Questioning the stereotypical version of the island’s history
By Charles Charalambous
The threat of a jail sentence and heavy fine made against journalist and writer Makarios Drousiotis made last week by a State Archivist raises a number of fundamental questions regarding the way Cyprus’ past is dealt with in today’s society )
ALTHOUGH there is a growing discussion among academics both in Cyprus and abroad about how the island’s history is recorded and recounted – addressing questions of collective memory, identity and nationalism – and how social history compares with the “official” version, this discussion rarely finds its way into the mainstream media or public debate.
The threat by archivist Efrosyni Parparinou was made in a June 22 letter June, based on the allegation that Dhroushiotis had certain public documents and quoted them in his latest book, Two attempts and a murder: the Greek Junta and Cyprus, 1967-1970.
Among other things, the book deals with the murder in 1970 of former EOKA fighter and Interior Minister Polycarpos Yiorkadjis. Drousiotis told the Sunday Mail that the Polycarpos Yiorkadjis Foundation had complained to Phileleftheros newspaper on Saturday, June 20 and by the Monday the state archivist’s letter was delivered to him by hand.
As far as Drousiotis is concerned, “the State Archive should be a tool for learning our history”, but “it has neither the infrastructure nor the staff to fulfil this mission – nor in fact the willingness to carry it out.”
He referred to his own experience of asking for the official transcript of a trial which had been open to the public, but which some quarters would view as politically sensitive. “The archivist found the file, but told me that official approval would be needed before it could be released,” he said. Two weeks later he was told that access had been denied.
Drousiotis said: “Hiding things away for 200 years until their value is simply archaeological and only then releasing them – is that their mission?”
There is also the question of what makes it into the State Archive. Speaking at the launch of Drousiotis’ book last month, former Attorney General Alecos Markides said that archives have been maintained at the Presidential Palace over the years, but – for example – Presidents Spyros Kyprianou and Glafcos Clerides took their archives with them at the end of their terms in office. He said that President Tassos Papadopoulos was the first to insist that papers were archived in duplicate, allowing at least one copy to remain permanently available.
Asked about the public’s level of awareness of important questions and events in the island’s modern history, Drousiotis said that despite his belief that there is a public appetite for the full facts, a “stereotypical version of history” prevails. “Reference to history starts with EOKA, makes a brief stop at 1960 and independence, then there is a blackout until 1974, and history resumes from the July 1974 coup and invasion,” he said.
Dhroushiotis’ view is supported by a item entitled “Lessons in Cypriot history” transmitted by the award-winning Neoi Fakeloi (New Files) programme on Greek channel Skai TV in March 2009. The item showed the different approaches to teaching history in schools in the north and south of the island. One part showed a class of Greek Cypriot primary school children being taught during the regular “Then Xehno” (I don’t forget) hour, which was introduced into the official curriculum shortly after the 1974 invasion.
The teacher is shown giving a short historical overview, beginning with Cyprus’ formal independence in 1960, when “joy, peace and progress prevailed”, and then immediately moving on to 1974. “What just happened,” reporter Katerina Lomvardea said in her commentary, “is that the teacher has just skipped 14 whole years of Cypriot history, arriving at the invasion of 20 July 1974, which is presented as being a bolt out of the blue”. She went on: “The children, who just previously were being told they should love the Turkish Cypriots, suddenly see them as the cause of all of Cyprus’ hurt. Exactly the same is repeated in [the standard text] The History of Cyprus, taught at secondary school level. The 14 most critical years of the course of the Cyprus problem are covered in just two out of the book’s 120 pages.”
In Drousiotis’ view, “an extremely conservative attitude” is being exercised by “a political elite which controls the education system and the media, only letting through what it approves of, and condemning any dissenting view as treacherous or unpatriotic.”
Historians would argue that the “official” version of our past facilitates the way the current political process operates, and therefore will determine our future to a significant extent – unless that version is challenged.
“History is always a political tool”, Dhroushiotis said. “The issue is for people to ask the difficult questions, to debate and to argue while allowing for alternative views, in order to have a real sense of their own history.”
n The Skai TV report can be accessed at
http://www.skai.gr/player/tv/?mmid=25439Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009
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