generally considered a negative phenomenon, and technology a positive one’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 30). However, as Paul Virilio suggests, one must cautiously observe the ways in which ‘the positive phenomenon of technology [comes] in large part from the arsenal and war economy’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 30). I will have the chance to briefly discuss the notion of globalised militarist capitalism in relation to Cyprus and to develop a notion of ‘permanent war in Cyprus’ in the final section. For now I will focus on the claim that the potential for belonging to a world is constantly undermined by militarist capitalism or ecotechnical war. What is most important to realise is that belonging is always to a world, that is, an unspecified world which has no ascertained identity, because the ‘world is excessive, exceeding the conditions of possibility of representation . . . The world is without foundation (without representation)’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 9). The world thereby exceeds its representation in Cyprus as well. Cyprus cannot open to a world, cannot appear in a world unless it becomes that space which enables us to take a new philosophical stance in favour of what the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls a state of ‘ecstasy-belonging’, a state of ‘Being-outside, and yet belonging’ (Agamben 2005a: 35),

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i.e., belonging only by way of being-outside, belonging (to a world that includes Cyprus) through non-belonging (to a Cyprus that excludes worldliness). If it is true that, ‘[a]bove all, the world is a place . . . the place of a possible taking-place . . . the place of any taking-place, the place where “there is room for everyone . . . ”’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 10), then Cyprus as a place cannot be understood except in terms of a taking-place in the world, continuously renewed, each time singular. Cyprus happens singularly only in the plurality of a world. Thus, belonging to a world through Cyprus can be achieved only by means of locating our Cypriot appearances in the global network of war and capital. Only the globalism of armed capital can show us our political existence in its true non-Cypriotness. There is nothing Cypriot about the globe which exploits us, and nothing Cypriot about the world to which we must belong, to critique and oppose ecotechnics. Nancy’s philosophy states that ‘[t]he facticity of the world is its abandonment, abandonment by and abandonment to’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 11). We are abandoned to Cyprus and Cyprus is abandoned to a world of potentialities abandoned by the globe of militarist capitalism. Moreover, the abandonment of the world is ‘its poverty’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 11). Similarly, our abandonment in the world is our poverty, and the abandonment of Cyprus to the globe is the Cypriot poverty. ‘The world is never a possession, but an abandonment: the world is poor’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 11). However, this poverty is never equal to ‘misery’ – it is ‘being-abandoned as such’. Poverty is the ultimate nothingness from which the world of humans arises. We have no reason to be here: we are ‘coming from nothing, resting on nothing, going to nothing’ (Raffoul and Pettigrew in Nancy 2007: 11). This perspective of abandonment in nothingness gives rise to a new understanding of belonging. For so long, belonging has presupposed possession. The general tendency of ‘belonging so as to possess’ is still predominant in Cyprus, so much so that whenever we belong to Cyprus, Cyprus immediately belongs to us as our possession. That a sense of belonging must lead to a right to possession and appropriation is belied not only by Nancy’s formulation of the originary poverty of belonging to a world, but also by our extensive exposure to

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the global operation of capital and our own historical wrongs committed against our own so-called ethnic siblings.2 Historical traumas of intra-ethnic political murders and crimes expose the bitter fact that possessing Cyprus as the ‘belonging’ of a collective identity is possible only at the expense of banning undesirable political lives to a zone of non-belonging. Belonging to Cyprus is historically criminal because those who unproblematically belonged are either active or passive, through execution or inaction, accomplices in the crimes of coercing certain others into certain sites of non-belonging, such as exile or, more simply and brutally, death. Belonging to a non-Cypriot history reveals those who could not or were not allowed to belong to a Cypriot history. These ‘non-belongers’, murdered or mentally murdered by being forced into political silence, were expropriated from their own historical tasks (tasks that mainly aimed at achieving a leftist and nonTurkish/non-Greek Cypriot culture, only to tragically prove that any emphasis on Cypriotness inevitably cancels and contradicts the possibility of an internationalist-Leftist outlook). Their suppressed histories are sooner or later bound to remind us that we are deprived of any feeling of worldliness because we were not able or willing to provide the non-belongers with even a minimal world (microcosmos) called Cyprus. Their non-existence, imprinted as shadows on the dark pages of Cypriot historiographies, can also be told as the story of a world turning with and dispossessed by the circuit of capital: . . . capitalism (or any other name one wants to give the process that today dominates world history) [is] directed not only toward the expropriation of productive activity, but also and principally toward the alienation of language itself, of the very linguistic and communicative nature of humans, of that logos which one of Heraclitus’s fragments identified as the Common. [ . . . ] Even more than economic necessity and technological development, what drives the nations of the earth toward a single common destiny is the alienation from linguistic being, the uprooting of all peoples from their vital dwelling in language (Agamben 2005b: 80).

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What happened to the excluded Cypriots was precisely this uprooting of their historical existence from a vital dwelling in language. In terms of critical historical analysis, our impotentiality to (make Cyprus) belong to a ‘common’ world of language (or to the common language of a world) attests to our impotentiality to make the nonbelongers feel at home in the shared microcosmopolis of Cyprus. Their tragic unhomeliness/worldlessness haunts the future of our history; the future not solely of our Cypriot history, but primarily of our world history. The non-Cypriots are the members of a worldly deracination that rips our linguistic openness, our limitless potential to tell all sorts of non-censorable stories, from our tongues. Capital, in its latest manifestation, feeds upon the destructive accumulation of the open communicability of humans and Cyprus, as part of the globe, is no less vulnerable to this.

Non-Cypriot: Human as Infant History is not eternal / It is immediate / It taunts children / With what they will never achieve ‘Sub-Cypriots’ by Suzannah Mirghani (in Costello (ed) 2005: 32) This fragment from Cypriot Identities: Conversations on Paper, edited by Karen B. Costello, catches a glimpse of the meaning of being non-Cypriot, a manifestation of being-in-the-world, being-singularplural, being-with-one-another. Mirghani’s suggestion of the immediacy of history is reminiscent of the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka’s claim that ‘[h]istory is life that no longer takes itself for granted’ (Patočka 1996: back cover). This can be interpreted as follows: history is not past. History encompasses the whole field of temporality. We are not at a mediated distance when confronting history. We are inside it, engulfed by it; we cannot ignore its haunting impact on our lives. However, acknowledging the immediacy of history is not enough. How does this ever-present history taunt children with what they will never achieve? Who are the children of Cyprus taunted by history?

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If one takes a closer look at Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy of history, one sees an interesting link between Mirghani’s notion of ‘history taunting children with what they will never achieve’ and Agamben’s concept of ‘infancy’ which, of course, indicates a metaphorical/philosophical interpretation of the period of early childhood in human life. In his The Idea of Prose, Agamben invites us to: . . . imagine an infant . . . so completely abandoned to its own state of infancy, and so little specialised and totipotent that it rejects any specific destiny and any determined environment in order to hold onto its immaturity and helplessness . . . The neotenic infant . . . would find himself in the condition of being able to pay attention precisely to what has not been written, to somatic possibilities that are arbitrary and uncodified; in his infantile totipotency, he would be ecstatically overwhelmed, cast out of himself, not like other living beings into a specific adventure or environment, but for the first time into a world. He would truly be listening to being. His voice still free from any genetic prescription, and having absolutely nothing to say or express, sole animal of his kind, he could, like Adam, name things in his language. In naming, man is tied to infancy, he is forever linked to an openness that transcends every specific destiny and every genetic calling (Agamben 1995: 96–7). Infancy is a mode of existence that resists any communal incorporation and rejects any help from the world of adults who are well-identified and hence totally socialised people conforming to the determinations of hierarchical power. The infant knows no hierarchy; he knows only an-archy,3 precisely because of his innate impotence. In our historical environs, the concept of ‘Cypriot’ as an identity (irrespective of its Turkishness or Greekness) has been representing the maturity that completely forgets the possibility of infancy. Our common Cypriot historical language draws us into a web of ‘genetic prescription’ and political ‘destiny’. The problem with Cypriots is they know exactly what to say or express. Their voice is so much automated that nothing remains un-named/un-nameable on this island. This

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‘mature closure’ finds relief in the absolute knowledge of having been born in Cyprus to parents who were born in Cyprus, whose parents were also born in Cyprus, etc. As the number of generations linked by the chain of birth (a principal biopolitical referent) increases, the Cypriot can rest assured that his infancy has been abolished, that he is not a newcomer on this island, that there is a ‘genetic calling’ which mesmerises and binds him to a specific political destiny entailing a rightful claim to possess and rule Cyprus. This assurance is the reason why the unwritten history of ‘Cypriots killing each other’ acquires such great importance. The written portion of this thanato-historical Cypriotism includes the bloodshed caused by the inter-ethnic conflicts between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, which has so far been used as the dominant historiographical intervention aimed at cancelling the uncategorisable, infantile, contingent modality of the nonCypriot (as non-identity) that was violently swallowed by the more experienced, more ‘adult’ identities of Turk and Greek. The unwritten part of the Cypriot history, i.e., the unwritten history of the non-Cypriot, consists of more disturbing experiences. The non-Cypriot history mainly consists of a special kind of post-World War II violence, of the kind that Jacques Derrida generally defines as an ‘autoimmunary process’; ‘that strange behaviour where a living being, in quasi-suicidal fashion, “itself” works to destroy its own protection, to immunise itself against its “own” immunity’ (Derrida in Borradori 2003: 94). Put in more concrete terms, whenever those political crimes in Cyprus that involve the threatening-torturing-murdering of Turkish Cypriots by Turkish Cypriots and the threatening-torturing-murdering of Greek Cypriots by Greek Cypriots are named, written down and remembered as history, there immediately, in a sudden spark, appears, in his radical infancy and astounding simplicity, the non-Cypriot. Both the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot post-WWII political structures produced paramilitary sovereign machinations aimed at terrorising their own so-called ‘kin’ and coerced a considerable majority into conforming with this production of dispensable lives, and they ended up violating the so-called ‘purity’ of their own identities by targeting the ‘impure’ Cypriots: this shows that the geno-political claims of belonging to this island have been automatically delegitimised and

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eternally problematised due to the Cypriot unfolding of the twentiethcentury militarist-capitalist autoimmunary process. So, let’s re-read Mirghani’s lines: ‘[History] taunts children / With what they will never achieve’. The impossible task of the Cypriot history is to account for those infantile political subjects destroyed by the autoimmune identities of Turkish-and-Greek-Cypriotness. The patrimonial and censurer Cypriot history has two principal versions: (1) The Cypriot history that concentrates on the violence between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, determines the hormone-injected maturity of the infant Cypriot in reference to his Turkishness or Greekness, and thereby re-invites the political potential of a circulatory violence sustained by the fathering nationalisms; (2) the Cypriot history that concentrates on both inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic violence, cancels the Turkishness and Greekness of the infant Cypriot by making him desire patricide, creates the suspicious identity of the mature Cypriot through the memory of an imagined burden of Cypriot fratricide, and thereby adopts the political potential of an escalatory violence directed against the potential suspects of non-Cypriotness, such as Turks, Greeks, nonCypriot refugees and foreign migrants, etc. Both versions end up occupying the same dead spot, the dead spot of identity-violence. Therefore, the Cypriot history, a history whose subject is always an identity, taunts those children of Cyprus who have not been categorised under a proper identity with what they will never achieve, what they cannot actualise, what is their potential. The Cypriot history taunts the infants of Cyprus with the potentiality of abolishing the necessity of a political identity, the potentiality of seeking out ‘arbitrary’ and ‘uncodified’ political possibilities, being ‘ecstatically overwhelmed’, being ‘cast out of themselves’ not into a specified, determined ‘adventure’ or ‘environment’ of obsessive-compulsive violence, but into a world. In this world, the non-Cypriot will face the music of his historical failures, his political impotentiality, only to accomplish a condition of ‘paying attention to what has not been written’, paying attention to silenced names, definitions and facts, to accomplish an exposure to listening that nurtures itself with an interminable openness, and to accomplish the passion of political infancy. After all, ‘[i]t is only after a long and arduous frequenting of names, definitions, and facts that the spark is

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lit in the soul which, in inflaming it, marks the passage from passion to accomplishment’ (Agamben in Deladurantaye 2000: 3). The non-Cypriot must hear the voice of Ulus Baker, a thinker of de-territorialisation and de-identification: An assumption that is truly intolerable today is the idea that humans are wearing themselves out to possess a sense of belonging, an identity, a feeling of ‘we’, however symbolic, that will comfort them. Nature does not create nations, peoples, or even races; it produces only individuals and these individuals find their collective sense of belonging only afterwards. What is important, therefore, is the meaning of this ‘afterwards’, not the feeling of belonging or identity itself (Baker 2000: 188).4 We can and must measure the extent of our humanity (each one of us as individuals) only in the indeterminate openness of this ‘afterwards’, deprived of an inhibiting sense of belonging and identity; an ‘afterwards’ not simply for those individuals eager to achieve a new social contract naming the marketised obligations in a neoliberalised Cyprus, but for those individuals willing to make and keep a social promise and love a voluntary, ethical duty. Thus we can hear the true voice of the non-Cypriot only in the suspenseful silence of political infancy.

History, Potentiality, Contingency: In Defence of Conspiracy Thinking and the Feeling of Suspense Following the reflections of Giorgio Agamben, I would claim that history is an ‘experiment without truth’ (Agamben 1999: 259). History involves an ‘experience characterised by the disappearance of all relation to truth’ (Agamben 1999: 259–60). Therefore, my arguments concerning the potentiality of a non-Cypriot history do not aim at grasping the ascertained meaning of a true past. A rethinking of history requires experiments without truth precisely because in these experiments the concept of ‘truth’ itself is put to the test, tried, experimented with . . . The historical experimenter’s tampering with the authority of the concept of ‘truth’, his gaze towards the past looking

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for something more than, other than ‘truth’, shows that history is not a science, simply because science requires experiments with truth. A scientific experiment must find a truth, a truth attesting to the existence or visibility of something, whereas a historical experiment, in light of Agamben’s philosophy, must be a search for the potentiality of the past, a question of whether something simultaneously can be and cannot be, whether a past event actualised its ‘potentiality to be’ alongside its ‘potentiality not to be’, whether all we know as history could have been otherwise, whether it was and still is possible/potential for history to change, to be rearranged (Agamben 1999: 261–2). All of this is to say that history is nothing but a matter of contingency. What is contingency, then? It is not mere dependence on chance or an invading mist of uncertainty, because no accident is purely coincidental. What we call ‘contingent’ is ‘something whose opposite could have happened in the very moment in which it happened’ (Agamben 1999: 262). In other words, contingency is an affirmation of human freedom in history. With a conception of history as contingency, what is seen as necessary, inevitable and unchangeable to the backward glance towards the past is rendered optional, probable and changeable in the present. Therefore, to affirm the role of human freedom in history means to defend contingency in history against every determinate truth-claim. As Avicenna once suggested, ‘those who deny contingency should be tortured until they admit that they could also have not been tortured’ (Scotus in Agamben 1999: 263). It is imperative that we interpret this ironic suggestion as a way of stressing that cases of political crimes such as torture encapsulate and epitomise the radically contingent character of history. The historical truthfulness5 of humans who are exposed to torture, threats or other forms of political violence is something that can both be and not be attained. The reason for this political-criminological contingency is that political crimes call for a history that effectuates not only an experiment without truth but also an experiment with trauma. Trauma belies truth. It sets a barrier against remembrance; when it does not, it has the capacity to distort the factuality of the remembered past. This is precisely what has been experienced in the case of intra-ethnic violence in Cyprus. The subjects and witnesses of autoimmunary terror are so overwhelmed with an irreparable political-emotional complexity

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that they often unintentionally become the narrators of contradictory stories that can, under fluctuating circumstances, criminalise, or glorify, or disregard the involvement of certain unsavoury political actors in certain deplorable, or acceptable, or negligible political events. Therefore, the only truly redeemable veracity of a history of criminal politics that caused irredeemable pain is to be sought in the factual yet conflicting statements of contingency, in which this history is expressed as that which can both be and not be. Contingency does not simply utter regret or misfortune in the sense that what did happen could also have not happened. It is first and foremost a modality that makes it possible for history to be told in a plurality of singular manners and thereby helps nurture a feeling of suspense towards the fundamentalist notions of truth that legitimise infallible sovereign authorities. This feeling of suspense sustained by a knowledge of historical contingency sheds light on the modus operandi of a non-Cypriot history, an approach I call radical conspiracy thinking. In a non-Cypriot history empowered by conspiracy thinking and deprived of the Cypriot truths of identity thinking,6 a state of suspense must pre-empt any dogmatic stance feeding off the closure of an indisputable truth, and the confusing nature of what happened in the Cypriot history of intra-ethnic autoimmunity must be acknowledged and upheld. A critical and truthful history of Cyprus must take a prescriptive stance in favour of activating doubt, in order to comprehend the anomalies which structure the truth of the stable and normal identities of the Cypriot crime story. My use of the word ‘suspense’ simply takes its cue from the common feelings aroused by crime narratives, e.g., detective novels and thriller movies – anxiety, uncertainty, apprehension, suspicion. Contrary to the conventional conspiracy theories that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, know and categorise what is evil and who is enemy and envisage all-powerful entities that dominate every act and deed of freedom, radical conspiracy thinking attempts to locate the conniving free agents within the determining plots of sovereign networks comprising state bureaucracies, imperial policies, militarist caprices and capitalist intricacies. In a sense, the radical conspiracy thinking is basically critical theory with a special focus on detecting and judging political-criminal practices.

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In the context of the Cypriot case, Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State between 1973 and 1977, is the paradigmatic figure who, because of his foreign policy record, which is full of warmongering diplomatic twists, vindicates all by himself a conspiratorial reading of modern history not only in a Cypriot perspective, but also within a global Cold War framework. Here is the logistic personification of a nodal sovereign point that goes by the name of Kissinger and, when pronounced, exposes the linking of Cyprus with several other crime scenes of the ecotechnical network such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, and East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh). This exposition brings to daylight the non-Cypriotness of Cyprus, its being non-special, its simultaneous being-singular-as-Cyprus and being-plural-as-Cyprus-VietnamCambodia-Chile-Bangladesh. This man was the mastermind who maintained supportive relationships with the militarist-fascist ‘Regime of the Colonels’ in Greece, paved the way for the de facto dissolution of the Republic of Cyprus by watching silently, yet knowingly, the coup d’état organised by EOKA-B, caused the USA to become the first state to officially recognise the outrageously unjust Cypriot regime of bandits led by Nikos Sampson, and thereby conjured the Turkish military intervention. The task of we, the non-Cypriots, is to make the name ‘Kissinger’ our common code for the entry into the domain of a liberating feeling of suspense and a political disposition of suspicion where we evoke the sinister memory of an exemplary sovereign who knew how to invest militarist energies so as to accumulate capitalist earnings. Let ‘Kissinger’ be the black magic word that we invoke until the stigmata of conspiracy on the historical chain of command that reach down to the Cypriot level of responsibility become completely visible. And let’s remind ourselves constantly that whenever we utter ‘Kissinger’ we are not symbolising an omniscient, demonic presence outside our beingin-the-world, but exemplifying how a sovereign author can write down a destiny for us and entrust us with the wilful task of forgetting our priceless potentiality of being humans as infants, as those singularities ‘that cannot form a societas because they do not possess any identity to vindicate nor any bond of belonging for which to seek recognition’ (Agamben 2005b: 86). Let’s say ‘Kissinger’ and then shout out loud: ‘We are the conspirators. We are responsible . . . ’

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Judging the Past, Incriminating the Present: Contemporaneity, Jurisprudence When George W. Bush, the former sovereign of the USA, was asked, ‘How is history likely to judge your Iraq war?’ and he answered ‘History, we don’t know, we’ll all be dead,’ he was not being modest, imagining a future that has made peace with the emancipatory potential of an unpredictable history (‘History, we don’t know’) to be created by justice-loving yet furious revolutionaries and speculating on the likelihood of a cosmopolitan multitude’s tribunal that will read the death penalty verdict for him and his other sovereign companions (‘we’ll all be dead’). He was merely repeating the overrated opinion that history is not creative (potential), but already created (actual). To many sovereign interests around the globe for which the name ‘Bush’ is a singular and exemplary representative, a notion of ‘future history’ is an ineffective oxymoron, and the idea of a ‘future history judging a present war’ is absurd insofar as it is fictional. Even the possibility of ‘judging a past war in the light of a past history’ is a frustrating impossibility, for the trial of the paradigmatic name of ‘Kissinger’ has not materialised yet.7 In addition, the name ‘Bush’ is emblematic with regard to our latest failure to connect with the network of our singular-plural condemnation to/by militarist capitalism (or ecotechnics, or Empire, or worldwide neoliberal household, or the New World Order, or what have you) because the absence of Iraq and Afghanistan from our being-singular-plural-as-Cyprus-Vietnam-Cambodia-Chile-Bangladesh is glaring for those with the (micro)cosmopolitan and infantile eyes to see. We are incriminated in the present by our Cypriot inactivity or irresponsibility in the face of the post-September-11 constellation of good-versus-evil, our Cypriot inability to grasp and tell the world that in the war on terror good is evil.8 The lack of any noteworthy criticalpolitical stance against the anabolic militarism and violent capitalism of Al-Qaeda and the Bush administration is our Cypriot shame. What else could be the reason behind our weird Obama festivals other than our cold, rational maturity striving to repress this shame? Our incapacity to understand the global spectacularity and connectivity of the post-9/11 context, to comprehend the powerful contingent fact that

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both the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (along with all the other urban avenues of modernity which have become the ultimate battlegrounds of identity) were attacks and wars against us bears witness to our impotentiality to discover the non-Cypriotness of our Cypriot historical violence and political crimes. The horrible intra-ethnic political crimes committed by the Turkish/Greek Cypriots against other Turkish/Greek Cypriots (against nullifiedTurkish/Greek-Cypriots, non-Cypriots) are the common burden of a world which we do not have the courage to experience and inhabit through our irreparable non-belonging and irrevocable expropriation. We have been abandoned to a time vacuum, as if the year 1974 crystallised all we need to overcome. We must learn that 1996, the year of border violence, and 1997, the year of missiles, seen as perversions caused by 1974, are not temporal hieroglyphs that can provide direct access to the circumstances under which we have lost our innocence. We were never innocent. Fixed points in time cannot capture the pervasiveness of our historical responsibilities, but the concept of ‘contemporaneity’ can. The question of temporality – the question of the problematic and non-linear linkages of past, present and future – is the primary question that a critical-judgmental history of political crimes should deal with. It is a question that always already belongs to contemporaneity, the beingwith-one-another of past, present and future. That assuming responsibility for a past that we cannot easily reclaim persists in the present tense with the hope of redeeming a future from violence necessitates making our present and future political happiness and hope contemporary with our past desperation and sorrow. This impossible demand for conjoining bliss and sorrow, despair and hope pushes the Cypriots into a state of anxiety, because they believe that to make peace with ourselves the bridge between the bad past and the good present/future must indefinitely collapse. Therefore, the real border in Cyprus is not geographical, geopolitical, but (con)temporal, chronopolitical. We cannot judge the past mainly because we cannot afford to experience the fear of being incriminated in the present, being incriminated for/by what was supposed to be left behind and buried in secret, deep. However, a truly international – ‘before, across, and beyond any national determination’

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(Derrida 1994: 85) – political-criminological outlook must defend the bridge of contemporaneity so that we can see that our shameful crimes were non-Cypriot, not because the Cypriots were not criminals (they were), but because they belonged to a world of political crimes. This belonging ensures that whenever a Cypriot is judged for his bloody past, his penalisation will be of value as long as it serves as an example for the incrimination of present sovereign powers and puppets all around the world, as long as it inspires a cosmopolitan jurisprudence that will lay the groundwork for judging the global criminality inherent in militarist capitalism. And if the Cypriot understandably stands in awe and asks ‘Where is that criminality? I cannot see’, the non-Cypriot will kindly reply: We humans are not born with the backward glance of the historian, but with the forward stare of the jurisprudent. Freedom assigns us the task of foreseeing (prudent, prudens) a law (jus, juris) that will judge the unprecedented. Our present world, stuck between past and future, has no precedent. Nor does its everpresent criminality . . .

Prolegomena on the Crime Story of Militarist Capitalism in Cyprus Our non-Cypriotness emerges only in the double gesture of breaking the hard shell of the perception of Cyprus as a thoroughly local and self-absorbed unit and breaking the deceiving spell of the ideology of Cypriotism which tantalises the meek, fearsome hunger for a sense of belonging to a non-problematic, anti-humanist identity. What all forms of Cypriot identity thinking have never approached as an enabling political question is the question of the ‘international’. The fragments of thought presented in this chapter on the urgent topic of our need to belong to a non-Cypriot history must see to it that the virtue of non-Cypriotness ultimately resonates with Jacques Derrida’s practical call for a ‘New International’, which refers to a profound transformation, projected over a long term, of international law, of its concepts, and its field of intervention’ against the ‘crimes’ of ‘the law

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of the market, the “foreign debt,” the inequality of techno-scientific, military, and economic development’ (Derrida 1994: 84–5). We need a new International in its strictly Marxist sense, because one of the most successful ideological tricks of capitalism is being performed in Cyprus: the presentation of class differences and reflexes as ethnic, cultural, even ‘oriental’ divergences; the production of nationalist imaginaries as both symptoms of and fictitious antidotes to the ‘dissolution of former [material, class-based – MR] bonds of social solidarity under the impact of neoliberalism’ (Harvey 2005: 85). The ugly spectre of an insipid racist xenophobia haunts the Cypriot conceptual universe of identity and belonging. It needs to be exorcised with a disciplined critique of ‘Cyprus as a political-economic limbo’, with an awareness that capital unites Cyprus and capital has no problem with either the current Cyprus problem or a prospective Cyprus solution. Hence, the first legitimate question: Is Cyprus (whether the status quo persists or it becomes a federation, a unitary state, or two states) bound to be a united state(s) of capitalism? It is time to realise that modern Cyprus has always been an experimental and contingent site for the implementation of a series of emergency regimes, exceptional states dictated by the logic of an international (micro-global) civil war. Here, the first ethical step to be taken by today’s cosmopolitan Cypriot, who is, of course, the ‘nonCypriot-to-be’, is to ask questions using the terminology of Paul Virilio’s analysis of war: If ‘the Second World War never [legally] ended’9 and there is ‘no state of peace’ in the world, but only ‘Total Peace’, that is, ‘war pursued by other means’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 30–1), only the ‘war=peace’ formula of deterrence adopted by an ‘a-national military class’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 24), then can we assume the whole political space-time of Cyprus, even the ‘humpty dumpty’ rhetoric of peace, is ruled by the logic of permanent war, ‘Pure War, not the kind which is declared’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 27), but the kind that requires war ‘in its infinite preparation’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 92), ‘the total involvement of the economy in war – already beginning in peacetime’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 17)? Is peace in Cyprus bound to be the ossification of militarist capitalism in Cyprus, because ‘in an age of deterrence, the production of arms

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is already war’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 91)? Does the persistence of the global war economy implicate an era of ‘endo-colonization’ in Cyprus, that is ‘the colonization of one’s own territory’ that ‘underdevelops one’s own civilian economy’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 95) and creates an ideological ‘system in which military order dominates’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 96) and humans ‘don’t recognise the militarized part of their identity’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 26)? The second, by no means final, legitimate question: Is Cyprus (whether the status quo persists or it becomes a federation, a unitary state, or two states) bound to be a united state(s) of pure war and endo-colonisation? The crime story of militarist capitalism in Cyprus awaits its narrators . . .

Notes 1. Emphases are in the original text, unless otherwise stated. 2. Cyprus, known for its history of inter-ethnic violence from the late 1950s until 1974, has also experienced during the same period a wave of intra-ethnic violence (hence, the reference to the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot violence against Turkish Cypriots’ and Greek Cypriots’ respective ethnic siblings). The post-1974 ethno-political division of the island, on the other hand, must be considered against the background of a silent political economic consensus uniting the two communities: Both sides and their respective de facto and de jure state administrations have unquestioningly adopted and still continuously try to enhance the requirements of a free-market economy largely in line with the neoliberal world order. 3. An-archy here means that which is ‘without-rule’, ‘contingent’ and ‘undetermined,’ ‘as contrary to centralisation and authority,’ ‘. . . a tactical politics that seeks to disrupt power at certain nodal points of interconnecting networks . . . [and] actions [as documented by George Woodcock] that might ‘act like the stone precipitating an avalanche’ (1986: 285)’ (Curtis 2001: 176–7). 4. Translated from Turkish by MR. 5. By upholding the potentiality of historical ‘truthfulness’ right after denouncing the authoritarian role of ‘truth’ in history, my intention is to subvert Bernard Williams’s emphasis on the uneasy tension ‘between the pursuit of truthfulness and the doubt that there is (really) any truth to be found’ (Williams 2002: 2). That ‘[t]he desire for truthfulness drives a process of criticism which weakens the assurance that there is any secure or unqualifiedly

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stateable truth’ (Williams 2002: 1) does not sound paradoxical at all when we consider the possibility that the concepts of truthfulness and truth are meaningful only in the existence of singularities (as opposed to identities). Singularity – that which is different in itself, not in contrast with something else – is ‘freed from the false dilemma that obliges knowledge to choose between the ineffability of the individual [unsustainable truthfulness] and the intelligibility of the universal [dogmatic truth]’ (Agamben 2005b: 1). Theodor Adorno correctly observes that ‘identarian [identity] thinking says what something comes under, what it exemplifies or represents, and what, accordingly, it is not itself’ (Adorno 1990: 149). Conversely, a non-Cypriot conspiracy thinking as ‘non-identity thinking’ tries to grasp how complex, de-localised networks of power enforce the erasure of those singular expositions which represent for the sovereign Cypriot what is not itself. The recent history of Augusto Pinochet’s arrest and trial shows the specific weaknesses of the ideal of universal jurisdiction. As stated by Nancy: ‘If “September 11” has made one thing clear, it is this: the world is tearing itself apart along an intolerable division of wealth and power . . . [T]he world of what I call ecotechnics . . . causes disparities or inequalities that openly violate its principles of equality and justice to seem intolerable’ (Nancy 2004: 108). In the war on terror, good is evil precisely because both generate wealth, misery, inequalities and injustice, and both fight within the hegemonic contours of militarist capitalism. The radical conspiracy thinking encourages us to declare that the Cold War, too, never ended. Neither the ‘nuclear bomb’ (Virilio and Lotringer, 1997: 23), nor the ‘a-national military class’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 24), nor the ‘war-machine’ (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 25) have disappeared.

References Adorno, Theodor. 1990. Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton. London: Routledge. Agamben, Giorgio. 1995. The Idea of Prose, trans. Michael Sullivan and Sam Whitsitt. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ——. 1999. Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy, ed. and trans. with an introduction by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ——. 2005a. State of Exception, trans. Kevin Attell. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ——. 2005b. The Coming Community, trans. Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Baker, Ulus. 2000. Aşındırma Denemeleri. İstanbul: Birikim Yayınlari. Beiner, R. (ed.) 1999. Theorizing Nationalism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Borradori, G. 2003. Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Costello, Karen B. (ed.) 2005. Cypriot Identities: Conversations on Paper. Nicosia: Intercollege Press. Curtis, N. 2001. Against Autonomy: Lyotard, Judgement and Action. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. De Certeau, Michel. 1986. Heterologies: Discourse on the Other. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Deladurantaye, L. 2000. “Agamben’s potentia,” diacritics 30 (2), pp. 3–24. Derrida, Jacques. 1994. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf, with an introduction by Bernard Magnus and Stephen Cullenberg. New York, NY: Routledge. Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. James, Wolcott. 2008. ‘How Bush Stacks Up’ in Vanity Fair, February 2008, http://vnty.fr/yKBNRv. Nabokov, Vladimir. 1990. Bend Sinister. Vintage International. Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2000. Being Singular Plural, trans. Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ——. 2004. “Of the one, of hierarchy,” trans. Cory Sockwell, Cultural Critique 57, pp. 108–110. ——. 2007. The Creation of the World or Globalization, trans. and with an introduction by François Raffoul and David Pettigrew. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Patočka, J. 1996. Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, trans. Erazim Kohák, ed. James Dodd. Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company. Virilio P. and Lotringer, S. 1997. Pure War, trans. Mark Polizzotti and Brian O’Keeffe. New York: Semiotext(e). Williams, Bernard. 2002. Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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10 TRUTH, MEMORY AND THE CYPR IOT JOUR NEY TOWAR DS A NEW PAST Catia Galatariotou

Introduction From the mid-1950s onwards, Cypriot society slid into a process of disintegration and fragmentation, culminating in the catastrophic breakdown that was the 1974 war and its consequences. All historical vicissitudes are inevitably intertwined with psychological processes and states of mind. In Cyprus from the mid-1950s onwards these became increasingly pathological, partly because they were products and catalysts of manifold and un-worked through traumatic experience, the concentrated trauma of the 1974 war being bookended by the long-term strain and cumulative traumatisation which preceded and then followed – and in many ways intensified after – the war.1 In previous publications I sought to identify and explore some of the psychic processes and states of mind which came to characterise this process of psychosocial self-destruction (a process unique to Cyprus only in its local specificities): memory distortion, a detached state of mind, unleashing of primitive anxieties, employment of primitive defences, unconscious guilt, the impossibility of mourning and

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the employment of ‘false metaphor’, which both hid and elicited genocidal thinking (Galatariotou 2006b, 2008). This chapter is concerned with the reverse of this disintegrative process, with the progressive shift towards psychic reparation and the emergence of a healthier, less pathological psychosocial equilibrium. Focusing on one aspect of this process, this chapter discusses some major psychological difficulties encountered in the attempt to achieve a truthful relating to the Past, following the conflictrelated establishment of a distorted, partial, false representation of the Past. Being a social historian and a practicing psychoanalyst, I have used material both from history and from theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis.2 Implicit in my methodological approach is the understanding that many difficulties in revisiting the Past are essentially identical in the individual and in society. This is not an uncontroversial view, but this isn’t the place for debating it. I therefore confine myself to the proposal that mass and individual psychology can diverge widely, but this does not eliminate the existence of a very extensive common ground upon which essentially the same psychic dynamics and processes occur in the individual and in a group, producing with near-mathematical accuracy the same results even after mass psychological considerations have been taken into account. The present chapter focuses on situations straddling this common ground.

Some Notes on Reality, Truth, Trauma and ‘Collective Psychosocial Positions’ Truth and Reality. Psychoanalysts work with two levels of reality and, therefore, with two experiences of truth: external, ‘historical,’ ‘objective’ reality, referable to the common-sense or natural scientific view of external phenomena which are ‘real’ or ‘really there’, and internal, psychical, subjective reality. Rooted in the Unconscious, psychic reality follows its own rules and primitive, primary-process functioning – disregarding external reality and acculturation – and comprises mental phenomena (instinctual urges, unconscious fantasies, thoughts, memories, affects) which are dynamically and consequentially interrelated and in their

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own way also ‘real’. Internal and external realities interact with and influence each other extensively: the objectivity of external reality is compromised by the inevitable subjectivity of its conscious and unconscious interpretation; the subjectivity of psychic reality is compromised by the reality principle, which takes into consequential account external realities. It is precisely on the dynamism of the interactive interdependence of inner and outer reality and truth that all intra-psychic and psychosocial change is predicated. Past, Present, and Trauma. Current thoughts, attitudes, responses, expectations, beliefs, ways of relating . . . all contain, recall and reproduce the Past. In crucial ways the Past lives in the Present, and the Present relives and (re)interprets the Past. In normality, however, there is extensive (albeit relative and often post-reflective) conscious awareness of temporal differentiation. In contrast, when a traumatic experience has not been worked through in the mind, Past and Present become fixed at the point of trauma: in a collapse of temporal differentiation the subject (person or collective) does not so much recall the traumatic experience as lives in it and remains fundamentally defined by it – it finds surface expression through the near compulsive reliving of the experience in consciousness or, when the experience has been repressed or otherwise ‘forgotten’, in other symptomatic ways, including repetitive acting out. ‘He reproduces it not as memory but as an action: he repeats without of course knowing that he is repeating it’ (Freud 2001: 147–56). In a good outcome the working-through of traumatic experience establishes a normal differentiation between Past and Present, and so helps free the self from the grip of the traumatic experience and eliminate or at least reduce remembering-through-repeating. This is hugely important, for a Past ‘forgotten’ or unknown is one from which we can learn nothing and will therefore easily repeat, whereas a Past truthfully remembered and understood is more likely to remain in the Past, rather than be repeated in the Future. Collective psychic positions. Psychoanalytic thinking about individual psychic development and states of mind can help us conceptualize dynamics in both static and transitional, developmentally shifting psychosocial situations. The work of Melanie Klein provides a

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particularly useful tool in this regard. Referring to the individual, Klein identified two different general states of mind which she called psychic positions, describing the two most important as the paranoidschizoid position and the depressive position.3 Following and extending Klein’s conceptualization, I understand different collective states of mind as systemic, each comprising a characteristic constellation of object relations,4 anxieties and defences.5 Diverging from Klein, I ascribe a much bigger role to the impact of external realities on the mind than she appears to, and to that of group processes. The resultant model of collective psychic positions can help us conceptualize and evaluate psychosocial states of mind. It forms the backbone of the theoretical contextualization of this chapter and is briefly outlined below. A collective subject (a group/community/society) in the grip of the paranoid-schizoid position experiences extreme persecutory anxieties, including annihilation anxiety. Against these it deploys primitive modes of psychic defence, especially splitting of the collective self and of the collective object into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ parts, and projecting its own destructive (including self-destructive) impulses onto the now all-bad, persecutory object. Such processes lead to the loss of parts of the self and of the object in the subject’s mind, impoverishing both. Experiencing the object as wholly bad and persecutory, the subject attacks the Other mercilessly in external reality and/or in fantasy while, bearing a severe, punishing superego (e.g., through introjection of the bad object), the subject is engulfed by paranoid anxiety (the dread of being attacked by the bad object). Such a war-like psychic situation leaves no room for feelings of concern for the object, of responsibility and guilt, nor does it leave room for reflection or reparation. Instead, omnipotence, triumphalism and cruelty are all characteristic features of this position. Thus the collective paranoid-schizoid psychosocial position is a closed system, a primitive and self-perpetuating vicious circle. It is regressed into with terrifying clarity and absolute regularity in times of war and war-readiness. From the mid-1950s onwards, in temporally varying degrees of intensity, it became the dominant psychosocial position in the Cypriot inter-communal environment in the public domain and in much of the population.

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The depressive position represents a progressive shift from the previous position. Here, realizing the damage it has inflicted on the Other through its previous attacks (and by extension on itself), the subject experiences depressive feelings and a wish to repair the damage done. It now relates to its objects as ‘whole objects’ which combine both good and bad characteristics, and towards which it can hold mixed and ambivalent feelings. It is capable of feelings of concern, of responsibility and guilt with regard to the formerly only-hated Other, and of acknowledgment and gratitude for the Other’s good and useful aspects; it can mourn and so, finally, relinquish its losses. Cypriot society is currently manifesting both paranoid-schizoid and depressive states of mind in its inter-communal relating, on either side of its geopolitically split self: some individuals and group formations continue to remain in an essentially paranoid-schizoid psychosocial position, while others have either shifted to a depressive position or now feel able to articulate it publicly after years of feeling forced to express it privately. This is a progressive development, considering that it was only after the opening of the dividing line in April 2003 that, in public at least, the dominance of the paranoid-schizoid position began to erode.

Difficulties in Revisiting the Past Rethinking the Past plays an important, catalytic role in progressive psychosocial development and depends, crucially, on the psychosocial environment in which it is attempted. A collective in the paranoidschizoid position has no psychic context in which to revisit the Past in a meaningful way; it can only afford a sterile repetition of a given, monolithic, necessarily false (because it is partial and paranoiacallyinclined) (mis)representation of the Past. In contrast, the quality of object relations and affects engendered in the depressive position means the encounter with the Past will inevitably lead to a reassessment of it: the mental representation of self and Other will shift and change, becoming less distorted, less partial, hence altogether less false and more real as external and internal psychic realities acknowledge and accommodate each other. Thus the collective psychosocial position in which the attempted revisiting of the Past occurs will determine

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whether this will be a true and creative journey leading to the renarrating of what will effectively emerge as a New, less pathologically bound representation of the Past, or whether it will be a false, facile, ultimately barren, even potentially destructive enterprise. What is certain is that any journey into an un-worked through traumatic Past is bound to be complex, painful and difficult. Below I discuss six such difficulties. Their interrelatedness is subsequently exemplified through a discussion of Greek Cypriot responses to a 2009 circumstantially-enforced revisiting of a 1974 war incident. 1. Resistance to change. Psychic change (and therefore psychosocial change, too) is always resisted, even when it is consciously wished for. This is because the subject subliminally knows the inquiry and acquisition of insight which are the necessary precursors of real change will necessarily disturb the mind’s most precious possession – its equilibrium. In the worst instance, resistance to change is due to the dread that change will lead not to an inevitable (and also transitional) disturbance, but to a total loss of psychic equilibrium with irreversibly catastrophic consequences. Such a dread is widespread in Cypriot society on both sides of the divide. It is the combined product of conscious and unconscious primitive fantasies of annihilation and responses to un-worked through traumatic experience, both nurtured and ‘rationalised’ by long years of a relentless nationalist propaganda catalytically supportive of the paranoid-schizoid psychosocial position. In such circumstances, when the underlying dread is dominant, every piece of insight, every piece of new knowledge, every move forward will be resisted. And because unconscious factors play a dynamic role, rational argumentation does not always lead to a shift in one group’s perspective, for it does not necessarily address the unconscious fear-filled fantasies that feed resistance to change; nor, therefore, is it likely to succeed in making one group’s position comprehensible to the other. The furore over the Cypriot history schoolbooks is a case in point. Resistance to even the exploration of the idea of a new history book implies resistance to rethinking and reassessing issues of individual and collective identity, of true and false belief, of responsibility, guilt,

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loss, of mourning and letting go – in short, to a true revisiting of the Past. This is so because it is well understood, if only subliminally, that such revisiting will challenge and change a psychosocial equilibrium which had been experienced by individuals and groups as the single anchoring, coherent mental system that helped see them through great adversity. The idea of losing what was for long and difficult years taken to be the Known and True Past stirs the dread of a catastrophic loss of equilibrium and is accordingly powerfully resisted. 2. Core-complex situations. Psychosocial situations may manifest what Mervin Glasser identified as ‘the core complex’. This describes the psychic phenomenon in which, upon achieving a longed-for closeness to the object, the subject perversely and violently withdraws from it, destroying all contact. This is because in the subject’s pathological mind closeness triggers primitive anxieties of engulfment and annihilation by the Other, propelling the subject into a violently attacking retreat from the object (Glasser 1979, 1986). The conceptualisation of the core-complex, originally referring to perverse intra- and interpersonal situations, lends itself to wider collective application: the psychic movement it describes also occurs in psychosocial encounters with any object, such as a collective, an idea, a truth. The conceptualisation of a violent withdrawal from a longed-for object, as a result of a primitive near-compulsive claustrophobic reaction to close contact with it, may help us think through, for instance, why so many Greek Cypriots are obsessively preoccupied with ‘what happened’ in 1974 (insisting, e.g., that ‘The Cyprus File’ – a mythical construct – be opened so that we all finally get to know what happened in 1974), yet violently reject, in a fury of aggressive denial, incontrovertible pieces of evidence of ‘what really happened’ when these are made accessible to them, as the discussion of the Tziaos Five (below) illustrates. Both these psychic situations – the dread of a catastrophic loss of equilibrium and core-complex responses – go some way towards explaining why fears of engulfment and annihilation by the Other invariably surface, albeit in a rationalised form, in discussions, e.g., with those opposing a non-partisan exploration of the Cypriot inter-communal past. 3. The Truth of External Reality. Establishing the truth of external reality – facts, figures, events – seems simple and straight-forward

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enough, yet it is no more so in Cyprus than in any society which underwent similar processes of self-destruction. In Cyprus, from the 1950s onwards, a well-documented and discussed assault led to the hiding, distortion and inaccessibility of external truths regarding inter-communal matters.6 As a result, important historical events in Cyprus’ inter-communal history remain muddled and disputed, thus in a profound sense unknown to the collective mind. For instance: • What really happened in the Nicosia General Hospital on Christmas Eve 1963? H. S. Gibbons reported that 21 Turkish Cypriot patients were murdered in their beds or after abduction. This is a fact for Turkish Cypriots but not necessarily for Greek Cypriots. Characteristically, the 2006 account of a highly reliable, well-intentioned Greek Cypriot source concludes that three Turkish Cypriots died; two were shot by a lone ‘psychopath’, the third died of a heart attack (Gibbons 1997: 113; Soulioti 2006: 351–3; Sant Cassia 2005: 28, 32, 36–7, n. 12). • What is the truth about the Akritas Plan? Its authenticity is no longer disputed in Greek Cypriot sources (Soulioti 2006: 275–81), but its true meaning certainly is. When the Turkish Cypriot leadership insisted the plan was a blueprint for genocide, did they really believe this? Were they cynically and opportunistically exploitative? And in either case, were they in fact correct in their public interpretation regarding the intentions of the plan’s authors? These are only two examples amongst a multitude that have accumulated over the years. Merely to fill gaps and correct factual distortions in Cyprus’ inter-communal history is a task as arduous as it is urgent. The compilation of primary source archival material containing external truth at a basic, factual level, as bare and un-interpreted – therefore nonjudgmental – as possible, is a fundamental, primary task. Beyond this, a modern Cypriot historiography which is explicitly cognisant of the possibilities of its interpretative subjectivity is also hugely important. 4. Memory and External Reality. In the quest for factual objective truth, to what extent can historiography rely on memory and oral transmission alone for the verification of external events?

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In the first instance, memory lays claim to be a primary and most reliable witness to external events, but this is not necessarily so. For whatever we receive from the external world, we filter, edit, process, hold on to or let go of, partially or wholly, without giving it one single conscious thought. Remembering is the outcome of an unconscious interpretative and reconstructive process, rather than the accessing of an objectively accurate record of an event. There is thus no way of knowing for sure whether our remembering and narrating of an external event is an accurate record of it as it really happened, or whether what is reconstructed in the recalling and the telling is the ‘psychical object’, an outcome of a person’s external perception filtered through his feelings and fantasies (fears, illusions, wishful or catastrophic projections, and so on). And the question of degree is ever relevant: one’s memory of an event may be – indeed, it usually is – accurate to an extent, distorted or embellished to another. All these considerations apply with particular force in situations of shock and trauma. Here is a recent example from another country. Three months after the 7 July 2005 London bombings, 300 London students – 150 British and 150 Swedes – were questioned about the Tavistock Square bombing of a bus. None of them had witnessed the event firsthand. They were asked what they remembered of three things: television footage of the aftermath of the bomb; CCTV images of the explosion, and a computer reconstruction of the event. What they were not told was that there had been no CCTV images and no computer reconstruction. Nonetheless, four out of ten students ‘remembered’ seeing them; some embellished their accounts with details they could not have possibly witnessed anyway. That the percentage of British students with false memories was much higher than that of the Swedes (with the former at 40 per cent for CCTV images and 28 per cent for the reconstruction, the latter at 16 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively) seems to suggest that those with greater emotional investment in the event (here, through membership in the targeted group) were much more likely to develop false memories about it, presumably because they were all the more shocked and traumatised by it.7 In a similar albeit amplified way, the recollections of a Cypriot witness to an event from the 1960s conflicts or the 1974 war will certainly be

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accurate in terms of his/her own psychic reality, but may or may not be so in terms of external reality. At the more psychoanalytic level, two cases from my analytic practice come to mind whose essential psychological configurations have parallel collective equivalence. Ms. A and Ms. B were two adult psychoanalytic patients, both with very traumatic childhoods. Ms. A entered analysis with a firm belief that as a child she had been sexually abused by her father – a belief supported, she thought, by fragments of vague, confused, but also highly suggestive memories. By the time analysis had run its course, however, Ms. A had established that the abuse she had undoubtedly suffered as a child had not been sexual. She had alighted on the specific formulation of sexual abuse for many unconscious reasons, above all because it gave singular and specific form to a cumulative emotional and physical abuse which had been carried out mostly through the nebulous, intractable detailing and general atmosphere of daily life in a bleak home. Ms. A created in unconscious fantasy and then ‘recalled’ in consciousness the ‘event’ of a specifically sexual abuse in her attempt to understand, rationalise and explain her psychic suffering by ascribing it to one specific source. In contrast, Ms. B came to analysis without any conscious inkling that she had suffered sexual abuse as a child. Yet in the process of analysis it gradually emerged that she had been raped, aged nine, by a fourteen-year-old cousin. She had repressed the event which, once retrieved into consciousness, she now recalled in crystal clear detail. This was an objective fact she had kept secret from herself, a fact she had repressed because of the combination of its traumatic nature and her inability to work it through in her mind at the time. Ms. B’s journey towards truth took the opposite direction to Ms. A’s: she had to understand why she had forgotten an event which had terrible, ongoing and dynamic repercussions on her life, and which had been ‘remembered’ through years of repression in the displaced and disguised form of debilitating symptoms, including compulsively repetitive acts of self-destructiveness (Galatariotou 2006a: 2–12). These are two of many instances bearing out the observation that psychoanalysis is often ‘the study of the mind’s capacity to deceive

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itself’ (Mollon 2000). From my clinical practice alone, Ms. A and Ms. B’s stories stand next to a number of others like them. While in many more cases an event recalled at the beginning will in the course of the analytic journey be clarified, worked through, understood, reinterpreted and experienced differently, its factual accuracy will remain the same because it really did happen in the factual way in which it was always remembered. The obvious conclusion to draw from this small but typical clinical picture is that memory is an unreliable witness of external reality but an unfailing recorder of psychic reality. The importance of this for anyone relying on oral accounts of past experience for historiographical purposes cannot be overestimated. I am not suggesting that oral history is a history of events that never really happened, or that because they are susceptible to distortions and contaminations memory and oral transmission are so unreliable as to be useless. I am, rather, making a plea for a measure of doubt, leaving open the possibility that a thing remembered may or may not have happened, wholly or partially. The task of the psychoanalyst, Ricoeur (1970) wrote, is to hold concurrently ‘the willingness to listen, the willingness to suspect’. The oral historian would do well to take up the same challenge. 5. The De-signification of Memory. If the aim is to enable a genuine encounter with the Past and a concomitant progressive psychosocial shift, then even the factually correct recollection and knowledge of events is not enough – the quality of remembering is paramount. This is because it is possible to recall external reality accurately and clearly but to obliterate the psychic reality once intertwined with it and thus denude an event of its emotional significance. In psychical terms, such drastically impoverished remembering counts for next to nothing. Once external and internal realities have been decoupled in this way, one is prone to fall into what Freud described as ‘the strange state of mind, where one knows and does not know a thing at the same time’ (Breuer and Freud 2000: 177, n. 1); a collective in this state of mind will likely be unable to allow an unwanted external reality to become a meaningful part of its psychic reality, even when it cognitively knows it.8 I will illustrate with reference to another clinical case whose essential psychological configuration has, again, parallel collective equivalence.

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Mr. A came to analysis feeling ‘wooden’, ‘dead’, ‘not fully alive’, ‘not fully actualised’. At the opening phase of his analysis he narrated the traumas of his early life: his father had left home when Mr. A was ten and disappeared; his mother had been severely alcoholic and had suffered psychotic breakdowns necessitating repeated hospitalisation – at home he had been the butt of her emotional and physical fury; at school he found himself isolated and severely bullied, and so on. What struck me over the first few months of analysis, when Mr. A repeatedly returned to this narrative, was the neutral, detached way in which he stated these events, as if this was a story and a character of little or no significance to him. Mr. A had not repressed these historical events. He did not need psychoanalysis to retrieve them from the depths of his memory, but what he had unconsciously done was denude them of emotional significance. Ron Britton writes: ‘If we give significance to people, facts and memories, they accumulate importance; if we withhold significance we neutralize events and recollections: when we cathect we give signification, when we decathect we remove it’ (Britton 2008). Mr. A had employed the kind of unconscious de-signification Britton talks about. He knew the facts, but he did not feel them. As a result, the events – the history of his life, in effect – were not really known to him. The repercussions of this ‘aphanisis’ of emotional signification from the recalled events in Mr. A’s mind were deep and manifold. The events themselves had remained frozen in his memory and had become ‘unprocess-able’ psychic material. He was unable to make any meaningful links between the events of his life, their emotional significance, and the endless ways in which they had shaped the course of his inner life: he was unable to make links between Past and Present, and whole swathes of his emotional life present and past, which had associative links to feelings (e.g., of vulnerability, helplessness, humiliation, annihilation, concern, reparation, love) had become inaccessible to him. As a result he was unable to ‘read’ many of his own and others’ feelings; his capacity for communication and empathy were seriously impaired, his psychic growth and development stunted.9 Mr. A’s presenting symptoms, especially the repercussions of knowing and not knowing and of de-signification of memory, resonate

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deeply with a state of mind which is widespread in Cyprus. People may know cognitively ‘what happened’, but they do not always feel the event they refer to in a meaningful, empathic way, either as it happened to them or, especially, as it happened to the Other. This state of mind becomes intractable when it is underpinned by defences against unconscious guilt, shame, and humiliation, and when it is bolstered by false beliefs, by definition an enemy of truth. 6. True and False Beliefs. As Hanna Segal put it, the purpose of psychoanalysis is to replace lies and cover ups defensively woven around the truth with that truth.10 Segal was echoing Freud, who posited as primary traits of Psychoanalysis ‘submission to the truth and rejection of illusions’, implying that truth is therapeutic even when disturbing and unwelcome (Britton 2008). Yet many of us remain ambivalent about the truth; many, perhaps most people, are unsure whether they would be better off knowing it. Even worse, there are those who believe they do know it, that they possess it, and they are outraged at attempts to change it and substitute it with what, to them, will perforce be a false belief. It is therefore important to clarify what is a ‘false belief’. Distinguishing sharply between true and false belief, Freud described a belief as ‘an illusion’ when it is motivated to a large extent by wish-fulfilment. Then the reality principle is suspended and objective verification becomes irrelevant. As Britton further elaborates, a false belief is a belief based on denial, held in order to keep another, unwelcome belief at bay. Furthermore, a belief attached to a fantasy or an idea is treated as fact; this fact, I would add, is experienced by the believer not as man-made, but as natural. Indeed, a belief ‘naturalises’ its fundamental tenets to such an extent that it becomes unthinkable for the believer to question it (Bourdieu 1977: 164–9, 188). Gramsci caught the essence of this when he wrote that ideologies create ‘the belief about everything that exists that it is “natural”, that it should exist, that it could not do otherwise than exist’ (Gramsci 1971: 157; also 206–76, 348–51). Instead, as Britton describes, a vicious circle is instituted in which anxiety generated by the denial of external reality increases the tenacity with which the false belief is held – objectivity is lost, false justification rationalised, and violence is justified as the only means of enforcing the belief. The Cypriot beliefs in enosis and

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taksim illustrate the point. They were held in the mind not as political ideas to be thought about, negotiated and, if need be, satisfied through compromise, but as illusory, false beliefs in the restoration of what was propagated to be the Natural Order of things: not just a Union but rather the longed for re-Union of a stolen child with its mother-country. As such, enosis and taksim came to be held in defiant disregard of the reality principle,11 their attempted violent enforcement by EOKA and TMT falsely justified as idealism-in-action. By now belief in enosis, at least, has been quietly abandoned by most Greek Cypriots, who were shocked by its indirect results and finally bowed to the reality principle. In contrast, other false beliefs remain entrenched in the collective mind. Such an example is the Greek Cypriot belief that the events of 1974 were the result of an Anglo-American conspiracy with Turkey and/or the Greek junta: ‘NATO, CIA, Prodosia [treason]’ became a ubiquitous wall graffiti and rallying cry in demonstrations, the belief persisting despite a mountain of factual evidence disproving it.12 A quieter illustration of the creation and tenacity of false belief in Cyprus is provided by a curious phenomenon which has puzzled many observers, namely that even in the midst of the terrible days of the war, and consistently afterwards, Greek Cypriots maintained that those who committed the worst atrocities against them – who murdered POWs and civilians of all ages and both genders, who raped and looted and vandalized – were not Turkish Cypriots but Turks from Turkey. This belief persisted over the years, despite the fact that more recently published evidence (including in newspapers) clearly suggests that most of the worst atrocities were committed not by mainland armies but by Cypriots: Turkish Cypriots against Greek Cypriots, Greek Cypriots against Turkish Cypriots. That it was Turks from Turkey who committed the worst atrocities against Greek Cypriots, then, is an illusion, a false belief held in denial of external reality (Asmussen 2008: 265–280). The understanding that anxiety generated by the unconscious knowledge of this false belief strengthens the tenacity with which it is held . . . this goes some way towards explaining its persistence, but this tenacity is also due to the psychic purposes served by the creation and maintenance of this false belief.

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It seems that in 1974, in the midst of a catastrophe which to them was incomprehensible, a sense of ancient, long-lost collective identity encompassing all Cypriots emerged in the mind of many Greek Cypriots. In that context they idealised all Cypriots and the intercommunal relations between them: it was only after 1974 that I first heard that ‘we lived like brothers’; only then did I hear Greek Cypriots claim that they knew the Turkish Cypriots, that they are good people, that they are just like us, that they would never do such terrible things . . . Since this illusion demanded that all Cypriots were essentially good, thus responsibility and guilt for atrocities was split off and projected onto outsiders, barbaric invaders from across the sea. For Cypriots to accept that it was mostly they who did this to each other, neighbour to neighbour, is a difficult and painful truth. When extreme aggression is removed from the mental representation of the Turkish Cypriots in the Greek Cypriot mind, so the fiction of a past brotherly coexistence also removes any motive the Turkish Cypriots might have had for acts of extreme aggression. Conveniently, absolving Turkish Cypriots of extreme aggression against Greek Cypriots also absolves Greek Cypriots of their own extreme aggressive and repressive acts against Turkish Cypriots. It allows them to deny responsibility for their actions or those of members of their group for which they also feel at least unconsciously responsible. A lot of psychic work needs to be done before a false belief gives way to truth. Yet such acceptance of truth, based on the acquisition of truthful knowledge of the Past, as it is experienced by the self and also, especially, by the Other, will lead to a true equalisation between the Cypriot Greeks and Turks. That we can be not only as good as each other, but also as bad – as murderous, as opportunistic, as prone to pillaging and raping – as the Other: This acceptance humanises the previously demonised or idealised Other and dismantles illusions about both Us and Them. Such a shift from illusion to truthfulness, accompanied by an accumulation of other such apparently small yet enormously important psychic acts, finally begins to make the incomprehensible comprehensible by removing some otherwise impossible to account for contradictions. If for instance, we really did live ‘like brothers’, how come some of our brothers hated us so? Where did their feelings of revenge, narcissistic rage and triumphalism come from?

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Case Discussion: The Tziaos Five Difficulties in revisiting the Past are closely intertwined and typically appear in clusters, as the following case illustrates. The basic facts of the case as far as we know them are as follows. During the 1974 war, Greek Cypriot soldiers and irregulars held the Turkish Cypriot village of Serdarlı (Tziaos to the Greek Cypriots) from 20 July until 14 August, when it was taken by Turkish army forces. A group of five Greek Cypriot soldiers surrendered to an advancing Turkish tank division, who handed them over to a group of Turkish Cypriot fighters for detention. Moments after their departure, the Turkish soldiers heard shooting. They returned to find that the Turkish Cypriots had shot the five Greek Cypriot soldiers dead (to the fury of Turkish army commander Hakkı Borataş). The five were buried in a shallow grave in situ. Soon after the killings two Turkish photographers embedded with the Turkish army, Ergin Konuksever and Adem Yavuz, were captured by Greek Cypriot forces. Konuksever’s three cameras and eleven rolls of film containing some 100 photographs (including photographs of the five dead and their burial) were confiscated. They were developed by a Greek Cypriot photographer and subsequently disappeared, except for a small number.13 In early September 1974 a few of them appeared in the Greek Cypriot newspaper Mahi: they show the five captured soldiers kneeling, unarmed, bedraggled, hands behind their heads, surrounded by Turkish troops; in one photograph they are offered water, in another a cigarette. The photos were to be reprinted innumerable times as the five entered the lists of the missing and became symbolic of the struggle of relatives of missing persons. The truth about the fate of the five was publicly disclosed only 35 years later when their remains were found; their DNA was identified, and they were returned to their families for customary burial in August 2009. When the story broke, information and reactions poured forth in the Greek Cypriot press. Due to space limitation I will only refer to coverage in two newspapers, Politis and Phileleftheros, in the period 11–23 August, when the case was intensely discussed. The difficulty of establishing the truth of external reality was abundantly manifested. It became clear that over the years the truth

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had been known to many Greek Cypriots, including army and government officials; that the cynical – and to the relatives extremely cruel – suppression of information enabled the continuous use of the case for Greek Cypriot propaganda purposes; that the truth remained hidden from the Greek Cypriot public despite the accumulation of mutually corroborative evidence from a number of sources: Ergin Konuksever,14 Turkish army commander Hakkı Borataş,15 Turkish army officer Ersel Kayan,16 Tziaos Turkish Cypriots17 and Greek Cypriot soldiers at Tziaos in 1974. Turkish and Turkish Cypriot witnesses gave the Turkish Cypriot killers’ motive as revenge for Greek Cypriot killings of Turkish Cypriots (variably specified as a brother/ sister/father),18 as corroborated by Greek Cypriot evidence, e.g., Yiannakis Christodoulou, a survivor of the incident19 and brotherin-law of one of the five said, referring to Greek Cypriot soldiers and irregulars when they held Tziaos, ‘we did so many bad things that it followed that whoever they captured they would not spare’.20 Though the evidence added up to a coherent story with verisimilitude, confusion arose as soon as the facts above emerged. For instance, the statement by an anonymous Greek Cypriot (a soldier at Tziaos in 1974) that Greek Cypriots had killed four surrendered Turkish Cypriot fighters six hours prior to the killing of the five was ferociously attacked as untrue by another Greek Cypriot witness. This witness, however, seemed to be protesting too much, as ironically his own story also included the killing of surrendered Turkish Cypriot fighters at Tziaos by Greek Cypriots prior to the murder of the five: he describes how after an exchange of fire on 22 July (in contrast to the first witness’s date of 14 August) in which a Greek Cypriot soldier was lightly wounded, a group of Turkish Cypriot fighters ‘dropped their weapons and raised their hands up. In these circumstances they were shot dead and they all died’.21 Others highlighted alleged inconsistencies in Konuksever’s many retellings of the story over time in an attempt to undermine his credibility: how he testified in 1990 to seeing the Turkish Cypriots walking with the five towards Tziaos moments before the killings, while in 2009 he recalls seeing them hitting the five; how he said they were buried in situ, yet their remains were found together with fourteen

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others’ in a well about one kilometre away; how he only mentioned photographing the burial in 2009 . . . Bodies were moved and reburied on both sides of the divide, whether because the original graves were too shallow and/or to hide evidence of war crimes; at any rate, none of the above necessarily amounts to ‘inconsistencies’. Furthermore, would it be surprising if stress and the passage of time had played small havoc with the photographer’s memory, in details that at any event do not alter the substance of his story? It is equally highly possible that both the soldier who dates the killing of the Turkish Cypriot fighters to 14 August and the second witness, who may be more accurately dating them to 22 July, are both bona fide witnesses with variably reliable memory. While the unreliability of memory may have complicated access to the truth, it was above all false beliefs that threatened to block that access. In the aftermath of the war fantastical stories regarding the five were born: that the leader of the five, Antonis Korellis, spoke on Turkish Cypriot radio Bayrak saying that the five were alive and well treated; that the five were amongst some 200 missing soldiers held in a camp at Bogaz, near Famagusta; that they had been transported to Adana.22 These stories were wishfully believed by Greek Cypriots for many years, many letting go of the illusion only in August 2009. Another illustration of the tenacity of false beliefs is the Greek Cypriot belief that it was mainland Turks who committed the worst atrocities against them in 1974. Resistance to accepting that the killers of the Tziaos five were in fact Turkish Cypriots was fuelled by manic denial in the service of false belief. This was one unconscious motivating factor behind the attempts to undermine witnesses’ credibility; it was also the source of an unwillingness to assign responsibility for the execution of the five to Turkish Cypriots for, in addition to reams of factual evidence regarding the execution, the newspapers were simultaneously printing an avalanche of articles, comments and letters from official and unofficial persons and groups who persisted in describing the killings as cold-blooded executions of POWs by the Turkish army. It was an avalanche that called for Turkey to be exposed for the barbaric country it is and to be tried in international courts for war crimes.

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In the same period the newspapers sporadically reported Turkish Cypriot references to Greek Cypriot war crimes. The Greek Cypriot reader was informed, e.g., that Milliyet named the Greek Cypriot killer of Adem Yavuz in Nicosia General Hospital after his capture; that relatives of 36 Turkish Cypriot civilians from the villages of Sandalari, Maratha and Aloa (Turkish, Sandallar, Muratağa and Atlılar) who were murdered by Greek Cypriots in 1974 – the youngest a sixteen-day-old baby, the oldest an eighty-year-old woman, their remains discovered on 18 August 1974 and reburied in the Turkish Cypriot ‘Cemetery of Heroes’ in Aloa – were preparing to take the Greek Cypriots to the European Court of Human Rights; that TRNC presidential spokesman Hasan Erçakıca said that the Turkish Cypriots found in pits in the areas of Vouni, Maratha, Sandalari and Aloa were not soldiers but women and children; that Republic of Cyprus President Christofias acknowledged yet again that both sides had committed war crimes.23 It is not, therefore, as if nowadays Greek Cypriots do not have access to basic information regarding war crimes committed by members of their own community; but such accounts are typically short, dry, emotionally detached, divested of emotional signification, and dwarfed by a tsunami of constant, detailed, emotionally loaded descriptions of and references to Greek Cypriot suffering.24 Vital information regarding the Other is given in an emotionally de-signified form and is almost certainly received likewise by the reader: he or she can now cognitively know some bare facts (if, that is, these are even taken into consideration in the first place) but is not invited or helped to feel them. Emotional engagement is (over)cultivated and reserved for ‘Our’ suffering, not for ‘Theirs’. All the while, de-signification of memory characterises equally any Turkish Cypriot references to Greek Cypriot suffering.25 Finally, another difficulty in revisiting the Past was manifested in the core-complex response of many Greek Cypriots to the story of the Tziaos five. While so many Greek Cypriots constantly demand to be told the truth about ‘what happened’ in 1974, when they come into close contact with a solid bit of the supposedly longed-for truth, as they did in August 2009 with the Tziaos case, many of them are repelled by it; they instantly withdrew from it while violently attacking it, as if truth itself were The Enemy.

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In sum, immediate Greek Cypriot responses to the case of the Tziaos five illustrate the interdependent difficulties in revisiting the Past as discussed earlier: establishing factual truth; the unreliability and de-signification of memory; false beliefs; core-complex responses and resistance to the type of insight and knowledge on which real psychosocial change is predicated. Altogether, they also exemplify the tenacity with which the paranoid-schizoid psychosocial position is still maintained. In contrast, however, a number of other responses in the same newspapers came from the territory of the depressive position: thoughtful, empathic, fair, external and psychic reality-oriented responses were found cheek by jowl with – and were ferociously attacked by – those giving expression to the paranoid-schizoid position. What was manifested, then, was a mixed picture, both hopeful (in that expressions of the paranoid-schizoid position no longer go unchallenged) and disappointing (in that expressions of the paranoidschizoid position remain so widespread and powerful). Whether this mixed picture is a manifestation of psychosocial transition or of psychosocial intransigence remains to be seen. The absence of some kind of ‘closure’ to the painful events of Cyprus’ inter-communal history through the crucial (albeit limited) form of a political agreement certainly does not help cultivate the conditions which will enable a progressive psychosocial shift and the emergence of a New Cypriot Past through the traversing of the depressive position. Yet Cypriots need to undertake this work and see it through, to become enabled to experience self and Other as real, whole and equal human beings. Only then will it be possible for them to effect acts of relatedness and reparation that will be real and true, rather than facile and jingoistic.

Notes 1. 2. 3.

For a review and current psychoanalytic thinking on trauma, see Garland (2002), esp. Introduction, Ch. 1. For basic definitions of psychoanalytic terms used in this chapter see Laplanche and Pontalis (1988); Rycroft (1995). For an introduction to Klein see Spillius (1994). For Kleinian terminology see Hinshelwood (1989).

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4. In psychoanalytic usage ‘object’ refers to whatever has been psychically invested (cathected) with significance: persons, physical parts or attributes, symbols, abstract constructs, e.g., a person, the breast, goodness, an idea, a belief, etc. ‘Object relations’ refers to the way the self relates psychically to objects as these are experienced in the mind. 5. Against conflicted and/or unacceptable thoughts and affects emanating from instinctual derivatives and internal object relations. See Rycroft (1995: 32), Hinshelwood (1989: 393). 6. References to relevant works by i.a. P. Loizos, P. Sant Cassia and Y. Papadakis in Galatariotou 2008. 7. The Guardian, 10 September 2008, p. 4. 8. For example, after the end of World War II scores of Germans continued to deny the Holocaust even after they were shown footage of concentration camps (Bartov, Grossman, and Nolan 2002: chapters 3–7). 9. Over years of analysis Mr. A gradually began to re-signify past events and integrate Past and Present. 10. The Guardian, G2: 8 September 2008, pp. 12–13. 11. Initially neither Greece nor Turkey had time for them, and Great Britain opposed enosis (Galatariotou 2008: 848). 12. See the excellent Asmussen (2008), as well as Constantinos (2009). 13. The Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) has no more than twelve of these photographs, all of the capture. 14. Twenty-page deposition to Greek Cypriot army officer (1974); interview in Turkish newspaper Milliyet (1976); public statements (1981); depositions to the United Nations (1979, 1990) and the CMP (1999); interview at Greek Cypriot television station Sigma (20 July 09); statements in Turkish newspapers Vatan and Hurriyet (2009) and in Greek Cypriot newspaper Politis (13 August 2009). 15. Depositions to the UN (1990) and the CMP (1999). 16. Vatan, 14 August 2009. 17. See articles by Sevgul Uludag: Politis 2 May 2009, 3 May 2009, 15 August 2009. 18. Politis 14 August 2009, p 8; 15 August 2009, p. 19. 19. The group comprised seven soldiers, of whom two escaped. 20. On RIK (Greek Cypriot state radio and television); Politis 15 August 2009, p. 20. 21. Politis 15 August 2009, p. 20; H. Groutides in Politis 18 August 2009, p. 13; 19 August 2009 p. 11. 22. Politis 15 August 2009, p. 20; Phileleftheros 11 August 2009, p. 3. 23. Phileleftheros 11 August 2009, p. 3; 15 August 2009, p. 1, 40; 24 August 2009, p. 5; Politis 13 August 2009, pp. 7, 10; 14 August 2009, p. 8.

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24. Cf. the short, dry reporting regarding the massacres of Turkish Cypriots to the enormous coverage of the Tziaos five and a headlined piece regarding the sufferings of a then fourteen-year-old Greek Cypriot POW in 1974: Phileleftheros 15 August 2009, pp. 1, 40. 25. There are exceptions to this, most notably and consistently the writing of Sevgül Uludag and Makarios Drousiotis. Regarding the period covered here see also Vangelis Vasileiou (Politis 13 August 2009, p. 7) and Hristalla Hadjidimitriou (Phileleftheros 18 August 2009, p. 2)

References Asmussen, Jan. 2008. Cyprus at War: Diplomacy and Conflict during the 1974 Crisis. London: I.B.Tauris. Bartov, Omer, Atina Grossmann, and Mary Nolan, eds. 2002. Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century. New York: New Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, transl. R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Breuer, Joseph, and Sigmund Freud. 2000. Studies on Hysteria, Standard Edition vol. 2. New York: Basic Books. Britton, R. 2008. ‘Is truth therapeutic?’ Paper given at the 7th Delphi International Psychoanalytic Symposium, ‘Psychoanalysis and Ideologies,’ 24–28 October 2008. Constantinos, Andreas. 2009. America, Britain and the Cyprus Crisis of 1974. Calculated Conspiracy or Foreign Policy Failure? London: Author House. Freud, Sigmund. 2001. ‘Remembering, repeating and working through’, in J. Strachey (ed), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of S. Freud, vol. 12. London: Karnac Books. Galatariotou, Catia. 2006a. ‘Reflections on the “traumatized patient”’, Bulletin of the British Psychoanalytic Society 42 (7), pp. 2–12. ——. 2006b. ‘Remembering and forgetting: states of mind in post-1950 Cyprus’, in J. Chrysostomides and Ch. Dendrinos (eds), ‘Sweet Land . . .’ Lectures on the History and Culture of Cyprus, London: Camberley. ——. 2008. ‘From psychosocial equilibrium to catastrophic breakdown: Cyprus 1955–1974’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 89 (4), pp. 845–66. Garland, Caroline. 2002. Understanding Trauma. A Psychoanalytic Approach. London: Karnac Books. Gibbons, H. Scott. 1997. The Genocide Files. London: Charles Bravos. Glasser, M. 1979. ‘Some aspects of the role of aggression in the perversions’, in Sexual Deviation, I. Rosen (ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——. 1986. ‘Identification and its vicissitudes as observed in the perversions’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 67, pp. 9–17. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell-Smith. New York: International Publishers Co.

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Hinshelwood, R. D. 1989. A Dictionary of Kleinian Thought. London: Jason Aronson. Laplanche, Jean, J.-B. Pontalis, and Donald Nicholson-Smith. 1988. The Language of Psychoanalysis. London: Norton. Mollon, Phil. 2000. Freud and False Memory Syndrome. Cambridge: Icon Books. Ricoeur, Paul. 1970. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rycroft, Charles. 1995[1968]. A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Second Edition. London: Puffin. Sant Cassia, Paul. 2005. Bodies of Evidence: Burial, Memory and the Recovery of Missing Persons in Cyprus. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Soulioti, Stella. 2006. Fettered Independence: Cyprus, 1878–1964. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Spillius, E. Bott. 1994. ‘Developments in Kleinian thought: overview and personal view’, Psychoanalytic Inquiry 14 (3), pp. 324–64.

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Rebecca Bryant is Andreas N. Hadjiyannis Senior Research Fellow in the European Institute of the London School of Economics and the author of Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus (London: I.B.Tauris, 2004) and The Past in Pieces: Belonging in the New Cyprus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). She has conducted research since the early 1990s on both sides of the Cyprus Green Line and has received numerous grants and awards for her work on Cyprus. Catia Galatariotou is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Born in Cyprus, she now lives in London where she works as a practising psychoanalyst. A former Barrister-at-law, she holds a degree in the history of art and English literature and a PhD in Byzantine Studies. She has published widely on Byzantine history (including The Making of a Saint, Cambridge University Press, 1991) and psychoanalysis, also in relation to the Cyprus conflict. Evropi Chatzipanagiotidou (PhD in Social Anthropology, University of Sussex) conducted fieldwork between 2006 and 2008 in London and Cyprus examining the political interactions between the diaspora and Cyprus by focusing on discourses of peace, bi-communalism and multiculturalism. She has been teaching to undergraduate students at the University of Sussex since 2007 as an associate tutor on the subjects

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of Social and Political Anthropology and Anthropological Theory. She holds an MSc in Forced Migration from the University of Oxford and a BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Sussex. Ayşe Aybil Göker (PhD University College London) is Assistant Professor at Yeditepe University, Department of Anthropology. She teaches political anthropology and memory studies, and has published on issues of diaspora, political subjectivity, pain and trauma, memory and the senses. In 2011, she organised an international conference in Istanbul on materiality, cultural heritage and memory and is preparing an edited volume out of this conference. She is also working on the anthropology of children in Turkey. Mete Hatay is Senior Research Consultant at the Cyprus Centre of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) working primarily on the politics of demography and forced migration. He is the author of numerous articles and reports on these subjects, as well as on the cultural history of Cyprus. For the past three years he has conducted research within the framework of an EU-funded project, Cultural Heritage and the Reconstruction of Identities after Conflict (CRIC), and he is currently completing a co-authored book manuscript on nostalgia and identity in the unrecognized Turkish Cypriot state. Peter Loizos, (1937–2012) was Professor Emeritus (Social Anthropology) at LSE; he was also an occasional teacher of Sociology at Intercollege, Nicosia, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He wrote mainly about Cyprus (his PhD was on politics in a village, 1960–1970) and about documentary film. In later years, he specialised increasingly on displacement, particularly as it affects health, and wrote two monographs about IDPs from Argaki village, Cyprus. He produced, directed or shot a number of documentary films, two of which are about IDPs. Andreas Panayiotou teaches social science, communication, and cultural studies courses at the Frederick University Cyprus. He has researched and published on social history, processes of identity formation and

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the experience of Cypriot modernity. His broader interests include the effort to decipher patterns and dialectical formations in the interaction between the dynamics of the dominant cultural and political structures in the world system with social movements and other forms of resistance. Yiannis Papadakis is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus. He is author of Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide (I.B.Tauris, 2005), also translated into Greek and Turkish, co-editor of Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History and an Island in Conflict (Indiana University Press, 2006), and editor of a 2006 special issue of Postcolonial Studies on Cyprus. He has also published numerous articles on social memory, nationalism, museums, folklore and history education related to Cyprus. Susan Pattie (PhD University of Michigan) is a Senior Research Fellow at University College London. She teaches and writes on issues of diaspora, ethnicity and nationalism, food and culture, memory, and the senses. Among numerous articles and chapters, her work includes an ethnography of Cypriot Armenians (Faith in History: Armenians Rebuilding Community, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997). As Director of the Armenian Institute in London, she organizes lectures, arts workshops, concerts and other events, including three recent exhibitions at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS. Stavroula Philippou is Lecturer in Curriculum and Instruction at the Department of Education, University of Cyprus. Her research interests include curriculum and instruction; sociology and theory of curriculum; curriculum studies; European education policy; children’s national and European identity and citizenship, and social studies education. Her publications include a co-edited Special Issue of the Journal of Curriculum Studies entitled ‘Citizenship education curricula: changes and challenges presented by global and European integration’. She is currently editing a book entitled Europe Turned Local—The Local Turned European? Constructions of “Europe’ in Social Studies Curricula across Europe (Berlin: Lit Verlag).

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Mehmet Ratip was born in Cyprus. He completed his M.A. degree at the Centre for Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham, with a dissertation on the political potentials of 9/11 conspiracy thinking. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. His doctoral work in progress focuses on the question of how state responsibilities in the aftermath of the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) could help realise justice in the face of gross human rights violations. He is also a research associate at TEPAV, the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, where his main areas of research are constitution-making in Turkey and public administration reform in Northern Cyprus.

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INDEX

Adamantos, Adam: resignation letter of (1952), 87; speeches of, 87 Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, 235–6 Agamben, Giorgio: philosophy of history, 228; The Idea of Prose, 228; theories of, 224–5, 231–2 Akritas Plan: alleged nature of, 249 Al-Qaeda: 235 Alastos, Doros: background of, 28; writings of, 28–9 Alasya, Halil Fikret: 41, 42–3; Cyprus and the Turks (1964), 42; Cyprus History and Its Main Antiquities (1939), 30–3, 35–6 Albayrak, Mehmet: memoirs of, 187 Anatolia: 36 Ancient Greece: 61; Athens, 21; culture of, 62 Armenia, Republic of: 152, 156; culture of, 142; diaspora of, 141–2, 145, 155–6, 160; education system of, 144–5; Melkonian Educational Institute, 157; military of, 147–8; Translators’ Day, 148; Yerevan, 147, 157 Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic: 155

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Armenian Genocide (1915–23): 142–3, 151; poetry influenced by, 153; victims of, 153–4 Asmussen, Jan: writings of, 203 Association of Friends of Limassol: established (2002), 126; members of, 128 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal: 32; reforms of, 188 Attalides, Michael: writings of, 38–40 Australia: 170; nationalism in, 187 Baker, Ulas: theories of, 231 Bangladesh: 234–5 Bedevi, Vergi: writings of, 35–6 bereketçi: 173, 175; concept of, 172 Borataş, Hakki: Turkish military commander, 257 Bryant, Rebecca: concept of ‘apocalyptic history’, 41; writings of, 203 Bush, George W: 235; administration of, 235 Cambodia: 234–5 Campbell, John: A History of Modern Greece (1969), 197 Capitalism: 226, 235; globalised militarist, 224–5, 230, 239 Chamchian, Mikael: 153

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Charents, Yeghishe: Yes Im Anoush Hayasdani (Of My Sweet Armenia), 155 Chile: 234–5 Christianity: 40, 45, 76, 201; Abrahamic roots of, 76; Bible, 146; conversion to, 147–8; culture of, 62 Christofias, Dimitris: 111; President of Republic of Cyprus, 110, 260; Secretary of AKEL, 110 Clerides, Glafkos: Cyprus: My Deposition (1997), 18; President of Republic of Cyprus, 18 Cohen, Stanley: States of Denial (2001), 216 Cold War: 88, 234; end of, 51 Colonialism: 88; British, 83 Communism: 77–8, 81; Cypriot, 82; Soviet model of, 80, 82 Crete: 203–4 Cypriocentrism: 59; appearance in academic literature, 59; concept of, 57 Cyprus: 3, 10, 131–2, 137, 160, 175, 220–1, 227, 232–3, 237, 254; Aloa/Atlilar, 260; Argaki, 195, 198–9, 203, 205–12, 214–15, 217, 239; Armenian community of, 10, 17, 59, 140–1, 145, 149, 157–9; Battle of Tillyria/Battle of Erenköy (1964), 169–72, 174–9, 182, 184–7, 190–1; Bogaz, 259; British control of, 4, 34–6, 41–3, 53, 72, 83–6, 102, 143, 157, 196–7, 200, 208; Church crisis (1900–10), 83; citizenship, 64; Constitution of (1960), 60, 174; Curriculum Development Service 56; diaspora of, 21, 96, 100–3, 105, 122–6, 129–30, 133–6, 159, 174; education system of, 17, 19–20; Educational Reform for Greek Cypriot education, 65–6; Famagusta, 31, 259; Greek

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community of, 4–6, 8–11, 13–14, 17–19, 21, 27, 30, 33, 35–44, 52–7, 61, 63–4, 75, 77, 84–5, 89, 97, 105, 109, 112, 118, 120, 126, 129–30, 136, 143, 149, 158, 169, 180, 195, 200, 206–15, 217, 221, 229–30, 236, 249, 255–8, 260; Greek cultural influences in, 1, 29–30; House of Parliament, 33–4; Independence of (1960), 33, 82; Karpass Peninsula, 190; Kophinou, 208; Larnaca, 106; Latin community of, 10, 59; Lefka, 205; Limassol, 126–8; Maratha/Muratağa, 260; Maronite community of, 10, 59; member of EU, 63, 119, 121; Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC), 55; Monastery of Agios Neophytos, 78; Morphou, 199, 207, 210, 213–14; National Guard, 210; nationalism in, 28, 39, 52–3, 104, 106, 108, 127; Nicosia, 4–5, 74, 90, 150–1, 249; Ottoman rule of, 10, 35, 58, 73–4; Paphos, 130, 204; Sandalari/Sandallar, 260; Serdarli/Tziaos, 257–8; Turkish community of, 4–6, 8–12, 14, 18–20, 27, 34–44, 46, 52, 54, 57–9, 63, 75, 87, 97, 99, 105–6, 109, 112, 118, 120, 123–4, 126, 129–30, 132–3, 136, 143, 158–9, 169, 171, 174, 179, 181, 183–90, 199–201, 205–14, 217, 221, 226, 229, 236, 249, 255–6, 258–60; Turkish cultural influences in, 1; Turkish Invasion of (1974), 58, 242, 247, 250, 256–7; Tylliria, 76, 173, 181; Xeros, 214; Yialousa/ Yeni Erenköy, 190–1 Cyprus File, The: 248 Cyprus Problem: 5, 15, 57, 64, 102–3; Leftist views of, 103, 106; proposed solutions to, 6–7, 19, 55,

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112, 238; understandings of, 53, 63, 96 Cyprus Research Centre: personnel of, 34

European Union (EU): 6, 52, 62; acquis communautaire, 6; entry of Cyprus into (2004), 119, 121; members of, 63–4, 119

Dashnaktsoutiune: 153–4 Democratic Rally (DISY): ‘lethe’ policy of, 21–2 Denktash, Rauf: 185, 197–8; Cyprus in History (1988), 31; political views of, 183; supporters of, 215 Derrida, Jacques: call for ‘New International’, 237; concept of ‘autoimmunary process’, 229 Diaskeptiki: 86, 88 Durduran, Alpay: head of New Cyprus Party, 176

Fascism: 85 Final Judgment: 16; concept of, 15 First World War (1914–18): 79, 168; Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), 187–9; Battle of the Somme (1916), 170; Gallipoli Campaign (1915–16), 170, 187 Freud, Sigmund: theories of, 252, 254

Eastern Orthodox Church: 9 Eastern Roman Empire: languages of, 32 Egoyan, Atom: Ararat, 146 Egypt: 73 Ellines: cultural conflict with Romioi, 76; use of term, 35 Emin, Gevorg: poetry of, 146 Enosis: 33–4, 36, 77, 83–7, 89–90, 254; adiallakti variant, 83; AKEL view of, 109; calls for, 5, 29, 196; concept of, 4, 71; diallaktiki, variant, 83; Greek Cypriot support for, 28, 40; nationalism expressed by, 83; opposition to, 182 EOKA B: 214; coup d’état against Archbishop Makarios III (1974), 5, 33, 234; ideology of, 5; supporters of, 5 Erçakica, Hasan: TRNC presidential spokesperson, 260 Eurocentrism: relationship with Hellenocentrism, 61 European Council: 51–2 European Court of Human Rights: 23, 260

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Gaboudikian, Silva: Khosk im Vordun (Lines to My Child), 149 Georg Eckert Institute: 51 Georgdiades, Kleanthis: background of, 28; History of Cyprus, 74; writings of, 28–9 Georgia: Tbilisi, 142 Germany: 8, 89 Glasser, Mervin: concept of ‘core complex’, 248 Greco-Turkish War (1897): 203 Greece: 10, 38, 40, 83, 159; Athens, 33, 84–5, 90, 221; Civil War (1946–9), 86–7; cultural influence in Cyprus, 1; ethnic identity of, 6; Metaxas Regime (1936–41), 84; National Guard, 210; nationalism in, 39; Regime of the Colonels (1967–74), 5, 33, 90, 197, 234; War of Independence (1821), 73 Greek Cypriot Public Information Office (PIO): texts published by, 38 Greek Orthodox Church: 57 Green Line: 191; creation of, 5; opening of checkpoints along (2003), 121, 185 Gregory the Illuminator: father of Armenian Church, 147; role in conversion of King Tiridates to Christianity, 147

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Hadjiprocopis: 77 Hellenism: 38, 43, 72; framework for analysis of history of Cyprus, 34 Hellenocentrism: 58; appearance in academic literature, 60; concept of, 57; historical narrative of, 63; relationship with Eurocentrism, 61 Helleno-Cypriocentrism: 57–8; concept of, 57, 63 Herodotus: 143 Hettim: family of, 72; identified as ancestor of Cypriots by Kyprianos, 72 Historiography: 27, 34–5; Cypriot, 72, 226, 249; Greek Cypriot, 29, 38, 76; hegemonic, 71, 77; Kemalist, 32; nationalist, 83; official, 75–7, 95; Turkish Cypriot, 41 Hobbes, Thomas: Leviathan (1651), 2 Hobsbawm, Eric: 196, 215, 217; Primitive Rebels, 79 Holland, Robert: The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean 1850–1960 (2006), 203 Imperialism: British, 29, 99; Greek, 43 İnalcik, Halil: writings of, 34–5 Individual psychic development: psychoanalytic view of, 244–5 İnönü, İsmet: Turkish Prime Minister, 170 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs): Argaki Greek Cypriots as, 200, 208, 213 Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003–11), 235–6 Ireland: 19 Islam: 40, 76, 119, 201; Abrahamic roots of, 76; Ramadan, 128; Sunni, 4 Italo-Turkish War (1911–12): 204–5; outbreak of, 203

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OF

MEMORY

Jeganathan, Pradeep: 2 Judaism: 76 Katsiaounis, Rolandos: writings of, 203 Kissinger, Henry: 235; foreign policy record of, 234; US Secretary of State, 234 Kitromilides, Paschalis: writings of, 38, 40 Klein, Melanie: works of, 244–5 Komitas, Komitas: 157; Giligia, 154–5, 160; Grong (The Crane), 154; survivor of Armenian Genocide, 154 Konur, İsmet: Turks of Cyprus (1938), 30, 32–3 Küçük, Dr Fazil: Vice President of Republic of Cyprus, 36; writings of, 36 Kundera, Milan: 20 Kyprianos, Archimandrites: Chronological History of the Island of Cyprus, 72 Kyrris, Kostas: 33; Director of Cyprus Research Centre, 34; Peaceful Co-Existence in Cyprus under British Rule (1878–1959) and after Independence: An Outline, 38; writings of, 34–5, 74–5 Laptali, Hüseyin: writings of, 172 League of Nations: 51 Lebanon: 143; Beirut, 155 Lethe: veneration of, 21 Linobambakoi: 77; depiction in Greek Cypriot historiography, 76; role in Cypriot uprisimngs, 75 Makarios III, Archbishop: 174, 180; coup d’état against (1974), 5, 33, 234; President of Republic of Cyprus, 5, 33; supporters of, 89 Markides, Diana: The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the

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INDEX Eastern Mediterranean 1850–1960 (2006), 203 Marxism: 238; role of modern working class in analysis, 79 Mashdots, Mesrop: 158; creator of Armenian alphabet, 148 Menguc, Arslan: Antlarda Erenköy (Erenköy in Memoirs), 185 Mishaoulis-Kavazoglou Incident (2008): 110–11, 113 Mycenaeans: arrival in Cyprus (c. 1400 BC), 29 Nancy, Jean-Luc: 221; concept of ‘ecotechnics’, 224 National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA): 18, 36, 42, 81–2, 87, 89, 102, 207–8, 255; activists of, 208; formation of (1955), 5, 28; ideology of, 104; members of, 200, 212; military units of, 210; supporters of, 104, 209 National Unity Party (UBP): electoral performance of (2009), 45; ideology of, 45 Nationalism: 6, 31, 38, 40, 43, 77, 84, 99, 101, 104, 106, 113–14, 191, 200, 230; as expressed by enosis, 83; Australian, 187; ethnic, 45, 64, 77, 108; Greco-Christian, 84; Greek, 39, 85, 90, 98, 108, 209, 222; Greek Cypriot, 28, 52, 209; media presence of, 45; role of homogeneity in, 12–13; territorial view of history, 107; Turkish, 28, 39, 98, 108, 183, 222; Turkish Cypriot, 127, 188 Nevzat, Altay: writings of, 203 New Cyprus Party: members of, 176 New Cyprus Past: emergence of, 261 New Zealand: 170 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): 255; Greek dependence upon, 88

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273

Obama, Barack: 235 Orientalism: 76; view of Greek Cypriot historical influence, 30 Ottoman Empire: 13, 30–2, 44, 73, 76, 202; collapse of, 149–50; Orthodox Christian population of, 9 Ottoman-Venetian War (1570–3): Ottoman conquest of Cyprus (1571), 10 paidhia: 202 Palestine: 135 pallikaria: 202 pan-Cypritotism: 97–8 Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO): members of, 99 Papadopoulos, Theodoros: 33; Director of Cyprus Research Centre, 34; Social and Historical Data on the Population of Cyprus (1965), 34 Partition: psychological aspects of, 7–8 Paşa, Lala Mustafa: torturing and killing of prisoners, 31 Paşa, Sokollu Mehmet: role in Ottoman conquest of Cyprus, 31 Paschalis, N: role in colonial government, 77 Patočka, Jan: theories of, 227 Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL): 88, 101, 113, 118, 120; central committee of, 110; electoral performance of, 110–11; historical narrative of, 102, 112, 120; ideology of, 89, 98, 109; leaders of, 87, 97, 103, 110; members of, 112; supporters of, 18, 90, 96–7, 100, 104, 107–8 Psychic reality: concept of, 243 Renan, Ernst: view of national myths, 168 Republican Turkish Party (CTP): 43–4; supporters of, 18

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274

C YPRUS

AND THE

Roman Empire: 61; culture of, 62 Rum: 33, 119–20, 126–9, 136; concept of, 9; use of term, 43, 126 Rumcu: 127; concept of, 125–6 Rwanda: Genocide (1994), 216 Sampson, Nikos: de facto President of Cyprus (1974), 234 Second Persian Invasion of Greece (480–479 BCE): Battle of Salamis (480 BCE), 8–9 Second World War (1939–45): 79, 81, 94, 238 Segal, Hanna: view of Freudian psychoanalysis, 254 Serter, Vehbi Zeki: Cyprus History (Kibris Tarihi), 42, 179; writings of, 41 Sherrard, Phillip: A History of Modern Greece (1969), 197 Shiraz, Hovhannes: To the Armenians in the Diaspora, 156 Siamanto: 152; arrest and death of (1915), 151; The Dance, 151 Sillogoi: concept of, 81 Socialism: 80 Soviet Union (USSR): 155; communist model of, 80, 82 Spyridakis, Konstantinos: Cypriot Minister of Education, 33 Sri Lanka: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 2 Sustain, Lord: Tor Getzo, 144 Tefkros: identified as ancestor of Cypriots by Kyprianos, 72 Taksim: 33, 36, 255; concept of, 5; Turkish Cypriot support for, 28 Talat, Mehmet Ali: 111; speeches of, 184–5 Theodotou, T: 77 Tigran: 145 Tiridates, King: conversion to Christianity, 147

Index.indd 274

POLITICS

OF

MEMORY

Tölöyan, Khachig: 148; ‘Textual Nation: Poetry and Nationalism in Armenian Political Culture’ (1999), 144 Topel, Cengiz: cultural image of, 171, 180–1 Treaty of Guarantee (1960): 182 Treaty of Westphalia (1648): 21 Trojan War: belligerents of, 72 Trouillot, Rolph: observations regarding ‘forgetting’ of historical events, 22–3 Turkey: 30, 32, 38, 40, 105, 127, 154, 159–60, 169–70, 175, 178, 183, 185, 189, 217, 221; Adana, 154, 259; Ankara, 170; Antalya, 174; Çanakkale (Gallipoli), 170; cultural influence in Cyprus, 1; emigrants from, 132; ethnic identity of, 6; Istanbul, 150, 178; Karataş, 173; Marash, 154; Mersin, 154; military of, 12, 171, 176, 181, 257, 259; nationalism in, 28, 39 Turkish Resistance Organisation (TMT): 18, 36, 174, 255; formation of (1958), 5, 28, 172–3; members of, 110, 176; reprisal killings by fighters of, 212; role in Battle of Tillyria/Battle of Erenköy (1964), 175 Tziaos Five: 248, 260 Unconscious: 243 United Kingdom (UK): 111; 7/7 bombings, 250; Criminal Justice Act (2003), 215; Cypriot Community Centre (CCC), 96–8, 100, 102, 109; Cypriot diaspora in, 96, 100–3, 105, 122–3, 125–6, 129, 133–6, 159, 174; English Civil War (1642–51), 2; Greek Parents’ Association, 103; Labour Party, 80; London, 81, 96–7, 101–3, 107, 109, 112, 118–26, 128–30, 133–6, 141, 151

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INDEX United Nations (UN): 3, 15, 200; Annan Plan, 6, 100, 109, 112, 120, 185; continued recognition of Republic of Cyprus (1965), 37; Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 51; personnel of, 175; Security Council, 2, 37 United States of America (USA): 9/11 attacks, 235–6; Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 255; Federal courts of, 215; recognition of Nikos Sampson (1974), 234 Vanandetsi, Hovhan mirza: 153 Varoujan, Taniel: The Lamp, 150 Vartan, General: 158; destruction of Armenian army (451 CE), 147; political image of, 148

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275

Vasiliou, George: President of Republic of Cyprus, 214–15 Venizelos, Eleftherios: supporters of, 79–80, 84 Vietnam: 234–5 Wolseley, Sir Garnet Joseph: arrival in Cyprus (1878), 83; Governor of Cyprus, 83 Yalta Conference (1945): 88 Yavuz, Adem: murder of (1974), 260 Zachariades, Nicos: 88 Zanetos, F: avocation for Cypriot autonomy or independence, 84 Zoroastrianism: 148

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Index.indd 276

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