COLONIALISM AND THE COMPLICATIONS OF BEING ‘CYPRIOT’
By Lauren O’Hara
Cyprus Mail, Cyprus
Dec 12 2006
LAST Thursday saw the launch at Intercollege of the book Britain
in Cyprus 1878-2006, a collection of essays aimed at assessing the
complex relationship between Cyprus and its former colonial ruler.
Nicos Peristianis, one of the editors, rightly stated that colonialism
is always a case of checks and balances, like a pair of scales,
the credits and debits open to interpretation and debate.
History is always hindsight. The speculation of "what if?" is the
lifeblood of analysts, and in many ways such recent history is still
in the making, the final outcomes waiting to be reassessed by future
generations. What is true is that Cyprus’ relations with Britain have
helped make her wealthy. This is an island whose prosperity has been
drawn from its offshore status and tourism.
The 82-year colonial rule set the course for Cyprus to become one of
the most favoured destinations for sun-seeking post-war Brits. There
is an atmospheric poster in a bookshop in Nicosia, from I guess the
fifties, of a glamourous women in a deckchair, smoking a cigarette,
raising her bottle of Keo, encouraging Britain to holiday in "our
Mediterranean Isle".
Property development, hotels, package tourism have been a linchpin
of Cypriot wealth. That tie with Britain still continues to fuel the
second home market. For better or worse, a certain type of Brit has
always preferred to holiday somewhere faraway but familiar. Where the
cars drive on the left and the shopkeepers speak English, and where
you can get Premiership football down the local. What if Britain had
not been here? Well, maybe those tourists would be Turkish; maybe
the island would have been as slow to develop as Corsica, Sardinia
and Sicily. Maybe it would have had the poverty of some of the Greek
islands. Maybe it would be united and independent, or, just maybe,
it would be part of Turkey.
The truth is many people have benefited financially and educationally;
and, some would argue, the country inherited from its British masters
a sound civil service, legal system and financial base that helped
encourage investment and growth. So what is the debit? What pulls
the seesaw down?
Well for me it is the lack of identity. I am still not sure what
it means to be "Cypriot". Many Cypriots tell me they are Greek,
others Armenian or British and Australian, and this labelling, still
reinforced by the ridiculous conscription laws that are inclusive
only of those born Greek Orthodox and exclusive of other religious or
ethnic groups, means that the Republic still does not have a cohesive
sense of itself.
Nationalism here does not mean being Cypriot it means being Greek
Cypriot. And for this the British must take the blame. It was our
policies that hindered union with Greece, which may well have been
the best option for the island, but it didn’t happen, it won’t
happen. Greece has moved on and it is doubtful, even if it were
possible, that they would now want union with Cyprus. So it is no
longer "What if?" but "What now?"
It is time for all Cypriots to cast off this victim mentality of
colonialism, and recognise the fact that some of the unhappiness
on the island is of their own making. I have been told by academics
at the University of Cyprus that as many Greek Cypriots were killed
by Greek Cypriots in 1974 as by Turks. If this is true, then there
must be a lot of people who feel guilt, who betrayed neighbours and
colleagues. Civil wars are always painful; they leave psychological
scars that take a long time to heal. But they will not heal without
the hard, honest stare of self-scrutiny.
Colonialism was both good and bad for the island; in port-colonial
Cyprus, the mistakes of the past that divided communities and
reinforced differences should not be repeated. It is too late to vote
‘yes’ in the Annan plan and, unless Turkey joins the EU, unification
is just a dream. But it is not too late to create an inclusive,
fair society that treats all its members equally. Otherwise, the
noose of nationalism with its nepotism that favours one ethnic group
over another, gives jobs to its own, and uses networks to do business
simply becomes a neo-colonialism that replicates the inequalities of
the past. While blue and white flags dominate: the reality of being
"Cypriot" will never happen.