by halil » Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:14 pm
while i was reading some articles about Cyprus fieldwork .
i found some of the views were very interesting . here it is some of them .it will be interesting and questionable for ....
Some of the key communities in the Cyprus conflict are:
• Greek Cypriots (GCs),
o Cypriots who choose not to identify themselves as members of the Cypriot Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot communities;
• Turkish Cypriots (TCs),
o Cypriots who choose not to identify themselves as members of the Cypriot Cypriot or Greek Cypriot communities;
• Cypriot Cypriots (CCs),
o Cypriots who choose not to identify themselves as members of the Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot communities;
• Minority Cypriots (MCs),
o Cypriots who cannot be categorised as members of the Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot communities, but whom the 1960 constitution forced to choose between being aligned with the Greek Cypriot and being aligned with the Turkish Cypriot communities, including,
the Greek Cypriot allies,
the Armenians (Armenian Orthodox Christians),
Latins (European Catholic Christians) and
Maronites (Lebanese Catholic Christians) and
the Turkish Cypriot allies,
the Linobambakes (syncretic Christian-Muslims, encompassing Greek and Turkish speakers and Christian converts to Islam and Muslim converts to Christianity, whose ideologies and practices marry the two);
• Cypriot Workers (WCs),
o immigrants to Cyprus,
popularly categorised as
"Sri Lankans",
"Arabs", or
"artistes" and
overwhelmingly, exploited, as they are employed or enslaved as,
domestic workers,
manual workers, or
sex workers;
• Turkish Settlers (TSs),
o Turkish immigrants to Cyprus during and after 1963, who may have settled, amongst other things,
as collaborators in the nationalist programme of ethnic cleansing and Turkification (as violators of other communities' human rights), but
who may also have settled,
as part of accessing their human right to work or to freedom of movement, or
who may have settled,
as vulnerable people trying to secure their human right to subsistence;
• Greek Settlers (GSs),
o Greek immigrants to Cyprus during and after 1963, who may have settled, amongst other things,
as collaborators in the nationalist programme of ethnic cleansing and Hellenisation (as violators of other communities' human rights), but
who may also have settled,
as part of accessing their human right to work or to freedom of movement, or
who may have settled,
as vulnerable people trying to secure their human right to subsistence;
• International Settlers (ISs)
o non-Greek, non-Turkish international immigrants to Cyprus since 1974,
popularly characterised as
old Britons,
young Russians and
middle-aged Germans
who may have settled, amongst other things,
as part of accessing their human right to work or to freedom of movement, but who may also have settled
as powerful people exploiting vulnerable people's insecurity or lack of access to their basic human rights; and
• International Visitors (IVs), including,
o Contract Ex-pats,
o Turkish Students,
o Greek Students and
o International Students.
I'll try to produce an incomprehensibly convoluted mind map to illustrate something of the mass of conflicts between human rights being negotiated by all Cypriots at all times in their daily lives.
As with the presentation of human rights and duties in conflict, the categorisation of communities is a simplification performed in order to reveal the Cypriot community's very complexities.
Individuals, groups and communities all have multiple identities, situationally chosen or ascribed and each might (rightly) contest their or others' categorisation(s). There may be individuals who are categorised by others as "pure Greek Cypriot" or "pure Turkish Cypriot", but who choose to identify themselves as "mixed" or "Cypriot Cypriot".
There may be other individuals who are categorised as "mixed" or "Cypriot Cypriot", but who choose to identify themselves as "pure Greek Cypriot" or "pure Turkish Cypriot".
There may be still other individuals who define themselves as "Cypriot Cypriot", "Linobambakis" or otherwise, who are denied that identity by others, categorised as "Greek Cypriot", "Turkish Cypriot" or such like.
As I currently understand it, [in terms of identifying community groups] one of the most troublesome aspects of the Cyprus Problem is the aggregation of different communities and the silencing and disempowering of the minority communities alternately assimilated and excluded.
So, these are some of the threads of conflicts between communities and conflicts between those communities' human rights that I have picked up and followed in my fieldwork in Cyprus so far; hopefully, I will begin to weave them together soon, or at least untangle them more.
