Issue No. 593
International
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4 - 10 July 2002 Issue No. 593 International |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
One island, two worlds
As Cyprus gears up to enter the European Union, Iason Athanasiadis from Nicosia asks if Cypriots can learn to live with each other again
This summer, as mass tourist migrations from North Europe pack the Mediterranean's beaches, Cyprus is finalising preparations to accede to the European Union (EU). But despite being one of the front-runners in the pack of 14 candidate-countries hoping for inclusion in the next round of expansion, Cyprus will first have to get its house in order.
The island, an apparently isolated pocket of peace on the edge of one of the world's most troubled regions, is no stranger to tragedy. Despite the legions of sun-seeking tourists lounging on Cypriot beaches, a thriving tourist industry and rosy economic prospects, there is an unforgettable dividing line that cleaves the island in two. The soil on which European visitors sun-bathe or dance the night away remains a critical international flashpoint.
But on ground zero, the Green Line that splits Nicosia in two, elegant 30s' era restored apartments give way to ramshackle structures, unrepaired since Turkish troops occupied Nicosia and a third of Cyprus in 1974. These buildings, neglected giants presiding over an eerily calm dividing line, mark where the island and its capital are dissected in two.
Twenty-eight years on, rampant weeds climb through the urban skeleton, grass punches through the cracked asphalt and broken windowpanes survey the desert that was once Nicosia's erstwhile commercial centre. Sandbags have been stacked up against the windows of a carpentry shop abutting the Green Line. Unchecked vegetation swells on the other side of the barred window and the only moving figures in the no- man's land are patrolling United Nations soldiers.
At regular intervals, Cypriot army posts mark where Greek Cypriot territory ends and the dead zone begins. Nationalistic slogans such as, "I don't forget -- I struggle on" and "There's no north, no south; only Cyprus", are matched by the awesome backdrop of the massive outline of a Turkish flag engraved into the Turkish-occupied mountain with "Proud to be Turkish" carved alongside it -- a permanent reminder of the occupation for Nicosia's residents.
"People around the world say that grown men don't cry," says Lelos Dimitriadis, the mayor of Greek- Cypriot Nicosia. "I can assure you that when you see the Green Line you will cry. And you will be lucky, because you will experience this pain only once. We feel it every day, every minute."
Surveying the Green Line from the roof of a tall building, one is struck by the great contrast between the city's two parts. At night, the Greek part twinkles with lights and the hubbub of crowds strolling through the centre wafts up on the evening breeze. The Turkish part remains silent and dark, a municipal lamp throwing an isolated pool of light here and there, underscoring the place's apparent dereliction.
The same contrast extends beyond the Green Line. Poverty blights occupied Turkish Cyprus, just as increasing wealth floods southern Cyprus' coffers. The average income in Greek Cyprus is a heady annual $19,000, which is more than the average in several EU-member states. Turkish Cypriots get by on less than $3,000.
Entry into the European Union will only increase the material disparity between the two communities. Although the whole of the island -- with the exception of the sovereign British army bases -- is slated for union membership, EU rules and regulations will only apply to the free areas. Prospects for Northern Cyprus -- already in tragic economic decline -- are poor. The Greek Cypriots have imposed a crippling economic embargo, backed by the UN and other international bodies, that is contributing to a deepening polarisation between North and South and a widening of the confidence gap.
The situation is compounded by the fact that the long years of occupation have witnessed an exodus of skilled Turkish Cypriots and their replacement by desperately poor immigrant Turks from Eastern Turkey's Anatolia province. Today, only 45 per cent of the population in northern Cyprus are Turkish Cypriots -- a mere 12 per cent of the island's overall population.
As long as negotiations between political veterans Glaukos Klerides, the Greek Cypriot president and Rauf Denktash, the leader of the occupied part of the island, remain stalled, a political solution seems as distant as ever. These two political behemoths have stared at each other for more than a quarter of a century from across the barricades. But despite the increasing sclerosis that has crept over their negotiating positions, it is widely accepted that the new generation of politicians will be far less prone to compromise. Turkey has threatened that it will annex northern Cyprus should the Greek Cypriot part enter the EU and warned it not to make such a "costly" mistake.
"The only thing the Turks can do is try to escalate their rhetoric in an attempt to frighten the Europeans and Americans," says Michalis Michail, the press officer at the Cypriot Embassy in Cairo. But the crucial issue remains: "Will the EU allow Turkey to decide who will enter the union?" The question of Turkey's pending membership to the EU is sure to deter Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit from making any rash military moves.
Whatever the solution, the Cyprus imbroglio is coming to a head and significant political pressure will be applied on both sides over the coming months, in the search for a political solution. Beyond this lies the Herculean task of repatriating the communities whose lives were turned upside down by events: the Greek Cypriot refugees, those Turkish Cypriots who opted to emigrate rather than live under the Denktash regime and the 110,000 Anatolian settlers who have lived in the northern part of the island for close to a generation.
"This is the toughest problem we face, especially as they (the settlers) are numerically more than the remaining Turkish Cypriots," says Dimitriadis. "Our first reaction is that they have to go back, though we also have to look at the humanitarian perspective as well -- these people have been in Cyprus for the past 28 years and they have families with Cypriot men and women. But most of them will have to go back because they came illegally."
Michail also believes that they have to go. "But how can you practically separate them, especially when they've intermarried with the locals?" he asks.
Of equally great concern is the prospect of two separate, battle- scarred communities learning to live together again on one island. "A new generation of Cypriots has reached adulthood without there being contact between ethnic Greeks and ethnic Turks," says one Greek Cypriot who prefers to remain anonymous. "Old animosities are reinforced and passed on to the next generation -- today's youth -- who carry real and imagined grievances, are choked at the moment of intellectual formation by suspicion and hatred of the others."
Niki Maragou, a Greek-Cypriot author who lost her house when the Turks invaded, underlines the two communities complete isolation: "There have been no contacts since 1974. The first time I met a Turkish Cypriot living a quarter of an hour away from me, I had to go to Sweden."
Maragou says she is worried about the demographic situation, especially as "a lot of Turkish Cypriots choose to come nowadays to the South because of the jobs, pensions, social security and the like that they get here. Their banks crashed recently and people lost their lifetime savings. So they do not trust the Denktash administration. A lot of them migrate to London or Australia as they feel trapped in Northern Cyprus."
Most Greek Cypriots of a certain age have fond pre-invasion, pre- population exchange memories of co-existing with the Turkish Cypriots when Cyprus was more ethnically heterogeneous than it is now.
"All Turkish Cypriots over 50 speak Greek and remember life with the Greek Cypriots," says an unnamed source. "But whoever is under 30 knows nothing about the other side. Of course, a good economy and lots of money will fix everything. Cyprus is such a rich place. The Turkish Cypriots will be the employees and waiters of the Greek Cypriots, as before, and the problem will be solved."
Maragou also remembers life with the Turkish Cypriots in Limassol. "My father operated on many Turks and they were very grateful, always bringing us gifts of yoghurt and sweets. We had a Turkish cook and I remember going in the afternoons with her to the Turkish quarter. I have lovely memories of that time, but the British administration did much to create problems between the two communities so that they could remain as guarantors. For example, they recruited Turks into their police force to fight the Greeks."
Dimitriadis agrees that "It's much more difficult now. The new generations do not have any experience of living with each other."
But Michail rejects the suggestion that the two communities will find religion a separating factor in learning to coexist once more. "There's no religious gulf between the two communities even if we're Christian and they're Muslim. My house in Cyprus is next to a mosque and when the imam went off to the North he left his donkey to my grandfather. It is Turkey that attaches religious inflections to the issue. In Cyprus it was never Muslim and Christian; it's Greek and Turkish. Do you know what it's like to have 60 million Turks living just six-minutes' flight from you?"
Whatever political solution the island's leaders manage to hammer out, under UN auspices in New York, it will be put to the test on the ground by the Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish. Whether they will manage to live together again and overcome the communal problems that led Turkey to invade in the first place, remains the crucial point that will seal the island's future. One thing is sure -- the longer the separation continues, the harder reuniting the two communities is bound to be.
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