Snaps from Cyprus

Haven't had a chance to be bored by someone else's vacation photos lately? Well, now is your chance to catch up on all the ennui you've been missing.

I've posted photos from my trip to Cyprus and Slovenia to speak about the midterm elections for the State Department on my website. Of course, most people's vacation snaps don't include pictures of the buffer zone which divides Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus and the world's last divided city into Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot halves.

Though it is now much easier to cross the buffer zone than when the island was divided violently in 1974, the barriers with barbed wire manned by the nice young men with machine guns remain. An entire resort strip of hotels just south of Famagusta along a gorgeous beach and the amazingly blue Mediterranean has remained eerily empty since their Greek Cypriot owners fled the arrival of the Turkish Army.

Despite the deep divisions, thousands upon thousands of Cypriots now cross the buffer zone easily without incident every year. A fair number of Turkish Cypriots now commute every day to work in the southern (i.e. Greek Cypriot) and richer part of the island. Many have renewed old acquaintances or at least finally gotten to visit their hometowns (and homes) to which they remain quite attached despite decades of separation. I met one Turkish Cypriot who now lives in Kyrenia who still pines for Limassol even though both Greek and Turkish Cypriots generally agree that Kyrenia is much more beautiful and her home is now gone.

Unlike the conflict in nearby Israel, the Cyprus problem seems unlikely to flare into a new war. While Turkish Cypriots composed around 18 percent of Cypriots in 1974, the Turkish Army occupied about 38 percent of the country. Greek Cypriots find this division unlawful and unjust but they have no real means of changing it. Neither the military of Cyprus or Greece is a match for that of Turkey.

The Greek Cypriot government hoped that the accession of Cyprus to the EU would enable it to place greater pressure on Turkey. While the EU now demands that Turkey open its ports to Greek Cypriot shipping, EU courts also would likely uphold the right of Turkish Cypriots to reclaim their property in the southern (Greek Cypriot) part of the island. The Greek Cypriot government recognizes the right of Turkish Cypriots to their property in theory (and, of course, that of Greek Cypriots in northern Cyprus). However, it has been reluctant to turn property back to Turkish Cypriot control. Of course, Greek Cypriots are also unable to claim or to return to their property in northern Cyprus.

Turkish and Greek Cypriots meet quite civally--I gave a talk to a bicommunal audience in the buffer zone--but the divisions remain very real. The separation of the two communities reminds me of "Two Solitudes", the title of a book about francophones and anglophones in Quebec. Both sides of the divided island are unmistakably stamped by the culture of their mainland co-ethnics. Streets in southern Nicosia are named for Apollo, Socrates, and Makarios, while the main roundabout in northern Nicosia is named for Ataturk.

One sees more Greek than Cypriot flags in southern Nicosia. The barricades on the southern side of the buffer zone are invariably painted in the blue and white stripes of the Greek flag. Indeed, a past Greek Cypriot President once referred to the Cypriot flag, a golden map of the island above olive leaves against a white background, as a flag that no one would ever die for. The flag of the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized by no nation other than Turkey, is almost the inverse of the Turkish flag (a red crescent on white instead of a white crescent on red). In northern Cyprus, it is invariably flown with the Turkish flag.

One shouldn't get the idea that Cypriots are without commonalities. One thing Cypriots share is an incredible degree of kindness and hospitality. People who barely knew me at all went out of their way to take me out for a delicious meal and to show me more of their beautiful island, which is a shared passion of all Cypriots. I remain extremely grateful to all of them.