Paradigm of Revenge
Nese Yasin

On September 23, 2001 at the "Understanding Each Other's Pain, Celebrating Togetherness" panel organized in Pyla by the bicommunal youth groups, the Greek and Turkish Cypriot speakers talked about the wars and the struggles in the recent history of Cyprus and the atrocities committed by people both in their own community and in the other. They made comments about the historical and psychological factors(internal and external) concerning these murders and atrocities. Nicos Anastasiou and I moderated the panel together.

As agreed before, at the end of the panel Nicos asked the people in the room to stand in silence to commemorate all those victims - Turkish and Greek Cypriot alike- that lost their lives in the wars and struggles in Cyprus.

And then hell broke lose. It looks like we have unknowingly made a kamikaze attack on the symbols of nationalism in Cyprus - we have tried to destroy the strongest weapon in the "war of symbols" going on in Cyprus. How crazy of us!

To tell the truth, it was I who came up with the idea. When I first brought it up at the committee meeting, we could barely contain ourselves from excitement. We did not even have a moment of hesitation about whether we should do this or not. After all this would be in perfect harmony with our perspective on the conflict in Cyprus, what we felt in our hearts as the peace-supporters and with the goal of the panel. I do not think anyone regrets it now either. Good thing we did it and I think we should always do it.

When I look back now, even the UHH agent must have stood up during the moment of silence - we would have noticed otherwise. But in its declaration, UHH wrote that we stood in silence to "commemorate the EOKA murderers". On the Greek Cypriot side, nobody claimed the act was to commemorate TMT (may be they overlooked it)

That day, at that place it was not the killers but the victims that were commemorated. All the innocent people that died. Nicos got really upset when it was written that the moment of silence was for the "EOKA murderers". He came by with the video of the event saying "We should translate what I said word by word and publish it". I think there is no need for it. What are we going to explain and to whom? There are two different paradigms we are dealing with. It is likely that the UHH agent there did in fact honestly believe what he reported. If a Greek Cypriot is asking the audience to stand in silence, then this must certainly be to commemorate the EOKA people. A Greek Cypriot means an EOKA supporter anyway, right?

Who is a barbarian, who is a victim? Who is the executioner, who is the prey? Who is it that gives the order to the executioner? Is everyone who kills a barbarian and everyone who dies a victim? These can be discussed. The reason I am writing this article is to bring a new frame to the two-sided atrocities that are built like a wall - on the road to our future - within the nationalist paradigm.

Makarios Durusotis did not mention it in his talk at the panel, but in a private conversation I had with him he had told me about a rough calculation he made. It is only about 1% of the Greek Cypriot community that support and approve the atrocities. The ones that were personally involved with these atrocities are no more than one thousand people (I do not even think it is that many). Let's say one thousand Greek Cypriots have hurt the Turkish Cypriots one way or another. Is it fair to blame the whole community for what a thousand people did?

If there is a murder in a house and if the name of the murderer is not revealed, everybody living in that house comes under suspect. The whole problem (in Cyprus) is that the guilty ones have not been revealed and punished. Let's say it is not possible to do this. It is also not possible to put everyone who has killed someone from the other community in the same category.

In a bicommunal youth group there was a discussion. One of the Greek Cypriot youngsters asked the Turkish Cypriots whether they would kill him if there was a war in Cyprus, they had a gun in their hand and they confronted him. There was a moment of silence. A few of the Turkish Cypriots said "I wouldn't". But one of the Turkish Cypriots said "If it was to protect my family, may be I would". It is possible that the war forced some people to become murderers. In fact the question that needs to be asked is: How much longer are we going to make these young people suffer due to a past they are not responsible for?

Let's say Klerides said something of this nature when he got up tomorrow morning: "We have also suffered a lot as a community. But we acknowledge and condemn the atrocities committed by certain members of our community against the Turkish Cypriots and apologize from the Turkish Cypriot community." Would hell break lose if he said this, even if unilaterally? An apology would of course not bring back the dead ones, nor would it ease the pain of their relatives but it would at least give hope that such things will not happen again in the future.

In his interview with Yennaris, Denktas said that the missing people were killed by those who lost their relatives in 1963. We do not know whether this is true, but it is easy to understand the logic behind his sentence. "First you did it, then we took revenge." It is true that they did it first. It is like that everywhere. The majority and the ones in power do it first. The whole problem is with the paradigm of revenge. An eye for eye. The victims becoming the murderers and the murderers becoming the victims. And everybody becoming a murderer and a victim at the same time.

In Denktash's vocabulary, the third singular person, "the Greek" is solely responsible for everything. Everybody in that community is a murderer and everybody in that community is our enemy. This idea is beaten into the community day in and day out, because it is crucial to regenerate the culture of conflict.

"Commemorating them takes guts" they say. I think it takes a heart and a soul more than guts. First a heart that is purified of enmity and hatred, one that beats with love. And a heart that is brave. Only courageous and beautiful people could do this in front of the eyes of his organization which is trying to terrorize everyone with its death threats.

During that moment of silence, I thought about the innocent children killed in a bathtub, the ones in mass graves, the two Greek Cypriot girls that were thrown off a balcony, the things a Greek Cypriot widow told me about the execution of her husband before her eyes, the countless pictures in the museum of missing people and the innocent victims who were lucky enough to have a grave... I would stand in silence in their memory again a hundred thousand times.