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Perhaps Freud failed to mention Greeks and Turks sharing the ‘narcissism of minor differences’ because it doesn’t apply to Greeks and Turks and to suggest otherwise – to suggest that the differences between Greeks and Turks are like those between north and south Germans – would be ludicrous.
The ‘differences’ between Greeks and Turks are both ideological/civilisational – i.e. the Western versus the Islamic way of being and doing, the democratic against the totalitarian – and real. Real as opposed to psychological. Thucydidean as opposed to Freudian.
Relations between Greeks and Turks since 1071 have been characterised by the rapacity of the Turks and the struggle of the Greeks for survival and redemption. To suggest otherwise is to make a nonsense of history for the sake of a contemporary political goal, which, in your case, is Greco-Turkish reconciliation.
Greco-Turkish reconciliation in the current climate may or may or not be a good thing, but why does it demand the rewriting – in fact the denial, even the scrapping – of history. What is wrong with asserting the truth about the Turkish conquests in Anatolia, Asia Minor and the Balkans, the savagery of the Ottoman Empire and then, since this is what you desire, arguing for rapprochement on this – factual – basis?
Secondly, the RIK poll you refer to – like most opinion polls – is worthless and I am surprised you draw such dramatic conclusions from it. Polls can’t measure complex political sentiments. Who knows how deeply meant the alleged expression of hostility towards Turkish Cypriots was and what particular moment in the political cycle it was reflecting? Perhaps the poll was conducted at a time when Greeks were feeling particularly pessimistic about the future of the island, were feeling especially annoyed at the provocations of Talat or Erdogan. More likely is that the poll results simply reflect continuing bitterness at the Turkish invasion and occupation.
Why is it that younger Greeks are more pessimistic than older Greeks on the island? Perhaps younger Greeks, schooled in the current climate of human rights, with greater experience of EU ideals, feel the injustice of the occupation more intensely than older, more fatalistic Greeks. Who knows? Perhaps, with this sense of what civilised, European behaviour consists of and having crossed to the occupied areas and seen the sickening condition of Greek towns and villages, the desecration of churches and cemeteries, young Cypriots have reacted more negatively than older Cypriots to Turkish depredations.
To suggest the poll reflects nationalist intolerance among younger Greeks is absurd. Where is your real evidence that young Cypriots – motivated by the same hedonistic and materialistic ambitions as the rest of Western youth – have been led astray by religious fanaticism and reactionary education?
Indeed, if any part of the Cypriot population was affected by fanaticism, then it was the generation of the 1950s and 1960s, which your poll finds far more relaxed about ‘integration’ – whatever that means.
Also, the small shifts in May’s elections do not reflect a victory of ‘rejectionist’ forces in Cyprus. Cypriots vote for the same parties time and time again and only someone with zero knowledge of Cyprus would have expected voters to suddenly vote in numbers for DYSY or EDY– even if they agreed with them.
In fact, what do you mean by ‘rejectionist’ forces on the island? Do you mean those rejecting reunification – no such ‘forces’ exist – or those rejecting Annan, which, of course, most Cypriots believe would not have paved the way for reunification but legitimised partition.
Ultimately, your assertion that Cyprus is a hotbed of reaction and nationalism is absurd and betrays a shallow knowledge of Cypriots and an overweening conviction that if the Cyprus problem was resolved, in one way or another – you don’t seem to care how – this would pave the way for the realisation of your grand project, which is Greek-Turkish friendship. But why should Cyprus be sacrificed for the sake of some mythical Greek-Turkish friendship when:
1. there is no reason to believe the satisfaction of Turkish demands in Cyprus – which is what Annan represented – would do anything other than encourage Turkey to make even greater demands on Greece – in the Aegean and in Thrace;
2. Cypriots have done nothing to deserve the dismemberment of their country, with most serious critics, such as Christopher Hitchens, depicting the situation on the island as resulting from Turkish aggression, US cynicism, British perfidy and Greek incompetence.
Does it not bother you that your analysis of the situation in Cyprus concurs with the analysis of Washington, London and Ankara? Not a ringing endorsement for you, unless of course you are well disposed to Bush, his lackey Blair and their Islamist comrade Erdogan. Are you sure you are in bed with the right people?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/17 at 04:00 PM I very interesting analysis on Turkey’s future. There are many points you make, that people can agree and disagree on. I will make only two comments: a) polls are VERY weak to make conclusions and support your theories on to. Give me any poll result and how they did it, and I will give you the opposite conclusion. b) On the Cyprus issue (because they seem to be get the raw end of the stick at the end on the day). You can stake your opinion if unification, as its forced upon the island by the international community, is good or bad. But whatever it is please don’t insult our intelligence on its goodness and intent. As someone wrote four articles down “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining”.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/26 at 11:52 AM Dear Demonax:
Regarding your charge that we were “ludicrous” to suggest “that the differences between Greeks and Turks are like those between north and south Germans,” what we actually wrote—in our second and third sentences, respectively, so it was pretty hard to miss—was that: “We’re not so naïve as to compare Greeks and Turks to the English and Scots (let alone to citizens of Berlin and Munich). While Turkey and Greece are each often insufferably narcissistic, their respective self-absorption is many times related to quite major differences (religion, language, radically differing cultural antecedents, most obviously).” “…[R]adically differing cultural antecedents” is our way of saying “ideological/civilisational.”
Your impassioned historical memory about Turkish “rapacity,” Ottoman “savagery,” and the Greek “struggle…for survival and redemption” makes us think that maybe Freud was wrong about the English and Scots, and that the latter might be as ardent about William Wallace and the Battle of Stirling (in 1297) as you are about Greek and Turkish “relations…since 1071.” In any case, our attempt to ”rewrite” or ”scrap” history, as you call it, was pretty feeble since our only historical references, in fact, were to the twentieth century—and the one that went farthest back, to Mustafa Kemal’s founding of the Turkish republic, was, we thought, extremely critical of the “father of Turkey.”
We don’t agree that “most opinion polls” are “worthless.” They all quantify something, even if only their own flaws. In the event, the best ones are statistical snapshots: they tell us a few (or many) things about their respondents at a given moment and place. That’s the only thing they’re good for. And, while we agree that polls can’t measure “complex political sentiments,” they can survey the terrain on which those sentiments become much more straightforward political battles. (Incidentally, what—or who—can measure complex political sentiments? Historiography is precisely about the continual revision of that “measurement.”)
As for “younger Greeks”—we assume you mean Greek Cypriots—we hope you’re right about their “civilized, European behaviour.” Where’s the proof, though? Is it possible that you’re wary of polls because they present an image of a world that runs counter to yours and confirms that, during the last few years, Greek Cypriot youth—much like youth throughout the West—have turned much more conservative than their elders. If there’s anyone who’s “fatalistic” nowadays, it’s not the old but the young, who mock what are continually derided in the global media as the generational (i.e., ideological) “illusions” of parents and grandparents. (And, oh yes, one other thing: for much of human history, “hedonistic and materialistic ambitions” have proceeded hand in glove—very important that disguise—with religious fanaticism and reactionary education.)
Who Greek Cypriots vote for is, of course, nobody’s business but that of the Greek Cypriots. The consequences of that voting, however, are a lot of people’s business, above all because the Greek Cypriots were allowed to enter the European Union without resolving the most fundamental issue of the final architecture of their own polity—which, as we’re sure you understand, actually puts the entire EU at unprecedented risk. (Some Europeans have even accused Cyprus of entering the EU under false pretenses.) We believe—and have always said—that Greece is responsible for the tragedy that devastated Cyprus in 1974, and that it has a moral and even material obligation to set things right. Cyprus would never have entered the EU if Greece had not undertaken the task of Cypriot accession as almost a sacred obligation.
The last few years, however, the governments of Greece and Cyprus have been at (serious) odds almost as often as they’ve been in agreement. Cyprus, of course, has the right—as does every country—of self-definition. It’s just that, from our standpoint (and from that of virtually the entire world, including the “civilized, European” part of it), that definition seems to have a substantial Turkish ethnic component. More to the point of Greek-Greek Cypriot relations, a lot of Greeks have started thinking the unthinkable, namely, that if the Greek Cypriots are so keen on defending their own (narrowly, almost asphyxiatingly, defined) interests, maybe the time has come for Greece to start doing the same thing.
Nobody wants to “sacrifice” Cyprus to Greek-Turkish friendship, mythical or real. The problem is that it is beginning to look more and more obvious that Cyprus—or, more exactly, the majority of Greek Cypriots—is willing to sacrifice the world entire for its increasingly peculiar (we’re sorry but, yes, many people would call it reactionary) notions of “self-determination.” You confirm that point—unwillingly, we’re sure—by your certainty that approval of “Annan” (we assume you mean the plan and not the man) would do nothing “other than encourage Turkey to make even greater demands on Greece—in the Aegean and in Thrace.” Frankly, we think that vision of the world is not merely absurd, but that, because it is so disconnected from reality, it is dangerous—and it represents exactly the kind of thinking against which we wrote our editorial.
No one deserves to have one’s homeland (whether it’s a country, region, or city) dismembered. We will not comment on whether or not Cypriots (both Greek and Turkish) did anything during the last half century to provoke the tragedy other than to point to your own remark that older generations were “affected by fanaticism.” We also don’t find anything to dispute in your image of Turkish violence, American cynicism (we’d go further and call it mendacity and even complicity), Greek incompetence (here, again, we think you’re much too kind since it was the Greeks, above all, who planned the tragedy), and, of course, everyone’s perennial favorite (for good reason), perfidious Albion. Having reached this consensus about the past, however, we don’t see where it leaves anyone—but especially the Cypriots—in regard to the future other than in their continuing dismemberment.
Finally, whether or not our “analysis” of Cyprus concurs with that of Bush, Blair, and Erdoğan is for others to judge. Something tells us that anyone who’s read this Website consistently (or even haphazardly) over the last few years will find that notion far-fetched at best. One thing’s for sure, we believe that what people do in their bedrooms is their business.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/27 at 12:57 PM You ask for ‘proof’ that young Greeks in Cyprus are ‘civilised’. Is this a joke? What proof do you want? I can only repeat that, in the context of the abnormality of the Turkish occupation, young Cypriots lead normal, mundane lives and hold normal, mundane views. You are the ones accusing them of being in a state of religious zealotry and nationalist fervour. To be honest, I haven’t’ heard anything so comical in a long time. But perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps you know more about Cyprus than I do. So, I offer you the opportunity once again to provide SUBSTANTIVE evidence that, ‘during the last few years Greek Cypriot youth have turned more conservative’ – conservative being your euphemism for reactionary and fanatical. Can you point to a movement, a trend, some sort of manifestation of this religious and political fanaticism you keep going on about.
I suspect you can’t, and the reason you can’t is because they don’t exist – except in your imagination or as an expression of your prejudices or unsustainable hypotheses, such as ‘for much of human history, “hedonistic and materialistic ambitions” have proceeded hand in glove with religious fanaticism and reactionary education?’ What does this mean? Where in human history? And how are you applying this to Cyprus? Are young Cypriots hedonists or religious zealots? Or both? How is the ambition to acquire the latest SUV or a house with a dozen rooms related to a nationalist upsurge or a reactionary education?
Indeed, your site mouths off a lot about Cyprus and yet much of what you say does not correspond with any reality I recognise. My perception is that you are unfamiliar with Cyprus but, again, I am willing to be proved wrong, so why not come clean and explain where you derive your knowledge of Cyprus from? What is your expertise? What are your sources? How well do you know the island? Have you ever even been?
What I think is trying to emerge from your tendentious analysis is the theory that the crux of the Cyprus problem – its antecedents and insolubility – is Greek Cypriot nationalism.
Indeed so convinced are you that Greek Cypriot nationalism is at the root not only of Cyprus’ woes but, bizarrely, the woes of Greece, Europe and the world, and that, even though you are prepared to admit that Greece, Turkey, the UK and US are culpable in bringing about the Cyprus ‘tragedy’, you are compelled to qualify their guilt by saying that Cyprus – pop. 650,000 – ‘provoked’ these countries, combined pop. 420m.
I’m at a loss to know how a country like Cyprus can ‘provoke’ invasion and ethnic cleansing. Are you saying that because of the intercommunal strife in the 1960s – in which ‘Greece and Turkey sponsored extreme irredentist proxies with the help of the CIA’ (Christopher Hitchens, ‘Cyprus Betrayed’, http://www.hitchensweb.com/) – that Cypriots as a whole deserved the Turkish invasion, that it was a just collective punishment?
I don’t know Freud well, but I’m sure he’s got something to say about ascribing to the victim the crimes of the transgressor. But beyond any psychological need we might have to feel repulsed by the victim, I suggest you want to argue that Greek Cypriots were to blame for the invasion because you want to deny them moral authority to resist partition and apartheid as represented by Annan.
What are Cyprus’ narrow, asphyxiating interests? I always thought Cyprus’ interests were the end of the Turkish occupation and the mitigation of the worst effects of the Turkish invasion. Why are these narrow, asphyxiating? Can you reveal what you find ‘peculiar’ and ‘reactionary’ about Cypriots insisting on the withdrawal of the Turkish army and colonists and the right of return for refugees? To me, these demands seem reasonable, rooted in international law.
The Republic of Cyprus entered the EU because it has a strong democracy, a vibrant economy and healthy society. Who has accused Cyprus of entering under false pretenses? The British, the Turks and a couple of has-been eurocrats.
The idea that the Greek Cypriots should have determined the ‘architecture of their polity’ before EU entry is bizarre. How the Greek Cypriots are supposed to determine the architecture of their polity when 37% of the island is under occupation by 40,000 Turkish troops defeats me.
This tendency of yours to ascribe to Greek Cypriots political and diplomatic clout they simply do not have is further illustrated by your assertion that Cyprus is putting the EU project at ‘unprecedented risk’; a statement Lewis Carroll might have made. Turkey’s membership is at risk for many good reasons – some of which relate to the fact that it wants to join a club but refuses to recognise one of its members; indeed, it occupies the territory of one of its members. Turkey can withdraw its troops and colonists from the island, allow the refugees to return to their homes, but doesn’t. Why not? That is Turkey’s choice.
Moreover, Cyprus is not defying the international community; it is defying the US, the UK and Turkey and their foreign policy agenda. Well done, Cyprus.
As for the threat of Greece pursuing interests separate to those of Cyprus, I think it will come as news to Cypriots that Greece has been acting in Cyprus in anything other than its own interests for the last 50 years. You say Greece has a moral responsibility to Cyprus but that this moral responsibility is now holding Greece back. Would you like to elaborate on how Cyprus is holding Greece back, and what these separate and conflicting Greek and Cypriot interests are?
You describe my assertion that Turkey poses a threat to Greece’s territorial integrity as ‘absurd’ and ‘dangerous’. Obviously this is a matter of opinion. In my opinion, your belief that the actions and ideology of the fanatical, reactionary Kemalist regime do not constitute a threat to Greece is far more ‘absurd’ and ‘dangerous’ than anything I said.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/30 at 07:39 AM There’s a saying in Greek: Όποιος έχει τη μύγα, μυγιάζεται. Trading accusations doesn’t get anybody anywhere. Dialogue presupposes at least tacit acceptance of moral inclusion, that is, of the presumption that one’s interlocutor is neither irredeemably evil (which is why George W. Bush is incapable of engaging, let alone understanding, anyone who doesn’t agree with him a priori) nor hopelessly mad. For the record:
1. Your bias is overt. In your first letter, you wrote of “younger Greeks” (in Cyprus); in our response, we pointed to our confusion: “we assume,” we said, that “you mean Greek Cypriots.” Clearly, you didn’t. In your current comment, you write, again, of “young Greeks in Cyprus.” You obviously don’t see the problem; more obviously, your sense of Cyprus cannot possibly contain the notion of (or sympathy for?) a country that is not made up of “Greeks” and “Turks” (or “Armenians” or “Maronites”) but of Cypriots, of one ethnic (or confessional) background or another. That, in itself, speaks volumes about you and (by admittedly arbitrary extrapolation) your generation. More’s the pity.
2. We didn’t ask for proof that young Greek Cypriots are “civilized”; we asked for proof that their “civilized, European behaviour”—your description—was consonant with their stated constitutional preferences. Indeed, we wrote that, in our opinion at least, Greek Cypriot youth was “much like youth throughout the West.” And, please, don’t put words in our mouths. When we write “conservative,” guess what? We mean conservative. Not reactionary, not nationalist, but conservative. We actually understand the differences between the (range of) meanings of all three words and concepts.
3. Your inability to understand how, “for much of human history, ‘hedonistic and materialistic ambitions’ have proceeded hand in glove…with religious fanaticism and reactionary education,” will be cleared up by reading any history of Christianity (or Islam). Hint: the “temporal” assets of the Church of Cyprus.
4. Your question, “How is the ambition to acquire the latest SUV or a house with a dozen rooms related to a nationalist upsurge or a reactionary education,” leads us to ask in turn: Is this a joke?
5. You’re right: we believe that “the crux of the Cyprus problem—its antecedents and insolubility—is Greek Cypriot nationalism.” We also believe, however, pace the global mediacracy, that “nationalism” is not necessarily malign. Makarios was obviously, and first and foremost, a nationalist (which is why, unsurprisingly, the Greek junta, Greek Cypriot right-wingers, and, last but far from least, Henry Kissinger hated him so unreservedly). In fact, we think that had he lived longer than he (unfortunately) did, there’d be no Cyprus “problem” today, and we’d all be looking at a successful, integrated, bicommunal federation. “Greek Cypriot nationalism” has had the ill fortune of being compounded by two generations of other, indisputably toxic, components, including Greek (as in Helladic) arrogance (and fascism), Turkish opportunism and violence, Turkish Cypriot Ottomanism cum Young Turk nationalism cum kleptocratic maladministration (all primarily under Rauf Denktash), US geostrategic imperial designs, and British duplicity and hypocrisy.
6. As for Greek Cypriot nationalism “provoking” Greece, Turkey, the UK, and the US (let alone being “the root not only of Cyprus’ woes but…the woes of Greece, Europe and the world”[!!!]), what we actually wrote was: “We will not comment on whether or not Cypriots (both Greek and Turkish) did anything during the last half century to provoke the tragedy other than to point to your own remark [all stresses added] that older generations were ‘affected by fanaticism.’” We confess that we can only scratch our heads at how “older generations [both Greek and Turkish]…‘affected by fanaticism’” (the latter phrase, remember, being your own) possibly (“whether or not”) provoking their own, intercommunal tragedy was transmogrified into “Cyprus… ‘provok[ing]’ these countries.” Be that as it may, we immediately went on to state: “We also don’t find anything to dispute in your image of Turkish violence, American cynicism (we’d go further and call it mendacity and even complicity), Greek incompetence (here, again, we think you’re much too kind since it was the Greeks, above all, who planned the tragedy), and, of course, everyone’s perennial favorite (for good reason), perfidious Albion. Having reached this consensus about the past, however, we don’t see where it leaves anyone—but especially the Cypriots—in regard to the future other than in their continuing dismemberment.” We continue to stand by that assessment.
7. Those “has-been eurocrats” included most of the EU member-states, whose representatives, of course, all had to speak “off the record.”
8. The architecture of Cyprus’s polity was precisely what the twin referendums on the Annan plan in April 2004 were about.
9. Again, what we actually wrote was: “…Greek Cypriots were allowed to enter the European Union without resolving the most fundamental issue of the final architecture of their own polity—which, as we’re sure you understand, actually puts the entire EU at unprecedented risk.” In other words, the (yes, unprecedented) constitutional instability that Cypriot accession introduces to EU structure(s) is what puts the Union at risk, not any “Greek Cypriot political and diplomatic clout”—which, of course, is an absurd idea.
10. “Would you like to elaborate on how Cyprus is holding Greece back, and what these separate and conflicting Greek and Cypriot interests are?”: this must be another joke.
11. “…your belief that the actions and ideology of the fanatical, reactionary Kemalist regime do not constitute a threat to Greece is far more ‘absurd’ and ‘dangerous’ than anything I said”!?! This is undoubtedly the final, and most bizarre, joke of all. What we wrote, of course, in our original editorial was: “…the Turkish republic has borne the burden from its foundation of an illiberal (quite literally, quasi-fascist) constitution whose ‘secularism’ was not the considered distillation of Enlightenment tolerance but of a garrison state….” Our editorial’s final paragraph concluded as follows:
“…[A]s strange and even discomfiting as this might sound to both Turks and Greeks, and as difficult as it might be for them to accept it, Judge [Mustafa Yücel] Özbilgin and Capt. [Kônstantinos] Êliakês were victims of the same regime. Kemalism is dying. Unfortunately, it falls to Mr. Erdoğan—and to everyone who wishes only the best for Turkey—to ensure that its death throes do not claim more innocent victims. Confronted by the truly modernizing and democratic vision of Turkey’s European integration, the Kemalist center can no longer hold. It is now too fraught with contradiction; too weighed down by the accumulated, historical burden of the corruption and violence committed in its name; too incapable of self-reformation, let alone of a radical break with its past; too mired in arbitrary, abusive power; and, worst of all, too blind to the needs and demands of the people that it has violated and terribly misgoverned for all these years. Mustafa Kemal died decades ago. It is way past time for Turkey to bury Atatürk as well.”
One final comment: we don’t mind—quite the opposite, we encourage—debate on all the issues we bring up on this Website. We only ask that the discussion actually focus on what we’ve written, not on (often fantastic) distortions of what people think we’ve written. Otherwise, it is not debate (which we welcome) that ensues but ideological invective—which, frankly, bores us to tears.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/20 at 05:37 AM Thanks for trying to answer some of the questions I posed to you in my earlier comment. Unfortunately, your answers are so bewildering and contradictory, so all over the place, that I’m not sure there’s a sensible argument in there any more (Islam hedonistic?). A few points, however:
I’m glad you’re no longer trying to justify your assertion that young Greeks in Cyprus are victims of reactionary politics and religious zealotry, and are only guilty now of the much lesser charge of being ‘conservative’. I can’t argue with this; Cyprus is, for good and bad, a conservative society. What is your point?
To whom were these eurocrats accusing Cyprus of entering under false pretences speaking to ‘off the record’? Who are these shadowy diplomats and how did you get to hear them badmouthing Cyprus over in New York? You are exaggerating the anti-Cyprus sentiment in the EU. Of course, it suits your argument – shared by Turkey – which is that the Greek Cypriots are to blame for the Cyprus problem – to suggest opposition to Annan is anomalous and Cyprus is diplomatically isolated, when the truth is Cyprus has been relatively successful at attracting allies in the EU and it is Annan, not Cypriot resistance to partition, which is now redundant.
Still not willing to divulge how you have arrived at your unique insights into Cyprus, its politics, history and people? You write with such conviction about the island, so it’s only fair you share with your readers the sources of your knowledge, what practical experience of Cyprus and Cypriots you have had and which has led you to draw your strange conclusions about the island. You do admit, however, that you are prone, regarding Cyprus, to making ‘arbitrary extrapolations’. I accept your self-criticism. In fact, ‘arbitrary extrapolations’ describes perfectly the basis of most of your remarks about Cyprus.
Yes, I would like you to elaborate on how Cyprus is holding Greece back, and what these separate and conflicting Greek and Cypriot interests are. I’ve not heard the argument about Cyprus harming Greece from a serious person before – I’ve heard many thick Greeks say things like, ‘if we didn’t pump all that money into Cyprus, Greece would be like Switzerland’ – so elaboration might be useful.
Two points that illustrate, I’m sorry to say, your limited knowledge of Cyprus.
1. I don’t see how my use of the term ‘Greeks of Cyprus’ leads you to believe I am a raving nationalist. For your information, the Greeks of Cyprus are both Greeks and Cypriots. Cypriot identity, in this context, is flexible so that, at times, Cypriots feel exclusively Cypriot – sometimes this includes acceptance of minority Cypriot communities, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, Cypriots feel Greek and see themselves as part of the wider Greek ethnos; sometimes they feel contempt for Greece and Greeks. This is partly a response of the periphery to the metropolis and partly a result of the damage idiot kalamarades who know nothing about Cyprus have done to the island.
I don’t see any inherent conflict between Cyprus’ Greek and Turkish communities, so why do you insist that coexistence demands the collapsing of ethnic identities in favour of a single and artificial Cypriot identity?
2. ‘Cyprus is Greek. Cyprus has been Greek since the dawn of history and will remain Greek. Greek and undivided we have taken it over; Greek and undivided we shall preserve it. Greek and undivided we shall deliver it to Greece.’
Makarios said this in Yialousa, 1971. Yialousa, for your information, is a village in occupied Karpasia, which, for your information, forms the Cypriot panhandle.
Is this the same Makarios who, ‘had he lived longer’, would have ensured there would ‘be no Cyprus “problem” today, and we’d be looking at a successful, integrated, bicommunal federation’.
Is this the same Makarios, who in his devotion to enosis, in his messianic insistence on the Greekness of Cyprus, led the Cypriots in the 1950s and 1960s when that ‘fanaticism’ we both agree affected Cyprus was at its height?
As you know, today is the 32nd anniversary of the Turkish invasion – by the way, invasion and occupation is the crux of the Cyprus problem, not Greek Cypriot nationalism – and listening to Makarios’ speeches in the aftermath of Attila being replayed today on TV, what is striking is how, despite all the treachery of Greece, Makarios remained convinced of the Greekness of Cyprus and determined to resist Turkish plans to partition the island under the guise of (con)federation. If Makarios had had Annan, of which you are so fond, put in front of him he would have tossed it aside with contempt.
Finally, I’m sorry discussions of Cyprus ‘bore you to tears’. I know many non-Cypriot Greeks share your patronising and insulting views. Here’s my advice: if you wish to stop people challenging your ill-informed and provocative opinions, then write about issues on which you do not depend on ‘arbitrary extrapolation’ for your arguments.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/20 at 07:05 PM Just to clarify my last point.
I am aware that what you say ‘bores you to tears’ is ‘ideological invective’.
But I have an utterly pragmatic approach to Cyprus and it is you who must be accused of approaching Cyprus ideologically.
Your ideology is that Greco-Turkish friendship is the supreme goal, that it is only redundant nationalisms that are preventing the realisation of this goal, that Greece is as equally to blame as Turkey, that Cyprus is an irritation in this process of reconciliation, that Cyprus is in fact the field in which these clashing and antediluvian nationalisms are most prominent, that Greek Cypriots, unable to ditch their anomalous ways, are largely to blame for the island’s politics and hence for the continuing partition of the country, while past conduct of the island’s Greeks has robbed them of any moral authority to determine the future of the island.
I have challenged this ‘ideological’ version of events. I call it ‘ideological’ in as much as it bears little resemblance to reality or the truth and is morally, intellectually and politically shabby, dishonest and despicable.
Here is what a pragmatic approach consists of: it asks how does Cyprus rid itself of the Turkish occupation troops and settlers, and how is a settlement arrived at that allows the island’s refugees to return to their homes.
I cannot detect any overriding ideological imperatives in this approach. Nor have I used invective against you. I have mocked your approach, for sure, because, I believe, it deserves mocking, and I have been outraged by some of the things you have said.
To me, Cyprus is a matter of primary importance; to you it is of secondary, tertiary, academic or of no importance, and as such I am sick and tired of Greeks – I don’t mean you personally, here; you may define yourselves as American, I don’t know – blathering on about Cyprus when they clearly have no idea what they are talking about. In fact I am amazed by the amount of non-Cypriot Greeks I have heard speaking/writing about Cyprus – journalists, academics, politicians – whether speaking/writing for or against the island – who do not have a clue about the island’s history, culture and politics.
Ideological invective? I have not said anything that 95% of Greeks from Cyprus would not agree with. You are the ones who misunderstand and misrepresent the issues on the island. If my arguments ‘bore you to tears’, then, implicitly, it is the arguments of the Greek Cypriots that is having this effect on you, the Greek Cypriot case that is ‘boring you to tears’. Like I said, this is patronising and insulting and I stand by the solution I offered you as a means to avoid all this frustration and tedium you are suffering from.
Ideological invective? Not from me. Pragmatic indignation.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/21 at 10:43 AM 1. Confused by the concept of “Islamic hedonism”? We suggest you visit the Alhambra, or, better yet, if you’ve got a few months, India (like the old Roman-Greek conundrum, the debate still rages among cultural historians of India as to whether the Mughals conquered India or India conquered the Mughals) or Iran (Khomeinism is only the most recent, and undoubtedly most fleeting, variant of Persian Islam).
2. Our point about Cyprus being a conservative society? Precisely that.
3. “…[E]xaggerating the anti-Cyprus sentiment in the EU…”?: We hope so. Unfortunately, The Economist, the Financial Times, Le Monde, Die Zeit, and even, occasionally, Vêma and Kathimerini, tell another story. In the event, we can’t wait to read Günther Verheugen’s memoirs. As for Cyprus’s “relative success” in “attracting allies in the EU,” well, yes, everything is relative, isn’t it?
4. You’re obsessed with our lack of “willing[ness] to divulge…the sources of [our] knowledge” of Cyprus (your questioning reminds us of certain late and unlamented US congressional committees). We think you’re getting at something else. For the record, one of us here actually worked on a pretty intimate basis (i.e., every day for several years) on the Cyprus issue, but that was only “analytically” (just some more “arbitrary extrapolation”) and a long time ago (although, sadly, nothing much has changed). We don’t think you care about that, however. We think what you’re really after is a confession. Well, OK, here it is: Yes, it’s true; nobody here at greekworks.com is a Cypriot (Greek, Turkish, or otherwise). There, you have it. Satisfied? Does that now exclude us from making, let alone offering, some considered judgments on the many issues that go under the general rubric of “Cyprus.” You might think so (it’s your right). We don’t agree (that’s our right).
5. How is Cyprus holding Greece back? Hmm….Have you heard about something called the Greek defense budget (and it’s ideological offspring, Greece’s “unified defense doctrine” with Cyprus)? Greece has the second highest defense spending in NATO after Turkey (a garrison state, wouldn’t you say?) and has had for many, many years. According to the US Congressional Research Service, Greek defense spending in 2004 came in at 4.4 percent of GDP (Turkey spent 5.1 percent). France stood at 2.5, the UK at 2.4, Spain at 1.2, and Canada at 1.1! Even Bush’s, post-Iraq, imperially challenged US came in at 3.3 percent. Indeed, Greece had the dubious distinction of beating China (4.1), India (2.7), and even Pakistan (3.9), and was just beaten out by Iran (4.6)!
To the above you can add, among other things, Turkish pressure on the Aegean to counter Greek (or Greek Cypriot) pressure in Cyprus, commercial relations with and investment in Turkey held hostage to “political considerations,” and, finally—dare we utter the unspeakable?—the manifest Greek self-interest in Turkish accession to the EU. We do agree, however, that it’s not Cyprus’s fault that Greece is not Switzerland. Cyprus or no, on all current political, social, and cultural indications, Greece would still be trapped in Greece.
6a. “Cypriot identity…is flexible”: yes, very, apparently. It also seems to be a Pandora’s Box (not to mention downright conflicted). It’s one thing to connect to an ecumenical, Cavafian Greek paideia and quite another to feel “part of the wider Greek ethnos.” Silly us, we thought that the delusion of “the wider Greek ethnos” died on the plains of Anatolia (and the waterfront of Smyrna) in 1922, and, in so doing, uprooted that actually existing wider Greek ethnos that had stretched from the eastern shores of the Black Sea (and throughout the Turkish hinterland) to Plovdiv in Bulgaria and Constanta in Romania. But that’s the problem with the “great idea” of a “wider” ethnos. It provokes other ethnoi. On one reading, both world wars were nothing more than grotesque variations on the theme of competing ethnoi searching for their most expansive “width” (the Nazis called it lebensraum).
Why do we “insist that coexistence demands…collapsing…ethnic identities in favour of a single and artificial Cypriot identity?” It’s not us who insist on it. It happens to be the very definition of a nation. Imagined communities, invention of tradition(s), and all that sort of thing: we’re sure you’ve read the same texts on nationhood that we have. That’s right, the cat is out of the bag: all national identities are artificial. So much so, in fact, that it’s not just ethnicities that have to be “collapsed” but classes and regions. That’s why, to echo Eugen Weber’s famous formulation, it’s not only peasants that had to be turned into Frenchmen but workers as well (conveniently, Jaurès was assassinated four days before his fellow socialists joined the all-absolving “union sacrée” of August 1914), in addition to Bretons, Gascons, Provençaux, Savoyards, and Basques (among many others).
You will excuse us for saying it but there’s a darker (almost sinister) aspect to your definition of Cypriot identity, which, according to you, “sometimes…includes acceptance of minority Cypriot communities, sometimes…doesn’t.” Did we read that right? Is there any other way to read it? (We won’t comment on your occasional “contempt for Greece and Greeks” and “idiot kalamarades”; the remarks speak for themselves.)
6b. At last, after so much spilled (electronic) ink, we’ve managed to actually engage on a relevant issue. You’re absolutely right. Makarios was a Greek nationalist. We will even concur that he was a “messianic” and “fanatical” one. We should have qualified our statement that “had he lived longer…there’d be no Cyprus ‘problem’ today” by the addition of a circumspect “probably.” With that addition, however, we insist on what we wrote.
There was no more “messianic” or “fanatical” anticommunist than Richard Nixon, but he went to China. Nelson Mandela was the head of an armed resistance movement to apartheid, but came out of 28 years in prison demanding from his own followers that the new South Africa be built with the active participation of the former white oppressors. Closer to home, Kônstantinos Karamanlês oversaw (actually, designed) the abolition of the monarchy and the legalization of the Greek communist party. Besides their obvious intelligence, all three men shared a singular sense of the political. Makarios was nothing if not supremely intelligent (although undoubtedly too self-assured by half) and a uniquely political animal (his clerical background was unquestionably an advantage in that). Your quote from 1971 is exactly that: a quote from 1971 (with the junta in power in Greece). We Greeks have a verb for it: ελίσσομαι. Makarios was a past master at conjugating it. The reason why Makarios’s death was so untimely is because, even before 1974, he had clearly turned from Greek nationalism to Greek Cypriot nationalism (and had made deadly enemies in Greece and among Greek Cypriots because of it). We think it’s clear that he would have taken the final step to Cypriot nationalism. But, you know what? We can’t prove it. More to the point, it doesn’t matter, since there are many Greek Cypriots today who have taken that step. They’re a minority but they’re there—and that’s what frightens their opponents more than anything, including, we’re sorry to say, the continuing Turkish occupation of the country.
7. Finally, we didn’t say that “discussions of Cyprus ‘bore [us] to tears.’” We said that “ideological invective” does. Why do you insist in twisting our words? We’re beginning to think you do it on purpose.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/22 at 04:14 AM We received your latest comment as we were posting ours. We were delighted, actually. We’re finally, slowly, getting down to a serious dialogue. So, scratch our point #7 above: clarification taken and accepted. Now, on to the real issues.
You say that your approach is “pragmatic” while ours is ideological. Let us ask you a pragmatic question, then: How many Turkish soldiers are sitting on Cypriot land right now? That’s right; the same number that have been sitting there for most of the last three decades: roughly 35,000. You know as well as we do that, had the Annan plan been accepted, the number of Turkish troops right now in Cyprus would have been roughly 25,500 and about 21,000 nine months from now. So much for pragmatism.
You might consider a reduction of Turkish troops by 14,000 within three years since the 2004 referenda as a drop in the bucket, of course. Fair enough. But then please call a spade a spade, and your position what it is in fact: supremely ideological. We’d have no problem in even calling it “principled,” but it’s anything but “pragmatic”—which, as we’re sure you know, is rooted in the Greek verb, πράσσειν, which means “to do.” (Not to sit, and wait, νυν και αεί, και εις τους αιώνας των αιώνων. Αμήν.)
We didn’t realize that our own “ideology is that Greco-Turkish friendship is the supreme goal”! (Of humanity? Just of Greeks and Turks? Of the “wider Greek ethnos”?) Thank you for making us aware of that. And here we thought our “ideology” was less geographically constricted, but who are we to know what we believe in? More seriously, you obviously have not read greekworks.com very carefully over the years. Specifically:
1. We do not believe that Greece is equally to blame with Turkey for the Cyprus tragedy. We believe that Greece is more to blame. It is the cause that leads to the effect. It was the Greek coup against the democratically elected government of Archbishop Makarios (in support—why has everyone so conveniently forgotten this?—of Greek Cypriot fascists who’d been conspiring for many years against him) that led to the Turkish invasion, and to the country’s dismemberment.
2. Not only do we not believe that nationalisms are “redundant,” but, as we have written consistently over the years, on a variety of topics that range way beyond the eastern Mediterranean, we believe that genuinely democratic and resistant nationalisms are the only defense we have today against the globalization (read: Americanization) of the planet.
3. We do not think that Greek Cypriots are either “anomalous” (!) or “largely to blame for the island’s…continuing partition.” As any even semi-sensate observer of Cyprus knows, those who are “largely to blame for the island’s continuing partition”—besides Turkey, that is—are the Turkish Cypriots, more precisely, Rauf Denktash, who, until he was finally turned out, desperately sought by any means to cling to the decades-long paşalık (and nepotistic kleptocracy) that he’d imposed on the occupied north. One other thing: we do not believe that the sins of the fathers (and mothers) are passed on to the daughters (and sons). Even had the Greek Cypriots’ “past conduct” been less than sterling (or, even in some cases, criminal), that doesn’t mean that current generations of Greek Cypriots have had their “moral authority” diminished, let alone “robbed.”
And so, you find our arguments “ideological,” not to mention “morally, intellectually and politically shabby, dishonest and despicable.” Are we supposed to respond to that? You are also “…sick and tired of Greeks…blathering on about Cyprus when they clearly have no idea what they are talking about [and] do not have a clue about the island’s history, culture and politics.” How does one even begin to respond to that? Suffice it so say we won’t but will, instead, try to find some common ground. (Don’t worry about “mocking” us, by the way, we’re adults, and we think we can give at least as good as we take.)
We could not agree more that any “pragmatic approach” to the Cyprus stalemate “asks how does Cyprus rid itself of the Turkish occupation troops and settlers, and how is a settlement arrived at that allows the island’s refugees to return to their homes.” That has always been our position and remains so today. The Annan plan was a dog’s breakfast—but it would have allowed the poor dog to move on to worrying about dinner. The one point that has struck us about all the criticisms of the plan—most of which we heartily agree with, including its fundamental cynicism—is that they ignore the current, and (thankfully) relentlessly expanding, regime of international law. Simply put, no international treaty or convention today can resist appeal to international law when it comes to—let alone actively engages in—the violation of fundamental human rights. Which is precisely why the Bush administration’s years-long campaign of negotiating “Article 98” or “Bilateral Immunity [their critics call them ‘Impunity’] Agreements” (apparently about a hundred of them to this point) to protect US citizens from prosecution by the International Criminal Court is a fool’s venture. In 2002, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly stated that the agreements were “not admissible under the international law governing treaties,” and called on members of the Council as well as observer states to refuse to ratify them. They are utterly specious instruments, and will prove to be not worth the paper on which they’ve been printed when—and we have no doubt this will indeed occur at some point in the coming years—the first American is indicted by the ICC.
That is also why the Annan plan’s transparent (and grotesque) attempt to preempt the European Court of Human Rights as a tribunal for appeal by Greek Cypriots would have been (in our opinion, relatively quickly) thrown out as incompatible with the current priority that human rights have in international, and particularly European, law. We’ve always believed that the most urgent matter for Cyprus is the removal of the Turkish occupation forces and, immediately afterward, the reconstitution of the country’s territorial integrity. We have never had any doubt that everything else, from restitution of properties to the right of return, would be adjudicated, more or less expeditiously, overwhelmingly in favor of Greek Cypriots by international tribunals—especially if both Cyprus and Turkey were future members of the same European Union, and thus strictly subject to the same European Court of Justice.
But you and most other Greek Cypriots (although not 95 percent, since 24 percent voted for the Annan plan) disagree. It’s your country. We hope you’re right. It’s just that one person’s “pragmatism” is another person’s ideological delusion.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/22 at 04:32 AM I know you’re not Cypriots. That wasn’t my point. My point was that given your tendency to make outlandish statements about Cyprus then you better have some serious personal knowledge of Cyprus and Cypriots. It seems – with the exception of one vague connection you mention – you have not. Fair enough. Of course, this doesn’t stop you from writing about Cyprus but it does diminish the validity of what you have to say, especially when what you have to say is so contentious and spurious.
Some further points:
1. So Cyprus is holding Greece back because of Greece’s defence spending; which is so high, you imply, that it largely explains the fact that Greece is an economic basket case with a dysfunctional state and shambolic society.
Your argument does, after all, amount to the ‘if we didn’t pump so much money into Cyprus, then Greece would be like Switzerland’. I was afraid of this.
You know perfectly well that the reasons for Greece’s failings are manifold – most of them entirely the responsibility of Greece and the Greek people. You admit as much when you say, ‘Cyprus or no, on all current political, social, and cultural indications, Greece would still be trapped in Greece’.
So which is it? Is Cyprus an albatross round Greece’s neck or is this a crass oversimplification that hides a multitude of sins for which Greece and only Greece is to blame? And what of the moral responsibility you mention Greece has to Cyprus? It seems you would willingly give it up so that it can become easier for Greek banks to take over Turkish banks.
Similarly, you state that ‘Turkish pressure on the Aegean [exists] to counter Greek (or Greek Cypriot) pressure in Cyprus’.
This is preposterous and you know it is. You know perfectly well that Turkish aggression in the Aegean is largely a result of the internal logic of Kemalist hypernationalism. There is a connection between Cyprus and the Aegean and it is the one I stated previously – that perceived Greek weakness in Cyprus encourages Turkey to pursue other claims against Greece – but you characterised this thinking as ‘dangerous and absurd’.
2. I thought, given your postmodernist predilections, you would welcome the flexibility of Cypriot identity. Instead of which you berate its multifacetedness– calling it a Pandora’s box – and labelling it as ‘conflicted’ and ‘sinister’.
Conflicted? Is there any national or political (or personal, for that matter) consciousness that is not ‘conflicted’ – in ancient Sparta maybe?
Sinister? There is nothing sinister in saying Greek Cypriot definitions of what it is to be Cypriot have sometimes excluded other minorities. This is a simple statement of fact. Greek and Turkish Cypriots have, as you know, had rival narratives of what Cyprus should be like for, at least, 50 years. This doesn’t mean other narratives don’t exist that speak of coexistence. In fact, if you knew Cyprus well enough, you would know that these coexistence narratives are quite prevalent among Greek Cypriots.
3. Makarios believed in Cyprus’ independence in as much as it would provide a stepping-stone towards enosis. He believed in the Cretan model for union with Greece. He went to his grave believing in enosis. Makarios was not some prototype George Vassiliou. Makarios would have ridiculed any suggestion that Greek Cypriots should abandon their Greek identity in order to forge a new common Cypriot identify with the island’s Turks.
Again, your view that Greek (and Turkish) identities in Cyprus must be collapsed and a new Cypriot identity forged reveals your lack of understanding of the island. What exactly do you propose to do? Do you propose that the Greek language is outlawed on Cyprus, or that 3,500 years of (Greek) Cypriot history is rewritten or dismissed; that churches are pulled down, archaeological sites destroyed, Greek place names changed? What Stalinist style social engineering do you have in mind?
I thought you were all in favour of small countries standing up for their identities in the face of globalisation. In fact, why would you – a site devoted to Hellenic culture – want that a unique expression of this culture, Greek Cypriot culture, be done away with and a Malta or Gibraltar put in its place?
4. So, the Annan plan is now ‘cynical’ and ‘grotesque’. This is not what you said in ‘Cyprus Against Europe’ (April 2004), perhaps the most despicable piece I’ve ever read about Cyprus, in which you forcefully recommend – despite admitting that ‘we do not pretend to possess a comprehensive knowledge of the UN plan. We don’t think one is necessary’ – that Greek Cypriots accept Annan, and in which you denounce ‘no’ campaigners as ‘racist’, ‘simplistic’, ‘cynical’ ‘duplicitous’ ‘ungrateful’, and conclude with perhaps the most arrogant statement ever made about Cyprus:
‘As Greeks, we are embarrassed by this state of affairs [GC rejection of Annan], and deeply offended by it — especially because it points to what might be a fundamental flaw in the Greek Cypriots’ own understanding not only of their future but, more relevantly, of their past and cultural heritage.’
However, this embarrassment and offence you felt didn’t seem to last long because by October 2005, ‘A Principled Basis for a Just and Lasting Cyprus Settlement’, you were endorsing a report by the International Expert Panel of the Committee for a European Solution in Cyprus, which dismissed Annan as being, among other things, against human rights, democracy and international law; a report which, incidentally, was welcomed by your bete noire Tassos Papadopoulos and many of, in your words, ‘his fellow ethnics’.
Well now, greekworks, which is it? Are you in favour of the Annan plan or the IEPC’s comprehensive rejection of it? Do you stand by ‘Cyprus against Europe’ or does that piece of trash talk still represent your views?
Is it the Greek Cypriots who do not understand their future, their past and their culture or the editors of greekworks?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/23 at 05:38 PM I sincerely applaud the effort ‘the Editors’ are putting into discussing the subject matter with ‘demonax’. The fact of the matter is that demonax is an extremely prejiduced individual who takes pride in openly stating that he wants to see all the Turks dead, as evidenced by one of his comments (#9) in this blog post http://phylaxblog.com/?p=46, and his comments in another : http://greekodyssey.typepad.com/my_greek_odyssey/2006/06/to_remember_doe.html
I quote:
“One Armenian told me, when I introduced myself as a Greek from Cyprus, that ‘we have the same enemy’ – which is always a good reason to form a friendship – while I remember another telling me that: ‘From the moment we [Armenians] are born, we are taught that it is our duty to kill Turks.’ Excellent sentiments indeed.”
I’d say that is borderline lunatic, but that’s just me.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/27 at 09:53 PM
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