Communication Across Conflict Lines: the Case of Ethnically Divided
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05anastasiou (ds) 2/8/02 1:28 pm Page 581 © 2002 Journal of Peace Research, vol. 39, no. 5, 2002, pp. 581–596 Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) [0022-3433(200209)39:5; 581–596; 027797] Communication Across Conflict Lines: The Case of Ethnically Divided Cyprus HARRY ANASTASIOU Portland State University, Oregon & Cyprus Peace Center This article explores the dynamics of nationalist communication, or better, of non-communication, between the rival Cypriot ethnic communities. The analysis shows how the protracted ethno-nationalist conflict that has stained the history of the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus has affected, among other things, the process of communication between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot com- munities. A number of themes that occupy a central place in the conflict are explored from the vantage point of how each community understands and addresses them as it interacts with the other. The inquiry discloses that the interpretive mental frameworks by which the meaning of words, facts, events, behaviors, and phenomena have been perceived, recalled, understood, and transferred have become culturally and institutionally configured in such a way over the years as to often dissociate and even dismantle the very conditions by which intercommunal communication becomes possible. The article also examines the conditions and prospects of freeing communication from its entrapments in the ‘meaning patterns’ of ethno-nationalist conflict, particularly in the context of the emerging bi- communal citizen peace movement. It shows how the germinating inter-ethnic dialogue in the spirit of peaceseeking rapprochement is commencing a process of deconstructing the traditional forms of con- flictual, nationalist discourse while opening up new vistas of understanding, possibilities, and vision for the future. Protracted Nationalist Conflict divide’ that separates the G/C and the T/C minds must be preceded by a grasp of the The history of ethno-national conflict on the major structural dynamics of the conflict. ethnically divided Mediterranean island of There are two interrelated parameters that Cyprus has decisively marked the communi- define the framework of the conflict, which cation process between the major stakehold- in turn effectively conditions the mode of ers in the conflict, but most of all, and in a communication between the two sides. profound way, between the two Cypriot These are the longstanding impact of ethnic communities, namely, between Greek Cypri- nationalism as a world- and life-view, and the ots (G/Cs) and Turkish Cypriots (T/Cs). The collective memory specific to the experiences so-called Green Line, which ethnically of pain and injury in each community. divides the capital city of Nicosia, is not so As a rule, communication between rival, much in itself an obstacle to communication nationalistically oriented ethnic groups is as it is a symbol of a communication problem always divergent, in that the respective that goes far deeper than the physical barriers frameworks of meaning tend to resist estab- of sandbags and barbed wire. lishing communicative contact with each Any understanding of the complexity of other. Nationalist world- and life-views are the communication process across the ‘great such that they exhibit a certain incapacity in 581 05anastasiou (ds) 2/8/02 1:28 pm Page 582 582 journal of P EACE R ESEARCH volume 39 / number 5 / september 2002 establishing an overlap of meanings and of historically marked both the G/C and the points of reference, far enough to initiate T/C communities (Loizos, 1998; Worsley & genuine dialogue. Their inner logic exhibits Kitromilites, 1979). The G/C agenda has a resistance to what Gadamer calls ‘the fusion been disclosed in the relentless attempt to of horizons’, the major condition that unite the island with Greece (enosis), or renders communication and understanding otherwise claim Cyprus as a purely Hellenic of the past and of other narratives possible island. The T/C agenda, supported by (Gadamer, 1975). More specifically, on an Turkey, has been revealed in the pursuit of intergroup level, nationalist frameworks the ethnic partition of the island (taksim). resist the natural process of communicative While coexisting in an ethnically mixed interaction by which communicating parties society, the historical ambition of each side create increasingly an emergent, shared to establish its own pure, mono-ethnic state domain of meaning. led to unprecedented violence and the The reason for this is not because the physical separation of G/Cs and T/Cs in frameworks of rival nationalist groups are 1974. Observers of the Cyprus phenomenon different, but, paradoxically, because they tend have noted that while the separation of to be identical in their fundamental nature. people by natural barriers, such as rivers, seas, Nationalism carries a view of ‘the nation’ that and mountains, is understandable, the separ- is absolute and sacred in value, mono-ethnic ation that occurs along artificial lines of hos- in nature, collectivist and narcissistic in men- tility is horrifying. For here, one is stunned tality, conflictual in predisposition, and by the fact that ‘borders are not just geo- militant in its concept of defense and its graphic barriers, but that they are the enemy means of freedom (Alter, 1994: 5, 20; Gellner, of talk, of interaction, of the flow of ideas, in 1994: 65). It conceptualizes society in terms short, they are the opponents of communi- of a single, homogeneous ethnic identity, thus cation’ (Gumpert & Drucker, 1998: 237). rendering the existence of other ethnic groups Nationalist conflict in Cyprus has in the body social a ‘national anomaly’ and, in brought with it a legacy of pain and suffer- times of conflict, a ‘national blemish’ that ing resulting from the violence. The memory needs to be cleansed. This type of ‘imagined of pain, entirely different in content and community’ is couched in an ethnocentric references for each community, constitutes construct of history, highlighted by wars and the second major parameter in the structure revolutions, in which national heroes, in their of the Cyprus conflict that has affected and alleged supreme actions and sacrifice, assume continues to affect communication between national immortality as ‘the nation’ exhibits the two sides. through them its infallible record of glory and For the T/Cs, the painful memories con- eternal grandeur (Anderson, 1995; Hobs- centrate mainly on the period 1963–74. bawm, 1994: 76–82). In all this, the value, Their experiential recollection concerns the history, and identity of ‘the nation’ are defined constrained, underdeveloped life in their in conflictual juxtaposition to ‘an enemy’ enclaves. In terrifying vividness, T/Cs (Ignatieff, 1995; Kedourie, 1994: 50). Hence, remember the repeated defeats in bloody to the degree that two or more ethnic groups, conflicts with the G/Cs and Greek troops, in any mixed society, espouse nationalism as a and the loss of human life that appeared stag- world- and life-view, the prospect of coexis- gering in the eyes of their community as a tence becomes grim, as communication across consolidated numerical minority. The collec- ethnic lines is ruled out a priori. tive memory of T/Cs is marked by the These features of nationalism have missing persons (483 T/Cs over 32 G/Cs in 05anastasiou (ds) 2/8/02 1:28 pm Page 583 Harry Anastasiou C OMMUNICATION ACROSS C ONFLICT 583 1964), and generally by the feeling that for Communication Between years they were living under conditions of Perspectives in Conflict perpetual siege (Denktash, 1982; Oberling, 1982; Volkan, 1979: 18–25, 119). The Dialectical Process of Non- For the G/Cs, on the other hand, the Communication collective historical memory and experience Over the decades, this dynamic has led to an of injustice originate mainly from the more essential form of alienation that has insti- concentrated but inundating events of 1974, tutionalized the interaction between the two with the Greek coup d’état and the Turkish communities, psychologically, intellectually, military intervention. The tragic memories and culturally, into what may be called a refer to the unprecedented loss of human life, dialectical process of non-communication. to the mass uprooting from their homes, to The phenomenon entails a dialectical process the irreplaceable loss of property, to the inasmuch as it involves sustained and per- refugees and the missing persons. Within petual cycles of ‘communicative’ interactions days of the Turkish military invasion, between the two sides, mainly through the 200,000 G/Cs became refugees in their own official positions of each side and the mass country. Casualties, many of them civilians, media. And it entails non-communication were estimated at about 2,850 persons. The insofar as the more the two sides interact, the number of missing persons reached 1,619, less they understand each other, and conse- while about 20,000 G/Cs initially remained quently the more they frustrate each other. trapped in the Karpas area, under Turkish This is fully demonstrated in Papadakis’s military control. Thousands of G/Cs were analysis of published materials prepared by taken to prisons in Turkey; some of these pris- the Public Information Office of each side. It oners were later exchanged for T/Cs who had is shown how each side resorts to the attri- been captured by G/C and Greek forces in the bution of evil intentions to the other, by ana- south. The fate of those G/Cs who were left lyzing and interpreting events through the in Turkey remains to this day a dark mystery, absolutist notions of the respective national- haunting the memories of their families and ist frameworks and related stereotypes of the G/C community in general. (Papadakis, 1998). Furthermore, the pain incurred by the loss of life and property was compounded by a The Process of Non-Communication decisive shattering of the G/C nationalist Around Phenomena and Their Meaning aspiration of union with Greece.