Abandoning an ever-widening scope of Turkish foreign policy, the Cyprus question no longer occupies center stage as it once used to. Yet it is still likely to emerge as an important issue in the coming year. Two imminent developments make this inevitable: The first is the upcoming rotating presidency of the European Council by the “Republic of Cyprus” and the second is the exploration of natural resources around the island.
Perhaps it is in response to these that negotiations seemed to have been sped up. The last round of negotiations among parties in New York at the end of last month was deemed positive and productive. Thus they have raised expectations. However, there are still delicate issues to agree upon before an agreement is reached.
Yet even if an agreement is reached between Turkish and Greek political leaders on the island, the people of both sides, who are still skeptical, will still have the final word. The referendum in 2004 proved that public opinion does matter. Unless each community is fully prepared to live together with risks and opportunities, their political leaders cannot resolve the dispute among themselves. It is not an issue to address at the top but requires engaging the people at the grassroots.
Hopefully, there will be new initiatives taken up by non-governmental actors in Cyprus to bring members of the two communities together with a common agenda. One such new civic initiative is the Cyprus Academic Dialogue (CAD) established by Turkish and Greek Cypriots to work towards preparing the public, pressuring governments and coming up with concrete suggestions on controversial issues.
This unique group organized a workshop this weekend in İstanbul bringing academics, journalists, and writers from both sides of Cyprus and Turkey together. For the first time, Cypriot Greeks and Turks as academics and intellectuals worked together to agree upon a joint statement in which the main parameters of a solution were outlined. This is, I think, a historic initiative. Civil society on both sides of the island is taking the matter (that is, in fact, their common future) into their own hands.
Such initiatives are important because they come from the people, the ultimate source of legitimacy and sovereignty. We know that even if an agreement is reached at the political level, it has to be sold to the public. Therefore, CAD's efforts are paving the way to build a “common vision” for the island by engaging in a constructive and courageous search for alternatives in settling the dispute on the island.
We know that their task is really difficult. This is because finding a solution on the island requires abandoning the old paradigm of the “national idea” that still prevails on both sides. I do not blame them for this. Given that the history of the conflict on the island and looking at the experiences of mainland Turkey and Greece, the idea of living together with the principle of political equality in an ethnically and religiously diverse state seems very difficult to “imagine.” In fact, the modern history of Turkey and Greece is the history of a quest to create a “nation-state” with ethnic and religious homogeneity.
I think we, Turks and Greeks, are the victims of our “nation-states,” imagined as survival units necessitating subordination and, if possible, the elimination of ethnic and religious diversities. The result is that we, Greeks and Turks on the mainland and on the island, have forgotten how to live and share with the “other.”
Now we are asking Cypriots to forget this “national idea” and form a “federal state.” This totally goes against our experiences. The islanders have the memory of a short-lived experiment in the early 1960s that only vindicated their separate “national ideas.”
My point is that it is really challenging to get out of this old but comfortable paradigm and go for a “post-national state.” It is not easy to materialize such a mental transformation.
Are the people of Cyprus prepared to live together even in a bi-communal and bi-zonal community? I am not sure. I think people are anxious. The issues of returnees, the rotating presidency, cross-voting, etc., are all related to this anxiety.
The root of the anxiety is that this “federal” model goes against the notion of “good” and “ideal state,” as we have grown to learn in our separate “national idea.”
I think Cypriots also feel that they are going against the current. As the world gets ever more fragmented along ethnic lines and witnesses the emergence of new nation-states, they are asked to become united and forget about their national ideas.
Well, this sense of going against the current makes a united federal Cyprus even more worthwhile. Cypriots, who once achieved this, may set a new example and trend with a moral high ground. It is a relief to see that there are people on both sides of Cyprus who defend a “post-national” united state as a way out of the deadlock.
