one aspect of the Cyprus modernity
In this short paper I would like to present one aspect of the rise of modernity inside Cyprus society and on in the researches about Cyprus history. What is modernity? In the rich field of answers I will focus on one aspect given by the postmodern geography studies. Soja’s book Thirdspace gave a simple but useful definition of modernity. From his point of view modernity is the organisation of a dual-opposition way of understanding. In Thirdspace, Soja showed how the modernity tended to “bifocalize” your understanding of the “human being”, “spatiality”, or gender. Example of this theories is his explanation of modern feminist, in "this early round of critical spatial feminism remained characteristically modernist, in the sense of channelling its critical power and emancipator objectives around the gendered binary Man/Woman" "(Soja, 1996,p.107). So for Soja, a “characteristically modernist” approach is “binary”.
I would like to show that different Cyprus’ issues have been organized around dual-oppositions. Even if I don’t have all the arguments to prove that this “bipolarisation” of the Cyprus social life and history is constructed; I argue that these given dual-oppositions participates in more complex and oriented discourses about the inland and so they should be interrogating. My exploration will focus on the issue of the historiography, of identity, and of the political projects.
I will start with an example, for show how a given dual-opposition is integrated in a wide political oriented speech. The north Cyprus society, two groups compose its population, the Turkish Cypriot and the Turkish, who came after the 1974 military intervention, each one represented more or less 50% of the Northern population. The common statement about the Turkish Cypriot is that they are less religious than the Turkish. We can find this affirmation on many scientific books, newspapers but it’s difficult to find is a demonstration, a evaluation of this atheism inside the Turkish Cypriot society. Most of the authors refer to private experience, like “when you go to a mosque”. The repetition of this given affirmation on different text plays like a demonstration. But the main propose of this affirmation is to devise the Northern population into two blocks, Turkish Cypriot and Turkish. But after more than thirty years of a mass Turkish present in the northern, lot of Turkish Cypriot – Turkish marriages have been celebrated. Even if their children are carefully record by the census department, they don’t exist in the speeches about the northern inhabitants of Cyprus. This bipolarization of the population will be use in oriented speeches about the past and the future of the inland, where the main problem come from “outside”, from a horde of dangerous Anatolians. By this example, I would like to show a basic set which organises your understanding of the Cyprus issue: first a given affirmation which have for effect the creation of a dual-opposition, than the incorporation of this dual-opposition inside a more complex speech over the inland.
The discourses on the Cyprus history are organized, and so understand, around succession of invasion, from the Roman Empire to the British Empire. Here, the scientific authors and political and community speeches focus on who ruled Cyprus rather on how Cyprus was ruled. Behind this presentation of this long history, we can see a dual organisation, opposing the native to the foreigners. Using the vocabulary of cross-road, strategic localisation, the scholars cut the Cyprus history in regard of which “foreigner” power ruled the inland, that way to construct historical period suppose an organisation around the dual opposition over the “native”, “local” inhabitants and “foreigners”, “exterior” invaders. But is the only or the best way to present the Cyprus history over the centuries? That way is at least useful for one political group and type of speech, the Greek Cypriot nationalism rhetoric use this history for proclaimed the need of Greek Cypriot to have the full power over the inland. In this type of speech, Cyprus was free only two times along this history, during the classical period and between the 1960-74 period. The “time of freedom from the foreigner rulers” created a link between these two periods, these two societies. The current need for freedom take this roots, this moral authority in the fact that for so long the Greek Cypriots has been ruled by foreigner powers. But the origin of the rulers is not enough for qualified a political regime and its degree of freedom.
It is so common to say that two communities, the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot, compose the population of Cyprus. But this duality of the demographical composition is it given, a historical fact, or a construction throughout the history? There exist in Cyprus at least two other communities, the Armenian and the Maronite. But the 1960 Constitution incorporated these two communities inside the Greek Cypriot community. Why? The main argument was the fact that these communities are Christian so they have to be addict to the Greek Cypriot Community. So the constitution of the community, in 1960 and during the British period, drove to a dual understand of the identity of the Cyprus population, organized around the religious field. But using religion for created groups inside the Cyprus population doesn’t drive automatically to create two groups, Muslim and Christian. Why the religious field can’t be see in its diversity, by taking into consideration local practices,…? By institutionalizing on one characteristic of the religious field, the Christian Muslin opposition, the British created another strong duality, based on the number. The minority/ majority rhetoric has organised the political speeches on the political institution for the both nationalim. In Modernity at Large (1996), Appadurai explored more deeper the impact on the number in the colonial and post-colonial society.
Two tools will participate in the construction of these dual understanding, census and maps. Both are use by scholars and political actor, for the purpose of knowledge and control. The role of census had been explained before.
I would like to show that different Cyprus’ issues have been organized around dual-oppositions. Even if I don’t have all the arguments to prove that this “bipolarisation” of the Cyprus social life and history is constructed; I argue that these given dual-oppositions participates in more complex and oriented discourses about the inland and so they should be interrogating. My exploration will focus on the issue of the historiography, of identity, and of the political projects.
I will start with an example, for show how a given dual-opposition is integrated in a wide political oriented speech. The north Cyprus society, two groups compose its population, the Turkish Cypriot and the Turkish, who came after the 1974 military intervention, each one represented more or less 50% of the Northern population. The common statement about the Turkish Cypriot is that they are less religious than the Turkish. We can find this affirmation on many scientific books, newspapers but it’s difficult to find is a demonstration, a evaluation of this atheism inside the Turkish Cypriot society. Most of the authors refer to private experience, like “when you go to a mosque”. The repetition of this given affirmation on different text plays like a demonstration. But the main propose of this affirmation is to devise the Northern population into two blocks, Turkish Cypriot and Turkish. But after more than thirty years of a mass Turkish present in the northern, lot of Turkish Cypriot – Turkish marriages have been celebrated. Even if their children are carefully record by the census department, they don’t exist in the speeches about the northern inhabitants of Cyprus. This bipolarization of the population will be use in oriented speeches about the past and the future of the inland, where the main problem come from “outside”, from a horde of dangerous Anatolians. By this example, I would like to show a basic set which organises your understanding of the Cyprus issue: first a given affirmation which have for effect the creation of a dual-opposition, than the incorporation of this dual-opposition inside a more complex speech over the inland.
The discourses on the Cyprus history are organized, and so understand, around succession of invasion, from the Roman Empire to the British Empire. Here, the scientific authors and political and community speeches focus on who ruled Cyprus rather on how Cyprus was ruled. Behind this presentation of this long history, we can see a dual organisation, opposing the native to the foreigners. Using the vocabulary of cross-road, strategic localisation, the scholars cut the Cyprus history in regard of which “foreigner” power ruled the inland, that way to construct historical period suppose an organisation around the dual opposition over the “native”, “local” inhabitants and “foreigners”, “exterior” invaders. But is the only or the best way to present the Cyprus history over the centuries? That way is at least useful for one political group and type of speech, the Greek Cypriot nationalism rhetoric use this history for proclaimed the need of Greek Cypriot to have the full power over the inland. In this type of speech, Cyprus was free only two times along this history, during the classical period and between the 1960-74 period. The “time of freedom from the foreigner rulers” created a link between these two periods, these two societies. The current need for freedom take this roots, this moral authority in the fact that for so long the Greek Cypriots has been ruled by foreigner powers. But the origin of the rulers is not enough for qualified a political regime and its degree of freedom.
It is so common to say that two communities, the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot, compose the population of Cyprus. But this duality of the demographical composition is it given, a historical fact, or a construction throughout the history? There exist in Cyprus at least two other communities, the Armenian and the Maronite. But the 1960 Constitution incorporated these two communities inside the Greek Cypriot community. Why? The main argument was the fact that these communities are Christian so they have to be addict to the Greek Cypriot Community. So the constitution of the community, in 1960 and during the British period, drove to a dual understand of the identity of the Cyprus population, organized around the religious field. But using religion for created groups inside the Cyprus population doesn’t drive automatically to create two groups, Muslim and Christian. Why the religious field can’t be see in its diversity, by taking into consideration local practices,…? By institutionalizing on one characteristic of the religious field, the Christian Muslin opposition, the British created another strong duality, based on the number. The minority/ majority rhetoric has organised the political speeches on the political institution for the both nationalim. In Modernity at Large (1996), Appadurai explored more deeper the impact on the number in the colonial and post-colonial society.
Two tools will participate in the construction of these dual understanding, census and maps. Both are use by scholars and political actor, for the purpose of knowledge and control. The role of census had been explained before.
The maps plays also for increase the dual understanding of Cyprus. It is common to see map on Cyprus or Nicosia, which erase the buffer zone. I had explained why both political national entities tended to erase the buffer zone in their official map. The effect of this simplification is an amplified the vision of two blocks facing each other.
Last but not the least it concerns the impact of this bipolarisation over the history of Cyprus. The present of the Jewish community in the inland have been erased, only one paper talk about their present, see Ioannou G., Métral F., Yon M. (2000), Chypre et la Méditerranée Orientale, Maison de l’Orient Méditerranéen, Lyon, p. 252. In the inland, no traces of their present have been found, on the urban patrimony and on the historical books of the both communities. Why the Jewish community presence on the inland has disappeared? Or, why the absence of a Jewish community inside a Mediterranean inland is widely accepted? My hypothesis is bipolarisation of the Cyprus identity had affected even our perception of its past, and so no allow a third religious group to come inside this well organised tête-à-tête.
Inside the political field we can also find a dual organisation. The main example come from the middle of the 20° century, just before and after the 1960 independence. Two, and no three, political future was proposed for Cyprus, coming from the two nationalisms. Enosis and Taskim, in one hand Cyprus must integrated the Greek Republic and one the other hand the division of the inland and the integration of each part in their “motherland”, Turkey and Greek. Today, the discussion around the peace process are also organising around two conceptions, the federal and the united state. The first one promote by the Turkish Cypriot political leader and the second by the Greek Cypriot leader.
What I would like to show inside this short text is the fact that in most of the issues are organised around what a call a dual-opposition. Most of these dual-oppositions are construct around unscientific or unproven facts or affirmations. The impacts of this process are for example the negation of one part of the population or the simplification of the history. These given affirmations and dual-oppositions have to be interrogated.
Last but not the least it concerns the impact of this bipolarisation over the history of Cyprus. The present of the Jewish community in the inland have been erased, only one paper talk about their present, see Ioannou G., Métral F., Yon M. (2000), Chypre et la Méditerranée Orientale, Maison de l’Orient Méditerranéen, Lyon, p. 252. In the inland, no traces of their present have been found, on the urban patrimony and on the historical books of the both communities. Why the Jewish community presence on the inland has disappeared? Or, why the absence of a Jewish community inside a Mediterranean inland is widely accepted? My hypothesis is bipolarisation of the Cyprus identity had affected even our perception of its past, and so no allow a third religious group to come inside this well organised tête-à-tête.Inside the political field we can also find a dual organisation. The main example come from the middle of the 20° century, just before and after the 1960 independence. Two, and no three, political future was proposed for Cyprus, coming from the two nationalisms. Enosis and Taskim, in one hand Cyprus must integrated the Greek Republic and one the other hand the division of the inland and the integration of each part in their “motherland”, Turkey and Greek. Today, the discussion around the peace process are also organising around two conceptions, the federal and the united state. The first one promote by the Turkish Cypriot political leader and the second by the Greek Cypriot leader.
What I would like to show inside this short text is the fact that in most of the issues are organised around what a call a dual-opposition. Most of these dual-oppositions are construct around unscientific or unproven facts or affirmations. The impacts of this process are for example the negation of one part of the population or the simplification of the history. These given affirmations and dual-oppositions have to be interrogated.
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