Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History, and an Island in Conflict

4. De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus: Political and Social Conflict between Turkish Cypriots and Settlers from Turkey

84 I Yael Navaro-Yashin four De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus politiCAl ANd soCiAl CoNfliCt BetweeN turKish CYpriots ANd settlers froM turKeY Yael Navaro-Yashin in much writing on “the Cyprus question,” the problem has been constructed as “a conflict between two ethnic groups,” which are branded “turks” and “greeks” (e.g., Joseph 1990; Volkan and itzkowitz 1994). The concept and framework of ethnic conflict has been all too central and determinative in scholarship on Cyprus, leaving it insufficiently challenged. Against the framework of “ethnic conflict,” so overblown in political and official discourses in Cyprus and widely reproduced in scholarly agendas and settings of the problem, i wish to do something different here. rather than researching conflict in the conventionally studied fault line between “turks and greeks” or between turkish Cypriot and greek Cypriot national discourses and ideologies, i wish to study conflicts internal to northern Cyprus, the territory marked apart and repopulated after turkey’s military invasion in 1974 and predominantly reserved for the habitation of people categorized as “turks.” This chapter focuses on the social and political configurations and dynamics which developed in northern Cyprus after 1974, specifically on conflict between people officially registered as “turks” and assigned “citizenship” in the “turkish republic of Northern Cyprus.”1 i focus on what i deliberately call political and social conflict between turkish Cypriots who were autochthonous on the island and immigrants from turkey who were invited to settle in northern Cyprus by the “trNC” regime. de-ethnicizing the ethnography of Cyprus I 85 “Turks on Cyprus” in turkish nationalist discourses (or officially produced ideology), turkish Cypriots and citizens of turkey are represented as sharing a “nationality ” and “ethnicity.” until very recent changes in the representations of turkish Cypriots, in public discourses in turkey, turkish Cypriots have been referred to as “our kinsmen” (soydaşlarımız), a term which signifies common lineage and blood. turkey has presented its military intervention in northern Cyprus as an act undertaken to protect “the turks of Cyprus” who were facing the danger of being exterminated by “greeks.” Members of this community have been named “turks of Cyprus,” “Cyprus turks,” or “Cypriot turks” (Kıbrıs Türkü, Kıbrıs Türkleri) in official turkish discourses , phrases emphasizing “turkishness.” in this chapter, i use the term “turkish Cypriot” to refer to indigenous Cypriots of turkish contemporary identity. The identities of Cypriots have changed and switched in complicated fashions historically, and “turkish Cypriot” is a relatively new and contingent term for the designation of identity.2 This is the term commonly used by autochthonous turkish Cypriots at present for self-identification. The term “Cypriot” (Kıbrıslı), without the ethnic reference point, is used even more widely. identity constructs are employed situationally, of course. in the contemporary period, “Cypriots” signifies distinction from “people ofturkey” (Turkiyeliler), as settlers in northern Cyprus are called byturkish Cypriots. here, i intend to display the tentativeness, historicity, complexity, and social construction of identities in Cyprus; therefore, all my references to identity are contingent and situated. in officialturkish discourses,turkish Cypriots are considered an extension of the people of turkey, left behind accidentally after the consolidation of national borders at the collapse of the ottoman empire, when Cyprus was left in British and southern Anatolia in turkish hands. in turkish nationalist discourse, turkish Cypriots and citizens of turkey are all “turks” or “turkish,” seen as part of the same “national” or “ethnic” group, and turkish Cypriot culture is constructed as a continuation of Anatolia (Anadolu ), which is taken to represent the heart of turkish culture. The “president” of the “trNC,” rauf denktash, has always recounted his background by declaring that he is “a turk coincidentally born on Cyprus ,” emphasizing and highlighting his “turkishness” and rendering his “Cypriotness” almost epiphenomenal or accidental. denktash has said: i am a child of Anatolia. i am turkish in every way and my roots go back to Central Asia. i am turkish with my culture, my language, my history, and my whole being. i have a state as well as a motherland. The notions of “Cypriot culture,” “turkish Cypriot,” “greek Cypriot,” “a shared republic” are all nonsense. if they have their 86 I Yael Navaro-Yashin greece and we have our turkey, why should we live under the roof of the same republic? . . . some individuals are producing fiction about the existence of “Cypriots ,” “turkish Cypriots,” “greek Cypriots.” There is no such thing as...