Commentary on (re)unification movements

First off, can we stop saying "bi-communal"? It's giving main character energy. We are an island of many diverse communities, and not just Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are affected by the politics of our island. Anyway...

Earned language and movement extractivism

I have grown extremely tired of Cypriots co-opting oppression for the social capital and engaging in epistemicide via movement extractivism. This is taking a model, a language, a situated knowledge out of its context and appropriating it to describe a scenario it simply does not apply to. In order words, remaining staunchly married to a theoretical ideology and actively refusing to adapt and reflect the material circumstances on the ground for an egocentric narrative.

Hermeneutical injustice occurs when someone struggles to make sense of their experiences because society lacks the necessary concepts or frameworks. For example, lacking the language to describe certain forms of discrimination. Now, when those descriptions are co-opted by those who simply do not experience the conditions associated with such language, that's appropriation and dilution of the word itself.

For example, the language of 'apartheid' was developed in response to institutionalised racial segregation and white supremacist subjugation in South Africa and South West Africa. The key characteristics of apartheid include segregation, limited access (politically, socially, economically) and exploitation. The cases of South Africa and Palestine have clear parallels that demonstrate the creation of a 'second-class citizen' who the dominant racial group (within the same state) oppress in order to privilege the 'first-class citizen', determined through the lens of whiteness.

Having access to language to describe our struggles is a beautiful thing, yet it has been taken for granted. Where language was once produced by circumstance, we are now having circumstances warped to fit into whatever language that the self-proclaimed "oppressed" choose. (Re)unification movements are constantly forcing language to fit our circumstance, instead of generating language based on our circumstance. For the love of [entity], a BBF is NOT the equivalent of apartheid. Where is the racial subjugation? A 2 state solution in Palestine has next to nothing in common with federalism. TRNC is NOT the equivalent of isr4el. Cypriots do NOT experience Turkish occupation in the same way that Kurdish, Armenian and Syrian communities do and this absolute detachment from suffering is embarrassing and insulting to the Turkish-speaking Cypriots who remain stateless, who experience the daily humiliation of segregated checkpoints and severe repression of agency.

Positionality

In post-conflict intercommunal spaces, it's evermore important for people to practise positioning themselves, recognising their privileges and being humble enough to learn and unlearn from others’ perspectives. This enables us to hold space for open dialogue and complexities/nuances that refuse colonial binaries and the narratives imposed upon us. We all hold biases whether we are conscious of them or not, and so, we must be able to criticise the reunification movements and dominant rhetoric of them without having every atrocity that our families experienced dismissed as 'propaganda' or invalidated because it does not fit neatly into a simplistic narrative where one actor is villified and the rest get off scots free. We must never condescendingly explain the oppression a community experiences to the direct victims of said oppression, and most certainly not weaponise that trauma, nor conflate it to validate a harmful perspective (including grecophobia/turcophobia) and satisfy a hypothetical romantic alternate history.

What Cypriots suffer must serve for purposes beyond anti-occupation. This suffering is also a responsibility for our generation to do better, to do justice to our elders, to serve as the base for reunification. We must do better than our history, where the atrocities committed by groups that do not represent us were propagandised to purport the innocence of the opposing ‘side’. ALL of our voices, stories and feelings matter in the supposed unification between us. We are not only "good Cypriots" if we share the same viewpoints, DNA (which is ethno-nationalism) and completely assimilate to the dominant narratives imposed upon us that over-simplify events and threaten our community.

We need to construct our own organic narratives, and to do that, we cannot effectively organise between people who expect us to be the exact same, to agree on everything in order to extend their respect to us. We do not have to agree, but we do have to work towards understanding each other’s language reflecting our lived realities. This is the basis of compassionate communities - to expand our boxes, not assimilate everything into one's pre-existing box. Forcing convergence is harmful for diversity, where multi-narratives may be necessary to accurately encompass a pan-Cypriot experience (i.e. the events of 74).

So, why do we want unification? Is it so that the RoC is a complete nation-state with claim to all its land? So that the brutally expelled Greek Cypriots have a chance to return to their land, by any means necessary? Or, is it so that all of us are given justice? That all Cypriots, displaced by the British in the 30s-40s, displaced by Greek Cypriot and Greek nationalists in 50s-60s, displaced by Turkish Cypriot and Turkish nationalists in the 70s, have access to their ancestral homes? We have a history of one group's safety coming at the expense of another - we do NOT have to repeat this history.

It's not just 50 years since the brutal invasion, war crimes and the ethnic cleansing of GC. It's all of that AND also 61 years since the first escalation of intercommunal conflict, the beginning of the enclaves and violent marginalisation and subsequent eradication of half the population of our people in the name of enosis which continues to this day in the name of taksim. We, along with the vast majority of working-class TC, live in a permanent state of exile whether that be local or diasporic. This is not exclusive to one community, this is also the refugee, Karpass GsC/Maronite experience and it’s about time this is a truth that is reconciled with. We cannot validate one community’s trauma through disregarding another. We all put in the work to unlearn what we were indoctrinated to believe, all from different degrees and access - treat us all with the same respect. We all just want to connect with our home.

The approach to unification must be developed by us. Intercommunal care is radical resistance. Deconstructing narratives to platform the victims is power.

Ask yourself; are you pro-Turkish Cypriot, or just anti-Turkey and using TC victimhood to justify your views? Turkish Cypriot trauma is not up for oppression appropriation.

We all bear responsibility to check our bias, to learn the difference between lived experience and propaganda, to allow victims to heal. Imperial manipulation looks like lived experience being weaponised and conflated with propaganda. Turkish Cypriots particularly in the diaspora have a terrible habit of holding dearly onto the nationalist narrative of Turkey as their saviour, because many were literally rescued from the National Guard by TMT or EOKA B by Turkish soldiers. In the same way, it is entirely understandable that a Greek Cypriot lives in fear of the Turkish occupation on the island, and will resort to safety in a nationalist narrative.

A simple "I understand" can be the difference between a person becoming nationalist and a kinship. Our unification starts with validation of each other, so that we don't need validation from the powers exploiting us.

We are our solution.