Yiannis Papadakis Nicos Peristianis Gisela Welzbookos Z1.org Copy [624308]

moder nity, history,
and an island in
conflict
DiviDeD
Cyprus
Edited by Yiannis Papadakis,
Nicos Peristianis, and Gisela Welz
DiviDeD CyprusPapadakis, Peristianis, and Welzanthropology | european history and politics | middle eastern studies
Cover illustration: The Green Line,
2002. photograph by Dominic
Whiting. used by permission.ISBN-13: 978-0-253-21851-3
ISBN-10: 0-253-21851-9“This is a volume that transcends new and old themes
in the ethnography of the european margins. Whereas
earlier studies focused on the ‘traditional’ aspects of the
island’s society, Divided Cyprus acknowledges Cyprus’s
contingent existence in a global world of geopolitics. it humanizes the ethno-national conflict in Cyprus and
unravels its constructedness.”
—Anastasia Karakasidou, Wellesley College
“[p]resents the most current research in anthropology on
Cyprus and focuses on issues of wider concern: nationalism
and minority identities; transnational migration and the flow
of images, knowledge, and people; interethnic violence and
conflict; the politics and poetics of memory and nostalgia.
it fills a real gap in the current literature.”
—David sutton, southern illinois university Carbondale
The volatile recent past of Cyprus has turned this island from the idyllic “island of Aphrodite”
of tourist literature into a place renowned for hostile confrontations. Cyprus challenges familiar
binary divisions between Christianity and islam, Greeks and Turks, europe and the east, tradition
and modernity. Anti-colonial struggles, the divisive effects of ethnic nationalism, war, invasion,
territorial division, and population displacements are all facets of the notorious Cyprus problem.
incorporating the most up-to-date social and cultural research on Cyprus, these essays examine nationalism and interethnic relations, Cyprus and the european union, the impact of immigration,
and the effects of tourism and international environmental movements, among other topics.
Yiannis PaP adakis is Assistant professor of social and political sciences at the
university of Cyprus.
nicos Peristianis is executive Dean of intercollege of Cyprus and president of the
Cyprus sociological Association.
Gisela Welz is professor and Chair of Cultural Anthropology and european ethnology
at Goethe university, Frankfurt on Main.Contributors are
Floya Anthias
vassos Argyrou
rebecca Bryant
Michael Herzfeld
Anne Jepson
yael Navaro-y ashin
yiannis papadakis
Nicos peristianis
paul sant Cassia
spyros spyrou
Gisela Welz
New Anthropologies of europe—Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl,
and Michael Herzfeld, editors
INDIANAhttp://iupress.indiana.edu
1-800-842-6796INDIANA
University Press
Bloomington & Indianapolis

Divided Cyprus
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NEW ANTHROPOLOGIES OF EUROPE
EDITORS
Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, and Michael Herzfeld
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Divided
Cyprus
M, H, 
 I  C
 
Yiannis Papadakis,
Nicos Peristianis,
and Gisela Welz
  
Bloomington and Indianapolis
00DividedFMRevised.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 3

is book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, IN 47404–3797 USA
http://iupress.indiana.edu
T elephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail [anonimizat]
© 2006 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher. e Association of American University
Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only
exception to this prohibition.
e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Divided Cyprus : modernity, history, and an island in conflict /
edited by Yiannis Papadakis, Nicos Peristianis, and Gisela Welz.
p. cm.
Proceedings of a conference entitled “T ransformation, Inertia,
Reconfigurations: A Critical Appraisal of Anthropological Research
in Cyprus” hosted jointly at University of Cyprus and Intercollege in
Septmber 2001.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-34751-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-253-21851-9
(pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ethnic conflict—Cyprus. 2. Political vio –
lence—Cyprus. 3. Cyprus—History—Cyprus Crisis, 1974- 4. Cy –
prus—History—T urkish Invasion, 1974. 5. Postcolonialism—Cyprus.
6. Cyprus—Ethnic relations. 7. Cyprus—Politics and government. I.
Papadakis, Yiannis. II. Peristianis, Nicos. III. Welz, Gisela.
GN635.C9D58 2006
305.8005693—dc22
2006001258
1 2 3 4 5 11 10 09 08 07 06
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To Peter Loizos
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CONTENTS
A / ix
Introduction
Modernity, History, and Conflict in Divided Cyprus: An Overview
Y P, N P,  G W 1
1. T ransforming Lives: Process and Person in Cypriot Modernity
M H 30
2. On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus
R B 47
3. Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus: Toward an
Anthropology of Ethnic Autism
Y P 66
4. De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus: Political and Social Conflict
between T urkish Cypriots and Settlers from T urkey
Y N-Y 84
5. Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics
N P 100
6. Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus
S S 121
7. “Contested Natures”: An Environmental Conflict in Cyprus
G W 140
8. Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus
A J 158
9. Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus: Displacements, Hybridities,
and Dialogical Frameworks
F A 176
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viii I Contents
10. Recognition and Emotion: Exhumations of Missing Persons in Cyprus
P S C 194
11. Postscript: Reflections on an Anthropology of Cyprus
V  A 214
L  C / 
I / 
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
We would like to express our warmest gratitude to the University of Cy –
prus and Intercollege for jointly hosting the September 2001 conference,
“T ransformation, Inertia, Reconfigurations: A Critical Appraisal of An –
thropological Research in Cyprus,” that provided the initial impetus for
this publication. We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for
their helpful comments. We would also like to thank Christina McRoy for
her assistance in copy-editing and in many other ways.
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Divided Cyprus
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INTRODUCTION
Modernity, History, and Conflict
in Divided Cyprus
AN OVERVIEW
Yiannis Papadakis, Nicos Peristianis, and Gisela Welz
The volatile recent past of Cyprus has turned this island, often pre –
sented in tourist literature as the idyllic “island of Aphrodite, Goddess
of Love,” into a place renowned for hostile confrontations. During the
last forty-five years alone, Cyprus has experienced anticolonial struggles,
postcolonial instability, the divisive effects of opposed ethnic national –
isms, internal violence both between the two major ethnic groups on the
island and within each one, war, invasion, territorial division, and multiple
population displacements, all facets of the notorious Cyprus Problem. e
anthropological research agenda on Cyprus has been profoundly influenced
by the political quandaries that have affected the island. e primary task
of this introduction is to outline these influences and indicate the ways in
which such research on Cyprus has productively engaged with the wider
anthropological project. It also situates the various contributions in this
volume within these domains of discussion.
We shall focus on three overlapping areas. Interesting discussions have
taken place regarding the relationships between 1) myth, history, and na –
tionalism; 2) memory, forgetting, and displacement; and 3) modernity,
postcoloniality, and transnationalism. Undertaken from a primarily an –
thropological angle, exploration moves into the darker sides of modernity
in its Cypriot modalities. e recent sociohistorical experiences of Cyprus,
as interpreted by anthropologists and other social scientists, can provide
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2 I Divided Cyprus
insights into the problematic aspects of key institutions of modernity,
embodied in projects such as democracy, mass education, the creation of
anonymous political publics, and the nation-state. As will subsequently
emerge, the geopolitical contingencies of Cyprus—an island divided by a
territorial void also known as the “Dead Zone,” where there is the complete
absence of common ground between the two sides—have often guided
anthropologists and other social scientists toward a search for common
ground in the realms of theory and politics.
Before entering into the local debates about the past, a brief overview
of the island’s recent history is necessary in order to outline the various
facets of Cyprus’s sociohistorical predicaments (and as background to the
volume’s chapters). e year 1960 marked the end of a period of British
colonial rule that began in 1878, when Britain assumed control of Cyprus
after three centuries of Ottoman rule. e British colonial period witnessed
the rise of Greek and T urkish nationalism in Cyprus (Kitromilides 1979;
see also Bryant, this volume). Greek Cypriots strove for enosis, the union of
Cyprus with Greece, while T urkish Cypriots initially expressed preference
for the continuation of British rule and later demanded taksim, the parti –
tion of the island. From 1955, the Greek Cypriot enosis struggle assumed
the form of an armed insurrection led by EOKA (National Organization
of Cypriot Fighters), and in 1958, T urkish Cypriots set up their own armed
organization, TMT (T urkish Resistance Organization). e opposed aims
of the two major ethnic groups and the British policies of exacerbating divi –
sions (e.g., by enrolling T urkish Cypriots as auxiliary policemen against the
EOKA insurrection) led to violent interethnic confrontations (Pollis 1979).
An independent state, the Republic of Cyprus was created in 1960 as a
compromise solution reflecting the opposed interests of the two antago –
nistic ethnic groups—Greek Cypriots constituted 80 percent and T urkish
Cypriots 18 percent of the total population of around 600,000—and of
foreign powers that included T urkey, Greece, and Britain. e outcome of
independence did not satisfy the aspirations of either of the ethnic groups.
Both in fact continued to pursue their respective aims of enosis and taksim
after 1960, leading one observer to describe Cyprus during this period as
“the reluctant republic” (Xydis 1973).
ree years after independence, interethnic violence broke out, initially
in Nicosia, then spread throughout the island. e violence that began
during Christmas 1963 lasted until 1967. During this period, T urkish
Cypriots, the weaker party, bore most of the costs in terms of casualties;
around one-fifth of their people gradually were displaced in refugee camps
(Patrick 1976; Purcell 1969; Volkan 1978). Fearful of Greek Cypriots
and urged by their partitionist leadership, they set up enclaves scattered
throughout the island.
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Introduction I 3
During 1964, the United Nations came to Cyprus to maintain the
peace and has stayed ever since, guarding the “Green Line”—strictly speak –
ing, an area separating the two sides. (e name “Dead Zone,” a direct
translation of the Greek Cypriot term “ Nekri Zoni ,” is used in this volume
to signify the empty void in the middle and to suggest the conceptual gap
predicated by any binary opposition.)
By 1967, interethnic strife had abated, the two sides had gradually
begun negotiations, and the political situation was showing signs of stabil –
ity. During that year, however, a military junta came to power in Greece
by force of arms. e Greek Cypriot leadership began to edge away from
the aim of union and toward the goal of reestablishing political stability
in Cyprus and safeguarding the island from secessionist T urkish Cypriot
demands. Even so, radical Greek Cypriot pro-union factions, with the
support of the Greek junta, organized acts of sabotage in the name of the
union that they felt had been betrayed. is intraethnic strife among Greek
Cypriots culminated in the coup of July 15, 1974, against Archbishop
Makarios, then president of the Republic, carried out by pro-union fac –
tions calling themselves EOKA B, with the support of the Greek junta.
Five days later, T urkey intervened militarily. e T urkish offensive divided
the island; Greek Cypriots fled en masse to the south and T urkish Cypri –
ots subsequently moved to the north. is time, Greek Cypriots bore the
heavier human cost of these events in terms of people killed, missing, and
displaced; the number of displaced people amounted to almost one-third
of all Greek Cypriots (Loizos 1981). roughout the period from the be –
ginning of EOKA to 1974 and beyond, another confrontation was taking
place in Cyprus with its own largely unacknowledged record of violence,
this time within each ethnic group. is was a clash between the nationalist
right, whose actions often promoted ethnic animosity and division, and
the left, which for much of this tumultuous period, however hesitantly, still
strove to create bridges and provide avenues for cooperation between the
two ethnic groups, in the process coming under attack by its own right.
e events of 1974 left Cyprus’s conceptual and constitutional status
open once again. Greek Cypriots continued to lean toward Greece for
political support, despite a strong sense of betrayal by Greece due to the
disastrous actions of the Greek junta. T urkish Cypriots initially welcomed
the arrival of the T urkish army but gradually began to feel uncomfortable
with T urkey’s military and political control of their side and the influx of
T urkish settlers (see also Navaro-Yashin, this volume). e Greek Cypriot–
controlled Republic of Cyprus has remained the only internationally recog –
nized state in Cyprus, while the self-declared T urkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus, established in 1983, has not gained international recognition. e
Greek Cypriot economy recovered and even boomed for a few years after
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4 I Divided Cyprus
1974, while the T urkish Cypriot side stagnated and T urkish Cypriots found
themselves living in isolation and poverty. Many T urkish Cypriots left the
island, while people from T urkey continued to settle in the north.
Since 1974, the largest international effort to solve the Cyprus Problem
took place in April 2004, when international mobilization for a federal,
bicommunal, bizonal solution culminated in referenda on the two sides
for a negotiated UN-brokered constitutional arrangement known as “the
Annan Plan.” is effort, too, failed when the plan was rejected on the
Greek Cypriot side by a strong majority of 76 percent, even though it was
accepted on the T urkish Cypriot side (by 66 percent). e pre-referendum
period on the T urkish Cypriot side was marked by huge demonstrations
in favor of the plan and against the rejectionist T urkish Cypriot stance as
personified by the hard-line right-wing leader Rauf Denktash. e demon –
strations were led primarily by the T urkish Cypriot left (and allied liberal
forces), which emerged as the strongest political force in the north. e
entry, a few days after the failed referendum, of the Republic of Cyprus
into the European Union (EU) meant that only the Greek Cypriot side
effectively became part of the EU, the T urkish Cypriots remaining outside.
As a result, the Green Line of Cyprus became the EU’s uncertain border in
the east. Yet, since April 2003, when in a surprise move the T urkish Cypriot
authorities opened the previously uncrossable internal border, people have
been able to cross to the “other side.” e absence of ethnic violence since
the border opening has been noteworthy.
Myth, History, and Nationalism in a Divided State
Seven thousand years ago a lady called Aphrodite landed in Cyprus, and the island
has never recovered. e people of Cyprus made a luxury of discontent and always
pretend they do not like to be ruled, and yet, like the lady I have mentioned as a
prototype, they expect to be ruled, and, in fact, prefer it.1
Does this statement belong to the realm of myth or history? e realm
of the symbolic or the literal? It was actually uttered in 1939 by the British
governor of Cyprus at the time, the autocratic Sir Richard Palmer, in an
effort to legitimize British colonial rule in Cyprus. e British, who took
over the administration of Cyprus in 1878 from the Ottomans, found
themselves in a peculiar situation. ey were to rule over a land where they
shared the same repertoire of myths with the majority of the natives. ese
myths were of such high cultural capital that both the British and the local
Greeks often treated them as literal history, even if they also recognized
them as myths. In fact, the colony was a place where most of its inhabitants
could claim ancestral links with those said to have been the very inventors
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Introduction I 5
of history (the English word deriving from the ancient Greek “ istoria ”).
is was not a superfluous native claim but one canonically endorsed in
the West itself, where it was coupled with an even grander claim, once
again emanating from the West’s own history of civilization, that ancient
Greece was the origin of Western civilization. e natives thus had the
audacity to turn the tables, arguing that it was the British themselves who
owed their civilization to their Greek ancestors. at this was an island also
inhabited by a sizeable (T urkish) Muslim minority who saw themselves as
heirs to a glorious Ottoman Empire would lead to a particularly complex
and explosive matrix in the decolonizing process.
is, then, was not to be the usual colonial story of the encounter
of “Europe” and a “people without history,” to use Wolf’s (1982) terms.
Rather, this was a contest that would take place within a recognizably
historical (if also historicist) discourse. e British, like the Greeks of
Cyprus, did not hesitate to use myth in a literal way to support historical
arguments, ultimately about politics. Westerners, then, were no less prone
than natives to use myth, an eventuality that added another challenge to
the Levi-Straussian (1966) dualism between “hot” (Western, changing,
historical) and “cold” (non-Western, unchanging, myth-bound) societies
that has also been criticized on other grounds (Faubion 1993a). If anything,
Cyprus has been regarded as a hotspot of ethnic violence; the island has
become exemplary of intractable ethnonational conflicts. One of the prob –
lems with Cyprus, as evinced by often-quoted works such as Christopher
Hitchens’s Hostage to History (1997), was not the absence of history but
rather the overwhelming presence and influence of history. In this respect,
the position of Cyprus vis-à-vis the “West” could be more usefully com –
pared to that of the Balkans as Europe’s internal Other (Todorova 1997).
It has often, and disingenuously, been remarked of the Balkans that their
problem is that they produce more history than they can consume. But
the anthropological challenge lies in understanding the reasons for such a
pronounced emphasis on history, a quest that could reveal as much about
Cyprus as about modernity’s alleged rejection of the past. is, for example,
was the project undertaken by Faubion (1993b) in Greece, a contemporary
society known for its appeals to the past as well as for the privileged role it
was accorded in the West’s story of civilization. Otherwise, one risks sliding
into a different kind of allochronism, described by Fabian (1983) as the
denial of coevalness: placing other societies in a time other than that of the
West. If Victorian evolutionism treated other societies as living in other
times (i.e., in the past of the West, hence described as primitive, backward,
or undeveloped), an equally worrying current tendency is to treat certain
societies as somehow stuck in the past and unable to move on. Our argu –
ment in this volume is that this socially specific mode of relationship with
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6 I Divided Cyprus
the past should be analyzed not as lying outside modernity but as part of
modernity; that is, as an expression of modernity in its Cypriot modality.
e specific issues that concern us here are constructions and uses of the
past in nation-states with competing claims to sovereignty and statehood.
In such cases, history becomes the major battleground for the legitimation
of opposed political claims, often leading to what we call the “fetishism
of History.” History does not just speak, it commands; History may be
injured or raped; History is alive and it is the duty of the living to obey its
commands. In short, History emerges as a transcendental moral force that
dictates the morally (that is, politically) desirable future, thus being imbued
with primary agency that is simultaneously denied to living social actors.
e most obvious distinction between history and myth is that history
is taken to refer to verifiable facts, to “dates,” as Levi-Strauss put it, and
in this sense it is possible only in literate societies with written records,
whereas myth, which is usually associated with preliterate societies, can –
not—indeed, would not—claim scientific status. is distinction, however,
is less useful and more problematic than it may appear, and divided soci –
eties such as Cyprus, which present opposed historical claims, make this
strikingly obvious. In the island’s divided capital, Nicosia, are two museums
with the same name, Museum of National Struggle, one on each side.
One has the name written in T urkish, the other in Greek. eir historical
narratives express the two sides’ paradigmatic official constructions of the
past, each employing (verifiable and on the whole accurate) historical facts
but ending up with totally opposed stories (Papadakis 1994). e Greek
Cypriot museum proposes the story of an island that has been Greek from
the beginning of history, one conquered by various foreign powers causing
suffering to its people, the British being the last conquerors against which
the people of Cyprus revolted. Enosis, then, was not only legitimate but a
historical imperative. e T urkish Cypriot museum narrates the story of a
Cyprus that was T urkish from the beginning of history, since history began
with the Ottoman conquest of the island, where T urkish Cypriots became
victims of Greek Cypriot aggression. In this narrative, history proves that
the two peoples of Cyprus could not live together but should live separate –
ly: e T urkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was legitimate, and division
emerged as the inescapable morally acceptable conclusion of histor y.
A focus on narrative and historiography offers a useful analytical context
for the examination of such opposed historical claims. It can allow for the
critical examination of what Anderson succinctly called “the biography of
nations” (1991, 204–206), expressed through narrative form. e work of
Hayden White (1978, 1987) on historiography offers a useful framework
for analysis, and it is interesting to note that the first major use of his work
by anthropologists was made by Borneman (1992) in the context of an –
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Introduction I 7
other divided country, Germany (although the German case differed from
Cyprus in the existence of kinship links between the two sides and a mutu –
ally shared sense of belonging to the same nation). White poses the issue
as a rhetorical question: “Does the world really present itself to perception
in the form of well-made stories, with central subjects, proper beginnings,
middles and ends, and a coherence that permits us to see the end in every
beginning?” (1987, 24). is formulation describes the constituent parts
of a narrative, and the two official constructions of history outlined above
were outcomes of the choices made with regard to the components of the
respective narratives (beginning, end, events), while the central subject
from whose perspective the whole acquired meaning was the respective
nation. e past as a “narrative of national struggles” thus emerged as the
paradigmatic form of history shared by the two sides in Cyprus despite
their competing political and historical claims (Papadakis 1994).
Narrativity performs three further related functions when it is expressed
as the “biography of a nation.” First, it establishes historical continuity,
hence the existence of an identifiable actor linked to a particular terri –
tory which it claims. During the colonial period, the British proposed an
alternative view of identity for locals, the “Cyprus mélange,” positing the
historical presence of an amorphous mixture rather than a well-defined ac –
tor and imbuing this with a distinctly local ancestry since antiquity (Given
1997, 1998), primarily in order to counter the demands of Greek Cypriots
for union with Greece. In turn, this made Greek Cypriots keener to insist
on their purity (as Greeks) and their historical links with Greece. Self-
affirmation, however, has often entailed the refusal of the (historical, hence
also current) existence of ethnic others. In a manner directly analogous to
the arguments used by the British, both Greek Cypriots and T urkish Cypri –
ots later presented arguments that cast doubt on the purity and historical
existence of the other (Azgin and Papadakis 1998), which in turn produced
vehement counterreactions.
e second significant function of narrativity is that in this mode of
discourse, “the events seem to tell themselves” (White 1987, 3). is is
how it appears that a (disembodied) History speaks by itself. If we grant
that through this form History can (appear to) speak, how does it then
achieve its moral force; how can it also morally command? is is the third
function of narrativity: moralizing. As White (1987, 14) suggests, it is
impossible to narrativize without moralizing, and this takes place from the
viewpoint of the social actor one identifies with, namely one’s own nation.
ese three functions of narrativity give rise to what we have described as
the fetishism of History.
Parallels between history and myth as discussed by anthropologists,
such as Malinowski’s notion of myth as a charter for the present or Eliade’s
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8 I Divided Cyprus
view of myth as an explanation of origins, should be clear. Moreover, the
(presumed) presence of a transhistorical actor, the nation, said to exist
from the beginning of history leads to a suppression of temporality, as
Levi-Strauss argued is the case with myth.
ese considerations have interesting implications for the anthropo –
logical analysis of agency, history, and ritual. History, in the sense described
above, appears more like destiny. Anderson remarks that “it is the magic of
nationalism to turn chance into destiny” (1991, 19). A view that sees local
constructions of history as destiny resembles the local uses of the notion of
fate. Rather than being treated as signs of passivity or inaction, both should
be regarded as strategies of self-justification. In the case of fate, this may
be a way to explain specific failures (Herzfeld 1992), while in the case of
nationalism a way to both present current political goals as transcendentally
dictated by history and shift blame onto others.
Bloch (1974), drawing from the Weberian concept of “traditional
authority,” presented a compelling argument about how a disembodied
past appears to speak directly through the mouths of the elders as they
become possessed by the spirits of the ancestors during the rituals of the
Merina in Madagascar. Bloch suggests that the particular format of ritual,
its formalized language and the sanction offered by the past, disallows the
possibility of disagreement. In Cyprus, while political ritual may serve
similar functions, it is undertaken by different actors staging different and
mutually contesting rituals in the form of commemorations. Political ac –
tors, such as parties on the right and the left of each side, choose to stage
commemorations of different events and choose memorials for different
“ancestors”—that is, heroes—which express commands and directives that
emanate from the past for the living to follow. However, in practice, such
commemorations strongly contest state commemorations from divergent
viewpoints, as well as those staged by other political parties.
While history may still (appear to) command, its rule is an emerging
process that varies depending on the political actor staging the commemo –
ration. is is a view of political ritual closer to that offered by Kertzer
(1988), which allows for multiple possible uses rather than the totalizing
effects Bloch theorizes. Political ritual in contemporary nation-states as –
sumes the standard form of commemoration that refers to particular
(dates of) historical events, an outcome of the asserted historicity of the
nation. As Papadakis argued (2003), the discussion on commemorations
by anthropologists and others (Gillis 1994; Handelman 1990; Sider and
Smith 1997; Spillman 1997) has failed to sufficiently address the narra –
tive aspects of national history. Drawing from his fieldwork in Cyprus,
he proposes an alternative analytical framework for the interpretation of
ritual in contemporary nation-states, arguing that the interpretation of any
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Introduction I 9
single ritual commemoration in and of itself, as habitually undertaken by
anthropologists, cannot disclose its full meaning. Commemorative rituals
can reveal their full meaning only if treated as components (events) that
build a narrative that articulates a certain story (a history).
But how do stories of the nation, whether constructed by parties or
states, achieve their credibility among people? Many theorists of national –
ism such as Gellner (1983) and Anderson suggest that nationalist histories
are more akin to myths and that these are often imposed “from above.” For
anthropologists, such formulations beg the question. A more convincing
approach considers the interactive processes between “above” and “below”
through which (internally contested) constructions of nationalism take
shape. Papadakis (1998a) examines how individual Greek Cypriot social
actors articulate narratives of the past in ways which blend elements of
personal, local, and broader political history. Such an approach can pro –
vide an alternative to theories which claim that nationalism’s appeal lies
in proposing a new kind of imagined community which replaces the local
community as it collapses under the dislocating impact of the forces of
modernity, as in Spencer’s (1990) discussion of nationalism in Sri Lanka.
On the other hand, approaches to nationalism phrased in terms of broad
cultural ontologies such as Kapferer’s (1988) discussion of the differences
between the hierarchical Sinhalese case and the egalitarian Australian one,
while correctly suggesting that nationalism is not a sui generis phenom –
enon, encounter difficulties in explaining the presence of more than one
model of nationalism within a society and ignore the ways in which na –
tionalism can be internally contested.
is contest in Cyprus primarily emerges between left- and right-
wing parties. On both sides, right-wing parties have expressed historical
identifications with their respective “motherland,” thus proposing Greek-
centered or T urkish-centered versions, while the major left-wing parties
proposed Cypriot-centered alternatives. e former could be regarded as
expressions of what Smith (1991) classifies as ethnic nationalism (based
on common descent and ethnicity), the latter as civic nationalism (based
on civic identity and shared territory). In this regard, generalized binary
distinctions between different types of nationalism are problematic, since
both models are present in Cyprus. While these distinctions were noted
by anthropologists, Peristianis (this volume) examines the history of the
emergence of these two models among Greek Cypriots from a sociological
perspective, elaborating their links to social structure in terms of political
party formations. By using quantitative data drawn from questionnaires,
he analyzes the extent of their appeal among Greek Cypriots in general and
among adherents of particular left- and right-wing parties.
While Peristianis shows the internal differences among Greek Cypriots,
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10 I Divided Cyprus
Navaro-Yashin focuses on internal differences between T urkish Cypriots
and T urks who came to live in northern Cyprus after 1974. Taking issue
with political science and other approaches to the Cyprus Problem that
habitually define it as an ethnic conflict between Greeks and T urks, she
problematizes such dualisms by focusing on the construction and articu –
lation of boundaries within the category of “T urk,” highlighting various
aspects of the political and social conflict between T urks and T urkish Cypri –
ots on the island, which are often expressed through the idiom of cultural
differences. Interestingly, one strategy T urkish Cypriot use “orientalizes”
T urks from T urkey as backward, religious, and of a peasant mentality while
they present themselves as modern, civilized, and Western. is has critical
implications for grand theoretical schemas, such as “Orientalism” (Said
1979) or “the clash of civilizations” (Huntington 1997), whose levels of
abstraction and drawing of boundaries do not easily fit with more complex
realities on the ground. Anthropology’s emphasis on practices instead of
discourse reveals how social agents may actually subvert, challenge, or use
such schemas for particular ends and thus not accept boundaries as givens
but actively manipulate them in order to draw their own distinctions.
Children are a characteristic group whose agency is habitually denied.
National education is often regarded as the process of inscribing domi –
nant social injunctions onto docile minds and bodies, thus determining
children’s outlook on identity and history. e anthropological study of
childhood was relatively neglected until groundbreaking studies such as
James and Prout (1990) urged the conceptualization of children as social
agents and called for ethnographic studies. Spyrou’s work on construc –
tions of identity, otherness, and history by Greek Cypriot children operates
within this framework. In this respect, it is significant to note a structural
ambiguity in the category “T urkish Cypriot” as used by Greek Cypriots.
e first part designates them as complete others, as “T urks” who are the
archetypal barbaric enemy. e second designates them as part of the self,
since children interpret “Cypriot” as meaning Greek Cypriot, leading
Spyrou to conclude that “‘T urkish Cypriot’ is a contradiction in terms”
(2001, 177). e need to resolve such social contradictions takes us directly
into Levi-Strauss’s classic analysis of the primary function of myth, and
Spyrou’s analysis demonstrates the imaginative work children undertake
as they attempt to resolve these contradictions through their own narra –
tives (2001, 2002, this volume). His contribution in this volume examines
children’s performances of identity and history in two different contexts
(one urban and near the Green Line, the other rural) to illustrate how the
individual intersects with the local and broader social context to construct
a sense of self and others.
One interesting insight Spyrou’s detailed contextual analysis yields is
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Introduction I 11
the gap between the official political rhetoric of Greek Cypriots toward
T urkish Cypriots, which treats them as compatriots with whom Greek
Cypriots peacefully coexisted in the past, and Greek Cypriot educational
practices. Anthropological scrutiny sheds doubt on the notion of state
policy as some kind of coherent dogma propagated through education. e
educational system Spyrou describes contradicts the officially stated policy.
is indicates that “the state” itself is not necessarily an efficient monolithic
agency that implements policies with a clear political will but may instead
itself offer confused and contradictory directives. Better yet, it may be
seen as strategically offering different messages to different audiences. e
“good T urkish Cypriots” line was persistently repeated in the domain of
international politics when Greek Cypriot officials addressed foreign poli –
ticians, but inside Cyprus there was no sustained effort to turn this into
a part of the educational curriculum. is gap could also be the result of
resistance on the part of the Ministry of Education to implementing state
policy and resistance on the part of teachers during teaching practices. As
Spyrou notes, more often than not, teachers failed to draw any distinctions
between “good” T urkish Cypriots and “bad” T urks and as a result, “T urk –
ish Cypriots” were casually subsumed under the negative category of “the
T urk.” If children are to be conceptualized as social agents, so are teachers,
of course, and Spyrou’s work points to the crucial role of teachers as active
interpreters of official directives.
e limits of agency and responsibility and the dangerous consequences
of the narrative forms that nationalist histories assume are explored in an
article by Loizos (1988) that seeks to understand the logic of intercom –
munal killings in Cyprus (see also Herzfeld, this volume). In this article,
Loizos delineates the differences between nationalist killings and other
forms of political violence that have concerned anthropology, such as
feuding. He points out the collectivist, generalizing, and nonspecific (in
terms of distinguishing between combatants and noncombatants) prin –
ciples of intercommunal retaliation as he tries to understand the belliger –
ent actions of a particular (Greek Cypriot) man against T urkish Cypriots.
What emerges from this analysis is that nationalism, by predicating the
long historical presence of an ethnic self and ethnic others, can easily lead
to a logic whereby injuries to a social group centuries ago are perceived as
injuries to the ethnic self of today and may thus be regarded as legitimating
retaliation where conditions may allow it. One result of nationalist history
conceived as a biography of the nation is that this posits the presence of
a transhistorical actor or personality. Hence, an injury in the distant past
is regarded as an injury to this same (current) actor. Continuity in time is
one side of the equation; the other is the unity of the categories of self and
other within homogenous imagined communities. is may lead to a logic
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12 I Divided Cyprus
whereby an injury to a particular member of one community by certain
specific persons belonging to the other may be avenged by another person
against anyone else from the other. While Loizos argues that a perpetrator
clearly has to be regarded as responsible, he cautiously adds that in a “so –
ciologically fair-minded court” (1988, 651) he could be allowed to enter a
plea for diminished responsibility, meaning that he acted within a broader
political and ideological context that encouraged this form of action.
Memory, Forgetting, and Displacement
Political conflict and displacement lead to intense preoccupations with
issues related to memory, whether of homes that have been lost or events
that ought to be remembered. e examination of social memory in Cy –
prus’s divided society (Papadakis 1993a, 1993b) can yield insights regard –
ing the political construction of memory, as it allows for the comparative
examination of the dialectic between memory and forgetting among the
two ethnic groups that previously lived together and yet have come to re –
member that period in markedly different ways. In particular, it reveals how
silences regarding certain events and periods diachronically—that is, across
generations—leads to social forgetting, since the younger generations have
no way of knowing what took place. Greek Cypriots, for example, who
desired the reunification of Cyprus tended to forget the violent period of
the 1960s, as remembering it would also make untenable the view that
the past with T urkish Cypriots was one of “peaceful coexistence.” T urkish
Cypriots, by contrast, officially posited this period as the defining time of
their history in order to argue that those events proved that the two people
could never live together again. ese issues are examined in closer detail in
Papadakis’s contribution in this volume on ethnic autism: the self-obsessed
reiteration of one’s own pain and denial of that of others. In his account of
ethnographic work among Greek Cypriots and T urkish Cypriots, he shows
how in everyday life, social actors reproduce but also contest officially pro –
claimed truths that negate the suffering of others. His contribution traces
the interactive process at work in the social construction of political truth-
claims regarding violence against others, whether across the ethnic divide
or across various levels of the social structure within each ethnic group.
He compares different contexts—for example, the city of Nicosia, where
T urkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots were separated by a buffer zone, and
the village of Pyla, a mixed community located within this buffer zone—to
illustrate the social processes at work that lead either to censorship or to
disclosure and acknowledgement.
e two major ethnic groups remember and forget the past in differ –
ent ways, turning memory too into a means of legitimating their political
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Introduction I 13
claims, one side arguing that the past legitimates division and the other
that it legitimates reunification. It turns out that memory, like history, is
more concerned with the future than the past, as each version legitimates
the political future each community aspires to. Along with memory and
history, the experience of suffering in Cyprus has also become officially
sharply divided to the point where terms such as “ the dead,” “ the miss –
ing,” or “ the refugees” refer only to those of the speaker’s side. Sant Cassia’s
comparative examination of the emotive issue of the missing on both sides
(1998/1999, 2000, 2001) and of the iconography of pain (1998, 1999) in
a context where photographs of pain became the staple representation of
the Cyprus Problem made apparent that neither side had a monopoly on
pain. Such realist photographs were employed by both sides as repositories
of memories and documentary proofs of atrocities (perpetrated by others)
and martyrdom (as suffering of the social self). His work shifted the discus –
sion toward the understanding of so-called realist photographs as complex
symbols that signify different approaches to experience and memory.
Regarding the missing, Sant Cassia’s work (1998/1999, 2000, 2001)
indicated how Greek Cypriots officially defined the missing as people
presumed alive until proven otherwise, in line with their view that the
Cyprus Problem was an open issue still requiring proper political closure,
while T urkish Cypriots defined them as people lost and presumed dead,
corresponding to their official view that the Cyprus Problem was solved
and that people should continue to live apart, as they had since 1974.
His contribution in this volume focuses on the exhumations conducted at
Lakatameia cemetery by the Greek Cypriot authorities in 1999–2000. He
first examines the background of the decisions taken by the authorities to
conduct the exhumations and explores ethnographically how certain indi –
viduals achieved some degree of narrative closure after the exhumations,
also suggesting how relatives may have needs that are different from and
conflict with the agendas of the nation-state. Taking issue with approaches
that treat expressive emotion as resistance, he argues that suffering and
emotion may ultimately both subvert and sustain the social order.
e management of memory in Cyprus has become a vital issue in ways
that differ both from the management of memory in the former socialist
states (e.g., see Watson 1994) and the processes of forgetting encountered
in the metropolitan United States in the context of high capitalism. Greek
Cypriots who were displaced during 1974 were officially condemned to
live in perpetual exile. ey could never consider their current residence
their home, since only their abandoned home in the north could ever be
their true home. Nostalgia thus became a patriotic duty. To have called
their new residence home would have been tantamount to an unpatriotic
act of abandoning the hope of return. T urkish Cypriots, by contrast, could
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 13

14 I Divided Cyprus
not feel nostalgic toward the homes they left behind in 1974, as that could
imply that they wished to return or that life there was not always bleak, in
contrast to the T urkish Cypriot official rhetoric that the past was all nega –
tive and that the north now was their true and only “homeland.” Greek
Cypriots engaged in what Aciman (2000) would call nostomania, whereas
T urkish Cypriots engaged in nostophobia. Jepson (this volume) evocatively
analyzes the practice of gardening in Cyprus, highlighting the unique posi –
tion gardens occupy in physical and social space and in the internalized,
unarticulated, and sensual space of memory. She suggests that the refugees
displaced after 1974 have used their gardens as a means of low-key memory
work to articulate a connection to their former homes. At the same time,
this could be a less risky way of articulating a desire to “put down roots”
somewhere else than their “true” home in the north that if openly articu –
lated could lead to accusations of political disloyalty. Jepson contrasts this
practice with a growing interest in bourgeois ornamental “modern” gar –
dening, where other kinds of considerations related to taste and class (as
discussed by Bourdieu [1984]) predominate.
De Certeau (1984, 91) has made a suggestive distinction regarding the
links between place, history, and memory. Contrasting Rome with New
York, he argued that the former grows old by playing on all its historical
pasts, whereas New York changes by rejecting the past through constant
reinvention. Similarly, Klein (1997) discusses Los Angeles as a site defined
by high capitalism characterized by the erasure of memory. By contrast,
Bahloul’s work on Algeria explores a different kind of place where memory
is more salient, where “the tale . . . crosses the boundary between the private
and the public, between the particular and the universal” (1996, 130). e
case of Cyprus fits better with the latter examples, where it is indeed dif –
ficult to draw a distinction between private and public or collective stories.
Even if the kinds of erasures of memory in the context of capitalism Klein
suggests are also present in Cyprus, the political demands emerging from
the lack of consolidated states makes the need to infuse the landscape with
(ethnic) memories and memorials as a way to provide linkages to the land
paramount. While this also entails the erasure of others’ memories (by
changing place names, destroying statues, etc.), these processes arise from
different sociopolitical conditions than those related to capitalism that
Klein explores. In Cyprus, displacements occurred along ethnic lines that
were the result of ethnonational violence and war.
is argument can be refined by examining Nora’s (1996, 1–18)
groundbreaking discussion of the links between memory, history, and
space in modernity. Nora argues that history and memory in modernity
are opposed, giving rise to different kinds of social spaces. Memory is em –
bodied in landscapes and familiar social settings, while history comes to be
associated with monuments and heritage sites. e term milieux de mémoire
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Introduction I 15
refers to social spaces and landscapes that embody memory as lived expe –
rience. History, by contrast, is associated with lieux de mémoire, officially
monumentalized sites. ese exist precisely because there are no longer any
milieux de mémoire —that is, settings in which memory is a real part of ev –
eryday experience—and for this reason the past has to be embodied in sites
(monuments, museums, street names, etc.). Nora premises his argument
on the idea that we share a sense of history as rapidly accelerating, which
means that things now appear to vanish in an irretrievable past and that
“something long since begun now feels complete” (1). Using France as his
site of investigation, he points out that as the definition of the nation has
ceased to be an issue, as peace and prosperity prevail, the notion of society
has supplanted the nation (6). One of his major points is that what is nowa –
days (at least in France) called memory is really history, based on historical
records. Nora’s analysis of French lieux de mémoire and his more general
argument provide another useful contrast with the predicament of Cyprus.
For in Cyprus, where one side officially proclaims its desire for reunification
in a single state and the other for international recognition of its existence
as a state, history by no means appears to be complete, especially since the
preconditions of peace, if not also prosperity for T urkish Cypriots, are still
absent. Instead, history emically appears to be very much “in the making.”
And the notion of society has not supplanted that of the nation.
One significant reason why social spaces in Cyprus cannot be treated
as either lieux de mémoire or milieux de mémoire but rather as lying some –
where in between is that many people do have living memories of the
recent events which led to the current situation (Papadakis 1998b; Scott
2002). Precisely for this reason, a widespread trope through which people
commonly discuss history is as witnesses (Sant Cassia 1995) who are still
operating in a disputed milieux de mémoire. e widespread use of the trope
of witnessing indicates that history is regarded more as part of the present
than as something past, done and over with, a closed issue. It also suggests
the self-reflexive knowledge that history and memory are contested by oth –
ers’ versions; social agents are keen to offer their own testimonies regarding
the historical record as if they were appearing in the role of witnesses in a
court set to adjudicate how things came to be as they are and apportion
blame. is points toward a different ontology regarding the relationship
between the present and the past than that suggested by Nora. Modernity
in divided Cyprus and the divided modernities of Cyprus have given rise
to an alternative social configuration where analytical divisions between
lieux and milieux de mémoire, or between history and memory, which (ac –
cording to Nora) characterizes Western modernity, are difficult to draw.
is suggests an alternative configuration of the relationships between
history, memory, and place in societies currently experiencing violent eth-
nonational conflicts.
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16 I Divided Cyprus
Modernity, Postcoloniality, Transnationalism
During the 1960s, southern Europe emerged as a new field for social
and cultural anthropology. Modernity, or rather its absence, became piv –
otal for the anthropological “invention of the Mediterranean” (Goddard,
Llobera, and Shore 1994) that contrasted rural Mediterranean regions
with northern Europe primarily on the basis of their assumed traditional –
ity. Early Mediterraneanist anthropology located its ethnographic studies
in small-scale rural communities, often in marginal areas of the modern
states of southern Europe, and was intent on documenting their traditional
social order and its underpinnings in kinship, gender ideals, and religion.
John Peristiany’s 1950s ethnography of a village in the Pitsilia region of
colonial Cyprus contributed significantly to the emergence of this area of
specialization among British and American anthropologists. In his article
“Honour and Shame in a Cypriot Highland Village,” Peristiany (1965a)
suggested that honor and shame served as value orientations guiding social
life not only in Cyprus but in all of the small-scale societies of the circum-
Mediterranean countries that had not yet been fully modernized. ere, so
he proposed, the evaluation of individual actions by village public opinion
provided the basis of social integration rather than modern institutions and
the nation-state. Peristiany’s initial study served as the starting point for a
cross-culturally comparative venture during the 1960s and 1970s, engaging
anthropologists on all shores of the Mediterranean in compiling evidence of
a shared social ethos that united traditional communities in Mediterranean
societies (Peristiany 1965b; Peristiany and Pitt-Rivers 1992).2
is body of work erected a sharp divide between the cultures of
northern and southern Europe by separating modern societies from com –
munities which were of interest precisely because they could be considered
premodern. is rigid dichotomy between modernity and tradition was
not critiqued until the 1980s (Herzfeld 1987, 1992). Ethnographic stud –
ies conducted in Cyprus that focused on the interplay of local legacies
with modern influences helped pave the way for this paradigm shift in
significant ways. Peter Loizos’s study of a village in the Morphou region
in the west of the island in the second half of the 1960s (1975) inquired
into how modern party politics affected and engaged with traditional social
relations in the village; villagers aligned themselves according to emerg –
ing divisions of social class and political ideology while striving to attain
economic success both as members or heads of families and as a collectiv –
ity, competing with other villages in the area. Loizos portrayed the Greek
Cypriot inhabitants of the village as social actors who were highly capable
of meeting the challenges of a changing society—and indeed profiting from
the new opportunities it offered—as well as manipulating its contingencies
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 16

Introduction I 17
to their advantage. In his contribution to this volume, Herzfeld asserts
that “Loizos showed how actors invoked seemingly unchanging rules in
order to legitimize contingent arrangements—and thereby changed the
rules.” According to Herzfeld, Loizos’s recognition that personal strategies
underlie actual structural changes represents a crucial departure from the
earlier anthropological literature on Greek rural society. e concern that
Loizos showed for the “pragmatics of negotiating a balance between the
constraints of formal culture and the necessities of everyday life” (Herzfeld,
this volume) prefigured the interest in Mediterranean studies with person –
hood, identity, and agency.3
e title of Loizos’s first book, e Greek Gift, alluded to the ambiguous
benefits of statehood and modern politics for village life. He conducted
his research in post-independence Cyprus, a context markedly different
from that of Peristiany’s research in colonial Cyprus. With Loizos’s seminal
study, the village community ceased to be a microcosm of the traditional
order. Later studies on Cyprus reconceptualized the village as a local arena
of social change (Markides, Nikita, and Rangou 1978) and opened up the
discussion on the production of boundaries and identities in response to
state ideologies, commodification, and capitalist exploitation (Sant Cas –
sia 1982).4 is impetus also infused a study by Vassos Argyrou with the
programmatic title “T radition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: e
Wedding as Symbolic Struggle” (1996). While exploiting a conventional
ethnographic concern, the wedding ritual, he abandoned the community-
study focus in favor of more free-ranging ethnography that compared
both rural and urban sites in the Republic of Cyprus in the early 1990s.
Argyrou’s study revealed both “modernity” (in the sense of Western at –
titudes and practices embraced by the Greek Cypriot urban middle class)
and the affirmation of “tradition” (as an expression of rural populations
and working-class resistance to bourgeois values) to be foils that masked
the fact that both modernists and traditionalists merely enacted the sym –
bolic domination of their society by the West. us, while Argyrou’s title
suggested the placement of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, his true aim was
to critically examine “Westernization” from a position on the margins of
Europe. Argyrou also deconstructed dominant social discourses in Greek
Cypriot society. e self-image of Greek Cypriot elites resonates with the
concept of modernization that Western sociologists developed after World
War II, which viewed their society as “transitional” (Welz 2001) and
defined modernity as a goal that Cyprus had yet to achieve. In contrast,
Argyrou argued that modernity is “neither a destination to be reached nor
an object to be appropriated. It is a historically constituted instrument of
division” (1996, 157).
Argyrou’s 1996 study made Cyprus into a privileged location for
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 17

18 I Divided Cyprus
anthropology’s critical inquiry into the meaning of modernity. In many
ways, anthropological work on Cyprus is indicative of how the culturally
constructed division between tradition and modernity from which anthro –
pology as a discipline emerged and which, according to such work, has be –
come increasingly unstable. In the 1990s, anthropology began challenging
conventional assumptions about modernization as a process that progresses
in a linear fashion and inexorably replaces tradition. Instead, moderniza –
tion was increasingly observed to manifest itself as an irregular, disjunctive,
and uneven dynamic (Appadurai 1996). Today, modernity is conceived of
as “a civilizational complex, spreading globally, affecting the cultures of ever
more societies” but “at the same time itself [being] reshaped in those loca –
tions” (Hannerz 1996, 48). An increasingly vocal group of anthropologists
proposes that societies do not simply adopt a globally standardized modern
civilization but rather generate their very own versions of modernity (Ong
2001). In each society, there is a “social and discursive space in which the
relationship between modernity and tradition is reconfigured. . . . is
reconfiguration is forged in a crucible of cultural beliefs and orientations
on the one hand, and politicoeconomic constraints and opportunities on
the other” (Knauft 2002, 25). Consequently, many anthropologists re –
conceptualize modernity in the plural (Kahn 2001). Multiple modernities
are “alternative constructions . . . in the sense of moral-political projects
that seek to control their own present and future” (Ong 1999, 23) that
societies generate.
Anthropologists are thus called upon to historically situate and com –
pare their own versions of modernity across cultures. Joel Kahn asserts that
the new anthropology of modernity “compels us towards an ethnographic
engagement with modernity in the West” (2001, 663). With its poignant
analysis of Western hegemonic exoticism, Argyrou’s postscript to this vol –
ume provides anthropologists with a vocabulary with which to analyze
the past endeavors of anthropological research in Cyprus and to unmask
it as emerging from and also constituting unequal relationships between
anthropologists and their imperialized others. He considers the impos –
sibility that the anthropological project at large can escape ethnocentrism,
as in its effort to unite the world, it ultimately divides it (Argyrou 2002).
If an “anthropology of Cyprus” appears as impossible as anthropology sui
generis, and if it may be impossible to speak from a position outside of
the (Western) hegemonic, the predicament of Cyprus that Argyrou reflects
upon is shared by other “non-Western” societies. Against the background
of this rather disconcerting analysis, he offers some tentative possibilities
for research along two lines: the investigation of the hegemonic “ideas that
originate in Western societies and circulate around the world as serious and
legitimate statements” and investigation of their impact on and transforma –
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 18

Introduction I 19
tion by the rest of the world: “An anthropology of Cyprus could very well
be the anthropological study of the West itself from the perspective of a
dominated and marginalized culture” (Argyrou, this volume).
With its focus on modernities emerging outside or on the margins of
the geography of the West, research into multiple modernities also explores
the possibility of a heterogeneous account of the emergence of colonial
modernity. Timothy Mitchell points out that Dipesh Chakrabarty’s work
(2000) has been particularly evocative of how “colonialism has made Euro –
pean narratives a global heritage that inevitably structures any subsequent
account of this modernity” but also how “the hegemony of the modern over
what it displaces as ‘traditional’ is never complete” (Mitchell 2000, xix).
Rebecca Bryant’s work in historical anthropology focuses on pre –
cisely these issues, pointing toward both transformations and continuities
through her examination of the relationships between modernity and
nationalism in Cyprus. Her work explores the developments of T urkish
Cypriot and Greek Cypriot nationalisms in Cyprus throughout the colo –
nial and postcolonial periods as distinct refractions of modernity emerging
through the colonial encounter and the influences of the nationalisms of
Greece and T urkey. Her work also demonstrates the limits of modernity’s
liberatory project, highlighting its darker potentialities. Both nationalisms
in Cyprus articulated conceptions of a naturalized history that have deeply
divided them, as Greek Cypriots employed metaphors of “soul” while T urk –
ish Cypriots invoked metaphors of “blood” to express a kinship between
people and land. Drawing from the work of Schneider (1968/1980), who
described American kinship as the cultural construction of reproduction
as biological fact, she argues that in Cyprus the nationalist conceptions
expressing the kinship of people with land were seen not as biological but
as historical, with history replacing biology as natural force, even if history
is as much culturally constructed as biology is (Bryant 2004, 206). Greek
Cypriot versions of history demonstrated purity and continuity, whereas
T urkish Cypriot versions emphasized factuality, heterogeneity, and con –
tingency (2004, 212). ese two versions correspond to the ideal-type
distinction drawn by John Comaroff (1996) between “ethnonationalism”
(as more essentialist and primordialist) and “Euronationalism” (as a mode
of nationalism acknowledging its own constructedness and the process
of homogenization). ese differences have also been evident in certain
other conflicts such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Israel/Palestine; Serbs,
Croats, and Israeli Jews use the former, while Bosnian Muslims use the
second (Bryant 2004, 213–214). On these grounds, Bryant also calls for
a reevaluation of Delaney’s influential thesis (1991, 1995) that national –
isms stemming from the Abrahamic tradition are similar in terms of their
gendered notions of conception and family.
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 19

20 I Divided Cyprus
Bryant’s work demonstrates the pitfalls of the project of liberal democ –
racy by drawing attention to how it can lead to conflict when the polis for
which this is to apply is perceived in ethnonational terms (2004, 218–219).
When this is the case, as it was in Cyprus, the emergence of an anonymous
democratic political space leads to exclusive ideologies of freedom. She
argues that an abstract notion of “democratization” has ignored the plural
forms of democracy in practice. For example, a comparison with the de –
velopment of democracy in the United States reveals that the democratic
model can appear to be inclusive on the ethnic level only when inequality is
cast in terms of class; non-British European immigrants were able to share
race but not class with whites, thus losing their ethnic status in the name
of a white identity (2004, 222).
Bryant’s (2001) research into the historical development of education
in Cyprus reveals the kinds of continuities Mitchell alluded to regarding
the modern and the traditional. Her historical research allowed her to show
how educated persons during the British colonial period could readily be –
come leaders because they were seen as embodying goods already valued
since both literacy and education always had implications of a tradition
both for Muslims and Orthodox Christians during the previous Ottoman
regime. A detailed examination of the workings of education revealed that
this was not a process of imposition from above as social theorists often
casually assumed and, by extension, that nationalism was not a process of
indoctrination through the educational system, as many theorists of na –
tionalism claimed. Both ethnic groups regarded education as a means of
becoming more fully what one already was in ethnic terms, assuming that
people were already social beings and bearers of social traditions, premises
that are markedly different from the modern understanding of education
as a process operating on asocial individuals as if on a tabula rasa. e dif –
ferential positionings of Greek Cypriots and T urkish Cypriots within the
discourse of modernity led Greek Cypriots to treat education as a process of
evocation (i.e., becoming fully Greek was equivalent to becoming fully hu –
man since they regarded humanity as corresponding to Hellenism), while
T urkish Cypriots saw education as a process of “enlightenment” (whereby
the “enlightened”—that is, the intellectuals—would instruct the people
about what should count as the communally shared correct version of
culture). Bryant argues that nationalist education in Cyprus was successful
because it embodied an “‘aesthetics of the self’ which linked a hierarchy of
goods to commonly held understandings of how those goods were to be
realized by individuals” (2001, 585–586). Education was a moral project
geared toward the creation of better persons who would work to achieve
ethnically defined goods or goals. is is a different conception of “goods”
from their usual modern conception as individually owned commodities.
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 20

Introduction I 21
Similarly, the goals or ends were ethnically defined and conflicting in con –
trast to the open-ended perfectibility of indefinite progress stipulated by
western European models.
Many strands of Bryant’s work are drawn together in her discussion of
Cyprus’s postcolonial predicaments in this volume. She posits that today
there is a failure of Cypriots to engage in debate over their own postcolonial
condition and argues that not only did Cypriots actively participate in co –
lonialism as a complex of ideas which they negotiated, rejected, or adapted
but that the discourses of nationalism and civilization adopted from the
“motherlands” made for a situation that diverged from that of other British
colonies: “e case of Cyprus is different at least in the sense that the Greek
Orthodox majority in the island claimed not only to possess European
ancestry but even that they were the real ancestors of Europe. e Muslim
minority, on the other hand, first laid claims to a counterideology rooted in
Ottoman imperial rule and later claimed to have participated in a project of
national modernization that explicitly aimed at bridging East and West. . . .
Both, then, presented themselves as ‘civilized’ in contrast to the ‘Asiatics or
Africans,’ one by claiming a primordial European identity and the other by
claiming an identity constituted by its challenge to Europe” (Bryant, this
volume). As Bryant shows in her interpretations of the discourses of both
Greek Cypriot and T urkish Cypriot nationalist education, it is ultimately
this equation of nationalism with civilization as an ideology that makes the
conception of the nation one trapped in a unilinear directionality leading
toward “the modern” and “the West.”
Closely related to these inquiries into the “coloniality of power”
(Mignolo 2000), new work on transnational cultural processes has urged
anthropology to rethink its assumptions about the state and nationalism
and their relation to territory. e term “transnationality” captures those
cultural processes that stream across the borders of nation states. e diffu –
sion or dispersal of people, ideas, and artifacts across space generates trans –
national cultures that extend beyond or cut across state boundaries and
make it increasingly difficult to map the concept of anthropological culture
onto fixed territories (Hannerz 1998). Ultimately, dichotomies between
“the global” and “the local” are called into question (Marcus 1998). In some
societies, these changes are especially visible. Cyprus has a long history
of translocal connections. Today, the increased mobility and worldwide
dispersal of populations, which forms diasporas far from home, also have
come to transform anthropological concerns about Cyprus by reconfigur –
ing notions of location, actors, and politics (Welz 2002). Phenomena that
were neglected before, such as diasporic groups residing in Cyprus (Pattie
1991, 1995, 1997) and Cypriots forming a worldwide diasporic com –
munity (Anthias 1992), have come within the purview of anthropological
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 21

22 I Divided Cyprus
studies on Cyprus. During the past two decades, however, many southern
European countries, among them Cyprus, have themselves become coveted
destinations of migrants and have experienced increased immigration from
non-European countries (Anthias and Lazaridis 1999; Lenz 2001; Lenz
2002). is is particularly true for Greek Cypriot society, which has, in
its rapid move toward becoming a prospering service economy, become
accustomed to taking advantage of cheap immigrant labor, both legal and
illegal. Gendered experiences of immigration—of Filipino and Sri Lankan
maids working in Greek Cypriot households and Eastern European women
hired to work in the entertainment sector and the sex industry—provide
focal points of recent ethnographic projects. Forms of contractual labor
and restrictive regulations regarding work permits produce a fluctuating
workforce that in effect constitutes the new multiethnic underclass of the
Republic of Cyprus, a fact that is consistently erased from public aware –
ness or legitimated by prevailing racist stereotypes (Anthias, this volume).
Anthias argues that we need to “think through the importance of Cyprus
as a translocational space; that is, one where interculturality, movement,
and flow have been important aspects of social reality” (Anthias, this vol –
ume) and counterposes the presence of immigrants in Cyprus with the
experiences of the Greek Cypriot diaspora outside Cyprus; she explores
the “narratives of belonging” of diasporic young Cypriots growing up in
Great Britain. is ultimately allows for the reformulation of Cyprus as a
transnational space in which multiple ethnicities and new forms of Euro –
pean citizenship are both generated and contested.
Tourism is another phenomenon of transnational mobility that, in the
past two decades, has had a strong and irreversible impact on the culture
and society of both sides in Cyprus; this makes Cyprus an increasingly
productive site for the anthropology of tourism (Scott 1995, 1997; Aki,
Peristianis, and Warner 1996; Welz 1999). Like many other circum-Medi –
terranean countries, tourism has hastened the destruction of the ecological
integrity of coastal areas. Increasing development pressure threatens yet-
pristine wilderness areas that are habitats of rare and endangered species,
but the implementation of policies of environmental protection often
meets with resistance from the local population in Cyprus, who fear that
the use of their land is being restricted (Argyrou 1997; Baga 2002). Welz’s
contribution to this volume elaborates how, within the framework of
European integration, environmental protection has in effect become a
transnational issue, with the EU exerting considerable pressure on Cyprus
and its political actors to comply with its regulations. Anthropological stud –
ies in other parts of the world have called attention to the ways in which
agencies of global governance both transform and subvert the nation-state
and its legal system (Herzfeld 2001a). Cyprus provides an excellent case
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 22

Introduction I 23
in point of the contradictory effects of the process of Europeanization that
operates by both enlisting and obviating cultural difference.
One of the dominant tropes through which the history of Cyprus has
been emically narrated is that of victimhood, even if each side defines the
aggressor(s) differently. Despite the contested narratives, locals often choose
to present themselves as almost passive victims. is could be seen as a
strategy for self-absolution as a means of shifting blame to others, a road
that most anthropologists who have worked on Cyprus have chosen not to
travel. As Bryant characteristically comments: “[My analysis] is certain to
irritate those who prefer to believe that Cypriots are only victims—whether
victims of international conspiracies, victims of British colonial policy, vic –
tims of the ‘mother countries,’ or even victims of their own leaders” (2004,
187). Like Bryant, most anthropologists dealing with facets of the Cyprus
Problem have addressed the issue of local agency, attributing a share of
responsibility to locals for the multiple sufferings of the people of Cyprus
without suggesting that outsiders are devoid of their own responsibility
(see also Papadakis 2005).
Much of the anthropological research discussed here could provide
a useful complement to, and to an extent a critique of, the standard ap –
proaches to the Cyprus Problem endorsed by historians, political scientists,
and international relations experts. During encounters between anthro –
pologists and other such specialists, the issue of agency often emerged as a
strong point of disagreement. Due to anthropology’s own theoretical and
methodological inclinations—what some would no doubt regard as well-
meaning but naive biases—anthropologists tended to treat locals as actors
rather than as simply victims. Whatever the limitations or biases of this
approach, the assumption of agency would also imply at least a partial ac –
knowledgment of local responsibility for the manifold tragedies of Cyprus.
is could entail a necessary step toward the self-critique urgently needed if
the painful process of reconciliation is to begin taking place. Asad’s (1991)
critique of colonial narratives as simple domination-resistance stories and
his call for the examination of this opposition in a more historically and
socially grounded context may also provide a pertinent frame of analysis for
Cyprus. In this view, resistance and colonialism are assumed to have shaped
each other. is approach can shed light not only on colonialism but also
on other interactions between local systems and external forces.
Overall, the emphasis anthropologists studying Cyprus have placed
on politics, understandable though it may have been, resulted in the rela –
tive neglect of other areas that have traditionally concerned anthropology
elsewhere. While, for example, much anthropological research in Greece
and T urkey (societies that face their own ambiguities, given their placement
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 23

24 I Divided Cyprus
on the margins of Europe) focused on issues of identity, research in those
societies also profitably engaged with a broader set of issues, including
gender (e.g., Dubish 1986; Delaney 1991), religion (e.g., Stewart 1991;
Shankland 2001), economics (e.g., White 1994), and dance or music (e.g.,
Cowan 1990; Stokes 1992).
Cyprus has for much of its recent history stood divided by a “Dead
Zone” that has entailed the absence of any common ground between the
two sides. It has been uncomfortably situated on multiple geopolitical
margins, lying between T urkey and Greece, East and West, Asia and Eu –
rope, Islam and Christianity, and now, in different respects, both inside
and outside the EU. Cyprus has also remained uncomfortably perched
between conceptual and theoretical binaries such as modernity and tradi –
tion, past and present, history and myth, history and memory, and various
typologies of nationalism. Binary oppositions are themselves predicated on
the absence of conceptual common ground. Much anthropological writing
on Cyprus has criticized such binaries—whether geographical, political, or
theoretical—in a search for some common ground, even if it did not shy
away from pointing out differences both between the two ethnic groups
and within. Despite the failure of the latest peace efforts as of this writing,
both sides remain committed to the principle of federalism. e envisaged
political solution to the Cyprus Problem in the form of a bizonal, bicom –
munal federation is a constitutional expression of this quandary, suggesting
that unity and division may not necessarily exclude each other but may
be constitutionally embedded as principles that can allow for autonomy
without leading to dissolution of the state.
Notes
1. Quoted in Given (2002, 423).
2. A closer look at the ways in which meanings were attributed to the concepts of
“honor and shame” in various settings around the Mediterranean and how they were
translated into social practices revealed more diversity than unity. As a consequence, the
idea of the Mediterranean culture area became increasingly disputed and was abandoned
(Gilmore 1987; Herzfeld 2001b).
3. Loizos’s work had a strong emphasis on visual anthropology, as reflected in his pho –
tographic work on Greek Cypriot refugees, Grace in Exile (Loizos 2003), and documentaries
such as Life Chances: Four Families in a Changing Cypriot Village (1974) and Sophia’s People:
Eventful Lives (1985).
4. e study conducted by sociologist Kyriacos Markides and other colleagues in the
Mesaoria village of Lysi in the early 1970s argued that modernity was not replacing tradi –
tion in the course of a linear transition but instead that economic development, structural
differentiation, and modernization allowed the inhabitants of this community to hold on to
established cultural values, resulting in dualistic worldviews and social practices (Markides,
Nikita, and Rangou 1978). e ethnography by Paul Sant Cassia (1982) on the moderniza –
tion process in a Paphos community at the western side of the island took its cues from the
established interests of social anthropology in marriage strategies and property relations.
00DividedIntro.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 24

Introduction I 25
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———. 1995. “Diairemeno Parelthon kai Enomeno Paron” [Divided Past and United
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———. 1999. “Piercing T ransfigurations: Representations of Suffering in Cyprus.” Visual
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30 I Michael Herzfeld
ONE
Transforming Lives
PROCESS AND PERSON IN CYPRIOT MODERNITY
Michael Herzfeld
When I first visited Cyprus in 1972, President Makarios seemed firmly
in charge of the island republic, the benign dignity of religious and
political leadership embodied in his magnificent defiance of small-minded
colonels claiming to represent Hellenism in its purest form. Greek and
T urkish Cypriots, living side by side, were still sometimes able to ignore
the insistence of politicians that they separate themselves from each other
territorially and categorically. Cyprus was a beacon of hope for ethnic co –
habitation and for some form of democracy, its anthropology—in an age of
relative innocence—the starting point (under John Peristiany’s magisterial
leadership) for the exploration of allegedly pan-Mediterranean systems of
morality and its emergence from the burden of colonialism as an economi –
cally robust society a source of pride and confidence. e Greek Gift (Loizos
1975b) had not yet brought to the anthropological public the insight that
the local conduct of elections could drastically alter our understanding of
the relationships among nationalism, the state, and people’s everyday lives.
And while the lemons were bitter, the orgiastic violence of war had not yet
left the hearts of all Cypriots grown equally bitter; for the Greek Cypriot
majority, at least, optimism was in the air, although many perhaps already
sensed that they were about to reap that bitter harvest already sown.
From that time of innocent hope, we have moved through the peaks
and valleys of possibility to a becalmed, sadder, and perhaps—but this
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T ransforming Lives I 31
is the tragedy—wiser age. Events have so moved us, and social actors
enmeshed in those events have shown us how their adoption of what
seemed to be the categorical imperatives of one or another nationalism or
“cultural fundamentalism” (Stolcke 1995; see also Herzfeld 1997b, 109)
could both create that momentum and be swept aside by it. T rue, these
events restored democratic governance to Greece as well as to Cyprus, but
at a terrible cost to Cyprus, one that still carries a persistent surcharge of
intransigence and cynicism. It is true, too, that anthropology has refined
its sometimes rigidly regional focus and displaced formalistic concerns with
structure in favor of recognizing the role of people, as individuals and in
groups, in the production of social agency. And it is true, again, that the
anthropology of today acknowledges the importance of linking the local
with the regional and the national in order to understand the large events
in which small communities get caught up. ese are important gains, and
we owe a significant part of them, in the Cypriot context, to Peter Loizos.
But these gains must be appreciated against the backdrop of so much of
what Loizos’s humanism, anthropological relativism, and endorsement of
the values of decency and tolerance have led him, and all of us, to abhor in
a world increasingly dominated by new, insidious, and multilayered forms
of colonialism. Against those developments, Loizos’s own anthropological
contributions, although expressed with a modesty that forms part of the
poetics of being a late-twentieth-century British liberal, have a significance
obscured only by the obscurity of Cyprus itself in the era of the global—for,
as Vassos Argyrou (1996, 3) has so ably demonstrated, what might be said
of the reasons for the epistemological marginalization of modern Greek
culture can be repeated, a fortiori, for a country that some today regard as
living under forms of colonial rule imposed by Greece and T urkey, respec –
tively. My goal is to present one view of what Loizos’s work might mean
for both Cyprus (and Eastern Mediterranean) studies and for anthropology
as a theoretical discipline.
Loizos presents himself as a commonsensical English public schoolboy
who abhors excess,1 whether of nationalistic or of epistemological zeal.
Since he chose to work in a society where the style of self-presentation often
seems to encourage displays of excess, from treating in the coffee house to
aggressive defenses of familial virtue, and since he clearly did very well at it,
one is tempted not to call into doubt but simply to evaluate as performance
and ideology the ways in which his scholarly style seems to announce en –
trenched antipathy to any kind of theorizing. While his contributions to
Cypriot studies are impressively numerous, he apparently neither thinks of
himself nor is he usually treated by others as someone whose work generates
theoretical controversy or debate. So my task, which reflects many years of
warm friendship, is a contradictory one at the very least: to show that, in
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32 I Michael Herzfeld
Loizos’s work, we have an encapsulated moment of theoretical richness that
largely owes both its strengths and its limits to the performative modesty
and reasonableness with which it is framed.
I want to focus on four works: an essay (Loizos 1975b) on shifting
Greek Cypriot residence rules over one century; e Greek Gift (1975b),
the first serious attempt in the East Mediterranean world to explore the
relationship between local interests and electoral mechanisms; e Heart
Grown Bitter, a work so modestly presented as a “chronicle” that it would be
easy to forget its importance, in combination with the film Sophia’s World,
as a major anthropological contribution to refugee studies; and his remark –
able Man essay on “Inter-Communal Killings in Cyprus” (1988).
Now I certainly do not want to imply that Loizos, like the goddess
Athena, sprang in fully formed theoretical splendor from the head of some
anthropological Zeus or (for more Byzantine-minded readers) that, like
some postmodern St. Nicholas, he could talk the talk and walk the walk
three days after he was intellectually born. His education was clearly long,
traditional, and painstaking. He has always deeply respected his intellectual
ancestors, among whom we must count J. K. Campbell (1964), and he has
been particularly attentive to Campbell’s recognition that patronage must
be taken seriously as a form of vertical political linkage grounded in the
local moral universe. at influence in turn leads back to the foundations
laid by John Peristiany, whose Nicosia conference in 1970 (later published
as Mediterranean Family Structures [Peristiany 1976]) was in effect my own
entry point at the very bottom end of the profession and my first experi –
ence of the warm encouragement of Peristiany, Campbell, and many oth –
ers, among whom an effervescent Peter Loizos was already working on his
study of residential practices in the village of “Kalo” (subsequently unveiled
as Argaki).
In that study, Loizos argued that in the hitherto neovirilocal village the
demographic pressures of emigration, notably to Britain, had placed in –
creasingly competitive pressure on the parents of unmarried young women
to add the provision of a new house to what they were prepared to offer as
dowry. Despite criticisms that he did not sufficiently recognize the role of
strategy and agency in the management of rules (see, notably, Sant Cassia
1982), this study addressed what are now known as “matrimonial strate –
gies” (on which, see especially Bourdieu 1977, 58–71). It was an important
departure from the hitherto rather rigid, structural-functional emphasis
on norms that appeared to be fixed in time. Loizos showed how actors
invoked seemingly unchanging rules in order to legitimize contingent ar –
rangements—and thereby changed the rules.
is was a crucial recognition of social process: If the force of residence
norms appeared to lie in their alleged timelessness, their usefulness lay in –
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T ransforming Lives I 33
stead in their malleability. e lability of terms such as “dowry” ( prika ) is
itself an indication of this semantic variation,2 which permits manipulation
of what must purport to be a rigid system if its authority is to be useful to
those who so manipulate it. Although my data from Crete are not as sys –
tematic as those of either Loizos or Sant Cassia, I can say quite confidently,
for example, that the inhabitants of the predominantly (one might almost
say ferociously) neovirilocal communities of west and central Crete yield to
a similar practical exigency when their women are set up in towns such as
Rethemnos, Khania, and Iraklio with houses that constitute an important
draw for wealthier or better-educated males (see especially Herzfeld 1991,
133–138). e earlier anthropological literature on Greek rural society
did recognize this kind of malleability; it was implicit in the descriptions,
which unfortunately but necessarily relied on hearsay rather than direct
observation, of the negotiations involved in marriage brokerage. Similar
conclusions developed out of the initially rather rule-like appearance of
naming practices (Kenna 1976; cf. Herzfeld 1982; Sutton 1997; Vernier
1991). But Loizos, in his recognition that personal strategies underlay
actual structural changes, was ahead of the pack.
Moreover, as Jepson argues (this volume), ownership of land—es –
pecially of homes—is actualized through daily practices that entail the
engagement of the human body with the land in its care and through the
embrace (or occasional denial) of historically deep associations through
inheritance and other materializations of social relatedness. is point be –
comes important when we consider the choices people make in defending
national territory and the ways in which politicians can deploy rhetorics of
belonging, home, and boundary maintenance as well as those of memory
and forgetting. eirs is a creative response to formal state logic. In this
sense, perhaps, we may say that Loizos reads the idea of residence rules
very much in the way that the people he studied might have read the tax
code—as a conglomeration of mutually contradictory principles, of which
individuals chose those that best suited their needs and interests while rep –
resenting their choices as consistent with a larger communal morality. And,
as Anthias (this volume) demonstrates, the definition of place—including
national space—is subject to ceaseless reconfiguration and negotiation. e
linkage between these two levels is further evident in David Sutton’s astute
linkage of local naming practices with concerns over national toponymy,
especially with regard to that other hotly contested space of contemporary
Greek political interest, Macedonia (Sutton 1997).
Viewed in these terms, Sant Cassia’s critique is less a rejection than an
amplification of Loizos’s argument. Leaving aside the obvious point that
they were working in very different communities with distinctive local
traditions in each case, we cannot deny that what Loizos has demonstrated
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 33

34 I Michael Herzfeld
reveals an overall pattern of radical change in perceptions of what the rules
“are”—as, again, has clearly happened in west and central Crete. Sant
Cassia shows us the observed practices at work, where Loizos had initially
pointed to their cumulative effects—although, in his nuanced description
of the haggling that occurs among the parties to a marriage negotiation
(Loizos 1975a, 514), he pointed with great subtlety to the justifications
social actors could make to avoid an unwanted alliance or raise the stakes.
Again this is relevant to larger issues of national identity. As I have argued
elsewhere, it is the fact that bureaucrats and their clients share a common
culture that allows them to engage in mutually supportive excuse-making
that, on the surface, looks more like mutual recrimination (Herzfeld 1991,
92–95; 1992, 129–130). For these reasons, it is all the more important to
specify the distinction between Loizos’s focus on effects and Sant Cassia’s
on causes. Loizos’s concern is above all with the pragmatics of negotiating
a balance between the constraints of formal culture and the necessities
of everyday life—an area in which his preference for common sense over
theory is tempered by the fundamentally anthropological realization that
people often have very different ideas about what actually constitutes
common sense.
Inevitably, the more macropolitical aspects of Loizos’s work are relative –
ly controversial. Cyprus has suffered a hardening of the categorical arteries
over the past three decades, echoed in the brutalities of “ethnic cleansing”
in the former Yugoslavia. One result has been a growing reluctance to
acknowledge the significance of the Cypriot dialect of Greek as a distinct
language formation except in the context of ideas about a pan-Hellenic
culture. e increasing insistence on “national culture” as a thing that a
nation “possesses” (see Handler 1985) represents a triumph of European
models forged in the colonial era over the ethnic and religious cohabitation
that prevailed, however unevenly, in past centuries. National culture has
become an inalienable heritage—in this sense not unlike the residential
rules negotiated by the Argaki villagers.
Indeed, as Sutton (1997) has so elegantly shown, local understandings
of property transmission provide models through which people make sense
of events of “national” significance that are removed from their immediate
inspection and that they know primarily through media representation. In
his analysis, the linkage between home and name affected villagers’ adher –
ence to the more general Greek refusal to allow the Republic of Macedo –
nia to use that name. Similarly, in attacking “cultural fundamentalism”
(Herzfeld 1997b; see also Stolcke 1995), I argued that the model for the
pattern of rape and infanticide reported from Bosnia and Kosovo might
be explained, at least partially, in terms of the agnatic structuring of social
relations there—the translation of lineage into ethnos.
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 34

T ransforming Lives I 35
Certainly the link between kin group, home, and territory is fundamen –
tal to the Greek understanding of Cyprus. When I was on Rhodes during
the earlier phases of the T urkish invasion of 1974, I heard the invasion
likened to an unrelated man’s entering one’s house and raping the women.
us, Loizos’s analyses of the significance of houses in Cypriot village so –
cial relations may help us to understand also how Cypriots conceive the
relationships among their own national state, the Greek and T urkish na –
tion-states, and ideas of selfhood. Here his examination of intercommunal
killing is especially revealing. Let us recall, first of all, that the claim—which
is historically verifiable, at least in part—that many T urkish Cypriots are
descended from apostate Christians both reproduces the logic of agnatic
descent and, concomitantly, serves the argument of those who say that no
T urkish interest in Cyprus is justified. is is an argument that appeals to
race and blood. It is reproduced, as Loizos emphasizes, in the schoolbooks
on which generations of Greek Cypriot children have been raised. ese
books are the instruments of a transformation—not that of the peas –
ant into a model citizen (the colonialist civic model on which Rebecca
Bryant’s work [2001] sheds much interesting light) but of the citizen of a
plural empire into the subject of a high-modernist project of taxonomic
control. Indeed, Bryant is absolutely right to argue both that the issue is
not one of “shaping individuals” so much as producing persons who “fit
into orders defined by religion, political hierarchy, and long intellectual
traditions” (Bryant 2001, 606, my emphasis) and thus into a relatively
immutable aesthetic of selfhood, as she appropriately calls it in contrast to
my own coinage of “social poetics” for the deformations in social practice of
that aesthetic (2001, 607n5). In this project of solidification, it becomes
increasingly difficult to perform identities that fail to conform to ever more
intransigently static models; as Bryant shows (this volume), the educational
process sets in motion the production of constraining bodies of culturally
appropriate knowledge, to the exacting standards of which its creators and
inculcators can then be held by even the most inept of their pupils.
In this process, leaders yoke metaphors of intimacy (kinship and
family) to moral claims of universal truth. As I have argued elsewhere
(Herzfeld 1997a, 85–88), the metaphor of blood is the medium through
which political leaders reconfigure kinship as ethnicity and then as national
identity. In the process, they also suppress the local forms of contingency
in favor of a sense of permanence. is amplifies what I. M. Lewis (1961),
in a very different context, called “structural amnesia,” if we are willing to
concede that the state (as Loizos and others have long insisted) is not as
antithetical to lineage politics as, in its expropriation of kinship jargon, it
must pretend to be. Blood—to adapt Stefan Beck’s (2001) useful formula –
tion about genetics, which often replaces blood in popular discourse—both
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 35

36 I Michael Herzfeld
unifies the body politic and provides the common ground for expressing
the most profound internecine mistrust. As Greek villagers sometimes
say, between brothers the blood boils—sometimes with love, sometimes
in raging hatred. Such metaphors, especially when (as now) couched in
the language of a modernist science, also provide a crucial two-way link
between popular idioms of belonging and the scientific language of the
media and the schools.
Loizos pinpointed the role of schooling in the production of the in –
tensification of a patriarchal idiom of belligerence in relatively small chil –
dren; his work nicely dovetails with that of Greek feminist linguist Anna
Frangoudaki (e.g., 1978) in this regard but, like Bryant (this volume),
adds to Frangoudaki’s textual analysis the crucial factor of the teachers’
and children’s own agency (see also Spyrou, this volume). Education, an
intellectual process (but one that may also entail a good deal of regimented
inculcation as well), legitimates the racial argument of blood—the type of
reasoning that Loizos (1975b, 284), with a fine eye for irony, identifies as
the syllogisms that underlie political allegiances.
Loizos is not particularly concerned with the discursive aspects of such
assertions, but his argument nonetheless necessarily rests on an unspoken
appreciation of their importance. Indeed, although he has never analyzed
political rhetoric in linguistic terms, he was perhaps the first anthropologist
of the Greek-speaking world to acknowledge that rhetoric could make a dif –
ference and that it could also—in the form of these “syllogisms”—provide a
culturally acceptable framework for the legitimation of political and ethnic
division. What is especially important about his article on intercommunal
killing is that he shows us precisely how the actions of individuals derive
their force from a social consensus, one that is grounded in the schoolbooks
and reproduced in social interaction.
is is anticipated in his work on changing residence rules, in which
he explicitly sets out “to relate a particular type of social change to the
decisions of individuals within a framework of cultural and economic
constraints” (Loizos 1975a, 503). In that article he generously, and
with characteristic respect for his intellectual antecedents, attributes his
methodology to Firth and Barth, although (perhaps in keeping with the
limits of these exemplars’ own visions) he does not develop a model of the
performative force of rhetoric as such. But in both e Greek Gift and in
the intercommunal killing article he also demonstrates both the power of
rhetorical formulae to provide cover for morally questionable actions and
the scope that individuals enjoy to question such logics.
What he documents is a convergence between local models and the
intrusive refashionings brought about by hard-line nationalisms. Individu –
als have choices, but they also face enormous pressures from outside forces
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 36

T ransforming Lives I 37
and the increasingly conformist force of local opinion. As he remarks of
one of the key characters in the violence against T urkish Cypriots, “It was
possible to think of him as a ‘psychopath,’ but it was also too easy. Dur –
ing wartime society treats as heroic the very qualities which in peacetime
it regards as anti-social.” A whole society found its values oriented to a
program of mutual hatred grounded in arguments that drew on both tra –
ditional forms of violence and the rhetoric of nationalism. Loizos would
have allowed the “psychopath” to plead diminished responsibility in a
“sociologically fair-minded court”—although, ever faithful to his British
brand of liberalism, he might also have recommended some punishment
as a way of displacing the call for revenge to the civil authorities—for, as
Borneman (1997) has recently argued, fairness is relative and a complete
failure to punish is likely to leave smoldering resentments ever ready to
burst into flame once more.
Loizos has thus identified the social practices that occur in the inter –
stitial space between nationalist discourse and local imperatives that we
would recognize, in an anthropological sense, as legal. e point of state
legislation is that it removes the right of revenge from the feuding parties,
thereby increasing the chances of reaching some sort of conclusion: e
potentially infinite exchange of violence is replaced by the real possibility
of termination. Even the American notion of “victims’ rights,” vindictive
though it is, is directed at something called “closure.” We know that feud –
ing societies also possess devices for creating resolution: the sulha among
Palestinian Arabs (Lang 2002), the sasmós on Crete (Herzfeld 1985), the
küvend among the Albanians (Hasluck 1954), and so on. Such societies
possess a sense of the temporality of events (see, e.g., Dresch 1986) and
prefer resolution to infinite mayhem, older anthropological caricatures to
the contrary. It is, to the contrary, in the context of state systems, when the
nationalist rhetoric of eternity gets combined with ideas about racial purity,
that resolution seems impossible except through the total annihilation of
those who have been classified as “the other side.” Leach (1965) long ago
pointed out the taxonomic properties of warfare, and the complexities of
nomenclature, which are intended to create permanent facts, ironically un –
derscore instead their highly contingent character (see Navaro-Yashin, this
volume, and Herzfeld 1992). Loizos allows us to see how the larger society
is prepared to bless violent actions pursued for personal ends because it can
categorize them as attacks on “the other side” and thus as a defense of “our
side.” In that setting, the exponents of state nationalism effectively abdicate
all responsibility for what they should instead be attempting to control.
us, Loizos does not argue that we should understand the defendants in
their sociological court as innocent but that we should see them as guilty of
crimes in which they have been encouraged by more powerful others, who
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38 I Michael Herzfeld
should consequently themselves also be indicted for their responsibilities in
the matter. e defendants’ guilt can thus best be understood in the context
of realizing that the violence in which they engaged had not always been
ethnic in nature (see Papadakis and Navaro-Yashin, this volume). In other
words, if we may bring the liberalism of Loizos into conjunction with the
theories of agency to which his work has been sympathetic, in substance
if not in name, the defendants always had some choices, but these were
constrained by the powerful ideological transformations on which those
choices would also turn out to have some effect.
In my view, there is another level of responsibility that must also
receive attention. Specifically, some measure of the responsibility should
also be borne in a historical sense by the Western powers. Had the West
not virtually required the Greeks to see themselves as the heroic defenders
of Europe against the evils of Oriental despotism, the Greeks might have
preserved much of what today they nostalgically recall as their traditional
culture instead of banishing it as “T urkish” or “Slavic.” By the same token,
they might be able to contemplate with equanimity the cultural indepen –
dence and fluidity of both Cypriot and Macedonian identities. Greeks are
understandably bitter toward Great Power machinations. As Loizos himself
(1981, 142) shows, Greek Cypriots say, “Why, we lived with the T urks very
well before. It was only the British and that lunatic Grivas who made a little
trouble between us. . . . e Western Powers have carefully manipulated our
differences.” Such nostalgic reconstructions can certainly be self-serving,
as we can see clearly from the analyses by Anthias, Papadakis, and Navaro-
Yashin (this volume). But they also reflect historical experience; responsibil –
ity is multiple here. It is all too easy for observers from powerful countries
to blame the violence on “atavistic hatreds,” as happened during the break –
up of Yugoslavia. ese collective sentiments, however, have in part grown
from the interference of those same European powers, some of whose rep –
resentatives have taken refuge in the ironic delusion that the tradition of
liberal democracy—the very ideology that, as Loizos justly perceives, rejects
utterly such extremes of intolerance as ethnic cleansing—absolves them of
all historic responsibility. Indeed, it is this reliance on the abstractions of
ideology that secures their complicity, allowing them to overlook the extent
to which foreign interference has transformed local feuds into nationalist
wars. e point is not that local leaders are blameless—which is palpably
untrue—but that others have played an equally transformative role, mak –
ing these local leaders the agents of their perceived special interests.
“e move from kin-group and clan to nation and ethnic group,”
Loizos argues, “is not a simple enlargement nor an arithmetical addition
of units. It involves scale changes in which many of the givens transform”
(Loizos 1988, 649). While scale is probably not the whole story—which
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T ransforming Lives I 39
includes both massed military power and the considerable cultural author –
ity vested locally in an educated elite (see Bryant, this volume)—Loizos
correctly emphasizes that we must understand such phenomena in terms
of both local-level value systems and the much larger context of nationalist
discourse and international relations. Social anthropologists are perhaps
uniquely qualified to do this since they can observe political, discursive,
economic, and many other links between the local and the national or su –
pranational; simply reading and discussing the news in the village kafenío
provides a wonderful way to trace the penetration of everyday conscious –
ness through the interpenetration of journalistic and everyday language.
And Cyprus, as Loizos has so amply demonstrated, has the tragic honor
of hosting in a small space a very large and seemingly intractable conflict.
As we read today of well-intentioned Israeli and Palestinian citizens drawn
into a hateful conflict by extremists on both sides, a situation in which ap –
parently senseless killing is conducted to “radicalize” more peaceful souls,
we should recall the self-adulatory agency not only of Kajis (the killer-hero
of Loizos’s nationalist nightmare) but also of those who knowingly pointed
him in a direction that could only intensify the cycle of violence.
Loizos is hesitant to point an accusing finger at the next higher level of
agency—that of international policymakers. Whether as a British liberal
who still espouses ideals of democratic decency and is reluctant to see
“the West” tainted with the blood of proxy killing or as a Greek Cypriot
who sees the dignity of the country and the sheer tragedy of the refugees’
plight soiled by the failures of the “ethnic” leadership, he has always been
cautious about pointing an international finger—although nothing in his
ethnographic analyses precludes such a move. It takes an act of faith to
write, as he does, that after the T urkish invasion “official Cyprus began to
sort things out; [this was because] the civil servants were British in their
professionalism and the national emergency brought out the best in them”
(Loizos 1981, 115), especially as he also provides, throughout his work,
plentiful evidence that the traditional excuse and patronage structures that
characterize Greek bureaucracy were also well developed in Cyprus. Long
before he attempted a local political career in London, Loizos clearly felt
himself committed to the liberal tradition of British politics, itself part of
the ideological range that informs the early emergence in British social
anthropology of distinctive modes of political and social analysis (see
Kuklick 1984). is orientation also informs Loizos’s understanding of
Cypriot politics; moreover, it entails a view of Cypriot cultural sophistica –
tion that we often encounter among members of the Cypriot elite, which,
as Argyrou (1996, 51) nicely demonstrates, persistently deploys its British
heritage as part of a Eurocentric condescension toward both the Greek
nation-state and their own less-well-educated compatriots. Loizos’s no-
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 39

40 I Michael Herzfeld
nonsense approach allows him to take a moral position that both accords
with his liberalism and takes the elite’s claims to a British-derived model
of transparency at face value.
at position is also consistent with his principled refusal to claim
knowledge of the key actors’ underlying motivations; he focuses instead
on the relationship between acts and deeds. He reminds us that political
convictions are ultimately unknowable (Loizos 1975b, 122, 138n5). He
thus prefers to speak of “alignments” and to describe the play of power
among visible social actors. It may be that his reluctance to discuss his
own political convictions springs either from a sense that they would
always remain a representation, forever suspect (as Greek villagers would
also insist) of political partiality, and are therefore a mere distraction from
the greater issue of how politics actually works in the community he has
studied or from a distaste for some of the more flamboyant expressions of
anthropological self-display—he has been reluctant to confront, except as
the more or less traditional (and thus quite unreflexive) chronicler of his
own kinship with the villagers of Argaki, the question of how his personal
concerns might affect the content of his analysis. I disagree with those who
would treat a display of modesty as merely a colonialist affectation (see,
e.g., Rosaldo 1986, 93), but I do worry that the faith in British “profes –
sionalism” can serve as a T rojan horse for less-savory interpretations by less
obviously benign commentators on the Greek Cypriot scene—outsiders
who might use this description to “prove” that the only thing that saved
Cyprus from total ruin and its people from their natural weaknesses was
its colonial legacy and those elite members who continue to invoke the
British administrative heritage as the basis of claims to exclusive moral and
political entitlement.
It is against precisely this kind of generalization that Loizos’s work is
especially, and paradoxically, valuable. It allows us to rebut both the crass
cost accounting of policymaking and the equally crass determinism of
academic cultural fundamentalists (e.g., Huntington 1996). Loizos pays
unremitting attention to what people actually say and do. By avoiding
both the psychologism of attributing personal motives and the assumption
that people are forever locked in their cultural values, he undercuts both of
these world-hegemonic perspectives. e British were masters of Cyprus for
quite a long time, and they did train the local civil service, so the country’s
ability to rise to the occasion might have arisen in some degree from this
historical circumstance. Such an outcome is a demonstration, if not exactly
of the superiority of British civic morality, then at least that people can and
do learn from models that are conceptually opposed to what everyone,
themselves included, views as “typically” local behavior and attitudes.
Many observers have noted that Greeks, including Greek Cypriots,
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 40

T ransforming Lives I 41
tend to speak of political relations in highly personal terms. To some ex –
tent, this observation is accurate and reflects the relatively small scale on
which such relations are conducted in Greece and Cyprus. But what kind
of personal relationship is involved? Here I want to return for a moment to
e Greek Gift and to Loizos’s analysis of the concept of “friendship” ( filía).
In a brief but telling discussion, Loizos (1975b, 89–92) shows how the
analysis of Greek Cypriot village friendship is not just a matter of choosing
between ideal types of “disinterested” versus “instrumental” friendship—a
dichotomy that simply makes no sense in the ethnographic context. His
view of the matter is not simply a rejection of a false opposition, though it
is that as well. It is also a recognition that understandings of motive are the
products of attribution —indeed, as we have seen, Loizos (see also 1975b,
301n2) extends Needham’s (1972) critique of the concept of “belief” in
anthropology to questions of political conviction, which are inextricably
entwined with both sentimental and instrumental aspects of friendship in
his altogether persuasive analysis. Decisions as to whether a person’s friend –
ship should be viewed as instrumental or sentimental, or as some mixture
of the two, are entirely a matter of context and depend on the speaker’s
relations with the “friend” in question (Loizos 1975b, 92). e anthropolo –
gist, far from engaging in the villagers’ favorite guessing game, recognizes
it as a play of strategic interests in which affect is certainly one highly im –
portant component in determining what kinds of attitude get attributed
to whom. us, too, the fact that Greeks often speak about international
relations in terms of personal ties among the principal actors reflects the
local experience of politics and the clear fact that personalities do indeed
make a difference; but it is, ultimately, a collective representation, much as
the often-discussed concept of eghoismos (see Campbell 1964, 306–310)
is a social phenomenon even though it purports to address individual at-
titudes. It is, in fact, a representation of others rather than of the speaker’s
own sense of self—and of generalized others, at that.
One might take this position as an illustration of a Durkheimian socio –
centrism that also appears in Loizos’s refusal to accept psychological solu –
tions to the question of intercommunal violence. In both cases, however,
something much more interesting is at stake—something that is not neces –
sarily at odds with a sociocentric position. is is a recognition that social
actors are strategic actors and that they will use a wide range of rhetoric
(including the rhetoric of “alignment” disguised as “political conviction”)
in order to achieve personal ends in ways that are socially comprehensible.
at recognition is already present in the analysis of residence rules, where
the cumulative effect of a socially shared perception of optimal strategies
is inferred from a diachronic process of palpable consistency. Doubtless,
as Sant Cassia observes, one might ferret out other kinds of calculation
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 41

42 I Michael Herzfeld
than the single factor identified by Loizos, and perhaps here we might also
follow de Certeau (1984) in shifting from strategy—which has its own
normativity—to the notion of tactics. But Loizos, while attentive to the
tactics of individuals, is in fact interested in the strategies through which
a collectivity manages sets of rules that would otherwise be unmanage –
able—not a Gluckmanesque equilibrium so much as a calibration of
social form to practical exigency. is sense of strategy (in de Certeau’s
more specific sense of the term) is absolutely essential to understanding
how the contingent fact of an apparently willing killer such as Kajis can be
adapted to a scenario of which such a man has little direct understanding
but within which he is able to achieve an alarming degree of respectable
agency. is he can do because others’ strategies—specifically the creation
of a climate of reciprocal fear—are the enabling grounds for the realiza –
tion of his presumed desires. In the same way, while Loizos—whether as a
sociocentric skeptic or in thinking like any Greek observer—would never
presume to “know” what lay behind a gesture of friendship or precisely
what calculus motivated the decision to build a town house for a rural
daughter, he can document on the ground the conditions under which
an accumulation of cases leads to an intensification of probability and so
also to a redirection of prevailing norms. And this, precisely, is the strategy
of political leaders trying to commit reluctant followers to war by reduc –
ing the chances of conciliation that existing social institutions might have
offered—institutions, be it noted, that are shared by Greek and T urkish
Cypriots. is is how those who wield power can change the rules on the
ground: Like bureaucrats reinterpreting opaque rules (Herzfeld 1992) or
like nationalists everywhere who must interpret as benign an ideology of
violence by redeploying key symbols (Kapferer 1988), they invest their
contingent interests and interpretations with the force of eternal truth by
treating ambiguity as absolute clarity. While we should not necessarily see
this in pseudo-evolutionary terms as the converse of what Norbert Elias
(1978) calls the “civilizing process”—what others have called “barbariza –
tion” (e.g., Bax 2000, 188)—this ethnographically grounded view of the
relevant processes offers extraordinary insight into one of the great myster –
ies of our age: Why do people take nationalism seriously?
Certainly, after reading e Heart Grown Bitter, one might well wonder
why anyone continued to support a nationalist ideology that had contrib –
uted to so much misery. Many of the refugees were themselves confused
and unsure about how to answer such questions, and Loizos is careful to
recognize the widely divergent views possible among a politically already
heterogeneous population beset by a violent enlargement of its horizons
and a plethora of ideological disappointments—a population, moreover,
that was accustomed to thinking for itself, as Loizos also documents. After
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 42

T ransforming Lives I 43
the invasion, few practical alternatives to facing the likelihood of an en –
during refugee identity were available; the refugees had to make a difficult
adjustment in a society that, much like metropolitan Greece facing the
influx of Asia Minor refugees before them (Hirschon 1989), although cer –
tainly with a greater sense of shared experience and culture, was not always
as welcoming in fact and deed as it was in its leaders’ rhetoric. But if the
metropolitan society was not really the refugees’ home and if they did not
experience it as such, what goal did all that suffering serve?
Loizos is certainly no theologian, and he has not tried to fathom the
theodicy that might provide an answer to that question. Among the suf –
ferers and perpetrators, to be sure, various sorts of theodicy must assuredly
have been at work—from the secular theodicy that legitimates brutality as
a necessary evil or the product of an inevitably flawed human world to the
religious opiates that enjoin resignation rather than rebellion and so serve
the convenient accommodation between religious leadership and secular
authority.
What Loizos does not allow us to forget is that in all these terrible
moments of human depravity dressed up as noble causes, there are in –
dividuals capable of remarkable self-sacrifice as well as efficiency in the
face of calamity and that the choices they make, no less than those of the
apparent pychopaths-turned-national heroes, spring from a history rooted
in the land and the people. Before the invasion of 1974, acting the role
of the kinship-fixated traditional ethnographer, Loizos analyzes residence
patterns and their transformations and points out that it is because it is a
“homely” analysis that it allows him to join up individual actions with what
he rather drily calls “aggregate data” (Loizos 1975a, 504). He is—unwit –
tingly, we may suppose—preparing the ground on which, a few short but
violent years later, he will show, in the destruction of people’s houses and
the desecration of their intimate spaces (Loizos 1981), the meaning of the
expression that a people has lost its very roots—land that expressed and
nurtured their sense of collective being. Identities and traditions are not
eternal; they change. But they change because individual actors work with
what is already there. When that existential comfort is snatched away sud –
denly and brutally through the interventions of outsiders uninterested in
local consequences, lives are reshaped and transformed, selves embittered
or ennobled. Yet still they long to return to an age of innocence that, with
the passing of the years, becomes ever more improbable as a representation
of the past and ever more unattainable as a vindication of the the future.
e official T urkish side, it seems, has a very different view of what will
happen next, as Yiannis Papadakis (1998) has shown: ey are building
for permanence. Whoever said that fatalism was an Oriental privilege? It is
the lot of people everywhere who have no more reason to hope, attributed
01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 43

44 I Michael Herzfeld
to them as the symbol and instrument of their subjugation by competing
regimes of intrusive domination. What T urkish Cypriots think of all this
is less clear.
Loizos has salvaged from the tragic tales of all those involved what
may be the most durable account of the realities that were and are their
lives. He has not given us a sugar-coated account of heroes and saints, nor
has he drawn a bestiary. While he celebrates his kinship with the people
of Argaki, he has paid them the ultimate compliment of not taking sides
with any of those whose adventurism has oppressed them. Instead, he has
told us about lives as they are lived; he has talked about his people and
made them our people—the exact opposite of that vitriolic rejection that
we call ethnonationalism (see Tambiah 1989). With humane modesty
and sometimes flamboyant passion together, he has made it possible, for
those who might one day listen and learn, to understand how political and
cultural transformations of selfhood do not determine the choices all the
time or for all those concerned. Some, those celebrated in his work, are
able to see beyond an official aesthetics of single-blooded heroism. eirs
is a personal poetics, one that few of them asked to have calibrated to na –
tionalist causes. is poetics—while it may be full of the interest-seeking
that marks all our human lives—is, in its fundamental sociability, creative,
civil, and, yes, humane.
Notes
I am most grateful to the organizers of the conference “Anthropological Perspectives on
Cyprus: A Critical Appraisal,” University of Cyprus and Intercollege, Nicosia, September
14–16, 2001, for this opportunity to present these thoughts and particularly to Yiannis
Papadakis and Gisela Welz for their critical assessments of what I have written; responsibility
for the results remains mine. I offer this essay to Peter Loizos in deep appreciation of his
friendship, benign criticism, and moral support over the years.
1. I speak with the authority of knowing that we were both educated at Dulwich
College!
2. See my analysis of the relevant terminology on Rhodes (Herzfeld 1980).
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01Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 46

TWO
On the Condition of
Postcoloniality in Cyprus
Rebecca Bryant
Frantz Fanon observed almost half a century ago that the appeal of
nationalism in the anticolonial struggle could not hold up under the
corruption and disillusionment that seemed invariably to ensue after in –
dependence. e transition between coloniality and postcoloniality was
bridged by nationalism; nationalism, in turn, was not superseded but tem –
pered (Fanon 1986). In the vast majority of formerly colonized countries,
the nation-state now is not a given but a problem. roughout Africa, the
nation-state is challenged on the basis of its arbitrariness, especially with
respect to borders. In Arab countries, the political foundation of the state
has been problematic and is now met with an Islamist challenge. In South
Asia, especially India, there is a constant tension between plurality and the
nation-state’s demands for homogeneity. e condition of postcoloniality
has led to a rethinking of colonial histories and the ways in which power
was written not only into the structures but also, and more deeply, into the
discourses and categories of colonial rule.
I undertake here an anthropological rereading of nationalisms under
colonial rule in Cyprus with the intention of problematizing the condition
of postcoloniality in the island. I ask, in other words, how we can describe
the effects of colonial rule on how Cypriots live and what Cypriots have be –
come. One focus of my interest is the failure of Cypriots to engage in debate
over their own postcolonial condition. I will suggest that this failure is due
to two related reasons. First, the experience of colonial rule in Cyprus was
02Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 47

48 I Rebecca Bryant
genuinely different from elsewhere, less because of British rule itself than
because of Cypriots’ responses to that rule. Cypriots co-opted many of the
ideologies and dichotomies that underpinned colonial power, a process that
Vassos Argyrou usefully calls “symbolic domination”; that is, the manner in
which something called “the West” maintains hegemony not only because
of its own efforts but, more importantly, because of others’ recognition of
its dominance (Argyrou 2002; see also Argyrou, this volume).
But unlike the strategies of co-optation elsewhere, the strategies Cy –
priots used were also inherently tied to the nationalisms of Greece and
T urkey—countries that were never Western colonies, even if both suffered
forms of what Michael Herzfeld has called “crypto-colonialism” (Herzfeld
2002). Moreover, the discourses of nationalism and civilization adopted
from the “motherlands” were adapted to a situation in which two groups
found themselves in a situation of structural inequality. In other words,
the nationalist discourses of civilization reproduced certain experiences on
the ground in Cyprus.
e unusual character of British colonial rule in Cyprus led, in turn,
to what I take to be the second reason for the failure of postcoloniality,
which is that to discuss seriously what Ashis Nandy calls the “colonization
of mind” that resulted from colonial rule is to admit defeat in the game
of symbolic domination (Nandy 1989). If we discuss British rule only as
realpolitik, only as a game of strategy in which everyone tries to play their
advantages, then British rule in Cyprus is not really like British rule in
Egypt or India or Africa but is more like the diplomatic games that the
British were always trying to play with the Russians and the Ottomans.
Especially in the context of European Union integration, it doesn’t pay to
discuss one’s possible subalternity.
However, the case of Cyprus, while different, may still be usefully
understood within the context of that “colonization of mind” of which
Nandy writes. Clearly, the case of Cyprus is different at least in the sense
that the Greek Orthodox majority in the island claimed not only to possess
European ancestry but even that they were the real ancestors of Europe. e
Muslim minority, on the other hand, first laid claims to a counterideology
rooted in Ottoman imperial rule and later claimed to have participated in
a project of national modernization that explicitly aimed at bridging East
and West. So one often found expressions such as this one in the newspaper
Alitheia in 1889:
e Cypriots, being most Hellenic in their ideas, could not of course bear that the
English, who have occupied their Island as saviours and profess to render its admin –
istration a model for the rest of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, should govern
them as a conquered country inhabited by Asiatics or Africans.1
02Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:11 AM 48

On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 49
Muslim Cypriots, on the other hand, consistently emphasized differ –
ence. For instance, in 1902 the newspaper Mir’at-ı Zaman protested the
government’s attempt to bring an English schoolmistress to the Muslim
girls’ school, saying,
We are not going to make our girls (serve as) English schoolmistresses, or Interpreters
in the Government Departments, or let them dance a waltz at a public ball. If the
intention of the Government is to drag us into English Civilization, such things can
never be admitted by Moslem Civilization.2
Both, then, presented themselves as “civilized” in contrast to the “Asiatics
or Africans,” one by claiming a primordial European identity and the other
by claiming an identity constituted by its challenge to Europe.
Where, in this, to find the locus of Cypriots’ postcolonial condition?
One indeed finds it here, in the emerging equation of nationalism with
civilization. In other words, it appeared to Cypriots that nationalisms were
not just ideologies of liberation but were ideologically liberating, extracting
them from the realm of primitive “Asiatics or Africans.” In order to dem –
onstrate this, I take up a challenge presented by Argyrou and attempt an
alternative reading of the very symbolic domination he analyzes. In particu –
lar, I argue that when change is popularly conceptualized in a discourse of
progress, popular notions of “civilization” acquire a liberating quality that
is also a struggle for overcoming. It was possible for this particular form of
dominance to occur because of the wedding of local notions of “the civi –
lized” with nineteenth-century sociological theories of moral progress. e
demand in Cyprus and elsewhere (see, e.g., Shakry 1998) for a “progress
both moral and material” arose from widely diffused “scientific” notions
of the evolutionary progress of societies.
e language of social evolution, and its incorporation into a civilizing
of the citizen, made the very conception of the nation one that is forever
trapped in a unilinear directionality leading toward “the modern,” “the
West.” I will briefly outline this argument by examining the ways in which
a civilizing of the citizen was undertaken through nationalist education.
Along the way, I also show the very particular discourses of civilization that
undergirded this triumph and how those discourses of civilization were
defined by civilization’s Other—in the Greek case, a barbarous Other at the
gates, and in the T urkish case, a backward Other within the communal self.
ese discourses were clearly appropriated from the “motherlands” (e.g.,
Kitromilides 1979, 1990)—the centers of civilization—but took particular
forms in Cyprus both because of colonial rule and because of the manner
in which colonial rule incorporated the two communities into a situation
of structural inequality.
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50 I Rebecca Bryant
at ere Will be Progress
Both Moral and Material
in, thoughtful, and mustachioed Georgios Loukas died in 1925
after a lifetime devoted to village education and the nationalist endeavor.
While still studying in Athens for his certificate in elementary education,
he had returned to Cyprus to collect and publish laografika —folklore ma –
terials that link the customs, myths, and mores of the modern Greeks with
the ancients. He published his thesis in 1874 under the title Philological
Excursus into Ancient Monuments in the Lives of the Modern Cypriots and
then returned once more to his native island, where he would continue his
studies of the dialect and teach in the elementary schools. By his own recol –
lection, he taught in at least fourteen village schools during the thirty-eight
years of his teaching career, many of them in very small villages. He was
learned and eloquent—a Cypriot plant cultivated in Greek soil, to adopt
metaphors that Loukas himself might have used.
Yet Loukas devoted the majority of his life to elementary education and
to articulately expounding the true goals thereof. In a speech given for the
1885 graduation from the elementary schools of Ktima, Loukas extolled
the spiritual virtues of a Greek education:
And once again we gather in this spiritual nursery to pick the flowers yielded by
your cultivation. . . . e soul, gentlemen, as the philosophical presence of the
spirit in man . . . is in the image and likeness of the Spirit. . . . e only beneficial
inheritance from our parents to their children is the exercise of education and learn –
ing in their spirit and mind, and a good upbringing possessed of virtue. (Loukas
1874/1974, xi)
For Loukas and others of his time, a particularly Greek education could
produce those virtues, and he introduces his Philological Excursus as a
primer in the undying glories of the ancients, whose virtues have been
transformed by the Church:
Yes! the indomitable Greece of Pericles lives! Child, grow old cloaked in its illumi –
nation, for it is protected by the benefaction of the Christian church, and view its
noble body in the shade of centuries but living and breathing! Hunger strongly in
the church and view ancient Greece filled and crowned with the indomitability of
Pericles! Go, child, and visit her under the banner of Constantine, welcomed in faith!
In faith truly! Because is it possible to resist Time triumphantly for so many ages?
. . . In the discovery of this, can one not intend to fight, and the heart be persuaded
to soothe balm on the wounds caused by the ravages of time? (ibid., ιγ᾽)
Simply learning of those undying glories should inspire the heroic virtues
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 51
that would ultimately rejuvenate and restore the crippled body of the an –
cient realm.
In contrast to Loukas’s rather high-flown rhetoric, British assessments
of the ideological bent of their Greek Cypriot subjects instance a very
interesting—even postcolonial—historicization of the inequalities that
appeared to produce difference. Agitation in Cyprus in favor of enosis, or
union with Greece, dramatically increased toward the turn of the twen –
tieth century, as the economic policies of the British proved disastrous
and educated Cypriots continued to be excluded from higher posts in the
administration. A former chief secretary, C. W. J. Orr, observed some time
after his return to England that
it is difficult for anyone who has lived in Cyprus and mixed freely with the people
to resist the conclusion that the clamor for “Union with Greece” on the part of
the Greek-speaking community arises less from an ambition to exchange British
domination for that of Greece than from a desire that the administration should be
conducted in their own language by officials for the most part sharing their ways of
thought and used to the same social standards.3
is evidences the sort of structural inequalities that Comaroff (1987)
claims are productive of ethnic difference. Comaroff argues that unequal
access to both symbolic and material resources produces the sense of dif –
ference that we commonly call “ethnic.”
So while Loukas saw Greek history as part of the spiritual inheritance
of his pupils, British administrators saw agitation for union with Greece
as an expression of a desire for cultural and political equality. Along with
this difference, as I have noted elsewhere (Bryant 2001), Cypriot educators
and British administrators conflicted over the type of persons who were
produced and should be produced by the schools. British administrators,
for instance, saw the overt efforts of schoolteachers to “inflame the minds
of the pupils against other races resident in the Island” as a directly politi –
cal attempt to disturb the status quo. e inspector of schools observed in
1911 that he had found
some rather strong expressions in certain schoolbooks, but the majority of village
children do not reach to that point (i.e., the higher classes) or they are too young to
understand it. I think there is little or no anti-T urkish or anti-English teaching in the
Elementary schools—what there is is in the secondary schools to pupils who are of
an age to take it in—and this does not depend on set lessons or books but on what
the teacher says on the thousand occasions when he can introduce his sentiments
into any lesson, without any check.4
Greek Cypriot spokesmen recognized the British fears of nationalist agi –
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52 I Rebecca Bryant
tation and often asked, when various educational schemes were offered,
“Will the Government attempt to control the teaching of ‘Greek national
history’ in the schools? If so, it were better to repudiate government as –
sistance altogether.”5
Moreover, Greek Cypriots agreed that education was explicitly political
and believed that it should be. I would argue, in fact, that only in arenas
in which one attempts to maintain the illusion of nonpolitical objectivity
in education is the political seen as propaganda. e molding of person –
hood in the schools of both communities in Cyprus already presupposed
that Cypriots were essentially social beings rather than individuals (Bry –
ant 2001). Cypriot education did not begin from the assumption of the
political individualism of liberal philosophy but rather from a type of
Aristotelianism that was a part of the inheritance of that education. e
assumption is that humans are born political and their task on earth is to
cultivate the talents and opportunities given to them as specific members
of specific communities. Hence, while a nationalist education might be
seen as propaganda by British rulers, for Greek Cypriot educators it was
simply a matter of cultivating an innate “Greekness” that needed to be
brought to fruition.
Students of the Pancyprian Gymnasium were told, for instance, that
they were being prepared to take up their political duties:
We have had and always have the idea that the Pancyprian Gymnasium excellently
fulfilled its purpose, that it not only transmits the light of education throughout the
island, but it also prepares young, vibrant youths. . . . It educates men of wisdom
and full of self-denial, true defenders of Faith and Fatherland. . . . To you, noble
adolescents of today, tomorrow the fatherland will entrust her future. You will govern
her fate, you will be the laborers who will guide her reestablishment, the apostles
of the Great Idea.6
For Greek Cypriots, then, education was indeed a discipline not unlike
that known by their British rulers. e significant difference was in the
type of citizen produced.
It would seem, in fact, that Greek Cypriot education turned on a rather
different “political axis of individualization” (Foucault 1977, 192). Fou –
cault has amply demonstrated how the processes of individualization and
atomization created a new kind of polity by creating new techniques of
power.7 Foucault writes of the “great book of Man-the-Machine,” the mod –
ernist project begun by Descartes and finished by those faceless functionar –
ies of the new sort of governmentality which regulated the body (Foucault
1977, 36). e disciplined body of the modern soldier demonstrates in its
comportment the ideal regulation of that controllable, manipulable, and
perfectable machine. In a strangely similar way, the Greek Cypriot image
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 53
of “man the ethnic subject” demanded a discipline that could be accom –
plished only through regulating education while simultaneously denying
the necessity of that education for the creation of ethnic subjects. In other
words, philosophers of the French Enlightenment would have said that
man is, by his nature, mechanical, but that education was required to
achieve his telos. Similarly, Greek Cypriots would have said that humans
are, by nature, ethnic subjects, members of their race, but that education
is required to achieve their higher end.
In fact, much as repetitive military drills train the soldier to respond
without thought to commands, so the rote memorization of passages in
ancient Greek or the distance from Athens to Sparta was intended to do –
mesticate and control an identity that was seen as already ethnic. Indeed,
articles about education made it abundantly clear that the primary goal
was to create ethnic subjects trained in a moral discipline that could best
be learned by becoming literate. One 1912 article claimed, for example,
that
education and the school are foundations and institutions Greek for ages, because
first and foremost our nation, in the cultivation of a spiritual and moral man, marks
out as special and indispensable the attributes and signs of civilization, of freedom,
and of good-citizenship.8
Education had begun only within the writer’s lifetime to mean more than
reading, writing, and basic arithmetic, so the writer could have had few
illusions regarding any kind of “higher” education. Moreover, folktales re –
garding the “secret schools” that supposedly kept Hellenism alive through
the ages never suggest that those schools did more than teach children the
basics of their language. Rather, they suggest that the mere fact of linguistic
continuity symbolizes a racial continuity.
In Henri-Irenée Marrou’s examination of the centrality of rhetoric in
the education of antiquity, he makes an important remark about the value
of rhetoric that could just as well be applied to Greek Cypriot assessments
of their own education:
Learning to speak properly meant learning to think properly, and even to live prop –
erly: in the eyes of the Ancients eloquence had a truly human value transcending any
practical applications that might develop as a result of historical circumstances; it was
the one means for handing on everything that made man man, the whole cultural
heritage that distinguished civilized men from barbarians. (Marrou 1956, 196)
e ideal man was eloquent, but eloquence was also inseparable from eth –
nicity. In a similar way, to receive a proper education was to become a true
Greek, a truly civilized human.
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54 I Rebecca Bryant
Indeed, it is abundantly clear in discussions of education that the
realization of ethnic identity through education was the realization of
an unquestionable good, the realization of one’s full humanity. is is so
much a part of Greek Cypriot discourse that I can pick an example almost
at random. It is certainly well expressed in the words of Leontios, Bishop
of Pafos during the 1930s, who defended the need for a purely Greek
education thus:
Here, however, it is a question of an historically Greek island, having a history of
five thousand years, a history of a glorious civilization, occupied during these times
by a population purely Greek, noble, and Christian. . . . For this reason the official
and systematic attempt to anglicize the Greek Cypriots is reprehensible. . . . [Greek
education] consists in its teaching not only of the Greek language, but also of Greek
history, the history of the ethnos, about which the wise men of all nations have not
ceased, and will not cease, their praise. . . . It is a truth scientifically proven that
the Greeks—the ancestors—became the first creators of education, and in this way
they became the educated people of humanity. . . . e Greek spirit approaches
the universal meaning of “human,” and Greek education [morfosis] means human
education.9
To deny Greek Cypriots a Greek education was not just to deprive them
of their rights but to deny them full humanity, since humanity directly
corresponds to Hellenism.
I would like to draw some conclusions from this. First, many Greek
Cypriots believed that nationalist pedagogy and what might be seen by
others as nationalist propaganda were directly successful. However, they
were successful because the work of education was a somewhat Platonic
evocation of a Greek spirit, a Greek potential, already present in the child.
As early as 1916, this was expressed in a eulogy addressed to the first con –
tingent of Boy Scouts in the island:
ese youths, by being taught under the liberal status quo of Cyprus their duties
towards their motherland, will, when the moment will come that they should be
called up to the colors and that they should continue the interrupted work, be the
most enthusiastic and most disciplined soldiers of [Christ]. Likewise, when, directly,
they will be swearing by this sacred flag of the fatherland, the scouts’ oath, a thrill of
emotion will run through their bodies, and the whole long and glorious history of
the great race to which they belong will, in that moment, pass through their mind,
and they will remember, yes, they will remember the sacred oath which, thousands
of years ago, the Athenian youths used to swear at the same age, the oath, that is,
that they would defend the fatherland both when found by themselves and when
found in company with others, that they would not abandon the sacred arms and
that they would not hand back the country smaller. ey will remember that those
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 55
who, about a century ago, fell at the Dragatrani as the heroic victims of the Hellenic
liberty were, like them, still in their youthful age, in their very boyhood. ey will
remember all that and how much more will they not remember! e whole history
of the race will pass before them as an immaterial power and will strengthen them
and will dictate to their souls the creed “I believe in a great Hellas,” and, in a frenzied
emotion, they will, with the hand upon this sacred flag and with the soul knelt down,
give all of us here the assurance that it will not be they who will disgrace the history
of their fatherland, but they will be those who, either as citizens or as soldiers or
either here or anywhere else shall be nothing else than the observers of the historical
traditions of the nation, and the continuators of a history a more glorious of which
no race can show.10
e “immaterial power” that is the history of their race would be evoked
as an orgasmic thrill, an organic shudder, that would leave them spiritually
prostrate before the glory contained in the Greek flag. “ey will remem –
ber all that and how much more will they not remember!” exclaimed the
speaker, arousing in his audience all the Ideas of ethnic history already
imprinted in the mind.
Second, Greek Cypriots described their own history as the inevitable
and inescapable history of humanity, in which their own role was already
largely predetermined. eir duty was to be, either as citizens or soldiers,
“nothing else than the observers of the historical traditions of the nation.”
Hence, the ultimate human goal accords with the ultimate national goal.
And because Hellenism directly corresponds to humanity, the threat to
politismos, or a civilization corresponding to Hellenism, is directly defined
as barbarism. In the inevitable movement of Greek history, the only im –
pediment to its complete fulfillment are barbarians at the gates. And in
Greek Cypriot rhetoric, as I note at length elsewhere (Bryant 2004), the
historical barbarians at the gates are the T urks, who purportedly suppressed
for centuries the full and necessary realization of Greek history. Further –
more, as Herzfeld notes for Greece (Herzfeld 1982, 1987, 1997), lingering
T urkish elements in Greek culture threaten to pollute and corrupt it from
within.
And third, education was cultivation precisely because it evoked the
inheritance that could be shaped to true humanity. Put simply, the dream
of “progress” through education, of a “better future” that demanded the
molding of young minds and bodies, was, for Greek Cypriots, the fulfill –
ment of an ethnic fantasy. Humans are, prior to cultivation, ethnic subjects,
but only through cultivation could they blossom to achieve the aesthetic
paradigm that the colonizers saw as propaganda. “Progress,” then, was the
fulfillment of an immanent potentiality. Progress becomes predestination,
and education becomes evocation.
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56 I Rebecca Bryant
But the fulfillment of that potentiality was a progress that was also
simultaneously oriented toward a future in which Greeks would reclaim
their full rights and status as ancestors of the West. As Michael Herzfeld has
demonstrated in detail for Greece, “the West” is not simply a foil against
which Greek history unfolds but is an essential element in the construction
of Greek nationalist history and identity (ibid.). e argument appears
to be circular: Ancient Greeks were ancestors of the West, so in order to
prove their own “Westernness” (against the threat of a polluting T urkish –
ness), Greeks had to attempt to revive the glories of the ancient ances –
tors. As we see in the Cypriot case, however, the circularity embedded in
Greek nationalist thought also appears to be resolved through a notion of
a civilizing progress. In other words, if Greek civilization also corresponds
to true humanity, and if progress is the cultivation and realization of that
immanent potentiality, then the cultivation of Greekness is also progres –
sive. e realization of an ethnic future thus becomes the realization of a
“real” progress that must necessarily be either the same as or better than
“Western” understandings of the same concept.
Backwardness and Progress
In contrast to a progress that cultivates ethnic potentiality, T urkish Cy –
priot notions of progress were clearly modernist, even before the establish –
ment of the T urkish Republic. ey reflected a sense of a weakness in the
social body that had to be corrected, leading both to a greater acceptance
of colonial mandates and to an understanding of “civilization” that was
quite different from that of their Greek compatriots.
is sense of a weakness in the social body is reflected in a discussion
I had one day with Fahri Bey, today a high-level bureaucrat in the govern –
ment of northern Cyprus. He described to me discussions that he had
had with his father about his family’s history. His father told him that his
family had all been criminals of the worst sort, which was why they were
sent to Cyprus, long a place of exile under the Ottomans. He claims that
even into the 1960s one could see T urkish Cypriot men carrying knives
attached to the breast by a chain. e British rooted out such violent habits
and customs, he claims, giving them education and civilization ( medeniyet ).
“e English brought refinement and education,” he remarks. ere was
no crime in the island, he claims, until the post-1974 arrival of the T urkish
settlers. He singles out for condemnation the settlers’ treatment of foreign –
ers, especially women (see Navaro-Yashin, this volume).
What is interesting about Fahri Bey’s remarks is that they demonstrate a
continuity of thought about the state of T urkish Cypriot society. Until the
Atatürk period, there was a clear ambivalence about the British, reflected in
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 57
various forms of resistance: protests in the late nineteenth century against
copies of the Qur’an being placed in the hands of the British director of
education; protests at the turn of the century against British control of the
evkaf, or religious foundations; and protests in the 1950s against a British
director of the T urkish lycee. But at the same time, there was also a clear
sense of backwardness and a demand for development ( kalkınma ) that
laid the groundwork for an appropriation of Kemalist Westernization (for
elaboration of this point, see Bryant 2004).
Certainly, T urkish Cypriots as a minority have been at a distinct disad –
vantage with regard to their Greek neighbors. What is interesting, though,
is the way in which this weakness has been interpreted. It has not been
interpreted as oppression by the majority but rather as a weakness of the
self, a weakness internal to the society, something in need of remaking. is
concern with a weakness in the social body may clearly be seen as a sketch
in miniature of Ottoman concerns. In contrast to the Greek politismos, in
which what threatened civilization was barbarism, the threat to medeniyet
was backwardness.
In one study of the history of T urkish Cypriot education, the author
quotes the remarks of a medical doctor who was educated in the last de –
cades of Ottoman rule, became a member of the Young T urk movement in
Istanbul, and escaped exile by fleeing to his native Cyprus, by then under
British rule. He also taught French for some years at the idadî, published
the newspaper slâm, and opened his own industrial training school until
forced by Nicosia elites to close it. In this teacher’s memoirs he explains
that because in the villages there were fewer T urks than Greeks; because they spoke
Greek, and because without schools, or imams, or mosques, or teachers they were
in a pitiable situation, under the influence of clever priests a portion of them were
Grecified. He says that in the Ottoman period because not only in the villages but
even in the towns not even a speck of importance was given to education, the future
of up to forty villages was dark. (Nesim 1987, 65)
However, a teacher educated in a medrese in Istanbul “[founded] a large
medrese in Paphos, and [preached] sermons in the mosques and villages
to warn and awaken the people, and thanks to the students that he dis –
tributed to the villages, he saved the villager from becoming Greek.”11 e
“darkness” of custom and ignorance—represented here by the “Grecified”
Muslim villager—was overcome by the “enlightenment” of civilization,
represented by the traditionally educated intellectual who, despite his reli –
gious education, was able to “warn and awaken the people.” is, indeed,
was one of the primary responsibilities of those known as the aydınlar, a
word that literally means “lights” or “enlightened ones” but which refers to
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58 I Rebecca Bryant
all those who have “knowledge.” In this vision, intellectuals would preserve
“the people” from the calamities to which they would otherwise be led by
custom and ignorance.
In Cyprus, Muslims’ own backwardness was clear in comparison with
their Greek neighbors, who appeared to succeed at their expense. Moreover,
this self-criticism extended even to the heart of the society, namely to its
dealings with women. One T urkish Cypriot teacher whom I interviewed
was born in 1919 in a small village in the Pafos area of Cyprus. Both his
father and elder brother were teachers, so his family’s association with
education reaches back into the early Hamidian period. When discussing
his own family, he noted that “although my father was a teacher, he didn’t
send the girls to school. He said they could go to primary school, but he
only sent one sister. My elder brother, oooh, he finished primary school,
he finished rütiye, he became a teacher. My elder brother. But my father
didn’t send my sisters who came after him, not even to elementary school.”
While this was no doubt a common practice, in actual fact Muslim schools
in the island for many decades compared favorably with Greek schools
with regard to primary education for girls. One reason for this is indicated
in observations regarding girls’ education by the first British inspector of
schools, Josiah Spencer, who wrote in 1881 that
the condition of the Masters of the Christian village schools has generally been
hitherto such as to prevent parents from sending their girls, except a few very small
ones, to School. e Moslem village Masters being generally older men, and religious
Teachers, there is not the same difficulty, and their Schools are usually more mixed
than the Christian village schools.12
In a report on the state of Cypriot education as late as 1913, Muslim girls
constituted 37 percent of the total 5,692 children enrolled in elementary
classes, while girls in the Christian schools made up only 30 percent of the
total of 25,854 (Talbot and Cape 1913, 14).
Despite this, however, the same teacher clearly believed that the op –
posite was the case, and he made a direct association between the perceived
backwardness of Muslim education and the lack of education for girls. In
our interview, I had noted that beginning in the early Hamidian period
and continuing until Cyprus’s independence in 1960, complaints had
been lodged with the British administration about the deficient nature of
Muslim/T urkish education, especially in contrast to that of their Greek
neighbors. When I asked this retired teacher about the problem, he re –
marked:
is was true. eirs was much better. And in any case they gave much more im –
portance to education than we did. ey definitely sent their Greek children to
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 59
school. It should also be good for the girls. Because with us, boys and girls couldn’t
ever be together, that is. At twelve years old they [the girls] were completely covering
themselves ( çaraf örtüsünü giyerlerdi ). e Greeks weren’t like that. e Greeks were
always in love, always going to the church together, our girls didn’t go to the mosque,
the women. Of course there were those who went, but they had a separate place.
But not like the Greeks, the Greeks on Sunday all went to the church, all together,
there was mingling ( kaynama vardı ), girl, girl-boy mingling happened. at’s why,
if a girl goes to school, if a T urkish girl goes to school, and if she learns reading and
writing, she writes a letter to her lover. at’s why families didn’t send them! Greeks
weren’t like that, the Greeks were different. And they gave much more importance
to education, that was the reality.
While my question had concerned the perception of a backwardness in
comparison to Greek education, his answer focused very clearly on the
relationship between that backwardness and traditional practices and per –
ceptions with regard to girls.
I draw several conclusions from this. e first is that there were com –
mon cultural understandings of what was medeni, or civilized. is most
clearly crystallized around the theme of women precisely because women
represented the “inside,” the “essence” of the society and hence also rep –
resented its backwardness. e second is that this backwardness was per –
ceived to be a danger within the society, something to be fought, altered, or
repressed. It was a danger because it was a weight on the society, something
holding up its progress. And finally, there was clearly a perception of the
possibility of change and self-remaking.
Among T urkish Cypriots, the latter possibility was one that became
particularly clear by comparison with their Greek neighbors. is, one for –
mer teacher said, is why T urkish Cypriots immediately adopted the T urkish
republican reforms, even before they were adopted in T urkey itself:
ey didn’t want Ataturk’s reforms, they didn’t want them, the Greeks. But the T urks
accepted them immediately. anks to those reforms our identity became clear. Dur –
ing the English administration life changed a lot, standards changed, they changed
a lot. If you compare the T urks with the Greeks, their standard of living was much
better. We tried to be like them by looking at them. And so we immediately adopted
the reforms, we immediately accepted them.
While the Greek vision of the civilized represented T urks as the barbarians
at the gate, the Ottoman/T urkish vision of the civilized represented its
other as backwardness within T urkish society.
For Greek Cypriots of the period, civilization was defined by Greekness,
especially in contrast to the barbarous. For T urkish Cypriots, civilization
was defined in contrast to the backward, something that becomes especially
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60 I Rebecca Bryant
clear in narratives of the treatment of women. Hence, in the Greek case
civilization was something to be evoked from the past, revived, protected,
and prevented from contamination by the barbarous. In the T urkish case,
on the other hand, civilization was something to be achieved, a limitless
goal. Backwardness implies a self-critique and a need to move forward, a
need for a progress “both moral and material.”
Politismos, Medeniyet, and Progress
e idea of a progress both moral and material was a central part of
the ideological framework that supported European imperial projects and
explained the hegemony of European civilizations. It was, more generally,
a significant part of the episteme of the period, much as its successor, mod –
ernization theory, has been an important underpinning of the episteme of
the twentieth century. Confounded by Darwinian evolutionism but un –
willing to give up God, nineteenth-century social theorists used the grow –
ing knowledge of “primitive” peoples to argue for social, especially racial,
progress. Just as natural evolution presumably demonstrated a more and
more perfect adaptation to one’s surroundings, so social evolution should
demonstrate moral progress.13
But inherent in this idea are two entirely opposite tendencies that were
often at odds with each other and that many thinkers of the period were at
pains to reconcile. On the one hand, it appeared to the famous evolutionist
E. B. Tylor, for example, that “morality was largely a matter of conforming
to the customs of the society a person belonged to, and if anything, sav –
ages were more custom-bound than civilized men” (Stocking 1987, 224).
On the other hand, most thinkers of the period expected progress to lead
to absolute improvement and ultimately to perfection. is opposition
between relative and absolute progress was resolved by Herbert Spencer,
for example, who argued that some repugnant customs might represent a
more perfect adaptation to their environment but that it was still possible
to judge such customs absolutely, especially at a time when most societies
were undergoing conscious development (ibid.).
is dichotomy was in some sense derived from the long-standing
tension in European thought between relative and absolute standards for
civilization. e positivism prevalent in the period forcefully argued for
the absolute improvement of civilization and therefore of morality, both
of which reflected the absolute progress of knowledge through science. But
what has often been called a German tendency in European thought argued
equally forcefully for cultural limitations on human knowledge and for a
heuristic split between spiritual culture and uniformly progressive material
civilization (see Elias 1994; Stocking 1987). e fact that such definitions
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 61
of civilization and the moral progress linked to it were contradictory did
not prevent them from claiming a powerful role in the explanation of Eu –
ropean hegemony; indeed, it may have been their very contradictory nature
that made that ideological hegemony all the more powerful.
Despite this contradiction, what had clearly developed in Enlight –
enment thought was a vision of morality as law-bound, something that
regulated relations between right-bearing individuals in a society usu –
ally perceived as based on a social contract between those individuals.14
Moreover, it was widely believed that goodness was a faculty, something
inherent in humans—an idea that would be modified but not lost in the
post-Darwinian period. Kant had remarked, for instance, that “man must
develop his tendency towards the good. Providence has not placed goodness
ready formed in him, but merely as a tendency and without the distinction
of moral law” (Kant 1960, 11). is was very clearly not the concept of
morality at work in the Cypriot context.
Rather, in Cyprus, the idea of moral progress and social betterment
was linked to culturally specific understanding of the “civilizing process.”
A “progress both moral and material” meant both an improvement in
one’s economic conditions and further “civilization.” Colonialism clearly
represented “progress” and “the modern,” as we especially see in Cypriot
expressions of their disappointments with Britain’s failure to realize the
anticipated progress and modernization (on this point, see Bryant 2004).
But “progress” and “modernity” are concepts open to local interpretation.
Both imply a linear history and movement toward a goal—in this case, the
goal of achieving a certain level of “civilization.” But equally important,
these concepts imply a present fallenness or backwardness in relationship
to that goal. In other words, one must explain to oneself why that goal has
not yet been reached.
T wo ready-to-hand explanations are that one has been prevented from
reaching the goal by some external force or that one has been corrupted
and weakened from within. While Greek Cypriots adopted the former
explanation, their Muslim/T urkish compatriots adopted the latter. For
Greek Cypriots, the ideals of civilization were always already defined as
Greekness, but a Greekness that had been prevented from its full flour –
ishing by the forces of barbarism. Because those forces external to Greek
civilization had also penetrated daily life and threatened that civilization
from within, bringing that innate potentiality to full flourishing also by
necessity implied purification.
In contrast, beginning in the late Ottoman period and continuing
into the period of the T urkish Republic, T urkish Cypriots discussed their
own backwardness as a type of disease of the social self, something that
needed to be treated and remedied. Hence, the extreme “modernization”
02Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 61

62 I Rebecca Bryant
and remaking inspired by Atatürk was not simply an imposition of Western
mores but was also a consequence of this rethinking of the problems in the
social self. Like the ideals of Greek civilization that circulated throughout
the Greek-speaking world of the period, educated T urkish Cypriots also
participated in an episteme in which their own backwardness was something
to be cured, if necessary through radical surgery on the social body.
Conclusion
In Cyprus, a favorite explanation for the triumph of Greek and T urk –
ish nationalisms on the island remains Britain’s notorious divide-and-rule
strategy, which supposedly pitted Christian and Muslim Cypriots against
each other. But a more complex way in which one might view the effects of
colonialism and its role in the rupture between the communities would see
British colonialism not only as a method of force but, more important, as
a complex of ideas in which Cypriots participated and which they negoti –
ated with, rejected, or adapted to. Timothy Mitchell argues that the study
of modernity should be concerned not simply “with a new stage of history
but with how history itself is staged” (Mitchell 2000, 1). What I have sug –
gested here is that the specter of the West that haunts colonial narratives
may also be linked to the figure of the modern through culturally specific
notions of what a civilizing progress might mean.
In the Cypriot case, these were narratives of the self that were adapted
from the narratives of the “motherlands” and which became prevalent in
the island through the rise of media and the spread of education (Bry –
ant 2004). However, these narratives were appropriated in a situation
of structural inequality and adapted to a situation in which T urkish and
Greek Cypriots lived side by side. Hence, while Greek Cypriot narratives
of civilization always opposed themselves to the T urkish barbarians—or to
elements of the “barbaric” within the self (Herzfeld 1982)—this produced
a confusion about the attitude to take toward the T urks in one’s midst. And
while T urkish Cypriot narratives of civilization consistently opposed it to
the backward and hence oriented civilization toward a modernist progress,
this happened within a situation of structural inequality in which T urkish
Cypriots were at a disadvantage (Bryant 2001). So while adopting narra –
tives from the “motherlands,” Cypriots adapted these to a situation that
produced schism, rupture, and differentiation.
It is precisely here that one can locate the failure of postcoloniality in
Cyprus: e West becomes both the goal of history and the ground upon
which history is staged. Narratives of the self as “always already” Western
or as “really,” radically Western are not just claims to modernity but are,
perhaps even more important, claims that that self is participating in the
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 63
playing field of the “civilized”—that is, Western—world. So when, in his
April 2004 speech before the Greek community, President Tassos Papa –
dopoulos claimed that a “no” vote on the Annan Plan referendum would
not have disastrous consequences for Greek Cypriots, he explained his
position by claiming that northern Cyprus could not ever be recognized
by countries that “really count.” Claims to legitimacy on that playing field
are made precisely through claims of “civilization” that are tied to differ –
ent, even contradictory strands of European thought regarding what the
West is “really” about. While those contradictory strands may coexist in
Europe itself, Cyprus becomes the ground where those contradictions are
played out.
Notes
1. Extract from Alithia, August 31, 1889, State Archive of the Republic of Cyprus
(hereafter SA1) 2236/1889.
2. SA1/C685/1902.
3. Orr further expresses the hope that “as soon as the time comes, as come it must,
when Cypriots are admitted to important posts under Government, the barrier which now
exists between them and the English community will begin to disappear. But so long as
it remains, ‘ENOSIS’ will continue to be the gospel of the educated Cypriot, preached
to the peasant, encouraged in the schools, and given daily prominence in all the Greek
newspapers” (Orr 1918, 171).
4. Confidential letter from Canon Newham to chief secretary, July 18, 1912, SA1/
1074/1911.
5. Ibid.
6. “Evge Neotis!” I Foni tis Kiprou, March 2, 1901. e Great Idea (Megali Idea)
was both an irredentist ideology and sometime policy of the Greek state until the end of
World War I. It envisioned reuniting all Greek-speakers in what were seen as historically
Greek lands.
7. “e moment that saw the transition from historico-ritual mechanisms for the
formation of individuality to the scientifico-disciplinary mechanisms, when the normal took
over from the ancestral, and measurement from status, thus substituting for the individual –
ity of the memorable man that of the calculable man, that moment when the sciences of
man became possible is the moment when a new technology of power and a new political
anatomy of the body were implemented” (Foucault 1977, 193).
8. e author continues by noting that “the ethnic school for these reasons forms
the national crucible in which are smelted and opened wide and forged the great and
high characters in those advanced persons who accomplish great things.” Kypriakos Fylax,
September 29, 1912.
9. Leontios, Bishop of Pafos, to Governor Palmer, November 18, 1935, Archive of
the Archishopric of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, document 500.
10. Extract from Neon Ethnos, SA1/646/1916/1.
11. Ibid.
12. Josiah Spencer to Chief Secretary, July 25 1881, SA1/1314/1881.
13. e most exhaustive study of these ideas is contained in Stocking 1987.
14. MacIntyre puts it thus: “In that period [roughly 1630 to 1850] ‘morality’ became
02Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 63

64 I Rebecca Bryant
the name for that particular sphere in which rules of conduct which are neither theological
nor legal nor aesthetic are allowed a cultural space of their own. It is only in the later seven –
teenth century and the eighteenth century, when this distinguishing of the moral from the
theological, the legal and the aesthetic has become a received doctrine[,] that the project of
an independent rational justification of morality becomes not merely the concern of indi –
vidual thinkers, but central to Northern European culture” (MacIntyre 1984, 39).
Works Cited
Argyrou, Vassos. 2002. Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique.
London: Pluto Press.
Bryant, Rebecca. 2001. “An Aesthetics of Self: Moral Remaking and Cypriot Education.”
Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (3): 583–614.
———. 2004. Imagining the Modern: e Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus. London: I. B.
Tauris Publishers.
Comaroff, John. 1987. “Of T otemism and Ethnicity: Consciousness, Practice and the Signs
of Inequality.” Ethos 52 (3/4): 301–323.
Elias, Norbert. 1994. e Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Fanon, Frantz. 1986. e Wretched of the Earth. T rans. Constance Farrington. New York:
Grove Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: e Birth of the Prison. New York: Vin –
tage.
Herzfeld, Michael. 1982. Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern
Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press.
———. 1987. Anthropology through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins
of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1997. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York: Rout –
ledge.
———. 2002. “e Absent Presence: Discourses of Crypto-Colonialism.” e South
Atlantic Quarterly 101 (4): 899–926.
Kant, Immanuel. 1960. Education. T rans. Annette Churton. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Kitromilides, Paschalis. 1979. “e Dialectic of Intolerance: Ideological Dimensions of
the Ethnic Conflict.” In Small States in the Modern World: e Conditions of Survival,
ed. Peter Worseley and Paschalis Kitromilides, 143–184. Nicosia: e New Cyprus
Association.
———. 1990. “Greek Irredentism in Asia Minor and Cyprus.” Middle Eastern Studies
26 (1): 3–17.
Loukas, Georgios. 1874/1974. Filoligikai Episkepseis ton en to Vio ton Neoteron Kyprion
Mnimeion ton Archaion [Philological Excursion into Ancient Monuments in the Lives
of Modern Cypriots]. Nicosia: Kypriologiki Vivliothiki.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. 2nd ed. South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press.
Marrou, Henri-Irenée. 1956. A History of Education in Antiquity. New York: Sheed and
Ward.
Mitchell, Timothy. 2000. “e Stage of Modernity.” In Questions of Modernity, ed. T.
Mitchell, 1–34. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Nandy, Ashis. 1989. e Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus I 65
Nesim, Ali. 1987. Batmayan Eğitim Günelerimiz: Kıbrıs Türk Eğitimi Hakkında Bir
Aratırma [Our Unsetting Educational Suns: A Research on T urkish Cypriot Educa –
tion]. Nicosia: Milli Eğitim ve Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları.
Orr, C. W. J. 1918. Cyprus under British Rule. London: R. Scott.
Shakry, Omnia. 1998. “Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in T urn-of-
the-Century Egypt.” In Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East,
ed. L. Abu-Lughod, 126–170. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
Stocking, George. 1987. Victorian Anthropology. New York: Free Press.
Talbot, J. W., and C. F . Cape. 1913. Report on Education in Cyprus. London: n. p.
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66 I Yiannis Papadakis
THREE
Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus
TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF ETHNIC AUTISM
Yiannis Papadakis
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between
similar sets of facts. . . . e nationalist not only does not disap –
prove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remark –
able capacity of not even hearing about them. . . . In nationalist
thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known
and unknown.
—Orwell (2000, 307–308)
A Dead Zone In Between: Divided Views
Propaganda, defined as that branch of the art of lying which
consists in very nearly deceiving your friends without deceiving
your enemies.
—Cornford (1922/1993, xv)
For years on end, on weekdays at 8:00 .., faithful to his rendezvous
with his (possibly nonexistent) audience, a serious, middle-aged T urk –
ish Cypriot man appeared on BRT 2, an official T urkish Cypriot televi –
sion channel. He addressed Greek Cypriots either in Greek or in English,
reading from a text which he often abandoned as he got carried away,
overwhelmed with enthusiasm for his own argument. He then began to
improvise on the day’s topic, chosen with care among the (apparently
plentiful) evils of Greek Cypriot society. Topics varied daily from ram –
pant corruption and nepotism on the Greek Cypriot side to the inhuman
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Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 67
treatment of foreign migrants to wasted arms expenditures paid by the
duped Greek Cypriot taxpayers. Despite the seriousness of his intentions
and those who commissioned the program, if Greek Cypriots watched it
at all—extremely few did, in fact—they only did so to laugh. e Greek
Cypriot official television channel, in turn, produced its own programs in
T urkish addressed to T urkish Cypriots. ese often showed a previously
mixed village in the south where T urkish and Greek Cypriots lived “hap –
pily together” before 1974. e camera never failed to focus on the (newly
restored) mosque in pristine condition as a local woman emotively called
to a past T urkish Cypriot neighbor using her first name, saying that she
missed her and expected her to return in order to live in warm neighborly
communion as in the past. is program was treated with as much mirth
and skepticism by T urkish Cypriots as its T urkish Cypriot counterpart was
by Greek Cypriots.
Even if such programs would strike many outsiders—as well T urk –
ish Cypriots when faced with official Greek Cypriot official publications
or programs, and vice versa—as stark propaganda, they were produced
for years on end as potentially strong persuasive arguments. It could be
argued that, caught in the webs of their own limited political horizons,
the creators of such programs were unable to perceive how unpersuasive
they may have appeared to others or how they may have had the opposite
of their intended effects. But what is of real interest here is not so much
the effects of such programs on others but what they revealed about their
creators. Despite the laughter they provoked among those seeing them
from the other side, they were no laughing matter but had serious and, I
would argue, insidious implications. What they starkly revealed was the
chasm separating the two sides, one so deep that even when they were try –
ing to persuade the others, the creators of such material remained so deeply
enmeshed in their own perspectives and so utterly convinced of their own
self-evident truths that they appeared unable to question its efficacy. For
eventually, and herein lies their insidiousness, they did have real effects by
causing laughter, often mixed with a sense of incredulity and indignation,
to those watching them on the other side. What appeared amazing and
laughable, what caused indignation, was how unreasonable the others were,
how they seemed to buy into their own propaganda, how blindfolded, how
brainwashed they were—how so different, in other words, from us. e
well-known verdict shared by both sides was verified and reinforced: “our”
truth, “their” propaganda. is all too easily led to a tendency of rejecting
in toto any argument or evidence presented by the other side as yet another
instance of propaganda.
In his discussion of nationalism, Gellner (1983, 2) makes a brief allu –
sion to what the Italians under Mussolini called the sacro egoismo of nation –
alism. is formulation aptly captures two key elements of nationalism:
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 67

68 I Yiannis Papadakis
first, the self-centered, or ethnocentric, perspective upon which it is based;
and second, how in demanding reverence to what Karakasidou (1994) has
aptly termed “sacred truths of national history,” it denigrates any critique
of an act of sacrilege. is raises the issue of censorship, one that, as many
analysts have shown (e.g., Chomsky 1989; Cohen 2001; Herman and
Chomsky 1988/1994), is paramount in any discussion of the official and
social construction of truth. In a social context such as Cyprus, where on
both sides “obsessive ethnic nationalism” (Loizos 1998, 40) has prevailed
for decades, traitor-hunting has become the equivalent of what in other so –
cial contexts was treated under the theme of “witch-hunting.”1 In a number
of articles, Loizos (1988, 1995, 1998) has suggested a number of factors
hindering reconciliation, limiting understanding, and justifying atrocities
against others. Key among them were the following: abstraction and gener –
alization leading to the presentation of the other side as homogeneous and
giving rise to the view that all the others are equally responsible (including
women and children) and bellicose; obsessive ethnic nationalism; one-
sided constructions of history focusing solely on periods or incidents of
conflict; and the inability to see certain commonalities even in certain key
metaphors through which the two ethnic groups comprehend the world.
Notably, the political use made of Loizos’s own work presents a stark il –
lustration of the argument presented here, as will be explained later.
is chapter adds to and modifies the analysis of Loizos, making some
further suggestions pertaining to the creation and perseverance of semantic
chasms between antagonistic ethnic groups.2 e unwillingness to engage
with others’ voices and experiences has been aptly described as (ethnic)
“autism” (Ignatieff 1999, 60), while the avoidance to face up to one’s own
acts of violence and the suffering caused to others has been extensively
discussed in Cohen’s magisterial book States of Denial (2001). is chapter
examines the emergence of “autism” and denial among antagonistic ethnic
groups from an ethnographic perspective. It explores the interactive social
processes involved in the construction and maintenance of hermetically
sealed “ethnic truths” and the challenges posed to them. How, in other
words, the chasm of the Dead Zone ( Nekri Zoni, as Greek Cypriots called
the division) that separated the two sides absolutely on the ground also ap –
peared to divide the two sides’ perspectives, thus disallowing the possibility
of common ground.
On Either Side of the Dead Zone:
Public Information Offices
Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of
one part of the world from another.
—Orwell (2000, 308)
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Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 69
e two Public Information Offices (PIO)—one on each side, each
bearing the same name and responsibilities—have been allocated the task
of disseminating official positions and truths. ey have been publishing
vast amounts of material, from monthly newspapers to books, brochures,
and leaflets.3 However, it should not be assumed that the political positions
expressed have been internally coherent and without inconsistencies, nor
have they remained historically stable and unchanging as political goals and
regimes have shifted.4 A full analysis of the content and history of such pub –
lications, however promising it appears to be, remains outside the scope of
this chapter.5 Instead, I focus on the basic underlying assumptions guiding
the production of such publications after 1974. ese publications deal in
evidence. ey display what their creators strive to present as indisputable,
crystal-clear, plain-for-all-to-see evidence. Evidence is always evidence of,
and the question that arises is evidence of what? What are the questions
raised? What events is evidence sought for? Conversely, what questions are
not raised, what issues are not discussed?
First, evidence was sought for atrocities and violence in any form
committed by the other side against one’s own community. Instances,
photographs, local and foreign reports of atrocities one had suffered were
painstakingly collected and distributed but never such evidence concerning
the suffering of the other side. Greek Cypriots were primarily interested
in evidence of atrocities committed by the T urkish army in 1974. T urkish
Cypriots only collected evidence of atrocities committed against them in
the 1960s and during 1974. No evidence was ever collected, or seriously
considered, on the sufferings inflicted by one’s own side against the oth –
ers—the question was never raised. As a result, evidence of the suffering of
the other side emerged only from sources on the other side. us, it was
regarded as emanating from suspect official sources and was habitually dis –
missed as propaganda by the other. As for evidence emerging from foreign
(non-Cypriot) writers, this was welcomed by the side whose suffering it
described as proof “finally coming from impartial independent sources”
and readily dismissed as biased or “commissioned” (that is, paid for) by
the other side.6
After the 1974 division of Cyprus, Greek Cypriots strove for the reuni –
fication of the island. In an attempt to historically legitimate this politi –
cal goal, the “peaceful coexistence thesis” came to be officially endorsed.
It claimed a past of brotherly coexistence between T urkish Cypriots and
Greek Cypriots, a past said to “prove” that people could live peacefully
together in the future. is led to a strong disinclination to delve into
periods of conflict and collect any related evidence. is should also be
understood as a counterargument directed against the equally problematic
official T urkish Cypriot position: e past was one of pure conflict and
animosity, “proving” that the people could never live together and that
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 69

70 I Yiannis Papadakis
separation was the historically dictated outcome. is, in turn, led the
T urkish Cypriot authorities to focus on periods of conflict and to amass a
large amount of evidence of violence and atrocities committed against them
but to collect no evidence of violence committed against Greek Cypriots
during or before 1974. e combined result of these antagonistic views
was a strong disinclination to talk of the suffering of the other side and
violence committed against them. Any such admission was tantamount to
treachery: It was supporting the other side’s positions and strengthening
its propaganda.
e two ethnic groups have, of course, never been homogeneous; sig –
nificant internal critiques and dissenting voices have always been around.
Yet such critics risked having their voices co-opted by the other side in order
to point out that “it is not only us who claim these things, people on the
other side also make the exact same claims.” Evidence in support of one’s
arguments that came from the other side was presented as ultimate proof,
since at the end of the day, so the argument went, we live in a cynical world,
one plagued by propaganda, one where even crystal-clear proof such as the
one presented by our side has difficulty in shining.
e next section demonstrates how such internal critiques often
emerged from the left on both sides. Leftist writings were often republished
by the other side’s PIO, without of course ever asking the permission of
the authors.7 While such actions may have reinforced self-righteous at –
titudes on the side that was co-opting and using such critical voices from
the other side, the consequences on the side that produced them, and on
their authors, also merit consideration. ose whose writings were used
by the other side’s official publications were habitually accused of having
provided the others with “ammunition in their propaganda campaign.”
ey were often branded as traitors, an accusation that rendered them vir –
tual outcasts. e end result of using critical voices from the other side in
this way was to blunt their critical edge on their own side, disempowering
them as tainted voices of traitors. is made internal critiques much more
difficult to openly articulate. ese processes led to the emergence of strong
tendencies toward self-censorship—a strong prohibition against discussing
such issues under the threat of the accusation of treachery.
e manner in which the work of anthropologist Peter Loizos has
been used by T urkish Cypriots provides a stark illustration of the points
discussed above. Because he is an academic of partly Greek Cypriot descent
who grew up in the UK, he could be presented as an impartial (academic)
commentator, an outsider (foreigner), or a Greek Cypriot critical of his
own side. e largest official T urkish Cypriot Web site featured two of his
articles without authorization. e first, published in Man (Loizos 1988),
discussed the issue of intercommunal killings, using as a case study the
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Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 71
actions and words of a Greek Cypriot right-wing extremist who killed
unarmed civilian T urkish Cypriots. e other, based on a 1999 interview
in a Greek newspaper, was critical of the actions of EOKA B. Another
person whose work was presented in the same section of this Web site
(“Published Academic Papers: e Period of 1963–1974”), again without
any authorization, was a left-wing Greek Cypriot critical of Greek Cypriot
actions during the 1960s.8
e Other Dead Zone:
Partial Views, Partial Truths
e argument that to tell the truth would be “inopportune” or
“would play into the hands” of somebody or other is felt to be
unanswerable.
—Orwell (2000, 332)
Critical voices willing to discuss the suffering of the other side tended
to emerge most explicitly from the left on both sides. If the Dead Zone
came to broadly separate Greek Cypriots and T urkish Cypriots, another
no less significant division was the right-left split within each side.9 Key in
understanding this division was the contest over what constituted the na –
tional “imagined community” (Anderson 1983), since this also determined
whose violent deaths were to be classified as deaths of enemy/aggressors
(who deserved them) or of insiders (with whom one should empathize).10
Right-wing parties on both sides identified mostly with the respective
“motherlands,” their peoples and histories, presenting themselves primarily
as Greeks or T urks. While people of the right were thus divided and op –
posed, the left on both sides expressed mutual solidarity; they were joined
by a common discourse on identity as “Cypriots first,” as one people that
shared a common Cypriot history (see also Peristianis in this volume). is
opened up a third space, a common space where empathy could emerge.
e two lefts posited Greeks and T urks as outsiders. e combined actions
of the two “motherlands” in 1974, namely the coup organized by the Greek
junta and its EOKA B extreme right-wing collaborators in Cyprus and
the subsequent T urkish military offensive, as well as other outside powers
were held responsible for the political conflict in Cyprus. e left on both
sides also traced the roots of the conflict in Cyprus to divisive, belligerent
actions of right-wing nationalists. ese were acts of violence against the
other community and, as important, against left-wing dissenters within
their own side.11
is last point is highly significant. Up until the 1950s, T urkish Cypri –
ots and Greek Cypriots had cooperated through left-wing workers’ institu –
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 71

72 I Yiannis Papadakis
tions. Even after 1974, left-wing parties on the two sides expressed strong
feelings of mutual solidarity. Another important reason for their critical
stance was the prevalent feeling among leftists that Greek Cypriot support –
ers of the left were as much victims of their own right-wing nationalists
as T urkish Cypriots were, while analogous feelings prevailed among the
T urkish Cypriot left. e two lefts were also joined by the view that the
internal victimization of leftists within each community was as important
an aspect of a hidden, forgotten, or undisclosed past as the victimization
of people of the other community. For example, on the Greek Cypriot side
it was mostly in AKEL publications, or publications by AKEL supporters,
that one read of Greek Cypriot atrocities against T urkish Cypriots. Such
publications strove to demonstrate that right-wing nationalists were the
major culprits who divided the people of Cyprus and the island, both
through violent acts committed against those of the other community
and the implementation of a regime of violence and terror against the left,
which was working toward cooperation between the two ethnic groups.12
On the Greek Cypriot side, these views were also more apparent in the
domain of historiography.13 e standard “History of Cyprus” from an
AKEL perspective, for example, includes references to violence against
T urkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriot extremists. Significant for the discus –
sion here, the author presents a clear awareness of the risks his approach
entails: “Foreseeing the reaction of certain circles, I should underline here
that with this work ‘I am not offering ammunition to the enemy’” (Graikos
1980, 3, my translation). Among T urkish Cypriots, it was mainly in the
domain of folklore studies that a common ground was sought through a
discussion regarding shared elements of folk culture (Azgin and Papadakis
1998). Given the almost complete lack of intermarriage and hence of kin –
ship links that transcended ethnic divisions, the political spaces of the left
were of paramount significance in creating a space of empathy as well as
self-critique.14
Between the left and the right, however, there was little common
ground for dialogue. eir deep ideological differences were reflected in the
organization of social space in Cyprus. Coffee shops in cities and villages
were rigidly split into right-wing and left-wing establishments. In general,
people chose to read party-aligned newspapers, avoiding those of other
parties. No one dared carry the wrong newspaper into the other party’s
coffee shop. In this way, individual social actors came to be immersed in the
ideology and arguments of their own party while becoming highly dismis –
sive of others. e media also came to be highly segregated into right-wing
and left-wing television stations or radio channels. Even so, on both sides
one clearly noted that the right dominated in mass media and the left had
a disproportionately small share.15 As a result, it was mostly right-wing
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Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 73
views that were aired in the media, ones unwilling to engage in discussions
of the suffering of the other side or of violence inflicted within one’s own
side. Given the tenacity of internal political divisions, the other party’s
views were commonly treated as propaganda, just as the other side’s official
views were dismissed on each side of the Dead Zone. is hindered the
possibility of the emergence of an open discussion in public social spaces.
Such mutually reinforcing processes that create ever-deepening chasms that
separate social groups have been powerfully described by Bateson (1973)
as processes of “schismogenesis.” But the absence of open discussion in
the public space does not necessarily entail a total silence among social
actors in other settings. People may express an active desire to speak out
precisely because of the awareness of silences and prohibitions that guard
the boundaries of public discourse. e following section shifts the focus
to ethnographic levels of analysis in concrete settings.
Ethnographic Contexts:
e Social Management of Disclosure
L (O –D )
I conducted a protracted period of fieldwork from the end of 1990 to
the beginning of 1992 with Greek Cypriots that lasted fifteen months in
Tahtakallas, an area in Lefkosia (as the Greek Cypriot side of the capital
Nicosia will henceforth be called) near the boundary that divides the city.
T urkish Cypriots abandoned this area during the outbreak of violence in
Christmas 1963. e long duration of this period of fieldwork allowed me
to examine in closer detail the social management of disclosure, as I was
progressively moving from the status of a relative outsider toward that of
an insider.
Initially, I was constantly exposed to stories and events that described
how well Greek Cypriots used to live with T urkish Cypriots, echoing the
official “peaceful coexistence thesis.” Gradually, however, more complex
and diverse views emerged, as locals spoke of how other Greek Cypriots
(initially said to be outsiders; later some were named as locals) attacked
and looted the T urkish Cypriot homes in 1963 and how their own homes
too were looted by Greek Cypriots in 1974 when they briefly abandoned
the area out of fear. Talk of past coexistence, however, was often disputed
by individuals from two political groups for different reasons: men who
frequented Orpheas, the communist AKEL-controlled coffee shop, and
others who frequented Olympiakos, the right-wing one aligned with DISI
(Dimokratikos Sinagermos; Democratic Rally). e disputations were pre –
sented in specific contexts during the advancement of specific arguments.
Leftists often spoke in an accusatory manner of how the clients of Olym –
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 73

74 I Yiannis Papadakis
piakos strongly supported the 1974 coup and how they killed local T urkish
Cypriots, forcing them away, in 1963. Disclosures of right-wing violence
against local T urkish Cypriots were often recounted in the same breath with
accounts of persecution of local leftists by Olympiakos’s supporters during
the days of the 1974 coup. Olympiakos supporters, by contrast, constantly
accused leftists of being unpatriotic traitors, claiming that they never par –
took in any of the fighting in pursuit of “national causes” as they themselves
did (see also Spyrou, this volume). Olympiakos was presented as the local
“bastion of Hellenism and resistance [ propyrgeio Ellinismou kai antistasis ].”
In such narratives, they pointed out AKEL ’s condemnation of the EOKA
movement back in 1955 and spoke with pride of how in 1963 they alone
defended the area from “T urkish aggression”: how they bravely fought
against the “T urkish mutiny [ Tourkiki antarsia ],” as those events came to
be designated in official and popular Greek Cypriot political rhetoric.
Protracted fieldwork can allow the ethnographer to engage with a
diversity of voices in multiple contexts, moving beyond the official proc –
lamations, and hence become party to “secrets” not spoken to outsiders.
It also provides the opportunity to examine how in the course of specific
arguments social agents may strategically employ disclosure in addressing
specific audiences. Self-censorship presents a case in point.
Self-censorship, and the local reflexive understanding of its existence,
played a prominent role during the course of fieldwork. In relation to issues
of violence, it often emerged through statements such as “it is better not
to talk about these things.” is did not entail a stance of rejection that
violence was committed against others, but it did entail one that mobilized
a patriotic duty to avoid admission. When an individual would admit to
knowledge of an atrocity committed by Greek Cypriots, the description
was sometimes accompanied by an admonition such as “but please do not
write these things” or a request that the name not be disclosed. Equally per –
sistent, however, were voices, emerging mostly from the left, which, while
self-reflectively acknowledging the existence of censorship, precisely for this
reason insisted that the ethnographer should make sure s/he wrote these
things down, turning them at last into public knowledge, accompanied by
a defiant “I will say these [things] even if they call me a traitor.”
Yet self-censorship more commonly emerged not as part of an explicit
ideological strategy but during the course of ordinary daily events for more
mundane reasons. A discussion among leftists in a particular shop regarding
“the treacherous historical role of the right” would be interrupted when a
client from another party would enter the shop but would continue when
someone else entered who the discussants knew would share the same
views. Despite the political divisions described in the previous section,
social agents were constantly involved in a multiplicity of relationships,
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Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 75
ranging from economic ones to relations of kinship and friendship with
others who adhered to opposed parties. In the politically segregated spaces
of the coffee shops, hot discussions that were highly accusatory of other
Greek Cypriots took place in the absence of the accused. But during other
daily encounters, such political discussions were often avoided so as not to
endanger other kinds of relationships. Such implicit rules involving fine
discriminations of knowing when, to whom, and in which context one
should say certain things were part of everyday social practices.
L (M )
In Lefkosha, the T urkish Cypriot side of Nicosia, fieldwork took place
only for a month, usually in the presence of an official working in the T urk –
ish Cypriot Public Information Office. e primary aim of this research
was to engage with T urkish Cypriots who had left Tahtakale (as they called
Tahtakallas) in 1963 and then with others from a variety of age groups,
places, and political affiliations. T urkish Cypriots from Tahtakale, most of
them elders by that point, spoke at length about personal pain, dislocation,
and persecution by Greek Cypriots, sometimes naming former neighbors
as culprits. It could be reasonably expected that the presence of officials
significantly influenced what I was told. It could also be argued that given
that over a quarter-century later, this was the first time since 1974 that they
found themselves facing a Greek Cypriot interested in their experiences and
views, they stressed what they felt Greek Cypriots did not understand or
deliberately omitted from the historical record.16 Many expressed doubts
as to whether Greek Cypriots would ever allow me to publish what I had
been told or cautioned me about the consequences if I did. e officials in
charge of my movements prevented me from speaking to specific individual
T urkish Cypriots, all people from the left known to be highly critical of
official policies and views.
I (J–S )
In an effort to engage with other voices among T urkish Cypriots, I
later spent three months in Istanbul living with left-wing T urkish Cypriot
university students in their twenties. To a large extent, they shared the views
T urkish Cypriots had previously expressed regarding the persecution and
killings of T urkish Cypriots during the 1960s. But for them other issues
were as important. First, they regarded the violence against their commu –
nity to have been inflicted by Greek Cypriot right-wing extremists rather
than by Greek Cypriots in general. Second, they spoke of how some of their
families and friends had at times been subjected to violence or intimida –
tion by right-wing T urkish Cypriot extremists. ey discussed at length the
problems T urkish Cypriots faced after 1974, openly disagreeing with the
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 75

76 I Yiannis Papadakis
official view that 1974 was the solution to all their problems. More con –
cretely, they mentioned many difficulties that had arisen from the presence
of the T urkish army and T urkish settlers, issues which were officially taboo
and whose discussion was officially deemed as bordering on treachery (see
Navaro-Yashin, this volume). ey also discussed at length their own family
and personal predicaments as persecuted supporters of the left in a society
plagued by economic problems, one that denied them access to resources
and possibilities for jobs in the public sector.
In their view, theirs was a society whose right-wing officialdom treated
them as outright traitors because of their efforts to communicate and em –
pathetically engage with Greek Cypriots. Such efforts, often in the form of
bicommunal meetings, were officially designated as expressions of sympa –
thy for the barbaric enemy aggressor (Constantinou and Papadakis 2001).
Because of their participation in such activities and their stated desire to
live with Greek Cypriots on a reunited island, they had earned the deroga –
tory nickname rumcu : those who liked the Rums (Greek Cypriots), those
who mingled with Greek Cypriots; in other words, traitors. Instead they
preferred to call themselves barisci, peace-lovers. Sociospatial demarcations
were once again revealing. Whereas I, a Greek Cypriot, was welcomed to
live with them for three months, during that period no right-wing T urkish
Cypriot or any other T urk visited the flat, nor did we ever go out in the
company of either.
P (S –S )
Pyla was a mixed UN-supervised village, the only one located inside the
Dead Zone, where I conducted a year’s fieldwork. is was a village whose
position inside the Dead Zone made villagers feel that they lived in truly
precarious conditions, “on top of a powder keg,” as a T urkish Cypriot man
put it. Pyla often became a source of tension between the two sides, and in
times of general tension the village was inevitably affected. Villagers were
keen to keep the village at peace and prevent violence from erupting there.
To this effect they came to employ various intricate strategies (Papadakis
1997). e highly volatile social environment of Pyla led to other kinds of
disclosures and silences.
e T urkish Cypriot official position on Pyla was starkly presented in a
publication titled Pyla: A Village of Unpeaceful Coexistence (PIO, TC 1997).
Its front cover featured a quote by former U.S. Under-Secretary of State
George Ball: “e Greek Cypriots do not want a peace keeping force; they
want to be left alone to kill T urkish Cypriots.” is statement, it should be
noted, was made more than thirty years earlier during the 1960s interethnic
violence. e pamphlet explained that it was written to correct the false
views expressed by “westerners,” namely certain EU and UN officials who
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Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 77
had been ostensibly duped by Greek Cypriot propaganda and spoke of life
in Pyla in a positive light (PIO, TC 1997, 3). e bulk of the pamphlet did
not deal with Pyla per se but with Greek Cypriot atrocities against T urkish
Cypriots from 1963 to 1974. e short discussion on Pyla presented vari –
ous examples of discrimination against local T urkish Cypriots after 1974.
Even so, the pamphlet’s aim was to present Pyla in the context of historic
and continuing Greek Cypriot atrocities and physical aggression against
T urkish Cypriots.
If the official T urkish Cypriot presentation of Pyla focused on past
atrocities committed elsewhere by Greek Cypriots, locally, T urkish Cypriots
showed a disinclination not only to discuss such atrocities elsewhere but
even to discuss the case of an alleged atrocity involving local Greek Cypri –
ots that was perpetrated against T urkish Cypriots from other villages. In
fact, it was leftist Greek Cypriots who first told me how certain right-wing
Greek Cypriot co-villagers were involved in the killing of T urkish Cypriots
from other villages during the 1960s. ey described how local right-wing
extremist Greek Cypriots participated in the holdup of a T urkish Cypriot
bus headed for Famagusta; the passengers were killed and buried in a mass
grave close by. ese accusations often emerged as Greek Cypriot leftists
described how they were rounded up and tortured by local Greek Cypriot
right-wing coup supporters during 1974.
But T urkish Cypriots were on the whole silent on this issue. Instead, the
locally significant story, endlessly repeated to me from the start, expressed
gratitude toward the local Greek Cypriot supporters of the coup. is story
was recounted to me vividly and in minute detail by T urkish Cypriots of all
political persuasions; it described how a Greek Cypriot man heroically de –
terred right-wing Greek Cypriots who had come from outside to attack the
local T urkish Cypriots during 1974. Even though this man was from the
extreme right himself and a coup supporter (someone whom they would
have ordinarily feared), precisely because of his affiliations and his authority
he was able to stop like-minded Greek Cypriots. A left-wing Greek Cypriot
would never have stood a chance. e motives of the right-wing Greek
Cypriot man were disputed: Some said he did not want harm to come to
his T urkish Cypriot co-villagers, others regarded this as a precautionary
measure to avoid ensuing retaliations against Greek Cypriots.
When I openly asked about this incident in the later stages of my
fieldwork, some left-wing T urkish Cypriots who I had come to know well
and who had expressed a strong inclination to help me with my research
there still remained very evasive. One year later, when I returned to Pyla, I
sat down to discuss my past research with two left-wing T urkish Cypriots
and I inquired about this particular issue. is time the response was more
straightforward. ey said that even though this story was well known
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 77

78 I Yiannis Papadakis
among local T urkish Cypriots, they generally preferred not to talk about
it. In fact, one of the two men said that one of his relatives who had lived
in another village had been killed in that event. Still, as he put it: “at
sad event took place so long ago. It is almost thirty years now. It is no good
insisting on these things all the time if we want to live in some kind of
peace over here.” ese words stood in sharp contrast to the official T urkish
Cypriot position on Pyla, one built almost exclusively on such events.
T oward an Anthropology of Ethnic Autism
e material produced by the two official Public Information Offices
literally screamed with pain. eir aim was to show who truly suffered, who
suffered most, and who was to blame for this suffering. eir screams grew
louder as they desperately tried to make themselves heard to those across
the Dead Zone, who in effect closed their ears because they did not wish
to acknowledge the violence perpetrated by their own side and denied the
suffering of the other side. At the same time, because both sides broadly
shared the view that outsiders had been carried away by the others’ propa –
ganda, the screams were also directed at outsiders in an effort to prevail over
and drown out the others’ cries. Yet what may appear to be ethnic autism
on the official level is not necessarily as prevalent at other levels of society,
especially those that traditionally interest ethnographers. Anthropologists
may be well placed to examine both the “silences” and the social manage –
ment of disclosure.17 In the case of mutually antagonistic ethnic groups,
one has to look beyond each society in and of itself, focusing instead on
their interaction. is analysis should be complemented by an examination
of the processes of interaction and contestation among actors variously situ –
ated within each society. Close attention to the position one speaks from,
to the diverse experiences of actors, and to the different contexts within
which disclosures are made can reveal the limits of censorship.
Notes
1. For a suggestive discussion of a similar phenomenon in U.S. history, see Cardozo
(1970) on McCarthyism and communist witch hunts. A suggestive discussion regarding
the protection and challenge of “sacred national truths” by academics in Greece is provided
by Karakasidou (1994).
2. Bryant (2001) identified another significant difference between the political dis –
courses of the two sides. Whereas T urkish Cypriots demanded respect, Greek Cypriots asked
for the protection of their (human) rights.
3. A list of the Greek Cypriot PIO publications up to 1992 can be found in PIO, GC
(1992). No equivalent list exists for the T urkish Cypriot Public Information Office. e
T urkish Cypriot PIO has been publishing a bimonthly newspaper called Kibris that provides
an excellent source for the examination of its rhetoric and arguments. A comparative study
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 78

Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 79
of the issue of missing persons in Cyprus by Sant Cassia (1998, 1999) includes an interesting
discussion of the symbolic iconography of PIO publications of both sides.
4. For example, the books by Worsley and Kitromilides (1979) and Attalides (1977)
that included critical comments on Greek nationalism in Cyprus stopped being distributed
by the Greek Cypriot PIO after the nationalist DISI government came to power during
1993.
5. For example, as the political context changed after 1974, which led to the emer –
gence among Greek Cypriots of the “peaceful coexistence thesis” regarding past relations
with T urkish Cypriots, their representation shifted in official publications from enemies (in
the 1960s during the period of interethnic violence) to amicable ex-neighbors and future
compatriots. For a general discussion of these shifts in historiography and official publica –
tions, see Papadakis (1993, 25–51). For the shifts in PIO, GC publications, compare pre-
1974 publications (e.g., PIO, GC 1964a, 1964b, 1964c) with any post-1974 publication
that shifts all blame to T urkey as the enemy/aggressor and presents a rosy picture of past
coexistence with T urkish Cypriots.
6. A good example is the book by Oberling (1982), an American academic, which
focused on T urkish Cypriot suffering and was distributed freely by the T urkish Cypriot
PIO.
7. e book by Greek Cypriot author Stavrinides (1977) was an early attempt to cre –
ate a space for a critical understanding of the 1974 events. It presented a critique of both
sides and was published soon after 1974, when because of the recent traumas of the war it
was extremely difficult to speak out critically. But since this was a book by a Greek Cypriot
author who was also critical of the Greek Cypriot side, it was selectively quoted, republished,
and distributed freely by the T urkish Cypriot PIO. is led to the slandering of the author
on the Greek Cypriot side and threats to prosecute him. Another telling example is an ar –
ticle published in a radical left-wing Greek Cypriot magazine Diethnistiki Prosklisi, which
was highly critical of Greek Cypriots and was subsequently extensively used in a book by
Egeli (1991, 87–119), a top employee of the T urkish Cypriot PIO; a chapter title reveals
his perspective: “Greek Cypriots Beginning to See Cyprus Realities.” Paroikiaki, a Greek
Cypriot newspaper published in London by the Greek Cypriot communist party AKEL,
featured an interview during which the interviewee mentioned hearing Greek Cypriot
extremists boast of throwing T urkish Cypriot babies up in the air and shooting them. is
was republished by the newspaper of the T urkish Cypriot PIO ( Kibris 1997a). In the same
issue of Kibris (1997b), a number of quotes taken from left-wing Greek Cypriot sources
were used to demonstrate Greek Cypriot bellicosity. e pamphlet published by the Greek
Cypriot PIO, Perishing Cyprus (PIO, GC 1989), is an example of how Greek Cypriots used
a left-wing T urkish Cypriot dissident’s writings that described the neglect, theft, and state
of disrepair of antiquities by T urkish Cypriots.
8. e Web site under discussion is http://www.trncpresidency.org (last accessed
November 2003). It should be noted that the English translation of Loizos’s interview
(http://www.trncpresidency.org/academic/1963–74/eoka.htm; accessed November 2003)
from the original Greek newspaper article (see http://archive.enet.gr/1999/08/13/on-line/
keimena/politics/po13.htm; accessed November 2003) contains a number of distortions
and omissions, intended to strengthen its impact in accordance with T urkish Cypriot
official views. For example, where Loizos spoke of Greek Cypriot policies intended to
“humiliate ( exevtelismou )” T urkish Cypriots, the translator used “eliminate” instead. e
Greek Cypriot left-wing writer is Drousiotis, a notorious person who is often attacked on
the Greek Cypriot side for his criticism of EOKA (Drousiotis 1998). In the Web site’s sec –
tion on “Books,” the person whose work received the highest number of recommendations
was Oberling (1982), while one book of Loizos (1975) as well as Stavrinides’ book (1977)
were also recommended.
03Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 79

80 I Yiannis Papadakis
9. is is admittedly a rough division that focuses on the largest parties in Cyprus:
left-wing AKEL on the Greek Cypriot side as opposed to right-wing DISI and the two
largest left-wing parties on the T urkish Cypriot side, CTP (Cumhuriyetci Türk Partisi;
Republican T urkish Party) and TKP (Toplumcu Kurtulu Partisi; Communal Liberation
Party), as opposed to right-wing UBP (Ulusal Birlik Partisi; National Unity Party). For a
general overview of political parties in Cyprus, see Coufoudakis (1983).
10. See Herzfeld’s (1992) discussion on segmentation and the nation-state in Greece,
which engages with issues of treachery and unity. One significant difference, however, in the
case of Greece is that the definition of the “imagined community” is shared in the examples
he discusses, while in the case of Greek Cypriots it is an issue of intense dispute.
11. See Papadakis (1998) on the different views of history and identity between the
Greek Cypriot left and right and Papadakis (1993, 52–173) for further discussion that
includes T urkish Cypriots. An examination of party-organized commemorations offers the
best way to illustrate the differences between right and left regarding the definition of the
“imagined community” and its enemies (Papadakis 2003). Right-wing parties on both sides
emphasized commemorations of dates and events from the history of the respective “moth –
erland” (rather than events from the history of Cyprus), often events where Greeks had been
killed by T urks and vice versa. By contrast, left-wing parties, especially the Greek Cypriot
AKEL, organized commemorations of events where Greek Cypriots and T urkish Cypriots
were killed together by right-wing nationalists. e Commemoration for Mishaoulis and
Kavazoglu, a Greek Cypriot and a T urkish Cypriot, both of whom were AKEL members,
who were jointly killed in 1964 by T urkish Cypriot right-wing extremists, was paradigmatic
in this respect. e T urkish Cypriot left-wing forum, the Movement for Patriotic Unity,
recently (2003) began to organize a commemoration for Mishaoulis and Kavazoglu as well.
Left-wing parties on both sides also organized commemorations of events during which
Cypriots were killed by extremists from the “motherlands.” e T urkish Cypriot CTP held
a yearly commemoration for left-wing T urkish Cypriot students (Martyrs for Democracy)
killed by extremist right-wing groups in T urkey. AKEL annually commemorated the killings
of left-wing Greek Cypriots killed by Greeks and EOKA B supporters during the fighting
against the 1974 coup (Commemoration for the Resistance Fighters).
12. See the publications of AKEL (1975/1978, 1984). AKEL (1975/1978) describes
the events of July–August 1974, highlighting the killings and torture of AKEL members
before and during the coup by EOKA B militants and officers of the Greek junta in Cy –
prus. On killings of AKEL supporters during 1955–1960 by EOKA, the Greek Cypriot
anticolonial fighter’s association, see the book by AKEL ex-MP Poumpouris (1993). AKEL
(1984) outlines the history of the party, including a section on AKEL ’s role in creating
forums for interethnic cooperation (1984, 117–128). Significantly, this section describes
various killings of Greek Cypriot and T urkish Cypriot AKEL members (including those of
Mishaoulis and Kavazoglu). In its discussion of the interethnic conflict of 1963, it presents
an accusatory photograph of Nikos Sampson (later appointed as head of the Republic dur –
ing the short-lived 1974 coupist government) with the caption “From the so-called ‘brave
acts’ of Nikolaos Sampson and his colleagues during the tragic events of Christmas 1963”
(1984, 125).
13. e standard history of Cyprus from an AKEL perspective is the two-volume
work of Graikos (1980, 1982). In the introduction, he argues for the existence of a Cypriot
identity that renders Greek Cypriots different from Greeks (Graikos 1980, 3–5). In the
second volume (Graikos 1982), he is very critical of right-wing extremists such as Grivas
and Sampson for attacks against T urkish Cypriots, and he points out various murders of
T urkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot leftists by right-wingers of their own community. See
also Kakoullis (1990), another AKEL-aligned author, who extensively discusses T urkish
Cypriot suffering during the 1960s.
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Disclosure and Censorship in Divided Cyprus I 81
14. e best example of this in Cyprus can be found in documentaries rather than in
books. e documentary Our Wall was jointly produced by a T urkish Cypriot and a Greek
Cypriot, both left wing. For a more extensive analysis of the two producers’ attempt to
create an empathetic and critical space, see Papadakis (2000).
15. Herman and Chomsky (1988/1994, 3–4, 14–15) provide some interesting reasons
why the working-class movement in the UK became underrepresented in the media: the
industrialization of the media, which necessitated enormous capital costs, and the reliance
on advertisers, who were generally unsympathetic to left-wing political discourse and ide –
ology, to cover costs. No such in-depth study exists in Cyprus but it could be reasonably
expected that similar factors apply.
16. Navaro-Yashin (this volume), a T urkish ethnographer who ten years later conducted
protracted fieldwork among T urkish Cypriots under different conditions, recounts how
T urkish Cypriots were much more interested in recounting current problems created by
their own authorities, immigrants/settlers from T urkey, and the T urkish army than they
were in discussing past problems with Greek Cypriots.
17. T wo particularly interesting works in this respect, though they deal with different
social contexts, are Herzfeld’s (1997) study on cultural intimacy and Scott’s (1990) discus –
sion of hidden transcripts.
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Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. London: Blackwell.
Graikos, Kostas. 1980 . Kypriaki Istoria [Cypriot History]. Vol. 1. Nicosia: Printco.
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———. 1982. Kypriaki Istoria. Vol. 2. Nicosia: Printco.
Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. 1988/1994. Manufacturing Consent: e Politi –
cal Economy of the Media. London: Vintage.
Herzfeld, Michael. 1992. “Segmentation and Politics in the European Nation-State: Mak –
ing Sense of Political Events.” In Other Histories, ed. K. Hastrup, 62–81. London:
Routledge.
———. 1997. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. London: Routledge.
Ignatieff, Michael. 1999. e Warrior’s Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience.
London: Vintage.
Kakoullis, Loukas. 1990. I Aristera kai oi Tourkokyprioi [e Left and the T urkish Cypri –
ots]. Nicosia: Kasoulides.
Karakasidou, Anastasia. 1994. “Sacred Scholars, Profane Advocates: Intellectuals Moulding
National Consciousness in Greece.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 1
(1): 35–62.
Kibris (Official Newspaper of the T urkish Cypriot PIO). 1997a. “T urkish Cypriot Babies
Hurled into the Air and Shot in Quick Succession.” 5 (3): 4.
———. 1997b. “And Today.” 5 (3): 7.
Loizos, Peter. 1975. e Greek Gift: Politics in a Cypriot Village. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. 1988. “Intercommunal Killing in Cyprus.” Man 23 (4): 639–653.
———. 1995. “Katanoontas to 1974, Katanoontas to 1994.” In Anatomia Mias Metamor –
phosis, ed. N. Peristianis and G. T raggaras, 105–122. Nicosia: Intercollege Press.
———. 1998. “How Might T urkish and Greek Cypriots See Each Other More Clearly?”
In Cyprus and Its People: Nation, Identity and Experience in an Unimaginable Com –
munity, ed. V. Calotychos, 35–52. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Oberling, Pierrre. 1982. e Road to Bellapais: e Turkish Cypriot Exodus to Northern
Cyprus. Boulder, Colo.: Social Sciences Monographs.
Orwell, George. 2000. Essays. London: Penguin.
Papadakis, Yiannis. 1993. “Perceptions of History and Collective Identity: A Study of
Contemporary Greek Cypriot and T urkish Cypriot Nationalism.” Ph.D. thesis, Uni –
versity of Cambridge.
———. 1997. “Pyla: A Mixed Borderline Village under UN Supervision in Cyprus.”
International Journal on Minority and Groups Rights 4 (3–4): 353–372.
———. 1998. “Greek Cypriot Narratives of History and Collective Identity: Nationalism
as a Contested Process.” American Ethnologist 25 (2): 149–165.
———. 2000. “Memories of Walls, Walls of Memories.” In Chypre et la Mediterranee
Oriental, ed. Y. Ioannou and J. Davy, 231–239. Lyon: T ravaux de la Maison de l’
Orient.
———. 2003. “Nation, Narrative and Commemoration: Political Ritual in Divided
Cyprus.” History and Anthropology 14 (3): 253–270.
PIO, GC (Public Information Office, Greek Cypriot). 1964a. Finnish Soldier Dies While
Keeping Peace in Cyprus. Nicosia: n.p.
———. 1964b. Facts about Cyprus. Nicosia: n.p.
———. 1964c. e Roots of the Evil. Nicosia: Cyprus Government Press Office.
———. 1989. Perishing Cyprus by Mehmet Yashin: Translation of an Article in Four Install –
ments Published in Turkish Cypriot Magazine Olay. Nicosia: Press and Information
Office.
———. 1992. Katalogos Ekdoseon. Nicosia: n.p.
PIO, TC (Public Information Office, T urkish Cypriot) 1997. Pyla: A Village of Unpeaceful
Coexistence. Nicosia: TRNC Public Relations Department.
Poumpouris, Michalis. 1993. Meres Dokimasias. Nicosia: n.p.
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Sant Cassia, Paul. 1998. “‘Berlin,’ Cyprus: Photography, Simulation and the Directed Gaze
in a Divided City.” Kampos: Cambridge Papers in Modern Greek 6: 81–109.
———. 1999. “Piercing T ransfigurations: Representations of Suffering in Cyprus.” Visual
Anthropology 13: 23–46.
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Conn.: Yale University Press.
Stavrinides, Zenon. 1977. e Cyprus Question: National Identity and Statehood. (T urkish
Cypriot reprint of the original with introduction and two appendices added by T urk –
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Nicosia: New Cyprus Association et al.
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84 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
FOUR
De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONFLICT BETWEEN TURKISH
CYPRIOTS AND SETTLERS FROM TURKEY
Yael Navaro-Yashin
In much writing on “the Cyprus question,” the problem has been con-
structed as “a conflict between two ethnic groups,” which are branded
“T urks” and “Greeks” (e.g., Joseph 1990; Volkan and Itzkowitz 1994).
e concept and framework of ethnic conflict has been all too central and
determinative in scholarship on Cyprus, leaving it insufficiently challenged.
Against the framework of “ethnic conflict,” so overblown in political and
official discourses in Cyprus and widely reproduced in scholarly agendas
and settings of the problem, I wish to do something different here. Rather
than researching conflict in the conventionally studied fault line between
“T urks and Greeks” or between T urkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot
national discourses and ideologies, I wish to study conflicts internal to
northern Cyprus, the territory marked apart and repopulated after T urkey’s
military invasion in 1974 and predominantly reserved for the habitation
of people categorized as “T urks.” is chapter focuses on the social and
political configurations and dynamics which developed in northern Cyprus
after 1974, specifically on conflict between people officially registered as
“T urks” and assigned “citizenship” in the “T urkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus.”1 I focus on what I deliberately call political and social conflict
between T urkish Cypriots who were autochthonous on the island and im –
migrants from T urkey who were invited to settle in northern Cyprus by
the “TRNC” regime.
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De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus I 85
“T urks on Cyprus”
In T urkish nationalist discourses (or officially produced ideology),
T urkish Cypriots and citizens of T urkey are represented as sharing a “na –
tionality” and “ethnicity.” Until very recent changes in the representations
of T urkish Cypriots, in public discourses in T urkey, T urkish Cypriots have
been referred to as “our kinsmen” ( soydalarımız ), a term which signifies
common lineage and blood. T urkey has presented its military intervention
in northern Cyprus as an act undertaken to protect “the T urks of Cyprus”
who were facing the danger of being exterminated by “Greeks.” Members
of this community have been named “T urks of Cyprus,” “Cyprus T urks,”
or “Cypriot T urks” ( Kıbrıs Türkü, Kıbrıs Türkleri ) in official T urkish dis –
courses, phrases emphasizing “T urkishness.” In this chapter, I use the term
“T urkish Cypriot” to refer to indigenous Cypriots of T urkish contemporary
identity. e identities of Cypriots have changed and switched in compli –
cated fashions historically, and “T urkish Cypriot” is a relatively new and
contingent term for the designation of identity.2 is is the term commonly
used by autochthonous T urkish Cypriots at present for self-identification.
e term “Cypriot” ( Kıbrıslı ), without the ethnic reference point, is used
even more widely. Identity constructs are employed situationally, of course.
In the contemporary period, “Cypriots” signifies distinction from “people
of T urkey” ( Turkiyeliler ), as settlers in northern Cyprus are called by T urkish
Cypriots. Here, I intend to display the tentativeness, historicity, complexity,
and social construction of identities in Cyprus; therefore, all my references
to identity are contingent and situated.
In official T urkish discourses, T urkish Cypriots are considered an exten –
sion of the people of T urkey, left behind accidentally after the consolidation
of national borders at the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, when Cyprus
was left in British and southern Anatolia in T urkish hands. In T urkish na –
tionalist discourse, T urkish Cypriots and citizens of T urkey are all “T urks”
or “T urkish,” seen as part of the same “national” or “ethnic” group, and
T urkish Cypriot culture is constructed as a continuation of Anatolia (An –
adolu), which is taken to represent the heart of T urkish culture.
e “president” of the “TRNC,” Rauf Denktash, has always recounted
his background by declaring that he is “a T urk coincidentally born on Cy –
prus,” emphasizing and highlighting his “T urkishness” and rendering his
“Cypriotness” almost epiphenomenal or accidental. Denktash has said:
I am a child of Anatolia. I am T urkish in every way and my roots go back to Central
Asia. I am T urkish with my culture, my language, my history, and my whole being.
I have a state as well as a motherland. e notions of “Cypriot culture,” “T urkish
Cypriot,” “Greek Cypriot,” “a shared Republic” are all nonsense. If they have their
04Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 85

86 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
Greece and we have our T urkey, why should we live under the roof of the same
Republic? . . . Some individuals are producing fiction about the existence of “Cy –
priots,” “T urkish Cypriots,” “Greek Cypriots.” ere is no such thing as a “T urkish
Cypriot.” Don’t dare to ask us whether we are “Cypriots.” We could take this as an
insult. Why? Because there is only one thing that is “Cypriot” in Cyprus, and that
is the Cypriot donkey.3
Denktash pronounced these words in public in 1995, reflecting on T urk –
ish Cypriot folk dancing performances which were emphasizing figures
shared with Greek Cypriots. Many T urkish Cypriots felt angry, insulted,
and humiliated by his words, and his donkey metaphor is remembered
and widely critiqued in popular anecdotes of this public declaration. On
another occasion, Denktash said:
ere isn’t a nationality called the “TRNC” [“KKTC”]. We are the T urks of the
TRNC. We are proud of being T urks. e motherland [T urkey] is also our moth –
erland, our nation. We are a part of that [T urkish] nation which has formed a state
in Cyprus.4
Until the turnover of parliamentary power in December 2003 and the
referendum in April 2004, Denktash’s words about his identity were the
official policy of the “TRNC.” Administrative resources have been chan –
neled into eliminating Cypriot and bringing out T urkish cultural elements
in northern Cyprus. And claiming “national” and “ethnic” affinity with
T urkey (as T urks, tout court) has served the Denktash regime’s desire to go
farther than partition ( taksim ) and integrate with T urkey.
In publications of the administration in northern Cyprus, the geo –
graphical position of the island of Cyprus, about forty miles from T urkey’s
southern shores versus around 400 miles away from Greece, is interpreted
as proof of the connection of Cyprus to T urkey. Certain publications, such
as history books for T urkish Cypriot children, recount that Cyprus used to
be attached to Anatolia but that due to an accidental geological transforma –
tion in ancient times, it broke away from T urkey and became an island.
T urkish Cypriots and People from T urkey
In northern Cyprus in the period when I conducted this research (the
late 1990s), one of the existential matters that most preoccupied T urkish
Cypriots was their experience of living side by side with immigrants from
T urkey who were settled in northern Cyprus through the population poli –
cies of T urkey and the “TRNC.” Paramount was the expression of a feeling
of having been disturbed by settlers from Anatolia.5
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De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus I 87
Before checkpoints at the borders were opened in April 2003, T urkish
Cypriots did not significantly speak about or refer to “Greeks” in informal
settings. Conflict with “Greek Cypriots” did not preoccupy or worry them
as much as their everyday experiences of living with settlers from T urkey
who were granted housing (given Greek property), jobs, and citizenship
privileges by the administration in return for settling in northern Cyprus.
Unless relatively older members of indigenous families were asked to re –
count their memories of the wars in Cyprus or the time that preceded the
wars, everyday conversation before the opening of the checkpoints did not
consist of references to “Greeks” as much as it was almost excessively filled
with critical stories about “people from T urkey.” Indeed, T urkish Cypriots
use the term “people of T urkey” ( Turkiyeliler ) to refer to settlers from T urkey
or citizens of T urkey in general and call themselves “Cypriots” ( Kıbrıslılar )
in distinction.6 T urkish Cypriots on the left of the political spectrum who
are critical of T urkey’s ongoing military and political presence in Cyprus
are not the only ones who are uncomfortable with the presence of settlers
from T urkey. T urkish Cypriots of all political convictions express similar
feelings.
When speaking about the settlers, T urkish Cypriots most often men –
tion space. ey associate the arrival of the settlers, as well as their presence,
with the radical spatial transformation of the places most familiar to them,
with being entrapped and enclosed in a slice of territory, especially after
the partition of the island between north and south. e landscape and
the capital city (Nicosia) are bisected by barbed wire, Greek Cypriots on
one side and T urkish Cypriots on the other.7 Many T urkish Cypriots have
recently moved house, arguing that it is because of the consequences of the
settlement of people from T urkey in inner parts of the cities of northern
Cyprus. An old locksmith, Hasan Bey, who supported one of the right-
wing T urkish nationalist parties (UBP) at the time of my interview, said,
“ey threw us out of here,” referring to people from T urkey now settled
within the city walls of the northern part of Nicosia.8
Hasan Bey was born and brought up in Nicosia, which, until the con –
flicts in 1963 and partition in 1974, was not a city carved in half. It was
not until a few years ago that Hasan Bey had to move his family out of the
inner city walls of Nicosia and into the outskirts of the city. “We are afraid,”
he said. “If you try and walk about here at night these days, you are sure to
get mugged or knifed.” Most significant, the locksmith said he was afraid
of what he experienced as the rough and violent ways of the settlers. He
recounted that when he asked a man from T urkey not to park his car in a
spot that would block the window of the key shop, the settler brusquely
turned around, as if getting ready to hit him, and said “Do you know who
governs this place?” e settler was symbolically associating himself with
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88 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
T urkey’s military regime in the “TRNC.” e paradox is that Hasan Bey,
too, was a supporter of the T urkish authority in northern Cyprus and in
favor of T urkey’s ongoing political, economic, and military presence there.
He had been a member of the TMT ( Türk Mukavemet T ekilati ), the T urk –
ish Resistance Organization, which fought its Greek counterpart EOKA
during the period characterized as that of “intercommunal conflicts.” On
the other hand, for the settler man who argued with Hasan Bey, there was
a difference between them. He had expressed a consciousness of having
(or a willingness to have) more political power than the native Hasan Bey
and even power over him, just because he was from T urkey in a zone under
T urkey’s sovereignty. e settler identified with the Republic of T urkey as
a subject. He wore this identification with the T urkish state as a garment
in his interactions with T urkish Cypriots in order to assume power in
his everyday relations with them. And he wished T urkish Cypriots to be
subordinate in this contingent relationship. at it was Hasan Bey, a sup –
porter of the right-wing UBP , who told me this story is significant. When
in private and not worried about being officially exposed, T urkish Cypriots
of all political affiliations (not just members and supporters of the opposi –
tion groups) express discontent with the presence of people from T urkey
in Cyprus.
T urkish Cypriots often gloss or confuse the settlers with soldiers from
T urkey, failing to differentiate between these social groups in their represen –
tations. In relation to soldiers from T urkey, Yılmaz, a T urkish Cypriot and
an enthusiastic reader of the opposition’s newspaper Avrupa (later Afrika )
said, “We are terrified.” “I am afraid especially of the soldiers,” said his wife
Emel. “I warn my children not to open the door to soldiers when they are
alone at home.”
ere are said to be about 40,000 soldiers from T urkey still in northern
Cyprus, though the exact number is not officially revealed. ere are so
many soldiers that the economy of contemporary northern Cyprus is geared
to their needs. e marketplace of the northern part of Nicosia has been
transformed into a shopping place for soldiers.9 “is place is finished,”
the owner of a shoe shop said, too sad to recount anything more about
the former (pre-1974) vitality of the marketplace. Old trades—pharmacy,
shoemaking, carpentry—are disappearing or diminishing due to lack of
demand, to be taken over by the ever-multiplying shops that now operate
as phone booths for soldiers calling home and by soldiers’ coffee shops, tea
houses, casinos, and brothels.10
Rasime Hanim, a 60-year-old Cypriot shop owner who sells old, worn
out, or secondhand bags, books, and odds and ends in the Nicosia market –
place, recounted that “one day a T urkish soldier came and asked me why
we don’t like them.”11 “I replied,” she continued, “telling him that I had fed
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De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus I 89
the T urkish soldier for years during the war.” T urkish Cypriots remember
being relieved in 1974 when T urkish soldiers landed in Cyprus with planes
and parachutes. At the time, they rejoiced over the arrival of soldiers from
T urkey because they thought they would save them from being attacked
by Greek Cypriot nationalists. However, their relationship with the sol –
diers turned out to be much longer and more complicated politically than
T urkish Cypriots anticipated at the time. Since 1974, the T urkish military
has strengthened its authority in the north of the island, taking over much
Greek Cypriot as well as T urkish Cypriot property, land, and resources.
Certain former Greek Cypriot and mixed villages have been practically
transformed into barracks, where markets and residential areas are geared
to the needs of soldiers and their families. A very high proportion of land
and space in northern Cyprus is designated as a military zone, which means
that it is either military barracks, barricades, or an area under total military
control, leaving limited space for those categorized as “civilians” to operate
freely. One finds military roadblocks at many intersections. Border areas
between the north and the south of Cyprus are heavily guarded. Barbed
wire and military signs indicate no-access zones. e army has inscribed
nationalist slogans and images on hills, slopes, and mountaintops, over –
taking and overcrowding views of the landscape from close up and from
afar. Inscriptions on the landscape read “Fatherland First,”12 “Conquer,
Shoot, and Take Pride,” “Service to the Army Is Our Honor,” and “How
Happy Is the Person Who Calls Himself a T urk.” Soldiers are everywhere,
either in person or through their symbols: khaki-colored military cars;
red-and-white barrels marking off access zones; guns, rifles, and uniforms;
cleanly shaven heads; and the occasional sound of shooting practice in the
barracks.13
If some T urkish Cypriots do not express fear, they do indicate a certain
unease beside T urkish soldiers. One young boy who was eight years old
wanted to draw my attention to “what ‘T urkish soldiers’ do.” “One day,”
Tamer said,
two “T urkish soldiers” were passing by our garden. ey stopped under our orange
trees and started to fill their bags with oranges. My father came and asked them why
they were picking the fruit without permission. And the soldier said: “Who rescued
you? [ Seni kim kurtardı? ]”
e little boy was aware of T urkish soldiers’ discourse about the presence
of the T urkish army in Cyprus. Soldiers had arrived in Cyprus in 1974 “to
rescue their kinsmen from being exterminated by Greeks.” And yet Tamer
was also conscious of the irony of the situation with this soldier brusquely
claiming an entitlement to his father’s orange grove. Emel, Tamer’s mother,
04Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 89

90 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
said that after that event in the orange grove, she warned her husband
against arguing with people from T urkey, whether they were soldiers or
settlers. “If you argue with them, they can bring you trouble; you can’t
know what they are capable of doing,” she said. ere is a representational
gloss here, again, between the settlers and the soldiers from T urkey. Yılmaz
states that he is careful with people from T urkey in general. He does not
defend himself when harassed. He has assumed the position of the political
subordinate in their presence. He recounts:
is place belongs to the soldiers and to people from T urkey. Everything else exists
only by chance. ere is an extraordinary situation here, a state of emergency. If you
were to worry every day about what happens here, you would lose the endurance to
live here. If you live here, you have no choice but to accept the situation as it is. We,
for example, have submitted ourselves, we have let ourselves be abased [under the
presence of settlers and soldiers]. Otherwise they would not let us survive.
is was a description of a survival strategy with a consciousness of rela –
tions of power under military laws; an enforced and unwillingly assumed
condition of submission. Yılmaz bowed to the authorities, he explained,
because he knew that he was the subject of a repressive political regime.
He sensed and felt the repression in the no-access zones that surrounded
his everyday itinerary, in his relatives’ and colleagues’ cautious demeanor
around him when he dared to be critical of the administration, in the
barbed wire everywhere, in the convoys of military trucks passing by. . . .
He had nowhere else to go. He had to live in northern Cyprus. So he felt
that he had to submit.
T urkish Cypriots specifically complained about the settlers. Elderly
Pembe Hanim said:
e “infidels” were “infidels” [ gavur, referring to Greek Cypriots in common lan –
guage], but things were never as bad living with them as they are now living with
the fellahs [referring to settlers from T urkey].14 When we had financial difficulties,
“the infidel” used to lend us money. If we were sick, he would help, he would call
for a doctor. Now, the fellahs would not give you anything. On the contrary, they
take, they steal from you.
Pembe Hanim’s pitting of “Greeks” against “T urks” in her comparison is
situated and contingent. She is reflecting on her past experience with Greek
Cypriots in comparison with her present experience of living beside people
from T urkey. She distinguishes herself markedly from both Greek Cypriots
and people from T urkey, using othering terms to refer to each. However,
she says that in spite of difference in religion (note her use of the term
“infidel”), life was better living side by side with Greek Cypriots than it has
been living with people from T urkey who are her co-religionists.
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De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus I 91
Settler communities from T urkey are not homogeneous; they have
a complex composition. Most settlers are in Cyprus because they had
experienced difficulties, some social, some economic, some political, in
T urkey. When they received promises of jobs, land, and free housing in
northern Cyprus after 1974 under T urkey’s population policies, they came
with hopes of better prospects. Although they were categorized as “T urks”
by policymakers, settlers are of diverse backgrounds—Laz (from T urkey’s
Black Sea region), Kurdish, Arabic, as well as T urkish. However, many
settlers will identify as “T urkish” (at least officially) and will speak in favor
of T urkey’s military presence in Cyprus because it is as a consequence of
being categorized as “T urks” that settlers have obtained benefits in the
“TRNC.” Generally, until the late 1990s, settlers from T urkey (and even
those who identify as left wing in T urkey) cast their votes for the right-
wing T urkish nationalist parties in northern Cyprus (DP or UBP)15 and in
favor of T urkey’s continuing sovereignty in northern Cyprus. e DP and
UBP are known to distribute citizenship as well as other favors and benefits
to settlers from T urkey in return for votes. Other than the actual settlers,
or those who were effectively granted property and citizenship rights by
the T urkish Cypriot administration, there are many other categories of
immigrants from T urkey in northern Cyprus: some who have arrived for
temporary work, others who work under the counter and who are consid –
ered “illegal immigrants” under the “TRNC” regime. However, in T urkish
Cypriot representations, all immigrants from T urkey are lumped together,
as if there were no internal social or cultural differentiation among people
arriving in northern Cyprus from T urkey.16
T urkish Cypriots express and analyze their distinction from settlers
using terms that represent difference and social class (Bourdieu 1984).
T urkish Cypriots differentiate themselves from people from T urkey particu –
larly on the grounds of lifestyle. ey tell “T urks” apart from “Cypriots”
through certain symbolic markers that they have come to associate with
“the culture of T urkey.” Veiling, or the many fashions of wearing a heads –
carf, for example, out of habit or faith (unless done in a particular Cypriot
way, with the corners of the scarf tied together at the top), is commonly
associated with “the culture of T urkey.” “Cypriot women generally do not
tie their heads,” said a young woman, using a common idiom in T urkish
for veiling.17
“You can tell someone from T urkey through the way she keeps her
house,” said a T urkish-Cypriot woman, articulating a distinction that Cy –
priots commonly make of people from T urkey. “For example, a Cypriot
would never put a fake or plastic carpet on the floor. Anyway in summer
we don’t have a habit of using carpets.” But, most significantly, T urkish
Cypriots tell people from T urkey apart from their gardens. Particularly in
the urban areas of Cyprus, gardening, like cooking, is an important com –
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92 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
ponent of everyday life. Remarkable passion is expressed about trees and
flowers and much attention is given to their care. T rees and flowers are so
close to the heart that Cypriots are distraught when they notice ill-kept or
dried-out gardens. Ibrahim Bey, an old gardener who has lived in Nicosia
for the latter part of his life, was annoyed by the way he thought the settlers
treated trees. “ey do not know of trees,” he said:
We were born in the midst of trees, we grew up with trees. Where people of T urkey
come from, there are mountains, there are forests. . . . ey know how to hoe, but
they cannot tell a flower and a weed apart.
Ibrahim Bey frequently told stories of settlers leaving trees to dry or burn –
ing flowers and bushes to create fields. He was commenting that the settlers
did not have local knowledge.
In the same vein, T urkish Cypriot narratives about people from T urkey
were imbued with symbols of lifestyle, class, and culture. However, the
relationship between T urkish Cypriots and people from T urkey is a com –
plex one of power which cannot be explained using classical approaches
to social class. Also, this particular social and political relation ought not
be confused with the relationship of Germans to worker immigrants from
T urkey or with the relationship between Istanbul’s middle classes and im –
migrants to the city from rural parts of Anatolia. In this historical contin –
gency, the relationship between people from T urkey and T urkish Cypriots
has to be evaluated in the context of T urkey’s political power in northern
Cyprus. T urkish Cypriots’ attitudes toward the settlers cannot be analyzed
in a vacuum by applying universalizing or objectivist concepts of “class” or
“migration”; it must be analyzed within the particularities and peculiarity
of the political situation in northern Cyprus and the ensuing sociopolitical
spectrum. A more careful analysis would seek to study relations between
T urkish Cypriots and settlers as complicated and situational points of posi –
tionality in the context of a political space governed and controlled by a re –
pressive administration and military power. Although T urkish Cypriots re –
sort to their local cultural capital when speaking about people from T urkey,
they do so through a feeling of resentment about T urkey’s policies, whose
practices are represented in the presence of settlers in northern Cyprus. e
relation of power is complex between T urkish Cypriots and settlers. In most
domains of social, political, and economic life in northern Cyprus, T urk –
ish Cypriots maintain a standing, for example holding privileged access
to jobs as civil servants in most departments of the administration. With
their social and kinship networks, T urkish Cypriots are able to manipulate
the administration to serve their needs or those of their families. Although
T urkish Cypriots are able to play the card of sociocultural capital against
the settlers, settlers attempt to assume an affinity with (or patronage from)
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De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus I 93
the T urkish state and army in Cyprus in order to claim another kind of
power over the T urkish Cypriots.18 T urkish Cypriots express their fear of
political subordination under T urkey’s sovereignty through their symboli –
cally charged comments about people from T urkey. Settlers, on the other
hand, often attempt to overcome their sociocultural humiliation under the
T urkish Cypriots by declaring their alliance with T urkey as its citizens and
assuming a T urkey-centered nationalist discourse.
Pembe Hanim’s relationship with the settlers was characteristic. A
native of Paphos (Baf) who lived in a house formerly owned by a Greek
Cypriot family in what used to be a cosmopolitan Greek, Armenian, and
T urkish Cypriot neighborhood, Pembe Hanim frequently complained
about people from T urkey who had become her neighbors. She looked
down upon the settlers and used markers of social and cultural distinction
to describe her difference from them. Her narrative was full of derogatory
remarks about their lifestyle. She, like other T urkish Cypriots, had felt
violated by people from T urkey and had heard stories from her neighbors
of similar experiences.
We had lent our house in the back garden to a family from T urkey. After a year, we
asked them to leave. One day, I noticed a young man jumping over the fence. He
was trying to steal some wood planks. I caught him and held him by his arm so that
he would not escape. He in turn clutched my arm over my bracelet. He held me so
hard that the bracelet cut through my wrist. When I saw the blood, I panicked and
let him go. We immediately informed the police about this. e police came and
wrote a report. But then there was nothing. No follow-up, nothing.
T urkish Cypriots recounted experiences like this all the time. Yılmaz and
Emel’s children told me the story of an old woman from their village who
was murdered by T urkish soldiers who broke into her house and stole her
belongings. Incidents of violence between people from T urkey and T urkish
Cypriots illustrate the social and political differences among them in this
complex relation of power. In July 1998, the northern Cyprus newspaper
Kibris reported the incident of a T urkish Cypriot couple who blew their
horn at two settler men who were urinating on the side of the road, only
to be traced down through their car’s license plate, found at home, and
beaten up by the settlers. Another story was recounted of a T urkish Cypriot
woman who broke off her affair with a T urkish soldier, after which the sol –
dier raided her house and killed her husband. Ibrahim Bey likewise told the
story of an elderly friend who died very soon after marrying a settler woman
from T urkey; the woman inherited all his property. Ibrahim Bey was con –
vinced that the woman had married the old man on purpose, knowing that
he did not have much longer to live; he had seen other similar cases.
T urkish Cypriots did not find the police in northern Cyprus on their
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94 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
side in such incidents of conflict with the settlers. ey complained that
there were no authorities that they could turn to for help on such occasions.
At times, T urkish Cypriot authorities, including the T urkish Cypriot police,
were themselves at a loss as to how to react to the settlers, so they refrained
from intervening in the conflicts. Hence, Pembe Hanim was fearful of, and
cautious with, the settlers.
Since 1974, T urkey has had a policy of increasing the “T urkish” popu –
lation of Cyprus vis-à-vis those categorized as “Greeks.” ere have also
been extensive institutional efforts to assimilate T urkish Cypriots into what
is called “the T urkish culture” of Anatolia, policies implemented through
various bodies, primarily schools, the media, and the army. One dimension
of the context for T urkish Cypriots’ othering of the settlers is the minute
and enforced T urkeyfication19 policies of the Denktash administration in
northern Cyprus. T urkish Cypriots have a poignant sense that they are
being culturally evacuated, though they will express this in different ways,
depending on their political party affiliations. Generally, T urkish Cypriots’
practical responses to such policies of nationalization have been to either
escape and leave (one of the reasons for the sizeable population of T urkish
Cypriots in Britain, Australia, and Canada) or to endure, support, sub –
mit to, or resist such implementations in northern Cyprus. In response
to the inquiries about the migration of T urkish Cypriots out of northern
Cyprus, Rauf Denktash has often publicly announced: “One T urk leaves,
and another one arrives,” expressing indifference to the outmigration of
T urkish Cypriots, as though they were simply strategic indices in a politics
of population against Greek Cypriots on the island. A large proportion of
T urkish Cypriots have actually left Cyprus. Statistics are politically charged
in Cyprus and no one is too sure about the population statistics of settlers
against T urkish Cypriots because the censuses in northern Cyprus register
all “Muslims” as “T urks,” regardless of background.20 But many T urkish
Cypriots feel that they have been outnumbered by the settlers. e au –
thorities in T urkey and the “TRNC” prefer settlers over T urkish Cypriots
because they are better subjects of the regime. In this context, T urkish
Cypriots express feelings that they have been invaded and culturally and
physically annihilated. Emin, a young T urkish Cypriot who has seen most
of his close friends leave Cyprus to become immigrants in Britain and
Canada, said:
We are “the Last of the Mohicans.” ey turned us into “Indians.” ey got rid of a
whole culture. At least there are people who still remember the “Indians.” But who
will remember us?
Because they could not freely make political remarks about T urkey’s
population and assimilation policies, at least not until the shift in gov –
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De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus I 95
ernmental power in the “TRNC,” T urkish Cypriots have politicized their
everyday life. In fact, many T urkish Cypriots who tell critical stories about
the settlers do not intend to make clear political statements against T urkish
nationalism or T urkey’s official policies. Anxious or wary of contradicting
official T urkish discourse about settlement, a retired T urkish Cypriot police
officer qualified his remarks about the settlers by saying that “it was good
that ‘people from T urkey’ came here; otherwise we would have remained
here as a minority amongst the Greeks.” But in more private moments the
retired officer lamented the administration’s policies regarding T urkish Cy –
priots living abroad. T urkish Cypriots feel, then, that they count less than
the settlers from T urkey, in certain circumstances, under the “state” that
claims to represent them. But they more rarely make explicit political re –
marks. It is in more subtle ways, through ordinary discussions about eating,
drinking, gardening, and housekeeping, that they produce commentary on
their existential situation.
Conclusions
In the discourses of international organizations as well as in much
academic scholarship, there are two sides to conflict in Cyprus, “the T urk –
ish side” and “the Greek side.” Official discourses in T urkey, Greece, the
Republic of Cyprus, and the “TRNC” would also have it as such. e
language of ethnic difference is still central to politics in Cyprus. But since
partition and the implementation of specific administrative policies in the
north (as well as in the south), social and political dynamics in Cyprus
have shifted in fundamental ways. “Conflict” now must be analyzed in
new and complex ways. Under T urkey’s military and political control in
northern Cyprus since 1974, T urkish Cypriots and people from T urkey
have been put in contingent, complex, and specific relations of power.
T urkish Cypriots and settlers from T urkey perceive cultural difference in
one another, though they are classified as “kinsmen” or as members of the
same “ethnic” or “national group” in the dominant political discourses.
e political context of northern Cyprus has generated social and political
dynamics of its own.
Although international discourses (including those of international or –
ganizations and states and in academic scholarship) construct and imagine
“a T urkish side” to what is conventionally called “ethnic conflict in Cyprus,”
in opposition to “a Greek side,” such an essential side does not exist. ose
who have been discursively categorized as members of the same “ethnic”
or “national group” (i.e., “T urkish”) do not perceive or experience them –
selves as such in the specific relations of power they have developed among
themselves under the existing political regime. ose officially categorized
as “kinsmen” ( soyda ), or members of the same “ethnic” or “national group”
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96 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
(in this case “T urks”), distinguish among one another. Although the
categories that dominate nationalist and internationalist discourses on
Cyprus do not assign separate group consciousness to people from T urkey
and T urkish Cypriots, people living in northern Cyprus have created these
categories through their experience and consciousness of social and political
difference (which they articulate as “cultural difference”). eir experience
with one another—that is, social and political conflict—has pushed them
to counter the “national” or “ethnic” straitjackets specific regimes and
population policies impose on them, in turn inventing new categories for
cultural identity.
is discussion of differential consciousness among those “ethnically”
classified as “T urks” sheds light on group consciousnesses that contradict
the logic of nationalism and ethnonationalism. e intention is to focus
our analytical lenses on political as opposed to “ethnic” conflict. ere is
a conflict to be studied, as is evident in peoples’ experiences, but it is not
“ethnic” and it is not just between “T urks and Greeks,” the rubric that has
so dominated imaginaries of Cyprus, Greece, and T urkey. It is time for the
notion of “ethnic conflict,” which has dominated both official and scholarly
discourses about Cyprus, to be replaced with analytical terms that attend
to other social and political dynamics.
Notes
e research for this paper was supported by funding from the Hayter T ravel and Field
Research Grant, the Munro Research Grant in Anthropology and Archaeology, and the John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Grant. Fieldwork was
undertaken in 1998, 2001, and 2002. I would like to thank commentators of a presenta –
tion of this paper at the University of Sussex for their reflections. is paper benefited from
comments by Mehmet Yashin, Peter Loizos, Anthony Good, Yiannis Papadakis, Charles
Stewart, and Mete Hatay.
1. e “T urkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” declared itself a “state” under the
auspices of the Denktash administration in northern Cyprus in 1983. But the “TRNC”
has not been recognized by the international community; its only supporter is its patron,
the Republic of T urkey. I use quotation marks to refer to the “TRNC” not only to mark its
unrecognized status in international law but also to bring out the liminal position T urkish
Cypriots have found themselves in as a result, entrapped between legality and illegality of
status and identity. For a study of the use of the quotation marks in international docu –
ments on the “TRNC” and the implications of this for T urkish Cypriots, see Navaro-Yashin
(2003a).
2. Until the development of nationalism in Cyprus, the term “T urkish Cypriot” did
not exist. People identified as “Muslims” or as “Ottomans” (Atein 1999). For the develop –
ment of T urkish Cypriot identity during the colonial period, see Bryant (this volume); for
comparable debates on identity among Greek Cypriots, see Peristianis (this volume). It
must be mentioned that there is a significant history of conversion in Cyprus from Greek
Orthodoxy or Catholicism to Islam and vice versa; thus my emphasis on the contingency,
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De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus I 97
tentativeness, and social construction of cultural identities. For studies on cosmopolitanism
in Cyprus, see Yashin (2000, 2002).
3. Denktash quoted in Belge (2002).
4. Ibid.
5. e research for this chapter was conducted in the late 1990s. is chapter is not
a comprehensive study of settlers from T urkey, only a study of T urkish Cypriot perceptions
of and representations about people from T urkey. For a thorough study of settlers from
T urkey, with new evidence, see Hatay 2005.
6. “Cypriots” do not refer to the settlers as “settlers” or as “immigrants.” In fact, there
are no specific words for these concepts in colloquial T urkish in Cyprus today. e term that
“Cypriots” use in everyday conversations is, as I have mentioned, “people of T urkey.” “Cy –
priots” distinguish between themselves and “people of T urkey” by employing several mecha –
nisms of othering. is distinction cuts through the official claims to “kinship” between
T urkish Cypriots and people from T urkey, all of whom are classified as “T urks” by T urkey
and the “TRNC.” Until the recent turnover of parliament and the opposition’s assump –
tion of power under the leadership of Mehmet Ali Talat, T urkish Cypriot officials of the
administration in northern Cyprus did not use the term “people of T urkey” when on duty,
as it would have countered the integrationist policies of T urkey and the Denktash regime.
Instead they employed the term “the motherlanders” ( anavatanlılar ), glossing implications
of internal difference among “T urks” with metaphors of “kinship” between “motherland”
(anavatan ) T urkey and “infantland” ( yavruvatan ) “TRNC” and thereby constructing a
symbolic parental relationship between people of T urkey and T urkish Cypriots.
7. For studies of T urkish Cypriots’ experiences of confinement and space in northern
Cyprus, see Navaro-Yashin (2003b) and Navaro-Yashin (2005).
8. Although T urkish Cypriots blame settlement and population policies for their
moves out of Nicosia’s inner city walls, in fact this move had started to take place even before
the arrival of immigrants from T urkey. Nicosia was not “settled,” as it were, through specific
policies, as was, for example, the Karpaz region. Rather, immigrants from T urkey arrived
in Nicosia’s inner city after the official settlement policies, for temporary or sometimes
unregistered work (Mete Hatay, personal communication).
9. is account refers to the period that preceded the opening of checkpoints at the
border in April 2003. Since access has been allowed across the border, the economy of
northern Nicosia, and northern Cyprus more generally, has begun to address Greek Cypriot
shoppers as well as tourists.
10. Cynthia Enloe (1989) has studied similar features of militarization.
11. T urkish Cypriots use the term “T urkish soldier” ( Türk askeri ) to refer exclusively to
soldiers from T urkey and not to T urkish Cypriot soldiers. e latter are called mucahitler, a
reference to guerilla fighters in the period of intercommunal conflict.
12. A distinction must be made between the term “ vatan ” used in this slogan and
the term “ anavatan ” (“motherland”). A better translation of “ vatan, ” as used in national –
ist slogans, is “fatherland,” a more abstract concept that encompasses both “mother” and
“infant” lands.
13. After complaints by T urkish Cypriot civilians, the T urkish army has more recently
allowed soldiers to roam without their uniforms when off duty and outside the barracks.
14. e use of the word “ fellah ” in the T urkish vernacular of Cyprus is different from
its use in the T urkish vernaculars of T urkey and its meaning in Arabic. In T urkish (of T ur –
key), “ fellah ” means “farmer,” “Egyptian peasant,” or “Arab.” For this, see for example, the
dictionary of the Türk Dil Kurumu (T urkish Language Association 1988, 493). In Arabic,
“fellah ” means “peasant” (see Fahmy 1997). In contrast, in the T urkish vernacular of Cy –
prus, “ fellah ” is used interchangeably with “ cingane ” to metaphorically refer to “gypsies” or
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98 I Yael Navaro-Yashin
“dispossessed people” (see the Dictionary of Words Collected from the Vernacular of Cyprus,
compiled by Hakeri [1981, 27]). e term “ fellah ” in the contemporary T urkish Cypriot
vernacular does not include a reference to “Arabs.” In fact, many T urkish Cypriots, and es –
pecially those from the Famagusta region, claim “Arab” backgrounds and kinship, explicitly
referring to their “Arab” (sometimes “Egyptian”) ancestors with pride. “ Fellah ” is an othering
term that T urkish Cypriots use to specifically refer to settlers from T urkey of a particular
lifestyle. For a study of different uses of the T urkish language (or multiple T urkishes) with
specific reference to the T urkish Cypriot dialect, see Yashin (2000, 2002).
15. Hatay (2005) has noted that this political profile of the settlers has changed more
recently.
16. Under-the-table workers from T urkey work and live in the most difficult condi –
tions and without work permits from the “TRNC.” Such workers do not have the “rights”
granted to the officially approved settlers in northern Cyprus. When T urkish Cypriots speak
of people from T urkey, they refer to illegal workers as well. However, their comments are
mainly directed against the settlers who are given political privileges in North Cyprus.
17. Women’s veiling has been constructed as the central marker of class and culture (see
Gole 1996; Navaro-Yashin 2002). T urkish Cypriots are aware of such discussions in T urkey
in a removed manner, mainly through television, but also through their visits to T urkey and
their temporary residence there for study and work. However, the associations that T urkish
Cypriots make with veiling must be studied in their own context without being confused
with cultural politics internal to T urkey. For T urkish Cypriots in the contemporary period,
veiling is one marker, among many, of the cultural transformation of Cyprus through
T urkey’s policies of settlement. Unlike secularists in T urkey who critique Islamists from a
position of power (in alliance with the secularist state and the army), T urkish Cypriots refer
to veiling from a position of political subordination vis-à-vis the T urkish state.
18. Such attempts by the settlers are not always successful.
19. Here, the distinction “T urkey-fication” from “T urkification” is necessary, because
the policies of the administration in northern Cyprus are geared to assimilate the T urkish
Cypriot language and culture into that of T urkey. ere are official attempts to make more
proper “T urks” out of the T urkish Cypriots by teaching the official T urkish language of
T urkey in schools and discouraging the use of the T urkish Cypriot dialect, changing place
names in Cyprus (not only of Greek Cypriot locations but also of old T urkish Cypriot vil –
lages) to names that recall places in T urkey, and introducing “the culture of T urkey” as that
of T urkish Cypriots.
20. See Hatay (2005) for a more updated account of population statistics in northern
Cyprus.
Works Cited
Atein, Huseyin M. 1999. Kıbrıslı “Müslüma” larin “Türk” leme ve “Laik” leme Serüveni
(1925–1975) [e T urkification and Secularization Adventure of Cypriot Muslims].
Istanbul: Marifet Yayınları.
Belge, Murat. 2002. “Kıbrıslı Var Mıdır?” [Does the Cypriot Exist?] Radikal, July 2: 9.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of Judgment and T aste. T rans. R. Nice.
London: Routledge.
Enloe, Cynthia. 1989. Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International
Politics. London: Pandora.
Fahmy, Khaled. 1997. All the Pasha’s Men: Mehmet Ali, His Army, and the Making of Mod –
ern Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Göle, Nilüfer. 1996. e Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press.
Hakeri, Bener Hakki. 1981. Kıbrıs’ ta Halk Ağzından Derlenmi Sözcükler Sözlüğü [e
Dictionary of Words Collected from Peoples’ Mouths in Cyprus]. Gazimağusa: Hakeri
Yayınları.
Hatay, Mete. 2005. Beyond Numbers: An Inquiry into the Political Integration of the Turkish
“Settlers” in Northern Cyprus. Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre.
Joseph, Joseph S. 1990. “International Dimensions of the Cyprus Problem.” e Cyprus
Review 2 (2): 15–39.
Navaro-Yashin, Yael. 2002. Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in Turkey. Princ –
eton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2003a. “Legal/Illegal Counterpoints: Subjecthood and Subjectivity in an Unrec –
ognized State.” In Human Rights in Global Perspective: Anthropological Studies in Rights,
Claims and Entitlements, ed. R. A. Wilson and J. P . Mitchell. London: Routledge.
———. 2003b. “‘Life is Dead Here’: Sensing the Political in ‘No Man’s Land.’” Anthro –
pological eory 3 (1): 107–25.
———. 2005. “Confinement and the Imagination: Sovereignty and Subjectivity in a
Quasi-State.” In Sovereign Bodies: Citizens, Migrants and States in the Postcolonial World,
ed. T. B. Hansen and F . Steputtat. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Türk Dil Kurumu (T urkish Language Association). 1988. Türkçe Sözlük [T urkish Diction –
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Volkan, Vamik D., and Norman Itzkowitz. 1994. Turks and Greeks: Neighbours in Conflict.
Hemingford Grey: Eothen.
Yashin, Mehmet. 2000. “Introducing Step-Mothertongue.” In Step-Mothertongue: From
Nationalism to Multiculturalism the Literatures of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, ed. M.
Yashin. London: Middlesex University Press.
———. 2002. Kozmopoetika: Yazilar, Soylesiler, Deginiler (1978–2001) [Cosmopoetica:
Essays, Interviews, Indications]. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları.
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100 I Nicos Peristianis
FIVE
Cypriot Nationalism,
Dual Identity, and Politics
Nicos Peristianis
In the last few decades there has been a veritable explosion in the study
of ethnicity, nationalism, and ethnic/national identity in virtually all
fields of the social sciences, a development which obviously relates to the
resurgence of these phenomena in the real world. In social anthropology,
ethnicity has been a main preoccupation since the late 1960s, but nation –
alism began attracting attention only from the 1980s onward. One of the
main reasons for the relative delay in paying due attention to the nation and
nationalism had to do with anthropology’s focus on the concrete and on
small communities that could be studied with the traditional tools of the
trade: participant observation, interviews, and surveys. e national state was
considered to be out of scope of the discipline, to be dealt with only as part
of the “wider context” impacting on the community under study. Similarly,
an “imagined community” such as the nation was considered too vague and
national/ethnic identity too esoteric or private to constitute legitimate do –
mains of research. Such phenomena were left to others—historians, political
scientists, social psychologists, and sociologists—to handle (Eriksen 1993).
Peter Loizos, a firm believer in a “broader view of social anthropology’s
scope,” was one of the first anthropologists to enter this new terrain.1 His
initial fieldwork in Cyprus (reported in e Greek Gift )2 aimed at studying
politics in a local village—not so much as a small-scale isolated community
but as an entity with complex interrelationships with the state. His analysis
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 101
integrated micro and macro levels of analysis. He subsequently produced a
number of papers and books on various aspects of nationalism, interethnic
relations, and ethnic conflict in Cyprus, which remain some of the best
available analyses on these subjects (Loizos 1972/2001, 1974, 1977, 1981,
1988). In one of these papers (1974), he derided anthropologists who were
skeptical of the discipline’s ability to cope with phenomena such as those he
was considering, insisting that the knowledge acquired through intensive
fieldwork on the interaction of small- and large-scale events (in his own
case, “the increasing involvement of a village in national politics”) was a
solid enough base for moving into the study of more complex phenomena,
such as nationalism.
Loizos’s work focuses almost exclusively on one version of national –
ism in Cyprus, the “ethnic” variant. ere is little, if any, analysis of the
“territorial/civic” type of nationalism which in many other countries proved
to be a main contestant for ethnic nationalism. Interestingly enough, his
widely acclaimed essay on the topic is titled “e Progress of Greek Na –
tionalism in Cyprus, 1878–1970” (Loizos 1974) and deals only with enosis
(which he views as “a particular political platform” that promotes the goal
of “political union with mainland Greece”), effectively identifying nation –
alism with enosis. e reason for this is simple: Loizos did not believe that
there was another type of nationalism among Greek Cypriots, since, as he
saw it, enosis “excluded other possible nationalisms, for example, a Cypriot
nationalism which would have sought to unite the island’s Greek and T urk –
ish populations” (ibid., 35). Furthermore, as he points out, the prevalence
of an ethnic type of nationalism led to the sustenance and cultivation of
“hellenic identity,” which proved to be a barrier to the development of an
overarching identity and “a genuinely Cypriot citizenship” in the newly cre –
ated Cyprus Republic (Loizos 1976/2001, 79). Yet in recent years the view
has been documented (Attalides 1979; Stamatakis 1991; Papadakis 1993;
Peristianis 1995; Mavratsas 1998) that a Cypriot or territorial/civic brand
of nationalism did develop in Cyprus and, as I try to argue below, it is, in
fact, only in the interrelationship of ethnic and civic nationalisms that we
can better understand politics and identity formation in Cyprus.
Although the distinction between these two variants of nationalism is
well supported elsewhere,3 it may be useful to briefly sketch the basic differ –
ences. Territorial/civic nationalism sees the nation as a political community
of citizens ( staatsnation ) that inhabits a given territory and whose members
are equal before the law irrespective of ethnicity, religion, class, or other
particularistic criteria. An additional feature, which is problematic in the
case of Greek Cypriots, whom this chapter focuses on, includes the sharing
of a common culture that is responsible for the development of a sense of
solidarity through common meanings, values, myths, and symbols.4
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102 I Nicos Peristianis
Ethnic nationalism sees the nation as a cultural community ( kulturna –
tion) that is “formed on the basis of a pre-existing ethnie and ethnic ties”
and focuses attention on “the genealogy of its members, however fictive;
on popular mobilization of the ‘folk’; on native history and customs; and
on the vernacular culture” (Smith 1983). us, national identity and na –
tionalism are seen to precede the establishment of the state and citizenship
to be organically tied to ethnicity.5
e Progress of Cypriot Nationalism and
Its Contest with Ethnonationalism
Ethnic nationalism among Greek Cypriots focused its primary at –
tention on Greece (hellenocentrism), seeing Greek Cypriots as part of
the greater cultural community of the Greek nation ( ethnos ). e enosis
movement was part of Greek irredentism (the Megali Idea),6 the prevail –
ing ideology once the Greek state was formed, which entailed the vision of
liberating those regarded as “Greeks still under foreign yoke” and bringing
them under one political roof (Gellner’s congruence of cultural with politi –
cal borders). Inevitably, the emphasis on the concept of nationhood became
associated with an ethnic definition of national identity.
By contrast, territorial/civic nationalism focused primarily on Cyprus
(cyprocentrism), emphasizing the elements that unite all Cypriots, regard –
less of ethnicity, into one people ( laos). Territory was one obvious element
of unity, but there were difficulties with regard to the vision and subsequent
reality of the state and its civic institutions, supposedly the main vehicle
of unity in this paradigm. e hegemonic discourse within each of the
two main ethnic communities on the island has been emphasizing their
very different cultures and each group as a part of two separate “mother-
nations.” e forging of a nation-state was beyond imagination, and the
compromise in 1960 of a biethnic state was the only remaining alternative,
which accounts for the dual loyalties and identities that have developed.
A brief review of the progress of territorial/civic nationalism and its
antagonism with ethnic nationalism can facilitate a better appreciation of
today’s configuration of politico-ideological forces in Cypriot society. A
first expression of Cypriot nationalism appeared in the 1920s, introduced
by the two newly founded parties of the lower classes: the Rural Party of
Cyprus (AKK) and the Communist Party of Cyprus (KKK).e latter,
which proved to be the more dynamic and longer-lasting carrier of the
new radical ideas, advocated that Greeks and T urks of the island struggle
against imperialism together with the aim of achieving independence under
a worker-peasant government. It was vehemently opposed to enosis, which
it considered a ploy of the Orthodox Church and the bourgeoisie to keep
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 103
the masses divided and under their control. e KKK’s views met with little
support: the conservative tendencies of Cypriot society, the attachment of
the peasants to religion and the Orthodox Church (rather than the atheistic
messages of historical materialism), and the virtual absence of a proletariat
in conditions of underdevelopment (in which agriculture was the most
prevalent economic sector and industry was in its infancy) rendered its
proclamations unrealistic and its power and impact insignificant.7
In the 1940s, AKEL succeeded the KKK as a popular front party, unify –
ing a broad spectrum of “progressive” individuals of communist, socialist,
social democratic, and even liberal leanings. It staunchly opposed estab –
lished politicians and colonialism and supported cooperation of Greek and
T urkish Cypriots, but it pursued an ambivalent policy with regard to the
goal of enosis.8 Its militant trade union activism, strong support for worker
and peasant rights, and cohesive party organization won it a mass follow –
ing, so much so that the leadership of the Church ( ethnarchy ) and its allies
(the bourgeoisie) began to seriously worry. Despite some early victories,
its opponents managed eventually to win the upper hand and consolidate
their leadership by taking charge of the 1955 struggle against colonialism.
AKEL ’s exclusion from the struggle brought it shame and marginalization
in political matters for a long time to come. e allied forces of the right,
which were more firmly identified with hellenocentric ideals, emerged from
this period triumphant.9
is meant that during the first years of independence in 1960, AKEL
was quite deferential toward President Makarios, leader of the Church and
of the newly founded state.10 Most Greek Cypriots at this stage considered
independence to be only a first stage toward enosis. When the realization
gradually grew that this was no longer a feasible goal, simmering intraethnic
tensions began to escalate. Makarios, who had to worry about intercom –
munal rivalry, threats from T urkey, and strained relations with Greece, was
forced to increasingly distance himself from ethnic nationalist goals, and in
1968 he declared that enosis, though still the “ideal” goal, was nevertheless
hardly “realizable” (at least under the circumstances of the times), signaling
his turn to the more realistic policy of supporting independence.11
Henceforth two camps began to crystallize within the Greek Cypriot
community. A small minority of “unrepentant enosists,” who insisted on
immediate union with Greece at whatever cost, and willing or grudging
supporters of independence, most of whom maintained hopes for enosis at
some point in the distant future (or at least used the rhetoric of that hope).
AKEL quickly turned into an ardent supporter of the independent state,
relieved to see the power of ethnic nationalism dwindling. In fact, the great
majority of Greek Cypriots did rally around Makarios, who continued to
command more than 95 percent of the votes! ey thus became identi –
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104 I Nicos Peristianis
fied with their leader as Makariakoi or anexartisiakoi (pro-Makarios or
pro-independence) and their opponents, of the extreme right, as Grivikoi
or enotikoi (pro-Grivas or pro- enosis ).12 Since the first camp was becom –
ing increasingly loyal to the Cypriot state while their opponents’ primary
loyalty seemed to be with the greater Hellenic nation (or simply Greece),
one could discern in these developments a new phase in the progress of
territorial/civic nationalism (even though the majority of its adherents still
clung to Hellenic ethnic symbols).
In the years right after 1974, Cyprus nationalism gained undisputed
prominence in reaction to what was widely perceived to be the “great be –
trayal” of Greece—that is, the Greek junta’s staging of the coup in Cyprus
and Greece’s subsequent inability to forestall the T urkish invasion.13 e
political right was discredited, and so were hellenocentric ideals, which had
all along been more strongly associated with the right. A broad alliance of
left and center parties (AKEL, EDEK, DIKO) managed to exclude the
large right-wing party (DISI) from power and brand it with the stigma of
“traitorship” for many years to come. ere was a belated appreciation of
the benefits of independence, enosis was declared officially dead, and reuni –
fication of the island became the new goal to strive for. e only weapon of
Greek Cypriots against T urkey’s military might was a political one, namely
the international recognition of the Republic of Cyprus. us the integrity
and autonomy of the state acquired immense significance: for the first time
after the formation of a Cypriot independent state, an Independence Day
was specified and the Cypriot flag was hoisted on government buildings
and in official state celebrations. Relations with T urkish Cypriots became
equally important (they were now seen to be, after all, citizens of the state,
the Republic of Cyprus, who were “led astray” by their own leadership and
T urkey), and this found expression in the policy of rapprochement. e
Neo-Cypriot Association, formed right after the events of 1974, is a char –
acteristic example of the cyprocentric turn in this period (viz., its emphasis
on beginning to “think first as Cypriots and then as Greeks or T urks,” the
need to promote “love of country, understanding between its communities,
[and] the consolidation of a democratic way of life”; Peristianis 1995).
By the late 1980s, however, it had become obvious that a process
of reversal had set in and that hellenocentrism was staging a comeback:
among other factors, this had to do with the many problems the broad
antiright front faced in government and the continuing impasse of the
Cyprus Problem, which necessitated renewed relationships with (the now
democratic) Greece—seen to be the only defense in the unequal struggle
against T urkey, an adversary of much greater military strength. With the
ascent of socialist A. Papandreou to power, closer links developed between
official Greece and center or left-of-center parties in Cyprus (DIKO and
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 105
EDEK). Relations with Greece on all fronts were rejuvenated; only AKEL
remained aloof. Parallel to these political processes, the rapid and mas –
sive modernization accompanying the “economic miracle” in the south,
together with the opening up of society as a result of the globalization
process, enhanced feelings of rootlessness within Greek Cypriot society,
so that hellenocentrism and its perceived association with age-old roots
and values started to gain renewed attraction, no longer as a political goal
of union with Greece but as a desire for cultural resistance and rejuvena –
tion. Interestingly enough, the most prominent division of this period
was not between left- and right-wing parties, but between a new realign –
ment of so-called soft-liners ( endotikoi /concessionists) against hard-liners
(aporiptikoi /rejectionists) around their respective stances with regard to the
solution to the Cyprus Problem; to a large extent the former coincided with
civic and the latter with ethnic nationalism. In this realignment, AKEL and
DISI were considered to be in the soft camp, whereas EDEK and DIKO,
the centrist parties, in the hard-line camp. To further refine the picture, it
should be pointed that there were similar rifts within each of the parties,
primarily perhaps DISI, which managed to turn this internal division into
a resource, emphasizing either of its two “faces” according to the purpose
at hand. e ascent to power in 1993 of Clerides, founder and longtime
leader of DISI (a right-wing party), on a hard-line platform, with the help
of DIKO (center) and the tolerance of EDEK (center-left), can be seen as
the logical outcome and the merging of all of these trends.
One could thus propose that the political terrain in contemporary
Cyprus cannot be comprehended by resorting to the traditional left and
right dichotomy as a way to refer to sociopolitical ideologies, practices, and
orientations, as if representing positions on an imaginary one-dimensional
continuum.14 A better understanding may be reached by utilizing a second
pair of polarities representing loyalty to nation (hellenocentrism/ethnic na –
tionalism) and loyalty to state (cyprocentrism/territorial-civic nationalism).
If we depict this as an imaginary vertical axis that intersects the previous
horizontal one, we end up with a two-dimensional grid that more accu –
rately represents the field of forces previously analyzed (see fig. 5.1). is
two-dimensional grid allows us to demonstrate that political parties and
individuals may be characterized by multiple loyalties and identities. AKEL
and EDEK, for instance, may both be left-wing parties, but AKEL tends to
put more stress on the state than the nation. us, we would expect a large
majority of AKEL supporters to fall within the third quadrant and only a
few in the fourth, and we would expect EDEK to have a smaller number
of supporters than AKEL in the third quadrant. We could anticipate that
DISI’s supporters would be divided (not necessarily equally) between the
first and second quadrants, and so on.15
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106 I Nicos Peristianis
Nationalism, Political Ideologies,
and Dual Ethnic Identity
So far exposition has concentrated on the analysis of nationalism and
political ideologies. I now consider how these abstract ideologies are mani –
fested at the level of individual identifications. But how can one determine
the way Cypriots view themselves, the extent to which they identify with
the “left” or the “right” political ideology and the extent to which they feel
“Cypriot” and/or “Greek”?
William Bloom reminds us that ideologies on their own cannot “evoke
identification” in a “psychological vacuum” but must be underpinned by
“appropriate attitudes,” modes of behavior, and “identity-securing interpre –
tive systems” for dealing with real situations.16 In other words, people iden –
tify with an ideology only if it is seen to adequately interpret experienced
reality. Building on these observations, we may propose that the two an –
tagonistic political ideologies and nationalist discourses in Cyprus provide
Greek Cypriots with identity-securing interpretive schemes through which
they may comprehend the social world, the recent history of Cyprus, and
everyday reality. ese interpretive schemes are obviously associated with
“appropriate attitudes,” which we now turn to consider.
e traditional social scientific tool for unraveling attitudes has been
the survey method, and the account that follows draws on a specially de -<Figure 5.1>
Loyalty to Nation
(Ethnic Nationalism)
I IV
Left Right
III II
Loyalty to State
(Civic Nationalism)
FIGURE 5.1.
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 107
signed social survey carried out among Greek Cypriots toward the end
of 2000.17 Let me first consider a question that directly aimed to solicit
responses about how Greek Cypriots view themselves with regard to their
dual identity. e question was: “As regards the issue of collective identity,
which of the following best describes how you feel?”18 e tabulation of
the answers to this question (table 5.1) reveals interesting outcomes. A
first observation is that a large number of Greek Cypriots acknowledge
the “dual” nature of their identity (35 percent say they are equally Cypriot
and Greek and another 13 percent feel the two in differing degrees—an
overall total of 48 percent).
What is even more interesting to note, however, is that almost half
(47 percent) of the Greek Cypriots sampled give priority to their Cypriot
identity. From one point of view, the strength of a unitary Cypriot iden –
tity comes as a real surprise, considering the hegemonic position of hel –
lenocentric discourse in recent history and the multifarious ways in which
Greekness has been underlined all along. Yet from another point of view
this might have been expected for a number of reasons: to begin with, the
different historical trajectories of Cyprus and Greece have naturally given
rise to different social institutions, values, and overall social realities. Of
primary importance is the existence of a separate state in Cyprus with
its own political, economic, and social institutions; its own international
representation; and so on (Attalides 1979). More generally, “indigenous
Cypriot institutions” have led to the gradual entrenchment of a Cypriot
lifeworld that is responsible for the formation of an “everyday pre-theoreti –
cal consciousness” which seems to be the “stronghold of Cyprioteness [ sic]
and Cypriots [ sic] identity” (Mavratsas 1999). Finally, identifying with
Cyprus is more prevalent among the left: the different historical and social TABLE 5.1.
National Identity of Greek Cypriots, 2000
Respondent Identifies As: Percent
Cypriot 47
More Cypriot than Greek 10
Equally Cypriot and Greek 35
More Greek than Cypriot 3
Greek 5
Source : “Understanding Bicommunal Perceptions and Attitudes: A Survey on Political
and National Perceptions” (2000).
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108 I Nicos Peristianis
experiences described above resulted in the left sharing a different habitus
than the right, leading to different classificatory schemes and ultimate
values.19
e survey outcomes can be scrutinized more closely by correlating
identity with political ideology (to the extent that this is evinced in political
behavior or party choice). Table 5.2 presents a cross-tabulation of national
identity and party affiliation. It is obvious from the results that the party
adherents who mostly stress their Cypriot identity are AKEL supporters: a
large percentage (70 percent) of the latter view themselves as “Cypriot” and
another, smaller, percentage (11 percent) as “more Cypriot than Greek”.
is result fits the preceding analysis, which accounted for AKEL ’s history
of cyprocentrism.
DISI is considered to be the polar opposite of AKEL and is widely per –
ceived as primarily hellenocentric (ethnic nationalist) in orientation. e
survey results demonstrate that indeed, among the larger, more established
parties, DISI adherents are the ones who least stress the Cypriot component
of their identity (36 percent). Even this percentage, however, is quite high, TABLE 5.2.
National Identity by Support of Political Party
among Greek Cypriots, 2000 (by percent)
AKEL DISI DIKO EDEK ENOM
DIMO1NE.O2OIKOL3
Cypriot 69.8 27.9 51.2 35.2 44.4 20.0
More Cypriot
than Greek 11.0 7.9 9.3 9.3 22.2 33.3
As much Cypriot
as Greek 17.9 47.9 34.1 53.7 22.2 60.0 66.7
More Greek
than Cypriot 7.0 0.8 20.0
Greek 0.3 9.1 4.7 11.1
———
1. Enomenoi Dimokrates (United Democrats)
2. Neoi Orizontes (New Horizons)
3. Oikologoi (Ecologists’ [Party])
Source : “Understanding Bicommunal Perceptions and Attitudes: A Survey on Political
and National Perceptions” (2000).
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 109
considering this is deemed to be the hellenocentric party par excellence.20
A similarly interesting finding is that the majority of DISI supporters do
not go to the other pole or extreme to emphasize their Greekness but stress
both components of the Greek Cypriot identity equally. ese findings
could relate to a number of possibilities. Possibly DISI’s supporters repre –
sent a wider spectrum of political/ideological views and attitudes than is
often assumed; previous historical analysis has indicated the coexistence of
a spectrum of ideological currents in this party. It could also be that some
of these supporters may feel more Greek than they are willing to admit
but choose to stress a more “balanced” identity so as not to be perceived
as adherents to an extreme right ideology, which still carries negative con –
notations (that this does indeed seem to be the case is demonstrated in the
last section of my analysis).
DIKO supporters put the primary emphasis on being Cypriot (51
percent) or more Cypriot than Greek (9 percent). ese may, again, seem
surprisingly high percentages, considering DIKO’s public image as a hard-
liner on national issues and its tenacious emphasis on Greek heritage and
the need to work as closely as possible with Greece. Perhaps the pro-Cy –
priot stance could be traced to the identification of the supporters of this
party with Makarios and his later pro-independence policies. Successive
leaders of DIKO tried to adhere closely to the policies of Makarios (both
S. Kyprianou and T. Papadopoulos were his close associates), posing as his
acknowledged heirs. is allowed DIKO, much as Makarios had, to play
a balancing role between the left and the right, reaping obvious political
benefits (including holding the office of president of the republic three
out of six terms after Makarios’s death). e party’s long association with
Makarios and the state must account to a large extent for the strong iden –
tification of DIKO’s supporters with the Cypriot component of their dual
identity. is brings DIKO near to AKEL, with one important difference:
AKEL ’s cyprocentrism more strongly relates to commonalities of the people
of Cyprus. Starting from the Marxist thesis of common interests between
the Greek Cypriot and T urkish Cypriot working classes, this expands into
the common interests of all working people and finally into the common
struggles, hopes, and aspirations of the people writ large. DIKO mostly
emphasizes the sanctity of the state, the Cyprus Republic, whose integrity
must be preserved at all costs. But since T urkish Cypriots abandoned the
bicommunal state in 1963 and the Cyprus Republic has effectively been
taken over by Greek Cypriots, DIKO places less emphasis on civic na –
tionalism (equality of citizens in a common state) than on a latent ethnic
nationalism (the survival or predominance of a Greek Cypriot–controlled
state).
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110 I Nicos Peristianis
Discourses on National Identity
Useful and interesting as survey results may be, they cannot provide
sufficient explanations. at is why the survey methodology attempted to
complement quantitative data with in-depth interviews carried out with
a subsample of the respondents. e aim of the interviews was to elicit
“commonsense” talk or discourses (views, opinions, arguments, narratives)
on the topics under investigation and analyze these as social constructs re –
flecting not only the personal beliefs of the interviewees but also the wider
public discourses dominant in Cyprus at the current historical juncture.21
One of the benefits of this approach is that it redirects analysis to
the more traditional methods and concerns of anthropology. Indeed, the
increasing attention to discourse, or language, in the last few decades has
“contributed to the breakdown of artificial barriers between the various so –
cial science fields,”22 including those among anthropology, sociology, social
psychology, and political science. is shift in emphasis helps move analysis
away from considering ethnic/national identity as an underlying essence
that must somehow be discovered and attitudes as the privileged pathway
that provides access to this hidden reality. Rather, the different responses
or attitudes of people are seen as actions in themselves (language is social
practice) which try to do or to achieve things (for instance, to argue for or
against a particular public discourse).
In what follows, the classificatory scheme I use is that of “ideal types”;
that is, the grouping together of views that have internal consistency re –
garding their meaning. In practice, no speaker ever sticks to absolutely
consistent views (so that, for instance, a cyprocentrist may espouse ideas
properly identified with ethnic nationalism—much as a right-winger may
adopt leftist positions on some matters).
L  N: H
As expected, ethnic nationalists—hellenocentrists—stress their primary
identification with and loyalty to the nation (the identity argument). ey
are proud of the Greek nation and of being Greeks. ey are concerned
with diachronic and ontological continuity of the present with the past and
of the particular with the universal:
I feel Greek. I am part [ aneiko, I belong] of the Greek nation, since our history,
heritage and civilization has its roots in ancient Greece (129).23
e feeling among hellenocentrists that they are part of the Greek nation
has a corresponding impact on their evaluation of their identification as
part of the Republic of Cyprus: “I feel more Greek than Cypriot, because
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 111
I see no reason to separate out a tree from the wood. Cyprus is Greek.” In
fact, such comparisons may render Cyprus and Cypriotness a second-best
option:
I feel very proud of being Greek Cypriot. Cypriot says nothing. Cyprus has no his –
tory of which it could be proud, whereas Greece can be very proud of its struggles.
I am very proud as a Greek Cypriot, for many conquerors passed through Cyprus,
but Cyprus managed to maintain its Greek identity. (286)
Indeed, this feeling that Cyprus is relatively unworthy in comparison
to the glorious past of Greece, which obviously reflects on present-day
evaluations, leads some to exclaim that they would “rather be called Greeks”
than Cypriots (176).
Another set of arguments stresses the synchronic aspect, the present
commonalities of all Greeks who constitute the “imagined community”
of the Greek nation:
Cyprus may be thought of as a part of Greece, in the same way that Crete and
Rhodes may have their own local traditions, but they simultaneously partake in
the panhellenic heritage which unites all Greek people, including Greek Cypriots.
(195; see also 789)
Similarly, other respondents comment that they “feel firstly Greek and
then Cypriot,” and they suppose this applies for all the inhabitants of Greek
islands: “ey feel they are [firstly] Greek and then islanders.” Or, again,
the differences between mainland Greeks and Greek Cypriots are explained
analogically through comparing them to the differences between Greek
Cypriots who live in the various districts of Cyprus; this argument implies
that Cyprus could be seen as a district of, and thus as a part of, Greece.
e corollary to such arguments is the emphasis on vital differentiation
with other nations, primarily, of course, the T urks (the difference argu –
ment). T urkey is seen to be the complete opposite of Greece, the eternal
enemy of the nation: lacking in history (because it is of recent origin, a mix
of Asian/Oriental tribes which expanded through conquest and plunder)
and thus lacking in civilization (because it is barbarous, violent, and cruel;
see Bryant, this volume). T urkey’s invasion of Cyprus is seen as a logical
expression of its violent and expansionist character or essence. “e most
basic cause of the Cyprus Problem is T urkey’s expansionism” is a recurring
mantra or statement of faith, one that provides clear answers about the
goodness and innocence of the collective self and the evilness and guilt of
the collective other. T urkey is evil, violent, and expansionist by nature; it
has always been like that, and “Greek history bears witness to this, from
the fall of Constantinople [Istanbul], to the destruction of Smyrna, and
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112 I Nicos Peristianis
the invasion of Cyprus.” An extreme hellenocentrist carries the argument
to its logical conclusion when he claims that the Cyprus Problem cannot
be solved through political means, but only through war:
I am ready myself to fight for my country at whichever time. I even contest [the loss
of] Constantinople, Agia Sofia, in the same way as [I contest the loss of] Kerynia
and Apostolos Andreas.
Attitudes of hellenocentrists toward T urkish Cypriots vary considerably.
Exactly how T urkish and how Cypriot are they? For many, “T urkish Cypri –
ots are more T urkish than Cypriot” because of the education, socialization,
or indoctrination they had. is means that in the eventuality of a solution
to the Cyprus Problem, “living together may be impossible” (129). History
is often quoted as proof of the impossibility of rapprochement and cohabi –
tation (230). is may lead to complete rejection, a wish that they were
not there—“I don’t like them very much and I would prefer it if they had
not existed at all or if we lived completely separated” (288)—or to a milder
view of stressing the need to keep distances: “Of course they are people too,
I don’t hate them, but I would rather, in case we had to live together, that
we were neither too close nor too distant from them” (176).
L  S: C
As shown above, hellenocentrists’ concerns revolve around the glory of
the nation and identity with Greece and mainland Greeks. Cyprocentrists’
views and opinions are in many ways the complete opposite of these, so
that identity arguments become converted into difference arguments. e
following are two quite extreme such views that do, however, highlight the
vastly different evaluations involved:
I feel Cypriot, I am Cypriot. Greeks for me are foreigners/strangers [ xenoi ]. ey are
those who destroyed us. I feel Cypriot, I believe in the independence of my country,
I believe we should have our own national anthem and hoist our own flag (604).
Our national identity as well as our citizenship must be Cypriot. I do not feel Greek.
I grew [up] in Cyprus and I am Cypriot. Greece destroyed us. Greeks are crooks,
liars and self-interested [ symferontologoi ]. ey are not hospitable [ filoxenoi ]. I also
want to stress that we should only have a Cypriot flag and must be called Cypriots
and not Greek Cypriots (126).
One cannot help but be impressed with the intensity with which such
views come across. is must relate to the fact that the speakers are chal –
lenging a firmly entrenched discourse: as outlined earlier on, hellenocen –
trism has been the dominant ideology and interpretive scheme for so long
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 113
that it seems invincible. us a challenger must fight harder. Furthermore,
the challenge must be total; no compromises can be accepted. “Compro –
mise” is the almost universally accepted, more “balanced” official view that
stresses that Greek Cypriots are bearers of Greek ethnicity/culture but hold –
ers of Cypriot citizenship (see next section for elaboration). e extreme
cyprocentrist rebels against this orthodoxy and counterargues that s/he is
not a Greek but a Cypriot; s/he “will not bow to Greek symbols” (flag and
national anthem) but wants “our own,” including the ultimate symbol
of one’s very name—which must be “Cypriot” and not “Greek Cypriot.”
What are the reasons for this total rebellion? Rupture, discontinuity, the
end of innocence. Greeks are held responsible for the great destruction
[katastrofi ] of 1974. e coup was staged by the Greek junta, which was
not subsequently able to forestall the T urkish invasion. e latter amounted
to a destruction of biblical proportions: almost 40 percent of the land
came under T urkish control, a third of the population was displaced, hun –
dreds of people died and went missing, the economy was torn apart, the
state almost collapsed. us, many hold Greece responsible for the “great
betrayal.” Even though real responsibility may lie with a relatively small
group of junta members or collaborators, feelings of wrath are generalized
to include “all Greeks” and “everything Greek,” including all right-wing/
hellenocentric Greek Cypriots. is explains why for many Greek Cypriots,
such as the respondents quoted above, the “umbilical cord” with “mother
Greece” was finally and brutally cut, so that Greeks are seen as “ xenoi, ”
“those who destroyed us,” “crooks and liars.” Another respondent com –
ments: “I don’t believe we are brothers with the Greeks. I used to believe
that when I was young. Nowadays I’ve changed my mind” (533).
Let me finally turn to cyprocentric views of the ethnic or national
Other—T urkish Cypriots and T urks. As expected, assessments of the for –
mer are much more positive. T urkish Cypriots are seen to be “far from cruel
and violent,” proposed one respondent, who then proceeded to criticize the
“social system” that turns Greek Cypriots against T urkish Cypriots. is
respondent felt that the “wall that separates us is a false one” and that “we
must change attitudes through education and other means” (201).
“Cyprus belongs to all Cypriots,” says another, reciting a well-known
slogan of cyprocentrists, pointing out that Cypriots of both ethnicities
should leave behind whatever separates them to approach each other once
more to solve the Cyprus Problem.
eir attitudes toward T urkey are more ambivalent: “I am a Cypriot
but I feel [like] a Greek too. . . . Perhaps we ‘feel’ Greek because of the
T urks” (546). “e Cyprus Problem was the result of T urkish expansionism
and the attitude of the Americans. . . . We must have good relations with
Greece, as it is the only country which supports us” (520).
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114 I Nicos Peristianis
us, the arguments come full circle: Cyprocentrists may not feel
strongly Greek and may not want Greece’s involvement with Cyprus. ey
want to have the chance to give it another go with the T urkish Cypriots.
But because of T urkey’s threat, they fall back on the need for Greece. . . .
D I   B  L
As shown in Table 5.1, the majority of Cypriots (48 percent) give credit
to the “dual” nature of their national identity. Here is a “representative”
account of what this may mean:
I feel [that I am] as much Greek as Cypriot. Greek as to ethnicity because we share
with Greeks the same language, perceptions, civilization and religion; and Cypriot
as regards citizenship, since I was born in Cyprus and I am a citizen of the Cyprus
Republic, with all rights and duties that any citizen enjoys. (728)
Obviously a “perfect balance” between the two components of one’s
identity is not always possible, and many Greek Cypriots would stress one
or the other component—but not at the cost of total rejection or at the
expense of the remaining one (as in the case of “extreme” cyprocentrists or
hellenocentrists). For instance, after opting for the more balanced option
(“as much Cypriot as Greek”), many respondents would qualify their choice
and/or stress the Cypriot component, giving various justifications for this:
One points out that although he feels both Greek and Cypriot, this does
not mean he will “support Greece over Cyprus in case of need” (378). Oth –
ers add that “feeling Greek does not mean support for enosis ” (12, 14) or
“that Greece should get involved in the affairs of Cyprus” (290).
Conversely, many chose the more balanced option but then qualified
their selection and/or stressed the Greek component. e justifications,
once again, are quite varied: Some start with the admission that Greece is
to blame for the destruction of 1974 but then proceed to make the realistic
assessment that “she is our only help” (605). Others recognize that they
“are Cypriots” but then acknowledge that “Cypriots are more Greek than
mainland Greeks”—for various reasons, such as that “our tradition” is more
“pure,” concluding that it would be a mistake to “abort our Greekness”
[ellinikotita ] (1003).
Placing an equal emphasis on both components of one’s identity seems
to be seen as of paramount importance in itself, as it indicates a sense of
the “golden mean,” an avoidance of extremes. Consider the following state –
ment, where the effort to reach a middle position is important with regard
to both political ideology and nationality:
e party I support is DIKO, the center, I am not an extreme or absolute per –
son [ akraios kai apolytos anthropos ]. . . . I feel Greek Cypriot, as much Cypriot as
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 115
Greek. As I said, I am not an extreme person, to feel only Cypriot or only Greek. I
feel Greek Cypriot because I believe Greece and Cyprus can co-exist and without
wanting to contradict myself I’d like to stress that I feel Cypriot and believe in the
independence of Cyprus . . . for I live in Cyprus, but I feel Greek as well since I
believe that we have common roots, and a common civilization—thus I am both,
Greek and Cypriot. (750)
is need to maintain a balance seems to derive from various sources. Pa –
padakis attempts to explain the centripetal forces involved through a struc –
tural analysis of what he calls the “dilemma of Greek Cypriot identity.”24
He proposes that Greek Cypriots are faced with a situation in which they
need Greece to help them deal with T urkey, but in the process they must try
not to alienate T urkish Cypriots, whom they need to convince of their good
intentions in accepting a unified state as a solution to the Cyprus Problem.
us, a dilemma is created: “On the one hand, the dependence on Greece
and the belief in the Greek origins and cultural heritage of Greek Cypriots
requires the stressing of the ‘Greek’ part” of their identity. “On the other,
the need for rapprochement with the T urkish Cypriots leads to a desire
to stress the ‘Cypriot’ part. . . . at it is not possible to definitely choose
one over the other is the source of ambivalence. At the same time one has
to choose position on [an imaginary] continuum; choosing any (with the
exception of the middle) means that one would lean more towards one side.
is makes the ambivalence acquire the form of a dilemma over which side
to stress more” (Papadakis 1993, 136).
e diachronic/historical account as well as the synchronic analysis of
the current politico-ideological “field of forces” help to complement and
put into context Papadakis’s situationalist perspective. e picture he paints
has obviously not always been that way (for instance, decades ago the Greek
component of Greek Cypriot identity would have been stressed more). e
present emphasis on balance is the outcome of the fierce ideological contest
between hellenocentrism and cyprocentrism that has been waged for a long
time. Expressing support for any one side of the battle would mean risking
the chance of being identified with extreme positions and being accused
of betraying the ethnos (antihellenism) or the state (anticypriotism). Many,
of course, were ready to accept such a label while the contest was raging,
and taking sides was an act of heroism and honor. But nowadays, after the
dust from the ideological battles has largely settled, revealing convergence
on a number of issues (witnessed, for instance, in the realist/conciliatory
attitudes of AKEL and DISI regarding the Cyprus Problem), being moder –
ate has merit. us, more “balanced” views and constructing a respectively
balanced “dual identity” have gained wide acceptance.
Finally, I will flesh out the synchronic analysis presented earlier to
represent the basic dimensions of the tension/dilemma relating to Greek
05Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 115

116 I Nicos Peristianis
Cypriot identity. Figure 5.2 shows that the more a social actor identifies
with the nation, the closer s/he feels to Greece, which has obvious sym –
bolic and instrumental benefits (e.g., identification with Greece’s glorious
past and the military security it provides against T urkey). Yet such a move
entails moving further away from T urkish Cypriots, which has obvious
symbolic and instrumental losses (e.g., undermining the commonalities
vital for reuniting Cyprus and the loss of a possible ally in the struggle
against T urkey).25 e opposite applies when the social actor identifies
with the state.
Conclusion
ere seems to be a number of reasons why Loizos and other social
scientists have not acknowledged the existence and impact of territorial/
civic nationalism in Cyprus. For one, before the period of independence,
civic nationalism found initial expression in the 1920s through the Marxist
internationalism of the feeble KKK. From the 1940s onward, it constituted
an underlying current in the discourse of a broader and more powerful left.
It started taking root between 1960 and 1974, but during that period it
appeared in peculiar guises as a consequence of the paradoxical features of
the political and ideological terrain at the time (Markides 1977; Attalides
1979). After the events of 1974, it rose to prominence for a while, acquir –
ing the status of a new hegemonic power, although it was soon challenged
again by a transmuted form of ethnic nationalism (neonationalism; see
Peristianis 1995). Henceforth it has been a serious contester of ethnic
nationalism in an ongoing battle which signifies the inherent tensions in
the very constitution of Cyprus’s biethnic state with regard to the “dual
identity” and “dual loyalties” of Greek Cypriots: on the one hand, their
loyalty to the political unit, the state, which carries the prospect of unifying
everyone, despite ethnic origin, on the basis of common citizenship rights
and obligations; on the other hand, a sense of affiliation with and loyalty to
the ethnic community of their origin and the associated heritage of cultural
features (language, religion, etc.), which constitute “social/ethnic markers”
that set Greek Cypriots apart from the members of other ethnic communi –
ties on the island (and, especially, of course, from T urkish Cypriots).26
e two variants of nationalism and the associated loyalties/identifi-
cations find expression in different symbolic codes which constitute diff-
erent discourses and ultimately different conceptions of the world. One
could propose that the more traditional division of the world on the
basis of politico-ideological dichotomies (left/right, reflecting different
emphases on moral-political dilemmas, such as justice/freedom and so
on) is losing its power and is being replaced, or at best supplemented, by
05Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 116

Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 117
these new divisions. Even this new polarity is gradually being attenuated
as a result of a process of convergence that is very much like the dilution
of the ideological polarity between left and right. Meanwhile, at the level
of everyday consciousness, these dichotomies have managed to infiltrate
ordinary common sense. Whenever there is an opportunity, such as at a
political rally/campaign before election time, opposing concepts, themes,
and stereotypes are “awakened, so that old adversaries will face each other
in battle once again” (Billig 1991).
Notes
1. e quote comes from Loizos (1974, 39): he here refers approvingly to Lucy Mair,
acknowledging her influence in his own work.
2. Loizos (1975).
3. See inter alia, Smith (1983, 1986, 1991); Brubaker (1992); Brown (2000). Other
terms used in the literature to describe civic-territorial nationalism include “Western” or
“political”; for ethnic nationalism, other terms include “Eastern” or “cultural.”
4. is brand of nationalism, which is usually state-led, initially developed in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Western Europe (mainly France and England)
and the United States.
5. Nation-led nationalism developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
in continental Europe, from which it spread to the rest of the world.
6. See Pollis (1996).
7. See Leventis (1997).
8. Attalides (1979, 108–116); Katsiaounis (2000). AKEL adopted a pro- enosis stand
soon after its formation. Yet it linked this to the right of self-determination of Cypriots
(because Greek Cypriots were the majority, self-determination would have led to enosis ). In FIGURE 5.2.���
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05Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 117

118 I Nicos Peristianis
1947, AKEL joined negotiations with the British for self-government. Even though it was
again implied that this would eventually lead to enosis, it mostly demonstrated the left’s
concern with expanding civic freedoms. After the failure of the negotiations, AKEL reverted
to an “e nosis-only” policy, if only to defend itself against the right’s aggressive attacks for
betrayal. To some extent, AKEL ’s stand with regard to enosis was strategic and instrumen –
tal in intent (opportunist, its opponents claimed). ough it used terminology from the
prevailing ethnic discourse on common descent and the continuity of nation, its parallel
emphasis on enosis as the democratic right of people to choose their own fate (note that
the Atlantic Charter was signed in August 1941, a few months before AKEL ’s first public
declaration in support of enosis ) made its arguments more modernist than perennialist, to
use Smith’s important distinction (Smith 1998).
9. Markides (1977, 21–34).
10. Attalides (1979, 108).
11. Ibid., 127–137.
12. See Papadakis (1993). Grivas had been the military leader of the EOKA struggle,
while Makarios led the political part of the effort. After independence, Grivas gradually
became Makarios’s main critic and rival.
13. is account of cyprocentrism’s battle with hellenocentrism after 1974 draws on
Peristianis (1995, 1999, 2000).
14. e limitations of using a unidimensional left/right ideological axis to explain real –
ity has been noted by many (Kitschelt 1994; Kitschelt and Hellemans 1990; Inglehart 1997;
Giddens 1994). Inglehart (1997) proposes the addition of a modernity/postmodernity axis
to supplement the unidimensional axis, but his model does not help explain societies such
as Cyprus, where postmodernity has hardly set in and where multinational or polyethnic
realities make ethnicity/nationalism a more pertinent axis of analysis.
15. For a general account of the tensions created by differential loyalties (to state and/or
ethnic community) in modern states, see Smith (1986, 129–152); for an analysis of the
specific tensions relating to the Cypriot state, see Peristianis (1995).
16. Bloom (1990, 25–53).
17. e survey “Understanding Bicommunal Perceptions and Attitudes: A Survey on
Political and National Perceptions,” which I coordinated, was conducted by Intercollege on
behalf of the Peace Center (Cyprus) in the summer of 2000 among Greek Cypriots aged
eighteen and above. e representative sample of 1,073 individuals was stratified according
to district, urban/rural area of residence, age, and gender. It used a “closed” questionnaire
delivered to all survey participants and an “open” questionnaire delivered to a subsample of
150 individuals. e survey was sponsored by the UN Office of Project Services.
18. is is a slightly amended version of similar questions asked in surveys investigating
“dual identities,” such as Scottish, Welsh, Catalonian, and Basque. In these cases, the ques –
tion refers to how people see themselves in terms of their “nationality,” which is considered
a good proxy for national identity. In the Cypriot case, the term “collective identity” was
used instead, as it was considered to be both more direct and neutral. Furthermore, this
avoided using the negatively phrased version—for example, “Scottish, not British”—as it
was felt that this would have triggered defensive, ideologically loaded replies. A number of
studies in other countries have made a similar choice; see, for example Brown, McCrone,
and Lindsay (1996).
19. Mavratsas (1999); Attalides (1979); Bourdieu (1977).
20. Papadakis (1993); Stamatakis (1991).
21. Billig (1991).
22. Wood and Kroger (2000).
23. Parenthesized numbers are identification numbers of those who participated in in-
depth interviews for the survey “Understanding Bicommunal Perceptions and Attitudes.”
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Cypriot Nationalism, Dual Identity, and Politics I 119
24. Papadakis (1993).
25. Again, this diagrammatic presentation draws upon and elaborates on Papadakis’s
work (1993).
26. e initial weakness and obscurity of Cypriot nationalism, the particular guises
under which it appeared, and its belated ascendance after 1974—by which time Loizos’s
focus of attention had already shifted away from nationalism, may explain this conspicuous
absence in his analyses.
Works Cited
Attalides, Michael. 1979. Cyprus: Nationalism and International Politics. Edinburgh: Q
Press.
Billig, Michael.1991. Ideology and Opinions. London: Sage Publications.
Bloom, William. 1990. Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a eory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Brown, Alice, David McCrone, and Paterson Lindsay. 1996. Politics and Society in Scotland.
New York: Palgrave.
Brown, David. 2000. Contemporary Nationalism. New York: Routledge.
Brubaker, William R. 1992. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cam –
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Eriksen, omas H. 1993. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. London:
Pluto Press.
Giddens, Anthony. 1994. Beyond Left and Right. London: Polity Press.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1997. Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and
Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Katsiaounis, Rolandos. 2000. e Convention 1946–1948. [In Greek.] Nicosia: Scientific
Research Centre.
Kitschelt, Herbert. 1994. e Transformation of European Social Democracy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Kitschelt, Herbert, and Staf Hellemans. 1990. “e Left-Right Semantics and the New
Politics Cleavage.” Comparative Political Studies 23 (2): 210–238.
Leventis, Yiorghos. 1997. “e Politics of the Cypriot Left in the Inter-War Period.” Syn-
thesis: Review of Modern Greek Studies 2 (1): 1–15.
Loizos, Peter. 1972/2001. “Aspects of Pluralism in Cyprus.” New Community 1 (4). Re –
printed in Loizos, Unofficial Views: Cyprus: Society and Politics. Nicosia: Intercollege
Press, 2001.
———. 1974. “e Progress of Greek Nationalism in Cyprus: 1878–1970.” In Choice and
Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, ed. J. Davis, 114–133. London: Athlone.
———. 1975. e Greek Gift: Politics in a Cypriot Village. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. 1976/2001. “Cyprus: Part T wo: An Alternative Analysis.” Minority Rights Group,
Report No. 30. Reprinted in Loizos, Unofficial Views: Cyprus: Society and Politics.
Nicosia: Intercollege Press, 2001.
———. 1977. “Politics and Patronage in a Cypriot Village, 1920–1970.” In Patrons and
Clients in Mediterranean Societies, ed. E. Gellner and J. Waterbury, 115–132. London:
Duckworth.
———. 1981. e Heart Grown Bitter: A Chronicle of War Refugees. Cambridge: Cam –
bridge University Press.
———. 1988. “Intercommunal Killing in Cyprus.” Man 23 (4): 639–653.
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Markides, Kyriakos. 1977. e Rise and Fall of the Cyprus Republic. New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press.
Mavratsas, Caesar. 1988. Facets of Greek Nationalism in Cyprus. [In Greek.] Athens:
Katarti.
———. 1999. “National Identity and Consciousness in Everyday Life: Towards a Sociol –
ogy of Knowledge of Greek-Cypriot Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 5 (1):
91–104.
Papadakis, Yiannis. 1993. “Perceptions of History and Collective Identity: A Study of
Contemporary Greek Cypriot and T urkish Cypriot Nationalism.” Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Cambridge.
Peristianis, Nicos. 1995. “Right—Left, Hellenocentrism—Cyprocentrism: e Pendulum
of Collective Identities after 1974.” [In Greek.] In Anatomy of a Metamorphosis, ed. N.
Peristianis and G. T rangaras, 123–156. Nicosia: Intercollege Press.
———. 1999. “A Federal Cyprus in a Federal Europe.” In Cyprus and the European Union,
ed. A. eophanous, N. Peristianis and A. Ioannou, 125–137. Nicosia: Intercollege
Press.
———. 2000. “Boundaries and the Politics of Identity.” In Chypre et la Mediterranee
Orientale [Cyprus and the Oriental Mediterranean], ed. Y. Ioannou, F . Métral and
M. Yon, 185–195. Lyon: Published by the University of Lyon and the University of
Cyprus.
Pollis, Ad. 1996. “e Social Construction of Ethnicity and Nationality: e Case of
Cyprus.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 2 (1): 67–90.
Smith, Anthony D. 1983. eories of Nationalism. London: Duckworth.
———. 1986. e Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. 1991. National Identity. Reno: University of Nevada Press.
———. 1998. Nationalism and Modernism. London: Routledge.
Stamatakis, Nikos. 1991. “History and Nationalism: e Cultural Reconstruction of
Modern Greek Cypriot Identity.” e Cyprus Review 3 (1): 59–86.
Wood, Linda A., and Rolf Kroger. 2000. Doing Discourse Analysis. ousand Oaks, Calif.:
Sage Publications.
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SIX
Children Constructing Ethnic
Identities in Cyprus
Spyros Spyrou
Greek Cypriot children live in a divided society where identities are
highly politicized and where being a particular kind of person im –
plies a particular sense of political being. is chapter on the ideological
becoming of children centers on two children, Stalo and Marinos,1 and
their political and ethnic lives as they unfold at a particular point in time
in their particular local contexts. I met them in 1996 while conducting
fieldwork in Cyprus for my doctoral dissertation. In a more general vein,
the chapter addresses children’s agency in the world; about how they, as
children, construct their ethnic identities in an active rather than passive
manner as fully competent members of society. Put another way, it is about
the processes of ethnic socialization and cultural production and reproduc –
tion as these take place in contexts where real, unique, individual children
live and act in a world which largely constrains but does not determine
their political becoming.
e intersection between childhood and ethnic identity construction
remains largely unexplored. We still know very little about the processes
by which children come to acquire a sense of collective identity, construct
a sense of “self” and “other,” and participate in a world where issues of
identity are of paramount importance. ough some work has been done
in psychology, the studies that situate children’s identity construction in
specific cultural and social contexts and examine their reciprocal impact are
few and scattered (e.g., Hatcher and T royna 1993; James 1993). Similarly,
06Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:12 AM 121

122 I Spyros Spyrou
the intersection between childhood and nationalism is only now beginning
to be addressed (e.g., Cullingford 2000; Gullestad 1997; Hengst 1997;
Holloway and Valentine 2000; Koester 1997; Okely 1997), though for the
last three decades ethnic identity and nationalism have been at the forefront
of anthropological discussion (e.g., Gellner 1983; Bryant, this volume).
Moreover, studying identity construction among children in divided societ –
ies such as Cyprus remains in its infancy, though some studies have paved
the way (e.g., Bryne 1997; Burman and Reynolds 1990; Coles 1986; Davey
1987; Elbedour, Bastien, and Center 1997; Spyrou 1999). Understanding
how identities are shaped in the early years of life can illuminate the pro –
cess by which culture and ideology become meaningful and persuasive or
fail to do so. e potential for ethnic identity and nationalism to result in
violent conflict has further intensified the need to study such phenomena
and try to understand how identities emerge, are sustained, and sometimes
become destructive elements in interethnic contexts such as Cyprus (see
Papadakis, this volume).
Children have been largely ignored by anthropology, a discipline which
prides itself in studying people (Caputo 1995). e view that children
are incomplete adults and therefore in a temporary stage which they will
eventually grow out of has prevailed in much of the discipline’s history.
is view shaped the research issues and questions anthropologists sought
to investigate in relation to children. To the extent that it became of inter –
est, childhood was used only to illustrate the importance of culture in a
child’s upbringing. Cultural stability and continuity were assumed rather
than problematized, and the more or less successful acquisition of cultural
roles by children was taken for granted.
What is noticeably absent in the earlier work on childhood, whether
produced by anthropologists, sociologists, or psychologists, is a concern
with children as children. Human agency is almost entirely absent; even
where the cultural context is taken seriously, children are seen as being at
its mercy. In recent decades, and especially since the 1970s, the study of
childhood has taken a new direction that follows the larger critiques and
debates in the social sciences. An important critical work was published
in 1990 by Allison James and Alan Prout, Constructing and Reconstruct –
ing Childhood, which took upon itself the task of theoretically rethinking
children and childhood. James and Prout, in their introduction and their
chapter for the volume (1990a, 3–5, 8–9; 1990b), argued persuasively that
children are not passive members of society but actively construct their
own social worlds and participate in them; therefore, there is a need for
researchers to explore children’s lives from the children’s own perspectives
and not simply from the perspectives of adults. Methodologically, they
argued for situated, contextualized, ethnographic studies of children that
would reveal their day-to-day experiences.
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 123
Several researchers have taken up the call for a more close and contex –
tually sensitive study of children. From these studies we learn a great deal
about what children do, what values they adhere to, what attitudes, opin –
ions, and thoughts they have—in short, about the experience of childhood
from children’s own perspectives (James 1993; Hutchby and Moran-Ellis
1998; Mayall 1994, 1996; Morton 1996; Skinner and Holland 1996).
e concern with children’s agency and ability to impact their worlds has
brought a realization of, and a concern about, the structural limitations
placed upon children’s lives, from the institutional constraints they encoun –
ter at school or in the family to the discourses that circumscribe their lives
and actions in significant ways.
is chapter attempts to illustrate the utility and significance of focus –
ing on children and childhood as categories of analysis in anthropologi –
cal research. It also attempts to illustrate the importance of focusing on
children’s daily lives and perspectives, which can in turn inform us about
the larger social and cultural processes which impact life. Ethnography is a
powerful tool for exploring the dynamics of life, of culture and of society
more generally, and of identity construction in particular. It can shed light
on the role of agents or contexts of socialization in ways that other meth –
odological approaches might not be able to.
Studying Ethnic Socialization
Drawing on the empirical evidence from a study on ethnic identity
construction among Greek Cypriot elementary school children, I illustrate
in this chapter the complexity and diversity of children’s lives and the utility
of an anthropology of childhood which takes children as its primary focus.
e study, which was carried out from July 1996 to July 1997 among Greek
Cypriot elementary school children aged nine to twelve, was ethnographic
in nature and was situated in two communities and their respective schools
(Spyrou 1999).2 e urban community is adjacent to the buffer zone in
the old part of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, while the rural community
is situated in the Pitsillia region, a mountainous area about fifty kilometers
from Nicosia. e main aim of the study was to situate identity construc –
tion in the specific contexts in which it takes place. e school emerged as a
major site for ethnic socialization, but other significant arenas of ethnic so –
cialization such as the home, the playground, and the religious instruction
school ( katichitikon ) were also studied. e data come from my interviews
with children, parents, teachers, and community leaders; observation and
participant observation; sorting and ranking (of ethnic groups, countries,
national flags); photography; and video recordings and the children’s draw –
ings, essays, and interpretations of pictures and poems. My daily routine
involved participating in school activities such as attending classes, national
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124 I Spyros Spyrou
celebrations, and demonstrations and joining the children on school trips.
In the afternoons, I spent considerable time observing and participating
in children’s play and other activities. ough I never had the illusion of
being seen by children as a child myself (i.e., “going native”), I sought to
become an integral part of their daily lives as much as possible (see Lewis
and Lindsay 2000).
e study of children’s identities has been hindered as much from the
limiting assumptions of adult researchers, who have rarely acknowledged
children as capable of having political lives and being able to talk about
them (e.g., Coles 1986; Stephens 1995), as from a general lack of concern
with childhood research per se. e process of socialization, and of identity
construction in particular, is a complex one. Paying attention to the lives
of unique individuals as they are socially positioned in particular cultural
contexts can highlight this process. Identities, including collective identi –
ties, become meaningful and powerful because they find fertile ground in
the experiences of individuals (Cohen 1996). It is in the dynamic, dialectic
relationship between individual particularity and cultural reality that we
may understand how identities are formed and reformed through time. To
illustrate some of the complexities of children’s lives and portray children as
full and competent social actors who are able to reflect upon their worlds
and actively participate in them, I turn to an account of two children, Stalo
and Marinos, paying particular attention to their ethnic socialization.
In choosing two individual children, my aim is not to suggest that
they are each representative of their respective communities (though, as I
argue, they construct their identities, to some extent, based on local dis –
courses); rather, my aim is to illustrate how the individual (with all his or
her particularities, life circumstances, and social positions) intersects with
the local cultural context to construct a sense of self. e two children I
focus on are exemplary cases which provide insights into the processes of
situated identity construction; they illustrate how children themselves are
implicated in the production and reproduction of the factual and ideologi –
cal messages they receive from school as well as from sources outside of
school such as their parents and their peer group. Similarly, by choosing
to focus my description and analysis on a rural girl’s identity and an urban
boy’s identity, my aim is not to reify the female/rural versus male/urban
stereotype (of which I am fully aware). Space limitations prevent me from
offering a more elaborate account of internal variability in each community,
which certainly exists and is important to acknowledge.
S: A R C
In 1996, when I began my fieldwork for this project, Stalo was eleven
years old and lived in the village of Paramithi, the rural community I
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 125
studied. She was the third of five children in her family and attended the
sixth grade of the village elementary school. Both her parents—her father,
a construction worker, and her mother, a housewife who worked in the
family’s fields—were born and raised in the village. Several members of her
extended family, including all her grandparents, still lived in the village as
well.
In at least one particular way, Stalo’s daily life did not differ much from
that of her counterparts in urban areas: She went to school every day. How –
ever, her school was significantly smaller than many of the urban schools.
As a district school, it accommodated the needs of three villages and had a
total of eighteen students; moreover, it had only two teachers.
As a result of the school’s size, Stalo’s principal teacher was responsible
for teaching her all subjects with the exception of art. Also, a smaller school
meant that the two teachers were not able to organize as many activities
to teach about national anniversaries and celebrations—for example, 28
October (the anniversary of Greece’s entry into World War II) or 25 March
(the anniversary of the 1821 Greek war of independence against the Ot –
tomans)—which can be particularly influential in informing a young
person’s sense of collective identity. Nor were there many opportunities to
visit museums or national monuments.
However, school was not all. Once a week Stalo also attended katichi –
tiko (i.e., religious instruction) lessons with a few other children from
her elementary school. Katichitiko lessons can inform a child’s sense of
identity, since religion and nationalism are intimately connected in many
of the stories told to children about Greek Orthodox saints and martyrs.
ough the priest who conducted the lessons often told the children sto –
ries that linked Orthodoxy with the struggles of the Greek nation, it is
doubtful whether Stalo or any of the other children retained much; they
constantly interrupted the priest during the lessons and played with each
other. I observed this behavior on all of the occasions when I had a chance
to observe such lessons. From what both the children and the priest told
me, this was typical.
In my conversations with Stalo, I was able to get a sense of her political
evolution, her understanding of history, and the multiple influences on
her identity. When asked what political party she herself supported, Stalo
stated that she supported none in particular but pointed to her parents,
who were both supporters of the AKEL party, a left-wing political party in
the Republic of Cyprus. In a village where most residents were supporting
DISI, a right-wing party, Stalo’s parents were in this sense one of the few
exceptions.
ough Stalo was exposed to a great deal of information about the
struggles and the history of the nation, the T urks, and the current situation
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126 I Spyros Spyrou
in Cyprus, her sense of identity was very much rooted in the anticolonial
war of the EOKA period, 1955–1959.3 For her and the rest of the children
at her school, this was an important historical event, perhaps ultimately
more important than the T urkish invasion of 1974. Her identity, despite
the fact that she came from a left-wing family,4 was very much rooted in
her knowledge of what happened during the EOKA period. When in the
context of a group discussion I asked the children to tell me what they knew
about EOKA, Stalo was the first to jump in to tell me what the acronym
EOKA stands for (“National Organization of Cypriot Fighters”); then she
proceeded to tell me that “very many people from our village were [mem –
bers] of the EOKA organization.” e power of collective memory in the
village—mostly communicated to her through the stories of her grandpar –
ents and other adults—gave her a sense of pride about the national whole
that found meaning in EOKA. In that sense, she was not unlike most of the
other children of her village, whose national identities were also anchored
in their knowledge and understanding of EOKA and the participation of
their village and region in the anticolonial war of 1955–1959.
Not that Stalo was not concerned about the T urks and the situation in
Cyprus, for she was. But her understanding of these issues was again filtered
through the popular religious beliefs that she was exposed to by her parents
and grandparents at the village. is is what Stalo told me in an interview
when our conversation turned to Cyprus, the T urks, and the future:
Our grandfathers told us that they read in books, in some leaflets that were given
to them at the village, that there will be a war between T urkey and Cyprus and they
will occupy us for 24, either 24 years, 24 seconds, 24 minutes, 24 years, it is written
that the war will last for 24, and everybody says 24 hours, and afterwards when the
war is over in Cyprus, before it is over, a blonde nation will come to liberate us, and
everybody is saying it is Russia . . . and then the war will end up in Constantinople,
and all the T urks will leave and go to Constantinople to save it and we, the Cypriots,
will run to save our Cyprus. e war in Constantinople will go on for three days and
nights and when it is over all the T urks will be killed and there will be a few left and
they will all be baptized Cypriots and they will be Christians and all the countries
will run to take a piece of T urkey.
Many of the rural children recounted to me some version of the
prophecy quoted above, which most of them had learned about from
their grandparents, parents, or other relatives or from reading books which
circulate around the village.5 Stalo’s interpretation of the prophecy is a
common one: Essentially, Cyprus will be occupied by T urkey for twenty-
four years (although the unit of time sometimes varies) but eventually a
blonde nation (most probably Russia) will enter into war with T urkey and
free Cyprus from T urkish occupation. is prophecy gained popularity in
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 127
1997; the twenty-four-year mark since the T urkish invasion of 1974 was
approaching (i.e., in 1998) and the prevailing political climate involved
Cyprus’s planned purchase of ground-to-air missiles (S-300s) from Russia
and T urkey’s military threats against their deployment in Cyprus.6
Stalo’s life may not seem extraordinary, but her experience of growing
up in a rural village and attending a small district school with few opportu –
nities for formal ethnic socialization (e.g., visiting museums, participating
in national celebrations, etc.) but having a rich oral history passed on to her
from her parents and grandparents in the form of stories about the nation
or religious prophesies shaped her particular identity. Her identity contrasts
in some ways with the identity of the boy Marinos. is highlights the
process by which identities are constructed in particular social contexts.
M: G U N  B Z
In 1996, Marinos was twelve years old and attended the sixth grade of
the urban school I studied. He was born in Nicosia and lived near the buffer
zone. He was the youngest child in a family of six but was the only one who
lived with his mother. It is not clear from what he and his mother told me
what their family situation was. From what they volunteered, it seems that
his mother was married and perhaps separated or divorced. Marinos was
the offspring of a relationship his mother had with a man from Greece who
Marinos himself never got to know, as he left them soon after he was born.
In the absence of a father in the house, Marinos developed a more promi –
nent role in the family in comparison to other children of his age. He was
well informed about the family’s financial situation and exhibited a breadth
of knowledge about politics and the history of Cyprus. As he told me, he
regularly watched the news on television and read books about history and
politics on his own because he liked to know what was going on.
Marinos’s school, though not very big, was significantly larger (eighty-
five students and ten teachers) than the small rural school Stalo attended.
It was situated in the center of the island’s capital city. e larger size of
the school allowed teachers to organize events around national or religious
celebrations with a clearly ethnic content. Marinos had several teachers
who taught him different subjects: one for history, another for geography,
and another for religion. As compared to Stalo, Marinos was therefore ex –
posed to a much more diverse set of ideological knowledge stemming from
each of his teachers’ own ideological predispositions. Also, because of the
school’s proximity to the buffer zone, there were plenty of classroom oppor –
tunities to discuss issues related to the island’s political situation, while the
area where the school was situated—in the old part of Nicosia—provided
many occasions to visit museums, galleries, and various historical monu –
ments that could inform his sense of identity in particular ways.
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128 I Spyros Spyrou
Marinos’s living context—next to the buffer zone—also provided
many opportunities for ethnic socialization. us, in his neighborhood,
he joined other children in playing “war.”7 “War games” are games for chil –
dren involving two competing teams (which sometimes have names such
as “Cyprus” and “T urkey” or “Greece” and “T urkey”) that pretend to fight
a war against each other (see Spyrou 1999). In an elaborate reenactment of
the Derinia events8 by the children, for example, the two opposing teams
were the Greek Cypriot demonstrators and the T urkish and T urkish Cy –
priot counterdemonstrators; there were also groups representing the police,
UN peacekeepers, and nurses. rough these games, which the children
themselves had created, Marinos and the other children engaged in peer
learning (Frones 1995; Corsaro and Rizzo 1988),9 and their identities were
shaped by their collective knowledge and imagination. On one occasion,
the children altered the outcome of the Derinia events they were reenact –
ing and had the Greek Cypriot demonstrator, Tasos Isaak, saved by other
Greek Cypriot demonstrators instead of being killed, which was his actual
fate in Derinia (Spyrou 2001, 182).
Marinos’s identity was largely informed by his knowledge of politics
and his understanding of history. Here is how he described his family’s
political loyalties:
At election times some wanted to vote for AKEL, others for DIKO10 and things like
that, and they shouted; one would say “you are going to vote for the traitors”; the
other would say “you are going to vote for the criminals, the coupists.”11
ough his mother was an AKEL supporter (as she herself told me), Mari –
nos seemed, at least initially, highly critical of all political parties:
I believe that no party can liberate Cyprus because all say “We will solve the Cyprus
problem and I promise you peace and things.” Out of all those who said this thing,
no one kept his promise. at’s what I believe. at nobody is worth anything.
As he explained in another conversation, he feels that all political parties
are to blame to some extent for the prevailing state of affairs.
If he had to choose, however, his preference would be Eleftheri Di –
mokrates.12 As he explained:
If I could vote the only party which I believe in, [it] would be the party of Giorgos
Vassiliou, Eleftheri Dimokrates, because when he was president things were much
better. In spite of what the adults say [I would not vote for] AKEL, DISI. . . . I would
vote for either Eleftheri Dimokrates or nothing.
In our conversations it became clear that Marinos had opinions about
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 129
issues, about politics, and about the island’s history and he wanted to let me
know what they were. For instance, Marinos was critical of the EOKA war,
though he recognized that those who fought in it were heroes. As he said:
I learn that yes they fought about Cyprus but what did they achieve? Did they man –
age to free it? Or to enslave it?
He also told me about his ideas regarding the 1974 coup: that it was not
really T urkey’s fault but it was those who organized the coup that are to
blame, for otherwise T urkey would not have invaded Cyprus. Similarly, he
expressed his frustration about the T urkish invasion because, as he said,
“We were not prepared.”
Marinos’s attitudes toward the T urks were very negative. He expressed
his anger at what the T urks do today in the occupied territories, especially
the destruction of Orthodox churches. He described the T urks as devious
and proceeded to tell me all about incidents when Greek Cypriot solders
were murdered by T urks while guarding the Green Line. He was particu –
larly upset about the Derinia events which had taken place a few weeks
earlier. He described the behavior of the T urks in relation to the events
as “inhuman.” Incidentally, his mother told me on another occasion that
while he was watching the violent events live on television and after Tas –
sos Isaak was killed, he broke into tears and kept hitting his hand on the
table in anger and frustration. When he grows up, he explained, he would
like to join the military to fight the T urks so he can visit the occupied ter –
ritories which he so far has never been able to visit. Marinos here is almost
instinctively drawing on the kind of antagonistic, nationalistic “logic”
Loizos (1988) describes as “collectivist, generalizing, and non-specific” in
his analysis of intercommunal killing in Cyprus. For Marinos, the enemy is
another nation—the T urks—who bear collective responsibility for Cyprus’s
occupation, not specific individuals with whom he has a problem. Like the
Palestinian children Hart (2002, 38) studied in a refugee camp in Jordan,
Marinos thinks of himself as an “agent of redemption” for the lost home –
land which the previous generations failed to recapture.
However, when our conversation turned to T urkish Cypriots, Marinos
was quite confused. Not unlike Stalo, who thought T urkish Cypriots were
“our own people, but they are being held by the T urks” (i.e., Greek Cypriots
who are prisoners of war), Marinos also reinterpreted the category “T urkish
Cypriots” in a way that made sense to him and which fit into his lack of
more precise knowledge. When I asked him what the difference is between
T urkish Cypriots and T urks, he said: “e difference is that their mother
or father was Greek. Isn’t it? Is it like that?” And then he added: “Either
this or they were born in T urkey and now they live in Cyprus. Either of
the two” (see Spyrou 2001).
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130 I Spyros Spyrou
Children Constructing eir Own Identities
ese brief descriptions of the two children’s lives are meant to illus –
trate some of the complexity involved in understanding children, a kind
of complexity not unlike that which characterizes the lives of adults. e
identities of these two children are impacted in unique ways as a result
of their particular circumstances and the fact that they are growing up in
Cyprus during this specific historical period, the post-1974 period, with
their country partly occupied and actively pursuing membership in the
European Union.
ese two children are neither typical nor representative of all Greek
Cypriot children. ere is much that they share with other children but
also much that they do not share. At one level, they are exposed to com –
mon social discourses (e.g., the discourse surrounding the T urkish invasion
of 1974). At another level, their experiences differ significantly and their
identities develop in distinctive ways—their gender and family back –
ground; their personal interests, likes, and dislikes; their living contexts;
the schools they attend and the teachers they have all affect them in unique
and particular ways.
e two children’s school experiences provide us with interesting in –
sights into how education may be implicated in identity construction. In
official educational policy, the school is the social space where children are
expected to develop a strong sense of national identity. is is where the
state hopes children will learn about the nation’s history, will look with
reverence to the past, and will eventually become loyal members of the
national whole. Indeed, in the classrooms of both schools, children were
instructed more often than not on how to think about their identities.
ey were told that they are above all Greeks, heirs of a noble past, living
in a half-occupied homeland which waits for them to liberate it. Moreover,
they were told that the T urks, the nation’s enemy, are as barbaric as ever
and have no redeeming qualities.13 What the teachers say, especially about
the nation’s history, is to be absorbed, accepted, and not questioned. To
this day, teachers play an authoritative role and the “facts” that they pres –
ent the students with are rarely debated. Because teachers minimize the
opportunities for free dialogue, especially when it comes to “unquestioned
truths” (e.g., the Greek nation’s moral superiority in relation to other na –
tions, especially enemy nations such as T urkey), students are discouraged
from interacting with knowledge and bringing their own knowledge and
perspectives into the lesson.
is is not to say that there were no other messages that children re –
ceived at school. Teachers came from a variety of ideological backgrounds
and did, on occasion, present children with alternative messages, some of
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 131
which challenged the “official” classroom views. Furthermore, children did
not absorb messages without reinterpreting them; children constructed and
reworked meanings in ways that made sense to them. Moreover, I have seen
children on a number of occasions resisting—sometimes subtly, sometimes
more directly—what the teacher said by bringing, for example, alternative
knowledge into the classroom (e.g., knowledge from parents, grandparents,
the mass media, or their own experiences) and by drawing on alternative
(nonnationalistic) discourses which contradicted the official nationalistic
discourse of the curriculum. Yet, despite this apparent multivocality and
despite children’s reinterpretations of and occasional resistance to messages,
nationalistic messages were still the dominant ones and the ones children
often used to express their identities (Spyrou 2000; see also Luykx 1999).
e school Marinos attended contributed a great deal to his ideological
learning about the T urks and the situation in Cyprus, an issue which greatly
preoccupied him. is is where he learned in a systematic manner where he,
as a Greek, came from, what it means to be a Greek, and what that entails
for his future. Because he had several teachers, one for each course, and
was going to a school situated next to the buffer zone, questions of identity
were commonly raised and discussed in his classes. In that way, the school
contributed decisively in giving content to his identity and rooting it in
the larger framework of the nation’s history as well as in the particularities
of the island’s division.
Stalo’s ethnic socialization in the small, rural, district school she at –
tended was different in many respects. Because she was primarily exposed
to one teacher’s style of teaching, views, and ideological inclinations, her
principal teacher played a key role in her educational life and her ethnic
socialization in particular. Moreover, because few events were organized at
her school on the occasion of national celebrations, she did not have the
opportunity to be exposed to the more official and structured aspects of
ethnic socialization to which Marinos was exposed. Similarly, as a result
of the lack of opportunities to visit museums, monuments, and other sites
at the village which are implicated in identity construction, her ethnic
socialization as a student was largely circumscribed.
As the two examples from above show, children have agency and play a
role both in the reproduction of cultural and ideological meanings and the
production of new ones. Where children help reproduce cultural meanings
(e.g., Marinos’s stereotypes of the T urks), they do so in an active way by
engaging with knowledge and experience and ultimately justifying their
particular understandings. To the extent that their school knowledge helps
them reproduce cultural ideologies, children draw on such knowledge to
construct their worlds meaningfully (Hatcher and T royna 1993). In other
words, children make sense—more precisely cultural sense—in an active
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132 I Spyros Spyrou
way, not by passively internalizing what is out there. More important, they
contribute to cultural production; that is, the production of new mean –
ings and understandings by combining and recombining what they know
and imagine in ways that make sense to them (see Willis 1990). us,
through their participation in war games, the urban children used their
collective knowledge and imagination to reenact the Derinia events in a
way that made sense to them. at they took liberties and produced their
own version of the events—largely resembling what actually happened but
also to some extent reinventing what happened—is significant, for it high –
lights the power of the imagination in childhood. In that sense, children’s
identities are never fully controlled by adults or society at large. ey are
influenced and shaped but never fully determined.
Rather than being at the mercy of dominant discourses, children have
the ability to access critical or alternative discourses, and on occasion they
do so (e.g., Marinos’s views of EOKA). Instead of simply accepting the
clear and unambiguous message he had heard many times at school (i.e.,
that the EOKA war was a necessary and noble war fought for the ideals
of the nation), Marinos questioned its necessity by drawing on one of the
more critical discourses of the left which sees the EOKA war as unnecessary
or perhaps inappropriate at the time and that the organization’s policies
were problematic (i.e., that its members were exclusively Greek Cypriot,
thus excluding T urkish Cypriots).14
Moreover, children’s ability to resist, reinterpret, and rework that which
is given to them (e.g., Marinos’s preference for a party other than the one
his mother supported and his, as well as Stalo’s, reinterpretation of the
meaning of “T urkish Cypriot”) are indicative of their agency and the cre –
ative potential of their imaginations (however disturbing such realizations
might be at another level; i.e., the realization that Greek Cypriot children
do not have a clear idea of who T urkish Cypriots are; Spyrou 2001). Simi –
larly, the absence of adult supervision in much of children’s afternoon play
in the neighborhoods allowed them to construct and express their identities
in other ways, drawing on a variety of discourses which sometimes included
nationalistic discourse but was not limited to it. For instance, in many
of the skits and plays they staged, the children of the urban community
drew heavily on their more local Cypriot tradition and their immediate
experiences and lived history than on the nationalistic discourse learned
at school (e.g., they used the Greek Cypriot dialect in their dialogues and
stereotypically Cypriot character names in their skits and chose themes
from traditional rural Cypriot life or the 1974 war).
My observation of katichitikon lessons15 clearly revealed that the teach –
ing of culture or ideology is not to be equated with the learning of culture
or ideology. Stalo participated in that particular context, but very limited
learning took place; the “noise” that existed obstructed the message and
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 133
any possible learning that might have resulted from it. e misbehavior
of the children at the katichitikon may be seen as subtle strategies of resis –
tance, much like the resistance strategies of Malaysian peasants described
by James Scott (1985). ese strategies (e.g., creating noise and disturbance
during a lesson) have nothing in common with the more coordinated and
planned resistance that is characteristic of organized groups with an agenda
for change. Rather, they operate below the surface, in the ordinary flow
of things, and aim to “sabotage,” however minimally, the authority which
resides in those who exercise power over the powerless. In the katichitikon
context, the children used these subversive strategies to challenge the au –
thority of the priest in the same way they used such strategies to challenge
the authority of the teacher in the classroom. e aim was to avoid direct
confrontation while frustrating the official agendas. e children engaged
in this form of resistance because they knew that they had some power,
though it was admittedly limited. Luykx (1999, 221), observing Bolivian
students’ strategies of resistance in the classroom, explains:
Certainly these tactics allowed students to expend less time and effort to enjoy a
greater degree of freedom than they would have otherwise. Added to this was the
less tangible but no less significant gratification that comes from controlling one’s
own meanings and actions, at least in some limited, “offstage” domain. (Luykx
1999, 219)
And again:
Students become bored with the production of knowledge they deem irrelevant to
their interests and join together to appropriate a margin of class time to their own
purposes. (Luykx 1999, 221)
By locating social action in specific contexts, we can begin to understand
how ideologies are consumed: how they are accepted and reproduced, on
the one hand, and how they are resisted and reinterpreted, on the other.
e children’s growing up, their ideological becoming, their sense of
who they are—in short, their identities—are not easily accounted for by
socialization models which seek to determine which agents are doing what
to them. e relationship between the children and their social worlds is
a complex one; it is not a one-way process whereby the agent impacts the
child in this or that way but is rather a reciprocal relationship where power
differences are played out and meanings are constantly being negotiated
(see James and Prout 1990a; James, Jenks, and Prout 1998; Solberg 1990).
It is the dynamic play between the particular and the shared which gives rise
to their identities, which are culturally recognizable yet uniquely shaped
(Holland, Skinner, Lachicotte, and Cain 1998).
Take for instance Stalo’s preoccupation with EOKA despite her family’s
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134 I Spyros Spyrou
left-wing loyalties. Both her parents mentioned to me that it was not un –
common for them to talk to Stalo and the rest of their children about
politics, especially when they all watched television at night. On many
occasions, Stalo and her other siblings asked questions about politics and
the parents explained or commented. e parents’ political influence was
evident in Stalo. For instance, she knew quite a bit about the 1974 coup;
she was well aware of the historical details surrounding the coup because
her parents told her several personal stories about it. is was expected
and comes as no surprise; as members of the left wing, her parents see
the right wing as primarily responsible for the organization and execution
of the coup. But her parents had not in any way tried to question the le –
gitimacy of EOKA, as other left-wingers might have done.16 As members
of the village community, they also shared this history and honored it;
what might have been downplayed by other supporters of AKEL was not
an issue for them—they could be left wing and still strongly support the
anticolonial war. Similarly, their concern and preoccupation with religion
and religious prophecies in particular could coexist in harmony with their
political identity, again in contradistinction to the more critical position of
AKEL (as a communist party) toward religion and prophecies that are very
nationalistic. In a conversation we had, Stalo mentioned that “at home they
only talk about AKEL, that it is the best and they support it.” When I asked
her what she felt about that, she refrained from taking a strong position
of loyalty by saying “ey [i.e., parties] are all good.” Stalo, as a child and
at that stage in her life, did not strive for ideological consistency but had
a more complex political identity than might be suggested by more direct
causal explanations of identity construction. In other words, her identity
was clearly impacted by her parents’ political loyalties but not in a way
that one could easily predict, for they themselves were not faithful repro –
ducers of left-wing ideology. Such findings suggest the utility of looking
more closely at the individual level and questioning simplistic models of
socialization which rule out ideological contradictions and tensions (Billig
et al. 1988).
Similarly, by contextualizing our studies of childhood we learn a great
deal about the impact of the local on the national. National identities
can become meaningful and powerful because they find correspondences
with local actors’ experiences and sense of belonging. In his work with
Kalymnians, Sutton (1998) illustrates this point by showing how they
use familiar principles and practices to interpret the present and establish
historical continuity with the past. To the extent that they help reproduce
nationalism, it is because they make sense of it through their own local and
familiar cultural ways. Ultimately, through this process, the local feeds the
national and the national anchors itself in the local.
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 135
Stalo’s sense of national identity was rooted in the EOKA anticolo –
nial war, an influence of her particular local environment, and (to a lesser
extent) in the national educational system she participated in. Stalo’s un –
derstanding of the political situation in Cyprus was filtered through her
knowledge of popular religious beliefs in her locality. Her experience of
growing up in that particular village and being exposed to particular stories
and narratives had contributed to her particular ideological formation. It
is interesting to note here that the stories Stalo heard and recounted are
not unlike the grand narratives of nationalist historiography. Such stories
or prophecies like the one she recounted to me are structurally similar to
the nationalist historical narratives she learned about at school. ey also
aim to teach right from wrong, to separate “us” from “them,” to distinguish
good from evil. Moreover, they provide an authoritative message which,
however speculative (as in the case of the prophecy Stalo recounted to me),
are clearly beyond criticism, for they come with the full force of tradition
and are fully backed by the sacred word. For Stalo and the other children
from the village who told me about similar prophecies, these narratives
provided a more interesting and perhaps ultimately more persuasive ac –
count of their history and sense of identity. e magical qualities of these
narratives and their explicit and often gruesome content allowed the chil –
dren to construct the imagined community by drawing on the familiar
and the trusted, on that which was informed by their situated lives at the
village, and less so on the indirect and the abstract which came from the
official nationalist narratives they learned at school. To the extent that the
two narratives were similar, they helped reinforce the children’s sense of
national identity.
In a similar way, the preoccupation of the children who live near the
buffer zone with T urks and war can be better understood when one focuses
on the role of the local in shaping the national. Children such as Marinos
who live near the buffer zone confront all the symbols of the island’s divi –
sion on a daily basis. ey see the Greek and T urkish flags, the guard posts
and soldiers from both sides, and the UN peacekeepers; they hear the hotza
(the Muslim imam) preach through loudspeakers; they feel the fear of living
so close to the buffer zone (especially in times of political crises); and they
participate in numerous demonstrations and other events that take place
on the Green Line. eir sense of national identity is as much rooted in
their everyday experiences as in the more academic and indirect knowledge
about history and the nation they learn at school.
Much has been said about imagined communities (Anderson 1983/
1991) and their authority in people’s lives, but the processes by which
such communities come to take hold in ordinary individuals’ imaginations
are still not well understood (see Cohen 1996). is chapter has tried to
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136 I Spyros Spyrou
explore children’s identities by focusing on them as social actors in the
early years of a lifelong process of identity construction as it takes place in
particular social, cultural, and historical contexts. Given that we still know
little about children’s lives and less about their identities, the anthropologi –
cal approach, and ethnography in particular, can be a very fruitful way to
explore the day-to-day dynamics of growing up. More important, they help
us appreciate a much-neglected and marginalized social category—chil –
dren—whose identities are much more complex and rich than most of us,
as adults, ever allow ourselves to acknowledge.
Notes
1. To protect the anonymity of all those mentioned in this article, all individual and
place names have been changed.
2. After the fieldwork for this study was carried out, significant changes took place
which are important to keep in mind. Since April 2003, opening of the checkpoints and
partial removal of restrictions to freedom of movement has brought the Greek and T urkish
Cypriot communities into contact with each other after almost thirty years of separation.
Similarly, the full accession of Cyprus into the European Union on May 1, 2004, and the
process of “Europeanization” that the Greek Cypriot community has undergone in the
last few years are also impacting in significant ways notions of identity among the Greek
Cypriot population.
3. EOKA was an organization of Greek Cypriot guerilla fighters that aimed to over –
throw the British and unite the island with Greece.
4. e left wing, and AKEL in particular, has been critical of the EOKA war against
the British mainly because it considered it to be unnecessary at a time when decoloniza –
tion on a global scale would have resulted in the departure of the British from Cyprus and
because of the involvement of General Grivas (an anticommunist who played a key role in
the Greek civil war against the communists) in the leadership of the organization.
5. Some of these prophecies come from the writings of Greek Orthodox saints such
as Saint Methodios and Saint Kosmas Etolos.
6. Hart (2002) in the Palestinian context and Coles (1986) in the Northern Irish
context have reported this interesting merging of religion and nationalism in children’s
identities.
7. I observed that the rural children did not play “war games”; my interviews with
the children corroborated this.
8. e “Derinia events” refer to the violence that broke out in the summer of 1996 on
the buffer zone near the Derinia area in the southeast of Cyprus. A demonstration by Greek
Cypriot and foreign motorcyclists for the right of free movement on the island was coun –
teracted by T urkish and T urkish Cypriot counterdemonstrators. e violence that erupted
resulted in the murder of two Greek Cypriots, Tasos Isaak and Solomos Solomou.
9. Lanclos (2003, 143) also identified this kind of peer learning in folklore and espe –
cially in joke-telling in the everyday lives of Catholic and Protestant children in Belfast.
10. DIKO is the center party.
11. AKEL is sometimes criticized by the right wing for being unpatriotic because it
takes a critical stance toward Greek nationalism. e right wing, on the other hand, is often
criticized by the left wing for playing a role in the 1974 coup and the attempts to overthrow
Makarios, the president of Cyprus at the time.
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Children Constructing Ethnic Identities in Cyprus I 137
12. Eleftheri Dimokrates (Free Democrats), later renamed Enomeni Dimokrates (United
Democrats), is the political party formed by George Vassiliou (former president of the
Republic of Cyprus).
13. Avdela (1997) and others (see Frangoudaki and Dragona 1997) have identified a
similar role for education in constructing the nationalist imagination in Greece.
14. See Papadakis (1998) for a discussion of the nature of contested and competing
discourses and identities in Cyprus.
15. e students of the urban school did not attend katichitikon lessons during the
year of my fieldwork because the school could not find a suitable and willing instructor to
conduct the lessons.
16. e left wing makes a negative association between EOKA (more precisely the
terrorist organization EOKA B, a later development of the original EOKA) and the 1974
coup.
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140 I Gisela Welz
SEVEN
“Contested Natures”
AN ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT IN CYPRUS
Gisela Welz
In the winter of 1968–1969, farmers demonstrated in Nicosia. Buses
had carried men from five villages in the area of Morphou in the north –
west of the island to the capital. ere they marched to the presidential
palace to protest the government’s delay in constructing a dam that would
provide irrigation for the cash crops their communities were growing. e
villagers were competing with the inhabitants of nearby Morphou town for
access to water. e town did not want the dam to be constructed because
it would detract from the irrigation of its own fields and plantations. e
villagers saw the state’s reluctance in going ahead with the dam as evidence
that government officials were bowing to the pressures of the local elite
of Morphou, who were known to be well connected to political circles in
the capital. In his political ethnography of a Cypriot village, Peter Loizos
(1975) gave a vivid account of this event. More than thirty years later, what
Loizos calls the “organizational tactics villagers employ to extract benefits
from the political and administrative sectors of the wider society” (Loizos
1975, 289) are still very much in evidence.
A recent example may serve as an illustration. An airplane rather than
buses took representatives from another group of villages, this time from
the Paphos district, to Brussels in April 2001. Community leaders attended
the so-called Green Week, a series of meetings under the auspices of the
European Commission that was organized by one of the leading transna –
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“Contested Natures” I 141
tional environmental organizations, World Wide Fund for Nature. e fact
that the villagers attended this event did not mean that they had suddenly
become spokespersons for environmentalist issues. Quite the contrary: not
unlike the Argaki villagers that Peter Loizos accompanied on their protest
march in Nicosia in the late 1960s, they believed they had unfairly been
denied resources that were theirs by right and that fault for this laid with a
conspiracy mounted against them by their competitors in other communi –
ties with the help of certain personages in high places.
e resource in question this time around was not irrigation water:
ese landowners from villages in the Paphos district demanded that pro –
hibitions against tourism development in their area be lifted. ey wanted
to participate in and profit financially from the tourism boom that their
neighbors in coastal communities of the region have already been enjoying
for some years. However, their own villages are located inland in the close
vicinity of the Akamas Peninsula. Akamas, a brush-covered area of about
230 square kilometers on the western coast of the island in the Paphos
district, has so far been largely untouched by development. It contains
a number of sensitive coastal ecosystems as well as important habitats of
rare and endangered species, some of which are endemic to the island, and
it has been proposed that the peninsula become a national park. Against
the backdrop of the conflicting concerns of environmental preservation
and economic development, the future of the region and the question of
which land uses should be allowed or prohibited have been hotly debated
for many years, not just in the national but also in the international arena.
Environmental NGOs who are operating on a global scale have Akamas on
their agenda; some years ago, Greenpeace presented the issue in transna –
tional fora and staged protests locally, and the European Commission has
exerted considerable pressure on successive governments of the Republic
of Cyprus to prohibit tourism development in the Akamas and to create a
national park there instead.
e transnational dimension of the struggle over the future of this
piece of land infuses what superficially may appear to be a conflict between
local landowners and state authorities with a special dynamic. Of course,
one might say that there were transnational aspects in the 1960s fight of
Argaki and its neighboring villages for irrigation water as well, for the
owners of citrus plantations were intent on maintaining and expanding
production for an internationalizing market, hastening along the integra –
tion of post-independence Cyprus into the world economy. Yet there is
a different quality today about the transnational dimension of conflicts
labeled “environmental.” In their 1998 book from which the title of this
chapter is borrowed, Contested Natures, sociologists Phil Macnaghten and
John Urry pointed out that in a globalizing world, the protection and pres –
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142 I Gisela Welz
ervation of the natural environment has emerged as a transnational issue
as “nature becomes less intertwined with each individual national society
. . . and is much more interdependent with global relations” (Macnaghten
and Urry 1998, 31). is certainly holds true for Cyprus. Management
of the environmental resources of the country today is monitored closely
by international organizations, especially within the framework of the
country’s 2004 accession to the European Union (EU). Globalism has
become an idiom in which assertions of local interest must be expressed
and negotiated, requiring all local actors—both conservationists and pro-
development interests—to extend their reach beyond the region and the
state, as is evident in the villagers’ excursion to Brussels.1
e Akamas case offers the opportunity to explore what anthropology
can contribute to an understanding of such conflicts and to engage with
recent discussions within anthropology on how to address environmental –
ism as a cultural meaning system in itself. A struggle such as this one pro –
vides an ideal opportunity to ask how nature is constituted in a particular
locale or conflict and inquire into what counts as “the environment” in any
given political negotiation, corporate strategy, research initiative, livelihood
trajectory, or policy program. How are new “environments” created within
these “projects”? Research following this agenda “contrasts the knowledge-
making practices of conservationists, social activists, and local resource
users as these issues are played out in varied local arenas” (Tsing 2001,
5). Not just indigenous groups and rural populations but environmental
bureaucracies, national and transnational NGOs, and scientific research
institutions then come within the purview of anthropologists. e Akamas
case elucidates the way in which competing sets of moralities inform the
actions and stances of the social actors involved and how their conflicting
representations of the environment enlist local and translocal knowledge.
Inventing Akamas:
Transformations, Inertia, Reconfigurations
Akamas, with its rugged coastline and secluded beaches, is a landscape
of spectacular natural beauty. For many decades, the peninsula and the
adjoining region of the Paphos district were considered a backward and
somewhat uncivilized area of little importance. It came into the spotlight of
public attention in the late 1980s, however, when it emerged as one of the
few stretches of coastline of the Republic of Cyprus to escape the impact
of the tourism development that took off in the aftermath of the 1974
invasion (see Ioannides 1992; Ioannides and Apostolopoulos 1999). e
Paphos district has recently experienced a massive expansion of tourism in –
frastructure. Today, the increasing pressure on Akamas comes mainly from
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“Contested Natures” I 143
the south, where the urban sprawl of Paphos extends northward and hotel
complexes and so-called villa developments spring up in rapid succession
along the coast and in its hinterland, and from the communities that line
Chrysochou Bay to the east of Akamas. ese, although they are latecomers
to tourism development, appear particularly eager to transform the area
into a replica of other mass tourism destinations on the Mediterranean’s
northern shores.
e fact that Akamas remained virtually untouched by development
while all around it the tourism economy has been booming since the 1980s
is in itself the consequence of a transnational relationship. e fact that
Akamas has retained its “natural” condition which today merits protection
is related to the colonial history of Cyprus. e terms of the treaty that
granted Cyprus its independence in 1960 gave the British army the right to
conduct military exercises on parts of the peninsula, which for this reason
could be used only for grazing and remained uninhabited west and north
of the villages of Inia, Drousia, Arodhes, and Neo Chorio, even though the
peninsula shows many traces of settlement and land use in earlier centuries.
During the 1980s, the first attempts were made by preservation-minded
actors in government to place the natural environment of the peninsula
under conservation. ey were successful in establishing a reserve area on
the western coast, where the nesting beaches of two endangered species of
marine turtles are located. e more-far-reaching goal of prohibiting devel –
opment in the entire area, however, was not achieved. Increasingly vocal en –
vironmentalist groups that had formed to protect the natural landscape and
its biodiversity were stalled by pro-development interests. Some investors
had started acquiring attractive stretches of coastal land and entered into a
coalition with local landowners in the villages, who also nurtured hopes of
entering the tourism economy or selling their land at high prices.
In the early 1990s, actors pushing for nature conservation, both within
the government and in NGOs, sought international funding and political
backing from European agencies. e Laona Project, a five-year project
to plan for sustainable development and agrotourism in the area, received
the first EU funding of its kind in Cyprus (Beck and Welz 1997; Amato
2001). In addition, in 1995, the World Bank’s Mediterranean Environmen –
tal Technical Assistance Program completed a study on the Akamas region.
It proposed a management plan for the area that included establishment
of a national park that would include the entire peninsula, sustainable
development alternatives to mass tourism, and conventional development
options to the adjoining local communities within the framework of a
zoned biosphere reserve area.2 Local community elites, however, came out
against the plan. ey did not want to be restricted to options of soft agro-
or ecotourism, as they felt that they would be left behind in the race for
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144 I Gisela Welz
material prosperity that most of their compatriots had had an earlier start
in. Village leaders publicly stated that they feared “that the plan condemns
the region and its inhabitants to perpetual poverty.”3
However, the management plan was never implemented in its proposed
form. A number of Cypriot investors, for whom Akamas was a prime piece
of real estate that they intended to transform into expensive hotels and
club-type resorts that promise high financial returns, also opposed it. e
British army ceased military exercises in the area in 1999, giving in to the
protests of environmentalists and nationalist pressure groups that had for
many years viewed the continuation of the postcolonial military presence
in the area as an insult to the sovereignty of the country. Because exercises
were stopped before any decision on the establishment of a national park
was taken, the cessation of military activity to some extent played into the
hands of pro-development interests. In March 2000, the Council of Min –
isters of the Republic of Cyprus decided to take steps toward opening the
peninsula for large-scale tourism development. While it placed the local
communities under restrictions, this decision privileged the interests of
an industrialist who planned to construct a large tourism resort on the as-
yet-untouched north coast of Akamas on Chrysochou Bay; subsequently,
further concessions to him and other powerful economic actors engaged
in investing in the area became public knowledge. For the Cypriot public,
this came as no surprise, considering that some years before, in 1996, a
building permit had been granted to erect a luxury hotel on an as-yet-un –
developed stretch of the northeastern coast of the Akamas Peninsula.4 e
hotel started operating in 1998, but in the course of the ensuing scandal,
the owner of the hotel chain involved lost his political position as a cabinet
member in the government. Technically speaking, the hotel site was located
within a zone that allowed for building activity, even though it was an area
under consideration for inclusion in a future national park. Prior to the
construction of the hotel, there was hardly any tourism infrastructure or
other buildings in the area, and the district authorities had turned down
similar requests for permits from other landowners in the past. at a
powerful political officeholder was granted an exception caused consider –
able outrage in the Cypriot public. Additional fury was generated when
the hotel owner sidestepped the restriction imposed on him by the build –
ing permit. Much of the public debate in Cyprus and the protest activities
of transnational environmental organizations centered on the accusation
that this official had exploited political power for personal gain. Yet in
the context of the threats against the ecological integrity of Akamas, the
inordinate attention given to this particular case somewhat detracts from
the detrimental effects of numerous small-scale developments which since
the late 1990s have spread throughout the area, perilously close to the
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“Contested Natures” I 145
protected state-owned forest land that still awaits declaration as a national
park. More and more so-called villa developments are dotting the hillsides
that the 1995 World Bank plan intended to include in a future Akamas
nature reserve, and tourism complexes are springing up next to the ecologi –
cally sensitive beaches.
After the government’s decision to allow tourism development on
Akamas in March 2000, Cypriot environmentalists turned to transna –
tional agencies even more forcefully than before. ey asked the European
Commission and the Council of Europe to increase their pressure on the
Cyprus government to reverse its stance and safeguard the preservation of
this area that they consider to be of incomparable ecological and aesthetic
value. Eventually, in the summer of 2002, the government presented a
revised set of management guidelines for the Akamas region to the public
that appears to offer some measure of compromise. It falls dramatically
short of placing the entire region under protection, as had been strongly
recommended internationally. Instead, a much smaller area of the penin –
sula proper will be declared a national park. Yet while it allows for tourism
development in selected sites, it curtails the plans of both villagers and
large-scale investors to build hotels on the as-yet-unspoiled coastline of
the peninsula.5 Not surprisingly, the villagers immediately protested this
decision. e last chapter in the long saga of the struggle over the future
of Akamas has not been written yet, and the antagonistic positions of the
actors involved have become too entrenched by now to expect any simple
solution. Whether the prohibitions against coastal development and the
degradation of the peninsula itself will be effective in the future only the
implementation process of the 2002 guidelines will show. In the spring of
2004, the government had not yet taken any definite steps toward convert –
ing the guidelines into a management plan.
Scientific Knowledge and the Politics of Expertise
Anthropologists increasingly inquire into how environmental problems
are discovered and acknowledged by the public and political decision-
makers. Obviously, an environmental crisis does not automatically trigger
public concern, but environmental issues are “as much or more a matter
of social construction and politics of knowledge production” as they are
“a straightforward reflection of biophysical reality” (Hannigan 1995, 39).
Environmental problems must be constructed as legitimate claims and
contested against competing readings of reality. Only when this is achieved
can they be translated into political decision-making.
e social construction of environmental issues rests not only on moral
assumptions but also on scientific knowledge. Environmental problems
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146 I Gisela Welz
must be “discovered” and “diagnosed” by scientists before they can acquire
any sense of being real or serious. At the core of the EU’s demands for the
protection of Akamas is the claim that the peninsula is indispensable for
the maintenance of the biodiversity of the entire Eastern Mediterranean.
is claim places Akamas within a geographical context that extends far
beyond the island of Cyprus. At the same time, those who make the claim
draw on bioscientific knowledge that is decidedly not local in origin. In –
deed, in order to be able to assess the ecological significance of Akamas,
comparative data from other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean have to
be considered, and the anticipation that tourism development will irrevers –
ibly destroy the habitats of endangered species and threaten the integrity
of coastal ecosystems rests on observations and scientific findings in other
parts of the world. e environmentalists’ struggle for the conservation of
the natural environment of Akamas, thus, is in itself evidence of the global
diffusion of bioscientific practices.
Since the 1980s, biological studies and surveys have both paved the
way for and accompanied the attempts to place the Akamas Peninsula
under protection. Some were conducted independently by international
scholars following their own research agendas, others were commissioned
by agencies of the government.6 In the ongoing struggle over the future
of Akamas, local environmentalist actors have again and again attempted
to enlist the authority that goes with scientific knowledge to bolster their
claims about the need to create a national park in the area. e aforemen –
tioned World Bank plan is the most prominent attempt along these lines.
Because it was produced by agencies outside of Cyprus—funded by the
EU under the auspices of the World Bank and conducted in part by French
experts—environmentalists hoped that the international reputation of the
actors involved, their independence from local interests, and the scientific
soundness attributed to their work would give the cause of protecting
Akamas more clout in the political arena than previous statements from
experts.
is did not work out as expected. Not only did government agencies
delay the publication of the results of the World Bank plan, but the pro-
development opponents of a national park attempted to play the same
game of enlisting expert knowledge by flying in a team of counterexperts
from abroad, who did not warn against but indeed recommended tourism
on Akamas in a widely publicized press conference.7 German social theo –
rist Ulrich Beck (1992) has written extensively about how the sciences are
losing their monopoly on truth in the late modern period; how scientific
knowledge appears unreliable, notoriously unstable, and contingent; and
how competing claims can be made with equal authority. is means that
when expertise is used in the political area, opposing positions can each be
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“Contested Natures” I 147
bolstered by the authority of science. In the case under discussion, however,
it is somewhat doubtful whether the specialists called on by the investors to
denounce the pro-conservation World Bank plan qualify as counterexperts
in the sense that Ulrich Beck defines them.
All of the early bioscientific reports on the ecological and environ –
mental significance of Akamas attempted to translate the results of their
research into a discourse that would emotionally appeal to the lay public;
they claimed that Akamas is “pure,” “virgin,” and “unspoiled”; emphasized
the “richness,” “diversity,” “originality,” and rarity of its fauna and flora; and
highlighted how vulnerable individual species and the entire ecosystem are
to human incursions.8 ese discursive tropes spelled out a moral impera –
tive: to preserve the environmental integrity of Akamas and to conserve its
“precious” ecology that needs protection.
Whose Akamas Is It Anyway?
Property Relations and Transnational Connections
One thing that stands out in the Akamas conflict is that local residents
are opposed to the objectives of environmental protection. e communi –
ties in the area have also largely supported other nonlocal business interests
engaged in developing the area for the tourism economy. Environmentalists
and pro-development interests are entrenched in their opposition to each
other, but at the same time, both are competing for government support
and, in doing so, enlist and expand existing patronage networks. Govern –
ment itself, because it is infused with semi-clientelistic structures, is not a
monolithic actor but rather a collection of contradictory and sometimes
antagonistic positions, especially if we keep in mind that while most of the
early initiatives to secure protection for the landscape and natural habitats
of Akamas originated from within the government, developers could also
count on support from government actors. Obviously, this is not the type
of conflict anthropologists have typically portrayed all over the Mediter –
ranean, a conflict between powerless and marginalized local communities
on the one hand and a distant, hostile, or simply indifferent state on the
other hand. e conflict at hand is much more complex. To whom does
Akamas belong? Beyond the large expanse of state-owned forest, Akamas
is a patchwork of private properties, with many smaller pieces belonging
to individual landowners living in the adjoining villages. Sizeable portions
of T urkish Cypriot land are also administered by the government. Some
considerably larger areas are owned by investors and by the Church, which
has become successfully involved in the hotel business and other large tour –
ism enterprises in other areas of the Paphos district.
e transnational connections of the issue add a new dimension to
07Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:13 AM 147

148 I Gisela Welz
the question of property relations. Increasingly, Akamas constitutes a focal
point for the monitoring activities of supranational organizations. Most
prominent is the European Commission. European institutions subscribe
to the notion that halting the loss of biological diversity is a global task to
be promoted and enforced by transnational institutions. With its March
2000 decision, the Cyprus government found itself at odds with the agenda
of environmental protection the EU imposed on candidate countries before
accession; to wait to implement this agenda until after Cyprus joined the
EU obviously would have left a wide-open window of opportunity for
projects and investments detrimental to the environment. In the process
of aligning Cyprus with the environmental chapter of the acquis commu –
nautaire, which was provisionally closed in July 2001, the European Com –
mission made its objectives clear, referring specifically to the Akamas issue,
and asserted that “the situation will need to be monitored in the interim
period to ensure that Cyprus complies with the spirit of the legislation.”9
It is only after the date of accession, however, that governments are held
responsible for compliance with the acquis to the letter.
e role the EU has assumed vis-à-vis Akamas reflects changes in the
way environmental problems are now tackled internationally, indicating
the emergence of the globalization of environmental governance (Clark
2000). e EU views Akamas as a unique natural area that has been
bequeathed to the community of all Europeans. For the European Com –
mission, this requires putting the common good of Europeans above the
particular interests of national governments or other stakeholders—in –
cluding individual landowners. At the same time, the EU is holding the
national government responsible for adequately safeguarding this legacy.
It is the “conventions of property which regulate our access to resources
and differentiate the natural world in relation to this access” (Tsing 2001,
7). We are witnessing here some interesting transformations—one might
even say, inversions—of the type of property relations typical for capitalist
societies. When environmental protection enters the picture, the right of
property owners to unfettered use of their land is often curtailed in specific
ways. e land uses are being restricted to those that are not harmful to
the environment and its biodiversity. Such restrictions call to the fore one
aspect of the Western convention of property—that ownership entails du –
ties as well as rights and that these duties are for the good of the whole. In
addition, environmental policies often extend a type of symbolic ownership
to categories of social actors who hold no title to the land. ey have never
bought or inherited the land, but they are charged with protecting it. is
is the concept of “stewardship” that has emerged alongside the globally
influential discourse of “sustainability” (Johnston 2001), of safeguarding
and renewing resources to ensure the livelihood of both the environment
and future generations of humankind.
07Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:13 AM 148

“Contested Natures” I 149
European agencies have come to regard any ecologically valuable piece
of land that is located within a EU member state as the symbolic property
of all Europeans. In 1992, member states approved the Habitats Directive
to promote the protection of the “European natural heritage.” e imple –
mentation of the directive has resulted in the establishment of Natura 2000,
a Europe-wide network of protected sites. Land in designated Natura 2000
sites remains privately owned, but land uses, especially development, are
monitored, evaluated, and, if they threaten the survival of protected species
and the integrity of ecosystems, prohibited. e EU funds the implemen –
tation of sustainable development measures in such protected areas under
the auspices of a number of programs.10 After identifying potential sites for
inclusion during the run-up period to accession, the Cyprus government
submitted its list of zones to be protected as Natura 2000 sites in 2004.
While the early scientific reports of the 1980s and 1990s on the ecological
value of Akamas have yet to engage an emotional vocabulary that will speak
to popular sentiments in a way that will enhance their political effective –
ness, the advent of EU regulation has given environmentalism politically
effective tools based on bioscientific knowledge. ese take the form of
standard selection criteria that are applied across Europe and are outlined
in reference lists of habitat types and species. Predictably, in Cyprus, the
public announcement of proposed protection zones created an uproar in
many of the affected communities, spreading the type of conflict generated
by the Akamas controversy to other regions of the country as well. Govern –
ment officials at meetings with village representatives were threatened with
physical violence and were told that the protection of the designated zones
could not be enforced without the consent of the local communities: “It
only takes one match for the entire area to be up in smoke.”11
Akamas and the Environmental Patrimony of Cyprus
In the Akamas area, local community elites and investors pushing for
tourism development can count on their arguments enjoying widespread
support in Greek Cypriot society. Since Akamas is such an important part
of the environmental patrimony of Cyprus, populist discourses argue, every
Cypriot should be able to enjoy its natural beauty and historical sites, and
since the military exercises of the British army have ceased, the area should
be made accessible by roads and other infrastructure. In the 1990s, some of
the big-time investors had already successfully appropriated this populist
stance, profiling themselves as stewards of the traditional village commu –
nities and the treasure that Akamas represents for the Hellenic heritage of
the whole of Greek Cypriot society.12 is line of argument accuses envi –
ronmentalists of wanting to deny the population what is rightfully theirs
by imposing restrictions on land use.
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150 I Gisela Welz
In this lengthy conflict, the smaller, locally based landowners have for
the most part entered into a coalition with outside investors. Even though
it is doubtful whether this actually works to their own best interest, the
decision of villagers to support the big businessmen and industrialists
makes sense against the backdrop of their hopes for getting at least a small
share of profits from tourism as soon as restrictions are lifted. Perhaps
more important, an underpinning of clientelistic relationships cements
the coalition. Some of the investors plausibly present themselves as “local
boys who made it” and demonstratively claim close personal and family
connections with the area. Also, both local elites and outside investors
subscribe to the same cultural values of aggressive economic competition.
ey act within the framework of a shared moral economy which says
that social actors are to be taken seriously only when they are promoting
or defending their self-interest (which is often intimately related to family
interests such as property rights) in their actions. is socially constructed
legitimacy is exactly what even prominent Cypriot environmentalists are
lacking; they have no local family background and no business concerns in
the area. eir motives are neither recognizably self-interested nor do they
have stakes in the local world that are recognized as culturally legitimate.
Rather, their concerns are nonlocal or even antilocal and refer to abstract
systems—such as bioscience and the environmentalist paradigm of sus –
tainable development—rather than to concrete social worlds. In the mud –
slinging that has characterized some of the media coverage of the conflict,
environmentalists often end up being symbolically stigmatized as traitors
to the national patrimony, as agents of the former colonial rulers, as spies
of competitors in business, or simply as lunatics (Baga 2001, 2002). It is
not surprising, then, that Cypriot environmentalist groups that are locally
based but recruit their members from the educated urban middle class have
not managed to position themselves as legitimate stewards of the imperiled
habitats and ecosystems of Akamas.
To the local population in villages adjoining the peninsula proper,
Akamas is unprofitable land which will gain significance only when it can
be transformed into a resource for securing and increasing the status and
material prosperity of their families. For them, viewing Akamas as an area
of high environmental value which is unparalleled not only in Cyprus but
in the entire Mediterranean is at best an alien concept. It is something that
urbanites and foreigners have invented that is far removed from how they
themselves regard the area. Vassos Argyrou (1997) has commented on how
the discourse of environmentalism in Cyprus is perceived by large parts
of the population, especially the residents of rural areas and the working
classes, to be an extension of the symbolic domination of the former colo –
nialist and the indigenous bourgeois elites and rejected outright. However,
a recent study in mountain communities in the Paphos district by environ –
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“Contested Natures” I 151
mental sociologist Marina Michaelidou (Michaelidou and Decker 2003)
claims that while rural populations value primarily the tangible benefits
the land provides in terms of subsistence, they also appreciate its aesthetic
significance and share some idea of its ecological value.
Anthropologists have often seen it as their task to make visible the in –
terests and perspectives of local communities and to represent the cultural
knowledge of indigenous groups that have been bypassed or marginalized
and exploited in the modernization process. When addressing issues of
the environment, many anthropologists tend to assume that local popula –
tions are the social actors most interested in averting ecological damage
and identify them as the legitimate stewards of the environment. A grow –
ing number of ethnographies has addressed local populations as victims
of environmental degradation and pollution. Anthropological studies
of many non-Western societies have highlighted local resistance against
logging or mining companies, plantation owners, and governments that
implement large-scale dam projects (Milton 1993; Escobar 1995; Brosius
1999; Herzfeld 2001). e underlying assumption of these studies is that
local populations are natural allies of environmentalism and that resource
management based on their cultural traditions will safeguard the ecologi –
cal integrity of an area. e Akamas controversy complicates such admit –
tedly simplistic allocations of legitimacy and authority in environmental
conflicts. To this day, the local population in the villages and communities
adjoining Akamas continues to be extremely vigilant when they see their
economic interests threatened by the political process of negotiating a
solution for Akamas.
Yet as anthropologists we should be careful not to oversimplify the is –
sue by concluding that local populations single-mindedly pursue one goal,
namely material gain. Economic anthropologists caution us against trying
to separate “pure” cultural values from “materialistic” economic motives.
Against the backdrop of an ethnography of a comparable conflict on a
Greek island, social anthropologist Dimitrios eodossopoulos (2002)
argues that beyond the potential economic value that land acquires once it
becomes drawn into the dynamic of the tourism boom, cultural values that
are closely connected to notions of the integrity and well-being of the fam –
ily continue to be attached to property. is attitude toward the land and its
uses is connected with “how individuals ally with other individuals to form
corporate social entities such as the rural household rather than the mere
calculation of material gain or loss” (eodossopoulos 1997, 264). is is
what must be taken into account in order to make the implementation of
the most recent government decision on Akamas work, which to a large
degree rests on the offer of compensation—both monetary compensation
and the substitution of alternative pieces of land in exchange for land where
building activity will be prohibited from now on.
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152 I Gisela Welz
Tradition and the Ethics of Environmentalism
Occasionally, in the struggles over the future of Akamas, local actors
have referred to the preservation of cultural traditions in order to demand
that restrictions on building activity beyond the confines of the villages
proper be lifted. In this, the so-called dowry house, a building erected by
the parents of the bride that constitutes an element of property transfer in
the relationship between families established by marriage, has loomed large
as an argument. Because available land for construction within the villages
is limited and growing prosperity has increased the pressure on parents to
provide ever-larger and more prestigious dowry houses, which may never
actually be lived in by the young family but could just as well be used for
tourism business, it would be easy to infer that the argument of tradition
is used here to cleverly mask more modern objectives. As Michael Herzfeld
recently pointed out, “Local populations may claim that their cultural
heritage entitles them to activities on which environmentalists—for reasons
often no less embedded in a particular set of cultural values—would reso –
lutely frown, and the ethics of environmentalism clash with the ethics of
cultural self-determination” (Herzfeld 2001, 186). Yet Herzfeld cautions us
against an uncritical cultural relativism that claims that “anything goes” as
long as it is embedded in a cultural meaning system. Some of the require –
ments that allow the biological world to function cannot be constructed
out of existence, nor can any type of dealing with the environment be con –
sidered legitimate as long as it appears to be justified by a cultural order. Do
we need to go along with a local community elite that claims that building
four-star hotels is the “articulate expression of a well-established cultural
tradition” (eodossopoulos 1997, 265)? I should think not.
Ultimately, because of the uniqueness of Akamas, the individual own –
ers of land in this area find themselves under pressure to adopt a position
of ecological stewardship that radically contradicts the objectives they
pursue. e increased efforts to find a solution to the Cyprus Problem
and, in a paradoxical way, the failure to reunite the island on the eve of the
Republic’s accession to the EU in May 2004, have provided a new setting
for the Akamas conflict and, indeed, renewed urgency about its resolution.
Increasingly, the north of the island has come within the purview of both
the tourism industry and the environmental concerns of the EU and other
transnational actors. e tourism sector in the south of the island imagines
itself under threat of increased competition by the north as the EU fosters
the integration of the north into the transnational economic arena in the
aftermath of the April 2004 referendum. If the north becomes an interna –
tionally accessible tourism destination, the tourism industry in the south
will be even less tolerant than before of restrictions posed on its expansion
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“Contested Natures” I 153
by environmental policies. At the same time, the coastal areas of the north
of the island that are largely undeveloped run the risk of being destroyed
in the course of rapid incorporation into an expanding tourism sector.
Yet it is also conceivable that the implementation of EU environmental
protection policies will gain a foothold in this relatively undeveloped part
of the island.13
Conclusion
From an anthropological point of view, what sets the actors and agen –
cies involved in the Akamas controversy apart from each other is not merely
conflicting interests but, in an important way, how they perceive and con –
ceptualize this piece of land—the meanings through which they construct,
even invent, Akamas in a variety of ways: as a profitably exploitable piece
of real estate, as a landscape of great aesthetic appeal, as useless brush land
requiring irrigation to become agriculturally productive, or as an area of
important habitats of rare and endangered species—to name but a few
examples. ese competing constructions of Akamas inform and guide the
agendas of the various actors and agencies locked in a struggle for the future
of the area. From what I have described, it is obvious that for each category
of actors, Akamas carries a meaning that is incompatible with meanings
constructed by others. In an important way, actors do not speak of the
same thing when they say “environment” or “nature.” British sociologists
Phil Macnaghten and John Urry argue “that there is no singular ‘nature’
as such, only a diversity of contested natures; and . . . each such nature is
constituted through a variety of socio-cultural processes from which such
natures cannot be plausibly separated” (1998, 1).
e Akamas controversy constitutes an excellent opportunity to explore
what Peter Loizos once called the “relation between private and public in –
terests, between local and national community, between actions and forms,
between long- and short-term advantages, between precise calculation and
uncertainty” (Loizos 1975, 301). In the ongoing struggle over the future of
Akamas, local community elites have emerged as the most visible and vocal
actors opposing environmental concerns. In doing so, they have to some
extent allowed themselves to become pawns in a game that is much larger
than the desire for prosperity for their families and communities. Studies
from other tourism destination areas show that once large-scale economic
interests enter the scene, the local population will inevitably lose out in
the long run. ey may be able to sell land at inflated prices, but more
often than not, they do not profit from the creation of new employment
opportunities (Mowforth and Munt 1998).
e ethics of environmentalism have produced a “moral economy
07Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:13 AM 153

154 I Gisela Welz
of responsibility” (Herzfeld 2001, 186) toward the environment which
brands those who obviously do not comply with this economy as immoral.
It is conceivable that as “big business” and “big government” come to an
understanding, the local communities will end up being scapegoated as
“backward and greedy peasants.” As anthropologists, we will have to be
particularly attentive to the inequalities of power and the mechanisms of
what Argyrou calls symbolic domination that are at play in such a conflict
(see Argyrou 1996; this volume). Ultimately, the conflict underlying the
Akamas issue is one between the standards imposed by “the West,” em –
bodied in the ecological rationality of the EU, and the political elites of
Cyprus, who represent a society on the margins of Europe that is engaged
in a struggle to be acknowledged as modern and European.
Notes
1. e material presented in this chapter stems from a series of interviews completed
in 1999 in the context of a research project carried out with graduate and postgraduate
students of cultural anthropology (see Welz and Ilyes 2001). Fieldwork was conducted
during a three-month stay in 2000 and in a number of additional visits in 2001–2003.
Interviews focused on the strategies, rhetoric, and underlying meaning systems that inform
the practices of institutional actors in this prominent environmental conflict, within the
government as well as in politics, the media, and nongovernmental organizations. Local
tourism entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in the Akamas area were interviewed. In ad –
dition to interview materials, a wide range of documents and media reports were included.
My research interest in environmental issues grew out of an earlier ethnographic concern
with the economic strategies of small entrepreneurs in tourism in the Paphos district (see
Welz 1999).
2. e plan is popularly known as “e World Bank Plan,” even though the World
Bank is only one of the sponsors of METAP and the funds for conducting this study were
provided by the EU. See METAP , World Bank, UNDP , and CEC 1995.
3. Cyprus Weekly, May 26–June 1, 1995.
4. See also Council of Europe, “Convention on the Conservation of European Wild –
life and Natural Habitat: Conservation of the Akamas Peninsula in Cyprus, Specific File
Report of an On-e-Spot Appraisal Undertaken for the Council of Europe,” February 21,
2002, T-PVS/Files (2002), 1.
5. For an in-depth assessment of the July 2002 decision of the Council of Ministers
of the Republic of Cyprus entitled “Management of the Akamas Peninsula,” see Council
of Europe, “Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitat:
Conservation of the Akamas Peninsula in Cyprus, Specific File Reports by the Cyprus
Conservation Foundation and the Friends of Akamas,” September 10, 2002, T-PVS/Files
(2002), 10. New documentation produced for the 2004 meeting of the Standing Com –
mittee of the Berne Convention showed that the process for converting the management
guidelines into an actual management plan had not made any progress.
6. Since the completion of the World Bank plan, a number of scientific surveys and
fact-finding missions have been conducted by national and international teams of experts
working for EU agencies; for instance, those implementing the Fauna-Flora-Habitat Direc –
tive of the EU. Also, bodies commissioned with monitoring the Europe-wide treaties on
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“Contested Natures” I 155
nature protection such as the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and
Natural Habitats have Akamas on their agenda. As a result, the Council of Europe’s standing
committee on this particular treaty—which was ratified by Cyprus—opened a file against
Cyprus for noncompliance that had very detailed recommendations for the conservation of
Akamas. See Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats,
Standing Committee: Recommendation No. 63 (adopted on 5 December 1997) on the
conservation of Akamas peninsula, Cyprus, and, in particular, of the nesting beaches of
Caretta caretta and Chelonia mydas.
7. In Cyprus, environmental organizations claimed that the so-called PEACE expert
team was “a front of the pro-development lobby” ( Cyprus Mail, September 5, 1995). e
investors have since continued to try to utilize the social authority of scientific practice by
founding an Institute for the Sustainable Development of Akamas.
8. See an example of an earlier report integrating previous biological surveys in De –
metropoulos, Leontiades, and Pissarides 1986.
9. e environmental chapter was closed by the negotiators from Cyprus and the
commission in a meeting on July 27, 2001, in Brussels. e quotation is from the Regular
Report from the Commission on Cyprus’s Progress towards Accession, European Commis –
sion, November 8, 2000.
10. e full text of the Habitats Directive is available online at http://europa.eu.int/
comm/environment/nature/nature_conservation/eu_nature_legislation/habitats_directive/
index_en.htm. See further information on the types of funding available at www.natura20
00benefits.org/ireland/finan.htm.
11. See Cyprus Mail, May 12, 2004. Michaelidou and Decker (2003) warn of strong
local opposition to the implementation of the Natura 2000 network if community interests
are not sufficiently incorporated into the conservation framework.
12. is culturalist discourse is most skillfully orchestrated by one of the landowners,
who in 1997 published a full-page article in the island’s only daily English-language paper
titled “Why I Want to Develop My Land on the Akamas.” Baga 2001 offers an excellent
interpretation of the symbolic strategies at work here.
13. Here, as infrastructural modernization had been largely suspended during the past
thirty years, a number of environmental issues had remained unattended to; for instance,
the problem of toxic waste pollution in the area of abandoned mines in the west of the
T urkish Cypriot territories. However, the protection of two endangered species of marine
turtles has been recognized as important by the authorities in the north for some time. In
recent years, the bicommunal cooperation between environmentalist NGOs and special
projects for the designation of habitats and ecosystems for protection measures has been
fostered by the UN Office of Project Services and other agencies, creating a foundation for
the implementation of EU policies in the future. e list of proposed Natura 2000 sites
submitted by the government of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU also includes some sites
in the north of the island which were designated on the basis of historical data.
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Cyprus.” e Cyprus Review 11 (2): 11–22.
Welz, Gisela, and Petra Ilyes, eds. 2001. Zypern: Gesellschaftliche Öffnung, europäische Inte –
gration, Globalisierung. Frankfurt a.M.: Kulturanthropologie Notizen.
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158 I Anne Jepson
EIGHT
Gardens and the Nature of
Rootedness in Cyprus
Anne Jepson
The idea of a garden, as anyone who has and tends one will tell you, is
supremely personal. It is an act of creation and intimate involvement.
It is brought into existence as a cultural artifact through the imagination
and practical work. It is an assault on nature. It is also a rendition of “na –
ture.” It functions as a liminal place, mediating between what we experience
as the cultural—the cultured, the understood—and “nature”—the “wild,”
or what is outside our immediate private reference. I begin with the as –
sumption that gardens are complex matters or entities, that they are more
than mere neutral décor, functional growing areas, or abstract miniature
landscapes.
Borders
An island is an easily imaginable whole; it is not arbitrary.1 While I have
the two-dimensional map of my own country imprinted on my conscious –
ness, as many of us do, a relatively small island has a particular presence,
and not only on a map. An island’s boundary—where it meets the sea—is
nonnegotiable. I would argue that this “presence” affects the consciousness
of those who live on it.
A few years ago, I carried out fieldwork on another island, the Isle of
Skye off the west coast of Scotland. Admittedly, it is smaller than Cyprus,
but I was struck how the physicality of the island was the reference point
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 159
for the people there rather than the nation it was associated with. Cyprus is
by no means a similar case, but at a crude level I wished to investigate this
phenomenon, of a sensual awareness of physical boundaries that informs a
particular sense of attachment that is perhaps peculiar to islands.
To render the situation of Cyprus more complex than the obvious cor –
ruption of its political division, any discussion must consider the question
of identity, wary as we must be of the term (Handler 1994, 27–40). Are
the islanders Cypriots, Greeks, and T urks or are they Greek Cypriots and
T urkish Cypriots? Or are they one of a number of other “labeled” minori –
ties? e answer, of course, depends on who you ask. Essentializing is not
constructive, but it is in the nature of conservative politics on the island (as
elsewhere) to do so. In any place where divisions are made along presumed
ethnic lines, perceived difference can only become fetishized. Seremetakis
specifies some of the particularities of Greek identity in her essay “In Search
of the Barbarians”:
Greek identity these days is nationally and internationally played out, defined, and
sought after at the borders. Questions are debated in the public culture: who are the
Greeks, and who are Greece’s minorities? Where are Greeks themselves a minority?
Where do the boundaries of the Greek diaspora in Eastern and Western Europe and
the United States begin and end? Where do we draw Greece’s boundaries in land,
sea, air, and time? (1998, 169–170)
It is, of course, arguable that almost any identity could be substituted
here. What is germane in the case of Cyprus is that the physical area is
where polarized Greek and T urkish politics are played out; such a region
is often metaphysical, but historical circumstance has made Cyprus the
actual fulcrum between the two. However, the island enjoys little or no
power in holding such a position. Cyprus is the proverbial backyard of
both countries. As I will go on to argue, however, backyards, or gardens,
can be quietly transformative and can act as the areas of mediation between
neighbors or friends or, at another level, between nature and culture as two
distinctly perceived realms.
In almost any area of Cyprus, one is aware of its edges, its physical
boundaries. I am intrigued with how the political and arbitrary disrup –
tion of the physical integrity of a sensually experienced whole might be
made manifest in the quotidian practice of gardening and growing things.
e work on Skye led me to conclude that the direct and sensual interac –
tion with the soil, the immediate stuff of a place, as well as an immediate
sense of physical integrity are the most elemental rooting practices; that a
garden can be a key to attachment. However, this assumes gardens to be
somewhat static, an integral part of the whole that constitutes a bounded
home. But I now suspect that it is the practice of gardening as much as the
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160 I Anne Jepson
garden itself that should be considered. I think that such practice can be a
form of low-key memory work. It is a close-range, sensual, and supremely
personal endeavor: e wider world is largely excluded by the boundaries
of a garden. But the manipulation of the soil connects one by its ubiquity
to other known places. e self, especially in terms of memory and nos –
talgia, can be expressed and articulated in a very understated way. But not
necessarily, of course—the meaning of a garden need not be made explicit
or explained. One can create copies of former gardens that look and smell
the same. Practice and material can be faithfully replicated from one place
to another through gardening, but the sensual associations might never be
articulated so that anyone else would notice.
Talking Sense: e Scents of Memory
ere is a clear distinction between memory and nostalgia and a politics
is associated with both, although nostalgia in this instance is, at least in
part, a particular product of the politics of memory. Herzfeld’s formula –
tion of “structural nostalgia” is pertinent here. He talks about structural
knowledge being the “collective representation of an Edenic order—a time
before time—in which the balanced perfection of social relations has not
yet suffered the decay that affects everything human” (1997, 109). e flow
of the process of nostalgia, which is gently restated by each generation—the
“laments about moral decay” (1997, 111)—is not the narrative most appar –
ent in Cyprus. ere, the political construction of memory (see Papadakis
1993, 139–154) interrupts this gentle flow with the continually reiterated
imagery of, and reference to, that construction’s corruption by the events
of 1974. at said, nostalgia and its etymology makes it, paradoxically in
terms of Herzfeld’s definition of structural nostalgia, the most apt expres –
sion of that “Edenic order.” I do not want to dwell here on the politics
of memory and nostalgia; instead, I use the formulation put forward by
Seremetakis in e Senses Still. She dissects the word “nostalgia” into its
Greek roots: nostos (“return”) and alghos (“pain” or “ache”). She says that
it “evokes the sensory dimension of memory in exile and estrangement”
(1994, 4). She compares it with the English meaning of the word, which
she says “freezes the past in such a manner as to preclude it from any capac –
ity for social transformation in the present. . . . e Greek etymology evokes
the transformative impact of the past as unreconciled historical experience”
(ibid.). She goes on to explore how memory and the senses are intertwined
and how the latter are inextricable from the former:
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)
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 161
e practice of gardening, with its strong sensory involvement, fits well
with this definition of memory and is distinct from memory evoked by
the politics on the island. Nor does Herzfeld’s notion of “structural nos –
talgia” fit with the sensual memories associated with gardening. Gardens,
as miniature Edens, are politically unfettered elements of an order that is
not verbally articulated.
e garden is a transient feature of any property that is not so obviously
built, not so noticeable, and therefore not apparently significant. It is an
area traversed by visitors on their way into or away from the house. How –
ever, growing spaces and gardens have a cyclical nature not only in terms of
the seasons but also in terms of kinship and ownership; plots are inherited,
divided, abandoned, reinstated, redesigned, and replanted. e paradox of
the garden is that far from being rendered a “nonplace” by its transience
and attributes, it becomes entwined intimately with the social through the
organic and the cyclical. e territory might therefore be deemed central.
With this in mind, I want to consider some of the significance of soil, the
medium of a garden.
Soil, which is the basis for growing and is apparently natural, is also
the basis of territory and a potent symbol of the homeland. It appeals to
a primordial sense of belonging and attachment, or rootedness. Soil can
be seen as the fixed, unchanging, and symbolic baseline of life that has
lived and died on any particular patch of it. But this belies a more com –
plex relationship between the so-called natural and the cultural, between
permanence, transition, and transience. Soil is moveable: I have heard of
refugees attempting to leave their homes with plants in pots of soil that
were confiscated by the T urkish authorities. e person who recounted this
did not know why they were doing so. Could it be that such artifacts are
seen as much more than merely pots of soil; that in taking soil and plants
from a place one is taking territory? More banally, soil can be eroded and
washed away, but it is also created through cultivation and microbial ac –
tivity. Gardens, as particular and ambiguous patches of territory, lie at the
fulcrum of that complexity between the natural and the cultural; they are
powerful and potent precisely because of their ambiguous location. e
practice and action involved in creating a garden is, if you like, a moveable
connection to actual places and the realm of unpoliticized memory and
nostalgia.
e Absence of Gardens
Cyprus is not a country renowned for its gardens. By that, I mean
gardens that tourists might be directed toward or gardens established as
part of a national heritage. ere is no apparent tradition. However, let
us not allow apparent absence to put us off. Instead let us suspect that the
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162 I Anne Jepson
lack of a specific discourse provides an interesting if shady corner for the
subject within the anthropology of Cyprus. Cyprus is still a significantly
agricultural country where there is a growing interest in gardens and a
gradual proliferation of the suburban garden as well as a long-standing and
embedded relationship with plants and cultivation.
In Cyprus I came to see that horticulture was alive and well in many
guises and excitingly diverse, with its private gardens, civic landscaping,
commercial enterprises, and small-scale market gardens. In the village
where I stayed I found traditional private enclosed yards—places for work,
entertaining, and leisure—and their complement: the fields around the
village. ese were also places for work, recreation to a degree, socializing,
and local conflict.
In Cyprus I encountered a crisis with regard to identifying my “field
sites.” e place where we lived as a family for a year was a small village
in the northwest of Paphos district, on the edge of an area theoretically
designated as a national park, the Akamas (cf. Welz, this volume). It was
approximately thirty kilometers from Paphos and ten kilometers from
Polis on the north coast. Although I had anticipated problems in defining
and recognizing what constitutes a garden, I feared that I would not find
the neat front and back gardens of the British suburban landscape I was
so used to. I found the fields to be more like the British idea of an allot –
ment—a productive area located away from the house. Vegetables were
grown there not on a commercial scale but for the use of the household,
and the surplus was distributed locally or sold at Paphos market. My British
suburban garden, an integrated whole of vegetable and aesthetic produc –
tion, did exist, though: an outward show of status and of order within. All
new villas are built with a garden, an area for display to the outside world.
ese villas, bright and white, are familiar in much of the Mediterranean,
and they stand out. ey are a stark statement of new wealth. Some make
obscure or stylized gestures toward a Hellenic past with grandiose columns
and archways or to a “traditional” past with balconies, wooden shutters,
and pan-tiled or flat roofs. ey seem quite brash, something of an over –
statement, a creation of a hyperreality. ey are a denial of the history that
created the conditions under which such villas could be built. I will return
to these gardens later.
Gardens are classified by many factors. ey arise from particular local,
national, and international histories. One type is the garden in the older
villages, the “traditional” villages; these include the enclosed yard around
the house and/or the fields around the village. ere are the gardens around
the bright white villas, in or close to the towns, that belong to the children
of those who live in the villages. A third type is the gardens of the British
expatriates, which are found on vast new estates of retirement properties
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 163
that are loosely associated with an existing village. Expatriates also take on
older village properties and renovate them in the “traditional” style, but the
result is often an incongruous fusion of suburban with obsolete Cypriot
“folk” artifacts. Landfills are scavenged for old baskets, tools, furniture,
donkey saddles—whatever will add to the rustic ambience. A fourth type
is the gardens around the properties that formerly belonged to T urks but
have now been taken over as holiday properties by Greek Cypriots who
live in the urban centers. And finally, there are the gardens of the refugees
who have been rehoused.
I do not intend to deal in detail here with all aspects of these types of
gardens, but I wish to use ethnographic material to draw out some of the
interesting features, particularly regarding the themes related to the unar –
ticulated work of memory through gardening practice.
Re-rooting
I was particularly interested in and intrigued by gardens in areas where
there has been dramatic rupture, such as the refugee housing that went up
outside Nicosia after 1974. e housing on the estates is flimsy; it was never
intended to be permanent and is perhaps never allowed to be thought of as
such. My decision to visit these estates was met with quizzical and doubtful
responses. e general impression was that they would not be the places to
find things growing, that there was more concrete in them than anything
else, and that they were areas of serious social problems. I was expecting
the hard and familiar evidence of this—a general lack of care for anything
outside the houses, vandalism, graffiti, litter, and so forth.
is is far from what greeted me. e tiny plots were in proportion
with the tiny houses. Each was fenced but was open to the road or car
park behind and to all the neighbors. ese refugee properties were on
public display. e miniature gardens were invariably well tended and full
and strikingly similar. In them one found samplers of village gardens and
yards—diminutive renditions. Certain elements were common. Lemon
trees were a central feature, and judging by their size, they were among the
first things planted. ere were vines, flowers, and herbs, and tiny token
patches of vegetables such as broad beans, peppers, tomatoes, aubergines,
and potatoes. ere was not room for more than a few plants, certainly not
enough to supply a family for any length of time, yet there was no question
but that these gardeners would grow what they had grown at their home in
the north. e history was very quickly evoked with these families, as were
the attendant emotions—the grief and loss was still very raw, twenty-five
years on. Talking about the plants and their provenance took residents I
spoke to straight back to their former homes, where they had grown the
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164 I Anne Jepson
same things. Of course, back there and then, everything grew better and in
greater abundance. As in the village, growing and garden work were, on the
whole, a cooperative effort between husbands and wives, but the women
took a greater interest in flower cultivation. e people I spoke to here
were in their sixties, so in 1974 they would have been in their twenties and
thirties. ey mourned the loss of their fields, speaking in nostalgic terms
about their land. Inherent in their descriptions was a comparison with the
featureless, bleak, and soulless estate they now found themselves on. But
I could not see the bleakness. What I saw was a passion to grow, to fill all
the available space with green living plants, fresh food to eat, and flowers.
Mr. and Mrs. Makris were originally from Karavas, near Kyrenia. ey
had left a large farm in 1974 with only the clothes they were wearing. A
sister and her husband had been shot by the invading T urkish army. Mr.
and Mrs. Makris had owned extensive orchards of citrus, olives, and carob,
and they had had three donkeys and oxen for plowing. ey first went
to the mountains and then to another area of Nicosia before settling in
Anthoupoli. ey did not own their current house and never could. Nor
could they pass it on; after thirty years, they were defined, like all refugees
in Cyprus, as “temporary residents.” ey are now elderly, but they work
together in their small garden, helped by their son, who works in a nursery
in the next village. eir other children, like many other refugees and eco –
nomic migrants in the 1950s and 1960s, went to Africa. e impression I
got from those who had returned or still had family in Africa was that most
had become very successful. Mr. and Mrs. Makris have two large lemon
trees that they planted as soon as they moved in, a large dessert grape vine,
and olive trees at the back and front of the house. ey harvest the olives
and take them to the olive oil factory. When I was there, their garden
was slowly encroaching on the communal parking area at the back where
Mrs. Makris grew chrysanthemums and had many pots with carnations
and the ornamental form of kolokasi. e front garden was packed with
lilies, geraniums, carnations, campanula, and an exotic plant that I could
not identify that they had grown in Karavas. ey also grew broad beans,
tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, and peppers in tiny plots. As we talked
we were joined by their neighbors, who were curious about the visitor.
Despite one of the neighbors saying that it had been a mistake not to keep
people from communities in the north together when they were rehoused
(which was done in some villages), there was clearly a close community
feeling to the estate. Mrs. Makris—Christella—said that her neighbor was
like a daughter to her, that they are very close. e gardens were divided
only by low walls, and these were used chiefly for displaying more pots of
flowers. Everyone on the estate looked after their gardens, she said. Mrs.
Makris is known for her fine beadwork, crocheting, and tatting, and she
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 165
uses designs from Kyrenia, often based on flowers, to make decorations
and gifts for local weddings. Before I left, an elderly stooping neighbor,
also from Karavas, came in to sit and do her handiwork with Christella.
Practices and current relationships connect them to one another, to their
past, and to the particular plants and trees that moved with them or were
replicated.
It was clear that the trees had been planted soon after the refugees ar –
rived. What paradoxical urge was there in a situation where they expected
that their stay in this flimsy barren estate would be brief that made them
plant something, such as the lemon trees, that would not produce a decent
crop of fruit for several years? Gardens are not allowed in refugee camps
because they apparently signify a more permanent settlement. is is an
irony; it is far easier to bulldoze or flatten a garden than it is to dismantle
and dispose of a house or shelter, however makeshift. e growing of plants
and/or food clearly represents something that fixes people to a particular
spot. In the highly charged environment of a refugee camp, gardens are
seen as dangerous because they introduce political ambiguity to a situa –
tion that relies for many reasons on being temporary. ere is too much
vested in these camps not becoming homes. Interestingly, I often heard
the refugee estates in Cyprus still referred to as camps. ese “camps” are
not dangerous because the inhabitants are refugees in their own country.
eir former homes, so close in geographical terms, must be thought
of as politically close also. e “nostalgia,” in the Greek sense, must be
perpetually rekindled. But their gardens show that disaffection is not the
response, as one might expect, and that the urge of these refugees is to re-
root themselves.
It is easy to grow things in Cyprus, and given the agricultural back –
ground of many of the refugees it is not remarkable that they used whatever
space was available as garden. I came upon one elderly woman, a neighbor
of Mr. and Mrs. Makris, on a patch of municipal flowerbed she had ap –
propriated; she was tending young olive trees that she had recently planted.
She had marked her little territory with a precarious wall of pebbles. Ac –
cording to Christella, nobody minded—nobody owned any of their land
or property anyway. Other areas amid the paving slabs between the massive
new church and the housing looked forlorn, with just a few thin neglected
shrubs. eir condition spoke of their pointlessness, even of a poor selec –
tion of plant material. Christella’s neighbor saw space to grow something
in and simply used it.
In the village where I lived for the duration of my fieldwork, I witnessed
a careless abandon to the sowing and cultivation of crops, not the ordered,
neurotic rows I had been trained to create that had specified widths, depths,
and distances according to the crop. Nevertheless, in an interview, one refu –
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166 I Anne Jepson
gee in her thirties demonstrated the urge to garden as an intrinsic need that
was necessary for her health and well-being. She said that when something
in the garden was failing, she herself felt unwell. is was a refugee who
had eventually settled in a T urkish Cypriot property near Paphos. It had
taken her and her husband, also a refugee, twelve years to decide to work
on the house, to invest the money and the necessary part of themselves
that would make a clear statement that this was their home. is reluctance
must be put in the context of Greek Cypriots taking over former T urkish
Cypriot houses and not having the title deeds to those properties; they live
in these houses on the understanding that they still belong to the T urkish
Cypriot owners, who can claim them back in the event of a political settle –
ment to the Cyprus Problem. Nevertheless, this woman had started in the
garden as soon as they moved into the house. She had designed, planted,
and extended haphazardly, allowing the garden to evolve, and was always
looking for ways to enlarge it. She resented the fact that an extension to the
workshops needed for the family business might encroach on her garden. In
what ways, I wonder, does this interaction with earth/soil and plant fulfill a
need? How is it that such an involvement is necessary for such deeply felt
well-being? She stated in strong terms that gardening was an essential part
of her. is was also true for Mr. and Mrs. Makris and their neighbors and
my neighbors in the village, as evidenced by their own gardening. ere was
no apparent outward reference to others’ gardens, no social competition
in the impulse, just a need to grow. Could it perhaps, and paradoxically,
also be that the very provisional, transient, cyclical nature of the garden
draws them to this work? e investment with the provisional, the cycli –
cal, and the transient is (ironically) less political than the investment in
the concrete, more heavily symbolic markers of home, namely the house.
e lives of refugees are suffused with the politics of “going home,” of a
reality they have not been able to grasp for nearly thirty years. e garden
literally and metaphorically fills the space and achieves some sort of deeply
personal reconciliation.
I had assumed that a connection and interaction with the earth, the
soil of a place, was the most fundamental rooting practice, that the garden
would be the key to attachment. I suspect now, however, that the garden
and gardening practices fulfill some other, less overt function. ey can
incorporate nostalgia. ey entail practical involvement. us they can
externalize memory and concretize it. One can have exact replicas of the
various plants that are familiar, that smell the same, that are cuttings—
clones—that will produce fruit that will taste the same as those that grew
back home. is is not possible, at least in the short term, with houses or
communities. I was told of a vine which grew beautiful grapes for a family
in Morphou, which is in the occupied north. Prior to 1974, on a visit to
Morphou, some cousins from Larnaca had asked for a cutting. After 1974,
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 167
the family was forced from Morphou and were able to take nothing with
them. ey asked for a cutting of the vine that was now growing well in
Larnaca. e person who told me the story, another family member, also
has a piece growing at his home in Nicosia. In a very prosaic way, plants
connect people and places, emphasizing genealogies and social relation. In
addition, they can provide a means of acting out memory. Memory can be
inscribed anew on the symbolically permanent: the soil, which, as already
stated, is, in fact, a very fluid layer. One refugee spoke at length of the
garden she knew as a child. She had no memories of the house—she was
seven in 1974—but she said:
I remember to the last stone of the garden. I had an area that was completely my own
where I grew flowers, onions, small things that I was given by my father or others.
My sister remembers the house, but I have no memory of it at all.
At some level, she connected back to that childhood garden through the
one she is cultivating now. I visited another, older woman who showed
me photographs of her former home, a large modern house that was sur –
rounded by an open garden. Her home now, close to Larnaca, which is also
large and modern, was likewise surrounded by a garden, in which she had
reproduced exactly her favorite features and beds from her former home.
In a garden, practice and sensual experience and involvement are carried
in the memory and can be reenacted with tangible results. Material objects
are never a necessary part of this process. is sounds like a contradiction;
plants and soil are, of course, material. But I emphasize that it is the pro –
cess, one of sensual evocation and not necessarily an absolute and faithful
reproduction, that simultaneously nourishes “nostalgia” and connections
backward in time and creates continuity in the present. e smell of the
plants, the feel of the soil, and the practice itself are all the same as ever,
and the creation of a new garden can be seen as a force for continuity that
subsumes rupture and, in essence, transcends bounded territoriality. e
making of a garden is an apolitical, sensual act. rough a garden, elements
of nostalgia and memory—embedded rather than politically evoked, con –
nect with a sensual recognition of the organic baseline that soil and plants
provide. Soil and plants can also move across the more fixed geology be –
neath. Mr. and Mrs. Makris had gone to the mountains and brought their
soil back in a car because the soil on the newly built estate was very poor.
Many other people talked of bringing in soil to their gardens and enriching
it with manure. Soil is manmade: created, improved, mixed, and moved.
Loizos does not dwell on attachment to land explicitly in e Heart
Grown Bitter, but in describing the immediate aftermath of the 1974 in –
vasion on Argaki refugees, he observed “people carrying out small actions
which looked like metaphors.”
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168 I Anne Jepson
An Argaki woman, dwelling in a half-ruined mud-brick house, only a few miles from
her own village, was sun-drying citrus seeds on a sack . . . “to plant later.” Since she
had no land were the seeds a talisman, to take her home again? . . . Tomas had a
seedling lemon tree in a one-gallon oil tin. . . . It had been left there by the previous
owner. . . . It would have been a pity to let it die. (1981, 184)
ere was no explanation offered by the refugees in the immediate trau –
matic aftermath when the future was so uncertain. Perhaps there was a
recognition that the seedlings articulated the means of regeneration, of
potential reattachment through planting trees; they put down roots, which
must be tended where they are planted and will produce food.
Bardenstein considers trees in the context of Palestinian and Israeli
collective memory. She states that trees are “loaded and hypersaturated
cultural symbols” for both groups and that “discontinuity or absence of an
immediate and experienced ‘people-land’ bond is at the core of the con –
struction of both Palestinian and Israeli collective memory” (1999, 148).
She tells a story of a far more self-conscious series of “acts of memory” than
was evident in Cyprus, particularly in the case of the Israelis. She describes a
poem written by a Palestinian that resonates with the story of the vine from
Larnaca. e story is about her father and a fig tree and of how they were
constantly reactivated as “sites of memory” wherever he went and in stories
he told his daughter (1999, 151). ey became a metonym for Palestine:
rough the power of the fig-tree fragment to evoke the sensations and associations
of homeland, the father is able to experience Texas as a new incarnation of home,
as if all has been restored to the natural order, as if Palestine was no longer absent.
(152)
It is surprising that the elements of territory, namely trees, soil, and
plants, cannot be pinned down and demarcated easily. e paradox is clear;
soil is one of the key symbols of the homeland, the basis of a country, the
vessel for its dead. But here it is, in different places, helping in the re-cre –
ation of home. e key is that it is fluid, moveable, the layer over that which
is rock-solid; but it has the impression of solidity and its depth is unknown.
In one sense, soil, geology, and topography are unified and contiguous is
makes soil a potentially powerful symbol of permanence. But in reality, it
shifts, it can be moved around, it can be layered up, dug up in order to bury
pipes, people, buildings, even, and is, in fact, perpetually created anew by
the action of weather and erosion and the acts of cultivation and manuring,
for example. T rees and plants are the more readily mobilized complement
of the soil, the more obvious metaphor for human experience.
ere is a conflux between the past and the present and between under –
lying geology and surface layers. When refugees looked up and away from
the ground now about them, the politically inaccessible north was visible
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 169
across the Mesaoria Plain. e refugees’ small gardens with their familiar
plants exaggerated the limit of their existence compared with 1974. By
2004, the situation was slightly different. In 2001 and 2002, at the time
of the research, the north was totally inaccessible, but in 2004, although
the north was accessible, circumstances made it impossible for refugees to
return home. ey have an uninterrupted view of the way back to their
former homes. I cannot imagine the frustration and sadness of not be –
ing allowed to reconcile their sensual experience—the visible unity of the
land, their involvement with their gardens here and in their memory, for
example—with the arbitrary political barrier that confounds that sensual
awareness and experience. eir gardens are, I feel, an attempt at a recon –
ciliation. It is as if the arbitrary boundary completely frustrates the need
for movement, making not the home the crucial factor, but the movement
itself.
e language of gardening is implicit rather than explicit. Boundary-
making and building are, in contrast, overtly political acts. Houses, and
buildings in general, cannot connect with a past home in quite the same
way that plants and soil can: e investment in the house is more definite,
more overtly political, and, I would argue, more self-conscious and less
personal than the quieter, more easily eradicable but deeply sustaining
involvement with soil and plants. In the houses I entered there were many
photographs of the family’s previous life in the north—pictures of the vil –
lage church, the house, the oxen the family had used, family members who
had been killed or remained “missing.” In one home, a small model of the
family house in the north sat in the living room. For the teenage daughter,
who had never visited the north, this model was a powerful and constant
reminder of her denied inheritance, and its presence invoked anger and
underlined for her the need for resolution. She was prepared for that reso –
lution to be violent if that was the only means by which family property
could be regained. ese artifacts and static representations or frozen mo –
ments are somewhat crude in comparison to the elements of a garden and
the gardening practice I encountered. Because they are static, in the sense
that they directly record past experience, their meaning is inescapable. e
memories associated with them more closely invoke the feelings that were
present at the time and there is little possibility for transformation of that
experience in the present.
Garden Ornaments
I want to turn now to more apparently ephemeral facets of horticulture.
ere was a seemingly different side to horticultural practice in Cyprus, and
what follows is something of a counterpoint to what I have focused on so
far. Some gardens there speak of a different form of rupture and movement,
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170 I Anne Jepson
namely social mobility and a self-conscious distancing from the “home” of
childhood and of the village. is material will appear to run counter to
the themes I have introduced; here I will focus on how gardens and flowers
can be signifiers of excess, class, and ephemeral redundancy. ese gardens
deny the reproduction of personal and sensual memory. In them, I found
examples of commodification of memory through the creation of gardens
or aspects of gardens. I want to discuss the newer, overstated urban or sub –
urban villas and the presence of flowers as disposable bourgeois products.
Bourdieu argues that “distinction,” or “natural refinement,” is merely
about the maintenance of a relational gap in social space (see Bourdieu
1984). Class distance is sustained by ensuring that the markers of eco –
nomic and cultural capital from one class to another are kept distinct. An
example of this might be someone who is bourgeois, or confident about
their class position, starting a collection of kitsch from the 1950s or 1960s
as compared with someone who had bought it at the time, believing it to
be truly tasteful. Attitudes about what is “tasteful” shift, and those who
possess the greater cultural capital (and not necessarily the most economic
capital) make the selections. e attitudes of those with “taste” lead the way
toward and away from markers of “good taste.” As more of the population
takes up markers of distinction in fashion, art, leisure activities, and even
profession, they become devalued and the elite adopt new markers.
e gardens of the new villas are located in a very different cultural
space from the refugees’ gardens in the estate, and they demand attention.
ey are part of the architecture and physical structure of the villas. ey
can be found in Nicosia, in the suburbs of Limassol perhaps, or, increas –
ingly, on the outskirts of villages of any region. ese villas were frequently
decried, and the stereotyped owners derided, by intellectuals and expatri –
ates, especially those who have taken over, or “rescued,” the older grand
houses that were in the narrow abandoned streets in the old parts of the
cities. ese people, confident of their class position, sought out “tasteful”
pieces of furniture and/or antiques and restored the properties carefully to
retain the original character. I was told how architects and builders in the
era before concrete and reinforcing rods used skills that are now lost or
redundant, applying them to such details as how to maximize the flow of
air through the house to keep it cool in summer. ese people with “taste”
and “discernment” are, and perceive themselves to be, very removed from
the owners of the new white villas who want air-conditioning and like the
versatility of concrete. e relational gap is maintained via the discourse
of “traditional” versus “modern,” artisan versus builder, indigenous versus
alien. In Nicosia particularly, preservation is being addressed at a munici –
pal level, and whole areas are being renovated and refurbished, a process
intended to encourage “good taste.”
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 171
e new villas are brash markers of difference, not simply between
the rich and poor but between the first generation of the wealthy, the
upwardly mobile (who still remember life in the village as children) and
the nouveau riche and those who live in the older properties, who demon –
strate cultural distance from residents of the new villas who have rapidly
accrued economic capital. ese villas have an urgency about them—the
memories of little social capital and little economic wealth are very close
to the surface. is urgency results in the overstatement that is the villa
itself. Many of these gardens conform to the northern European norm of
a lawn with water features and statuary. e lawns are at their most stark
in the summer, when all other greenery on the island has burned off. e
garden is not located within a private enclosed yard but is clearly linked
with the strident expressiveness of the house. To feed, or rather furnish,
these gardens, the equivalent of a supermarket or furniture shop is neces –
sary, and there has been an upsurge in the presence of garden centers in
Cyprus. ey are either attached to supermarkets or have evolved out of
florists’ businesses and flower shops. e garden center differs from the
plant nursery in that it deals exclusively with a finished, packaged product
rather than the growing and propagation of the plants. Both the villas and
the garden center industry that has grown up to supply them foster a degree
of alienation from the organic and the cyclical.
One refugee, a woman now living near Larnaca, spoke about her inter –
est in gardening as a defined activity. She has memories of getting ideas
from women’s magazines and television in the 1960s and 1970s. In these
media, gardens became commodified and the aesthetics of the garden were
made an explicit project. e garden became an enhancement of the house:
its outward mantle. People with a new house on a new plot have a blank
canvas, one that is perhaps far removed from their childhood home. e
number of such people has risen dramatically as migration from the coun –
tryside has become more common over the past few decades.
Such individuals have total power, apparently, to create a completely
new existence. It is no longer necessary for them to grow food; it is more
convenient simply to buy it, so the garden has to fulfill another function
or functions. One of these, I would suggest, is that of bourgeois display, of
a garden made solely for leisure and pleasure: a semi-public forum for the
disclosure of disposable income and aesthetic taste.
Cut flowers are another and perhaps more extreme indicator of bour –
geois excess and taste. Flower shops are an example of the denial of the sole –
ly useful, and cut flowers have been in demand for many years. An excess
and redundancy associated with the evanescence of cut flowers outdoes the
excesses of art, which is usually permanent. Similarly, a purely ornamental
garden speaks of excess and redundancy that replaces a certain and perhaps
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172 I Anne Jepson
personalized configuration of the past. e memory of the need to grow
food can be erased by covering the soil with lawn and shrubs and flowers.
Children can play rather than be required to help with the cultivation. ey
demonstrate and are emblematic of a bourgeois existence.
Garden centers emerged from flower shops, of which there are many.
I was puzzled at the number; I had been given the impression that ground
used for growing flowers was wasted ground. One British expatriate was
admonished by a Cypriot neighbor for planting flowers in the yard around
her village house. She rationalized the criticism in a somewhat patronizing
way by remarking that her neighbor had a very recent memory of poverty
that apparently required that all available land be used for food. e British
woman’s rather ethnocentric assumption was that Cypriots saw flowers as
a bourgeois indulgence of the affluent. e predominance of flower shops
is still somewhat mystifying in a country with a climate that means that
fresh cut flowers have a very short lifespan.
Flowers in houses were very evident everywhere, not so much as vases
of fresh flowers but as plastic flowers that served as decorative motifs on
walls and tablecloths. ey appear to be an essential feature of sitting-room
décor for many women. Some of the women I interviewed gave replies that
assumed that flowers in some form were necessary decoration. I was told:
Plastic flowers don’t die, they don’t make a mess, and when they get dirty and dusty
we can wash them.
Flowers in general were associated with cleanliness, giving them, perhaps,
moral overtones. One respondent remarked, “Everyone grew flowers there,
it was a very tidy and clean village.” Plastic flowers are such a different
product from the real thing, which does not last long. is to me is part
of the attraction of fresh flowers—they are a treat, they fill a room with
fragrance which brings part of the garden indoors. e plastic flowers were
approached with pragmatism, but there was no question that they should
exist. ey stand perhaps as a permanent marker for the ephemeral, a small
emblem of bourgeois excess and exuberance that is paradoxically purged of
all the excess and exuberance of what flowers stand for.
In a related way, the new villas with their instantly installed gardens
are a bold statement of presence, but there is such an aura of consumer
durability, of a garden being delivered and subject to changing fashion, that
despite their boldness, they ironically speak less of permanence and occupy
more of an interstitial space. ey are a transitional object, more a symbol
of upward mobility than of having arrived somewhere. ese houses and
their gardens seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with memory, and
I would go so far as to say that they are anti-memory. ey seem to defy
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 173
nostalgia and be dislocated from the past. Most of the younger people I
met were quite resistant to returning to the village, where their family was
from, but they visited on occasion when duty insisted. To them, the villages
signified backwardness, even social primitivism, and “were full of the old
people”—their parents or grandparents. e younger generation wanted to
escape from that backwardness. One man, our landlady’s son, an energetic
businessman living in Limassol, cited with disgust and humor the outside
toilet as the epitome of the life he had gotten away from. I observed wryly
later how the expatriate British conservationist couple living in the village
were very proud of the composting toilet they had installed; it was a feat
of technological expertise that was based on sound modern principles of
sustainability. It seems that the past is always bound up with and evident
in the present, even, it would seem, in the apparently uncontroversial do –
main of toilets.
Conclusion: Leaving the Garden Gate Open
In these examples of gardens, I have attempted to suggest ways in which
the practice and expression of gardening signifies a facet of the process of
memory. In some ways, gardening represents a dual interaction between
the material and the metaphysical, between self-conscious and embedded
practices. Gardening is a means of temporary, erasable inscription. Inscrip –
tion implies deliberation, cultural marking. But there is the underlying
awareness that gardens can quietly return to a state of nature where the
inscription is lost. Gardens do not have the political presence of the built
environment, yet they are tied indelibly with the idea and territory of
home.
I have also suggested that the soil represents the implied permanence of
all that underlies the notion of home. Soil serves as a vessel for the dead of a
nation and as something conjoined with underlying geology (and therefore
with history). Its fluidity, in symbolic and literal terms, is present in the
quieter work of nostalgia and memory in the tentative reestablishment of
roots, in the creation of a replica of a past that is nonetheless recognized,
or rather practiced, as something that is both new and connected with the
past through identical sensual experience. Plants can be easily replicated,
and they bring sensual as well as nostalgic memory. Propagation relies on
provenance, and the parallels between kinship and the networks that pass
on plants, cuttings, and seed give plants a cultural and personal genealogy.
Plants have been cloned for centuries. Replicating plants denotes social
replication and social reproduction on two levels. Commercially grown
flowers and plastic flowers for display represent an economic, perhaps
alienated, production that is related to the social production of “taste.”
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174 I Anne Jepson
e more intimate social acts of friends and neighbors breaking off bits of
plants to give to one another when visiting stand at the opposite end of
this spectrum.
Finally, I have talked about the “new” garden, the garden that is anti-
memory, that seeks to deny historical attachment through soil. I have
introduced the contradictions implicit in this form of garden and the
use of plants as ephemera, markers of excess and redundancy, and have
implied that plants and gardens can re-root people quite differently in
a burgeoning bourgeois space. One resulting contradiction is that such
houses and gardens speak very loudly of territoriality in one sense, but not
in an embedded sense that links one personally and sensually with histori –
cal places, kin, friends, neighbors, and nostalgic connections, as is the case
with the gardens of the refugees I spoke to. Personal connections subsume
that territoriality.
I am aware that throughout this chapter, I have created a finely de –
lineated path for gardens, veering close to an essentialization of nature
and even, by extension, a conception of territoriality that at times might
seem to threaten my project. I have guarded against this by discussing the
unique position that gardens and gardening practice can assume through
the media of the senses and the memory. My personal stance as a gardener
comes from a naturalistic perspective (see Descola 1996) that is fraught
with internalized dichotomies which cannot be universalized. So while my
instinct wants to see the urge to garden as a primordial need to connect
with the objective world at its most basic level—that of the soil and what
grows in it—I do not intend to imply that any other sublinguistic urge is a
prima facie given. I maintain that because the sensual nature of gardening
is sublinguistic and its power is implicit, it manages to circumvent dualistic
language and motivation.
e second form of gardening that I have described is couched stri –
dently, and therefore apparently perhaps too simply, in the context of class
distinction. is form of practice demonstrates an alternative mode of
expression for the garden and flowers that combines an erasure of memory
with a more straightforward technologizing and naturalizing motivation.
It is an expression of emplacement, of social presence in an often urban
environment where building proliferates and extinguishes a concept of
territory associated with landscapes and rural vistas. ese gardens are
unmistakably property, but they are more than that because they are also
a denial of an association with the land that was historically essential for
survival and sustenance, an economic necessity.
Whatever its manifestation, however, any garden is sensually experi –
enced—at the simplest level of plucking off a flower to smell its scent, for
example—and, more pragmatically, in the construction of its boundaries.
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Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus I 175
e meanings contained within those boundaries are supremely personal,
although they clearly have a social presence that is powerful and potent
through their understatement, their ambiguity, and their absence of overt
articulation. Such power is underpinned by the very fluidity of the elements
that make up any garden.
Notes
1. is chapter is based on fieldwork done in Cyprus between 1999 and 2001, at a
time when there was minimal communication between the north and south of the island
(and what communication there was was hostile). In April 2003 the regulations pertaining
to movement between north and south were relaxed, allowing Cypriots to visit their former
homes on either side of the Green Line.
Works Cited
Bardenstein, Carol B. 1999. “T rees, Forests, and the Shaping of Palestinian and Israeli
Collective Memory.” In Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, ed. M. Bal, J.
Crewe, and L. Spitzer, 148–168. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of T aste. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Descola, Philippe. 1996. “Constructing Natures.” In Nature and Society: Anthropological
Perspectives, ed. P . Descola, and G. Palsson, 82–102. London: Routledge.
Handler, Richard. 1994. “Is ‘Identity’ a Useful Cross-Cultural Concept?” In Commemora –
tions: e Politics of National Identity, ed. J. R. Gillis, 27–40. Princeton, N.J.: Princ –
eton University Press.
Herzfeld, Michael. 1997. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. London:
Routledge.
Loizos, Peter. 1981. e Heart Grown Bitter: A Chronicle of Cypriot War Refugees. Cam –
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Papadakis, Yiannis. 1993. “e Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Cyprus.” Journal of
Mediterranean Studies 3 (1): 139–154.
Seremetakis, Nadia. 1994. “e Memory of the Senses, Part 1: Marks of the T ransitory.” In
e Senses Still: Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity, ed. C. Nadia
Seremetakis, 1–18. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1998. “In Search of the Barbarians.” In Identities in Pain, ed. J. Frykman, N.
Seremetakis, and S. Ewert, 169–177. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.
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NINE
Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus
DISPLACEMENTS, HYBRIDITIES, AND
DIALOGICAL FR AMEWORKS
Floya Anthias
Introduction: Researching Cypriot Society
When I first began the study of Cypriot society, I came to it as a so –
ciologist with an interest in inequalities and otherness. e central
plank in the literature I began to consider was the ethnic and national issue
in Cyprus. It examined the historical, economic, and political underpin –
nings of nationalism in order to show its international dimensions. In
much of this work, the local context, the imaginings and relations of the
people themselves, was constructed as an effect of these “outside” interests
and there was a tendency to see Cypriots as stooges and pawns rather than
as political actors. Although there is clearly a place for an international
relations approach to what is commonly known as the “Cyprus Problem,”
the day-to-day processes involved in the scenarios many of these writers set
up were absent. ey saw ideologies as monolithic and overdetermined and
did not discuss the contradictions which open up potential for change.
e growth of anthropological research on Cyprus in the last decade
by Cypriot and other scholars internationally has moved the focus away
from the dominance of the national issue to discussion of the reconfigura –
tion of Cypriot society as a whole in relation to global and local social and
cultural contexts. Work has been undertaken on a rich array of facets of
Cypriot society, connecting these substantively to broader theoretical and
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 177
political issues worldwide. Issues of representation and recognition and
narratives of identity and otherness have been important developments in
this literature.
It has now become recognized that postcoloniality is an important
context for Cyprus. is recognition does not only mean that the history
of colonial domination (by Britain most recently) is responsible for the
tragedy of contemporary Cyprus, through the Zurich Agreement and its
fatal aftermath, which extended colonialism from one country to three by
legitimizing the military presence of the so-called guarantors, Britain, T ur –
key, and Greece. Nor does it only mean that colonialism has left its mark
on the infrastructure of Cypriot society. Postcoloniality extends beyond
these facets and signifies the positioning of Cyprus ambivalently between
the “West” and the “East,” combining within its borders the White he –
gemonic Christian and the Muslim other. And yet because of its colonial
context and centuries of being on the margins—as the colonized, as the
“small,” as that which is to be contained—its location in relation to the
hegemonic West is once again ambivalent. Its place on a map of the world
testifies to this: nearer T urkey than Greece, the majority culturally and
linguistically Greek, classified in the category of the Middle East in cheap
international telephone tariffs! And yet, of course, Cyprus has joined the
European Union and has rejected the most recent version of the Annan
Plan, which proposed a formula for reuniting the island on the basis of a
bizonal federal system. is rejection in a referendum in April 2004 indi –
cates that Greek Cypriots particularly (and of course largely through the
discourse and positions of their political leaders) are concerned about the
ways in which T urkey’s role is legitimated further on the island through the
maintenance of some T urkish military presence, albeit a reduced one, and
the failure to allow all refugees to have the right to return to their home. It
does not, however, mean that Greek Cypriots do not wish to find a bizonal
and federal solution through which these issues of concern, and a number
of others, can be resolved.
ere is no doubt that the ongoing national conflict and T urkish and
Greek nationalisms have served to underplay the importance of the con –
text of postcoloniality in Cyprus society. Such postcolonial frames leave
subject positionalities where identity politics is overstressed as a compen –
satory mechanism for the uncertainties and fissures in society. Cypriots
are ambivalent about their value, and this is both produced and reflected
in imaginings about belonging to the Greek or the T urkish nation. e
concept “Cypriot” is divested of value in and of itself; it is an apology for
not being complete, and a form of self-hatred and denial is sometimes
witnessed. Mimicry of those who are seen as more modern, as more worthy
or Western, as more advanced is found in the attitude toward language in
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178 I Floya Anthias
particular, at both the official and everyday levels. A friend’s son was told
at school that the word sintichano (an ancient Greek word meaning “con –
verse”) was not a Greek word and was asked to check it in the dictionary.
Words such as ximarismenos (“dirty person”) and kotzakari (“old woman”)
are used but with a recognition that they might not be as valued as much
as leromenos and gria (the “proper” Greek words for “dirty person” and “old
woman”). is is an example where the self emerges as the “other” of itself.
And yet, in constructions of selfhood and belonging, identifying, inferior –
izing, and apportioning blame to the “other” as a form of scapegoating play
a significant role. In recognizing the self in the other this process becomes
undermined and the possibility of dialogue emerges. Here, the experience
of “otherness within” of Cypriots may be able to play some role in overcom –
ing the fixities of belonging constructed by ethnic frameworks of the self.
In this sense also, discourses of interculturality may play an important role
as long as they are not simplistically conceptualized.
e focus of this chapter is on the issues of displacements and hybridi –
ties, a generally neglected area in research on Cyprus. While refugees have
been looked at from a number of viewpoints, particularly in the impor –
tant work of Peter Loizos (1981), there has been little attempt to think
through the importance of Cyprus as a translocational space; that is, one
where interculturality, movement, and flow have been important aspects
of social reality. Drawing upon narratives of interculturality is important
here. However, such narratives need to avoid the oversimplified type that
says: “Once upon a time we lived together happily when we were left
to our own devices, but it was outsiders that created ethnic divisions.”
A more nuanced sense of commonalities, differences, and the dynamic
nature of connections and disconnections to place and time need to be
addressed. However, there are insurmountable difficulties for scholars and
ideologues who wish to pursue such a line. Sometimes these difficulties
relate to “the political realities in Cyprus,” where political projects related
to the Cyprus Problem and how that problem can be resolved form the
point of view of each supposedly monolithically constructed national side
of the Greek/T urkish divide. is is not just a question of prohibition; it
is one where strategic considerations about what can be talked about, how
Cyprus should be represented, and how issues of recognition (in the broad
sense) can be used to block, exclude, and marginalize those discourses and
potential research problematics that have the potential to uncover the in –
tricacies of interculturality as a continuing framework. Notions of origins,
blood, heritage, and culture (read as an inherited or genetic effect) disable
the possibility of transcending the fixities of belonging that are constructed
within nationalist or ethnic discourses and practice.
is chapter does not seek to provide a substantive account of the
historical manifestations of interculturality in Cyprus; it is a theoretical
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 179
intervention that discusses how such a framework might or might not yield
the potential for new imaginings in Cyprus. I will consider the dialogical
potential of developments in approaches to displacements and hybridity. For
it is in the concept of dialogue and the shifts in position that become possible
through this process that the potential for revealing the fluidity of boundaries
and their social rather than natural construction exists. Such a process can
encourage notions of a self which is multiple, not just in terms of an accre –
tion of different identities but in terms of an identity that can encompass
otherness, both internal and external. In such a model, the self and the other
are no longer experienced as eternal binaries but are aspects of each other.
From this point of view, I will address the whole issue of “translocational”
positionings in order to further develop the foci on “hybridity” and trans –
nationalism that have become increasingly important in academic debates
(see Anthias 2002). ese are not merely academic issues; they also signify
ways of representing the social frame in political (albeit inexplicit) terms.
e focus on existing and new hybridities has the potential to displace the
certainties and fundamentalisms of fixed locations that lie at the heart of
ethnic chauvinism. Cyprus’s entry into Europe does not necessarily do this
because of the constructions of the European and “the other” that still lie
at the heart of the European transnational project.
Displacements and Boundaries of Belonging:
Translocational Imaginings and Issues of Hybridity
Displacement has created the most powerful image for the modern
world in arguments about transnationalism and globalization. Displace –
ment, however, cannot be seen in any unitary way or as a single process.
Moreover, the notion itself already presupposes its opposite, which can be
thought of as being “in place.” Being in “place,” however, is never an empir –
ically given or static relation and is open to local and particular imaginings
and representations which have political as well as emotional resonances.
is is compounded in Cyprus by a number of characteristics. Forced
population movements from 1963 (especially in 1974) produced internal
flows and disruptions involving displaced persons, their memories, their
hybridities. Movements of people from Anatolia and other parts of T urkey
to the north have been induced in order to change the demographic balance
and have had significant effects on constructing new forms of belonging
and otherness. Diasporic movements have brought forth the imaginings of
those who left as young people and some who returned when old as well as
the migrants from Cyprus (who live in the United Kingdom, the United
States, or Australia, for example) who return every year as “tourists” build
homes, and feel dissatisfied with the Cypriot mentality. e otherness of
these returnees is constructed as both “one of us” and as “an outsider,”
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180 I Floya Anthias
particularly when they return to their villages and try to relate to the locals.
ey may be seen as outsiders in the local community. Property ownership
has grown among retirees from Western and Northern European countries
who wish to settle in Cyprus and construct it as a “painfully beautiful
island” (as a letter to the English-language daily newspaper Cyprus Mail
memorably put it). T ransnational migration to Cyprus, particularly by
women from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Eastern Europe, has created
a migrant workforce. Domestic workers, many of them illegal, live and
work in people’s homes in the south. ey are constructed both as members
of the household and as alien subjects: e roles of media and political
and state representations in these constructions are important, as are local
constructions within families, neighborhoods, and communities. Female
migrants who are employed in the Cypriot sex industry also constitute a
special category of “otherness.” e growth of mass tourism in destinations
such as Ayia Napa has led to an increase in nightlife-oriented infrastruc –
tures and the spread of Western styles of working-class youth culture. Also,
the exodus from rural Cyprus has proletarianized urban spaces both in
terms of migration of laborers to towns and in terms of refugees who have
fled to towns, where they become constructed as victims of displacement
and at times are pathologized.
is short survey points to some important gaps in the literature on
Cyprus. After interrogating the notion of hybridity, I will focus first on the
intercultural narratives of diasporic young Cypriots and raise some issues
relating to Cyprus as a space that includes these young people very centrally
through connections with the spaces of their parents and the returnees.
en I will look at the reconfigurations immanent in the phenomenon of
migration to Cyprus, focusing particularly on domestic maids.
Hybridity and the Translocational
Hybridity is a term that has been seen as characterizing the “modern
condition,” particularly within postmodern discourse; it has been a central
term in poststructuralist cultural theory and in some variants of globaliza –
tion theory. However, the story we tell ourselves that we are all becoming
global, hybrid, and diasporic can only be told by those who occupy, as Robert
Young (1996, 4) so persuasively argues, a space of “new stability and self-as –
surance.” In Cyprus, the desire to be modern and therefore open to transfor –
mations of the self is bounded by our location in the border between being
Greek Cypriot and being T urkish Cypriot and the construction of our selves
as opposite poles of each other. is may be one reason why ideas of hybridity
have been neglected and indeed frowned upon in Cypriot society. T o what
extent can the growing importance of global cultural and other spheres be
applied to the Cypriot context?
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 181
“Hybridity” is used in different ways and constitutes for each contem –
porary writer a way of challenging existing paradigms of “identity” (see
Anthias 2001). For example, Stuart Hall suggests that hybridity is particu –
larly linked to the idea of “new ethnicities” (Hall 1988), which attempts
to provide an approach to ethnic culture that is not static or essentialized.
Paul Gilroy (1993), on the other hand, uses Du Bois’s notion of double
consciousness to denote the hybrid and diasporic condition. Homi Bhabha
(1994), too, sees the transgression of national or ethnic borders as the key
to the condition of hybridity; a double perspective becomes possible and
signals the migrant artist/poet/intellectual as the voice that speaks from
two places at once and inhabits neither. is is the space of liminality, of
“no place,” of the buffer zone, of “no man’s land.” Bhabha sees hybrids as
cultural brokers. It is clear that this role does not develop through a simple
process of accretion and that it is never complete; it is full of discontinui –
ties and ruptures.
Hybridity, therefore, refers to issues of cultural syncretism or interpenetra –
tion and its transformative as well as transgressive potential. However, given
the range of different meanings that can be legitimately attached to the notion
of “culture,” it is important to be clear about how the term is used. Various
writers use the term in different ways (e.g., see Bhabha 1994; Gilroy 1993;
Hall 1990). However, the meanings and uses of the elements of culture as well
as the particular combination of these elements point us in the direction of re –
jecting the view that cultural artifacts or practices have singular or fixed mean –
ings. Such hybridities cannot be judged as either transgressive or progressive
without paying attention to their deployment (e.g., see Hebdige 1979/1995,
who argues that new youth styles relating to music are co-optive). Migration
and diasporization can produce the opposite of hybridity: a ghettoization and
enclavization, a living in a “time warp,” a mythologizing of tradition (Shukla
1997). Hall, following Robins (1991), acknowledges that this may be the
alternative adaptation to that of translation (where new more transgressive
forms emerge). In addition, the political projects of the Irish, the Jews, and
the Greeks, among others, evidence a concern with homeland and its national
project, or what Anderson (1995) calls long-distance nationalism.
Despite these provisos, however, the acknowledgment of identity for –
mation (see Anthias 2002) is an important counterposition to the fixed
notions of identity and ethnicity that characterize both academic writing
and political action on these issues.
Narratives of Belonging:
Young Greek Cypriots in Britain
I will now look at the narratives produced in my study of young Greek
Cypriots to explore the formation of hybrid, or translocational, positions and
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182 I Floya Anthias
identities (see also Anthias 2002).1 In Britain, Greek Cypriot ethnicity has a
history of breaks and discontinuities. e continuing salience of the ethnic
category “Greek Cypriot” does not mean the continuation of a pre-given set
of cultural identifications. e category is also impacted upon by the provi –
sion and organization of ethnicity which provides a space for the enactment
and re-enactment of familiar ethnic symbols and practices. In Haringey in
North London, for example, the Cypriot Community Center was opened
in the early 1980s by Haringey Council for the Cypriot community to use.
Many social services local offices have Cypriot social workers and there is a
strong awareness by the local council of Cypriots that they constitute a pres –
sure group. Cypriot grocery stores and supermarkets serve traditional Cypriot
food and staples and now have a wide-ranging clientele for Greek and T urkish
food, both of which are increasing in popularity. Cypriot factories usually
employ Greek Cypriots and some T urkish Cypriots, and Greek and Cypriot
banks serve Cypriot customers. Doctors, dentists, driving schools, butchers,
and furniture shops will all serve an ethnic clientele, both Greek Cypriot and
T urkish Cypriot. Haringey, particularly the Wood Green area, constitutes an
ecological center of the Greek Cypriot community, and ethnic concentration
and association are instrumental in perpetuating the ethnic category.
Stories of spatial movement and location/dislocation of different kinds
appear in the narratives of young Cypriots in Britain. ese are not always
more important than other types of dislocation native youngsters experience,
but they form a particularly meaningful part of the construction of the famil –
ial narrative; they are stories that are perpetually recycled within the family
and by the collectivity as a whole in its social reproduction and its cultural
practices. In the construction of narratives of location/dislocation, moreover,
local meanings and categorizations are in play, not just national ones. Admin –
istrative arrangements affect these narratives and produce categorizations and
identity claims. ese categorizations are just some of the components of
the spatial habitat of young Cypriot migrants. Others may be less visible
but just as powerful, such as the normalized ethnic category “English.”
e narratives of these young people often use the concept “belonging” to
distance the self from what he or she is not rather than a clear affirmation of
what he or she is. T erms such as “them and us” abound, as does the concept
“how things are done differently”: Relatedness and comparison are important
elements in the narratives. Being British is defined in legalistic terms rather
than as an emotional identification.
Members of the study’s population saw their families as a strong system
of support that they contrasted positively with a notion of Englishness that
did not include a strong supportive family system. e Cypriot family proved
useful for finding work and providing financial help. Over half of those inter –
viewed were hoping to or had found a job because they were Cypriot; that is,
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 183
through someone they knew who was also Cypriot. However, many also felt
the disadvantages of being Cypriot, which demonstrates the importance of
constructions of otherness and the fact that Cypriots lack mainstream social
capital. eir parents did not take an interest in schoolwork, they spent many
hours working, and they did not speak English (a source of embarrassment
to their children). All of the girls spoke about the restrictions on their move –
ments and social life.
One-quarter of the people interviewed thought that a major difference
between Cypriot and English culture was the sexual behavior of Cypriot
women (who should not have more than one partner). e men saw a strong
difference between English and Cypriot women. Many said it was acceptable
for the former to have many sexual partners but not the latter, indicating
a clear preservation of traditional gender values on this issue. e women
were more likely to reject this value but restrained their sexuality (or were
careful to conduct their sexual activities in secret) for fear of the culture of
gossip and public disapproval. Most youngsters kept their sex lives separate
from home and did not bring girlfriends or boyfriends home. Bringing a lot
of girlfriends home was seen as disrespectful to parents. ere was a strong
notion of public and private worlds. For example, many young males saw
young Cypriot girls as “cheap” and “loose” if they were “hanging around
Wood Green.” Only about one-sixth of the girls were open to casual sex
relationships, and another one-quarter thought sex should accompany love
and a serious commitment.
Most youngsters liked Western pop music and all listened to Greek
music, although when they heard Greek music, it was usually because their
parents had chosen to listen to it. Some Greek pop artists were popular, how –
ever; Anna Vissi, for example, whose music combines traditional Greek and
Western pop (that is, her music is hybrid). A few wanted to publicly display
that they were Cypriot—for example, boys like to play Greek music loudly
in cars—particularly when they got together. Few knew anything about Cy –
priot literature and art. is was sometimes seen as a problem that related
to the values of the community, which did not promote these, even within
the “community” schools (where religion and customs are prominent—e.g.,
dance and rituals—but not literature or poetry).
Some survey participants distrusted English people, and the more edu –
cated youngsters thought that racism was endemic in the ways they were
treated and related to as “outsiders.” ose who were bullied at school tended
to see the behavior as related to their foreignness (even though a few said that
that might not necessarily be the reason). About one-tenth said their parents
had instilled in them a distrust of “ xenoi ” (foreigners of any kind, including
the English). ey constantly referred to the fact that non-Cypriots made
fun of their names and called them racist names. At times they reported
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184 I Floya Anthias
these events with some annoyance but also with a positive and dismissive
attitude; they might say that such experiences “make you more resilient,”
or “it’s only a game.”
When they mixed with different ethnic groups, these were more likely
to be other “minority” groups at school than English pupils. Most felt that
there was better communication among “your own” (in other words, they
placed themselves in the categories of “Cypriot” and “foreigner”) and felt
that they could relate better to other “foreigners.” Many related changes over
time: As they got older, they felt more comfortable around Cypriots even if
at school they had wider friendship groups. is was particularly the case for
those who attended university or had a job outside the Cypriot community.
An exception is one-quarter who are mainly girls. About one-fifth of those
interviewed said they mixed with Cypriots more because they did not feel that
they could pass as English and felt uncomfortable. ey wanted an education
for the higher income they could earn as a result rather than because they felt
that education was a good in itself. Young men aspired to self-employment
even if they had attended university. Girls did not share these entrepreneurial
dreams. Young women saw themselves as less strong than first-generation
migrant women: ey tended to be more financially dependent on their
partners if they were married.
Quotations from the interviews allow us to explore the different ways
these young Cypriots categorize themselves.
Akis: I was called Stavros a lot: Is that racism? No, it’s just a joke. I used to call the
English kochino-kole (red bottom) but they didn’t understand and that was fun. I
don’t feel Black; I’m European. Greeks don’t get a lot of racism, not like the Blacks
do or the Indians, about 2 percent, which is tiny, but they get a lot of stick. Being
a Cypriot might be a plus, because employers have to employ a certain number of
minorities.
Here it is interesting that Akis uses the terms “Greek” and “Cypriot” inter –
changeably (although this never happens when the narrative is in Greek; see
Anthias 1992). In terms of his relation to Cypriotness, he later said:
I don’t know really, doing different things to what English people do, going to
church, going to weddings, it’s difficult to say, difficult to describe. You’re Cypriot;
that’s what you are. You can’t really say why its different, ’cos that’s what you are.
(What does it mean to you?) Nothing really, it just means you’re Cypriot.
Akis defined his relation in terms of difference: as a matter of fact on the
one hand and as doing different things on the other. He also had difficulty
finding specific elements of being “Cypriot.”
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 185
Andrew: When I was young the whole estate was White, so you used to get into
fights and trouble there (we were about eight years old but with boys who were about
twelve). Living on an estate you get to learn to fight. When we moved (to Tooting),
the school was Black. I used to stay out of fights between Blacks and Whites. I used
to say “I’m a foreigner, what are you going to do with me?” Most of them were nice
because we owned a fish shop. At secondary school in Selhurst I had two best friends,
one is half Jamaican and half Indian and the other is English. I used to listen to a lot
of hip-hop so I used to mix with the Blacks.
e cultural identification here is different from the sense of belonging;
his cultural preferences are similar to those of Black youth, but this does
not mean that he sees himself as the same as them. Cultural mixing can
produce synthetic identifications or new mixed identifications, and it is
important for hybridity theorists to differentiate between the two. Later
Andrew talked about his relationship with Cyprus and Cypriotness:
It makes me proud, my motherland is Cyprus because that is where my parents grew
up but my fatherland is England; England is where I grew up. England is like the
father, but Cyprus is the mother because it is where you want to go back, it is secure.
I would fight for Cyprus, don’t get me wrong, I am very proud to be Cypriot.
Here we see a very located sense of Cypriotness that is related to the impor –
tance of the family, the behavioral characteristics of Cypriots (Andrew used
the word “Greek” when he spoke English rather than “Cypriot,” which is
the term he used when he spoke Greek), a strong sense of community, and
the fact that Cyprus is located in the Mediterranean. Andrew’s narrative of
identification is about location spatially and socially, one that is embedded
in a lifestyle.
Mario: All I know is when we are in England, we are not classified as English, and
when we are in Cyprus, we are not classified as Cypriot, they call you Charlie. In my
school they are not racist, me and my Black friend, I call him a rubber-lipped nigger,
and he will call me a flabby bubble. . . . Most people in my school are Black anyway.
Here there is a strong sense of being categorized by others as not belonging
to either group. Mario’s narrative also illustrates that the racist language can
have a range of meanings, depending on who is using it. In some contexts,
this language is not received as racist. It is also important to note that some
of the racist labels come from Cyprus, where British-born Cypriots are
labeled as Charlies.
Christine: When I was younger, I was told: “We only beat up Greeks and Pakis.” We
are White and European enough for people to claim they are not being racist to us
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186 I Floya Anthias
because how could you possibly be racist to Europeans. erefore people are getting
away with saying things to Greek Cypriots which they would never get away with
saying to Jews who are basically of fairer skin and bluer eyes than we are. In broader
anti-racist formats, it is difficult to fight for your specific rights when the slogan is
“Black and White unite” and not “Greek Cypriot and White” unite.
Christine’s statement shows a nuanced understanding of racism and how
some groups might react to it. English people use the “Europeanness” of
Cypriots to legitimize how they treat them, since who could possibly think
behavior toward Cypriots could be interpreted as racist? e last sentence
raises the perceived problem when the White/Black dichotomy is used to
fight exclusion.
Yianna: I am Greek Cypriot, obviously my nationality is British but deep down I
know I am Greek Cypriot. At least I can say I come from a beautiful island, gorgeous
place, love it there. All my family as well. I think Greek Cypriot people are far more
. . . generous, more giving, they are more close. When you have more family, you
feel more loved, it is nice, [you] know more people. I suppose if you do something
that everyone will frown upon, everyone will know about it.
Here, Yianna is using the idiom of “identity” to distance herself from an
Englishness that has no defining characteristic, and she also notes the
beauty of the island. Again, the closeness of the family is very important.
e “difference” is exoticized here: It becomes a good thing in itself despite
the negative “gossiping” that she refers to.
Maro: I used to go around with mainly Greeks at school and we got lots of comments
about being bubble and squeak. . . . I used to ignore it. I knew I was in an English
school, English passport, English birth certificate, everything, so it was just that my
background was Greek basically. . . . I love our traditions, your family, your mum and
dad are always there, whereas the English people their family don’t give a damn you
are on your own. Definitely the Asians and Blacks at school got a lot more racism.
In this narrative, there are a number of statements about intercultural
friendship preferences (using the category “Greek” rather than “Cypriot”)
and name-calling that is defined as racism. Maro articulates difference in
relation to a conception of different family relations, reasserting the value
of the Cypriot family. He also articulates difference vis-à-vis the racism
experienced by Blacks and Asians.
In the narration of these youngsters, we can identify some common
themes which denote shared experiences articulated in a variety of ways in
the interviews. One of the striking characteristics of the material collected
is the extent to which the interviewees experienced various forms of racism,
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 187
particularly name-calling and other forms of “othering.” Moreover, while it
is commonly thought that young people from minority groups are “between
two cultures” or able to produce hybridities, most of the Cypriot youngsters
experienced the sense that their location was somewhere in between White
and Black, although the cultural ingredients they used could be depicted as
hybrid. ese narratives draw on the collective stories and understandings
about ethnicity and “race” in Britain which work with fixed binary notions.
ey were too White and European to be Black, but they were too “foreign”
to be White. On the other hand, their narratives are always situational; they
are always about things that happened to them, about what was said to them,
about their relationships with others rather than about their sense of iden –
tity. Overall, a strong sense of difference was the most notable theme in the
narratives in relation to “belongingness” references. is was generally not
accompanied by a strong sense of identity if one defines “identity” as a coher –
ent notion of who one is and where one belongs. e sense of difference was
expressed more in terms of differentiating oneself from what one was not,
which was less ambivalently presented. Also there was rather a discontinuous
moving backward and forward between categories such as White, European,
Greek, and Cypriot which functioned more as explanations for the experi –
ences they had or as descriptions of a lifestyle (such as a life that is shaped
by strong family bonds) rather than as forms of proclaimed identity. e
majority felt “other” in both England and Cyprus, however. ey tended to
see Cypriot as something they couldn’t avoid being and English as something
they could never be accepted as: ese were just facts.
Gendered Migration in Cyprus and Belongings
Another important aspect of displacements and hybridities in Cyprus
comes from the example of migration to Cyprus. In the 1990s, Cyprus
became a country that receives migrants from the ird World and Eastern
Europe. Like much of southern Europe, Cyprus has experienced a feminiza –
tion of migration (Anthias 2000). More and more Cypriot women have been
incorporated into the labor force, and the gendered division of labor con –
tinues within the Cypriot economy and within the home. Migrant women
are therefore important in terms of the changing configuration of gender
relations for Cypriot women’s incorporation into the labor market. Cypriot
women are more likely to be employed full time, unlike many married wom –
en workers in western Europe (Crompton 1997), but state agencies do not
provide care and services for families. Relationships are changing with elderly
parents, who can no longer be looked after by their married daughters. Some
of these elderly people require a full-time nurse at home. Not enough local
women are going into nursing and care work, and immigrant labor costs less.
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188 I Floya Anthias
In addition, many women feel more comfortable about employing foreign
maids rather than indigenous ones (also cited in Phizacklea and Anderson
1997). All of these factors mean that women are more likely to hire Filipino
and Sri Lankan maids and nannies.
As more and more Greek Cypriot women enter the labor force (see
House, Kyriakidou, and Stylianou 1989) some aspects of patriarchal control
will be modified, but no great transformation of gender relations has ac –
companied women’s economic participation, although this issue has yet to
be fully assessed through empirical research. What has not been modified
is the continuation of women’s responsibility for household and child care,
particularly since the employment of maids has put the transformation of
social roles within the family on the back burner.
Following the pattern found in the rest of southern Europe, women
generally enter Cyprus as maids for middle-class professional families or as
“artists” and “musicians,” euphemisms for the sex industry which in Cyprus
caters largely to the indigenous population, although tourists also hire sex
workers. Migration related to sex work has been very profitable for those
who exploit the workers and is an integral part of tourism in many coun –
tries in southern Europe. In Cyprus, sex workers come particularly from
Southeast Asian countries, such as ailand, and from Eastern Europe.
ese women enter the country within the framework of a legal status as
“artistes.” In their countries of origin, they are recruited either as cabaret
dancers or quite openly as prostitutes. Even though the status of “artiste”
is legal, its heavy restrictions create conditions that make the women heav –
ily dependent on their employers. ose sex workers who overstay the
permitted period, send a female relative in their place, change employers,
or enter on tourist visa and operate illegally are particularly vulnerable to
exploitation.
ere is little regulation of the terms of employment for many of these
women. ere is some evidence that domestic maids, who come largely
from the Philippines and Sri Lanka, for example, are super-exploited (e.g.,
see Anthias 2000). ey are also a status symbol: In one prestigious new
development in Nicosia, twenty-four out of twenty-six families had a for –
eign maid. And this phenomenon is not confined to families where the
women work; women who prefer leisure to doing their own child care and
domestic work may also employ an immigrant maid. In addition, more and
more women within the lower middle classes are hiring maids as part of a
materialist status symbol. Filipino maids bring the highest degree of status
to a family because it is believed that they are cleaner, more deferential,
and more sensitive to privacy needs. Many Filipino women immigrants
are highly educated; some of them have degrees and were teachers or ac –
countants in the Philippines. e issue of racialization is relevant here; they
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 189
are regarded as less of an “other” than Sri Lankans, largely because they are
Christian. Many of these women provide services not just for the family
that employs them but also for the employer’s elderly parents; they may be
given tasks of cleaning parental homes and looking after sick relatives as
well as looking after the children of brothers and sisters. A barter in maids
is not unknown, and a particularly pleasing maid may be passed on to other
relatives or friends. Also, the sisters and mothers of maids may be brought
in either concurrently or sequentially, and sometimes a mother may replace
her daughter within a particular family. Many of them are not treated as
part of the family, and they eat their meals separately. ey often share a
bedroom with the employer’s children and are not allowed boyfriends. ey
may be used for the dirtiest work and have little protection.
It is not surprising that women—whether they are migrants or not—play
a central role as biological reproducers of the nation, given the importance
of ideas of “blood” and “common origin” in the construction of ethnic and
national collectivities. State policies are geared to women as biological re –
producers. Women also reproduce the nation culturally, and as such, they
can be seen as targets and agents of national acculturation. e education
of women, then, becomes a key dimension of producing loyal citizens. In
some cases there have been highly publicized attempts to assimilate women
into the dominant culture; for example, France’s notorious prohibition on
wearing headscarves in school (Silverman 1992). Deniz Kandiyioti (1989),
on the other hand, shows how the modernization project in T urkey used the
emancipation of women as a strategic tool at both political and cultural levels.
She argues that because the domestic sphere represents the continuation of
tradition, it becomes the subject of state discourses under situations of politi –
cal change (Kandiyoti 1991).
Modesty and motherhood are key elements of women’s symbolic rep –
resentation of the nation, as in the French Patria and the symbol of Cyprus
as a martyred mother mourning her loss (Anthias 1989). In Nicaragua, the
revolution was symbolized by a woman carrying a baby in one hand and a
gun in the other (Charles and Hintjens 1998, 4). Conversely, those women
who are perceived to be outside the national collectivity, unable to reproduce
or symbolize it, may face particular forms of racism and exclusion.
In Cyprus, as is the case for other societies, women may be seen as
the direct transmitters of the “cultural stuff” of ethnicity because they are
responsible for the day-to-day domestic and family life and for child-rear –
ing. Among other cultural values, women transmit the “work ethic,” sexual
mores, notions of what it means to be “good” Greek Cypriots or “patriots,”
and nationalist consciousness. e twinned concept of mother and nation is
important here, as is the concept of “mother of fighting men” (see Anthias
and Yuval Davis 1989).
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190 I Floya Anthias
Women are definers of the boundaries of ethnicity (Anthias and Yuval
Davis 1989). Women’s bodies have much to do with the legal definition of
citizenship; only particular women can reproduce citizens within the “na –
tional boundary” (see WING 1985; Anthias and Yuval Davis 1989; Anthias
1989); in Cyprus, only women who are married to men of Cypriot origin can
produce citizens. However, another aspect of the definition of the boundary
of ethnicity involves conceptions about desirable sexual or gender behavior.
In this case, women’s bodies are involved in the processes of reproducing a
group. For women, one of the ways of being a good “ethnic” subject involves
behaving in ethnically appropriate ways by conforming to the principle of
sexual purity. For men, this means maintaining control over women. In mi –
grant groups that consist of males only, ethnic culture tends to decline sharply
(Anthias 1992). Among Cypriot migrants in Britain, for example, women
are seen as the bearers, keepers, and symbolic signifiers of ethnic identity and
constitute one of the most important boundary markers between English and
Cypriot ethnicity (Anthias 1992).
In many Western societies, migrants are feared because they bring foreign
cultural and moral elements, particularly if they are Muslims or Asians. is
is the case in Cyprus, where one finds many reports in the press that Cypriot
culture is in danger of being undermined by foreign undesirable influences.
While maids are employed mainly for the physical work they do—cooking,
cleaning, and child care, the fear that these women will import foreign cul –
ture is evident in public discourses (T rimikliniotis 1999). ere are different
discourses around the employment of foreign maids however, and tourism
is also feared as a threat to national culture (see Ayres 1999). e concern
with the national heritage found in public discourse is closely linked with
the dominance of the national problem in public life for both the immediate
past and the present in Cyprus.
New migration to Cyprus creates tension with the prominence of ideas
about “national identity” in the public discourse about the Cyprus Problem.
In other words, economic interests legitimize foreign workers but national –
ist discourse sees them as undesirable. is also relates to how globalization
and Europeanization figure in Cypriot political discourse; Cypriots increas –
ingly see themselves as European now that Cyprus has joined the European
Union. is will be particularly important in the context of the aftermath
of the referendum in late April 2004, in which Greek Cypriots voted against
accepting the Annan Plan and have subsequently suffered much retribution
from the European Union and particularly Britain. e United States has
joined in this. Entry into the European Union has required harmonization
policies around some of the issues raised by migration and a reformulation
of Cyprus as a nation that contains multiple ethnicities and new forms of
European citizenship (see Kostakopoulou 1999). Cyprus faces the challenge
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Researching Society and Culture in Cyprus I 191
of an increasingly ethnically and culturally diverse society, over and above the
ethnic divisions between T urkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots.
Conclusion: Displacements and Dialogical Positions
In this chapter I have discussed two aspects of the ongoing hybridity
and translocationality in Cyprus. e first case related to the diasporic ex –
perience of young Cypriots and illustrated the ambivalence and contextual
nature of ethnic identifications: ese resonate in Cypriot society and the
way it receives these youngsters. e second aspect related to the movement
of new populations into Cyprus, particularly women, and the effects this
demographic change is having on the restructuring of Cypriot society. I
would like to highlight the potential in these developments, particularly their
dialogical potential. Dialogue is an essential element in the process of using
interculturality to overcome fixities of location. But simply bringing together
different cultural groups does not guarantee dialogue, especially when these
groups have different interests regarding representation and recognition (as
is the case in Cyprus) and the use of economic and cultural resources. And
dialogue cannot be guaranteed by a formula that suggests that an individual
can be rooted in one set of cultural idioms and respect and acknowledge the
other when asymmetric power relations exist. Creating the conditions for an
individual to use their “voice” or to speak from a different “place” or even
to be acknowledged and heard is not enough. It is essential to make that
individual’s voice effective. It is not simply a matter of asking under what
conditions allegiances or alliances can be forged: e very notion of allegiance
already presupposes investments in the difference across which allegiances are
to be made. e notion of hybridities assumes that difference has been over –
come, or at least that difference no longer exists between people but within
them and is therefore validated when it is discovered between them as well.
is suggests that the fight against constructions of difference and identity
that exclude and devalorize requires a concerted effort to eliminate social
practices that construct identities and differences in naturalized, collectivized,
and binary ways and in terms of hierarchical otherness, unequal allocation
of resources, and modes of inferiorization (see Anthias 1998). is requires
engagement at a political level around the following targets:
Naturalization: a denaturalization of difference and identity by show –
ing how they are located historically and as social constructs
Collective attributions: a recognition of differences within indi –
viduals in terms of the interaction between ways in which they are
constructed and the ways in which they construct themselves situ –
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192 I Floya Anthias
ationally and contextually; a refusal to construct people or selves in
terms of singular identities
Hierarchical cultures: the development of legal and other state mech –
anisms which embody the principle of multiculturality where it does
not conflict with the basic ethical principle of personal autonomy as
a basic human right
Mechanisms of accountability within institutional frameworks:
scrutiny of procedures in terms of outcomes, intentions, and rules so
that outcomes that are sexist or that create inequalities with regard
to ethnicity and class are brought to light, even if that outcome was
not the intention, and redressed through corrective and sustainable
procedures such as positive action frameworks
ese practices and processes are particularly important in the new po –
litical realities of Cyprus, where there has been some negative fallout from
the negotiations and ultimate rejection of the Annan Plan and the Cyprus
Problem continues, albeit in a changed and unpredictable form. ere is a
danger here of the resurgence of chauvinist nationalism, particularly if Greek
Cypriots become perturbed by what they see as an unjust undervaluing of
their plight as the result of increasing concessions to T urkish Cypriot demands
for incorporation into the international community. All of these perspectives
have been recently voiced in Cyprus.
Note
1. Survey research was conducted between 1994 and 1998 in two London boroughs
(Haringey and Croyden) with four groups of British-born young people, aged 16 to 30,
whose backgrounds were Greek Cypriot, T urkish Cypriot, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani. An
equal number of males and females were interviewed. ey were chosen using opportunity
sampling on the basis of gender, age, educational background, and place of residence for
semi-structured narrative interviews. Fifty Greek Cypriot participants were included in
these interviews.
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Anthias, Floya. 1989. “Women and Nationalism in Cyprus.” In Woman-Nation-State, ed. N.
Yuval Davis and F . Anthias. London: Macmillan.
———. 1992. Ethnicity, Class, Gender and Migration. Aldershot, England: Avebury.
———. 1998. “Rethinking Social Divisions: Some Notes T owards a eoretical Framework.”
Sociological Review 46 (3): 506–535.
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———. 2000. “Metaphors of Home: Gendering Migration to Southern Europe.” In Gen-
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———. 2001. “New Hybridities, Old Concepts: e Limits of Culture.” Ethnic and Racial
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———. 2002. “Where Do I Belong? Narrating Identity, Location and Positionality.”
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Anthias, Floya, and Nira Yuval Davis. 1989. “Introduction.” In Woman-Nation-State, ed. N.
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———. 1990. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference,
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———. ed. 1991. Women, Islam, and the State. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
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Phizacklea, Annie, and Bridget Anderson. 1997. Migrant Domestic Workers: A European
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Robins, Derek. 1991. “T radition and T ranslation: National Culture in Its Global Context.”
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Shukla, Sandhya. 1997. “Building Diaspora and Nation: e 1991 ‘Cultural Festival of
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T rimikliniotis, Nicos. 1999. “Racism and New Migration to Cyprus: e Racialisation of
Migrant Workers.” In Into the Margins: Migration and Social Exclusion in Southern Eu –
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Routledge.
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194 I Paul Sant Cassia
TEN
Recognition and Emotion
EXHUMATIONS OF MISSING PERSONS IN CYPRUS
Paul Sant Cassia
Introduction
In his short story “Conversation with Mother,” Italian playwright Luigi
Pirandello returns to Agrigento following his mother’s death. In an
imaginary conversation with his mother, she tells him that she feels sorry
for him. He assumes this is because of his pain at losing her. She says no.
She feels sorrow for him because when she was alive he also existed, as a
representation for her. We exist “in other people” as much as “in ourselves.”
Now that she is dead, her representation of him has been erased, and his
personhood is diminished through that loss. When people dear to us die,
we lose not just them but our existence in them, which “made” us individu –
als, with our social identities that were in their (temporary) safekeeping.
Although we can get over the loss of loved ones, because we live in others
their death diminishes our “identity” in a fundamental and nonrecupera –
tive way that we do not normally perceive.
Pirandello alerts us that more may be involved in death and mourn –
ing than rituals, emotion, transgressions of the social order, and gender
identities. He suggests a link that can help transcend the Durkheimian
opposition between the individual and the collective. In this chapter I dis –
cuss the attempts by one widow of a missing person in Cyprus to recover
the remains of her loved ones and give him a proper burial. My aims are
threefold. First, I show that although the issue of missing persons in Cyprus
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Recognition and Emotion I 195
is highly politicized, relatives have different and conflicting needs than the
agendas of the nation-state. eir attempts to recover what was lost are
not merely a necessary reaction to simulation on the part of their political
representatives; they are essential for psychic stability. Second, I show that
mourning is more than ritual or emotion and that it encompasses funda –
mental cognitive, existential, and identity changes, along the lines hinted
at by Pirandello. Finally, I suggest that we should be cautious about either
genderizing emotion or viewing it as a resistant margin (e.g., Seremetakis
1991). Rather, I suggest that every political order requires its own specific
representations of suffering. Emotion and suffering therefore both subverts
and sustains the social order.
A Brief History of the Issue
Between 1963 and 1974, over 2,000 persons, both Greek and T urk –
ish Cypriot, disappeared in Cyprus. ey disappeared in the course of
hostilities between Greek and T urkish Cypriots and during the 1974 coup
backed by Greece and the subsequent invasion by T urkey. Responsibility
for the disappearances appears to be straightforward in some cases, more
murky in others. Only one body (that of a Cypriot U.S. citizen) has been
recovered officially from T urkish-held areas. ere are major differences
in the ways that Greek and T urkish Cypriots regard their missing persons.
Whereas T urkish Cypriots regard their missing as kayipler (as disappeared/
dead/lost), Greek Cypriots regard their missing as having suffered an un –
known fate— agnoumenoi —as not-(yet)-recovered, as living prisoners at
best or, at worst, as concealed bodies requiring proper and suitable buri –
als. ey believe that such persons, which number some 1,400 cannot be
presumed to be dead unless their bodies are recovered and their cause of
death judicially ascertained. Until then, these persons have been scripted by
the state as legally constituted characters. eir salaries are still being paid
into bank accounts; their children receive special scholarships, government
posts, and so forth; and their wives have to go through lengthy, complex,
and demeaning procedures to remarry. Few have done so. Greek Cypriots
fear that because many of these persons were captured alive by the invading
T urkish army, they were killed by the former or handed to T urkish Cypriot
irregulars to dispose of. ere is some evidence for this. T urkey claims
that it returned all the persons its army captured during the invasion and
refuses to get involved. T urkish Cypriots maintain that Greeks killed these
men during the coup that provided the pretext for the T urkish invasion or
during the hostilities attendant upon the invasion. ere is also evidence
for this, but the majority of the missing seem to have disappeared behind
T urkish lines.
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196 I Paul Sant Cassia
T urkish Cypriots also claim that 803 of their civilians disappeared be –
tween 1963 and 1974. For T urkish Cypriots, the problem of the missing
began in 1963, the first year of intercommunal troubles in the Republic of
Cyprus. Encouraged by their leaders, who want to distance their communi –
ties from Greek Cypriots, T urkish Cypriots perceive their missing as dead.
For the T urkish Cypriot leadership, the missing are proof that T urkish and
Greek Cypriots cannot live together. us, while for the T urkish Cypriot
leadership it is important that their missing be considered dead, for Greek
Cypriots it is important that they might still be alive or at least that the
issue is closed only when the causes of their death are established and the
bodies returned to their relatives. By contrast, for T urkish Cypriots the
issue of the missing is a closed chapter, an example of their oppression by
Greek Cypriots in the Republic of Cyprus, a state of affairs that the T urk –
ish “Peace Operation” ended. us, T urkish Cypriots appear to want the
matter closed in its present manifestation but want to keep the memory
and memorials of their oppression alive. In contrast, Greek Cypriots want
to maintain the issue as open in a present continuous tense as an issue that
is very much alive and that can be closed only when the missing are finally
returned and their bodies laid to rest.
In recent years, various accounts of the coup and invasion period have
emerged that have challenged official versions of events. In 1995, an in –
vestigative reporter published a number of revelations which profoundly
shook the political establishment. In a series of reports in the weekly news
periodical Selides, Andreas Paraskos wrote that some of the Greek Cypriot
missing were buried in three collective graves at Lakatameia cemetery (on
the Greek Cypriot side of the capital city of Nicosia) but were still on the
list of the missing.
e articles highlighted gaps between the official representation of
events and people’s experiences. It also helped force a split that had long
been lurking between the government and the Pan-Cyprian Committee
for the Relatives of the Missing (CRMP). Although it appeared that there
was witness testimony from 1975 indicating that some individuals were
dead, the government apparently did nothing about these reports, and the
names of individuals mentioned in this testimony remained on the list of
the missing. In this chapter, I am primarily concerned with relatives of
this group.
Exhumations
On July 31, 1997, the leaders of the two communities, Clerides and
Denktash, agreed to provide each other immediately and simultaneously
all information at their disposal on the location of graves of Greek Cypriot
and T urkish Cypriot missing persons. For a brief period, it appeared that
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Recognition and Emotion I 197
the issue was about to be resolved. However, the T urkish Cypriot leader –
ship backtracked and stalemate ensued once again. A few months later, two
Greek Cypriot women, Androulla Palma and Maroulla Shamishi, made
a daring attempt to exhume their husbands from Lakatameia cemetery,
which contained some collective tombs. ey went secretly to the cemetery
with pickaxes and broke into some collective tombs. When apprehended,
they said they wanted their husbands back as they had been lied to by au –
thorities. eir attempt made national headlines and rattled Greek Cypriot
authorities. e women were arrested and released.1
In 1999, the Republic of Cyprus unilaterally decided to begin exhum –
ing and identifying the remains located in graves in the area under its
control. Given the deadlock, this was a courageous move. A bicommunal
institution, the Institute of Neurology and Genetics, had been established
in 1991 which could provide the necessary scientific backup.2 DNA test –
ing started in 1995, and soon after that, the collection of blood samples
from relatives. e T urkish Cypriot leadership prevented T urkish Cypriot
relatives from donating samples.
I now examine the case of Androulla Palma, who, together with Ma –
roulla Shamishi, attempted to get into the tombs at Lakatameia.
Androulla lives alone in her dowry home in Peristerona. Her living
room is a shrine to her husband and her efforts to discover his fate. All the
photographs on her wall show her participating in public demonstrations.
ese are photographs of active kinship. Androulla has commissioned
a painting of herself holding her two young daughters, one of whom is
clutching a small photograph of their disappeared father. It adorns her
saloni. It is based on a photograph taken from life. I realize that this is
a family representation of an absence, an attempt to have an idealized
united family in a painting that could never be captured by a photograph.
People commemorate absences and turn them into presences—like the
shoes and the shirts that will never be filled by a warm body or the place
left empty at supper. Although these are family photographs, they are ideal
representations just the same—of being together. ey indicate that her
husband, Hambis, is not forgotten, that she is holding up her children to
commemorate him. In that respect, she is acting out an idealized gender
role. It is almost as if we need a representation of patriarchy, rather than its
enactment, to create a space and a role for her to fulfill. I get the impres –
sion that the role she is enacting is as much that of a daughter who must
bury her brother as it is of a wife who needs to find her husband’s body.
Indeed, as I hope to show, during the process of exhumations and reburial,
something more was involved than the attempts by a wife/widow to find
her dead husband and lay him to rest. It was a reassertion of obligation and
the obligation of reassertion.
Here is her story:
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198 I Paul Sant Cassia
“My husband Haralambos Palma from Livadia [Larnaca] was captured together
with Andrea Palma his cousin. Six years ago I read the papers, and I learnt how my
husband had been captured. Until then I didn’t know anything, nor did they tell
me anything.” Until then, she still believed that her husband was missing. “e
government said that the witnesses appeared six years ago—but they had given their
statements way back in 1975,” she said. Androulla’s husband’s name was among the
126 names the government did not present to the UN committee charged with
investigating the disappearances, a clear indication that the government felt that
there was sufficient proof that he was dead.
“According to my witnesses my husband was lost on 17 August (1974) during
the second invasion.” Here she used the word for “lost”— hathike —(not “killed”
[skotothike ] or “was killed” [ ton eskotosan ] or “died” [ pethane ]). “Six bodies were
loaded onto a truck. My husband was wearing military uniform. Denktash said that
my husband died in the coup. is is not true and I want you to write this down.”
In July 1999, the government commissioned a team from the renowned
group Physicians for Peace, led by the well-known forensic anthropologist
Bill Hagland, to conduct the exhumations and identifications. Androulla
was disturbed and in a highly suspicious mood. “As soon as they started
digging I went with Maroulla and Popi (her daughter) and spread yellow
flowers on the graves. ey didn’t allow me to do so.” She was bitter and
angry that soldiers had stopped her. As with most of her interactions with
government, the cemetery became a place of contestation when Androulla
attempted to personalize and symbolize her grief.
Androulla is unsure about the purpose of the exhumations. In her
handbag she always carries a lock of hair taken from her mother-in-law
before she died to assist with genetic identification. Her daughter Popi, a
bright, recently married young woman who never knew her father, is also
present.
Androulla and her group spend a few days clinging to the edge of
the cemetery while the exhumations proceeded. e scene resembles an
archaeological dig. After several days of careful measuring, an American
archaeologist walks over on one of the last days and says that she is about
to start the digging. She has found a body under the soil and is about to
begin the delicate process of retrieving it. Popi, who has a file on her father
with her, begins talking fluently in English. She reels off details—what
operations he had had, the fact that his dental records were not retained,
his shoe size, and his height. Her father’s tangibility and existence is there
in the file, a proof that he existed, that he is not an agnoumenos, a person
of unknown fate, a disappeared. He is more real to her than many fathers
would be to their children through their memory. When Popi and her
sister married, they each took items of their father’s clothing to their new
homes. ese are memento mori, except that instead of commemorating
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Recognition and Emotion I 199
his existence, they are kept to prove that he existed, was alive, and that he
should be reclaimed, given an identity, and buried properly with a name
rather than in some collective anonymous grave. To every detail Popi gives,
the archaeologist replies “OK.” But how could the archaeologist tell An –
droulla that a particular skeleton is her husband? Surely the whole point is
to identify the bones through DNA testing. Androulla and her daughter
seem convinced that the body is her husband’s. ey walk up to the edge
of the pit overlooking the collective grave and return.
Over those few days, Androulla moved from pent-up anticipations of
certainty that official accounts would be proven wrong generated by a faith
in the revelatory power of “scientific” investigation (the term epistimoni –
ki—scientific—has a certain legitimacy in Greek that is absent in English)
and a disbelief in the authorities’ version of the past to a state where her
immediate, unarticulated, taken-for-granted world was slowly dissolving.
is new state nudged her to come to terms with the fact that her husband
was dead. She began moving away from her epistemological certainties of
disbelief in official versions of reality to grasp more existential realizations.
She reached this in two ways. First, as I show below, there were certain slips,
differences in language use between her and others, that slowly implanted
the realization that she had to adopt a different way of imagining and talk –
ing about her husband. is included learning about, and accepting, other
accounts, other memories of what had happened. Until then, her husband
had retained an existential validity and tangibility for her as an agnoumenos
which specifically prevented her from navigating through his last hours
and thus giving shape to his death. ere was no aftermath; there was just
a closed door that she could not enter. Indeed, by maintaining him as an
agnoumenos, which was as much a decision on her part as his inclusion on
that list by the authorities was, she excluded herself from knowledge.
Her often-stated desire for “full transparency” ( pliri diafaneia ) kept her
in a domain of unknowing, for it did not address her husband’s last days.
at clarity would be ushered in through the senses. In effect, by going
over and listening to other witness accounts of the collective burials, An –
droulla was guided by the markers they set down, especially the senses, to
give imaginary shape to what had happened and thus render it more real
and possible to experience. e restitution of the senses through others’
accounts was for her a substitute for experience and it restored her imagina –
tion through specific shapes and forms. It enabled her to enter the territory
of the past which she had been barred from surveying.3
By going over the events through reading newspaper accounts and ques –
tioning witnesses from the vicinity, Androulla moved from an unwritten
chronicle to a relatable history. She was slowly being exposed to and given,
and was making for herself, a story. rough sharing or being exposed to
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200 I Paul Sant Cassia
how others experienced the events of August 1974, and through her senses,
she began to move from considering her husband not just a question mark
about which the authorities refused to give answers but a knowable entity.
By being exposed to what had happened to her husband in terms of what
she assumed to be his burial (for there was as yet no evidence that any of
the remains exhumed were those of her husband), she had a history, an ac –
count she could imagine and thus give shape to what occurred. At the same
time, this sharing suggested that scientific certainty is not transcendent,
self-evident, immediate, unambiguous, and authoritative.
During the exhumations it was clear that Androulla still considered
her husband to be still with her, still present, certainly not dead. She hu –
manized him. She used the word myrizan (smelled) to describe the corpses
when talking about the reasons why the bodies were buried hurriedly. is
was certainly the case: “We buried them without a proper kideia (mortuary
ceremony),” said the priest Papas Andreas Christoforou. “We only per –
formed the trisageio [lit., the sign of the cross]. ere were some 190 dead
and we couldn’t do more than this because of the unrelenting bad smell
(aperanti disodia )” (as reported in Phileleftheros, 3 June 1999). e term
aperanti disodia is a literary one. Androulla, by contrast, used the word
myrizan —from myrodia, which could also suggest smelling good, even
perfume (although the term “aroma” covers this). e term can be applied
to smells that occur in the natural world, such as the smells of flowers. e
woman at the house next to the cemetery to whom she spoke used an even
more unambiguous term: vromisan (they stank)—a term used for cesspits,
filth, and matter that is fundamentally out of place. e term refers to hu –
man sources and human putrefaction. Something that is vromizei needs to
be concealed, kept away from light and air, buried. It is a polluting smell.
Clearly, what the neighbor meant was that for non-kin, such bodies were
mere corpses that required immediate burial. By contrast, when Androulla
said “ myrizan, oi kaimenoi ” (“they smelled bad, the poor ones”; literally,
“the burned ones”), she spoke of her husband not as a polluting putrefy –
ing corpse to be hidden but as someone still recognizable, belonging to
the world of the living, such as a hunter returning home (as depicted in
his photograph) who had now become the hunted (see Seremetakis 1991
for a further discussion of kaimenos ). e person(s) referred to are objects
of pity and compassion that require cleansing and washing, not objects of
horror deriving from pollution. ey still belong to the world of the living.
us, her husband required cleansing, his body needed to be prepared for
the proper burial he had never received. ere was, of course, no body to
be retrieved, merely bones. Nevertheless, Androulla had to conceive of him
as freshly dead to give him the burial he had never received, to mourn him
in a way she had never been permitted.
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Recognition and Emotion I 201
e above lends credence to the psychological necessity, even precondi –
tion, of rituals to express emotions (contra Rosaldo 1984). But rituals also
require social frameworks. Androulla’s efforts were an attempt not just to
“repatriate” Hambis as a national subject in the face of official indifference
but also to retrieve a husband toward whom she had ultimate obligations
of care. He had died the classical “bad death”—according to witnesses, as a
result of beating ( vasana ) by T urkish soldiers after being captured. e term
vasana (terrible suffering) is also used to describe the suffering undergone
by Christian martyrs. He was in xeniteia (a state of being away from kith
and kin). According to Seremetakis, xeniteia “encompasses the condition
of estrangement, the outside, the movement from the inside to the outside,
as well as contact and exchange between foreign domains, objects, agents.
. . . Xeniteia is reversible and situationally-contingent” (1991, 85). By re –
trieving him from a double xeniteia as a nameless fallen and retrieving him
existentially (existence before essence), she was attempting to realize the
bonds of kinship and care in the face of statist imperatives that these men
were in effect lost and therefore could not be buried properly.
It is not too fanciful to suggest that women such as Androulla thus
assume the symbolic role of an Antigone who fights to bury her brother
(husband) against the wishes of the State/Elders/Creon because he was
implicated in a shameful betrayal and civil war that require a sacrificial
scapegoat to uphold the integrity of the city-state or the nation. Clearly
Androulla did not see her situation in such conscious terms. Modeling
herself on a classical heroine was far from her mind. But her defiance, even
her harshness and her pride, are features that a careful reader of the play
would recognize as not too distinct from the character presented to us by
Sophokles.
Burial
On my return to Cyprus in September 2000, I learned that the bones of
Androulla’s husband (Haralambos) had been identified. Her daughter said
that her mother was getting better every day, but when I spoke to her, she
sounded subdued. She had had an operation and was leaner and her skin
was darker. Her eyes were tired. It was as if she was bracing herself for a final
encounter with what she had to do. In particular she concentrated on the
role of the authorities, and she now had an opportunity to have her say.
She repeated a number of times the phrase “I lost my life [on this issue;
echasa tin zoi mou ].” Androulla went to Phaneromeni Church to pay the
priest to read her husband’s name out as a mnimosino (memorial service).
is was a clear indication that she considered him dead. is was the first
time she had done so. She later learned that his mothers’ mnimosino fell
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on the same day. “Very strange [ periergo ],” she said, but left the discus –
sion empty, although she seemed to be toying with the idea that this was
fated.
She noted that it was the family’s decision whether or not to accept a
government representative at the funeral. “I said that my husband fought
for his country, Greek and T urk.” Because of Androulla’s high profile, media
attention was intense and the authorities tried to impose a news blackout
over the translatio (movement of bones to a final resting place). But Cy –
prus is a small place and news travels, so the press and television channels
were present. Androulla was of two minds about whether she wanted the
authorities to attend. In the end, she relented. Her condition oscillated on
different levels and she often talked about her dreams. Her major struggle
and reality was defined by, and in contrast to, the bureaucracy. Given her
high profile and her irrepressibility, the authorities were concerned that she
would use the opportunity to make some highly embarrassing statements
to the media. She quite justifiably believed that the authorities were with –
holding information from her but that she had managed to ferret it out. “I
have my own sources and blood speaks,” she said.
“e politicians shouldn’t talk [at the funeral],” she said. Popi, her
daughter, was planning to do so. is day would be hers and hers alone.
She wanted, in the apt phrase of Seremetakis (1992), to have the last word.
“All the family will be there”; they planned to receive his body, keep him at
home and then have a kideia the next day. “I am preparing to receive my
husband as he is. Nobody understood our tragedy and us. I am proud that
I found him and that he will be a hero for his country.” Another theme
she was proud of was that in her original transgressive action of breaking
into the tombs at Lakatameia cemetery, she had forced the authorities to
do something.
e day after I spoke to her, Androulla seemed very distressed. “ Ar-
chisan ta provlimata [e problems have begun],” she said. She wanted
Defense Minister Socratis Hasikos to be present, whereas government
people wanted politicians to make the oration. ey told her that there
were many missing and that it would not be fair to invite him to speak at
this ceremony. She replied that her husband had lost his life for his patrida,
his country, and therefore it was only right that the head of the army speak.
T wo days later the government had accepted her request for Hasikos to
attend and give a speech. e box with the remains was collected from
the laboratory, draped with a Greek flag, blessed by a triad of priests, and
transported by military cortege to Androulla’s home. ere it remained for
the night and the wake.
“God gave me much strength [ dynami ]. When they told me about the death
of my husband, that night I had a dream.” She did not mean the identification but
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Recognition and Emotion I 203
used the word for death— pethane. is was the first time she used the most neutral
word for death, indicating that until then he had been somehow still alive for her.
“I saw my pethera [mother-in-law] and next to her was my own mother. My pethera
said to me ‘Come and sit next to us’ and made a sign. And I was glad. But I was also
afraid that there would be news from this side of the family. en the telephone
rang. at day I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I wasn’t happy. Something
was eating me inside. My daughter sent Haglund [the head of Physicians for Peace] a
fax. at other night I had another dream. ey opened my mother’s tomb, to bury
someone. I asked the man digging: Has my mother dissolved [ elyose ]? He showed
me a bone and told me that this was all that was left. ey were about to phone me
up. I was warned of this in the dream. Haglund phoned up my daughter and told us
that they had found our father [here she used “ o pateras mas ”]. We said it was right
to see the bones—for us to believe, for us to fully understand it [ yia na pistepsoume,
yia na katalavoume ]. Until then I knew and yet I didn’t know [that he was dead].
We wanted photographs and had to photograph secretly. We wanted photographs
to show that it is ended.” She also wanted me to videotape the ceremony. To her it
was deeply important: “It is good to have a video—for the children.”
In her excellent book on death and divination in Mani, Greece,
Seremetakis (1991) outlines how women are progressively drawn into the
presence of death through rituals that range from divination (dreams) to
“screaming the dead” ( klama ). ese are of course “normal” deaths. In
Androulla’s case, however, this process occurred through engagement with
bureaucratic procedures. Nevertheless, the process of intuiting death ap –
pears in the “normal” sequence, through dreams. According to Seremetakis,
“A central static sign of the warning dream is the appearance of the dead.
. . . e return of the dead codifies a future displacement of the life situation
of the dreamer and/or significant others. e dead can also signify by bio –
logical shared substance, that is, the kinship affiliation of the dead indicates
the general direction of the dream’s message” (58). Dreams of imminent
death are signified by 1) defamiliarization; 2) inversion; 3) shared sub –
stance; and 4) static signs of negativity (ibid.). Androulla’s dream featured
a “return of the dead”: her mother and mother-in-law. e “dissolving” of
the body and the bone are critical indexes of defamiliarization. At the same
time there was an inversal: She referred to her husband as a “father.” is
may be partly due to the collective linguistic “we,” a word that grouped
herself with her daughters. Yet something distinctive seemed to be taking
place. roughout the late afternoon till the next day, the coffin lay in
her saloni for the wake ( agrypnia ). e house was filled with relatives and
close friends. Women would come in crying, and she would call out “ ela
Christoulla mou [come, my Christoulla], come and see him.” e weeping
woman would come over, kiss her on the cheek, and then move to another
part of the room. e women sat around a table on which the box contain –
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204 I Paul Sant Cassia
ing the bones had been laid. e Greek flag was draped over the box and
a framed photograph rested on top of it. Emotion ebbed and flowed. At
times people talked silently and normally. At others, an event might trigger
collective crying. When the box containing Hambis’s retrieved personal
belongings was opened, there was a scramble and Androulla shouted “Let
them see! So that they can see how governments lie and how people are
betrayed!” e dead man’s sister cried out: “To think that all these years
he was buried close by without our knowing, his father wailing alone in
his fields for his lost son!” Seremetakis categorizes the woman who sings
her pain as the korifea : “e moiroloyistres and korifea institute the funda –
mental dynamics of lament performance and of mourning in general. . . .
e korifea is the soloist in pain and the moiroloyistres are the chorus; their
responses to the korifea validate her pain with their own pain” (ibid., 99).
“e acoustics of death embodied in ‘screaming’ and lamenting and [the]
presence or ‘appearance’ ( fanerosi ) of kin construct the ‘good death.’ e
silent death is the asocial ‘bad death’ without kin support. Silence here
connotes the absence of witness. ‘Screaming the dead’ counters the isola –
tion of death. It separates the mourner from residual social contexts yet
registers her entry into a social relation with the dead and the rest of the
mourners” (ibid., 101). Androulla, who was highly distraught, addressed
her husband many times, often not in full sentences but in phrases when
collective emotions were high. When she uttered these words, her voice
became deeper and intense: “ Den se kavalava Hambi (“Hambi, I didn’t
recognize you”—meaning “I wasn’t able to hear you speaking to me when
you asked me to find you”). “Hambi, what have you done? . . . Hambi, I
had to come and find you. . . . I took the kouspo [shovel]. . . . at’s what
they told me, Hambi.” It was almost as if she were addressing him and that
she was predestined to find him: “ Eipa sou na kalypso ton topo pou etafis,
ton topo pou se evalan mana mou ” (“I told you that I would find the place
where you were buried, the [wrong] place they had put you, my dear.”)
. . . “Chryse mou, nomizeis enna polemisis? ” (“My dear, so you think you are
about to go into battle?”)
e wake was important for Androulla not just as a way to channel her
emotions but also as a vindication of her struggle. She had been labeled
as slightly crazy for having broken into the tombs and was aware that this
act required much courage. She had acknowledged to me that such actions
were macabre ( makavrio ), but she believed she had to do it. It was also an
opportunity to present her own account of her struggle to others. During
the wake, she also recounted to visitors a logical, sequential, more episodic
account of how she had realized that her husband was actually buried in the
Greek side, in contrast to her utterances above, when she was “possessed” (a
word used very easily in anthropology). In this case, she presented matters
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Recognition and Emotion I 205
as if she had been predestined to find him. Yet the two strands of knowledge
united literally in an epiphany of disclosure. She repeatedly said “e truth
was made manifest [ efanike e alitheia ].” is is what she recounted:
In 1981 there was a secret agreement whereby they exhumed bodies from Tymvos
military cemetery and cleaned them and sent them to Greece. Why did they take
them to Greece? Eh, they will tell us. I don’t know. [is was a secret agreement
whereby some bones were “identified” by Greek Cypriot authorities as belonging
to mainland Greek army officers and sent to their families. It then transpired that
they were the wrong bones, and they had had to be prized away from their Greek
relatives, much to the embarrassment of Greek Cypriot authorities. It also transpired
that the bones couldn’t be identified because they had been cleaned with the wrong
chemicals.] . . . In 1981, I was informed of this and I went to the Committee (of
relatives of missing persons) and they told me that he wasn’t in that group and
[that] they [had] exhumed all of them and [taken] them to Tymvos, and [that] he
wasn’t there. It was from this time that I got angry [ synhistika ego ], and you know, I
was gutted [ teleiosa ], and I wrote requesting to be informed of all the names. ey
phoned me up five years ago. I didn’t know that the osteofylakeia [sacred place where
the bones are retained after exhumation] was a koinotafion [common tomb where
bones are reburied after exhumation]. But they didn’t collect the bones from one
place. ey got a leg from one place, a head from another. At the end they phoned
me twenty-one years later to say that my husband was dead, and I asked where? ey
didn’t say. I went to Lakatameia and when I saw there were some tombstones with
“Unknown Soldier” on the tombstones, I got alarmed, and I had to take pills for
three and a half years, and then I had to do this. . . . It was from other witnesses that
I discovered the truth. . . . Government people didn’t believe that I would do this,
saying, “slowly, slowly,” but we had been waiting all these years. . . . I didn’t know
which grave was his, only generally as there were many men there. . . . I had dreams:
on the day they notified me by letter that my husband had been identified and on
the day they informed me to go and collect the body. In it I recognized him from his
skull [ kranio ]. ere were other women who were weaker than I was and they locked
themselves up in their homes all these years. But I won [ ime nikitis ].
e women gathered around her were like the chorus in an ancient Greek
play. ey expressed collective feelings, social sentiments. Often people
would say: “But can you understand what it means to die and for your
loved ones not to know? is is the biggest sin.” e similarity to Aesche –
lian ancient theatre is more than superficial. As in theatre, the action took
place off stage and was recounted. e gathered women were the chorus,
and there were two main characters present: Androulla and the corpse/
remains of her husband. e men stayed outside.
Androulla had a son who suffered from cerebral palsy and died at the
age of twelve. Her brother, Kyriakos, who lives next to her, went to the
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206 I Paul Sant Cassia
cemetery to gather the bones of her son, next to whom her husband would
be buried. On the Saturday morning Androulla said she wanted to see her
son. She took eau de cologne to sprinkle on her son’s bones, which Kyriakos
had gathered in a blanket onto which he had placed the son’s skull. She
went first to his grave and told him, crying as a moiroloyio (lament), “We
have found your father. Tonight you will sleep with him next to you.” She
then went to her mother’s grave and addressed her: “Mother, I have found
my husband, Hambis.” She was very agitated. Her friend Maroulla was
worried: “I thought she would faint, and then what will I do? Fortunately,
the colognia revived her.” “I will sleep with Hambis tonight,” Androulla
said, hugging his coffin. e shovels used to bury him were the same ones
she used at her attempted exhumations, she said.
e memorial service at the church, praesente cadavere, was a major
event attended by the media, ministers, the Bishop of Morphou, officials,
and representatives of the Committee of the Relatives of the Missing. e
speeches reinforced the tendency to turn the missing into heroes, some –
thing that Androulla and many other relatives seemed pleased with. is
process also occurred in Argentina (Robben 2000). Christian symbolism
was predominant in the speeches. No officials came to her home after the
funeral to take refreshments during the parigoria [post-funeral gathering].
According to Androulla, they did not come “because they are tired of the
whole business and they came to the church only to see the reaction of
the family.”
Androulla’s observation was astute. Tensions between political wid –
ows and authorities over burials are not new. ey underlie Sophokles’
Antigone and, in more contemporary times, South Africa. For the latter,
Ramphele has noted: “e political widow becomes a valuable resource for
the political organization to which her husband and/or herself were affili –
ated. She embodies the social memory that has to be cultivated and kept
alive to further the goals of the struggle. . . . [But] she also becomes the
embodiment of the brutality of the state which leaves women like her in
a vulnerable liminal state” (1997, 110). e authorities were apprehensive
about Androulla’s potential for independent action and the danger (from
their point of view) that she might overstep her passive role as political
widow and condemn them. Initially she wanted to exclude them, but she
relented. Her insistence that the defense minister attend confirmed her
husband’s heroic status. Ramphele suggests that “the public role of the po –
litical widow derives from her relationship with her husband; she is not seen
as a widow but as someone standing in for a fallen man. . . . Her agency
is not completely eliminated but constrained” (112). is may apply to
post-apartheid South Africa and indeed to many Cypriot widows on both
sides but is perhaps too uncompromising in its positing an ideal of uncon –
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Recognition and Emotion I 207
strained political agency—a romantic view of Antigone. e messiness of
social life rarely permits such gestures. What was important for Androulla
was the recognition by the authorities that her link with her husband was
more compelling than the scandalous ways they had used him as a missing
person. In short, she was a political widow before his identification and
exhumation. His reburial returned him to her, much like Phocion’s widow
who gathered his ashes from beyond the city’s walls. Clearly the authorities
attempted to derive political capital out of the public ceremony, but their
presence there suited her purposes. Political sponsorship did not assuage
her resentment or indeed constrain her possibilities for future action. It
may even have strengthened her position. Nor was the charade lost on the
public or on the officials present.4
Conclusion
In her book on death and divination in Greece, Seremetakis (1991)
laid bare how death defamiliarizes the social order. Death separates men
and women. By “screaming the dead” (the klama ), women reconfigure the
social order, managing violence through language and sound which is both
the “performance” and self-embodiment of pain ( ponos ). Death provides
women with an eruptive opportunity to other themselves through a violently
emotive engagement with, and pothos for, their dead that men fear to enter.
Seremetakis considers the moiroloyio and the klama to be expressions of
the ethics of care, which have been incrementally encroached upon by the
historical rationalization of death (163).
We can view matters somewhat differently, less in terms of the pro –
gressive “rationalization” of emotions, attractive (and indubitably partly
correct) as this thesis may be. Highly emotively charged situations (such
as the loss of loved ones) are by their very “nature” resistant to “rational –
ization,” and they often provide a performative space for those likely to
be particularly constrained by such forces to comment on them. In this
chapter I have shown that during the process of exhumations and reburial
something more was involved than the attempts of a wife/widow to find
her dead husband and lay him to rest. It was a reassertion of obligation
and the obligation of reassertion. In situations of extreme stress, kinship
reasserts itself not through the enactment of roles but rather through the
enactment and embodiment of sentiment. Sentiments are not restricted to,
and by, roles. Rather, individuals embody their sentiments as a means to
find themselves and define their roles in their own way.
Contemporary anthropological theory finds it difficult to grapple with
these notions. Our understanding of kinship is embedded in our treatment
of roles—as brother, mother, wife, father, and so forth. But there is a sense
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208 I Paul Sant Cassia
in which emotion transcends these terms and has to be treated as a sui gene –
ris phenomenon, redefining what we normally understand by these terms.
In Greek, one could use the term diki mas/dikos mas (our man, our person)
to denote an ascriptive role beyond kinship terms. “Our man/woman” ap –
plies to strict kinship and affinity, patronage, political party membership,
even ethnicity. It is the opposite of xenos. Yet although the term is useful,
in Androulla’s case, the sense of recapture, of the emotion she expressed
and the way she spoke of her husband, transcended a “simple” matter of
the recovery of a husband. She recovered something more than that. Here
a detour to the classical Greek notion of philia may be useful. In discussing
Greek tragedy, Simon Goldhill (1986) notes that the notion of philos (and,
relatedly, ekthros ) cannot be glossed as friend (and enemy). Philos /philia is
the language of obligation between one’s own, between husband and wife,
brother and sister. Philia is an obligation to be obliging, versus an equal
obligation to be disobliging, with one’s ekhthroi [enemies]. Sophokles’ An –
tigone treats the sentiment of philia toward her brother as higher than the
rules of the city that holds him to be an ekthros: “I am not of a nature to
share in hatred ( ekhth -) but to share in love ( phil-).” Modern Greek does
not carry that notion. Indeed, when a woman refers to her philos, she refers
to a lover (often a secret one). But I am suggesting that it is precisely this
categorically transgressive use of philos that could give us an insight into
the notion that her husband was her philos in both the modern Greek sense
of lover and in the classical Greek sense of an obligation that binds both
husband and wife and brother and sister. Androulla’s struggle against the
authorities in wanting Hambis identified not as an agnoumeno but as her
husband, not as an anonymous person buried secretly beyond the city’s
walls but as someone with an identity who should be buried within the
city (i.e., the moral community), was in effect a struggle for recognition
of a living, binding, personal, relationship, of her obligation, of her philia,
rather than an imposed, civic, depersonalized, linkage to her husband as a
political widow. Her struggle to maintain that bond with Hambis can be
seen metaphorically as a bond with a philos ; that is, a secret, not socially
recognized bond with an individual, one that rejects the state-imposed
role of a passive Penelope. She rejected the waiting or mourning role of a
wife/widow and pursued the action of frequenting Hambis’s materiality
after his politically imposed “disappearance,” or non-materiality. rough
her attempt to exhume him, she “materialized” ( pragmatevthike ), literally
made real/true, her husband. In this sense, until he was positively identi –
fied, he could be seen in the modern Greek sense as her philos, as someone
with whom she maintained a rapport on an ongoing emotive level that was
not recognized by society. I am of course talking metaphorically here, but
it is through the use of symbols and hidden levels of meaning that we can
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Recognition and Emotion I 209
understand the subtlety of her utterances and conflicting emotions during
the exhumation and reburial process. In another sense, her rapport with
her husband can be seen in the classical Greek sense of philos, as a term
in moral discussion or judgment. I am not referring here to the notion of
“friend” but as someone to whom she had a overriding obligation (perhaps
dikos mou ). As Goldhill notes, not only is philos “one of the commonest
adjectives applied to Homeric poems to words for ‘spouse’” (1986, 82),
but it also marks the “bonds and agreements of a social interaction” (ibid.).
It is not too fanciful to suggest that because she had not had a material or
physical relationship with her husband for some twenty-six years, he had
become something like a brother, or even a father, someone whose bond
one inherits. She did indeed make the slip of referring to him as “ o pateras
mas” (our father), and when she was apprehended by the police during her
desperate exhumation, she cried out: “Is there not any mother who doesn’t
want to find her son?” I am struggling here to try to fit complex senti –
ments and representations in extraordinary situations into categories and
roles (husband, wife, brother, etc.) that produce normality. Terms such as
“husband” and “wife” do not fully work in such situations. It is because of
the situation’s phenomenological extraordinariness that we must move be –
yond the normal embedded meanings of terms. Significantly, she addressed
him only as o antras mou, my husband—that is, as a socially restricted
role—when talking to officials in public. At home during the wake and at
the cemetery, she always referred to him, and addressed him by, his name,
Hambis. Nor could she refer during the wake to any of his characteristics
as a husband. He had long ceased to materially disclose himself to her as a
person. It was not his identity as an interacting recently departed husband
that was recalled, for they had only been married for a short time. She did
not have a bank of images to draw upon. Instead, she drew incessantly upon
his last days: “And you thought you would go off to fight, dear Hambi!”
By contrast, it was his siblings who could recall him as he was prior to
his marriage, as an individual with unique personal characteristics. e
re-presentation of missing persons is also a struggle against the missing
enemies of memory.
One could describe the process of Androulla’s recapture of her husband
as a process of recognition. It is recognition that gives the process its extraor –
dinary dramatic potency. e various scenes at the cemetery during the
exhumations and at the wake could be called “recognition scenes,” similar
to those found in classical tragedy. Recognition is a process of legitima –
tion. Antigone recognizes Polynices and throws earth over him. Androulla
recognizes her husband and wants him buried properly. As Goldhill noted:
“ese [recognition] scenes—regarded by Aristotle as one of the two most
powerful types of scene in tragic plots—dramatize not just the moment of
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210 I Paul Sant Cassia
a sentimental rediscovery of a family member, but also the reaffirmation
of the legitimacy or obligations of a particular tie” (1986, 85). e klama
and moiroloyi Seremetakis discusses can also be viewed as variations of
recognition scenes. Clearly, the death of loved ones is an emotional event.
But I prefer to view the klama in terms of an attempted recovery of loss. e
advantages of this perspective are twofold. It encompasses the recovery of
material remains of individuals who represented the aspirations of national
communities that Verdery (1999) discusses with respect to Eastern Europe.
And it locates emotion in an attempted (ultimately doomed) recovery of
loss rather than in the loss itself. e klama, as a scene of recognition, is
thus both pain at loss and a defiance of death’s violent erasure of social
ties through “the screaming.” Pain as mourning requires a participatory
audience not just for those experiencing the loss but for society itself. Re-
cognition as the quintessential mise-en-scène sets in motion the attempted
recovery of loss. And recognition is triadic: it requires the recognizer, the
recognized, and the recognized-to—a witness, an audience.
I make these points because recognition, as in Androulla’s case, can
take place a long time after the actual loss itself. Admittedly this is a rare
case, but it demonstrates, even if in extremis, that it was the recognition as
a mise-en-scène (bringing together the recognizer, the recognized, and the
recognized-to) that provided the only meaningful context for that intense
eruption of emotions. Seremetakis makes an important observation that
enables us to tease out the paradox: “Burial interrupts visual contact with
the dead. Exhumation restores that contact which is described as the ‘first
facing’ of the dead. is can be a moment of shock, loss, and extreme grief
for the exhumer who finds the dead ‘unrecognizable.’ Exhumation then
constitutes a re-encounter with the dead in a new and alien form” (1999,
187–188).
Re-cognizing the “unrecognizable.” is seems to me precisely the
“moment of shock” because it substantiates and reconfigures not just a
change in relationship with the lost/mourned person but a change in the
mourner’s relationship with herself. Mourning is not just expressive; it is
also transformative. It was precisely because the burial/ritual process here
was the reverse of normal burials that this type of recognition took place.
e normal burial-exhumation-recognition process as outlined by Dan –
forth (1982), when women talk or sing to the exhumed bones, is one of
both recognition and untying the bonds between kin. Here, by contrast,
the following process occurred: Androulla’s desperate first “exhumation”
to draw attention to her unrecognized tie—scientific exhumation—her
“intuitive precognition” of his bones—scientific validation—the klama as
a social recognition of her link to Hambis, and his reburial. It was thus im –
portant for her to “recognize” the bones, to make them hers. She was “pre –
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Recognition and Emotion I 211
destined” to find her husband, and her finding of him was a reaffirmation
of the bond between them. Victor T urner long ago identified the dramatic
moment that exposes the various forces that affect the social structure. I
suggest that some insights from classical tragedy can be effective tools in
prizing open the complexities of this particular set of dramatic moments.
is can help us recognize Aristotle’s views on tragedy as anthropologically
significant when approaching the phenomenon of social suffering. T ragedy
is not a condition. It is the working out of the actions of individuals as they
affect others, guided by certain ideas and beliefs. “Suffering is an action. It
is the outcome of a series of preceding acts. Indeed this plot-centered view
holds the promise of cognitive clarifications that may lead to the possibility
of personal and social change” (Morris 1997, 37). e characters discussed
here progressively achieved some cognitive clarifications through pursuing
cultural patterns of action more likely to result in “closure.” It would be
hubris to identify this Western vocabulary of suffering with a return to
the situation ex post ante. Events etch indelible traces on the lives of indi –
viduals. Women like Androulla and Maroulla used the cultural resources
available to them against the authorities that sought to use them for state
purposes—not to achieve closure but to recover their dignity through
discharging their gender-informed obligations. Contra Ramphele (1997),
I would argue that their gender identity as constrained widows enabled
them to claim agency. Gender is constraint, but those constraints are part
of the cracked edifice of society. e Hegelian ideal of a genderless “full
citizenship” may actually disempower individuals. e major threat to the
recognition of the widows’ suffering does not come from their current
political exploitation by authorities on both sides of the Green Line. ere
is increasing awareness of this exploitation in Cyprus (Drousiotis 2000). It
is rather that the national politicization of the issue on both sides conceals
an even more fundamental reality, which is the state’s need for dead bodies
to be appropriated—in short, the political order requires representations of
suffering, and this particular political formation requires ethnic representa –
tions of suffering.5 e major threat to the recognition of suffering always
comes from the concealment of agency.
If I am right that every political order requires its own specific repre –
sentations of suffering, we should not be surprised if suffering is redefined
in Cyprus, moving from the ethnic to the medical. Should a political solu –
tion to the island’s division be found, suffering may be depoliticized through
medicalization. Androulla’s conceptualization of her suffering was certainly
medical in part, but this is what one could call a “traditional” mode of seek –
ing assistance. Globalization and modernization, to which the professional
classes aspire in Cyprus, can homogenize the symptoms and vocabulary of
suffering to take advantage of the Promethean gifts of modern therapeutic
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212 I Paul Sant Cassia
regimes imported from overseas that see suffering in terms of psychological
trauma. ese may be profoundly unsuited to people’s original experiences
in the sense that they do not address the causes of their suffering, but they
create new subjects (and thus new citizens) for modern political and medi –
cal orders. In the interests of “national reconciliation,” we should not be
surprised if medicalization—turning suffering people into patients—offers
an “economical solution” that overrides recognition of political agency. is
has happened elsewhere, but at a cost. Kleinman and Kleinman note the
implications: “Increasingly those complicated stories, based on real events,
yet reduced to a cultural image of victimization (a postmodern hallmark),
are used by health professionals to rewrite social experience in medical
terms” (1997, 10). As often occurs, this process may be wrought out of the
compromised silences of those who have to bear this silencing.
Notes
1. For a discussion on this and related issues, see Sant Cassia 1999a, 1999b, 2000,
2001.
2. It was established to conduct research on genetic disorders.
3. For a discussion on the use of the senses, see Seremetakis 1991.
4. For a discussion of public secrets and power, see Taussig 1999.
5. See Verdery 1999.
Works Cited
Danforth, Loring. 1982. e Death Rituals of Modern Greece. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press.
Drousiotis, Makarios. 2000. 1619 Enoches. Nicosia: Diafaneia.
Goldhill, Simon. 1986. Reading Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kleinman, Arthur, and Jane Kleinman. 1997. “e Appeal of Experience, e Dismay of
Images: Cultural Appropriations of Sufferings in Our Times.” In Social Suffering, ed.
A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock, 1–23. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Morris, David. 1997. “About Suffering: Voice, Genre and Moral Community.” In Social
Suffering, ed. A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock, 25–45. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Ramphele, Margery. 1997. “Political Widowhood in South Africa: e Embodiment of
Ambiguity.” In Social Suffering, ed. A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock, 99–117.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Robben, Antonius. 2000. “e Assault on Basic T rust: Disappearance, Protest, and Re –
burial in Argentina.” In Cultures under Siege: Collective Violence and Trauma, ed. A.
C. G. M. Robben and M. Suarez-Orozco, 68–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Rosaldo, Renato. 1984. “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage: On the Cultural Force of Emo –
tion.” In T ext, Play, and Story, ed. E. Bruner, 178–195. Washington, D.C.: American
Ethnological Association.
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Recognition and Emotion I 213
Sant Cassia, Paul. 1999a. “Piercing T ransfigurations: Representations of Suffering in Cy –
prus.” Visual Anthropology 13: 23–46.
———. 1999b. “Missing Persons in Cyprus as Ethnomartyres. ” Modern Greek Studies
Yearbook 14/15: 261–284.
———. 2000. “Statist Imperatives and Ethical Dilemmas in the Representation of Missing
Persons in Cyprus.” In Morals of Legitimacy: Between Agency and the System, ed. Italo
Pardo, 127–156. Oxford: Berghahn.
———. 2001. “Waiting for Ulysses. e Committee for Missing Persons in Cyprus.” In
e Work of the UN in Cyprus: Promoting Peace and Development, ed. Oliver Richmond
and James Ker-Lindsay, 193–235. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave.
Seremetakis, Nadia. 1991. e Last Word: Women, Gender, and Divination in Inner Mani.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Taussig, Michael. 1999 Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labour of the Negative. Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Verdery, Katherine. 1999. e Political Lives of Dead Bodies. New York: Columbia Uni –
versity Press.
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214 I Vasssos Argyrou
ELEVEN
Postscript
REFLECTIONS ON AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF CYPRUS
Vassos Argyrou
I
Anthropology is an impossible discipline. It is burdened with a power
it does not want but a power nonetheless from which it cannot liberate
itself. It knows what its aim is—above all to demonstrate that we are all,
“us” and “them,” essentially and fundamentally the same—but every time it
aims, which is always, it always already misses the target and badly bruises
itself. Anthropology is an impossible discipline because it cannot discipline
itself. Its practitioners are caught up in the modernist ontological double
bind, the vicious circle of being subjects and objects at the same time, both
creators of the world and creatures in it. Hence, although they meticulously
and painstakingly construct the world as One, at the very same instant they
deconstruct it. ey do so by the very act of construction, which impercep –
tibly but inevitably produces T wo—the constructor and the construct, the
creator and the creature—which are by definition locked in an asymmetri –
cal relationship. Anthropology is an impossible discipline, in short, because
it cannot avoid being what it must never be; namely, ethnocentric.
What, then, is there to say about “an anthropology of Cyprus” except
that it itself is an impossible task? In one sense, of course, this is precisely
what one must say. But, to begin with, anthropology will not go away
because it cannot be itself. Although it exists as a shadow of itself, it will
no doubt continue the uphill struggle to become its true self. And this is
not only or even mainly because of a whole host of practical, professional,
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Postscript I 215
and institutional reasons. e most fundamental reasons are ontological.
Anthropologists must continue the struggle to maintain a unified image of
the world because an inherently divided world, a world in which inequality
is an intrinsic part of reality—for anthropologists, a racist and ethnocen –
tric world in particular—is ethically absurd and meaningless. ey must
continue the struggle to convince others and, above all, themselves of the
essential goodness and innocence of the world, of its common humanity
and human purity, because they are driven by an implacable desire for an
ethically meaningful world—a will to meaning.1
If anthropology is here to stay, then, perhaps there are ways and means
of making it less blatantly ethnocentric and more palatable. To be sure,
so-called postmodern anthropologists (e.g., Clifford and Marcus 1986)
have suggested various reflexive and dialogic methods for the discipline as
a whole. My concern in this chapter however, is not with anthropology writ
large but with the prospect of an anthropology of Cyprus. My exploration
revolves around and is constrained by this theme.
In a certain fundamental sense, an anthropology of Cyprus is impos –
sible. is is anthropology understood as the discourse of Western anthro –
pologists on Cypriot society and culture. Yet this is not the only way to
understand either anthropology or Cyprus, and to think otherwise is to
fall into the trap of ethnocentrism once again, the ethnocentrism which
assumes without saying so that the only “natives” of anthropology are to
be located outside the West and the only practitioners of the discipline
inside. An anthropology of Cyprus could very well be the anthropological
study of the West itself from the perspective of a dominated and marginal –
ized culture. ere is, of course, always the danger of repeating the vari –
ous blunders of anthropology, chief among them the essentialization and
reification of what is, after all, a plurality of cultures. For is not the notion
of the West the flip side of the notion of the Other? No doubt it could
be. Yet what I have in mind is not a unified culture or a group of cultures,
and certainly not something to be located exclusively in Western societies.
Rather, I am referring to ideas (and hence also practices), the dominant
ideas that originate in Western societies and circulate around the world as
serious and legitimate statements. Which is not to say that they circulate
necessarily in the same way or for the same reasons and purposes. Nor
is it to say that because they circulate, they are necessarily endorsed. An
anthropology of Cyprus would make such hegemonic ideas its object of
study. What it might look like and what its ultimate aim could be is the
second concern of this essay.
II
An anthropology of Cyprus in the first sense—as a Western discourse
on Cypriot society—must begin with the inescapable fact of colonialism.
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216 I Vasssos Argyrou
I am not referring here only or even mainly to the historical experience of
British colonial rule but also, and more important, to the colonization of
the local consciousness that began long before the arrival of the British and
continues to reproduce itself today, long after their departure. We should
not forget that the British were received in Cyprus as representatives of
civilization, as liberators from T urkish “backwardness” and “barbarism,”
as a nation that could understand and sympathize with the Greek Cypriot
desire to become part of Greece. For it was the British, after all, and no
doubt the Germans also, who produced the myth of Greece as the cradle of
civilization. And we should not forget either that even though Greek Cy –
priots subsequently came to view the “liberators” as oppressors and fought
a bitter “liberation struggle” against them, this was never an anti-European
or even anti-British struggle but a struggle to be recognized as personas in
the myth that Europeans had themselves created. Cypriots still long to be
part of that myth. Whether they will be recognized as personas of equal
standing in the European myth now that they have formally joined the
European Union remains to be seen.
e kind of colonialism that I have in mind, then, does not so much
refer to direct political domination or direct economic exploitation as it
does to the more subtle and for all purposes far more effective domination
at the symbolic level—the taking control of signs by making culturally
visible what had been invisible and therefore transforming ways of think –
ing, imagining, desiring, and making dependent entire ways of being (see
Bryant, this volume). e distinction is critical because the latter form
of domination is not reducible to the former. Cyprus came under direct
British colonial rule—a fact that should not be underestimated—but its
predicament of being dependent on Europe for the meaning of the world
is shared by societies that have never been colonies in the formal sense—
Greece and T urkey are two examples that come readily to mind.
An anthropology of Cyprus must begin with the fact of colonialism
because the colonization of native consciousness provides the context in
which contemporary realities can be better understood and appreciated.
More to the point, such a context could go some way toward discouraging
the more blatant forms of ethnocentrism: first, because it makes it more
difficult to turn local culture into nature; and second, because it highlights
the direct links between the local culture and the anthropologist’s culture
and therefore throws into relief the complicity of the latter (which is not to
say that the former is in any way innocent). Indeed, to understand Cyprus
is to understand how European hegemony works in the margins of Europe.
ere are innumerable examples of how this hegemony operates in every –
day life, but here I shall illustrate the point with two relatively recent ones.
e first connects the two sides of the divide—Greek and T urkish Cypri –
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Postscript I 217
ots—in a paradoxical, ironic, and multilayered manifestation of European
symbolic power. e second, equally ironic and paradoxical, concerns a
confrontation between Greek Cypriots and their former colonial masters.
e first case has to do with a well-known T urkish Cypriot journalist,
Sener Levent, who has been very critical and vociferous in his critique of
the T urkish Cypriot regime and the T urkish occupation of northern Cy –
prus—in fact, he is one of the few T urkish Cypriots to use the term “oc –
cupation” for what T urkish propaganda calls “peace operation.” Levent has
been equally vociferous about the need for a speedy solution to the Cyprus
Problem: reunification of the island and peaceful coexistence between the
two communities under the umbrella of the European Union. His views
made him quite unpopular with the T urkish Cypriot regime and the T urk –
ish army, which tried to silence him with threats of various kinds. Ulti –
mately, the authorities took more drastic measures: they closed down his
newspaper, Avrupa (Europe), and confiscated its property. Levent’s response
was to found a new paper, which he decided to call Afrika, and continue
his trenchant critique. In the summer of 2002, he and one of his colleagues
were arrested, taken to court, and sentenced to several months in prison
for espionage. e Greek Cypriot side reacted instantly. Greek Cypriot
journalists demanded their immediate release and reported the incident
to the European Union of Journalists, the International Press Association,
and other such international organizations. e Cypriot government itself
protested to the Council of Europe, the European Union, and the United
Nations. In October 2002, under mounting international pressure, the
T urkish Cypriot regime relented and set Levent and his colleague free.
e second example is an environmental story. It began a few years ago
with Greek Cypriot environmentalists protesting against the British army’s
use of the Akamas Peninsula in western Cyprus, an ecologically sensitive
area (see Welz, this volume), for military exercises. e British argued that
their right to exercise in Akamas was guaranteed by the agreement that
gave Cyprus its independence and the British two sovereign bases on the
island. e confrontation continued and escalated until the government
negotiated a compromise: e British exercises would move to a new loca –
tion that was not ecologically sensitive. A second round of confrontations
began soon after when the British announced that they were planning to
construct a giant antenna near the salt lake of Akrotiri, which is located on
one of the two British bases in Cyprus. e environmentalists argued that
the radiation would be harmful to the local population and that construc –
tion work was certain to damage another ecologically sensitive area. e
British agreed to commission studies on both issues; these studies, not sur –
prisingly perhaps, concluded that the radiation posed no health hazards to
people and that the fauna and flora to be affected could be moved safely to
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218 I Vasssos Argyrou
a nearby area. In the summer of 2002, having completed the removal of the
various species of plants and animals, the British began construction work.
e environmentalists tried to disrupt them, clashed several times with the
police, and denounced the British as “neocolonialists.” No compromise
was reached in this case. e British completed construction work and
began operating the antenna and the Cypriot environmentalists continue
to denounce them in the same manner, albeit not as vociferously.
Let us explore the paradoxes and ironies, twists and turns of European
hegemony in these stories. First, Sener Levent’s choice of names for his two
newspapers. As I have argued elsewhere (Argyrou 1996), Europe is what
most Cypriots—certainly most Greeks Cypriots—want their country to
be. is, of course, does not preclude rhetorical stances that might indicate
otherwise, depending on the context and the stakes involved. However, the
high stakes, which are not so much economic as political and cultural, lie
West, and this is where Cypriots are primarily facing. e best proof of this
is not, as one might think, that they are now members of the European
Union but rather the offense they take at the slightest insinuation that they
might not be truly and fully European.2 In this context, Levent’s choice
of the name Avrupa (Europe) for his first newspaper should not come as a
surprise. But neither should the choice of name for the second newspaper.
A “civilized” Europe does not stand alone; it stands in opposition to its
“uncivilized Others.” What better way then to protest against the condi –
tions in the occupied north than to name one’s newspaper Afrika ? Has not
Africa always epitomized Otherness in the European imagination? ere is,
of course, bitter irony in all this. In a paradoxical gesture of both self-em –
powerment and self-victimization, Levent resorted to the very Eurocentric
ideology that the British used to legitimize their colonial rule in Cyprus
and Greek Cypriots in turn used to justify to themselves their dominant
position vis-à-vis T urkish Cypriots. What is perhaps even more indicative
of the extent of European hegemony in Cyprus is the fact that the Greek
Cypriot journalists and politicians who rallied around Levent and criticized
the violation of his human rights have never considered or, at any rate,
have never stated publicly that the form of his protest was itself a blatant
violation, even if symbolic, of other people’s rights. How could they have
done? Whenever anyone in Cyprus wants to criticize anything, the term
for it is tritokosmiko, “third-world-like.”
ere is a lesson to be learned in the second story too. ere is no doubt
that in their confrontation with the British, the Greek Cypriot environmen –
talists could claim the moral high ground. ey fought to protect the local
people’s well-being and save an ecologically sensitive area from destruction.
e British concern, on the other hand, was the construction of an antenna
to be used for gathering military intelligence from the wider geographical
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Postscript I 219
area, primarily, one suspects, the Arab world, especially Iraq. e former,
then, sought to preserve life, the latter to (potentially) destroy it. ere is
no doubt either that the environmentalists were further empowered by
presenting Cypriots as victims of British neocolonialism—a small nation
still fighting for its independence forty-two years after it had formally won
it. But there is a paradoxical twist in this claim that throws into relief the
environmentalists’ complicity in their own domination and undercuts their
short-term empowerment. “Neocolonialism” works in mysterious ways or,
at any rate, in ways the Greek Cypriot environmentalists do not seem to
recognize. Over and above its more blatant manifestations—the use of
force and the threat of force—it colonizes the local consciousness, and this
form of colonization is far more effective and insidious than the former.
By disregarding the environmentalists’ wishes, the British may have acted
as “neocolonialists,” but what is one to say about the environmentalists
themselves? We do not know, for instance, what the British thought and
said about them in private, but we do know what Cypriots themselves
often say in such situations: “Come, grandfather, I’ll show you [where]
your vineyards [are].” For is it not the case that environmental discourses,
sensitivities, and practices came to Cyprus from, ironically, Britain itself,
Europe, and, more broadly, the West? To take the simplest and most ob –
vious example, where does the practice of chaining oneself to trees and
fences come from if not Greenpeace activism? One could say, then, that if
the British behaved as neocolonialists in their militaristic pursuits, Greek
Cypriot environmentalists revealed themselves as neocolonial subjects that
would have no reason to provoke the British to act as neocolonialists in
their own environmentalist pursuits.
One is tempted to contrast the “Cypriotized” Geenpeace activism with
indigenous forms of protest, such as the chipko, or tree-hugging, practice in
northern India, but tree-hugging was not an “environmental” protest until
it was discovered by Western environmentalists and was promoted as such.
At any rate, the point here is not to accuse Greek Cypriot environmentalists
of “imitating” their Western counterparts if by imitation one understands
pretension. ere is no choice here, nor, indeed, any consciousness of
choice. Having adopted the language of environmentalism, Cypriot envi –
ronmentalists must use its signs, not only to make sense to others but also,
and more important, to make sense to themselves. Rather than “imitation,”
then, it is perhaps better to speak of “indigenization,” provided that the
meaning of this misused term is clear. I take it to be the hegemonic process
by which global culture is turned into local nature (cf. Appadurai 1990).
But it is not my aim here to suggest that there is an authentic local cul –
ture in which “alienated” Cypriots should re-immerse themselves in order
to become once again their “true” selves. Beyond the obvious dangers of
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220 I Vasssos Argyrou
transforming this culture into another local nature, we should bear in mind
that traditions are always invented to oppose modernities and hence are
from the very beginning tied to and limited by the hegemonic. Finally, my
aim is not to suggest that there is a position outside the hegemonic from
which to speak about and deal with it. We are all trapped in it—whether
we are tied to it positively in identification, negatively in resistance, or, as
is so often the case in practice, in both of these ways at once.
Yet it is also the case that there are different ways of being caught up
in a game. e most common is to take the game seriously and play for
the stakes involved. Another is to play the game in order to put an end to
it. Although it is impossible to ignore the hegemonic, it may be possible
to deal with it in ways that undermine those conditions responsible for
identifying with it or resisting it, which is another form of recognition.
Which brings me to the question of an anthropology of Cyprus in the
second sense discussed above.
III
As I have already suggested, an anthropology of Cyprus in the second
sense cannot be a mere reversal of Western anthropology—the study of
Western societies and cultures by non-Western anthropologists. e fun –
damental problematic of Western anthropology has been to demonstrate
the unity of the world. e problematic of an anthropology of Cyprus can
only be the painstaking examination of the forces that generated the need
for such universalisms and, ultimately, their debunking. A more promising
line of inquiry in this respect would be the study of dominant ideas and
systems of ideas that originate in Western societies, assume a life of their
own, and colonize the rest of the world. T wo broad research areas suggest
themselves: first, investigation of the historical and ontological bases of
these ideas; and second, investigation of the circulation of these ideas and
their impact on the rest of the world. I shall begin with the second, leaving
the first and perhaps more ambitious program for later.
e circulation of Western ideas around the world means that the West
cannot be solely located in Western societies. Nor, for that matter, can
it be located only in the confrontation between the West and its Others
as, for example, in the reflective and fully articulated resistance to these
ideas by means of invented traditions—Gandhi’s (1910/1963) vision of
India comes readily to mind here, a vision which, by his own admission,
was mediated by the European Orientalists of the nineteenth century and
Henry Maine’s depiction of the ancient Indian village; and so does, in fact,
the Neo-Orthodox discourse in Greece and Cyprus which reproduces the
romanticism of, among others, Hamann, Herder, Mauss, and Heidegger.3
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Postscript I 221
e West must also be located in non-Western societies themselves, in the
internal struggles among different local groups—social classes, men and
women, the generations, ethnic communities—for identity and power.
is is where the West is reproduced outside the West as a matter of course,
roughly along the axis of tradition and modernity. An anthropology of
Cyprus would need to expose this silent reproduction, both the indigeniza –
tion of the global and the invention of the local, as one of the primary
ways in which the non-West enacts and reproduces the symbolic violence
of Western hegemony.
An equally significant aspect of circulation that requires thorough
investigation is the impact that shifts in hegemonic ideas have on the pe –
riphery. Such an investigation would throw into relief the predicament of
being dependent on others for the meaning of the world—the surprises,
paradoxes, and dilemmas to be faced and dealt with. I shall provide two
brief examples here to illustrate the point.
As I have already suggested, and as Herzfeld has thoroughly dem –
onstrated in his work on Greece, modern Greek identity is constructed
around the Eurocentric ideology of the eighteenth century that depicts
ancient Greece as the cradle of European civilization. Yet this ideology is
unstable. Over the last few decades, the perception that Europeans have of
themselves has begun to shift, no doubt partly under the influence of liberal
America and its vision of the world, itself a reflection of the particulari –
ties of American society. is is not to say that Europe no longer traces its
origins in ancient Greece. It is to say rather that this tracing has lost much
of its critical edge. In a world where allegedly there are no centers and no
peripheries but only “cultural flows,” the question of origins is no longer
raised with the same urgency—at least not by those who, secure at the
center, can afford to imagine the world as a “multicultural” universe. is
privileged group at the center does not include Greeks or Greek Cypriots.
Having indigenized the Eurocentric ideology and having little else with
which to compete in the global arena for national prestige, they cling to
the cradle-of-the-West myth with tenacity. Hence, when in the early 1990s
one of the former Yugoslav republics claimed the name Macedonia for
itself, Greeks went up in arms—and Greek Cypriots rallied behind them
with equal fervor. e “Skopians,” the Greeks argued, were falsifying his –
tory and usurping Greek cultural heritage. Macedonia was Greek and had
been Greek long before Alexander the Great. Europeans and Americans
were puzzled and disturbed by the Greek reaction; they could not under –
stand the Greek anger over the use of a mere name. Greeks, in turn, were
puzzled and disturbed by the Western response itself. What they could not
understand was why Europeans and Americans could not understand them.
In the end, the Western powers found a compromise: Macedonia was to
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222 I Vasssos Argyrou
be known as the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” or FYROM
for short. Macedonia was to remain trapped in a past that it does not want
and Greece in a past that it cannot do without. e incident cast a dark
shadow over anthropology as well. Having carried out intensive fieldwork
in Macedonia, Greece, and other parts of the world, anthropologists pro –
vided a comprehensive explanation for the Greek reaction. It reflected, they
argued, the claim that the highly centralized Greek state is authoritarian.
Now I turn to the second example of shifts in hegemonic ideas and
their impact on the non-West. For a long time, certainly from the early
nineteenth century onward, one of the hallmarks of civilization was “man’s”
mastery of nature. And the reverse: An untamed nature was the mark of
the lower stages of civilization—savagery and barbarism. With the collapse
of empires and the ascendancy of American power after the Second World
War, the terminology of cultural distinction changed but power relations
remained firmly entrenched. Mastery of nature was now the characteristic
of the “developed” nations of the world (rather than the civilized), while
the rest, which may have had a different view of themselves and their
physical surroundings, were now presented as “underdeveloped” and “tra –
ditional” (rather than “primitive” or “savage”). As late as the early 1960s,
the “underdeveloped” were encouraged to take a “leap across the centuries”
(United Nations 1963) to master nature at an accelerated pace through
the use of Western science and technology. Yet those who took the leap
soon discovered that there was no place to land. By the 1980s, nature was
no longer an object to be mastered. It had become a fragile domain of life
to be protected from human pollution and defilement. As a result of this
radical shift in the hegemonic, the “underdeveloped” of the world found
themselves caught up in an intractable double bind, a set of conflicting
values not of their own making. On the one hand, poverty is cultural pol –
lution—for it is indicative of the ignorance of backwardness; on the other,
environmental pollution is cultural poverty—since it is indicative of the
ignorance (and arrogance) of “man,” the modernist subjectivity for which
nature is an object to be mastered.
e other research area that opens up for an anthropology of Cyprus
is the critical investigation of the historical and ontological bases of hege –
monic ideas. Since the aim can be none other than the disenchantment
and demythologization of the hegemonic, this sort of intellectual labor
inevitably aligns itself with deconstructive attempts within Western soci –
eties themselves. Hence, the close connections between postcolonial and
poststructuralist theory. Yet this can only be a strategic and temporary al –
liance. e West cannot decenter itself by itself; it can only be decentered.
Every attempt to decenter it from within inadvertently but inevitably fixes
it more securely at the center. e history of anthropology bears witness to
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Postscript I 223
this monumental failure and the intractable paradox that underlies it. And
so does the history of the various poststructuralisms of the last few decades.
rough such internal “deconstructions,” the West emerges as the locus of
pure reflexivity, enlightened self-criticism, liberalism, cultural tolerance,
and understanding, a domain that claims through denial the cultural and
intellectual high ground. In short, it emerges as the recentered center of
the world. It is critical therefore, that the deconstructors are themselves
deconstructed, even if one has to use their tools and insights.
In my view, the most important of these insights, which comes down to
us, through poststructuralism, from the work of such thinkers as Nietzsche
and Heidegger, is that although “man”—the modern Western subject—is a
being without foundations, he makes himself the foundation of all beings.
is paradox has been primarily discussed in epistemological terms, and
although this is hardly unimportant, it is by no means the whole story.
“Man” has made himself not merely the only guarantor of knowledge
but also the only source of significance and value. He makes the world
meaningful, but there is nothing in the world that can guarantee that his
meaning-giving function has any meaning. is is to say, among other
things, that “man” must exorcise the distressing realization that if his life has
any purpose at all, it is only because he invented it for himself. Nihilism,
then, the problem of meaning, as Max Weber phrased it, and not unreli –
able knowledge seems to be the most fundamental problem of this “man.”
It is no accident, for instance, that in the first part of his most famous
book, e Will to Power, Nietzsche (1901/1967, 7) refers to nihilism as the
“uncanniest of all guests.” But nor is it an accident that after developing
a “critique of the highest values hitherto,” he turns in the last part of the
book to propose “principles of a new evaluation”; that is, spells to exorcise
the uncanny guest. “Man” can critique all values, but when he is finished,
he must find other values to put in their place.
If the West is driven not so much by a will to power or knowledge as
by a will to meaning, any non-Western deconstructive effort, such as an
anthropology of Cyprus, must question the ontological basis of what cir –
culates around the world as the truth—including those truths that make it
a point to demonstrate that there is no such thing as the truth. One must
ask, for example, What is the purpose of demonstrating the epistemological
limits of anthropology? Why should one strive to make present the impos –
sibility of presence (and hence blatantly contradict oneself in the process)?
How is one to understand anthropology’s attempt to demonstrate the unity
of humanity and the more recent environmentalist attempt to convince
us of the unity between humanity and nature? e ultimate aim of raising
questions of this sort should be to maintain the ontological contradic –
tion in which “man” is caught up in the foreground and in full visibility,
11Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:14 AM 223

224 I Vasssos Argyrou
to grant the uncanny guest permanent hospitality, to drive the system to
where its internal logic is taking it. is may go some way toward making
what this “man” says irrelevant and inconsequential both to him and, more
important, to those who have been listening attentively for more than two
centuries now.
Notes
1. For detailed discussion of these issues, see Argyrou (2002a).
2. I refer to some examples in Argyrou (2002b). For similar examples in Greece, see
Herzfeld (1987).
3. For a comparison of the discourse of Yiannaras, the main Neo-Orthodox intellectual,
and Mauss and Heidegger, see Argyrou (2002b).
Works Cited
Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.”
Public Culture 2: 1–24.
Argyrou, Vassos. 1996. Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: e Wedding as
Symbolic Struggle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2002a. Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique. London:
Pluto Press.
———. 2002b. “T radition, Modernity and European Hegemony in the Mediterranean.”
Journal of Mediterranean Studies 12 (1): 23–42.
Clifford, James, and George Marcus, eds. 1986. Writing Culture: e Poetics and Politics of
Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gandhi, Mahatma. 1910/1963. Indian Home Rule. e Collected Works of Mahatma Gan-
dhi, Volume X. Delhi: e Publication Division, Government of India.
Herzfeld, Michael. 1987. Anthropology through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in
the Margins of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1901/1967. e Will to Power. Edited by Walter Kaufman. New
York: Vintage.
United Nations. 1963. Science and T echnology for Development. Vol. 1. World of Opportu –
nity. New York: United Nations.
11Divided.indd 5/22/06, 9:14 AM 224

CONTRIBUTORS
Floya Anthias is Professor of Sociology at Oxford Brookes University and
a member of the Academy of Social Sciences. Her books include Ethnicity,
Class, Gender and Migration: Greek-Cypriots in Britain; Racialized Bound –
aries; Gender and Migration in Southern Europe: Women on the Move; and
Rethinking Anti-Racisms: From eory to Practice.
Vassos Argyrou is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the Uni –
versity of Hull. His publications include Tradition and Modernity in the
Mediterranean: e Wedding as Symbolic Struggle ; Anthropology and the Will
to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique ; and e Logic of Environmentalism:
Anthropology, Ecology, and Postcoloniality.
Rebecca Bryant is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at George Mason
University and is currently conducting research on place and memory in
Cyprus. She is author of Imagining the Modern: e Cultures of National –
ism in Cyprus.
Michael Herzfeld is Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. A
former editor of American Ethnologist and past president of the Modern
Greek Studies Association and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe,
he is the author of nine books, including e Body Impolitic: Artisans and
Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value.
Anne Jepson is Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She quali –
fied as a horticulturist in the 1980s and worked in the commercial sector
and in the field of therapeutic horticulture before studying social anthropol –
ogy. Her doctoral work examined the practice, presence, and significance of
gardens and gardening in Cyprus between 1999 and 2001.
Yael Navaro-Yashin is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of
Cambridge. She is author of Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in
Turkey. She is presently working on a book on governance and subjectivity
in northern Cyprus.
12DividedContrib.indd 5/22/06, 9:14 AM 225

226 I List of Contributors
Yiannis Papadakis is Assistant Professor in the department of Social and
Political Sciences at the University of Cyprus. During 2005–2006 he was
Project Leader at the PRIO Cyprus Center. He is author of Echoes from the
Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide.
Nicos Peristianis is President of the Cyprus Sociological Association, Ex –
ecutive Dean of Intercollege, Cyprus, and Managing Editor of e Cyprus
Review.
Paul Sant Cassia is Reader in Anthropology at the University of Durham.
His books include Bodies of Evidence.
Spyros Spyrou is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, Cy –
prus College, and Director of the Center for the Study of Childhood and
Adolescence.
Gisela Welz is Professor and Chair of Cultural Anthropology and Europe –
an Ethnology at Goethe University, Frankfurt on Main. She has published
widely on urban anthropology, transnationalism, and the anthropology of
modernities.
12DividedContrib.indd 5/22/06, 9:14 AM 226

INDEX
Aciman, Andre, 14
Africa, 47, 48, 164, 218
Afrika (newspaper), 88, 217, 218
agency, 17, 31, 36, 212; of children, 121, 122,
123; cycle of violence and, 39; of political
widows, 206–207, 211
agriculture, 123, 141, 153
Akamas Peninsula, 141, 142, 146–147, 152,
153–154; British military exercises in,
217–218; environmental patrimony of
Cyprus and, 149–151; gardens in, 162;
property relations and, 147–149; transfor –
mations of, 142–145
AKEL (Greek Cypriot communist party), 79n7,
80n9, 105, 125; alliance of left parties and,
104; child’s perspective on, 128; Cyprus
Problem and, 115; EOKA criticized by, 74,
136n4; Greek nationalism and, 136n11; in –
tercommunal killings and, 80n11; national
identity and, 108, 109; Nicosia coffee shop
of, 73; position on enosis, 117n8; religion
criticized by, 134; standard “History of Cy –
prus” and, 72; as successor to Communist
Party of Cyprus (KKK), 103
Albanians, 37
Alexander the Great, 221
Algeria, 14
Alitheia (newspaper), 48
allochronism, 5
Anatolia, 85, 86, 92, 94. See also T urkey
ancestors, 8
Anderson, Benedict, 6, 8, 9, 181
Annan Plan, 4, 63, 177, 190, 192
anniversaries, 125
anthem, national, 112, 113
Anthias, Floya, 22, 33, 38
anthropology, 1, 5, 6, 74, 204; “belief” concept
in, 41; children/childhood and, 122–123;
colonialism and, 215–220; environmental
problems and, 142, 145, 147, 151; of eth –
nic autism, 78; ethnicity as preoccupation
of, 100; ethnocentrism of, 18; forensic, 198; on history and myth, 7–8; interests of local
communities and, 151; “invention of the
Mediterranean” and, 16; on link between lo –
cal and national, 39; modernity studied by,
18; ontological double bind and, 214–215;
poststructuralism and, 222–223; power of,
214; social agency and, 31; subversion of
boundaries and, 10; survey method and,
110; territory and, 21; of tourism, 22
Antigone (Sophokles), 206, 208
Aphrodite (goddess), 1, 4
Arabs/Arab countries, 47, 219; Palestinian, 37,
129; T urkish, 91, 97n14
architecture, 170
Argaki, village of, 32, 34, 40, 44, 141, 167–168
Argentina, 206
Argyrou, Vassos, 17, 18, 31; on Cypriot elite, 39;
on discourse of environmentalism, 150; on
symbolic domination, 48, 49, 154
Aristotle, 209, 211
Armenians, 93
Asad, Talat, 23
Asians (Indians), in Britain, 184, 185, 186
Atatürk, Kemal, 56, 59, 62
Athena (goddess), 32
Atistotelianism, 52
atrocities, 13, 66, 68, 69, 72, 74, 77. See also
violence
Australia, 94, 179
autism, ethnic, 68, 78
Avrupa (newspaper), 88, 217, 218
aydınlar (“enlightened ones”), 57–58
backwardness, progress and, 56–60, 222
Bahloul, Joelle, 14
Balkans, 5
Ball, George, 76
“barbarians,” 10, 53, 55, 59, 62
Bardenstein, Carol B., 168
Barth, Fredrik, 36
Bateson, Gregory, 73
Beck, Stefan, 35
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228 I Index
Beck, Ulrich, 146, 147
Bey, Fahri, 56
Bey, Hasan, 87
Bey, Ibrahim, 92, 93
Bhabha, Homi, 181
binary oppositions, 3, 24
Blacks, British, 184, 185, 186
Bloch, Maurice, 8
blood, political metaphor of, 35–36
Bloom, William, 106
Borneman, John, 6–7
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 19, 34
boundaries/borders, 10, 17, 21, 87, 158–160. See
also Dead Zone; Green Line
Bourdieu, Pierre, 14, 170
bourgeoisie, 102–103, 150, 170, 171
Britain, 2, 5, 20; British expatriates in Cyprus,
162–163, 172, 173; Cypriot victimhood
narrative and, 23; Cypriots in, 22, 32, 94,
179, 181–187; “Cyprus mélange” identity
and, 7; diplomatic and colonial strategies,
48, 62; Greek Cypriot nationalism and,
51–52; liberal tradition in, 39; myth of
Greece as cradle of Western civilization
and, 216; postcolonial military presence in
Cyprus, 143, 144, 149, 217–219; “symbolic
domination” in Cyprus, 48; T urkish Cypri –
ots and, 56–57
Bryant, Rebecca, 19–20, 21, 23, 35
bureaucracy/bureaucrats, 39, 42, 56, 202
Byzantine empire, heritage of, 32
Campbell, J. K., 32
Canada, 94
capitalism, 13, 14, 17
censorship, 68, 70, 74
Certeau, Michel de, 14, 42
Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 19
checkpoints, at borders, 87
children, Greek Cypriot, 10, 35, 68, 121–123;
ethnic socialization of, 123–129, 131; iden –
tity construction and, 130–136
children, T urkish Cypriot, 68, 86
Christianity, 24, 50
Christoforou, Papas Andreas, 200
Chrysochou Bay, 143, 144
churches, 59, 129
citizenship: cyprocentrism and, 113; dual ethnic
identity and, 116; ethnonationalism and,
101; European, 22, 53, 190; gender and,
211; Turkish settlers in northern Cyprus
and, 84, 87
civilization, 5, 10, 21; absolute and relative stan –
dards of, 60; “civilizing process,” 42; colo -nialism and, 56, 216; education and, 53–54;
European myth and, 218; hellenocentrism
and, 110; mastery of nature and, 222; mo –
dernity and, 18; moral progress and, 60–61;
nationalism and, 48; Other of, 49; progress
and, 49, 56; rhetoric of (under)development
and, 222. See also “West, the”
class differences, 17, 20, 91, 92, 170, 192; en –
vironmentalism and, 150; immigrant labor
and, 188–191; internal migration and, 180;
territorial/civic nationalism and, 101; veil –
ing as marker of, 98n17; villa gardens and,
170–171; Western identity and, 221
Clerides, Glafcos, 105, 196
“closure,” 37
coffee shops, politics in, 72, 73–74
Cohen, Stanley, 68
colonialism, 21, 23, 30; anthropology and,
215–220; civic model of, 35; colonization
of mind, 48; communist opposition to, 103;
crypto-colonialism, 48; language and, 34;
multilayered forms of, 31; neocolonialism,
218, 219; progress and, 61; Zurich Agree –
ment and, 177
coloniality, 47
Comaroff, John, 19, 51
commemorations, 8–9
Communist Party of Cyprus (KKK), 102, 103,
116
communists, 73, 78n1
community, imagined, 9, 11, 71, 80n10; chil –
dren and, 135; as domain of research, 100;
of Greek nation, 111
conservatism, 159
Constantinople (Istanbul), 126
Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood (James
and Prout), 122
Contested Natures (Macnaghten and Urry),
141–142
“Conversation with Mother” (Pirandello), 194
Cornford, Francis, 66
Council of Europe, 145, 155n6, 217
Crete, 33, 34, 111
CTP ( Cumhuriyetci Türk Partisi [Republican
T urkish Party]), 80n9
culture: anthropological essentialism and, 215;
children’s identity construction and, 122;
“cultural flows,” 221; cultural fundamental –
ism, 31, 40; “culture of T urkey,” 91; hybrid –
ity and, 181, 185; intercommunal tension
in northern Cyprus, 92, 96; interculturality,
178, 191; national, 34; as nature, 159, 216,
219–220; social/ethnic markers, 116; West –
ern cultural tolerance, 223
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Index I 229
Cypriots, Greek, 2, 3, 30, 192; Annan Plan
and, 4, 177, 190; atrocities against, 69;
in Britain, 181–187; British colonialism
and, 7, 39–40; concept of civilization, 61,
62; Denktash on, 85–86; disclosure, social
management of, 73–75; division of Cyprus
and, 69; education policy and, 10–11, 21,
50–56; European idea and, 48, 216–217;
gardens of, 163–167; historical narratives
and, 9, 19; immigrant labor and, 22; left –
ist, 33, 71–72, 81n14, 107–108; missing
persons, 13, 195, 197–211; modernity
and, 16, 17, 20; myths and, 4, 5; national
identity of, 107–109; partisan discourses
on national identity, 110–116; “peaceful
coexistence thesis” and, 67, 69, 73, 79n5;
residence rules and, 32; right-left split
among, 71–74, 77, 79n7, 80n9, 104–106;
social institutions and, 42; social memory
of, 12, 13, 14; tourism development versus
environmentalism and, 149–151; Turkish
settlers compared with, 90. See also children,
Greek Cypriot
Cypriots, T urkish, 2, 3, 7, 30, 44, 192; agnatic
descent of, 35; Annan Plan and, 4; atroci –
ties against, 69, 77; as “barbarians,” 55,
59; bicommunal state abandoned by, 109;
in Britain, 94, 182; cyprocentric view of,
113; Denktash on, 85–86; education policy
and, 21; European symbolic power and,
216–217; Greek Cypriot views of, 10–11,
117, 129, 132; history and, 19; in Istanbul,
75–76; leftist, 72, 75–76, 77–78, 87–88;
missing persons, 13, 195–196; modernity
and, 20; official position on historical vio –
lence, 69–70; outmigration of, 94; poverty
and, 4; progress and civilization as goals
for, 56, 62; properties taken over by Greek
Cypriots, 163, 166; relations with T urkish
army, 88–90; social institutions and, 42;
social memory of, 12, 13–14, 15; T urkish
settlers and, 10, 84, 86–95, 97n6
cyprocentrism, 102, 104, 105, 109; contest with
hellenocentrism, 115; loyalty to Cypriot
state, 112–114, 117
Cyprus: as agricultural country, 162; anthropol –
ogy of, 18–19, 21–22, 30, 162, 214–224;
British colonial rule, 2, 4, 6, 17, 20, 47–48,
177, 216; British expatriates in, 162–163,
172, 173; coup (1974), 104, 113, 129, 134,
195; division of, 69, 87; emigration from,
22, 32, 94, 179, 181–187; environmental
patrimony of, 149–151; ethnographic stud –
ies in, 16; in European Union, 136n2, 142, 152, 177, 216; forms of displacement in,
179–180; gendered migration in, 187–191;
geographical position of, 86; Greek bureau –
cracy in, 39; history of, 2–4; independence
(1960), 143, 217, 219; island boundaries
of, 158–160; memory and history in, 15;
missing persons in, 13, 194–212; natural
environment of, 141; in Ottoman period,
56; researching Cypriot society, 176–179;
tourist image of, 1. See also Republic of
Cyprus; Turkish invasion (1974); Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)
Cyprus Mail (newspaper), 180
Cyprus Problem, 1, 4, 10, 192; accession of
Republic to European Union and, 152;
blamed on T urkish expansionism, 111, 113;
center-left Greek Cypriot parties and, 105;
day-to-day processes and, 176; European
Union and, 217; foreign immigration and,
190; iconography of pain and, 13; intercul –
turality and, 178; interethnic cooperation as
solution, 115; refugees and, 166; return of
hellenocentrism and, 104; victimhood nar –
ratives and, 23; war as solution, 112
Danforth, Loring, 210
Dead Zone, 2, 3, 24, 78; divided views in,
66–68; partial truths and, 71–73; public
information offices and, 68–71; village of
Pyla within, 76
Delaney, Carol, 19
democracy, 2, 20, 30, 38
Denktash, Rauf, 4, 85–86, 96n1; missing per –
sons issue and, 196, 198; Turkeyfication
policies of, 94
Derinia events (1996), 128, 129, 132, 136n8
Descartes, René, 52
diaspora, 21, 159, 179, 180, 181
DIKO (Greek Cypriot centrist party), 104, 105,
108, 109, 114
DISI ( Dimokratikos Sinagermos [Democratic
Rally]), 73, 79n4, 80n9, 105, 125; child’s
perspective on, 128; Cyprus Problem and,
115; national identity and, 108–109; stigma
of “traitorship” and, 104
displacement, 179–180, 187, 191–192
domination, symbolic, 48, 49, 154, 216. See
also symbols
“dowry” (prika) houses, 33, 152, 197
DP (T urkish Cypriot center-right party), 91
Du Bois, W.E.B., 181
ecology, 22
economy, 3–4, 113; internationalizing market
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230 I Index
and, 141; tourism and environmental issues,
142–143, 145, 146; T urkish army and, 88
EDEK (Greek Cypriot center-left party), 104,
105, 108
education, 10, 11, 20; as civilizing process, 49;
Greek Cypriots in Britain and, 184; progress
and, 50, 55; T urkish Cypriot, 57, 58, 86; of
women, 189
Egypt, 48
Eleftheri Dimokrates (Free Democrats), 128,
137n12
Eliade, Mircea, 7–8
Elias, Norbert, 42
empathy, space of, 72
Enlightenment, 53, 61
ENOM DIMO (Greek Cypriot party), 108
enosis (union with Greece), 2, 51, 63n3; AKEL
and, 117n8; dual ethnic identity and, 114;
as ethnic nationalism, 101; Makarios and,
103; territorial/civic nationalism opposed
to, 102–103
environmentalism, 141–42, 153–154; British
“neocolonialism” and, 217–219; national
patrimony of Cyprus and, 149–151; rheto –
ric of (under)development and, 222; science
and politics of expertise, 145–147; tradition
and ethics of, 152–153; on unity between
humanity and nature, 223
EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Fight –
ers), 2, 74; in anticolonial war (1955–1959),
126, 129, 132, 135; EOKA B, 3, 71,
80n11; leftist criticism of, 134, 136n4;
T urkish counterpart of, 88
essentialism, 19, 174, 215
ethnic cleansing, 34, 38
ethnicity, 35, 192; ethnic conflict, 84, 96; hy –
bridity and, 181; intercommunal conflict
and, 95–96; socialization of children and,
123–129; structural inequality and, 51;
study of, 100; symbolic representations
of women and, 189–190; territorial/civic
nationalism and, 101
ethnocentrism, 18, 215, 216
ethnography, 17, 73–78, 123, 136
ethnonationalism, 19, 44, 96, 105–106, 116. See
also nationalism
Eurocentrism, 221
Euronationalism, 19
Europe, idea of, 5, 21, 48; Balkans as internal
Other, 5; Greek Cypriots and, 216, 218;
Greeks in role of defenders of, 38; otherness
and, 179; progress ideology and, 60–61;
white racism and, 185–186, 187European Commission, 140, 141, 145, 148
European Union (EU), 4, 22, 24, 130; An –
nan Plan and, 190; environmental issues
in Cyprus and, 146, 148–149, 152–153;
European myth and, 216; full accession
of Cyprus (2004), 136n2, 142, 152, 177;
Laona Project funded by, 143; subalternity
and, 48; village of Pyla and, 76–77
Europeanization, 23
everyday life, 30, 34, 39, 92, 135
evkaf (T urkish religious foundations), 57
evolutionism, Victorian/Darwinian, 5, 60
exile, 160
Fabian, Johannes, 5
family, 19, 182, 186
Fanon, Frantz, 47
fatalism, 43
Faubion, James D., 5
fellah (T urkish settler), 90, 97n14
feminism, 36
feuds, resolution of, 37
fieldwork, anthropological, 74, 100–101
Firth, Raymond, 36
flags, 55, 113, 123, 135; death/mourning rituals
and, 202, 204; Republic of Cyprus, 104,
112
flower shops, 171–172
folklore/folk culture, 50, 72, 86, 102
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FY –
ROM), 222
Foucault, Michel, 52
France, 15
Frangoudaki, Anna, 36
friendship (filía), 41, 42
Gandhi, Mahatma, 220
gardens/gardening, 158, 159–160, 173–175;
absence of, 161–163; boundaries of, 160;
memory and, 161; ornaments in, 169–173;
re-rooting and, 163–169
Gellner, Ernest, 9, 67–68, 102
gender, 16, 19, 183, 221; immigrant labor and,
22, 187–191; widows’ agency and, 211. See
also women
generations, divide between, 173, 221
genetics, 35
geopolitics, 2
Germany, 7, 216
Gilroy, Paul, 181
globalization, 105, 141–42; of environmental gov –
ernance, 148; hybridity and, 180; immigrant
labor and, 190; suffering and, 211–212
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Index I 231
Goldhill, Simon, 208, 209–210
Great Idea (Megali Idea), 63n6, 102
Greece, 2, 24, 31, 177; ancient heritage of,
50–51, 54–55; civil war (1940s), 136n4;
Cypriot elite and, 39; Cyprus devalued in
comparison with, 111; democratic gov –
ernance in, 31; Greek Cypriot dilemma
and, 115, 116; long-distance nationalism
of Greeks, 181; Macedonia and, 33, 34,
38, 221–222; as margin of Europe, 23–24;
military junta in, 3, 71, 104, 113; modern
history of, 125; as mythic cradle of Western
civilization, 5, 216, 221; nationalism in, 48;
refugees and, 43
Greek Gift, e (Loizos), 17, 30, 32, 36, 41,
100
Greek language, 57, 114; ancient, 53; Cypriot
dialect, 34, 178; Cypriots in Britain and,
184, 185; etymology of nostalgia, 160;
Great Idea nationalism and, 63n6; kinship
and, 208; terms for missing persons, 195,
199, 200–201; T urkish Cypriot propaganda
in, 66–67
Greekness, 56, 59, 107, 114
Green Line, 3, 10, 129, 135, 211; as border
of European Union, 4; movement across,
175n1
Green Week, 140–141
Grivas, Gen. Georgios, 38, 80n13, 118n12,
136n4
Habitats Directive, of European Union, 149,
155n10
Hagland, Bill, 198, 203
Hall, Stuart, 181
Hamann, Johann Georg, 220
hardliners, 105
Haringey (North London), 182
Hart, Jason, 129, 136n6
Hasikos, Socratis, 202
Heart Grown Bitter, The (Loizos), 32, 42,
167–168
Heidegger, Martin, 220, 223
Hellenism, 30, 53, 54, 55, 74
hellenocentrism, 102, 104, 105; contest with
cyprocentrism, 115; of DISI party, 108;
as dominant ideology, 112–113; loyalty
to Greek nation, 110–112, 117. See also
ethnonationalism
Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 220
heroes, 8, 43, 44, 129, 202
Herzfeld, Michael, 17, 221; on crypto-colonial –
ism, 48; on environmentalism, 152; on Greek culture, 55; on Greek history and
“the West,” 56; on structural nostalgia,
160, 161
historiography, 6, 72, 135
history, 1, 5, 68; fetishism of, 6, 7; hellenocentric
view of, 112; memory and, 13, 14–15; mo –
dernity and, 62; myth and, 6, 7–8
Hitchens, Christopher, 5
home, concept of, 34–35
“Honour and Shame in a Cypriot Highland Vil –
lage” (Peristiany), 16
Hostage to History (Hitchens), 5
housing issues, 87
hybridity, 178, 179, 191; displacement and,
179–180; Greek Cypriots in Britain and,
181–187; translocationality and, 180–181
identity, 10, 17, 24, 177; children and con –
struction of, 121–123, 130–136, 136;
Cypriot citizenship and, 101; discourses
on national identity, 110–116; dual ethnic
identity, 107–109, 114–116, 118n18; edu –
cation and, 54; for and against Europe, 49;
Greek, 159; hybridity as challenge to, 181;
national, 34, 35; social identity and death,
194; socialization of children and, 123–129;
“T urkish Cypriot” as new term, 85, 96n2;
white identity (United States), 20
identity politics, 177
ideology, 38, 42, 72, 116–117
immigration, 22
imperialism, 102
“In Search of the Barbarians” (Seremetakis), 159
India, 47, 48, 219, 220
indigenization, 219, 221
intellectuals, 20
“Inter-Communal Killings in Cyprus” (Loizos),
32
intermarriage, absence of, 72
Irish, homeland and, 181
irredentism, Greek, 102
Isaak, Tasos, 128, 129, 136n8
Islam, 24, 96n2
Islâm (newspaper), 57
Islamism, 47, 98n17
islands, borders and, 158–160
Israel/Palestine, 19, 39, 168
Istanbul, 75–76, 92, 111
James, Allison, 10, 122
Jepson, Anne, 14, 33
Jews, 181, 186
journalists, 217
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232 I Index
Kahn, Joel, 18
Kajis (killer-hero), 39, 42
“Kalo,” village of, 32
Kandiyioti, Deniz, 189
Kant, Immanuel, 61
Kapferer, Bruce, 9
Karakasidou, Anastasia, 68
Karavas, 164, 165
katichitikon (religious instruction school), 123,
125, 132, 133
Kemalism, 57
Kertzer, David, 8
Kibris (newspaper), 93
killings, intercommunal, 36, 70–71, 129
kinship, 16, 35, 43, 197; death rituals and, 201,
203, 207–208; ethnic division and, 72;
gardens and, 161, 173; national identity
and, 38; political divisions and, 75; T urkish
Cypriot networks, 92
Klein, Norman, 14
Kleinman, Arthur, 212
Kleinman, Jane, 212
Kosovo, 34
Kurds, 91
Kyprianou, S., 109
Kyrenia, 164, 165
labor, gendered division of, 187–191
Lakatameia cemetery, 13, 197, 202, 205
land ownership, 33, 147, 150, 152
language, 53–54, 110, 116, 177–178. See also
Greek language; T urkish language
laografika (folklore materials), 50
Laona Project, 143
Larnaca, 166, 167, 168, 171
Leach, Edmund, 37
left, political, 33, 70, 71–72, 75–76, 81n14,
107–108
Leontios, Bishop of Pafos, 54
Levent, Sener, 217, 218
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 5, 6, 8, 10
Lewis, I. M., 35
liberalism, 30, 37, 38, 52, 221, 223
lieux de mémoire, 15
lifestyle, 185, 187
lineage, as politics, 35
Loizos, Peter, 16–17, 33–34, 38, 44, 68; on
“friendship” concept, 41; Greek Gift, 17,
30, 32, 36, 41, 100; Heart Grown Bitter, 32,
42, 167–168; “Inter-Communal Killings in
Cyprus” (Man), 32, 70; on intercommunal
killings, 11, 12, 32, 129; on intercultural –
ity of Cyprus, 178; liberalism of, 31, 37,
39–40; on local models and nationalism, 36–39, 153; political appropriation of
writings, 70–71, 79n8; “Progress of Greek
Nationalism in Cyprus, 1878–1970,” 101;
on refugees, 42–43; relation to theory, 31;
on residence rules, 32, 33, 43; on schooling,
35, 36; social anthropology and, 100–101;
territorial/civic nationalism and, 101, 116;
on villagers’ organizational tactics, 140
Loukas, Georgios, 50–51
Luykx, Aurolyn, 133
Macedonia, 33, 34, 38, 221–222
Macnaghten, Phil, 141–142, 153
Madagascar, 8
Maine, Henry, 220
Makarios, Archbishop/President, 3, 30, 103–104;
attempts to overthrow, 136n11; DIKO and,
109; Grivas and, 118n12
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 7
Markides, Kyriacos, 24n4
marriage, dowry negotiations and, 32, 33–34,
152
Marrou, Henri-Irenée, 53
Marxism, 109, 116
Mauss, Marcel, 220
medeniyet (civilization), 56, 57, 60–62
medicalization, 211–212
Mediterranean Environmental Technical Assis –
tance Program, 143
Mediterranean Family Structures (Peristiany), 32
memory, 1, 12–15, 168; displacement and, 179;
erasure of, 14; gardens and, 169, 170, 172,
174; missing persons and, 206; scents of,
160–161. See also nostalgia
Michaelidou, Marina, 151
milieux de mémoire, 14–15
Mir’at-ı Zaman (newspaper), 49
missing persons, 13, 194–195; burial of, 201–
207; exhumations of, 196–201, 209, 210;
history of disappearances in Cyprus, 195
Mitchell, Timothy, 19, 20, 62
modernism, 35, 36, 52, 214, 222
modernity, 1, 5, 6, 221; colonial encounter and,
19; history and memory in relation to, 15;
Mediterranean Europe and, 16; tradition
and, 17–18, 24, 181, 220
modernization, 48, 151, 211–212
monuments, 15, 127, 131
morality/moralizing, 7, 60, 63n14
Morphou region (Cyprus), 16, 140, 166–167
mosques, 57
motherlands, 9, 48, 49, 62; right-wing parties’
appeal to, 71, 80n11; Turkishness and,
85, 86
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Index I 233
mourning, 194, 195, 200, 210
Museum(s) of National Struggle, 6
music, Greek, 183
Muslims, 20, 21, 48, 49, 135, 190; Bosnian, 19;
censuses in northern Cyprus and, 94; Greci –
fied, 57; as the Other, 177
myths, 1, 6, 7–8, 10, 101
naming practices, 33
Nandy, Ashis, 48
narrativity, 7, 181–187
nation-state, 2, 6, 8, 195; in Africa, 47; as cul –
tural community, 102; global governance
and, 22; in Greece, 80n10; village public
opinion and, 16
nationalism, 1, 96; as bridge to postcoloniality,
47; categorical imperatives of, 31; children’s
identity construction and, 131; civilization
equated with, 21, 48; Cypriot nationalism
versus ethnonationalism, 102–106; educa –
tion and, 20, 54; everyday life and, 30;
Greek and Greek Cypriot, 2, 19, 48, 177;
history and, 8, 9; local models and, 36;
long-distance, 181; misery and, 42; political
ideologies and, 106–109; racial purity and,
37; self-centeredness of, 67–68; territorial/
civic, 101, 104, 106, 109, 116; T urkish and
T urkish Cypriot, 2, 19, 48, 85, 89, 177. See
also ethnonationalism
Natura 2000 sites, 149, 155n13
nature, 158, 174, 222, 223
Navaro-Yashin, Yael, 10, 38
Needham, Rodney, 41
Neo-Cypriot Association, 104
NE.O (Greek Cypriot right-wing party), 108
neocolonialism, 218, 219
NGOs, transnational, 141, 142, 143, 155n13
Nicosia, 2, 12, 88, 163; anthropology conference
(1970), 32; buffer zone, 123, 127, 128, 131,
135; division of, 87; elites of, 57; farmers’
demonstration (1968–1969), 140, 141;
gardens in, 170; Lefkosha (T urkish Cypriot
side), 75; Lefkosia (Greek Cypriot side),
73–75; Museum(s) of National Struggle, 6
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 223
nihilism, 223
Nora, Pierre, 14–15
nostalgia, 13–14, 38, 160, 164–166, 173. See
also memory
nostomania/nostophobia, 14
Oberling, Pierre, 79n8
OIKOL (Greek Cypriot environmentalist party),
108ontology, 214–215, 220, 222, 223–224
Oriental despotism, 38
Orientalism, 10, 220
origins, myth and, 8, 178, 221
Orr, C. W. J., 51, 63n3
Orthodox Christians/Christianity, 20, 21, 48,
96n2, 177; children’s schooling and, 125;
enosis and, 102–103
Orwell, George, 66, 68, 71
otherness/“the other,” 10, 49, 177, 191; Africa
in European imagination, 218; Cypriots in
Britain and, 183; European transnational
project and, 179; immigrant female workers
and, 189; “otherness within,” 178; racism
and “othering,” 186–187; returnees as oth –
ers, 179–180; sex industry and, 180
Ottoman Empire, 2, 4, 5, 20; British diplomatic
relations with, 48; collapse of, 85; Cyprus
as place of exile and, 56; Greek war of
independence against, 125; history and, 6;
modernization and, 61–62; Muslims and,
21. See also T urkey
Our Wall (documentary film), 81n14
pain, iconography of, 13
Palestinians, 37, 39, 129, 168
Palmer, Sir Richard, 4
Pan-Cyprian Committee for the Relatives of the
Missing (CRMP), 196, 206
pan-Hellenic culture, 34
Pancyprian Gymnasium, 52
Papadakis, Yiannis, 8, 12, 38, 43, 115
Papadopoulos, Tassos, 63, 109
Papandreou, A., 104
Paphos district, 141, 142, 147, 150, 162
Paramithi, village of, 124–125
parties, political, 9, 80n9, 102–105, 108–109,
128. See also specific parties
“peaceful coexistence thesis,” 69, 73, 79n5
peasants, 35, 63n3, 103, 154
Peristianis, Nicos, 9
Peristiany, John, 16, 17, 32
Philippines, 188–189
Philological Excursus into Ancient Monuments in
the Lives of the Modern Cypriots (Loukas),
50
philos/philia (obligation), 208–209
Physicians for Peace, 198, 203
Pirandello, Luigi, 194, 195
Pitsillia region, 123
place names, 14, 15, 98n19
political science, 110
politics/politicians, 5, 33, 40, 202. See also par-
ties, political
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234 I Index
politisismos (Hellenic civilization), 55, 57,
60–62
population displacements, 1, 179
positivism, 60
postcoloniality, 1, 21, 47, 177
postmodernity, 118n14, 212
poststructuralist theory, 180, 222, 223
“primitive” peoples, 60, 222
progress, idea of, 21, 50–62
“Progress of Greek Nationalism in Cyprus,
1878–1970, e” (Loizos), 101
proletariat, 103
propaganda, 55, 66, 67, 69–70, 73
property relations, 147–149
Prout, Alan, 10, 122
psychology, 110, 121
Public Information Offices (PIOs), 69–71,
75, 78
Pyla: A Village of Unpeaceful Coexistence (T urkish
Cypriot publication), 76–77
Pyla, village of, 12, 76–78
race, 20, 53, 60
racism, 22, 183, 184, 185–187, 215
Ramphele, Margery, 206, 211
rape, 34, 35
recognition scenes, 209–210
refugees, 42–43, 161, 163; gardens and, 164,
166, 168–169, 171; refugee camps, 2, 165
religion, 16, 35, 90, 116; Greek Cypriots in
Britain and, 183; territorial/civic national –
ism and, 101
Republic of Cyprus, 2, 3, 95, 109; environmen –
tal issues in, 141, 142; ethnography in, 17;
hellenocentrism and, 110–111; international
recognition of, 104; missing persons in, 196,
197; multiethnic underclass of, 22. See also
Cyprus
revenge, 37
Rhodes, 35, 111
right, political: atrocities and, 72; Greek Cypriot,
75; hellenocentrism and, 103; media domi –
nance of, 72–73, 81n15; “motherlands” and,
71; T urkish Cypriot, 75, 76
Robins, Derek, 181
romanticism, European, 220
rootedness, 159, 163–169
Rural Party of Cyprus (AKK), 102
Russia, 48, 126, 127
Sant Cassia, Paul, 13, 24n4, 33–34, 41
schismogenesis, 73
Schneider, David M., 19
science, 6, 49, 145–147, 199, 222Scott, James, 133
self/selfhood, 11, 35, 44, 62; hybridity and
construction of, 180; narratives of belong –
ing and, 182
Senses Still, e (Seremetakis), 160
Seremetakis, Nadia, 159, 160, 201, 202, 210;
on dreams as intuition of death, 203; on
women and death rituals, 204, 207
sex industry, 22, 180, 188
sexuality, 183
Shamishi, Maroulla, 197, 211
Smith, Anthony, 9
social sciences, 100, 110
sociocentrism, 41, 42
sociology, 17, 110
soft-liners, 105
soil, territory and, 161, 166, 167, 169, 173,
174
Solomou, Solomos, 136
Sophia’s World (film), 32
Sophokles, 206, 208
South Africa, 206
space, social, 87, 170
Spencer, Herbert, 60
Spencer, Jonathan, 9
Spencer, Josiah, 58
Spyrou, Spyros, 10–11
Sri Lanka, 9, 188, 189
state, the, 30, 37
States of Denial (Cohen), 68
Stavrinides, Zenon, 79n7
subalternity, 48
survey method, 106–107, 110
Sutton, David, 33, 34, 134
symbols, 101, 135, 182, 208, 216. See also domi –
nation, symbolic
taksim (partition), 2
Talat, Mehmet Ali, 97n6
television, 66–67, 72, 127, 134, 171
territory, 21, 35, 101, 102, 161
theodicy, 43
eodossopoulos, Dimitrios, 151
TKP ( Toplumcu Kurtulu Partisi [Communal
Liberation Party]), 80n9
TMT ( Türk Mukavemet T ekilati [T urkish Resis –
tance Organization]), 2, 88
tourism, 22, 141, 180; economic value of land
and, 151; gardens and, 161; natural envi –
ronment and, 142–143, 145, 146, 149,
152–153; northern Cyprus and, 152–153;
sex industry and, 188
tradition, modernity and, 17–18, 24, 181, 220
“Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterra –
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Index I 235
nean: e Wedding as Symbolic Struggle”
(Argyrou), 17
tragedy, Greek, 208–209, 211
traitors/treachery, hunting of, 68, 70, 76
transnationalism, 1, 21, 179
T urkey, 2, 3, 24, 31, 177; “culture of T urkey”
and Cypriot lifestyle, 91–92, 93; cypro –
centric view of, 113; Greek Cypriot view
as barbarous, 111–112, 130, 216; military
strength of, 104; modernization project in,
189; nationalism in, 48; population and
assimilation policies, 94–95; relation to Eu –
rope, 23–24; T urkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus and, 88. See also Ottoman Empire
T urkish invasion (1974), 43, 84, 127, 129, 195;
compared to rape, 35; destructiveness of,
113; Greece’s inability to forestall, 104, 113;
missing persons and, 195–196; prophecy of
war and, 126–127
T urkish language, 67, 97–98n14, 98n19
T urkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC),
3, 6, 84, 94, 95; Denktash as “president” of,
85–86; international law and, 96n1; settlers
in, 91, 98n16. See also Cyprus
Turkish settlers, 3, 4, 10, 76; composition of,
91; crime and, 56; relations with Turkish
Cypriots, 86–95
T urkishness, 85
T urner, Victor, 211
Tylor, E. B., 60
Tymvos military cemetery, 205
UBP ( Ulusal Birlik Partisi [National Unity
Party]), 80n9, 87, 88, 91
United Nations (UN), 3, 4, 76, 217; missing
persons and, 198; peacekeepers, 128, 135
United States, 13, 20, 159, 190; ascent to global
power, 222; Cypriots’ emigration to, 179;
idea of Europe and, 221
Urry, John, 141–142, 153
Vassiliou, Giorgos, 128, 137n12
Verdery, Katherine, 210victimhood/victimization, 23, 212
village life: environmental protection and, 144;
gardens and, 162; mixed villages, 67, 76–78,
89; in northern Cyprus, 89; party politics
and, 16–17; returnees and, 180
violence, 11, 12, 37, 38, 39. See also atrocities
Vissi, Anna, 183
war, 1, 14, 37, 42, 128, 132
Weber, Max, 223
Welz, Gisela, 22
“West, the,” 5, 19, 21, 38; Cyprus in ambiguous
relation to, 177; decentering/deconstruction
of, 222–223; ecological standards imposed
by, 154; ethnocentric anthropology of, 215;
as goal of history, 62–63; Greece as mythi –
cal cradle of, 5, 216, 221; Greek identity
and, 56; location outside Western societies,
220–221; social evolution as progress and,
49; symbolic domination of, 4. See also
civilization
Westernization, 17, 57
White, Hayden, 6–7
Will to Power, e (Nietzsche), 223
Wolf, Eric, 5
women, 56, 68, 93; civilization and, 60; Cy –
priot women in Britain, 183, 184; death
rituals and, 203–204, 207; “dowry” (prika)
and, 33, 152; education of, 58; gardening
and, 164, 171; in labor force, 187–191;
in mosques, 59; veiling and, 91, 98n17;
wives of missing persons, 197–211. See
also gender
working class, 17, 103, 109
World Bank, 143, 145, 146, 147
World War II, 17
World Wide Fund for Nature, 141
Young, Robert, 180
Young T urk movement, 57
Yugoslavia, 34, 38, 221
Zurich Agreement, 177
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13DividedIndex-series.indd 5/22/06, 9:14 AM 236

NEW ANTHROPOLOGIES OF EUROPE
EDITORS
Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, and Michael Herzfeld
PUBLICATIONS
Algeria in France: Transpolitics, Race, and Nation
Paul A. Silverstein
Locating Bourdieu: An Ethnographic Perspective
Deborah Reed-Danahay
Women’s Health in Post-Soviet Russia:
e Politics of Intervention
Michele Rivkin-Fish
Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History,
and an Island in Conflict
Edited by Yiannis Papadakis, Nicos Peristianis, and Gisela Welz
Colonial Memory and Postcolonial Europe:
Maltese Settlers in Algeria and France
Andrea L. Smith
13DividedIndex-series.indd 5/22/06, 9:14 AM 237