A wreath for our common pain – Article by Elias Demetriou, member of the C.C. of AKEL and Head of the Rapprochement Bureau of the Party

 

 

23 July 2023, “Haravgi” newspaper

During July, the official state lavishly hands out wreaths and proclaims heroes to satisfy all its core audience. Wreaths for the fallen of the 1974 war, wreaths for resistance fighters, but also wreaths for…coupists! As if it judging history can today be used as an instrument to “rally tendencies within the party”.

But is this how the wounds of the past are healed?

Is this how peoples who rose from the ashes of wars built the future of the coming generations on new foundations?

When I recently visited the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp museum in Poland, one of the many things that caught my attention was the visits organised by schools from Germany to the Nazi hellhole. And I was pained by the connotation of comparing this culture seeking to cultivate historical self-awareness with the official narratives being promoted here in Cyprus. Namely, the selective “I do not forget” slogan, the lack of self-criticism, the absence of condemnation of the crimes that were committed by chauvinism, the absence of a willingness to make bold statements and take action to heal wounds.

Of course, there are exceptions. Such as Demetris Christofias, who as President of the Republic spoke about the massacres of Turkish Cypriots that were committed, as well as AKEL too, which, together with Turkish Cypriot political parties, symbolically honored the victims of chauvinists in both communities. The event organised by the Pancyprian Peace Council was also an exception, which this year gave the “Peace Award” to people who had survived mass massacres, but chose to follow the path of reconciliation. Another exception was the event held on 12 July, where a number of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot organisations honored individuals who contributed to the investigation of the fate of missing persons on both sides.

It is a fact that in Cyprus’ modern history, chauvinist crimes have been committed on both sides by those forces who were convinced that there is only room for one nation and one ideology in our country. Furthermore, they also had the arrogant certainty that they alone knew and had the right to impose the “national interest” on the country, literally, over dead bodies.

They are the very same people who massacred entire villages, abused women and looted property. These crimes didn’t just start on the 20 July 1974, not even on the 15 July. We have to go further back in time: to the persecutions of leftists in 1958 (in both communities); the murders of Turkish Cypriots from 1963 onwards, at the same time as imperialism was rubbing its hands in glee at these developments; the crimes that triggered a cycle of violence with counter-violence from the other side until 1974. The victims in the end were once again in most cases innocent people.

Many Turkish Cypriots have traumatic experiences from their compulsory visit as primary school pupils to the “Museum of barbarism” established by Denktash after 1974, where the crimes of the Greek Cypriot chauvinists are presented in a crude and one-dimensional way.

But how wise would we become if one day a Museum of Barbarism was opened, where all the crimes that were committed would be exhibited together? A Museum portraying the crimes committed against abused women, who were also stigmatised by their own community, which marginalised them. A Museum showing the victims of political crimes in their own community, whom they (they and their families) then dubbed as “traitors”. A Museum dedicated to the victims of the coup and depicting the persecution of Turkish Cypriot leftists in 1958, as well as the mass murders of civilians and surrendered soldiers in 74.

Forty-nine years after that tragic peak of nationalism, we need to be wiser. In some ideal Cyprus, on such Black Anniversaries, the leaders of the two communities should lay a wreath for “Our Common Sorrow” in front of the graves of the mass massacres of civilians committed in Aloa-Maratha-Sandalari, Ashia, Palaikythro, Tochni and elsewhere, instead of the official state laying wreathing coupists and nationalist heroes.