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This study offers an alternative perspective for examining the rise of Turkish nationalism in the Eastern Mediterranean in relation to cinema culture within the political and historical contexts of Cyprus. The cinema business and its practices had their golden age in the 1950s through the distribution of Turkish films from Turkey and the increasing number of movie theatres in Turkish Cypriot neighbourhoods. This period was also crucial in terms of political developments on the island due to the drastic rise in ethnic and national divisions. Drawing on archival research and oral history; this article aims to examine how Turkish nationalism was provided with the ideal conditions to grow rapidly at Cypriot cinemas and how multi-communal cinemagoing experiences of the early 1950s had transformed into nationally divided Cypriot audiences during the last years of British colonial rule in Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the structure, content, and function of widely circulating prophetic narratives in contemporary Greece and Cyprus. Prophetologists play a key role in recycling and disseminating prophecies through traditional and modern means of communication in an attempt to explain conditions of crisis and to promote conservative moral values and nationalistic aspirations as salvific remedies in the public sphere. Their highly politicized prophetic discourse blurs the differentiation between religion and politics that characterizes secular modernity. But at the same time, the use of modern media and secular strategies for sacred purposes have unintended secularizing effects on the religious field. Finally, the article explores the reasons why prophecy belief finds fertile soil for proliferation in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyprus has featured prominently on Turkey's foreign policy agenda in recent years. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has weaved this long-standing issue into a broader narrative of 'geographical imagination'. Cyprus policy has thus reflected the AKP's socio-political vision of a 'Yeni Türkiye' (New Turkey), first articulated nearly a decade ago, in which well-entrenched narratives about national identity and the Cyprus conflict are central. Against this backdrop, Cyprus has been leveraged in the twin interests of AKP survival (boosting incumbency through nationalist appeals) and Turkey's regional power aspirations. The present article offers a timely survey of Turkey's Cyprus policy over a 15-year period from 2002 (when the AKP rose to power) until the failure of the negotiation talks on Cyprus in Crans-Montana, Switzerland in July 2017. In so doing, the article charts the important continuities as well as the key markers of transition in Ankara's policy towards Cyprus under the AKP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the curious non-emergence of populism in contemporary Cyprus despite the deep financial crisis and profound political disillusionment – conditions that are treated as necessary and sufficient. Putting emphasis on Cyprus' key historical particularities, the article inquires into the ways Cyprus' political past, and the subsequent salient 'national question', produce ambiguous notions of 'the people' on the one hand, and impede the potentials for a 'populist moment' on the other hand. By assessing the performative dynamics of oppositional parties in Cyprus, the empirical analysis suggests that the absence of populism is rooted in the following factors: First, nationalist discourse prevails over, and significantly weakens, populist discourse. Second, self-proclaimed challenger parties served 'old wine in new bottles' further undermining their position and claims. The failure of populism to take root in Cyprus, brings to the fore important theoretical insights relevant to the non-emergence of populism even under favourable conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christoforos Savva, one of the most significant Cypriot artists of the 1960s, was also a highly politicized individual whose leftist worldview paralleled his artistic development. Nevertheless, this side of Savva has not been thoroughly explored. Savva created two forms of art: cementografia and ifasmatografia. Ifasmatografies were based on the vernacular tradition of weaving, while cementografies used modern cement, which was coming to replace stone in building construction. Savva's art departed from contemporary nationalist art production, such as that of the painter Adamantios Diamantis, and it also diverged from the Western colonial/orientalist projections depicting a premodern Cyprus. Overall, Savva's oeuvre bore all the hallmarks of contesting both Cypriot nationalisms—the Greek and the Turkish—since it was inclusive and anti-nationalist in its essence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the change and continuity in the Turkish policy toward Cyprus since the de facto partition of the island in 1974. The exploration of the relationship between Turkish nationalism and foreign policy toward Cyprus suggests that the language of Turkish nationalism regarding the Cyprus question has been far from monotonous. It is shown that the period coinciding with the coming of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in 2002 in particular was a critical juncture which opened up the discursive space for the re-articulation of the 'Cyprus problem', legitimising efforts in relation to reunification. Yet the partial nature of the discursive shift and the absence of a complete paradigmatic change—explained here with reference to structural and historical features of the Cyprus problem as well as the contingent nature of the European Union (EU) membership prospects—has meant the return of the well-entrenched narratives on the conflict and national identity. Also revealing the ways in which Turkish Cypriots have responded to such changes in policy and rhetoric from Ankara, the paper aims to complement existing accounts of trans-border nationalism in conflict and post-conflict settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkish Cypriot newspapers played an important role in the construction of Turkish national identity during the From Turk to Turk Campaign in Cyprus in the late 1950s. The campaign involved the establishment of Turkish municipalities that were separate from the Greek Cypriot ones and the change of village names into Turkish and aimed at conducting all trade and other business relations exclusively between Turks in order for them to develop economically. This article examines the role of the newspapers that were published in Cyprus in 1958 and 1959, which is the period during which the From Turk to Turk Campaign was active. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During its rule, The Ottoman Empire also established its education system. Under the circumstances of the Ottoman State during this period, Cyprus was rented to England in 1878. England interfered in the education system implemented in Cyprus. This situation lasted until the late 19th century. Cyprus was leased to the United Kingdom in 1878 due to the circumstances of the Ottoman Empire during this period. Since then, the United Kingdom has interfered in the education system implemented in Cyprus. Although the Turkish Cypriot community tried to maintain the national education system under its control throughout the British administration, they were not successful. The British colonial administration, with the influence of the conditions formed after the Second World War, made an initiative that included the development of the national identity of the Turkish Cypriots and established the Turkish Affairs Commission in 1948. Upon a yearly-long work, the commission has prepared a comprehensive Interim Report on Turkish Cypriot community issues. In this study, the chronological development of the Cypriot Turkish education history has been discussed by survey method, the interventions of the British administration to the Turkish Education has been analyzed, the issues related to education in the Turkish Affairs Commission Interim Report have been examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the Turkish government facing the 1964 Cyprus crisis applied the principle of negative reciprocity toward Greece and expelled Greek citizens living in Turkey. By doing so, Turkey aimed at pressuring Greece to bring the Greek Cypriot side to the negotiation table. Although Turkish policy proved to be a failure, the expulsions continued. The deportation resulted in the demise of the Greek minority in Turkey for the following reasons: first, there were intermarriages between the Greek citizens and the Greek minority; and second, Turkey's Greeks finally lost their hope of being treated as equal Turkish citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Greek-Cypriot media representations of national identities during negotiations on a United Nation Plan (the Annan Plan), aiming to reunite ethnically divided Cyprus under a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. The study analyzed thematically 57 editorials and lead commentaries published in all the daily Greek-Cypriot Press from the presentation of the Annan Plan in November 2002 to April 2004, at which point two simultaneous referenda were held. The study's findings are consistent with ideas that national identifications are not static and provides an in-depth exploration of exclusive forms of Cypriot identities vis-à-vis more inclusive forms and vis-à-vis hellenocentric identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Border studies have grappled with, on the one hand, the need for the use of common themes or concepts while, on the other, the need for contextual specificity. Borders are sites that embody different potentialities: division and contact, conflict and cooperation, security and anxiety, creativity and oppression, among others. In short, they are sites of the paradoxical. Paradox, it is argued, is the common overarching conceptual characteristic of borders but which specific potentialities are embodied in a border and what prevails as a result of the ensuing power struggles requires contextual specificity. Cyprus, a divided island lying on various border lines, partly inside and partly outside the EU, presents a useful socio-political space in order to illustrate this argument by outlining the specific paradoxical aspects of its own border and the results of the ensuing power struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay assigns the literary as the preferred means to write Cyprus because it exposes the power of place and space in postcolonial partitioned cases; it shows that spatial production determines the formation and agency of identity in Cyprus, which serves to sharpen and to blur the dominant binary legacy of historical-political deadlock discourse, so as to generate conflict and solidarity between the deeply divided people in postcolonial partitioned Cyprus. The focus is on the Greek-cypriot and Turkish-cypriot nationalist identification that dominated throughout the last decades of British colonial and into postcolonial Cyprus. This is an examination of ethnic motherland nationalist literatures, with emphasis on capturing the ways writers actively write, read and construct the dominant production of Cyprus. Even though nationalist's writings are based on deeply competing narratives, they have used the same processes and practices to produce a Cyprus for their ethnic selves. This spatial competition and solidarity will be examined through various empirical-theoretical spatial approaches, with emphasis on illuminating the postcolonial and partitioned inventions of gendered nationalism, through making use of Yi-Fu Tuan's healthy balance between experiencing place and space and Henri Lefebvre's spatiology. The essay demonstrates the shared ways in which nationalist writers attempt to produce an ethnically homogeneous mental place through two gendered processes - a maternal principle and ancestral journeys operating with fetish spectacles, objects and substances - that manipulate social, historical and spatial practices to make the abstract nation appear concrete. This place is thus depicted as a gift from the mothers to the children of Cyprus and as Baby Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Greek Cypriot nationalism has been in large part motivated by the misconceived idea of Cyprus becoming a modern, European society. Although Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the perception of it by the European north as a culturally marginal Mediterranean society had not changed. This was amply demonstrated in 2013 when Cyprus applied to the EU for urgent financial assistance. It was forced to capitalize its banks through their customers' savings and, although this and other “corrective” measures were couched in seemingly rational economic terms, they were unmistakably a punishment and a civilizational lesson. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the global wave of decolonization that began after 1945 reached the island of Cyprus, the Cyprus question turned into an issue of paramount importance for Turkish nationalists and for the Turkish people in general. Long before, Turkish foreign policy architects – who had previously taken the line that ‘Turkey does not have a Cyprus problem’ – came to portray Cyprus as a ‘national cause’. Three different geopolitical discourses were instrumental in legitimizing Turkey’s claims over Cyprus and in leading Turkish society to believe that it had a crucial stake in the fate of the island. Naturalized geopolitics represented Cyprus as a natural extension of the Turkish heartland, while ideological geopolitics put forth that Greek Cypriots were responsible for the spread of communism. Finally, civilizational geopolitics characterized Turkey and Greece’s rivalry in Cyprus as the latest chapter in the centuries-old conflict between Turkishness and Hellenism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article builds on a growing body of research that shows an intrinsic but complex relationship between the concepts and the ideologies of nationalism and racism. In doing so, it investigates how different, meaningful national and ethnic in-group identifications of a dominant national/ethnic group (Greek-Cypriots) within a given national context (Cyprus) influence their perceptions of different, meaningful ethnic and racial minority out-groups. Logistic regression analysis of quantitative survey data with secondary school children (N = 738) in Cyprus shows that the relationship between national/ethnic in-group identifications and out-group perceptions varies according to the social and political relationships between particular national/ethnic in- and out-groups. The findings show that future research on the relationship between nationalism and racism should consider the overlap between and context specific nature of national and ethnic in-group identification processes and the historical, political relationships between different in- and out-groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the development of an indigenous Turkish language press in Cyprus during the British colonial period (1878–1960). It argues that Turkish Cypriot newspapers were highly influential in the propagation of ethno-nationalist ideology, endorsing separate Greek and Turkish communal identities on the island and promoting ethnic attachments to the neighbouring Turkish Republic. The development of Turkish Cypriot newspapers was also shaped by the strict anti-nationalist censorship of the British colonial government and by the intensification of the Greek Cypriot campaign for unification with Greece. Finally, this article traces the conflicts between three rival newspapers in the immediate aftermath of the British colonial period as battle lines were drawn in the new nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article has two main aims. First, it aims to challenge the widespread narrative in Cyprus studies that presents ethnic identities as historically inevitable and natural. Rather, identities need to be conceptualized as socially constructed. The second aim of this article is to problematize the argument that ethnic or national groups are homogenous actors. It underlines the need to deconstruct these supposedly unitary actors by making use of a class-based conceptualization of the state. By using such a conceptualization, the article will focus on the period between 1878 and 1974. It will start with a concrete analysis of the class structure in the Cypriot society and then will trace how different classes in both communities positioned themselves vis-à-vis political structures of power and how these positionings paved the way to the division of the island. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union in 2004 was anticipated to be a ‘catalytic’ factor in developments towards a solution of the Cyprus problem at the political level. Within education, it was also seen as an opportunity for addressing diversity in a historically ethnocentric educational system through the introduction of a European dimension. Against this background, this article explores Greek-Cypriot children’s discourses about national others by drawing upon two sets of data collected in two studies of roughly seven years apart. Despite the different theoretical and methodological approaches of the two studies, and despite the temporal distance between them (almost three and a half years before and after Cyprus’s EU accession respectively), the concept of ‘Europe’ was mobilised by children in highly similar ways to distinguish, evaluate and hierarchise various others and to re-produce ethnic, racial, and Eurocentric stereotypes against national outgroups and their immigrant classmates from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the effects of nationalism and anti-colonialism on party politics in Cyprus have been influential throughout its contemporary history, mobilisation of the anti-colonial cleavage within the Greek community of Cyprus largely accounts for the nature of Greek Cypriot politics in the early decades of British rule. Nationalism and anti-colonialism produced a permanent division among the nationalist circles of the Greek ethnic community between intransigents and moderates. Within this overarching division Greek Cypriot politics was characterised by continuous factionalism among a small social and religious elite. The bases of factionalism among the leading dignitaries of the Greek Cypriot elite were access to and ownership of power channels overlaid by individual differences over the anti-colonial struggle. The institutional context established by the British facilitated the demarcation of the conflict on an ethno-religious basis, subsequently retaining its largely intraethnic character and only becoming largely interethnic with the later political mobilisation of the Turkish community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cyprus occupies an unenviable position among a group of intractable international conflicts which transcend their national borders and whose resolution has eluded third-party mediation. The Cyprus dispute has preoccupied theorists and practitioners of conflict resolution ever since the United Nations stationed its peacekeeping force on the island in 1964. Even attempts by the United Nations to revitalise the Cyprus talks following the 2004 referendum on the Annan plan have not yielded satisfactory results. For decades, the Cyprus problem has challenged conventional international analysis and defied traditional approaches to negotiation and peacemaking. This article grapples with the question of why this conflict has not been resolved despite endless negotiations. By extrapolating three seemingly distinct variables—Cypriotisation, Europeanisation and post-Kemalism—this article alludes to changes in the conflict's contextual parameters that are conducive to a political settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines why center-right parties that have partly built their image around ethnic or religious identities reverse their positions to support peace arrangements. Political settlements in divided societies frequently run counter to the values of these parties and are also potentially damaging to their internal party cohesion. We argue that political learning through sustained interaction with external pro-peace allies transforms the positions of center-right parties by socializing them when it comes to their international agenda, yet the same effect is not observed in party actions within the sphere of domestic intra-communal politics. Drawing from the Cypriot and Northern Irish peace processes, we show that once these parties embrace peace agreements, they do so by balancing international and local considerations, choosing to compensate domestic constituencies on symbolic issues of less importance for the peace process yet of major significance to conservative constituencies. The study of center-right and conservative peace actors has important implications for research on mediation and international conflict since it suggests mechanisms through which policy makers can better engage with ethnic or religious parties in fragile peace processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Turkey's political, social, and religious history from the perspective that the country is not a democratic, secular nation-state because Turkish leaders have focused on Muslim supersessionism since the Ottoman Empire era began in 1288. The article notes Muslim supersessionism, a radical form of nationalism based on Islamic hegemony and the idea that all citizens should want to belong to a Turkish "race," was a driving force behind the development of the Young Turks organization and Kemalist political doctrine. Ethnic cleansing, the Armenian genocide, the Greek massacres, and the government's efforts to expel Christians and Jews from Istanbul, Turkey in 1955 are topics in the discussion. Other topics include Cyprus, Islamization, and Turkification.

This paper examines the conflicts and politics of heritage within communities and across the ethnic divide in Cyprus. By looking at three case studies of religious, antiquarian and modern heritage, it underscores the selective appropriations and restorations of heritage as well as problems of heritage identification and protection. Specifically it is concerned with the status of churches and building of mosques in the northern part of the island, the symbolic uses of the Kyrenia shipwreck and its replicas, and the difficulty in politically appropriating the ruined Nicosia airport that is located in the UN Buffer Zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1974, the dispute between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus resulted in Turkish military intervention in the island. The same year, the Turkish Court of Cassation issued a legal decision that rendered possible the confiscation of properties belonging to minority foundations in the years to come. I argue that the case of minority foundations in 1974 was not a coincidence but a conscious reciprocal discrimination applied in both official and unofficial spheres. I support my argument with the following indicators: (1) the wider historical Greek- Turkish conflict and its 'reciprocal' nature of discrimination against non- Muslim minorities; (2) the laden interpretation of the non- Muslim minorities as the internal enemies in the Turkish mind-set and its direct reflections on the 1974 case of foundations; and (3) the nature of the press coverage, which I assess using detailed reading and content analysis of three Turkish newspapers ( H ürriyet, T ercüman, C umhuriyet) and one Rum minority newspaper ( A poyevmatini). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing use of apologies in post-conflict settings, cases of non-apology remain unaddressed and continue to puzzle scholars. This article focuses on the absence of apology by non-state and anti-state actors by examining the case of the Cypriot armed group EOKA, which has refused to offer an apology to the civilian victims of its ‘anti-colonial’ struggle (1955–1959). Using field data and parliamentary debates, and drawing on comparisons, this article analyses the factors that contributed to a lack of apology. It is argued that the inherited timelessness of Greek nationalism, and the impression of a perpetual need for defence, set up textbook conditions for the development of a hegemonic discourse and prevented an apology for human rights violations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the structures of both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot press in Cyprus in order to consider the role that gender plays in the construction and distribution of knowledge in Cypriot society. The question is whether columns published across the ideological spectrum in both the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot daily press challenge preconceived notions of gender in the broader communities or whether they reproduce and reinforce previously held patriarchal views of the roles of men and women as citizens in Cyprus. Such views, it is argued, have systematically marginalized women from visible participation in offering alternative futures for the Cypriot communities in Cyprus and relegated them to the position of secondary agents who more often than not play the role of bringing to fruition the imaginings of their male counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the reasons for the nonresolution of the Cyprus problem and for its legendary intractability. It starts by highlighting three distinct features of the Cyprus problem followed by a historical account, with emphasis on attempts at a settlement. The third and fourth parts examine the window of opportunity of 1999-2004 (Cyprus's European Union accession process and the Annan Plan) and the reasons for its spectacular failure, and the more recent negotiation (2008-10) that was initially promising but is now hanging from a thread. The last part focuses on nine reasons for the impasse that has made the Cyprus conflict impervious to reunification and resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the politics and history of Cyprus, focusing on its division between Turkish Cypriots in the North and Greek Cypriots in the South. It comments on the attempted coup d’état in 1974 that aimed to overthrow the government and annex Cyprus to Greece, and the subsequent invasion by Turkish forces. The author reflects on Cyprus' European Union (EU) membership and Turkey's prospects for EU membership. Other topics include international mediation, the prospect of reunification, and the influence of nationalism.

As renewed talks for the reunification of Cyprus encounter familiar barriers, this essay urges the reader to consider the importance of language use in the Greek Cypriot community. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's work on speech and writing, it examines the political significance of Demotic Greek and the Cypriot Greek spoken every day, arguing that the conflicts of Greek Cypriot identity since decolonization are played out by the tension between the two forms of Greek. Demotic use invokes an essential Greek identity that excludes the Oriental, particularly Turkish, Other. However, its use remains primarily written even though it summons the classical philosophy and Greek Orthodoxy that celebrate speech, not writing, as the mode of self-expression. Paradoxically, the use of written Demotic presents a Hellenized version of Cyprus at the same time that it undermines one of the foundational principles of Hellenic culture. Cypriot Greek persists in speech, resisting the textual seduction and invasion by Demotic. It can, with its explicit, supranational diversity, be understood as a celebration of Cypriot difference that demonstrates the multi-faceted construction of identity on the island. Indeed, Cypriot Greek deconstructs the hierarchical opposition between Occidental and Oriental. In its difference from Demotic, Cypriot Greek invokes the polyculturalism of Cyprus, an instance of the diversity too often ignored and repressed in diverse locations across the Mediterranean and the Middle East with tragic consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the dominant heritage discourse in Cyprus concerning preservation and destruction, and its implications for ethno-cultural identity construction and promotion. By exploring two heritage sites (one north and one south of the Buffer Zone) it suggests that heritage practice is more complex than commonly presented. Specifically, it shows how ethnic conflict has not only been responsible for heritage destruction but also for the preservation of it as an unintended consequence of 'freezing' development. It also examines how ethnic groups and individuals may come to evaluate their 'own' heritage negatively, specifically as an inconvenient cultural load, in efforts to develop ideologically specific or socially 'progressive' identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Greek-Cypriot teachers' constructions of Turkish-speaking children's identities in the Greek-Cypriot educational system. Drawing on interviews and classroom observations from a two-year ethnographic study conducted in three primary schools in the Republic of Cyprus, the author explores how Turkish-speaking children enrolled in these schools are racialized, ethnicized and classed within the dominant discourse of Greek-Cypriot teachers. The article discusses how the homogenized perceptions expressed by the majority of participating teachers in this study are illustrative of structural racism that reinforces these constructions in teaching practices. Yet, at the same time, resistance is present in the discourse and practice of a few teachers; this resistance is expressed through a counter-positioning of the 'normal/ized' identities of Turkish-speaking children. The author argues that without structural transformation, the fact and practice of racism/nationalism/classism will go unaltered in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author mentions that the opportunity for a settlement of the conflict dividing the island of Cyprus is greater in 2009 than it has been for decades due to the will of Greek Cypriot present Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot president Mehmet Ali Talat to have United Nations-mediated talks be successful. The author notes the belief of Americans that Cyprus should be a sovereign and independent state. Obstacles to long-term conflict resolution are considered including nationalism and outside state intervention. The potential benefits of a constitutional convention to the process are mentioned.

The article examines the future of the island of Cyprus. The central focus of the article is on a resolution of the political divisions that separate the Greek and Turkish populations living in autonomous regions on the island. Among other issues the article discusses a resolution proposed by Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, the stated goals of Greek nationalists on the island, and the result of the position of the European Union with regard to the ethnic divisions in Cyprus.

Niyazi Berkes was born on 21 September 1908 in Nicosia/Lefkoşa, the capital of Cyprus. Naturally, his intellectual personality began to be shaped by the social and political context on the island as well as the empire which was in the process of imperial change. As a result of the turmoil created by the British rule, the Young Turk Revolution, the First World War, and the Turkish national struggle, the Greek and the Turkish identities for the Orthodox and the Muslim communities, respectively, were constructed. Niyazi Berkes, who was born and raised in this turbulent period, developed the Turkish national identity that laid the foundations of his patriotism among the Muslim community. But in the early years of his long life, the social and political context of Cyprus also planted the seeds of his liberal-mindedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Greek Cypriot elementary school children construct their identities in relation to Sri Lankan and Filipino women who come to Cyprus as domestic workers. The article focuses primarily on the views of children whose families employ these women; however, the views of children whose families do not employ domestic workers are also explored to illustrate how these women are popularly constructed in children's imaginations and in the absence of direct daily interaction with them. The study reveals that children access different cultural discourses and construct identities that are often ambivalent and contradictory and are revealing of new forms of nationalism and racism. For the children whose families employ domestic workers, the home becomes an arena for renegotiating their status as children in their interactions with these women. Thus, the encounter between Self and Other becomes critical to understanding reconstituted definitions of childhood and adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between nationalism and religion and its adaptation to cultural values and ideological differences in countries on the Balkan Peninsula. The incorporation of religious concepts in movements for state formation and ethnonational expansion in the Balkans, the effects of institutionalization and de-institutionalization in the post-communist era, the historical association of nationalism with ethnic identity, the secular reforms in Turkey, the influence of the Ottoman Empire in Greece, and the impact of post-colonialism in Cyprus are discussed.

Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot history schoolbooks adopted a similar model of ethnic nationalism focusing on the suffering of the Self and presenting an essentialist, unchanging view of national identity. However, the new books that recently appeared on the Turkish Cypriot side follow a social-constructivist model of history, which presents nationalism and national identity as emerging under specific historical conditions rather than as given. They avoid homogenizing assumptions by presenting internal differentiations, and indicate instances of internal violence and suffering of others. These changes have significant implications regarding notions of blame and trauma, and allow for identity to emerge as a political choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the transformation of public identity among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Cyprus during the late medieval period, when the island was ruled first under Western-style feudalism and then under Ottoman feudalism. This change of style of rule contributed to the transformation of the Greek speakers' public identity, from fragmented to collective. The explanation of this transformation in identity is based on an analysis of shifting social boundaries, themselves linked to changing sociopolitical structures. By comparing the Western and Ottoman periods, and by conceptualizing public identity in relation to boundaries, this study puts known accounts of Cypriot history under new light. The result is revealing when considering debates on Greek nationalism in Cyprus. Although many factors contributed to the genesis of that phenomenon of nationalism, the presence of a collective form of identity by the Greek speakers was a prerequisite. This prerequisite was absent during the Latin period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, conflict between the two communities in Cyprus has been characterised by the diverging demands of ethno-nationalists. The introduction of the Annan Plan for the solution of the Cyprus problem has fostered new trends in Cypriot politics and a new alignment of the political forces on the island. This paper argues that the conventional ethno-nationalist division and the left-right divide are no longer sufficient in understanding the conflict in Cyprus. The new dividing and unifying elements in Cypriot politics can be best understood through analysing the views of political actors on such issues as sovereignty, territoriality, identity and power-sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activities of the Young Turks who attempted to organize underground and overseas in reaction to the monarchy of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II in the Ottoman State, took place in Cyprus as well. From the 1890s to the First World War, the influences of Young Turks could be remarkably observed among the Muslim Cypriont on the Island. The Young Turk movement which was an opposition until the Coup of 1913 was limited among some Turkish Cypriots. When the Young Turks managed to come into power, the number of the supporters of Young Turks began to increase on the island. The ideas of Young Turks provided a fertile ground for the development of Turkish nationalism in Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supported by the EU and the international community, the extraordinary effort of the UN to mediate a settlement of the Cyprus problem before the integration of Cyprus into the EU ended in failure. The two historical highlights that marked the failure of the peace process were the top level talks at The Hague in March 2003 and the Cyprus referendum in April 2004. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leadership played in derailing the peace effort during these two defining moments in the evolution of the Cyprus problem. The analysis focuses on the polarizing ethno-centric nationalism of the then Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot leaders. But it does so by contrasting the respective nationalism of the leaders to the Europeanizing and peace-enhancing trends that were emerging in Cypriot civil society and Greco-Turkish relations during the crucial period leading to the Hague talks and the Cyprus referendum. From this perspective, the role of the Cypriot leaders during the negotiation process is assessed against the backdrop of Turkey's changed policy on Cyprus and the deepening interethnic rapprochement between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, especially following the lifting of restriction to free movement across the green line in April 2003. The investigation attempts to explore how the stubborn sustenance and strategic reactivation of the legacy of adversarial nationalism, as well as the perpetuation of the mono-ethnic concept of statehood by the Cypriot leaders rendered them practically unwilling and ideologically incapable of recognizing and seizing the greatest historical opportunity for peace in Cyprus in half a century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both ethnic communities in Cyprus have maintained strong political and cultural ties with Greece and Turkey, respectively, and at some point of their twentieth century history, each has aspired to become part of either the former or the latter. Yet the way this relationship has been imagined has differed across time, space, and class. Both communities have adapted their identities to prevailing ideological waves as well as political opportunities, domestic alliances, and interests. The article evaluates different responses to ethnic nationalism, highlighting important intra-ethnic differentiations within each Cypriot community usually expressed in the positions of political parties, intellectuals, and the press. While the current literature identifies two major poles of identity in the island, “motherland nationalism” and “Cypriotism,” the article suggests that the major focus of identity of Cypriots is identification with their respective ethnic communities in the form of Greek Cypriotism or Turkish Cypriotism. In fact, contentious politics in Cyprus from the ENOSIS/TAKSIM struggle to the April 2004 referendum demonstrate the interplay of external constraints and collective self-identification processes leading to the formation of these identities. The article concludes by identifying the implications of identity shifts for deeply divided societies and conflict resolution in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a standard for evaluation of possible solutions to communal conflicts, including partition, based on protection of human life. A partition should be judged successful only if it costs fewer lives than the expected loss of life under any alternative. Solutions to communal conflicts should also be stable over long periods, eliminating or drastically reducing fears of people in the affected communities that they could become victims of renewed violence. An assessment of the 1974 partition of Cyprus is presented, which finds that its net impact on human life remains uncertain—principally because the partition occurred so quickly after the July 1974 coup by Greek Cypriot ultra-nationalists that was the main source of fear of very large-scale ethnic cleansing that we cannot know what the new government might have done. What we can confidently say is that, absent partition, deadly communal violence in Cyprus would have continued to recur and that there are grounds, including the behavior of the July coup regime, for guessing that the ultimate cost would more likely have been higher rather than lower than that of partition. Partition has also enforced peace on Cyprus for 32 years, which may have contributed to the improved climate, compared with 30 or 10 years ago, for eventual reunification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain which factors played a central role in the development of rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot national identities and how geography, modernization, and colonial policies came to play a critical role in this development. The article argues that the development of rival nationalisms on Cyprus must be analyzed by looking at seven factors: (1) the geographic and topographic setting; (2) demographic changes and realities; (3) socio-cultural factors, such as education, language, symbolism, religion, and links to the mainlands; (4) economic and class factors; (5) the internal impact of the colonial power; and, after the achievement of statehood in 1960 (6) Cypriot governmental organization; and (7) the geopolitical position of the island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An island constantly subject to foreign rule, Cyprus has a history of continual struggle and negotiation with larger powers. After a succession of various occupations and rulers, Cyprus became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1571 and remained a Turkish province until 1878 when Britain assumed administration of the island. On 1 April 1955, the Greek Cypriot anticolonial group EOKA started a campaign of violence against British rule and the result was a four-year revolutionary struggle organized and led by right-wing nationalists. Cypriot communists and Turkish Cypriots were forbidden from joining the EOKA ranks. Fought to a standstill, the British withdrew in 1959, and negotiations led to the creation of the independent Republic of Cyprus on 16 August 1960. Within three years of independence, however, violent inter-communal conflict began as a result of a Greek Cypriot determination to modify the constitutional safeguards that had been incorporated into the agreements of 1960 in order to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority. This resulted in the withdrawal of the Turkish Cypriot community from their constitutional role and position and the establishment of a 'green line' dividing the two communities in Nicosia, the island's capital. These enclave borders and the neutral zone that divided the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot areas of the city were guarded by the British and subsequently by United Nations troops for the following ten years. Progress towards a solution was slow and was ultimately overtaken by the actions of the military junta in Greece who, in 1974, launched a suicidal coup to take control in Cyprus. Turkey used the Greek coup as an opportunity to justify an intervention on 'humanitarian' grounds in order to protect the Turkish Cypriots. As a consequence of their involvement in Cyprus, the over-extended Greek military government was humiliated and fell, and democracy returned to Greece. The consequences for Cyprus were catastrophic as the Turkish military occupied 37 per cent of the island. International opinion supported the initial Turkish action insofar as it served to protect the Turkish Cypriots, but condemned the brutality with which it was conducted and the invasion of half of the island in which it resulted. As a result, several thousand Greek Cypriots were killed, hundreds disappeared, and about 70 per cent of the island's productive capacity fell into the hands of the Turkish army. The Turkish Cypriots, who had suffered from 1964, felt themselves to be liberated. Two hundred thousand Greek Cypriots found their land invaded and themselves homeless, living in tents for the whole of the summer of 1974. After 1974, the Greek Cypriot side immediately launched a policy of negotiation in order to have some of what was lost returned. The occupied north, the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, remains an unrecognized state and continues to struggle economically. It is currently recognized only by Turkey. In the politically turbulent years that followed 1974, the non-occupied south managed to rebuild itself materially and diplomatically and, more recently, to accede to the European Union on 1 May 2004 after a last-ditch UN-brokered reunification deal was rejected by an overwhelming majority of Greek Cypriots in a referendum they felt was unfair. The Turkish Cypriots and Turkey supported the UN plan, as a solution would give Turkey the green light to go ahead with its European Union accession aspirations and grant the Turkish Cypriots international access and substantial financial support. The following dialogue attempts to read and critique some contemporary Cypriot phenomena in light of this tragic legacy of strife, division and a history of ethnic trauma. Speaking to the current situation of Cyprus, this dialogue, written over the course of a month, took place between Spurgeon Thompson, Assistant Professor of English at Cyprus College, Nicosia, Stavros St. Karayanni, currently Visiting Scholar at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design in Vancouver, Canada, and Myria Vassiliadou, Director of the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Intercollege, Nicosia, Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the issue of constructions of "others" from the perspective of established centres of power has received a significant amount of attention, constructions of "others" from the perspective of peripheral societies have not been adequately explored. This article examines this issue by comparing constructions of "the Balkans" articulated by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Such constructions, are in turn, compared with those emanating from "the West" in order to highlight their differences. The author suggests that societies centrally located within the hierarchy of power are able to develop more stable representations of "others", while those located outside centres of power only develop ephemeral and shifting interest in other societies, beyond the usual specific preoccupations with neighbouring "national enemies". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the issue of political commemoration, focusing on the commemorations organized by different political parties in the two sides of divided Cyprus. It suggests a new analytical framework for the study of ritual in contemporary nation-states that moves beyond the usual examination of any single ritual on its own terms. The use of comparison, both within each side and between the two sides, reveals how political actors stage commemorations of different historical events in order to propose contesting historical narratives. Hence, the meaning of any commemorative ritual can be understood only as part of the broader story that each narrative proposes. The historical narratives proposed by different political actors share certain common characteristics by virtue of all employing the narrative form: a beginning, a plot, certain categories of actors, the spatial location where history unfolds, the moral centre through which events are to be evaluated and the end. However, each narrative suggests a different story through which issues of identity and "otherness", self-justification and blame are negotiated in order to define the "imagined community" of the nation, its enemies and its pertinent history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the link between women's involvement and identification with the so-called 'Cyprus problem' and nationalism and how it may become problematic within the context of Cyprus's future accession to the European Union. The author argues for the need to analyse women's unexplored perspectives and feminist discourses, and that theoretical questions be addressed about Cypriot women's place within Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]