Cyprus: The Post-Imperial Constitution
128
Cyprus: The Post-Imperial Constitution
128Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780745329352 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Publication date: | 05/20/2009 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.90(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.40(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
Narrating Cyprus
BEYOND HUMBUG
The Cyprus issue, in one way or another, has always preoccupied imperial European politics. From 1878, when the island was leased to Britain by the Ottoman Turks, to the British suggestions for handing it over to Greece in order to cajole it to enter World War I on the side of the allies, and from the Cypriot uprisings of 1931 and the 1950s for union with Greece to the entry into the EU and the UN-sponsored plan(s) of 2002–04, Cyprus has been on the agenda of European politics, played out on Eurasia's grand plateau.
But if the 'Eastern Question' and the 'Great Game' – these horrific imperial attempts by the British, the Russians, the Italians and the French to dissolve the Ottoman Empire and vivisect the Arab Middle East and Muslim Central Asia between them – have inserted Cyprus into the 'European family', that very fact has at the same time, by location, default and design, made it a pawn in the strategic calculations of the West's Middle Eastern and Central Asian policies. In this respect, for over a century now, domestic Cypriot politics and ethnic/religious relations have been manipulated by the imperial West to such an outrageous and derogatory extent, as to defy the intellectual honesty and dignity of the researcher, particularly when dealing with primary sources on the Cyprus issue. The greatest achievement of the West in Cyprus over the last one hundred years – inclusive of the USA at least since 1963 – has been that it has managed to simultaneously redefine and divide two peoples on one relatively small island, the majority Greek Cypriots (80 per cent) and the minority Muslims (18 per cent) – the remaining 2 per cent being Maronites and Armenians – turning them into Greek and Turkish nationalists fighting each other. The process of re-definition, it should be noted, has taken place pari passu with that of division. The Greek Cypriot had to be re-defined as an anti-Turk nationalist, and the Muslim Cypriot as a pro-Turkish, anti-Greek nationalist.
Imperial powers and their proxies tend to ask the wrong questions publicly, almost always on purpose. They ask the wrong questions, because they are unconcerned with the true–false nature of their statement of facts. Instead, Harry G. Frankfurt says, they do so because they want to bullshit. Bullshit aims at misrepresenting the nature or intentions of the bullshitter using artful screens of language. 'Because bullshit is unconcerned with the truth', Frankfurt continues, 'bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.' A liar's craft is bound to the world of true facts, because the lie must replace a truth. Bullshitting is the greatest enemy of scholarship, because it creates an image of fact without producing any in the form of concrete historical evidence. Yet it has the advantage of being perceived by the reader or the spectator as having a permanent and solid cognitive and factual value. At times, humbug discourse artfully employs 'duplicity', 'dubiousness' and 'ambivalence', simply because it is indifferent to how things really are. By declaring its wish to 'satisfy both parties', bullshit turns out to serve the interests of the social/political class and the state it serves.
What happens if people in Cyprus do not wish to live together, asks a report produced by the International Crisis Group:
Greek Cypriots portray the island's history as Hellenic, ethnically and culturally Greek, and put aside other narratives and the island's subjection to many overlords. Turkish Cypriots claim an equal share of the history on the basis of many centuries of residence, as well as the legacy and monuments of 307 years of Ottoman Turkish rule, one of the longest periods the island spent under a single master.
The ICG report of 27 pages and 200 footnotes, of which 190 are interviews with 'Turkish' and 'Greek' officials, 'academics', 'researchers' and 'peace activists', falls within Frankfurt's epistemological-analytical definition of bullshit.
Similarly, an older report prepared by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (CEPS) tells us that for the Cyprus problem to be solved, 'there is a need for an adequate exit from conflict model' (emphasis in the original), primarily because it is the Cypriots that should be blamed for the current situation of division and tension. And then the same report goes on to suggest a 'consociational' solution to the plight of the island through its own definition of Europe, because, after all, 'the EU itself is somewhat federal, somewhat co-federal and somewhat sui generis'. A Cyprus solution, then, can draw from a combination of all these three features of the EU.
Western hegemonic officialdom, having redefined the narrative of the Cyprus issue alongside its vivisections, is now arguing that, inasmuch as there are two ethnically and religiously defined communities on the island, a co-federal, that is a two-state, solution is the only one to settle the problem this very officialdom created. 'Both sides share responsibility for the outcome [of the 1974 Turkish invasions]', says Fred Halliday, blaming Ecevit, the Turkish premier who ordered the Turkish troops to invade, because he 'interrupted his breakfast' – the LSE Professor was on holiday in Cyprus at the time. Ecevit, of course, cracked a smile at Halliday's comment (they had both met at a Chatham House event after the invasion and Halliday had the chance to air his complaint).
Liars love humbug. It snugly gives an ending to their story. Turkish nationalists on Cyprus happily embrace humbug analytical perspectives, in fact a political donation to them: 'There is not, and there has never been, a Cypriot nation' are the opening lines of Rauf Denktash's book on Cyprus, first published in 1982. There are Turks and Greeks both wanting self-determination. And because of the Greeks' campaign of terror from 1960 to 1974, Turkey intervened to create a safe heaven for the Turks of Cyprus. The international community, however, wrongly supported the Greeks by not recognising the Turkish Cypriot state. Thus, 'the isolation of Turkish Cypriots should be lifted', especially today, because they voted in favour of the UN blueprint for the 'reunification' of the island in 2004 – the so-called 'Annan plan' – after the name of the then UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. Note how lies end in humbug: as we shall see, the entire discourse that pertains to the framework of the UN's most recent blueprint was not about re-unification of Cyprus, but legitimisation of a garrison-prison state of affairs on the island, in contrast to the rest of the EU.
Yet, the answer to issues such as 'there is no Cypriot nation', or 'what happens if the Greek and the Turkish Cypriots cannot live together', is that these questions are non-starters. The same goes for the humbug discourse of 'the isolation of Turkish Cypriots', as well as other stories. If wrong questions are asked publicly, then wrong answers are produced publicly. Yet, because this is bordering on bullshit, and the great powers and their intellectuals know that, they also know both the right questions and the right answers in private. This is exactly the aim of this essay: to decipher and re-contextualise, as much as possible and practicable, the right questions and the right answers, which are deliberately hidden by the West's imperial discourse.
MAKARIOS BETRAYED
The situation on the island today is primarily, that is to say historically, the result of Britain's strategic planning in the 1950s and early 1960s, aiming at dividing the island between Greek and Turkish sectors, while keeping for itself some big chunks of land to use as military bases, building intelligence gathering and logistical support facilities for operations in the Middle East and the Caucasus/Central Asia. Britain, facing the Greek Cypriots' ferocious anti-colonial uprising, pitted the Turks against the Greeks by way of setting up auxiliary police units totally composed of Turkish Cypriots. Turkish Cypriots, recruited from the poorest and most uneducated Cypriot social strata, tortured Greek Cypriots under the blissful eye of British lieutenants. At the political level, and contrary to the provisions of article 16 of the Lausanne Treaty (1923), which still, seemingly, regulates Greek–Turkish relations, Britain invited Turkey, on an equal footing with Greece, to participate in tri-partite diplomatic talks, thus making Turkey a party to the Cyprus issue. Note that well into 1957, that is more than two years after the beginning of the EOKA guerrilla campaign (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) for self-determination and union with Greece, EOKA fighters did not have any political objective against their Turkish Cypriot compatriots, strictly considering and acting upon orders pertaining to the ousting of British rule from the island. It was Britain who encouraged and sponsored the development of Turkish Cypriot nationalism on the island, both directly and via Turkey, thus reawakening a Muslim community whose contacts with the European Enlightenment and the tradition of nationalism were until the early 1950s minimal. Had Britain refused to stir up conflict between Greek Cypriots and Muslims/ Turkish Cypriots, the ethnic definition of the Muslim at a mass level might have evolved in a number of ways, the likelihood being that only a minority elite of Muslims would have espoused Turkish nationalism. In this respect, the construction and definition of Turkish Cypriot nationalism as a mass movement on the island is primarily the work of British imperialism, rather than of local enlightened Turkish Cypriot elites acting under European-nationalist influences – as was the case, for example, with other Balkan nationalisms, including Greek and Greek Cypriot nationalism. Britain, notes Perry Anderson in his intellectual tour de force on the Cyprus issue, could have allowed self-determination to take place, following the example of the Italians in Rhodes and the Dodecanese complex of islands in the 1940s, which also had a Muslim/Turkish minority. But Britain was not Italy, and Britain's record of 'divide and rule', from Ireland to Kashmir, is bad enough not to need further certificates.
The birth of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 was as truncated as the political will of Greece to stand up to Britain's imperial policy. When Makarios, the charismatic leader of Cyprus with much sympathetic support, even among Turkish Cypriots and Muslims, asked Karamanlis in Athens to block the implementation of the British plan – inspired by Macmillan – for the division of Cyprus by threatening to withdraw Greece from NATO if it went ahead, Karamanlis refused even to entertain it as a thought. It was then that Makarios came out loudly in favour of independence, shelving enosis (union with Greece) – nobody knowing for how long. Independence he got, but even this was truncated.
On two other encounters of great importance with the Conservative Greek government in Zürich and London, this time before he signed the constitutional agreements of 1959–60, Makarios's political vision was severely twisted by the Greek premier and his foreign minister, Averof, the result being an unworkable constitution, the aim of which was more to guarantee the colonial interests of Britain than the functionality of the central government of the Republic. Characteristically, a US State Department Report at the time had criticised the cumbersome nature of the settlements and predicted their collapse.
Capitalising on the right to veto decisions on foreign and economic matters, the Turkish Cypriot Vice Presidency of the Republic, in conformity with Britain's partition policy, abused this right, thus making the Cypriot polity virtually ungovernable. Frictions also arose on the questions of separate municipalities, the formation of a Cypriot army, the implementation of the 70:30 ratio in the staffing of the state machine etc. As pointed out in the State Department Report and by Makarios, the constitution was a recipe for division, not cooperation, depriving an ethnic majority of the means to democratically manage an ethnic minority. That is how the Cyprus issue can be defined from 1960 down to 1974.
The British partition policy on Cyprus was upheld by the Turkish Cypriot leadership and Turkey itself, and was additionally endorsed by Acheson's and Ball's conspiracy plans of 1964–65. It could also be argued that the faction of Greek Cypriot nationalists who gathered around General Grivas, the leader of the military arm of EOKA, played straight into the hands of the advocates of partition, since it aroused Turkish Cypriot nationalism further. Grivas might have been fighting for enosis but, to all intents and purposes, he and his fellow Greek nationalists, or some of them, were working – whether wittingly or unwittingly we are not in a position to know – for the undercurrents of partition, serving NATO's policy. This is how one could explain the silence of Rauf Denktash about Grivas's military action against Turkish Cypriots: in the event, Grivas was not Denktash's real enemy. The real enemy was Makarios, who became the target of Denktash's narrative throughout (we discuss Denktash's rationale below).
In this context, scholarship should not fail to distinguish the visionary and democratic policy of President Makarios who, in the most extraordinary and adverse circumstances, with his life constantly under threat by Greek extremists and the Greek junta – in power from 1967 to 1974 – wanting a NATO partition plan implemented in Cyprus, envisaged and worked for an independent, democratic and non-aligned Cypriot Republic. And Denktash knew that had Makarios's policy won, it would have been bad news for Turkey's security interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, although not necessarily for NATO and the US as a whole, which could have turned to NATO member Greece for further services, thus damaging Turkey. After all, having two Hellenic states in the Eastern Mediterranean was bad news for Turkish nationalism – period. But matters were not always under Makarios's control.
Inter-communal fights broke in 1963–64 and 1967. In the first instance, in particular, the reason for the fighting was the proposed constitutional amendments put forward by Makarios with Britain's blessing. Makarios, unable to govern due to the constant impediments his policies were encountering from the Turkish Cypriot Vice Presidency, felt it necessary to propose 13 amendments to the constitution. This gave the golden opportunity to the Turkish Cypriot leadership to leave their government positions and parliament, withdrawing into militarily protected enclaves. The entire Turkish Cypriot population was then encouraged to follow them, aiming to create de facto social and economic conditions for a permanent partition. Christians and Muslims had been living side by side in mixed villages and towns all over Cyprus for centuries. Understandably enough, the problem for the British and, consequently, for Turkey, was how to unmingle them. But it was then that Makarios's greatest victory came along, namely UN resolution 186, which established a UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus, and which recognised only the legitimate government.
UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 186, AND AFTER
'UN:US' wrote Peter Gowan, the best international relations expert sitting on the editorial board of New Left Review. The UN came into being to fulfil Franklin Delano Roosevelt's (FDR) desire for the USA to rule the world via the UN Security Council (UN SC), which in 1944 was composed of Britain, China (not that of Mao, but of the demoralising Kuomintang), the US and USSR ('the four policemen', as FDR put it). France was later brought in, but FDR's plan did not prove so successful, since China turned Communist in 1949, whereas France had become a rather difficult ally to manage. FDR's plan for the UN SC was to enable it to carry out policies in a manner that would have led to the global isolation and defeat of the USSR. But FDR's UN scheme for global domination of the USA moved into the background. The USA's global neo-imperial thinking was now dominated by stars such as Kennan and Acheson, with their theories of containment and 'hub and spoke' notions of global governance. This, however, did not mean that the UN was abandoned as a US policy instrument in the struggle for global supremacy. The UN was and remains as American in policy and scope as Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown itself, where it was first seriously conceived and all the big decisions were taken.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Cyprus"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Vassilis K. Fouskas and Alex O. Tackie.
Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments * Chronicle of the Cyprus Crisis * Introduction * 1. Narrating Cyprus * 2. The partitions of Cyprus after 1974 * 3. The "isolation" of Turkish Cypriots * Conclusion * Bibliography * Index