www.talkcyprus.org

[cannedmoose]

I'm currently writing a book review on this book for a journal. Should have it finished today and will post it once ready. Good book, highly recommended.

[brother]

Look forward to reading it. :wink:

[Liza]

What's it about Moosey?

[Saint Jimmy]

Daydreaming, probably. :P


Has anybody read Geoffrey Regan's "Blue on Blue"? It's a book about calamities caused by mis-communication in battle and elsewhere.

[cannedmoose]

‘Imagining the Modern’ argues that two conflicting styles of nationalist imagination led to the violent rending of Cyprus in 1974 and have sustained that division over the ensuing three decades. Based upon comparative research on both sides of the Green line, Rebecca Bryant’s study demonstrates how the conflict emerged through Cypriots’ encounters with modernity under British colonialism, and through a consequent reimagining of the body politic in a new world in which Cypriots were defined as part of a European periphery.

Bryant’s focus on what she proposes as the root causes of the Cyprus problem represents a welcome, original and bold attempt to investigate the conflict through the lens of developing nationalisms before the final schism of 1974, rather than merely focusing on high politics. Although other scholars have sought to approach the divisions in Cyprus from similar perspectives (Loizos, 1974; Attalides, 1979; Calotychos, 1998; Yennaris, 2003), the value of Bryant’s work is expressed in a detailed analysis of the evolution of modern nationalism in Cyprus, expressed in accessible terms and demonstrating acute insights into the mentalities of both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. As a non-Cypriot, Bryant successfully manages the problematical undertaking of comprehending mentalities that often seem unfathomable to those unfamiliar with the politics, culture and mentalities of the island.

Bryant presents a reasoned and persuasive case describing how Muslims and Orthodox Christians in Cyprus were transformed into Turks and Greeks through a political process that made language and history important to claiming rights. Fundamental differences between Greek and Turkish nationalisms in Cyprus were to become predicated on a divergence between the communities in the meaning and logic of history.

Her assessment of Greek Cypriot history assumes the primordial inevitability of blood ties, using metaphors of psychi – ‘soul’ or spirit’ – that “unites the ethnos and imbues the land” (p.226). The mythical image of Aphrodite, standard fare in advertisements espousing Cyprus’ tourist charms, is conjured in advocation of this claim. According to this logic, the location of Greek-speaking peoples in Cyprus for three thousand years proves that ‘Kypros einai Elliniki’ – ‘Cyprus is Greek’. In this vein Turkish Cypriots are usually seen by Greek Cypriots as ‘Greeks by blood’ – descendants of converted Greeks Islamicised during the period of Ottoman rule, with recent settlers from Turkey considered unwelcome outsiders.

In contrast, according to Bryant Turkish Cypriot history stresses historical contingency, accommodation and acculturation as social foundation. The Turkish Cypriot conception of history is contingent, constructivist and based on claims of conquest and validation of the status quo. For Turkish Cypriots, the claim comes not from a spirit of belonging, or attachment to mythological foundations, but from a sense of belonging through kan – spilt blood and martyrdom of their past generations. As Bryant explains, “In such images, blood imbues the land and becomes consubstantial with it” (p.200).

For Bryant, these differing meanings and understandings of history gained significance and momentum as the traditional ‘high’ cultures of the two communities became available to the masses, rather than as the exclusive domain of a primarily theological elite (p.47). Thus Bryant characterises a process whereby traditional structures of authority were broken down by a sudden collision with modernity with the transfer to British rule in 1878.

‘Imagining the Modern’ is broken down into four parts, totalling eight chapters that explore the evolution of nationalism(s) in Cyprus.

Stirrings examines the ‘crisis of authority’ stemming from the arrival of British rule and triggering a “struggle to define that authority to which one owed one’s allegiance” (p.22). Bryant describes a process whereby the unravelling of politics and religion, previously defining forces in Greek Orthodox identity, led to a crisis of both political and religious authority. The introduction of a European governing rationality and organisation, a ‘legal-bureaucratic rationality’ (p.49), resulted in development of political identities that were neither exclusively ‘European’ nor ‘Cypriot’ and which continues to have ramifications for political identities in Cyprus today.

Movements explores the struggle for power in the early 1900s between populist and paternalist forces within both the Greek Orthodox and Muslim communities. In the Greek Orthodox community, this struggle followed the death of the long-standing Ethnarch of Cyprus, and resulted in the victory of nationalist politics, establishing the foundations for the future struggle of ‘Greek Cypriots’ against British colonial authority. As Bryant writes, “the triumph of the Bishop of Kition meant that the language of race, redemption, and the defeat of eternal enemies would be the language in which politics would be conducted for many decades to come” (p.98). Bryant explains that as this struggle took place in the Orthodox community, so the Muslim community experienced a similar upheaval with the rise of forces aimed at kalkınma or ‘progress’, emphasising Muslim identity as national identity.

Revolutions builds upon the awakenings described in the previous sections and investigates the role of traditional education in Cyprus in the modernity of nationalism, with education examined not as a propagandist endeavour but as a practical step towards the creation of the nation, or as Bryant puts it, “Cypriots learned not how to think nationally but how to be nationally” (p.127). For Greek Orthodox Cypriots, Bryant presents a forceful argument that classical Greek education, with emphasis on the teaching of language, philosophy and culture, aimed at the “Platonic evocation of a Greek spirit” (p.147) and the “evocation of a latent potential of the ethnic subject” (p.155). Whereas for Muslim Cypriots, the pursuit of kalkınma was expressed through a search for ‘enlightenment’ through education, as preparation for leadership. This enlightenment would ultimately lead intellectuals in the Muslim Cypriot community to embrace the ideology of Atatürk. Bryant therefore concludes that it was between these two alternative understandings of the purposes of education that division between the two communities was sown as education became “transformed into a vehicle for nationalism” (p.155).

Finally, in Aftermath Bryant asserts, “while Cypriots have certainly been victims, they have not only been victims” (p.187). In this assertion, Bryant challenges the prevalent norms of much scholarly writing on the Cyprus problem, that Cypriots have been victims of international conspiracies, ‘divide and rule’ British policy, interference by Greece and Turkey, and the gamesmanship of their own political leaders. Bryant credibly claims that to consider Cypriots as victims denies the crucial problem – that an “ethnic estrangement that has taken a vehement and sometimes violent form in the nationalist era” (p.187). Bryant further argues that this was not simply the result of a strategy pursued by the British during the colonial era but an inevitable consequence of Cyprus’ sudden entry into modernity, the result of which was a disjuncture in the ‘act of necessity’ of polite interaction between two communities living on a small island and a progressive ethnic estrangement between them.

Bryant’s unique and convincing perspective on the creation of Greek and Turkish nationalisms in Cyprus makes this book a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the background to the Cyprus problem and the interrelationship between culture, religion, education, politics and nationalism. At times, the intricate piecing together of events unfamiliar to even most Cyprus scholars does require a second reading to fully appreciate the arguments being made, but this should certainly not put readers off as the book provides a fascinating and sophisticated analysis of some unexplored regions of Cyprus’ modern history, utilising an array of primary sources and first-hand interviews. Therefore, this book should not just be viewed as yet another history of Cyprus to gather dust on the shelves, but as an original approach to one of the thorniest issues in contemporary international relations and written during one of the most important periods in recent history for the island. In sum, it is a well-written and superbly researched scholarly work, which challenges many of the preconceptions about Cyprus’ nationalisms and thus provides the reader with a refreshing debate on many issues of Cypriot identity.

[Liza]

Thanks Moosey, sounds like an interesting read - not sure if its a bit too heavy for my liking but if I get my hands on it I'll give it a go.

[cannedmoose]

It is very heavy going in places... otherwise a good read