Cyprus-Forum.com

[BirKibrisli]

This island was home mainly to two ethnically distinct communities.
The largest one was called Greek Cypriots (82%) and the smaller one Turkish Cypriots(18%). These figures were approximations as there were other Cypriots of other backgrounds like Armenian,Jewish,Maronite,and Latin who called Cyprus home too...But it was the former two communities who played the main roles in what came to be known as the Cyprus Problem. So we will concentrate on them for the purpose of this exercise...

It is generally considered that the Greeks came to Cyprus approximately 2000 years before Christ.First it was mainly Achaean-Mycenaean Greeks,then Greeks from other cities arrived over time to complete the Greek colonisation of Cyprus... The TCs were mainly the descendants of the Ottoman forces which occupied Cyprus from 1571 to 1878. Many Venetians and some Greeks concerted to Islam over this time (mainly to avoid heavy taxes),and there were enough intermarriages to result in a Unique Cypriot gene pool by the end of the 20th Century...


In 1878 Cyprus fell into British hands. "In 1878 at the time of the Congress of Berlin, Turkey, retaining nominal sovereignty, gave the island over to British administration as an assembly base for the rapid deployment force which Britain was supposed to have at the ready to deter further Russian penetration of the Ottoman Empire" ...So says the Cyprus Conflict website...

It also says this :"when the first British High Commissioner, Sir Garnet Wolseley, arrived at the Cypriot port of Larnaca, he was greeted by Kiprianos, Bishop of Kition, with the message: 'We accept the change of Government inasmuch as we trust that Great Britain will help Cyprus, as it did the Ionian islands, to be united with Mother Greece, with which it is nationally connected.' Every subsequent High Commissioner became accustomed to hearing the petition for enosis on ceremonial occasions. In 1912 the Greek Cypriot members of the Legislative Council resigned en bloc to campaign for this purpose. For a fleeting moment in 1915 Britain was willing to fulfill these hopes in return for a quick entry of Greece into the war; the offer was withdrawn when Greece declined."


So far so good?

Lets jump-cut to 1954...We are at the UN and Greece has just applied for the recognition of the rights of GCs to self-determination, allowing for Enosis to happen...

Alarmed by this the TCs sent a committee to Ankara to meet with Adnan Menderes,PM..The delegation is led by Mr Faiz kaymak, the Head of Federation of Turkish Cypriot Associations,and included two lawyers,Ahmet Mithat Berberoglu and Ahmet Zaim..

On the 15 September 1954 the delegation meet the Turkish PM at Florya palace...FAiz kaymak himself describes the talks in his 1968 book "How Did TCs find themselves in this Situation" :

" We talked for one-and -half hours about the political situation in Cyprus,the fears of the TCs,and Turkey's opinion on the matter...At one point The Prime Minister took a sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. 'here...read this...it's from the US...You have nothing to fear,there will be NO ENOSIS...Greece might be making demands at the UN,but the US has promised me,THERE WILL BE NO ENOSIS'...

"The next day we met with Turkish President,Celal Bayar...He had this advice for us -' You must demand that the British rule continues in Cyprus... You have to support the British or they are headed for a fall '...

In a previous meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister,Fuat Koprulu,the delegation got a message which was most disturbing : " It is Turkey's principle not to interfere in other nations' internal affairs...Since Cyprus is a British colony we have no policy or claim on her..."

The TC delegation was dismayed. They were leaving for England the next day,and they decided to take direct action. They visited the influential editor of the Hurriyet Newspaper,Sedat Semavi,and told him about Fuat Koprulu's statement...The next day the delegations fears and dilemma were front page news all over Turkey...

[BirKibrisli]

As I mentioned in my "dairy" thread,I think it will be very useful to look at the sequences of events which has brought us to where we are...We can hopefully strip things of their "pure propaganda" aspects,and have an informed opinion to base our own ideas on what really happened...

Naturally I am more knowledgeable on things that happened on the TC side...So I will mainly concentrate on those events which fueled the TC actions...I hope others on this Forum will talk about the events which fueled GC actions...hopefully in a reasonably objective way.

Lets see if we can manage to be objective and sensible about our recent past history,which might go some way to foster understanding between all of us,Cypriots...

[CopperLine]

Birkibrisli,
I loved you 'Cyprus diary' so I'm not sure whether you want interruptions or questions (especially after just one post !) If you, don't ignore this question; otherwise, when you say on the first line,

This island was home mainly to two ethnically distinct communities.

is this a conclusion or a premise ? To my way of thinking, communities are formed historically, they do not present themselves ready-formed and distinct. If that is the case then what interest me is how people differentiated themselves to such an extent that we can identify clearly 'distinct' communities. (Of course just because communites are distinct doesn't necessarily mean that they are fated to conflict). As I write this, it occurs to me that there may be a difference between whether and how outside people see distinct communities (for example, British colonial administrators) as opposed to the internal community/ies themselves who might not see or experience the same distinction.

[Nikitas]

To put this Enosis thing in some perspective.

It was an ideal, to unite with a Greece which existed in GCs minds in an idealised form. Most people had not been to Greece, had not met a Greek from Greece and apart from movies and some magazines had no regular contact with Greece.

As for Greece itself in 1954, it was still recovering from the German occupation of 1940-1945 and the civil war from 1946-49. Together both of these conflicts had claimed about one million lives and left Greece with a fiercely anti cimmunist regime. THis anticommunism of the Greeks was to cause much grief later on when mainland Greek army officers staffed the Cypriot national guard. These guys could not fathom that Cyprus had not had the experience of the Greek civil war between pro western and communist forces. They misconstrued Cypriot confusion at their rantings as apathy in the face of the national threat of communism. They took it on themselves to purify the Cypriot soul and to contain the non existent communist threat. This tied in well with the phantoms of another major player, the Americans.

One other factor in this is that the Cypriot struggle for Enosis, which Bir will get to in time, was for Greece a relatively risk free affair. If the Cypriots won and Cyprus united with Greece it would be a gain. If the Cypriots lost and Cyprus remained British it would not be a loss. Greece encouraged the Enosis struggle but it did not actively help it beyond sending some surplus small arms. That lukewarm approach should have rang some alarm bells in Cypriot heads. But Enosis was an ideal and ideals are emotional things, not amenable to rational challenges.

I will let Bir bring us up to date before I add more GC perspectives.

[BirKibrisli]

Birkibrisli,
I loved you 'Cyprus diary' so I'm not sure whether you want interruptions or questions (especially after just one post !) If you, don't ignore this question; otherwise, when you say on the first line,

This island was home mainly to two ethnically distinct communities.

is this a conclusion or a premise ? To my way of thinking, communities are formed historically, they do not present themselves ready-formed and distinct. If that is the case then what interest me is how people differentiated themselves to such an extent that we can identify clearly 'distinct' communities. (Of course just because communites are distinct doesn't necessarily mean that they are fated to conflict). As I write this, it occurs to me that there may be a difference between whether and how outside people see distinct communities (for example, British colonial administrators) as opposed to the internal community/ies themselves who might not see or experience the same distinction.

CopperLine,
I think this will work best if people jump in whenever they feel the need to make a comment or ask a question. Or challenge me on something or other. The idea is to try to have an objective look at how we got to the mess we are in,without the emotional and propaganda based accusations and counter-accusations...

I mentioned the two main communities as they were the founding partners in the 1960 Agreements. I agree that communities are formed historically,and perhaps not recognised or named by the communities themselves. During Ottoman times,for example,there would have been no mention of anyone being "Turkish" Cypriot. The Ottomans classifed their subjects as MUslims and Non-Muslims...So it would be interesting if someone jumps in here and tells us when and how the notion of "Turkishness" begun in Cyprus.

[Raymanoff]

Imagine Georgia invading Paphos to give Pontians an independent state...

[BirKibrisli]

To put this Enosis thing in some perspective.

It was an ideal, to unite with a Greece which existed in GCs minds in an idealised form. Most people had not been to Greece, had not met a Greek from Greece and apart from movies and some magazines had no regular contact with Greece.

As for Greece itself in 1954, it was still recovering from the German occupation of 1940-1945 and the civil war from 1946-49. Together both of these conflicts had claimed about one million lives and left Greece with a fiercely anti cimmunist regime. THis anticommunism of the Greeks was to cause much grief later on when mainland Greek army officers staffed the Cypriot national guard. These guys could not fathom that Cyprus had not had the experience of the Greek civil war between pro western and communist forces. They misconstrued Cypriot confusion at their rantings as apathy in the face of the national threat of communism. They took it on themselves to purify the Cypriot soul and to contain the non existent communist threat. This tied in well with the phantoms of another major player, the Americans.

One other factor in this is that the Cypriot struggle for Enosis, which Bir will get to in time, was for Greece a relatively risk free affair. If the Cypriots won and Cyprus united with Greece it would be a gain. If the Cypriots lost and Cyprus remained British it would not be a loss. Greece encouraged the Enosis struggle but it did not actively help it beyond sending some surplus small arms. That lukewarm approach should have rang some alarm bells in Cypriot heads. But Enosis was an ideal and ideals are emotional things, not amenable to rational challenges.

I will let Bir bring us up to date before I add more GC perspectives.

Thanks for that contribution,Nikitas.
It is exactly what I am hoping would happen along the way. I will mention some events and facts,and people jump in and fill the gaps or add another dimension...Lets make it a team effort,and perhaps come to some new understanding of our unique problem...

[BirKibrisli]

Imagine Georgia invading Paphos to give Pontians an independent state...

Perhaps not,Raymanoff...Lets solve this little problem first before creating another.

[zan]

To put this Enosis thing in some perspective.

It was an ideal, to unite with a Greece which existed in GCs minds in an idealised form. Most people had not been to Greece, had not met a Greek from Greece and apart from movies and some magazines had no regular contact with Greece.

As for Greece itself in 1954, it was still recovering from the German occupation of 1940-1945 and the civil war from 1946-49. Together both of these conflicts had claimed about one million lives and left Greece with a fiercely anti cimmunist regime. THis anticommunism of the Greeks was to cause much grief later on when mainland Greek army officers staffed the Cypriot national guard. These guys could not fathom that Cyprus had not had the experience of the Greek civil war between pro western and communist forces. They misconstrued Cypriot confusion at their rantings as apathy in the face of the national threat of communism. They took it on themselves to purify the Cypriot soul and to contain the non existent communist threat. This tied in well with the phantoms of another major player, the Americans.

One other factor in this is that the Cypriot struggle for Enosis, which Bir will get to in time, was for Greece a relatively risk free affair. If the Cypriots won and Cyprus united with Greece it would be a gain. If the Cypriots lost and Cyprus remained British it would not be a loss. Greece encouraged the Enosis struggle but it did not actively help it beyond sending some surplus small arms. That lukewarm approach should have rang some alarm bells in Cypriot heads. But Enosis was an ideal and ideals are emotional things, not amenable to rational challenges.

I will let Bir bring us up to date before I add more GC perspectives.

Sir George Hill:
"Hardly a year has passed since the occupation (1878) without the "Hellenic idea" finding expression in some form or other, it's symtoms were noticed as early as 1830".





Makarios' enthronement as Archbishop on 20th October 1950:
"I take the holy oath that I shall work for the birth of our national freedom and shall never waiver from our policy of uniting Cyprus with mother Greece".






Makarios after being elected the president of the independent Cyprus Republic.
"The struggle of the people the people of Cyprus will go on. The Zurich and London Agreement were a starting point and a bastion for further struggles. Greek Cypriots must continue to march forward to complete the work begun by the EOKA heroes. The struggle is continuing in a new form and will go on until we achieve our goal".
A paper contributed to a conference entitled "Cyprus and the colonial Experience, 1878-1960", held at the Institute of commonwealth studies, University of London:

[Nikitas]

Zan,

I will not get into a tussle over this. It is meant as additinal background on Enosis for people who are not privy to GC thinking. Most GCs had no direct knowledge of Greece. A person close to me fought the British as an EOKA member. He had not visited Greece until after 1974 when he took his children to university there. And he did not like what he found.

As for the anticimmunist fervor of the mainland officers who commanded the national guard, the importance will become apparent as Bir develops his side and reaches the 60s.

There is more to this thing than the abstract notion of Enosis.