The one side to the Cyprus story
THE saying goes that there are two sides to every story. To be fair individuals, we must listen to both, right? It is this very notion that judicial systems are established upon.
People study for years to ensure that justice is served; police, solicitors, judges. . . Great old court houses occupy the centre of towns and cities across the world for justice to be handled.
In this day and age, it should be hard to believe that any injustices can go by without being dealt with.
We have seen more explicitly recently, however, that injustice can be experienced to entire nations. This is due to efforts in this area, which have been invested in for decades, and they are due to an age-old enemy, something that we all possess, the biggest most dangerous weapon of all: language.
Without realising it, we have all been weaponised with a way of using language that can hurt individual small groups of people, or millions of people all at once. Let me demonstrate using the Cyprus problem as an example.
Regardless of your position regarding the Cyprus issue, have you ever wondered why there are two separate stories to the Cyprus problem? The Turkish Cypriot version, and the Greek Cypriot version, which is simultaneously shared by the rest of the world?
I experienced this myself. When living in London or speaking to people non-native to the island, or who haven’t lived in Cyprus, their consistent knowledge in relation to the Cyprus problem initially used to baffle me.
I used to genuinely wonder how it was possible that so many people obtained the same incorrect information about Cyprus.
Upon having discussions with these individuals, I found that they had no knowledge regarding any of the conflict pre-1974, and how both sides contributed to this, they had little knowledge of the difficulties experienced, zero information on the previous harmonious living of both the Cypriot ethnicities, and very few knew about the Greek military backed coup d’tat in 1974, which was followed by the Turkish intervention.
It is both funny and frustrating that I have had people who have never been to Cyprus, especially North Cyprus, who have argued with me that North Cyprus is nothing but a no-man’s land, that it is just dust and tumble weeds, with streets lined with soldiers, a backward land that experiences very hot weather, with no form of infrastructure, commercialisation, development, or, well, life.
One person was even shocked when I talked about my holiday in Girne and attending a pool party, because he thought “the North didn’t have electricity”.
The picture on his face when I showed him pictures of the 5-star hotel I stayed at (in evidence, because I had to prove we did, in fact, have a life in Cyprus) was a picture in itself.
When it comes to what people outside of North Cyprus do know about the Cyprus problem, or about the Turkish Cypriots and North Cyprus, it was extremely limited.
What they did know, in chronological order, was exactly like this: “Cyprus is a British Crown colony – Turkey invades Cyprus in 1974, displacing thousands of Greek Cypriots and stealing their land and property – North Cyprus is unrecognised by the world and is a no-man’s land”. Sound familiar? It does, doesn’t it?
My curiosity regarding this phenomenon, I guess you can say, sprung from these experiences, which I am sure I am not alone in.
I found myself increasingly wondering how come the Greek Cypriots, alongside the rest of the world, have a coincidentally similar version of events of the Cyprus problem?
As a Turkish Cypriot, I have heard a vastly different version of what happened. I have heard real life stories that massively contradict the international versions I was exposed to.
The non-international versions, however, didn’t come from people who knew nothing of the realities in Cyprus, my versions came from the older generations across North Cyprus, from elderly relatives and friends I have met in my lifetime.
Anecdotes and woeful stories of difficult times and loss. Experiences of fear and bravery. The tales of strength and rebuilding. The stories of fleeing in hidden compartments under buses and secretly trekking through fields for days to save their lives. These are the stories I know. Directly from the people that experienced it. Their true-life accounts. Not from history books, not from a newspaper, not from a politician telling me it was so.
So, coming back to this coincidence. I wondered how it could be, and didn’t leave my wonderment there. I studied it. I did a master’s degree and PhD in it, and what I found is that of course, it wasn’t a coincidence at all. I will tell you what I found, and a bit of the other research
findings I found along the way, which I thought were interesting.
I performed two studies. The first was a study about how all the British broadsheet newspapers represented the Cyprus problem and the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, during the five years prior to the Kofi Annan peace plan referendums of 2004.
My second study researched how three American quality newspapers and three British broadsheet newspapers represented the Greek and Turkish Cypriot identities in their publications, during the period 2012-2022.
The first study found that the British newspapers described North Cyprus as a no-man’s land; all barbed wires, Turkish military troops EVERYWHERE, vast empty lands, military signs warning to not enter, empty roads, and tumble weeds.
When it comes to what the Cyprus problem is all about, it really becomes interesting. It was found that the broadsheet and quality newspapers in the UK and America have for years been omitting everything prior to the events of 1974.
This means that they did not write about the Cyprus problem before the summer of 1974; no mention of Eoka, the aspirations for “Enosis”, the attacks on the British presence, the genocides against the Turkish Cypriots . . . Nothing. It is very, very rarely set upon.
It was also found that the newspapers have also mostly omitted the Athens-backed coup d’état from their articles when writing about the events of 1974, but did manage to almost always refer to this period as the Turkish “invasion”.
In writing about the Cyprus problem like this, the understanding any readership
would receive is that Ankara’s actions were both unprovoked and barbaric. An invasion and an occupation. Coincidence? Also no.
An academic study by Miranda Christou called the Language of Patriotism: Sacred History and Dangerous Memories, regarding the Greek Cypriot national history, found exactly the same about the taught Greek Cypriot history in relation to the Cyprus problem.
Christou’s research confirmed that the Greek Cypriot-taught history focused on the “occupied” area of Cyprus, and the Turkish “invasion” that took this area of the island.
Anything that happened prior to the “invasion” was generally omitted from their history, and when it was referred to, it was noted as “passions of the past”.
This narrative of the Cyprus problem represents the Greek Cypriot national identity up as victims. Something we are also familiar with.
Additional findings which I think are interesting and wanted to share, because they help us understand how these narratives are further constructed, included that out of the 45 articles, six of them were feature articles that gave space to historical information regarding the Cyprus problem, even mentioning the events in the 1960s.
However, parallel to their existing narrative, these articles were written from the Greek Cypriot perspective, referring to the material and emotional losses of the Greek Cypriots only.
On top of this, across the 45 articles studied regarding the Cyprus problem, the “invasion” was mentioned 54 times, and the Greek military coup mentioned only six times.
The same study further found that the news articles frequently compared the Greek and Turkish
Cypriots, mainly on economic and political grounds, and represented the Turkish Cypriots far inferior to the Greek Cypriots.
However, even the Greek Cypriots weren’t safe from inferior representation when the British were mentioned in any of the articles, with the Greek Cypriots represented as inferior to them.
Turkish people were referred to as barbaric and backward, the Turkish Cypriots as poor and desperate, the Greek Cypriots as ungrateful, problematic and powerless to the British, and the British at the top of these hierarchy of identities, as peaceful, right, and powerful.
It’s all a game to promote one perspective, and the readers mostly buy it unfortunately.
So you see, these narratives have been intrinsically interweaved into many forms of media to establish a particular opinion on the Cyprus problem.
The only way such narratives can be turned around is by raising awareness, and by people generally educating themselves.
Until such time, however, there will continue to be the one side to the Cyprus story.
It won’t be the truth, but it will continue to serve someone’s agenda, to the detriment of the Turkish Cypriots.
The Cyprus problem is one of many examples of such narratives, and if you can think of another case where one side of the story is more prevalent, it’s time to read up on that subject.
Where international courts fail us and international politics work to their agendas only, it is our duty as individuals to educate ourselves and be the voice for people subordinated by such ideology.
You never know which nation, like the Turkish Cypriots, depend on your educated support.
Broadsheet and quality newspapers in the UK and America have for years been omitting everything prior to the events of 1974