The Broken Olive Branch: Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and the Quest for Peace in Cyprus: Volume One: The Impasse of Ethnonationalism

5. Conflict and Alienation

109 Conflict and Alienation the nationalist frameworks of the cyprus conflict From the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 to 1974, GC and TC nationalism underwent a series of subtle changes in strategy and focus . Although not immediately identifiable, these changes were significant in view of how they framed and affected the events culminating in the cycles of violence that marked interethnic relations on the Island. While the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus forbade both the GC aspiration for enosis and the TC aspiration for taksim, each community’s nationalism refocused, in its own way, on the power centralized in the state of the republic. In his analysis of nationalism, Giddens (1994) spoke of the state as a power container in relation to which the nationalist mentality mobilizes ethnic groups, and in terms of which it drives them to compete with one another in attempting to assert exclusive, monoethnic control over the power of the state. This principle of nationalist antagonism, vis-à-vis the institutionalized power of the state, was typical of the Cyprus conflict, particularly between 1960 and 1974. Nationalism on the Greek Cypriot Side From 1960 to 1974, GC nationalism evolved in two distinct strands. The first was represented by the first president of the republic, Archbishop Makarios. His followers included his right-wing supporters dating back to the anticolonial EOKA struggle and the communist Left who saw in Makarios a tolerance transcending GC party politics. Confronted with the challenges of interethnic tension, he sought to bridge interethnic party 5 110 | The Impasse of Ethnonationalism conflicts within the GC community by promoting the ascendancy of Hellenic nationalism. This strategy provided the basis for the GC communist Left to attain political legitimacy. This brand of GC nationalism was expressed through the assumption that the island of Cyprus, because of its Greek numerical majority and cultural history, was in essence purely Hellenic. Inevitably, the TC community in general grew to resent the idea and the TC nationalists completely abhorred it. The earlier GC nationalist idea that emphasized the priority and immediacy of union with Greece had now become subsidiary to sustaining and propagating the notion of Cyprus as a Hellenic island. However , until 1974, this subsuming of enosis to the idea of an independent, Hellenic Cyprus was in essence a matter of historical contingency and strategy, but not an abandonment of the overall vision and objective of enosis. The logic of this entailed a shift in tactical policy while not moving outside the framework of nationalism. In an interview in the magazine Le Point in 1973, Makarios explicated this approach when he asserted, I have struggled for the union of Cyprus with Greece, and enosis will always be my deep national aspiration as it is the aspiration of all Greek Cypriots. My national creed has never changed and my career as a national leader has shown no inconsistency or contradiction. I have accepted independence instead of enosis because certain external conditions and factors have not allowed a free choice. (Le Point 1973) From this perspective, the GCs viewed the TC community as an anomaly and an obstacle that had to be reckoned with in the context of the assumed Hellenic morphology of Cypriot society. In principle, the original objective of union with Greece, premised on the primacy of a monoethnic concept of society, had not yet been abandoned. Rather, the objective of enosis was transferred to the distant and indeterminate future, making space for the Republic of Cyprus as an interim phenomenon. The new element in the Makarios strand of GC nationalism was that although union would take place one day, this eventuality must be aimed at occurring not now, but far into the future, and that this objective was to be sustained throughout the intermediary phase of the Republic of Cyprus. Conflict and Alienation | 111 In his fiery and charismatic speeches, Makarios always reminded the GCs that “Cyprus is Greek, Cyprus has been Greek since the dawn of its history , and it will remain Greek. Greek and undivided we have taken it over, Greek and undivided we shall preserve it. Greek and undivided we shall deliver it to Greece” (Denktash 1982, 15). It is in this light that Makarios repeatedly referred to the struggle of Cypriot Hellenism as a long-term struggle, as makrochronios agonas. Beyond tactical considerations, the reference to a monoethnic concept of nationhood and society, to a mythologized, primordial, ethnic origin...