TURKEY, CYPRUS AND THE EUROPEAN DIVISION
Rebecca Bryant
Middle East Report Online, DC
Feb 26 2007
(Rebecca Bryant is assistant professor of anthropology at George
Mason University and author of Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of
Nationalism in Cyprus [London: I. B. Tauris, 2004].)
More than three years after the opening of the ceasefire line that
divides Cyprus, the island is closer than ever to rupture. When the
Green Line first opened in April 2003, there was an initial period of
euphoria, as Cypriots flooded in both directions to visit homes and
neighbors left unwillingly behind almost three decades before. But a
year later, when a UN plan to reunite the island came to referendum,
new divisions emerged. While Turkish Cypriots voted in favor of the
plan, their Greek Cypriot compatriots rejected it in overwhelming
numbers. Visits stalled, and today social relations are mired in an
increasingly divisive politics. Recent polls show a majority of Greek
Cypriots in favor of partition, while Turkish Cypriots are anxious
about a spate of lawsuits over property that they occupied when the
island was divided. They perceive these suits as a direct threat to
their existence in the absence of an acceptable plan for reunification.
Moreover, in the absence of such a plan, Cyprus has become a key
obstacle in Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Only a week after
the fateful referendum in 2004, the Greek-controlled Republic of Cyprus
itself joined the EU, and immediately began using its membership to
put pressure on Turkey. Indeed, the prospect of doing so was one of
the main reasons that Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos gave
for rejecting the UN reunification plan. Today, the stumbling block
is the question of whether Turkey will "recognize" the Republic by
opening its ports to ships bearing the Republic of Cyprus flag. The
Turkish government has clearly stated that it will open ports only
when the economic isolation of Turkish-majority northern Cyprus
ends-something promised by the EU after the referendum but never
delivered. Turkey had put its full weight behind the reunification
plan, which would have ensured the withdrawal of Turkish troops from
the northern part of the island. Indeed, the Turkish government was
eager to be rid of the Cyprus problem, but subsequent events have
shown that it will not be rid of it at all costs.
Contrary to what many analysts expected and hoped for so long, the
bumbling entry of the European Union into the Cyprus equation has
produced only an insoluble tangle. Local actors now use their access
to EU legal and political mechanisms to threaten, bluff and bully
their way into a future that looks more and more like partition.
Turkey’s journey toward the EU may run aground on Cyprus’ shores. And
as usual, it is Turkish Cypriots who are caught in between, unable
to rid themselves of Turkey’s presence and unable to have their own
political presence recognized by their Greek compatriots.
UNITE AND DIVIDE
Not long after the referendum, a Greek Cypriot refugee told me
something that seemed boldly to summarize the growing mood in the
south. Like many refugees, she refuses to cross the ceasefire line to
visit her home in the north, saying that she will not be a tourist
in her own country. But it soon became clear that her refusal meant
something very specific in political terms. Such refugees desire a full
return to their villages and the recreation of their communities —
something that would not have been allowed under the UN reunification
plan. But the plan was only the latest instantiation of the idea of
a federal government uniting two, ethnic states, an idea to which
the Republic has paid lip service for more than 30 years.
The refugee woman’s position, however, was clear: "Either we will
return to the 1960 constitution and all refugees will go back to
their homes, or we’ll continue to live in our dreams." In other words,
there would either be a unitary state in which Turkish Cypriots would
return to their status as a minority, or, in her words, a wall should
be built to keep them apart.
Internally displaced persons and their descendants make up about a
third of the Greek Cypriot population and so constitute the single
most important interest group in the south. Moreover, many refugees
are closely tied to the refugee organizations that sprang up around
lost villages and towns to fill the gap created by the loss of
their communities. Not surprisingly, refugees were the key group to
which much propaganda was addressed during the period leading up
to the referendum. During that time, minute calculations of land
to be regained and numbers of refugees to return eclipsed serious
discussion of a federal state or the process of reconciliation. It
became clear that there were many contradictions in the Republic’s
stance on reunification, the most obvious being an avowal of support
for a federal state while at the same time insisting on the absolute
return of all displaced persons to their original homes.
Indeed, in all its actions since, the Republic has made it increasingly
clear that a federal state simply is not on the agenda.
Interestingly, it is actually EU membership that has allowed the
Republic to take this stance, enabling them directly to pressure
Turkey without having to negotiate with Turkish Cypriots. In a
November 2006 interview with the Turkish Cypriot Kýbrýs-TV, Greek
Cypriot Minister of Foreign Relations Yiorgos Lillikas reiterated
that the only interlocutor the Republic of Cyprus will recognize is
Turkey. Indeed, until a brief meeting in July 2006, Papadopoulos
had refused since the referendum to meet with his Turkish Cypriot
counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat, on these grounds. "Look, the Cyprus
problem is becoming more and more confused every day," Lillikas
remarked. "We say, our interlocutor on this subject is not Mr. Talat,
it’s Turkey. But because neither Talat nor Turkey accepts this,
we’re constantly experiencing differences of opinion."
The Republic insists that it is really Turkey that controls what
happens, and that Talat is an insignificant player. But the Republic
also operates with a limited understanding of Turkish politics or
of the complex relation between Turkey and its de facto colony in
northern Cyprus. At the height of his power and popularity, former
Turkish Cypriot president Rauf Denktaþ was known for his ability to
make or break governments in Turkey. The 1974 Cyprus intervention
is a matter of Turkish national pride, and the recent rebellion of
Turkish Cypriots against their "protectors" has soured relations,
leading many Turks to call their Cypriot counterparts ungrateful.
After sweeping to power in 2002 elections, the Justice and Development
Party adopted a surprisingly compromising stance on Cyprus. While
this softened line was initially unpopular, the demise of Denktaþ
and the rise in Cyprus of a party that seeks freedom from Turkish
colonial rule has shaken popular attitudes toward the problem.
What it has not shaken, however, is the refusal to be blackmailed. In
July 2006, the Justice and Development Party published a booklet
entitled "The European Union in One Hundred Questions." The primary aim
of the booklet seems to have been to dispel fears that EU requirements
would divide the country or that the government would bow to demands
that would damage national "honor." Its stance on the recognition of
the Republic is clear: "In the present circumstances Turkey cannot
recognize the Greek administration of Cyprus under the name the
Republic of Cyprus. Political recognition will come only when a
comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem can be found."
The Republic and its EU allies appear to believe that the Turkish
government is simply bluffing and that it would not rebuff the chance
at EU membership. Unfortunately, things are not as simple as that.
In the past, US support for the Turkish military overlooked that
military’s anti-democratic tendencies in favor of its supposedly
secularist ones. When Turkey’s EU candidacy became a real possibility,
the support of another power besides the US became a balance that
enabled the development of a stronger democracy in the country, one
that might make the military answerable to the government rather than
the other way around. But European support for Turkey’s candidacy
has been wavering and contradictory, and many Turks now believe
that the EU will simply continue to erect new hurdles before an ever
receding finish line. Many Turkish analysts agree that giving in to
the Republic of Cyprus’ demands will accomplish nothing, because new
demands will appear to take their place. Turks recognize, moreover,
that the Republic’s hardline approach conveniently dovetails with
the desires of extremists in the EU to exclude Turkey at all costs.
One of the unfortunate costs has been the shattering of political
stability in Turkey, as the Cyprus problem becomes a wedge to
drive in further divisions. In the summer of 2005, a middle-aged
Turkish Cypriot woman hinted to me that she is an ulkucu, a word
that literally means "idealist" but has come to connote members of a
wide coalition of fringe, fascist-nationalist organizations based in
Turkey that also have supporters in Cyprus. The most famous of such
supporters is Denktaþ, known for his association with the Gray Wolves,
an organization infamous for its use of violence and provocation. When
the Turkish Cypriot woman discussed her involvement in the larger
web of ulkucu politics, she also angrily threatened that they would
never allow the Turkish government to "sell out" Cyprus. Indeed,
she hinted that they would go so far as to overthrow the Turkish
government to prevent it.
Although her threat appeared toothless at the time, such threats
from the periphery nevertheless produce a sense of disquiet. Indeed,
provocations in Turkey over the next months appeared to have links
to Turkish nationalists in Cyprus. The assassination in May 2006
of a High Court judge in Ankara, originally blamed on Islamists,
eventually was linked to one Muzaffer Tekin, a retired army officer
with ties both to radical organizations in northern Cyprus and the
Turkish "deep state" — the term used for a nexus of military officers,
police chiefs and far-right paramilitary groups existing in parallel
to the official Turkish state. The assassination marked the crest of
a wave of radical dissatisfaction with the Justice and Development
Party government, known for its neo-liberal policies, its desire for
integration into Europe and its Islamist past. And many analysts link
the January 2007 assassination of respected Armenian Turkish journalist
Hrant Dink to the isolationism and rising nationalism that European
attitudes have produced. That nationalism was fueled by a recent EU
decision to freeze segments of Turkey’s admission negotiations after
the country’s refusal to open its ports to Nicosia’s ships. Although
Turkish Cypriots themselves have largely stayed out of the fray,
Cyprus has again come to the fore as a symbol of all that Turkey
stands to lose as it stumbles westward.
Support among the Turkish public for EU membership has now fallen to
an all-time low, in part because of the ways in which the EU allows
the Republic of Cyprus to use its membership. But it should be no
surprise that the same EU that allowed a divided Cyprus to enter as
a political anomaly is now using that anomaly to put obstacles in
the way of Turkey’s EU bid.
LAWFARE IN THE NEW CYPRUS
After the opening of the Green Line, many Turkish Cypriots traveled to
the south to claim advantages available to them as technical citizens
of the Republic. Many acquired EU passports, while others began to
work or to use the south’s better-equipped medical facilities. Still
others sent their children to the English School, an institution
established in the early British colonial period that was intended to
quell nationalist fervor by producing an elite that would be loyal
to the Crown. Ironically, many politicians who played an important
role in the island’s division, including Denktaþ and former Greek
Cypriot president Glafkos Clerides, emerged from that school.
The school has a history of producing graduates who have gone on to
study in the best universities in Britain and who have subsequently
become community leaders. It should not be surprising, then, that
almost 70 Turkish Cypriot families chose to send their children to
the school, as soon as they gained access. As with all such gestures,
this was heralded as a step in the direction of bicommunal harmony
and reconciliation, and by all reports students in the school managed
well together until an incident in early December that shocked and
worried both communities.
Although reports are contradictory, it appears that a 12-year old
Turkish Cypriot boy took offense when he saw a Greek classmate wearing
a cross. Reportedly, they argued, possibly fought, and the Turkish
Cypriot boy became angry and spat on the ground. The right-wing
Greek Cypriot newspapers Simerini and Machi printed inflammatory
stories claiming that the Turkish boy spat on the cross and that the
school implemented a ban on religious symbols. The furor that resulted
culminated when about 20 masked Greek Cypriot youths dressed in black
entered the school from outside and attacked five Turkish Cypriot
boys. The boys’ Greek classmates intervened and little serious damage
was done, but the shock has rippled throughout the island. Reports
linked the youths to neo-Orthodox fascist organizations with ties
to Greece and names such as "Golden Dawn" (Chrisi Avgi). Such
organizations have been increasingly visible since the opening
of the Green Line, so far with only isolated incidents involving
Turkish Cypriots.
At the same time, many Cypriots discuss the rise of these organizations
and the English School incident as the predictable outcome of policies
that have divided the communities since the ceasefire line opened. The
most divisive of such policies has been the Republic’s implicit and
explicit sanction of lawsuits over property that have created much
ill will between the communities. In November 2004, the decision of
one Greek Cypriot refugee to bring a lawsuit against a British couple
who had built a villa on his property in the north sparked a series
of such cases that also encompassed Turkish Cypriots. Soon Turkish
Cypriots opened their own suits, mostly for the expropriation of their
properties by the government in the south. Ironically, it was the open
Green Line and the Republic’s EU entry that allowed this litigation
to take place, since decisions may be appealed to European courts and
enforced by EU law, if enforcement remains impossible in Cyprus. Not
surprisingly, the Greek Cypriot refugee won his case against the
British couple, and that case has now been remanded to Britain,
where he hopes to seize the couple’s property there.
Only a few days before the English School incident, President
Papadopoulos announced the passage of a law that criminalizes the sale
of Greek Cypriot property in the north, in the unrecognized Turkish
Cypriot state. Following the division of the island in 1974, Turkish
Cypriots had settled in abandoned Greek Cypriot properties, and the
government in the north eventually issued titles that allowed them to
sell those properties. Now such sales have become criminal offenses,
subject to five years in prison. The use of such legal mechanisms,
encouraged and made possible by the Republic’s EU membership, is an
instance of what has come to be known as "lawfare," or the continuation
of conflict by legal means. Clearly, that legal battle is escalating.
Although President Papadopoulos dismissed the November attack on
the Turkish Cypriot boys as the work of "brainless thugs," Turkish
Cypriot president Talat saw it as a natural outcome of Papadopoulos’
own policies. "Whatever face you show to your people, that’s how
they’ll behave," Talat noted in an address that month. "If you design
a law that includes Turkish Cypriots living in Greek property, and if
you declare that Turkish Cypriots are criminals and say that you’re
going to put them in jail, how would you expect the Greek Cypriot
people to behave?"
The escalation of tensions has everyone on edge, waiting for an
explosion. Only a day after the English School incident, Turkish
Cypriots crossing to the south reported that Greek Cypriot police at
the ceasefire line refused to accept their identity cards from the
self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, insisting that
they would be able to cross only with Republic of Cyprus identity
cards. Many Turkish Cypriots had acquired those cards, along with EU
passports, when the ceasefire line opened; others refused to do so
on principle. By the following day, this "policy" had changed, and
Turkish Cypriots were able to cross. Unfortunately, it is precisely
such whims that in the past have proven so divisive.
EXTREME MAKEOVER?
What has become strikingly clear in all of this is that the political
use of EU membership has only encouraged the rise of a militant
nationalism that leaves no room for compromises such as federation.
Before the opening of the Green Line, many activists and analysts
still hoped for the development of a multicultural, civic nationalism
in the island that would entail loyalty to a federal state. But
at a recent conference on nationalism in Nicosia, a number of
Cypriot scholars openly discussed the demise of Greek and Turkish
nationalisms in the island and the emergence of Greek Cypriot and
Turkish Cypriot nationalisms that express identification with the
island while rejecting its cultural or political unity. Certainly,
the communities are divided by the interests that those loyalties
serve, and by the ways in which the transnational configuration of
the EU has given new impetus to local longings.
In Turkish folk literature, the clownish Nasrettin Hoca is a staple
figure, and there are hundreds of stories and anecdotes about his
misguided foolishness. In one such story, Nasrettin Hoca finds a
stork, whose beak and legs he proceeds to amputate in order to make it
resemble a "real" bird. The phrase, "Kuþa benzettým" ("I made it look
like a bird") refers to the ways in which one may destroy something
with one’s good intentions.
The stumbling of the EU into the Cyprus morass unfortunately calls to
mind the stork’s sad story. The island has certainly become a more
and more European "bird," with a booming economy in the south and
all the superficial signs of "Europeanness," such as Gucci boutiques
and chic outdoor cafes. Turkish Cypriots, too, have benefited,
especially economically and educationally, if at a slower pace than
their wealthier, recognized neighbors. But there has been much lost
politically. In contrast to the years prior to the Republic’s EU
entry, Greek Cypriot politicians have now begun to proclaim that
they will not "give up" the Republic, despite previous avowals to
support a federal solution that would have dissolved it. Even Turkish
Cypriots, who had supported a federal solution, appear to be drawing
back from it, retreating into a protection of what is already in
hand. That retreat also by necessity entangles Turkey, whose troops
in the island are the only thing giving Turkish Cypriots a position
from which to bargain. And so one can only wonder what sort of "bird"
the island may resemble when its makeover is complete.
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