The problem of pigeons: Orientalism, xenophobia and a rhetoric of the 'local' in North Cyprus

Cyprus Review

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 145-171

  Hatay, Mete ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Immigrants; Kemalism; Orientalism; Settlers; Turkish Cypriots and Nicosia; Xenophobia

Indexed keywords

EID: 62249095481     PISSN: 10152881     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (66)

1. Hasan Hastürer, 'Martilar ve Güvercinler' [Seagulls and Pigeons], Kibris Gazetesi, 30 December 2001.
2. Mete Hatay and Rebecca Bryant (2008) The Jasmine Scent of Nicosia: Of Returns, Revolutions, and the Longing for Forbidden Pasts', Journal of Modern Greek Studies, pp. 423-449.
3. Edward Said (1978) Orientalism. New York, Pantheon.
4. James G. Carrier (1995) Occidentalism: Images of the West. Oxford, Clarendon Press, pp. 22-23.
5. Hugh Poulton (1997) Top Hat Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic. London, Hurst and Company, pp. 76-77. According to Müssewid-zade Osman Cemal, a former mu7die;ezzin (leader of the call to prayer), local politician, lawyer and Young Turk of the 1900s, the backward condition of Muslims in Cyprus had been caused by religious dignitaries, who failed to adapt themselves to the requirements of modernity. "Our religious dignitaries, or more precisely a large number of turbaned men", Cemal protested, "preach against science and technology and enlightened learning in our mosques and mescits" (Harid Fedai and Fuad Memduh Adsiz Kitap [The Book with No Name], KKTC. MEKGSB Yayinlari-36, [Ankara, Yildiz Matbaasi 1997], pp. 38-41).
6. Rebecca Bryant (2006) 'On the Condition of Postcoloniality in Cyprus' in Papadakis, Y., Peristianis, N. and Weltz, G. (eds.), Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History, and an Island in Conflict. Bloomington USA, Indiana University Press, p. 49.
7. Although colonial perceptions of their Greek neighbours were similarly Orientalising, Greek Cypriots resolved this dilemma by following the ideological route of the "motherland" Greece, which claimed an unbroken historical and cultural continuity with their ancient Greek ancestors. Hellenic civilisation, in turn, was the foundation for Western civilisation, and in such histories Greeks (and, following them, Greek Cypriots) were able to make claims through their ancestors to be already members of the West. The fact that a succession of "Oriental" rulers had also given them a Romaic culture that existed alongside the revived Hellenic culture did not dilute this identity but only meant that, as Carrier notes, the Oriental within must be expunged. This they attempted to do through language reform, history teaching, and folklore study.
8. See Richard Clogg (1992) Concise History of Greece. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-97.
9. Estimates diverge as to how many actually left. The Cyprus Annual Report of 1927, however, reckoned that about 5,000 had emigrated over the course of the previous three years. Cyprus Annual Report 1927, p. 40. According to one demographer, L.W. St. John-Jones, "if the Turkish-Cypriot community had, like the Greek-Cypriots, increased by 101 per cent between 1881 and 1931, it would have totalled 91,300 in 1931 - some 27,000 more than the number enumerated". St. John-Jones speculates that this difference most likely should be accounted for by assuming that as many as 27,000 Turkish Cypriots emigrated during this 50-year period. See L.W. St. John-Jones, The Population of Cyprus: Demographic Trends and Socio-economic Influences (London: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1983), p. 56.
10. Bobby S. Sayyid (1997) A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and Emergence of Islamism. London, Zed Books.
11. Minute by AJ. Dawe, 18 December 1936. CO 67/268/4, pp. 12-13.
12. Rebecca Bryant (2004) Imagining the Modern: Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus. London, I.B. Tauris, p. 233.
13. Kutlu Adali, (1997) Daǧarcik [Shepherd's Pouch], Cilt I. Nicosia, Işik Kitabevi Yayinlari, pp. 156-157.
14. Ibid., pp. 155-156.
15. Moira Killoran (1998) 'Good Muslims and "Bad Muslims", "Good" Women and Feminists: Negotiating Identities in Northern Cyprus (Or, the Condom Story)', Ethos, Vol. 26, No. 2, Communicating Multiple Identities in Muslim Communities (June), p. 187.
16. Mete Hatay and Yannis Papadakis, 'A Comparison of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Official Historiographies of Cyprus', Paper presented to the Conference One Island, Many Histories: Rethinking the Politics of the Past in Cyprus. PRIO Cyprus Centre 28-29 November 2008.
17. Umut Özkinmli and Spyros A. Sofos (2008) Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey. London, Hurst and Company, p. 103.
18. See Mete Hatay, Is the Turkish Cypriot Population Shrinking? An Overview of the Ethno-Demography of Cyprus in the Light of the Preliminary Results of the 2006 Turkish-Cypriot Census. Oslo/Nicosia, PRIO Report 2/2007.
19. According to TSFC Citizenship Law Act No. 3/1975, anyone who resides on the island for one year may apply for citizenship. In addition, families of the 498 Turkish soldiers killed in the 1974 war would be eligible for citizenship, as would all Turkish soldiers who had served in Cyprus until 18 August 1974. Some of the veterans took the opportunity and settled on the island. There presently exists a Turkish Army Veterans Association with around 1,200 active members, the majority of whom (75%) are married to Turkish Cypriots. A clause in the law also allows the Council of Ministers to grant citizenship to anyone who is deemed to be of benefit to the state which was sometimes abused by the parties in the government.
20. This migration ended as a result of international pressure and internal opposition, which led to the 1982 amendment of the 'Law for Housing, Allocation of Land, and Property of Equal Value' (İskan, Topraklandirma, ve Eşdeǧer Mal Yasasi [ITEM law] No. 41/1977) that eliminated property privileges for new immigrants who arrived after 1982. Turkish nationals migrating to Cyprus after implementation of this law received no properties from the state and had to buy or rent properties on the local market.
21. Although the 1993 citizenship law granted the right to apply for citizenship after five years of residency, not all persons who applied have been granted citizenship. For instance, some of the Kurdish-origin immigrants that were interviewed claimed that because of tensions between Kurdish militant organisations and the Turkish state, many Kurdish immigrants in the north have been unable to acquire TRNC' citizenship.
22. For further analysis of the demography in north Cyprus, see Hatay (2007).
23. A pair of long baggy pants in a traditional sort of style.
24. Sarah Ladbury (1977) Turkish Cypriots: Ethnic Relations in London and Cyprus' in Watson, J.L. (ed.), Between Two Cultures: Migrants and Minorities in Britain. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, pp. 320-321.
25. Ibid., p. 318.
26. Fazil Küçük, 'Geri Gönderilmeli [They Must Be Sent Back]', Halkin Sesi 25 May 1978 (translated by Christoph Ramm).
27. Yael Navaro-Yashin (2006) 'De-ethnicizing the Ethnography of Cyprus: Political and Social Conflict between Turkish Cypriots and Settlers from Turkey' in Papadakis, Y., Peristianis, N. and Welz, G. (eds.), Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History, and an İsland in Conflict. Bloomington USA, Indiana University Press, p. 85.
28. Translated by Moira Killoran in 'Pirate State, Poet Nation: The Poetic Struggle Over "The Past" in North Cyprus'. Unpublished PhD (1994, pp. 194-195). The University of Texas at Austin.
29. Ibid., p. 170.
30. Ibid.
31. Hatay, 2005, pp. 23-58.
32. Turkish daily Günaydin Newspaper, 1986.
33. Killoran, 1994, p. 244.
34. Beyza Sumer (2003) 'White verses Black Turks: The Civilizing Process in Turkey in the 1990s'. A Master thesis submitted to the graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle Eastern Technical University.
35. Ibid.
36. Ergün Olgun (2003) 'Sectoral Analysis' in Dodd, C.H. (ed.), The Political Social and Economic Development of Northern Cyprus. Cambridgeshire, Eothen Press.
37. There are no current figures on regional origins of immigrants, but a 2000 survey showed that 37.2% of the manual workforce came from the Hatay region of Turkey, while another 15.8% came from the country's southeast. The remaining 47% comes from other regions of Turkey, especially in the south, or from third countries. See Özay Mehmet and M. Tahiroǧlu, 'An Empirical Study of Turkish Economic Migrants in North Cyprus,' Gazi Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi 2:2 (2000), pp. 127-138,
38. Ali Bizden (1997), 'Kibris'ta güc/iktidar meselesinin deǧişen yüzü: Kibris(li Türk) milliyetç iliǧi [The changing face of the force/power problem in Cyprus: (Turkish) Cypriot Nationalism]', Birikim 97, pp. 79-91.
39. See Hatice Kurtuluş and Semra Purkis (2008), Türkiye'den Kuzey Kibris'a göç dalgalari: Lefkoşa'nin dişlanmiş göçmen-enformel emekçileri [Waves of migration from Turkey to North Cyprus: Nicosia's excluded migrant and informal-sector workers],' Toplum ve Bilim Vol. 112, pp. 60-101. The push factors for persons coming from the southeast of Turkey are clear, as the region has been devastated by almost fifteen years of conflict. Over the past decade, between 950,000 and 1.2 million people have abandoned the region, emigrating to other areas of Turkey and abroad. The conflict has not only destroyed infrastructure and security but has also produced an unemployment problem (Cenk Saraçoǧlu (2007) 'Yeni disimilasyonist milliyetçilik [The new dissassimilationist nationalism]', Toplum ve Bilim, Vol. 110, pp. 247-261).
40. Bizden (1997), available at [http://bizden.blog.com/2777441/].
41. Report on the Socio-Economic Survey in the Walled City (Turkish Cypriots), Report Prepared for UNOPS by KADEM, 2004, slides 9-11.
42. Information determined from interviews conducted in this study and see also Kurtuluş and Purkis, 2008.
43. One article published by the Firat News Agency notes changes in attitudes towards Kurdish identity in Nicosia in the past few years. One Kurdish worker quoted in the article sees their ability to watch Roj TV as progress: "Until two years ago, when [the police] would search the pensions, if they saw Gündem Gazetesi [a Kurdish socialist newspaper] they would ask, 'Why are you reading this? How do you get it?' But now we can watch Roj TV in the café". Ömer Leventoǧlu, 'Kibris'ta da en alttakiler Kürt işçileri [In Cyprus, too, the Kurdish workers are at the bottom]', [http://www.rojaciwan.com/haber-23275.html].
44. There are today 11,416 males and 6,946 females of Turkish origin living in north Nicosia (Figures provided by Güner Mükellef, head of the Statistics Department of the State Planning Bureau).
45. Hasan Hastürer, 'Lefkoşa'yi hüzün yüklü buldum [I found Nicosia loaded with emotion]', Kibris, 23 September 2007.
46. Ahmet Tolgay, 'Efkarliyim dostlar, Lefkoşa'yi gezdim [I'm wistfully sad, my friends, because I walked around Nicosia]', Kibris, 13 December 2003.
47. See for example: Hasan Hastürer, 'Yasemin Kokulari Lahmacun Kokulari Altinda Kalirken [While the scent of jasmine is overwhelmed by the scent of lahmacun]', Toplum Postasi, 9 April 2008; Hasan Hastürer, 'Yasemini maǧusa'da buldum [I found jasmine in Famagusta]', Kibris, 14 July 2008.
48. Şener Levent, 'Anadolu'dan Yol Baǧladik Uzunyol'a [We paved a road from Ledra Street to Anatolia]', Afrika Gazetesi, 5 April 2008.
49. One commentary in a local newspaper expressed this dilemma quite well: "The problem that we face is not really one of quantification but of qualification. For every second that the Turk of Cyprus believes that he won't be able to determine his present and his future, he's going to feel that he's in the minority, even if numerically he's the majority" (Mutlu Azgin, 'Niteliksel Azinlik Sendromu [Qualitative Minority Syndrome],' Yenidüzen Gazetesi, 6 August 2008).
50. '35 AIDS vakasi, tümü smir dişi [35 AIDS cases, all of them deported]', Kibris, 2 February 2008.
51. Mustafa Doǧrusöz (2002) Çünkü Ben Buraliyim [Because I Am from Here]. Nicosia, Yakin Doǧu Üniversitesi, p. 102.
52. Ibid., p. 103.
53. Başaran Düzgün, 'Tecavüze Uǧrayan Kim? [Who Was the One Raped?]', Kibris Gazetesi, 25 May 2008.
54. Doǧan Harman, Toplumun Kudie;ltür Çekirdeǧini Parçalayan Olaylar Tirmanişta [An Increase in Incidents Destroying the Cultural Seed of the Community]', Kibrisli Gazetesi, 22 October 2008.
55. See [http://www.yeniduzengazetesi.com/template.asp?articleid= 622&zoneid=3].
56. Gülsade Soykök, 'Çirkef Yataǧindaki Tecavüzcüler [Rapists in the Cesspool]' Afrika Gazetesi, 19 June 2008.
57. Human Right First Country-By-Country Hate Crime Report Card, December 2007, [http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/071217-discrim-hc-report-card-2007. pdf], accessed 6 August 2008.
58. Kurtuluş and Purkis (2008), pp. 76-77.
59. Akay Cemal, '"Yabanci" işçi sorunu ve üretenlerin beklentileri' [Problem of the 'foreign' labour force and producers' expectations], Kibris, 14 November 2008.
60. 'Kibrisli Türkler yüzde 63'ü görüş melerden umutsuz' [63% of Turkish Cypriots are not hopeful about the talks], Kibris, 11 August 2008.
61. Ata Atun, 'Kibrisli Türkler Kararini Vermiş Bile [Turkish Cypriots Have Already Decided]', Kibris, 11 August 2008.
62. Erol Kaymak, Alexandras Lordos and Nathalie Tocci (2008) Building Confidence in Peace: Public Opinion and the Cyprus Peace Process, report prepared for Centre For European Policy Studies, Brussels.
63. Cenk Mutluyakali, 'Nereye Gidiyoruz? [Where Are We Going?]', Yenidüzen, 22 June 2008.
64. Ironically gaco in the Romany language means non-gypsy. In the past, Cypriot Roma used this word for persons not of Roma origin, such as Turkish Cypriots.
65. Çaǧla Güngör (2002) Kibrisli Türk Gençleri Konuşuyor [Turkish Cypriot Youth Speak). Istanbul, Metis Güncel Yayinlari, p. 50.
66. Jurgen Habermas (1996) Between Facts and Norms. Boston, MIT, pp. 508-509.